power is its chief end. This is not the case in America, because
America is safe against aggression;[8] but in all other great nations
the chief aim of the State is to possess the greatest possible
amount of external force. To this end, the liberty of the citizens
is curtailed, and anti-militarist propaganda is severely punished.
This attitude is rooted in pride and fear: pride, which refuses to
be conciliatory, and fear, which dreads the results of foreign pride
conflicting with our own pride. It seems something of a historical
accident that these two passions, which by no means exhaust the
political passions of the ordinary man, should so completely determine
the external policy of the State. Without pride, there would be no
occasion for fear: fear on the part of one nation is due to the
supposed pride of another nation. Pride of dominion, unwillingness to
decide disputes otherwise than by force or the threat of force, is a
habit of mind greatly encouraged by the possession of power. Those
who have long been in the habit of exercising power become autocratic
and quarrelsome, incapable of regarding an equal otherwise than as a
rival. It is notorious that head masters’ conferences are more liable
to violent disagreements than most similar bodies: each head master
tries to treat the others as he treats his own boys; they resent such
treatment, and he resents their resentment. Men who have the habit
of authority are peculiarly unfit for friendly negotiation; but the
official relations of States are mainly in the hands of men with a
great deal of authority in their own country. This is, of course, more
particularly the case where there is a monarch who actually governs.
If is less true where there is a governing oligarchy, and still less
true where there is some approach to real democracy. But it is true to
a considerable extent in all countries, because Prime Ministers and
Foreign Secretaries are necessarily men in authority. The first step
towards remedying this state of things is a genuine interest in foreign
affairs on the part of the ordinary citizen, and an insistence that
national pride shall not be allowed to jeopardize his other interests.
During war, when he is roused, he is willing to sacrifice everything
to pride; but in quiet times he will be far more ready than men in
authority to realize that foreign affairs, like private concerns, ought
to be settled amicably according to principles, not brutally by force
or the threat of force.
The effect of personal bias in the men who actually compose the
Government may be seen very clearly in labor disputes. French
syndicalists affirm that the State is simply a product of capitalism, a
part of the weapons which capital employs in its conflict with labor.
Even in democratic States there is much to bear out this view. In
strikes it is common to order out the soldiers to coerce the strikers;
although the employers are much fewer, and much easier to coerce,
the soldiers are never employed against them. When labor troubles
paralyze the industry of a country, it is the men who are thought to be
unpatriotic, not the masters, though clearly the responsibility belongs
to both sides. The chief reason for this attitude on the part of
Governments is that the men composing them belong, by their success if
not by their origin, to the same class as the great employers of labor.
Their bias and their associates combine to make them view strikes
and lockouts from the standpoint of the rich. In a democracy public
opinion and the need of conciliating political supporters partially
correct these plutocratic influences, but the correction is always only
partial. And the same influences which warp the views of Governments
on labor questions also warp their views on foreign affairs, with the
added disadvantage that the ordinary citizen has much fewer means of
arriving at an independent judgment.
The excessive power of the State, partly through internal oppression,
but principally through war and the fear of war, is one of the chief
causes of misery in the modern world, and one of the main reasons for
the discouragement which prevents men from growing to their full mental
stature. Some means of curing this excessive power must be found if men
are not to be organized into despair, as they were in the Roman Empire.
The State has one purpose which is on the whole good, namely, the
substitution of law for force in the relations of men. But this
purpose can only be fully achieved by a world-State, without which
international relations cannot be made subject to law. And although
law is better than force, law is still not the best way of settling
disputes. Law is too static, too much on the side of what is decaying,
too little on the side of what is growing. So long as law is in theory
supreme, it will have to be tempered, from time to time, by internal
revolution and external war. These can only be prevented by perpetual
readiness to alter the law in accordance with the present balance of
forces. If this is not done, the motives for appealing to force will
sooner or later become irresistible. A world-State or federation of
States, if it is to be successful, will have to decide questions, not
by the legal maxims which would be applied by the Hague tribunal, but
as far as possible in the same sense in which they would be decided by
war. The function of authority should be to render the appeal to force
unnecessary, not to give decisions contrary to those which would be
reached by force.
This view may be thought by some to be immoral. It may be said that the
object of civilization should be to secure justice, not to give the
victory to the strong. But when this antithesis is allowed to pass,
it is forgotten that love of justice may itself set force in motion.
A Legislature which wishes to decide an issue in the same way as it
would be decided if there were an appeal to force will necessarily take
account of justice, provided justice is so flagrantly on one side that
disinterested parties are willing to take up the quarrel. If a strong
man assaults a weak man in the streets of London, the balance of force
is on the side of the weak man, because, even if the police did not
appear, casual passers-by would step in to defend him. It is sheer cant
to speak of a contest of might against right, and at the same time to
hope for a victory of the right. If the contest is really between might
and right, that _means_ that right will be beaten. What is obscurely
intended, when this phrase is used, is that the stronger side is only
rendered stronger by men’s sense of right. But men’s sense of right is
very subjective, and is only one factor in deciding the preponderance
of force. What is desirable in a Legislature is, not that it should
decide by its personal sense of right, but that it should decide in a
way which is felt to make an appeal to force unnecessary.
Having considered what the State ought not to do, I come now to what it
ought to do.
Apart from war and the preservation of internal order, there are
certain more positive functions which the State performs, and certain
others which it ought to perform.
We may lay down two principles as regards these positive functions.
First: there are matters in which the welfare of the whole community
depends upon the practically universal attainment of a certain minimum;
in such cases the State has the right to insist upon this minimum being
attained.
Secondly: there are ways in which, by insisting upon the maintenance of
law, the State, if it does nothing further, renders possible various
forms of injustice which would otherwise be prevented by the anger
of their victims. Such injustices ought, as far as possible, to be
prevented by the State.
The most obvious example of a matter where the general welfare
depends upon a universal minimum is sanitation and the prevention of
infectious diseases. A single case of plague, if it is neglected, may
cause disaster to a whole community. No one can reasonably maintain,
on general grounds of liberty, that a man suffering from plague ought
to be left free to spread infection far and wide. Exactly similar
considerations apply to drainage, notification of fevers, and kindred
matters. The interference with liberty remains an evil, but in some
cases it is clearly a smaller evil than the spread of disease which
liberty would produce. The stamping out of malaria and yellow fever by
destroying mosquitoes is perhaps the most striking example of the good
which can be done in this way. But when the good is small or doubtful,
and the interference with liberty is great, it becomes better to endure
a certain amount of preventable disease rather than suffer a scientific
tyranny.
Compulsory education comes under the same head as sanitation. The
existence of ignorant masses in a population is a danger to the
community; when a considerable percentage are illiterate, the whole
machinery of government has to take account of the fact. Democracy in
its modern form would be quite impossible in a nation where many men
cannot read. But in this case there is not the same need of absolute
universality as in the case of sanitary measures. The gipsies, whose
mode of life has been rendered almost impossible by the education
authorities, might well have been allowed to remain a picturesque
exception. But apart from such rather unimportant exceptions, the
argument for compulsory education is irresistible.
What the State does for the care of children at present is less than
what ought to be done, not more. Children are not capable of looking
after their own interests, and parental responsibility is in many
ways inadequate. It is clear that the State alone can insist upon the
children being provided with the minimum of knowledge and health which,
for the time being, satisfies the conscience of the community.
The encouragement of scientific research is another matter which
comes rightly within the powers of the State, because the benefits of
discoveries accrue to the community, while the investigations are
expensive and never individually certain of achieving any result. In
this matter, Great Britain lags behind all other civilized countries.
The second kind of powers which the State ought to possess are those
that aim at diminishing economic injustice. It is this kind that
has been emphasized by socialists. The law creates or facilitates
monopolies, and monopolies are able to exact a toll from the community.
The most glaring example is the private ownership of land. Railways
are at present controlled by the State, since rates are fixed by law;
and it is clear that if they were uncontrolled, they would acquire a
dangerous degree of power.[9] Such considerations, if they stood alone,
would justify complete socialism. But I think justice, by itself, is,
like law, too static to be made a supreme political principle: it does
not, when it has been achieved, contain any seeds of new life or any
impetus to development. For this reason, when we wish to remedy an
injustice, it is important to consider whether, in so doing, we shall
be destroying the incentive to some form of vigorous action which is
on the whole useful to the community. No such form of action, so far as
I can see, is associated with private ownership of land or of any other
source of economic rent; if this is the case, it follows that the State
ought to be the primary recipient of rent.
If all these powers are allowed to the State, what becomes of the
attempt to rescue individual liberty from its tyranny?
This is part of the general problem which confronts all those who still
care for the ideals which inspired liberalism, namely the problem of
combining liberty and personal initiative with organization. Politics
and economics are more and more dominated by vast organizations, in
face of which the individual is in danger of becoming powerless. The
State is the greatest of these organizations, and the most serious
menace to liberty. And yet it seems that many of its functions must be
extended rather than curtailed.
There is one way by which organization and liberty can be combined, and
that is, by securing power for voluntary organizations, consisting of
men who have chosen to belong to them because they embody some purpose
which all their members consider important, not a purpose imposed by
accident or outside force. The State, being geographical, cannot be a
wholly voluntary association, but for that very reason there is need
of a strong public opinion to restrain it from a tyrannical use of its
powers. This public opinion, in most matters, can only be secured by
combinations of those who have certain interests or desires in common.
The positive purposes of the State, over and above the preservation
of order, ought as far as possible to be carried out, not by the
State itself, but by independent organizations, which should be left
completely free so long as they satisfied the State that they were
not falling below a necessary minimum. This occurs to a certain
limited extent at present in regard to elementary education. The
universities, also, may be regarded as acting for the State in the
matter of higher education and research, except that in their case no
minimum of achievement is exacted. In the economic sphere, the State
ought to exercise control, but ought to leave initiative to others.
There is every reason to multiply opportunities of initiative, and to
give the greatest possible share of initiative to each individual,
for if this is not done there will be a general sense of impotence
and discouragement. There ought to be a constant endeavor to leave
the more positive aspects of government in the hands of voluntary
organizations, the purpose of the State being merely to exact
efficiency and to secure an amicable settlement of disputes, whether
within or without its own borders. And with this ought to be combined
the greatest possible toleration of exceptions and the least possible
insistence upon uniform system.
A good deal may be achieved through local government by trades as
well as by areas. This is the most original idea in syndicalism, and
it is valuable as a check upon the tyranny which the community may be
tempted to exercise over certain classes of its members. All strong
organizations which embody a sectional public opinion, such as trade
unions, coöperative societies, professions, and universities, are to be
welcomed as safeguards of liberty and opportunities for initiative. And
there is need of a strong public opinion in favor of liberty itself.
The old battles for freedom of thought and freedom of speech, which it
was thought had been definitively won, will have to be fought all over
again, since most men are only willing to accord freedom to opinions
which happen to be popular. Institutions cannot preserve liberty
unless men realize that liberty is precious and are willing to exert
themselves to keep it alive.
There is a traditional objection to every _imperium in imperio_, but
this is only the jealousy of the tyrant. In actual fact, the modern
State contains many organizations which it cannot defeat, except
perhaps on rare occasions when public opinion is roused against them.
Mr. Lloyd George’s long fight with the medical profession over the
Insurance Act was full of Homeric fluctuations of fortune. The Welsh
miners recently routed the whole power of the State, backed by an
excited nation. As for the financiers, no Government would dream
of a conflict with them. When all other classes are exhorted to
patriotism, they are allowed their 4½ per cent. and an increase of
interest on their consols. It is well understood on all sides that an
appeal to _their_ patriotism would show gross ignorance of the world.
It is against the traditions of the State to extort their money by
threatening to withdraw police protection. This is not due to the
difficulty of such a measure, but only to the fact that great wealth
wins genuine admiration from us all, and we cannot bear to think of a
very rich man being treated with disrespect.
The existence of strong organizations within the State, such as
trade unions, is not undesirable except from the point of view of
the official who wishes to wield unlimited power, or of the rival
organizations, such as federations of employers, which would prefer a
disorganized adversary. In view of the vastness of the State, most men
can find little political outlet for initiative except in subordinate
organizations formed for specific purposes. Without an outlet for
political initiative, men lose their social vigor and their interest
in public affairs: they become a prey to corrupt wire-pullers, or to
sensation-mongers who have the art of capturing a tired and vagrant
attention. The cure for this is to increase rather than diminish the
powers of voluntary organizations, to give every man a sphere of
political activity small enough for his interest and his capacity,
and to confine the functions of the State, as far as possible, to the
maintenance of peace among rival interests. The essential merit of
the State is that it prevents the internal use of force by private
persons. Its essential demerits are, that it promotes the external
use of force, and that, by its great size, it makes each individual
feel impotent even in a democracy. I shall return in a later lecture
to the question of preventing war. The prevention of the sense of
individual impotence cannot be achieved by a return to the small City
State, which would be as reactionary as a return to the days before
machinery. It must be achieved by a method which is in the direction of
present tendencies. Such a method would be the increasing devolution of
positive political initiative to bodies formed voluntarily for specific
purposes, leaving the State rather in the position of a federal
authority or a court of arbitration. The State will then confine itself
to insisting upon _some_ settlement of rival interests: its only
principle in deciding what is the right settlement will be an attempt
to find the measure most acceptable, on the whole, to all the parties
concerned. This is the direction in which democratic States naturally
tend, except in so far as they are turned aside by war or the fear of
war. So long as war remains a daily imminent danger, the State will
remain a Moloch, sacrificing sometimes the life of the individual, and
always his unfettered development, to the barren struggle for mastery
in the competition with other States. In internal as in external
affairs, the worst enemy of freedom is war.
III
WAR AS AN INSTITUTION
In spite of the fact that most nations at most times, are at peace, war
is one of the permanent institutions of all free communities, just as
Parliament is one of our permanent institutions in spite of the fact
that it is not always sitting. It is war as a permanent institution
that I wish to consider: why men tolerate it; why they ought not to
tolerate it; what hope there is of their coming not to tolerate it; and
how they could abolish it if they wished to do so.
War is a conflict between two groups, each of which attempts to kill
and maim as many as possible of the other group in order to achieve
some object which it desires. The object is generally either power or
wealth. It is a pleasure to exercise authority over other men, and it
is a pleasure to live on the produce of other men’s labor. The victor
in war can enjoy more of these delights than the vanquished. But war,
like all other natural activities, is not so much prompted by the end
which it has in view as by an impulse to the activity itself. Very
often men desire an end, not on its own account, but because their
nature demands the actions which will lead to the end. And so it is
in this case: the ends to be achieved by war appear in prospect far
more important than they will appear when they are realized, because
war itself is a fulfilment of one side of our nature. If men’s actions
sprang from desires for what would in fact bring happiness, the purely
rational arguments against war would have long ago put an end to
it. What makes war difficult to suppress is that it springs from an
impulse, rather than from a calculation of the advantages to be derived
from war.
War differs from the employment of force by the police through the fact
that the actions of the police are ordered by a neutral authority,
whereas in war it is the parties to the dispute themselves who set
force in motion. This distinction is not absolute, since the State is
not always wholly neutral in internal disturbances. When strikers are
shot down, the State is taking the side of the rich. When opinions
adverse to the existing State are punished, the State is obviously one
of the parties to the dispute. And from the suppression of individual
opinion up to civil war all gradations are possible. But broadly
speaking, force employed according to laws previously laid down by
the community as a whole may be distinguished from force employed by
one community against another on occasions of which the one community
is the sole judge. I have dwelt upon this difference because I do not
think the use of force by the police can be wholly eliminated, and I
think a similar use of force in international affairs is the best hope
of permanent peace. At present, international affairs are regulated by
the principle that a nation must not intervene unless its interests
are involved: diplomatic usage forbids intervention for the mere
maintenance of international law. America may protest when American
citizens are drowned by German submarines, but must not protest when no
American citizens are involved. The case would be analogous in internal
affairs if the police would only interfere with murder when it happened
that a policeman had been killed. So long as this principle prevails in
the relations of States, the power of neutrals cannot be effectively
employed to prevent war.
In every civilized country two forces coöperate to produce war.
In ordinary times some men—usually a small proportion of the
population—are bellicose: they predict war, and obviously are not
unhappy in the prospect. So long as war is not imminent, the bulk of
the population pay little attention to these men, and do not actively
either support or oppose them. But when war begins to seem very near, a
war fever seizes hold of people, and those who were already bellicose
find themselves enthusiastically supported by all but an insignificant
minority. The impulses which inspire war fever are rather different
from those which make some men bellicose in ordinary times. Only
educated men are likely to be warlike at ordinary times, since they
alone are vividly aware of other countries or of the part which their
own nation might play in the affairs of the world. But it is only their
knowledge, not their nature, that distinguishes them from their more
ignorant compatriots.
To take the most obvious example, German policy, in recent years before
the war, was not averse from war, and not friendly to England. It is
worth while to try to understand the state of mind from which this
policy sprang.
The men who direct German policy are, to begin with, patriotic to an
extent which is almost unknown in France and England. The interests of
Germany appear to them unquestionably the only interests they need take
into account. What injury may, in pursuing those interests, be done to
other nations, what destruction may be brought upon populations and
cities, what irreparable damage may result to civilization, it is not
for them to consider. If they can confer what they regard as benefits
upon Germany, everything else is of no account.
The second noteworthy point about German policy is that its conception
of national welfare is mainly competitive. It is not the _intrinsic_
wealth of Germany, whether materially or mentally, that the rulers
of Germany consider important: it is the _comparative_ wealth in
the competition with other civilized countries. For this reason the
destruction of good things abroad appears to them almost as desirable
as the creation of good things in Germany. In most parts of the world
the French are regarded as the most civilized of nations: their art
and their literature and their way of life have an attraction for
foreigners which those of Germany do not have. The English have
developed political liberty, and the art of maintaining an Empire with
a minimum of coercion, in a way for which Germany, hitherto, has shown
no aptitude. These are grounds for envy, and envy wishes to destroy
what is good in other countries. German militarists, quite rightly,
judged that what was best in France and England would probably be
destroyed by a great war, even if France and England were not in the
end defeated in the actual fighting. I have seen a list of young French
writers killed on the battlefield; probably the German authorities have
also seen it, and have reflected with joy that another year of such
losses will destroy French literature for a generation—perhaps, through
loss of tradition, for ever. Every outburst against liberty in our more
bellicose newspapers, every incitement to persecution of defenseless
Germans, every mark of growing ferocity in our attitude, must be read
with delight by German patriots, as proving their success in robbing us
of our best, and in forcing us to imitate whatever is worst in Prussia.