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With regard to the assuring of these friendly relations, the German Government believes that it may all the more reckon on a full understanding with the United States, as the procedure announced by the German Admiralty, which was fully explained in the note of the 4th inst., is in no way directed against legitimate commerce and legitimate shipping of neutrals, but represents solely a measure of self-defense, imposed on Germany by her vital interests, against England's method of warfare, which is contrary to international law, and which so far no protest by neutrals has succeeded in bringing back to the generally recognized principles of law as existing before the outbreak of war.

The internal history of Rome during this period is one of great interest. The Patricians and Plebeians formed two distinct orders in the state. After the banishment of the kings the Patricians retained exclusive possession of political power. The Plebeians, it is true, could vote in the Comitia Centuriata, but, as they were mostly poor, they were outvoted by the Patricians and their clients. The Consuls and other magistrates were taken entirely from the Patricians, who also possessed the exclusive knowledge and administration of the law. In one word, the Patricians were a ruling and the Plebeians a subject class. But this was not all. The Patricians formed not only a separate _class_, but a separate _caste_, not marrying with the Plebeians, and worshiping the gods with different religious rites. If a Patrician man married a Plebeian wife, or a Patrician woman a Plebeian husband, the state refused to recognize the marriage, and the offspring was treated as illegitimate.

The guilt of the Belgian Government in this matter consists, in the first place, in making and concerting plans with the English and French Governments as to what steps to take in case of war. A plan of the French mobilization was found in the same docket, and it cannot be presumed that the conference between British and French experts was unknown to the British Military Attache in Brussels. It is furthermore impossible to believe that the French railway for the shipping of British troops from Calais, Dunkirk, and Boulogne into Belgium in Belgian cars could have been used without the knowledge of the French authorities. Secondly, that Belgium did not heed the advice of Baron Greindl and did not try to insure her independence in the same way by approaching Germany and making a similar contract with her. This disposes of the contention that the Belgian conversation had a purely defensive character as against all comers. It shows the one-sidedness of the inclination, which is evidenced also by the placing of all Belgium's fortresses on the eastern frontier.

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