whether under a broad discretion of statesmen or under strict
democratic control. There will always be an alternative of wisdom
and rashness, constructive planning and headlong action, carefulness
and negligence. But past experience has certainly established beyond
peradventure of doubt that secret diplomacy is not infallible, and
particularly that diplomacy acting under absolutist traditions,
as in Germany before the war, may make the most fatal mistakes of
judgment and of policy. Balfour said: “I do not think the Government
in June, 1914, had the slightest idea that there was any danger
ahead.” A remarkable statement, when we consider the actions and
reactions of secret diplomacy during the decade preceding the war.
It has been quite truly said that diplomacy is far more eminent in
autopsy than in diagnosis. M. Cheradame somewhat severely observes,
“The typical diplomat lives in a world of his own. His information is
rarely obtained by direct observation of people and facts.” And while
ordinarily men of exceptional talents are selected for the difficulty
position of Minister for Foreign Affairs, yet all considered, it
is hard to believe that were decisions on the essential matters of
international life made on a broader basis, and influenced more by a
direct action of public opinion, the result would be less wise.
Active participation of the people in the making of momentous decisions
regarding foreign affairs, is denied either under the assumption that
the people might not be ready to face the fateful test, or, by the
majority, with the thought that the people are too excitable and rash
to be trusted with such far-reaching decisions. While it is indeed easy
to generate warlike excitement among the masses, it must be remembered,
when such a charge of rashness is made, that the people have never
been currently informed of the development of international dangers,
but usually at a critical time shreds of information have been flashed
on them, designed or at least apt to stir up all their atavistic love
of fight and fear of attack. Even thus, the greatest noise is made
usually by those who do not in the event of hostilities actually have
to risk their blood and bones.
It stands to reason that if honestly kept informed about international
relationships, the people would be far less prone to sudden excitement.
Very few people indeed appear to doubt that had the decision of war
or no war been laid before the peoples of Europe in 1914, with a full
knowledge of the facts, the terrible catastrophe would never have come
about. As Mr. Lowes Dickinson has said, if the people had been allowed
to share the apprehension and precautions of the diplomats before 1914,
there would have been quite a simple and clear question before the
English people, for one. It could have decided whether it would pursue
a policy that might lead at any moment to a general European war, or
to take the alternative which Sir Edward Grey later spoke of, namely,
“to promote some arrangement, to which Germany could be a party by
which she could be assured that no aggressive or hostile policy would
be pursued against her by France, Russia and ourselves, jointly or
separately.” Without the support of the people, kept in line by fear of
hidden dangers, not even the militarists of Germany could have forced
military action.
One of the first acts of the Russian Soviet Government was to announce
its hostility to secret diplomacy. When it first published the secret
treaties and documents of the Czarist Government, its motive was,
as shown by Trotsky’s declaration made at the time, thoroughly to
discredit the management of affairs under the old régime. In the same
connection, it announced its own purpose of conducting foreign affairs
in the open. Such seems indeed to have been its general practice with
respect to the announcement of policies, though its agents continued
to use underground methods. One thing, however, the Soviet Government
is evidently trying to bring about, namely, a broad public interest
in the conduct of foreign affairs. It desires the Russian people, and
more particularly the members of the ruling Communist Party, to be
currently informed about the progress of international affairs and
about arrangements concluded. Observers report that at the meeting of
the provincial soviets the first business ordinarily taken up is the
reading and discussion of a report on international relations sent by
the central government. We have no means to check up the truth of these
reports; but this effort to interest the broad mass of the population
in the outward relations of the state is certainly worth notice. The
expectation is encouraged that the reason for acts relating to foreign
affairs will be explained, particularly when sacrifices are demanded.
XIII
A SURVIVAL OF ABSOLUTISM
Those who view the modern state as a purely predatory
organization,--for exploitation within and without,--point to the
methods, practices and results of diplomacy as one of the plainest
indications of the sinister nature of the political state. Such
criticism cannot be safely brushed aside as utterly unreasonable; it
should rather call forth a searching inquiry as to whether, as a matter
of fact, the conduct of foreign affairs could not and should not be
brought into greater consonance with genuinely democratic principles,
and be placed on the sound basis of well-informed public support.
No matter what opinion one may hold with respect to the necessity of
secret diplomacy, it must be recognized that this practice involves
a very narrow conception of the active scope of democracy. It is in
fact a historical survival from the period of the absolutist state;
or in other words, that aspect of the modern state which deals with
foreign affairs has retained the character of absolutism. It is a
superstition, in the picturesque sense of that word used by Lowell,
when he defines it as “something left standing over from one of the
world’s witenagemotes to the other.” In this case, indeed the most
recent witenagemote approached the question and proposed a step in
advance towards its solution. But the difficulty still persists.
In its relations with other states, the state is considered to be
absolute, not bound by any laws, responsible only for its own security,
welfare and progressing influence. The struggle for political power
still exists among states, in essentially the same keenness and
rigidity with which it appeared to the eyes of Machiavelli. The
importance of world-wide human relationships, and of international
coöperation in scientific and economic life, has indeed been brought
forth and given its place in the public mind; but because of the manner
in which the conduct of international affairs is actually handled, the
feeling thus generated does not have much chance to influence action at
critical times, when the people are startled and excited by the sudden
revelation of dangers, which awaken in them all the bitter feelings
engendered by the past struggles of mankind.
This survival is given strength by class interests, pride of race, and
by the manipulations of plutocratic control. Where affairs are handled
by a narrow circle of men, no matter how high-minded and how thoroughly
conscious of their public responsibility, yet with the necessary
limitations of the human mind, they cannot but be influenced at every
turn by the opinions of others with whom they are actually in contact;
so that in decisions on these momentous matters, the thing which is
concretely present is very often an interest comparatively narrow in
itself, and related to the public welfare only by a series of remote
inferences which are accepted at their face value. The most successful
statesman of the nineteenth century said that the whole Balkan question
was not worth the bones of one Pomeranian grenadier; yet his successors
in power risked the very existence of the nations of Europe for one
phase of that question.
Powerful interests will always have means, formal or informal, to lay
their needs and desires before the men in power. They may indeed be
very important and may deserve special attention, but unfortunately,
many cases have happened in which their point of view has been adopted
without making sure that there existed a general public interest
sufficiently important to warrant taking the risks involved.
A diplomatic caste recruited from a certain class of society, trained
in the traditions of authority, in contact all the time with men of
similar views and principles, cannot in the nature of things free
itself from the limitations of such environment and such training.
From the personal point of view diplomacy has adhered to the belief
in the superior intelligence, ability and foresight in the handling
of foreign affairs, on the part of those who by inherited traditions
and special experience may be said to belong to a caste distinguished
from the mass of humanity. Some one has said, there is a great danger
in that there exists a caste of people who have taken the making of
history as their profession; who still cling to the erroneous idea
that the manipulation of large masses of people, the redistribution of
territories, and the modification of the natural processes of grouping
and settlement, is history. But such people who believe they are making
history are really obstructing it. Even so unusual a man as Bismarck,
working as he did on a great national problem, did not gain lasting
success in action whereby he endeavored to anticipate the developments
of history. The artful contrivance and harsh, ruthless execution
of many of his plans left a heritage of evil to the world; but the
greatest evil lay in the example given by so successful a man in making
it seem that history could actually thus be made. The attitude which
is taken in behalf of such men, in claiming for them a completely free
and full discretion in controlling foreign affairs, recalls a statement
made by H. G. Wells concerning a British leader: “He believes that
he belongs to a particularly gifted and privileged class of beings
to whom the lives and affairs of common men are given over--the raw
material for brilliant careers. It seems to him an act of insolence
that the common man should form judgments on matters of statecraft.”
The diplomats of the old school indeed do require the people, but only
as material with which to work out their grandiose projects. Their view
not too distantly resembles that of the German militarists to whom
ordinary humanity existed only for one purpose, “to do their damn’d
duty.”
We should naturally expect to find the greatest secrecy and the
most callous use of secretive methods, where absolutism remains
most completely established. In the last remaining absolutism,
that of Japan, these expectations are fulfilled, both as regards
carefully-guarded secrecy of all diplomatic action, and the habitual
use of well phrased declarations of a theoretical policy, announced for
public consumption, but bearing only a Platonic relation to the details
of actual doings. But more liberally governed states have not by any
means all freed themselves from this practice, even to the extent of
faithfully keeping the representative bodies, and the public, informed
of the true character and aims of important national policies.
During the discussions of the last few years, a great many remedies
for this state of affairs have been suggested. The Constitutional
practice of the United States has been taken as a model in England
in the suggestion that there should be a representative committee on
foreign affairs in the House of Commons, which should keep in constant
touch with the diplomatic officials and supervise the conduct of
foreign relations; that there should be at least two days given to
the discussion of the Foreign Office Vote; that there should be full
reports made on the progress of all important negotiations; and that
treaties and alliances should not be concluded, nor war made, without
a previous authorization on the part of Parliament. The last formal
proposal of this kind was the motion made in March, 1918, in the
House of Commons, the opposition to which by Mr. Balfour has already
been alluded to. That he should object particularly to the prying
into foreign affairs on the part of persons “not responsible,” and by
“politicians,” that the proposed committee of the House of Commons
should be thus characterized, throws light on the prejudices involved;
but it also reveals the absurdity of the present arrangement from the
point of view of free government. In France there has existed, since
1902, a standing committee on foreign and colonial affairs in the
Chamber of Deputies.
When he was premier, in 1920, Signor Giolliti introduced a bill
carrying the following provision: “Treaties and International
understandings, whatever be their subject and character, are valid only
after they have been approved by Parliament. The Government of the
King can declare war only with the approval of the two Chambers.” The
ministry of Giolliti fell before this sound measure could be passed.
It may be questioned whether many of the arrangements suggested could
be more than palliatives, as long as an intelligent and constant public
interest in foreign affairs has not been aroused, and as long as the
absolutist aspect of foreign policy continues. The suggestion that war
should not be made without a previous national referendum, has indeed
logic on its side from the point of view of the democratic theory of
state, but it has thus far not entered into the state of practical
consideration.
The most important remedy as yet attempted is the provision in the
Covenant of the League of Nations, that all treaties shall be made
public. No greater encouragement, indeed, could be given to the growth
of confidence and the destruction of baneful suspicions and fears,
throughout international life, than if it were possible to assure
the nations of the world that all engagements imposing international
obligations of any kind whatsoever would be made known immediately
upon their conclusion. This provision of the Covenant has already
gone into force, and numerous new treaties have been submitted, even
by governments who are not as yet members of the League. But certain
governments have delayed compliance in cases where treaties are known
to have been made secretly. As there is no specific sanction for this
provision in the Covenant, and as actually binding agreements can be
made without taking the form of a treaty or convention, this remedy
is not in itself powerful enough to remove the evil. If two or three
states are willing to keep an engagement secret at the risk of later
incurring a certain amount of opprobrium when the fact is discovered,
there is no means as yet available for obliging them to abandon such
course. Nevertheless, this provision of the Covenant constitutes
a great advance in the work of placing the public business of the
world on the only sound basis, and cultivating that confidence upon
which depends the future immunity of mankind from constant danger of
suffering and destruction. It will, however, not be a real remedy
until the nations agree actually to outlaw all secret agreements as a
conspiracy against the general welfare and safety.
The other important advance made in the Covenant is found in the
provisions for the investigation of any cause of conflict before
hostilities shall be resorted to. If after the first shock of
excitement, which accompanies the revelation of a serious international
crisis, public opinion can be given a certain space of time to inform
itself, then it may indeed be hoped that a different temper will
control the giving of the fateful doom of war. As Count Czernin has
stated, on the night of August 4, 1914, between the hours of nine and
midnight the decision as to whether England would come into the war,
lay with the German Government. A system under which such tremendous
issues have to be decided in such a manner, is absurd to the verge of
insanity.[E]
[E] A German writer puts the blame for the outbreak of the
war on the telegraph. He says that if there had been no
telegraphic communication between the capitals, the fatal
crisis would not have arisen; there would have been time
for reflection and a decision to make war would never have
been taken in blood.
While the above arrangements, if they could be effectively carried out,
would undoubtedly serve to moderate the evils which now result from
the conduct of international affairs on so narrow a basis, yet it is
difficult to expect from them more than relatively superficial results.
It is only if a new spirit can be developed among the nations, and if
the absolutist conception of the state as far as it still remains, can
be transformed into something more consonant with the complexity and
delicacy of human relationships, that we may hope to hail the dawn of a
new era. It would be as great a transformation as that which separates
the Pagan from the Christian ideal. Mankind is still somewhat blinded
by the glitter and pageantry of the absolutist state; the pride of
power manifests itself now particularly in foreign intercourse. When
Portugal became a republic, it desired at first to abolish the entire
diplomatic establishment, and to allow all international business
to be done by the consuls. That proposal may have resulted from an
instinctive feeling that there was something incompatible between a
really free community, and the sense of absolute power embodied in
diplomacy.
A change can be brought about only when the underlying unity of mankind
is more intensely felt and when the common interests in science,
commerce, industry and the universal language of art are valued at
their true importance to the welfare of the people of all nations.
Joint effort in the constructive work of developing resources,
particularly in the tropics, will make it possible for vastly increased
populations to live in comfort on their present sites, without the need
of crowding each other. A higher valuation of humanity, a more just
proportion in the influence permitted different interests, a keener
scrutiny of traditions and watch-words--all this is necessary. Men
and women to-day feel an intense apprehension, when they think of the
fate of their children in a world in which the unreasoning prejudices
and unenlightened practices that have recently again come to the fore
in international life should prevail, leaving mankind in a dazed
confusion, and pushing the people from time to time into wholesale
slaughter with ever more horrible instruments of destruction. They feel
also that if secret policies, engendering fears and suspicion, are
to continue to be the dominant factor, then all improvement in human
welfare, education and science, will have to be in a large measure
postponed to the preparation of constantly more formidable engines of
death. One cannot but remember the worst imprecations of the Greek
tragic poets and philosophers, on the miserable destiny of man. In
fact, if we should have to believe that no better way could be found
to manage the vital interests of mankind, a great natural catastrophe,
which would extinguish once and for all the miserable breed on this
planet, would almost appear in the light of a redemption.
But we cannot believe that the peoples of the world will be so foolish
as to allow themselves to remain in this condition and not to find
their way to a reorganization of public affairs which will make such a
haphazard and perilous situation impossible. It seems plain that the
idea of the state and of state action will have to be transformed in
accordance with the greater self-consciousness of humanity which has
developed in the last century, or the desire to scrap the political
state and to find some more adequate and natural form of organization
will rapidly gain in strength. Meanwhile, there is a need of the
formation of a great freemasonry of all publicists, political men and
teachers of the people, united in the resolve to know and make known
the essential elements in current international affairs, to arouse the
public to a sense of the importance of these matters to their every-day
life, and to support the men more directly responsible for the conduct
of foreign policy, with an intelligent, searching, reasonable and broad
public opinion.
XIV
RECENT AMERICAN EXPERIENCE
Up until a recent date Americans could contemplate the play of secret
diplomacy in Europe and Asia with a feeling of entire aloofness,
as belonging to a political society which had neither need nor
inclination to utilize such methods. Our unmenaced continental
position, the natural protection and separation implied in distance
and ocean boundaries, and the conscious intention of keeping clear of
international entanglements, all contributed to make the foreign policy
of the United States entirely public and straightforward. The fathers
of the Constitution had established the sound principle that treaties
are the law of the land. This not only involves mature consideration of
a treaty before it is made, but publicity as well. The American people
have known at all times what obligations had been incurred, and the
world had the same information. There has been no room for guesswork
and suspicion.
The instructions which were issued to John Jay when he was sent as
special envoy to England in 1794 lay down the following rule of
conduct: “It is the President’s wish that the characteristics of an
American minister should be marked on the one hand by a firmness
against improper compliances, and on the other by sincerity, candor,
truth and prudence, and by a horror of finesse and chicane.” These
straightforward words began a tradition which has ever since animated
the American diplomatic service. When after the Spanish war, under
Secretary Hay, American diplomacy entered more fully into world-wide
problems than in any previous era, the expression “the new diplomacy”
was currently used in a laudatory sense to designate what Hay had
implied when in a public address he had declared the Golden Rule to
be the cardinal principle of American diplomacy--an ideal which makes
secrecy and intrigue unnecessary.
In order to give the public an opportunity of informing itself
concerning the conduct and development of foreign affairs, the United
States Government has from an early date published an annual collection
of diplomatic correspondence. Since 1861, this publication is known
as _Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States_.
It was formerly published within two or three years of the year to
which it related, but during the war this interval was considerably
extended. The precedents and principles elaborated in the diplomatic
correspondence of the United States have been collected, codified
and published in a very important and useful compendium by Francis
Wharton, under the title of _Digest of International Law_. This work
was expanded, amplified and brought down to date by Prof. John Bassett
Moore, under the same title, in 1906. It is of the highest importance,
not only as a repository of diplomatic and legal precedent, but as
a definite and public record of the position taken by the American
Government on all international questions that had arisen up to the
date of its publication. The preparation of such digest on the part
of other governments is highly to be desired for the purpose of
clarifying international law and policy, and for giving them a sound
basis of reason and experience upon which the people and governments
may rely. The fact that a precedent reported in this digest, might be
cited against the American Government as an admission, does not imply
a disadvantage which would at all offset the benefits resulting in
general from public knowledge.