It may therefore be worth while to attempt to disentangle the more important of these questions from the rest, and to indicate in each case the principles involved.
1.

Are we at war with Venezuela?
Till reading the reports of what passed last night in the House of Commons, I should have replied to this question unhesitatingly in the negative.

Most people whose attention has been directed to such matters must have supposed that we were engaged in the execution of "reprisals," the nature and legitimacy of which have long been recognised by international law.

They consist, of course, in the exertion of pressure, short of war; over which they possess the following advantages: They are strictly limited in scope; they cease, when their object has been attained, without the formalities of a treaty of peace; and, no condition of "belligerency" existing between the Powers immediately concerned, third Powers are not called upon to undertake the onerous obligations of "neutrality." The objection sometimes made to reprisals, that they are applicable only to the weaker Powers, since a strong Power would at once treat them as acts of war, is indeed the strongest recommendation of this mode of obtaining redress.
To localise hostile pressure as far as possible, and to give to it such a character as shall restrict its incidence to the peccant State, is surely in the interest of the general good.

That the steps taken are such as would probably, between States not unequally matched, cause an outbreak of war cannot render them inequitable in cases where so incalculable an evil is unlikely to follow upon their employment.
2.