WHAT MUST WE _DO_?
We must have the right political faith--Then we must give effect to
it--Good intention not enough--The organization of the great forces of
modern life--Our indifference as to the foundations of the evil--The
only hope.
What then must we _do_? Well the first and obvious thing is for each to
do his civic duty, for each to determine that he at least shall not
reject, with that silly temper which nearly always meets most new points
of view, principles which do at least seek to explain things, and do
point to the possibility of a better way.
The first thing is to make our own policy right--and that is the work of
each one of us; to correct the temper which made us, for instance, to
our shame, the partners of the Turk in his work of oppression.
And we must realise that mere good intent does not suffice; that
understanding, by which alone we can make headway, is not arrived at by
a pleasant emotion like that produced by a Beethoven Sonata; that we pay
for our progress in a little harder money than that, the money of hard
work, in which must be included hard thinking. And having got that far,
we must realise that sound ideas do not spread themselves. They are
spread by men. It is one of the astonishing things in the whole problem
of the breaking of war, that while men realise that if women are to have
votes, or men to be made temperate, or the White Slave Traffic to be
stopped, or for that matter, if battleships are to be built, or
conscription to be introduced, or soap or pills to be sold, effort,
organisation, time, money, must be put into these things. But the
greatest revolution that the world has known since mankind acquired the
right to freedom of opinion, will apparently get itself accomplished
without any of these things; or that at least the Government can quite
easily attend to it by asking other Governments to attend a Conference.
We must realise that a change of opinion, the recognition of a new fact,
or of facts heretofore not realised, is a slow and laborious work, even
in the relatively simple things which I have mentioned, and that you
cannot make savages into civilised men by collecting them round a table.
For the Powers of Europe, so far as their national policies are
concerned, are still uncivilised individuals. And their Conferences are
bound to fail, when each unit has the falsest conception concerning the
matters under discussion. Governments are the embodied expression of
general public opinion--and not the best public opinion at that; and
until opinion is modified, the embodiment of it will no more be capable
of the necessary common action, than would Red Indians be capable of
forming an efficient Court of Law, while knowing nothing of law or
jurisprudence, or worse still, having utterly false notions of the
principles upon which human society is based.
And the occasional conferences of private men still hazy as to these
principles are bound to be as ineffective. If the mere meeting and
contact of people cleared up misunderstandings, we should not have
Suffragettes and Anti-Suffragettes, or Mr. Lloyd George at grips with
the doctors.
These occasional conferences, whether official, like those of the Hague,
or non-official like those which occasionally meet in London or in
Berlin, will not be of great avail in this matter unless a better public
opinion renders them effective. They are of some use and no one would
desire to see them dropped, but they will not of themselves stem or turn
the drift of opinion. What is needed is a permanent organisation of
propaganda, framed, not for the purpose of putting some cut and dried
scheme into immediate operation, but with the purpose of clarifying
European public opinion, making the great mass see a few simple facts
straight, instead of crooked, and founded in the hope that ten or
fifteen years of hard, steady, persistent work, will create in that time
(by virtue of the superiority of the instruments, the Press and the rest
of it which we possess) a revolution of opinion as great as that
produced at the time of the Reformation, in a period which probably was
not more than the lifetime of an ordinary man.
The organization for such permanent work has hardly begun. The Peace
Societies have done, and are doing, a real service, but it is evident,
for the reasons already indicated, that if the great mass are to be
affected, instruments of far wider sweep must be used. Our great
commercial and financial interests, our educational and academic
institutions, our industrial organizations, the political bodies, must
all be reached. An effort along the right lines has been made thanks to
the generosity of a more than ordinarily enlightened Conservative
capitalist. But the work should be taken up at a hundred points. Some
able financier should do for the organization of Banking--which has
really become the Industry of Finance and Credit--the same sort of
service that Sir Charles Macara has done for the cotton industry of the
world. The international action and co-ordination of Trades Unions the
world over should be made practical and not, in this matter, be allowed
to remain a merely platonic aspiration.
The greater European Universities should possess endowed Chairs of the
Science of International Statecraft. While we have Chairs to investigate
the nature of the relationship of insects, we have none to investigate
the nature of the relationship of man in his political grouping. And the
occupants of these Chairs might change places--that of Berlin coming to
London or Oxford, and that of Oxford going to Berlin.
The English Navy League and the German Navy League alike tell us that
the object of their endeavours is to create an instrument of peace. In
that case their efforts should not be confined to increasing the size of
the respective arms, but should also be directed to determining how and
why and when, and under what conditions, and for what purpose that arm
should be used. And that can only be done effectually if the two bodies
learn something of the aims and objects of the other. The need for a
Navy, and the size of the Navy, depends upon policy, either our own
policy, or the policy of the prospective aggressor; and to know
something of that, and its adjustment, is surely an integral part of
national defence. If both these Navy Leagues, in the fifteen or sixteen
years during which they have been in existence, had possessed an
intelligence committee, each conferring with the other, and spending
even a fraction of the money and energy upon disentangling policy that
has been spent upon the sheer bull-dog piling up of armaments, in all
human possibility, the situation which now confronts us would not exist.
Then each political party of the respective Parliaments might have its
accredited delegates in the Lobbies of the other: the Social Democrats
might have their permanent delegates in London, in the Lobbies of the
House of Commons; the Labour Party might have their Permanent Delegates
in the Lobbies of the Reichstag; and when any Anglo-German question
arose, those delegates could speak through the mouth of the Members of
the Party to which they were accredited, to the Parliament of the other
nation. The Capitalistic parties could have a like bi-national
organisation.
"These are wild and foolish suggestions"--that is possible. They have
never, however, been discussed with a view to the objects in question.
All efforts in this direction have been concentrated upon an attempt to
realize mechanically, by some short and royal road, a result far too
great and beneficent to be achieved so cheaply.
Before our Conferences, official or unofficial, can have much success,
the parties to them must divest their minds of certain illusions which
at present dominate them. Until that is done, you might as reasonably
expect two cannibals to arrive at a workable scheme for consuming one
another. The elementary conceptions, the foundations of the thing are
unworkable. Our statecraft is still founded on a sort of political
cannibalism, upon the idea that nations progress by conquering, or
dominating one another. So long as that is our conception of the
relationship of human groups we shall always stand in danger of
collision, and our schemes of association and co-operation will always
break down.
APPENDIX.
Many of the points touched upon in the last two chapters are brought out
clearly in a recent letter addressed to the Press by my friend and
colleague Mr. A.W. Haycock. In this letter to the Press he says:--
If you will examine systematically, as I have done, the comments
which have appeared in the Liberal Press, either in the form of
leading articles, or in letters from readers, concerning Lord
Roberts' speech, you will find that though it is variously
described as "diabolical," "pernicious," "wicked," "inflammatory"
and "criminal," the real fundamental assumptions on which the whole
speech is based, and which, if correct, justify it, are by
implication admitted; at any rate, in not one single case that I
can discover are they seriously challenged.
Now, when you consider this, it is the most serious fact of the
whole incident--far more disquieting in reality than the fact of
the speech itself, especially when we remember that Lord Roberts
did but adopt and adapt the arguments already used with more
sensationalism and less courtesy by Mr. Winston Churchill himself.
The protests against Lord Roberts' speech take the form of denying
the intention of Germany to attach this country. But how can his
critics be any more aware of the intentions of Germany--65 millions
of people acted upon by all sorts of complex political and social
forces--than is Lord Roberts? Do we know the intention of England
with reference to Woman's Suffrage or Home Rule or Tariff Reform?
How, therefore, can we know the intentions of "Germany"?
Lord Roberts, with courtesy, in form at least and with the warmest
tribute to the "noble and imaginative patriotism" of German policy,
assumed that that policy would follow the same general impulse that
our own has done in the past, and would necessarily follow it since
the relation between military power and national greatness and
prosperity was to-day what it always has been. In effect, Lord
Roberts' case amounts to this:--
"We have built up our Empire and our trade by virtue of the
military power of our state; we exist as a nation, sail the seas,
and carry on our trade, by virtue of our predominant strength; as
that strength fails we shall do all these things merely on the
sufferance of stronger nations, who, when pushed by the needs of an
expanding population to do so, will deprive us of the capacity for
carrying on those vital functions of life, and transfer the means
of so doing to themselves to their very great advantage; we have
achieved such transfer to ourselves in the past by force and must
expect other nations to try and do the same thing unless we are
able to prevent them. It is the inevitable struggles of life to be
fought out either by war or armaments."
These are not Lord Roberts' words, but the proposition is the clear
underlying assumption of his speech. And his critics do not
seriously challenge it. Mr. Churchill by implication warmly
supports it. At Glasgow he said: "The whole fortune of our race and
Empire, the whole treasure accumulated during so many centuries of
sacrifice and achievement would perish and be swept utterly away,
if our naval supremacy were to be impaired."
Now why should there be any danger of Germany bringing about this
catastrophe unless she could profit enormously by so doing? But
that implies that a nation does expand by military force, does
achieve the best for its people by that means; it does mean that if
you are not stronger than your rival, you carry on your trade "on
sufferance" and at the appointed hour will have it taken from you
by him. And if that assumption--plainly indicated as it is by a
Liberal Minister--is right, who can say that Lord Roberts'
conclusion is not justified?
Now as to the means of preventing the war. Lord Roberts' formula
is:--
"Such a battle front by sea and land that no power or probable
combination of powers shall dare to attack us without the certainty
of disaster."
This, of course, is taken straight from Mr. Churchill, who, at
Dundee, told us that "the way to make war impossible is to be so
strong as to make victory certain."
We have all apparently, Liberals and Conservatives alike, accepted
this "axiom" as self-evident.
Well, since it is so obvious as all that we may expect the Germans
to adopt it. At present they are guided by a much more modest
principle (enunciated in the preamble of the German Navy Law);
namely, to be sufficiently strong to make it _dangerous_ for your
enemy to attack. They must now, according to our "axiom," be so
strong as to make our defeat certain.
I am quite sure that the big armament people in Germany are very
grateful for the advice which Mr. Churchill and Lord Roberts thus
give to the nations of the world, and we may expect to see German
armaments so increased as to accord with the new principle.
And Lord Roberts is courageous enough to abide by the conclusion
which flows from the fundamental assumption of Liberals and
Conservatives alike, _i.e._, that trade and the means of livelihood
can be transferred by force. We have transferred it in the past.
"It is excellent policy; it is, or should be, the policy of every
nation prepared to play a great part in history." Such are Lord
Roberts' actual words. At least, they don't burke the issue.
The Germans will doubtless note the combination: be so strong as to
make victory certain, and strike when you have made it certain, and
they will then, in the light of this advice, be able to put the
right interpretation upon our endeavours to create a great
conscript force and our arrangements, which have been going on for
some years, to throw an expeditionary force on to the continent.
The outlook is not very pleasant, is it? And yet if you accept the
"axiom" that our Empire and our trade is dependent upon force and
can be advantageously attacked by a stronger power there is no
escape from the inevitable struggle--for the other "axiom" that
safety can be secured merely by being enormously stronger than your
rival is, as soon as it is tested by applying it to the two parties
to the conflict--and, of course, one has as much right to apply it
as the other--seen to be simply dangerous and muddle-headed
rubbish. Include the two parties in your "axiom" (as you must) and
it becomes impossible of application.
Now the whole problem sifts finally down to this one question: Is
the assumption made by Lord Roberts and implied by Mr. Churchill
concerning the relation of military force to trade and national
life well founded? If it is, conflict is inevitable. It is no good
crying "panic." If there is this enormous temptation pushing to our
national ruin, we ought to be in a panic. And if it is not true?
Even in that case conflict will equally be inevitable unless we
realise its falseness, for a universal false opinion concerning a
fact will have the same result in conduct as though the false
belief were true.
And my point is that those concerned to prevent this conflict seem
but mildly interested in examining the foundations of the false
beliefs that make conflict inevitable. Part of the reluctance to
study the subject seems to arise from the fear that if we deny the
nonsensical idea that the British Empire would instantaneously fall
to pieces were the Germans to dominate the North Sea for 24 hours
we should weaken the impulse to defence. That is probably an
utterly false idea, but suppose it is true, is the risk of less
ardour in defence as great as the risk which comes of having a
nation of Roberts and Churchills on both sides of the frontier?
If that happens war becomes not a risk but a certainty.
And it is danger of happening. I speak from the standpoint of a
somewhat special experience. During the last 18 months I have
addressed not scores but many hundreds of meetings on the subject
of the very proposition on which Lord Roberts' speech is based and
which I have indicated at the beginning of this letter; I have
answered not hundreds but thousands of questions arising out of it.
And I think that gives me a somewhat special understanding of the
mind of the man in the street. The reason he is subject to panic,
and "sees red" and will often accept blindly counsels like those of
Lord Roberts, is that he holds as axioms these primary assumptions
to which I have referred, namely, that he carries on his daily life
by virtue of military force, and that the means of carrying it on
will be taken from him by the first stronger power that rises in
the world, and that that power will be pushed to do it by the
advantage of such seizure. And these axioms he never finds
challenged even by his Liberal guides.
The issue for those who really desire a better condition is clear.
So long as by their silence, or by their indifference to the
discussion of the fundamental facts of this problem they create the
impression that Mr. Churchill's axioms are unchallengeable, the
panic-mongers will have it all their own way, and our action will
be a stimulus to similar action in Germany, and that action will
again re-act on ours, and so on _ad infinitum._
Why is not some concerted effort made to create in both countries
the necessary public opinion, by encouraging the study and
discussion of the elements of the case, in some such way, for
instance, as that adopted by Mr. Norman Angell in his book?
One organization due to private munificence has been formed and is
doing, within limits, an extraordinarily useful work, but we can
only hope to affect policy by a much more general interest--the
interest of those of leisure and influence. And that does not seem
to be forthcoming.
My own work, which has been based quite frankly on Mr. Angell's
book, has convinced me that it embodies just the formula most
readily understanded of the people. It constitutes a constructive
doctrine of International Policy--the only statement I know so
definitely applicable to modern conditions.
But the old illusions are so entrenched that if any impression is
to be made on public opinion generally, effort must be persistent,
permanent, and widespread. Mere isolated conferences, disconnected
from work of a permanent character, are altogether inadequate for
the forces that have to be met.
What is needed is a permanent and widespread organization embracing
Trades Unions, Churches and affiliated bodies, Schools and
Universities, basing its work on some definite doctrine of
International Policy which can supplant the present conceptions of
struggle and chaos.
I speak, at least, from the standpoint of experience; in the last
resort the hostility, fear and suspicion which from time to time
gains currency among the great mass of the people, is due to those
elementary misconceptions as to the relation of prosperity, the
opportunities of life, to military power. So long as these
misconceptions are dominant, nothing is easier than to precipitate
panic and bad feeling, and unless we can modify them, we shall in
all human probability drift into conflict; and this incident of
Lord Roberts' speech and the comment which it has provoked, show
that for some not very well defined reason, Liberals, quite as much
as Conservatives, by implication, accept the axioms upon which it
is based, and give but little evidence that they are seriously
bestirring themselves to improve that political education upon
which according to their creed, progress can alone be made.
Yours very faithfully,
A.W. HAYCOCK.
End of Project Gutenberg's Peace Theories and the Balkan War, by Norman Angell