CHAPTER II

THE PROBLEM OF FOREIGN POLICY

THE PROBLEM OF

FOREIGN POLICY

A CONSIDERATION OF PRESENT

DANGERS AND THE BEST

METHODS FOR MEETING THEM

BY

GILBERT MURRAY

AUTHOR OF "THE FOREIGN POLICY OF SIR EDWARD GREY,"

"THE RELIGION OF A MAN OF LETTERS,"

"FAITH, WAR, AND POLICY," ETC.

BOSTON AND NEW YORK

HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY

The Riverside Press Cambridge

1921

COPYRIGHT, 1921, BY GILBERT MURRAY

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

PREFACE

The publication of this little book was interrupted by an incident which

made me realize how easy it is for one who spends much time in trying to

study sincerely a political problem to find himself out of touch with

average opinion. The discovery has made me re-read what I have written.

But re-reading has not led to any weakening of my expressions, rather

the reverse. I wish only to make a brief general statement about the

point of view from which I write.

I start from the profound conviction that what the world needs is peace.

There has been too much war, and too much of many things that naturally

go with war; too much force and fraud, too much intrigue and lying, too

much impatience, violence, avarice, unreasonableness, and lack of

principle. Before the war I was a Liberal, and I believe now that

nothing but the sincere practice of Liberal principles will save

European society from imminent revolution and collapse. But I am

conscious of a certain change of emphasis in my feeling. Before the war

I was eager for large and sweeping reforms, I was intolerant of

Conservatism and I laughed at risks. The social order had then such a

margin of strength that risks could safely be taken. Now I feel a need

above all things of the qualities that will preserve civilization. For

that preservation, of course, Liberality in the full sense is necessary,

and constant progress and a great development of democracy.

But what is needed most is a return to a standard of public conduct

which was practised, or at least recognized, by the best Governments of

the world before the war, and which now seems to have been shaken, if

not shattered. I am not demanding in any wild idealist spirit that

Governments should act according to the Sermon on the Mount--though they

well might study it a good deal more than they do. I am only saying that

they must get back to the standard of veracity, of consistency, of

honesty and economy, and of intellectual competence, that we had from

Peel or Lord Salisbury or Gladstone.

I do not say that is enough. It is emphatically not enough. We need in

foreign policy and home policy a higher standard than we had before, the

standard implied by the League of Nations in international affairs and

the ideal of Coöperation in domestic affairs. But the first thing is to

recover our wholesome tradition.

I think few serious students of public affairs will dispute that the

long strain of the war, confusing our ideas of good and evil, and at

times centring our hopes upon things which a normal civilized man

regards with loathing, has resulted in a widespread degradation of

political conduct. Things are done now, in time of peace, which would

have been inconceivable before 1914. And they are done now because we

grew accustomed to worse things during the war. I do not wish to attack

any individuals; but, as an instance of what I mean, one finds a

Ministerial newspaper complacently remarking that certain country towns

sacked by the police in Ireland were very small and poor places in any

case, and the sacking not nearly so complete as the sacking of Belgian

towns by the Germans on less provocation. I find to-day (November 4,

1920) the Chief Secretary for Ireland announcing in the House of Commons

that he has had a court of inquiry into the alleged murder of John

Conway by the police, and presenting an official report that Conway

"died from natural causes"; while at the same time the _Times_ special

correspondent writes: "I went to the cottage in Rock Street of John

Conway, who was shot on Monday evening, and saw him lying on his bed

with a bullet wound in the temple." This is one case out of dozens. It

is not a slip or an isolated crime. I put it to any man who can remember

the years before the war that this represents a startling degradation of

the standard of government. Such things used to happen in Mexico; now

they happen in Great Britain.

Of course I supported the war. I believe it was necessary. I make no

self-righteous claim to throw the guilt of it upon others, who did the

fighting by which I and mine were saved. Let me therefore try to make

clear why certain things shock me profoundly, while I supported others

which can loosely be called "just as bad."

One of the worst things about war, as Thucydides has remarked, is that

it takes away your freedom and puts you in a region of necessity. You

may choose whether or not to fight; but, once fighting, your power of

choice has gone.

Take the treaty with Italy in 1915. Italy demanded a certain price, if

she was to come into the war on our side. Another party in Italy was

negotiating with the Germans, to see what inducement could be offered

for Italy to come in on the other side. (I make no complaint whatever of

the conduct of these Italian statesmen; they naturally consulted the

interests of their country.) The price was high, and involved the

transference to Italy of territory to which, on principles of

self-determination, she had little claim. But who could refuse the

price? War "is a violent master and teaches by compulsion."

Take the blockade of Germany. It was a slow and somewhat cruel weapon to

employ, falling most severely on the most innocent classes. But Germany

was trying to blockade us, and only our superior strength and skill at

sea caused her plan to fail. It was part of the normal means of war, and

of course we used it.

Then came an extension of it. Poland, most unhappy of European nations,

was swept by alternate armies, conquered by the Germans, devastated and

laid bare. The Poles were our allies. Our newspapers had accounts of the

appalling distress in Poland--the roads strewn with skeletons, the

almost complete blotting-out of children under seven, and the like. The

Americans proposed to send food for the relief of the Poles. But we made

objection. We did not allow food to go into Poland, to save our own

allies, who were starving. Why? Because the Germans were still taking

from the miserable country all the food they could wring out of it. And

if the Americans brought in more food, undoubtedly the enemy would take

more. There was no choice. We had to refuse the entry of the food ships.

But the man who had to sign that order may well have wished he had died

before the need came to him.

These results and necessities of war, though I have chosen none of a

sensational kind, are very horrible. It is not easy to think of actions

much more horrible. But they are not exactly crimes, they are not marks

of degradation in those who order them, because they are done under the

compulsion of war. The alternative in each case is something equivalent

to helping the enemy.

At the end of the war, after the signing of an armistice on the basis of

the Fourteen Points, there came at last a moment of free choice. It came

after five years of unspeakable waste--five years during which the

nations of Europe had become habituated to cruelty and "all pity choked

with custom of fell deeds." I am anxious to avoid the faintest semblance

of heat or exaggeration, but I think it can hardly be disputed that

practically every economist agreed that Europe was on the brink of

economic ruin and could only be saved by a quick revival of trade; every

man of conscience, irrespective of political party, knew that the first

condition for the recovery of civilization was a change from the war

mind to the peace mind. Such a change could not happen in a night. It

must needs be gradual. It could only be brought about by a strong and

persistent lead from those who possessed the ear of the world and the

confidence of their own people. Never in the whole course of modern

history has there been a more magnificent opportunity than then lay

before the British Prime Minister, never has there been a clearer call

of plain duty. He was free, as men in public life are seldom free. Great

Britain hung on his lips, and Europe was waiting for the lead of Great

Britain. It was for him to choose plain good or plain evil. And he

chose, deliberately, evil. He dissolved Parliament and appealed to the

country in a General Election on a programme of frantic war passion,

coupled with promises which he knew to be false, and which were

ridiculed by every educated man among his surroundings. This man had

before him a task and an opportunity so glorious that one can scarcely

speak of it except in the language of religion. Many ordinary men would

willingly give their lives if they could save their fellow creatures

from sufferings and perils far less terrible than those which then

threatened. And he could have saved them without any sacrifice. It

needed only a little courage. For a week or ten days he hesitated. Then

on December 11 he proclaimed his programme: the Kaiser's head; the

punishment of enemy war-criminals; Germany to pay the whole cost of the

war; Britain for the British; rehabilitation of those whom the war had

broken.

At the time when this programme was put forward I felt bewildered. I did

not realize that any one could be, I will not say so wicked, but so

curiously destitute of generous ambition, so incapable of thinking

greatly. And when I tried to find out what motive could lie at the back

of a failure so incredible, I was told by his supporters that the Prime

Minister was not thinking about the matters of which I was thinking. He

was trying to get a very large majority in the House of Commons and to

crush his old colleagues, and conceivable rivals, entirely out of

existence. Of course he succeeded.

I hope I have put this statement forward without any malice or party

feeling. The state of the world is far too serious to permit of either.

And I hope that the profound and burning indignation which I undoubtedly

feel has not biased my judgment. In any case, the conclusion that I wish

to draw is not a personal but a general one. I doubt if such action

would have been possible before the war in any constitutional statesman,

not to speak of a clever and humane man like Mr. George. I doubt if the

public opinion of any nation would have endured it. A nation in which

such conduct is tolerated, and even approved, ought surely to pause and

bethink itself. For it is not a particular reckless or unfortunate act

which is thus condoned; it is a way of behaviour. It is a way of

behaviour which has its origin in the methods of war, and of which the

characteristic is that it gives the unscrupulous man the advantage over

the scrupulous man, the cheat over the honest player, the violent and

the criminal over those who obey the law. It fosters exactly those

things which it is the business of civilized society to prevent. There

are always lawless and dishonest men in every large community, as there

are criminals in every army. There are always men who make profit out of

their neighbours' extremity, who use advertisement to stifle truth, who

jeer at all that is higher than themselves. But in a good social order

they are not influential. They acquire power only in a society which, in

external conduct, is losing its traditional standards and inwardly, in

the words of Tolstoy's great condemnation, has forgotten God.

My criticism here is directed against my own country, and in particular

against the British Prime Minister, not in the least because I have any

anti-British bias. On the contrary, I think that in most of the

international problems of Europe the influence of Great Britain, and in

particular of the British Prime Minister, is generally an influence for

good, though not nearly such a strong and clear influence as it might

be. I confine these criticisms to our own policy because the scolding of

foreign countries is a notoriously profitless task. The only criticism

that has any chance of being useful is that of matters for which the

critic or his readers have some degree of responsibility.

I believe profoundly in the traditions of Liberal England. As every one

knows who has cared to read my writings, I look to the League of Nations

as the main hope of the world, and to the British Commonwealth as the

mainstay of the League of Nations. But, if it was ever doubtful, it is

surely clear in the present state of the world that the Commonwealth

cannot rest upon any secure foundation except the good-will of its

members. And that good-will in its turn depends upon equal law, good

government, and good faith.

It is not a new lesson that we have to learn: it is an old lesson that

good Englishmen once knew better than any rulers the world has ever

seen, though five years of madness have made it largely forgotten. But,

as Lord Grey has said, the choice now before us is absolute; we must

learn or perish.

It is in this belief and this spirit that I have written the following

pages, which I hope, except to those who still live in some

unsubstantial paradise of war-bred delusions, will cause no permanent

offence, nor leave the impression that where I think others have made

mistakes I imagine that I should make none.

Readers will see that I have aimed throughout at simplicity of outline.

I have deliberately focused attention on the one central problem, how to

avoid the causes of international strife. And out of the many and

multifarious difficulties that confront our harassed Foreign Office

to-day, I have concentrated on a few typical cases. I have omitted, for

instance, any discussion of Turkey, Armenia, Persia, Ireland, and the

relations between Great Britain and the United States. I have omitted

Africa, where, unless the white man's methods of administration are

reconsidered, one of the gravest of the world's future dangers may soon

be in fermentation. And I have said nothing of the economic problem in

Europe, especially in Austria. The International Financial Commission,

summoned at Brussels by the League of Nations, has issued a report on

this matter which no government can afford to neglect. Its first

recommendations are disarmament and freedom of trade, but they will not

be enough without some system of international credits by which

production may be set going among those populations which at present

have neither food nor raw materials nor the means of buying them.

* * * * *

Since an edition of this little book is asked for in America I feel

constrained to add a few words to the Preface. It will be seen that I

have said nothing about two subjects of the first importance, the Irish

Question and the relations between Great Britain and the United States.

The Irish Question is, under present conditions, a domestic matter,

since Ireland forms by law part of the United Kingdom and has the right

of full representation in the British Parliament. It only touches

foreign policy through its effect on foreign opinion.

I do not therefore propose to discuss the Irish Question here.

Personally I believe that a favourable prospect of settlement is to be

found in the policy advocated by Mr. Asquith and Lord Grey, and loosely

called "Dominion Home Rule." This would put Ireland roughly in the same

position as the self-governing British colonies, and would at once have

two very important effects. It would put an end to the present

oppressions and would give Ireland the right to a seat at the Assembly

of the League of Nations. But I fear that no settlement whatever is

possible in Ireland until the present Government is replaced by some

other with more sincerity in its purpose and less blood upon its hands.

The accounts of British misdeeds which I read in the Sinn Fein Bulletin

and in some American newspapers appear to me to be both exaggerated and

one-sided. Men exasperated by persecution are not as a rule capable of

giving a perfectly fair and benevolent account of the behaviour of

their persecutors. But in spite of the Government's policy of rigorous

concealment, the Irish can now appeal to the evidence of a witness as

nearly unimpeachable as can be expected in human affairs, a County Court

Judge appointed originally by the British Government itself. Judge

Bodkin, in a report submitted to the British Government on cases of

crime which came before his Court in Clare County at the Hilary Sessions

of 1920, states: "There were in all 139 cases in which it was proved

that the criminal injuries were committed by armed forces of the

Government, and only in the five cases already mentioned were any

witnesses examined to justify, deny, or explain. In no case was there

any evidence to suggest that the victims had been guilty of any

offence."

In answer to a report like this the Government allows no public inquiry,

inflicts, so far as is known, no punishment on the criminals, awards no

compensation to the victims, and yet does not take any legal steps

against its accuser. Such conduct does not seem compatible with

innocence. Indeed the complicity of the Government, particularly of Mr.

Lloyd George and Sir Hamar Greenwood, in the system of illegal outrages

called "reprisals" is no longer disputed, and has especially been

brought out in Parliament by a conservative member, Mr. Oswald Moseley.

The exact degree of complicity is, of course, open to doubt. If I may

give my own opinion for what it is worth, I suspect that at some time

when the Irish police forces were disposed to resign or to strike owing

to the constant danger of assassination in which the Government's policy

required them to live, the Government gave their officers some assurance

that, if they would only stay on, their own conduct in dealing with Sinn

Feiners would not be too closely scrutinized. That was the usual method

pursued by the Czar's Government when arranging pogroms.

The defence of the British Ministers is that they were faced from the

outset by a very difficult situation, owing to the irreconcilable

differences between the northeast corner of Ulster and the rest of

Ireland. Anxious for Tory support they gave pledges, the exact tenor of

which has not been divulged, to Sir Edward Carson, the Ulster leader,

and thus tied their own hands. The condition of Ireland became

increasingly embittered, till, shortly after Sir Hamar Greenwood's

appointment, the extreme Sinn Fein party, refusing parliamentary action

and unable to meet the English in battle, adopted a policy of

assassination. The Government, much embarrassed, did just what most bad

governments generally have done in other parts of the world. They tried

to stamp out the Sinn Fein terror by organizing a terror of their own,

meeting crime by still more formidable crime, and recklessly confusing

the innocent with the guilty. At last they have succeeded in uniting all

Catholic Ireland in such detestation of the British name that an

Irishman will now never betray another Irishman, however guilty, to the

British police, nor even feel that the killing of an Englishman is quite

the same thing as murder. "Things being in this state," the Government

pleads, "how can we be expected to govern Ireland according to

civilized standards?" The answer is that they cannot, and had better

make room for another Government which can.

I cannot tell how great an effect this Irish calamity has had in

embittering the relations between America and Great Britain. I would

only venture to lay before Americans of moderate views my conviction

that the great mass of educated opinion in England joins with the Free

Liberals and the Labour Party in utterly condemning the Government's

Irish administration. This conclusion is derived from personal

conversation with people of various parties, and from the overwhelming

anti-Government votes in the bye-elections, and the increasing protests

and rebellions among the Government's supporters in Parliament. I have

to admit that this condemnation is not reflected in the House of Commons

as a whole, an utterly abnormal House elected in a moment when not only

the fever of war, but many other fevers and corruptions of the body

politic were at their height. It is not even reflected adequately in the

press. For the press in England, with a few most honourable exceptions,

is in the hands of a small number of individuals who--to say the least

of it--were not elected to their present position of power by the

confidence of their countrymen nor appointed thereto on grounds of

intellect or character or public spirit. England is admittedly not in a

very healthy state of mind. But, even now, at her worst, she is a far

better and more decent country than could be concluded from either the

London press or the House of Commons.

The picture I have given of European affairs may, I can well see, be

taken in either of two ways by an American. It may well confirm his

determination to keep absolutely clear of a world at once so

ill-directed and so miserable. The case for American isolation is very

easy to state and to understand. What is there to attract America

towards further coöperation with any of the larger European nations?

France? I can imagine no sane statesmen wishing to be drawn into the

orbit of France in her present mood or with her present prospects.

Germany? The existing German Government seems good, but old enmities do

not so quickly die down, and Germany has still to prove that she is an

honest and a peaceful power. Russia? To ask the question is to answer

it. England? Who would wish to coöperate with the British Government in

holding down Ireland by "competition in crime," in reëstablishing her

slippery grasp on Mesopotamia, laboriously pacifying India and Egypt,

and struggling indefinitely against Russian conspiracies to destroy her

influence in the Moslem world? How can an American wish to remit

England's debt to America when she is at this moment invading Germany in

order to collect "to the last farthing" a claim which the American

delegates at the Peace Conference rejected as extortionate? And who

would wish to increase the wealth of a Government which, immediately

after the War to end War, is lavishing all it can afford, and more, on

armaments and military expeditions? Other less plausible arguments could

easily be added. The suggestion, for instance, that this country, or any

party or any fraction of a party in this country, intends or ever

intended to use the Japanese Alliance for a war against the United

States is the merest moonshine, and has been repeatedly disproved by the

terms of the old treaty and by the public statements of both parties.

But, taking only arguments that have some basis of truth, the case for

American isolation is very strong.

And yet it is the wrong case. It is based, I venture to think, first on

a misunderstanding, and next on too narrow a point of view. A

misunderstanding; because it is not coöperation in that sense which is

asked of her. She is not asked to support the policies of any European

nation. The League of Nations is not an alliance. She is asked only to

sit in council with the other nations--as free and unpledged as they,

or, if she wishes, still more so--to help those who have suffered, and

are in part still sick in body and brain with their suffering, to face

the vast problems which now confront mankind, and which the rest of us

have pledged ourselves to face in the spirit of peace and justice and

common sense which we thought was characteristically American. It is

based on too narrow a view, because all summary judgments of foreign

nations are that, whether they end in praise or blame. "La noble,

l'incomparable Angleterre" of M. Briand is just as remote from fact as

the "brutal and bloody Britain" of Mr. Hearst. Nations are made up of

masses of individuals, who differ among themselves within each nation

just about as much as the citizens of one nation differ from those of

another. In every nation there are numbers of criminals and numbers of

fine men. In every nation's past there are black places and white. Only

it so happens that just now, after a time of hideous suffering and

wrong-doing, in the midst of a time of savage resentments and passions

and great material difficulties, the nations of the world are from the

depth of their hearts longing for some way of avoiding war and treating

one another in future a little more openly and fairly than they have in

the past. They know they must have disputes, and that when the disputes

come it is one of two things; they must either talk them out or fight

them out. They are meeting to talk them out. But how can the talk be

quite frank and free, or how can the promises of peace and fair dealing

carry full conviction, while the greatest and the least wounded of all

the nations refuses to join in them, but sits aloof in silence, from

time to time sharpening her sword?

G. M.

CONTENTS

PREFACE v

I. GERMANY AND FRANCE 1

I. THE PREDICAMENT OF GERMANY 1

II. THE POSITION OF FRANCE 33

III. THE SOLUTION 42

II. THE EAST 58

I. SYRIA, MESOPOTAMIA, EGYPT, AND INDIA 58

II. AN EASTERN POLICY 70

III. RUSSIA AND ITS BORDERS 80

I. THE CIVIL WAR 82

II. RUSSIA'S NEIGHBOURS 90

IV. PRE-WAR AND POST-WAR CAUSES OF STRIFE 98

I. ARMAMENTS 100

II. MARKETS AND FOOD 107

V. THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS 114

BOOKS FOR FURTHER READING 125

THE PROBLEM

OF FOREIGN POLICY

CHAPTER I

GERMANY AND FRANCE

I. THE PREDICAMENT OF GERMANY

A friend of mine was recently travelling in Germany in a third-class

railway carriage. The engine was slow and in lack of oil. The carriages,

once so clean, warm, and well lighted, were unlit, dirty, and bitterly

cold. There was an air of broken nerves and misery among the passengers,

and one woman was still sobbing from some indignity offered to her by a

foreign official in the occupied area. Presently an old gentleman,

apparently a lawyer of some eminence, broke out: "A reckoning must come.

My little grandchildren are drinking in revenge with their mother's

milk. In thirty years or thereabouts we shall settle accounts with

France, and then we shall make"--he swept the air with his

hand--"_tabula rasa!_"

"Herr Justizrat," answered a younger man, "did you take part in the war?

I think not--you would be over the age. I was in the war for four years.

. . . I agree with you that, in all probability, in thirty or forty

years we shall settle our account with France and make _tabula rasa_.

And in thirty or forty years after that France will have her reckoning

with us and make _tabula rasa_ of Germany; and then we again, and so on.

But, if you will excuse me, Herr Justizrat, I do not find in the

prospect any of the satisfaction which it appears to give you."

An incident of this sort may be significant or may not. It may be

typical or may be exceptional. But my friend's experience seems exactly

to agree with the report made by Herr Simons to the Reichstag in the

last week of August, 1920, upon the attitude of the German Government

towards the war then proceeding between Poland and Russia. The Entente

Powers had invited Germany to take certain unneutral steps on the side

of Poland; the Government had, as a matter of course, refused. The

Soviet Government had also invited Germany to join in the war on their

side, holding out the hope that such action by Germany would precipitate

a Bolshevik revolution in Poland and other parts of eastern Europe and

lead to an alliance capable of defying the Entente. The German

Government, said Herr Simons, carefully considered these proposals, as

it felt bound to consider any possible prospect of escape for Germany

from the intolerable servitude imposed upon her by the Peace of

Versailles, but decided that it was not in the public interest to accept

them.

Thus the German Foreign Minister, a man respected by all parties,

expresses in sober and thoughtful language much the same sentiment as

the Justizrat in his passion. The Peace of Versailles has, like most

settlements imposed by conquerors upon their beaten enemies, produced a

condition so intolerable that the vanquished must be expected to seize

the first favourable opportunity for fighting to free themselves. It has

sown the seeds of future war.

Now, it was the great hope of English Liberals and those who agreed

with them, that, contrary to almost all precedent, this war might be

ended by a peace so high-minded and statesmanlike and far-seeing, so

scrupulously fair to the vanquished and so single-mindedly set upon the

healing of national wounds and the reconstruction of a shattered

society, that the ordinary motives for a war of revenge would not exist,

and the nations might really coöperate with one another to save all

Europe from a common ruin. In 1914 and 1915, when war still seemed to

Englishmen an almost incredible horror, and it was still necessary to

appeal to men's consciences if we wished them to fight, volunteers were

invited for a "war to end war." The statesmen who, in those days, were

still the leaders of the country, were emphatic in stating that we were

not engaged in any attempt to destroy or oppress the German people, but

only "the military domination of Prussia." Even later, when the Liberal

and idealist elements in the country withered in the poisonous air or

were supplanted by more robust forces, it seemed as if President Wilson

was upholding, with even greater insistence and emphasis, the banner of

ultimate reconciliation as the goal of the war. For the war itself he

prescribed "Force, Force to the utmost, Force without stint or limit,

righteous and triumphant Force, which shall make Right the Law of the

World and cast every selfish dominion down in the dust" (April 6, 1918);

but, as soon as the Hohenzollerns were overthrown, he was for what he

called "peace without victory," a peace with no element of revenge, "a

new international order based upon broad and universal principles of

right and justice" (February 11, 1918). Especial emphasis was laid on

our good-will towards the German people. "We have no quarrel with the

German people. We have no feeling towards them but one of sympathy and

friendship" (April 2, 1917). "They did not originate or desire this

hideous war . . . we are fighting their cause, as they will some day see

it, as well as our own" (Flag Day, 1917).

It is not clear that this ideal was an impossible one. The war of

Prussia against Austria in 1866 was unscrupulous and aggressive in its

origin; but Bismarck meant it to end in a reconciliation after victory,

and so it did. He secured a peace which left no sting of injustice

behind it, Lincoln did not live to make the settlement with the South

after the American Civil War; but enough is known of his intentions to

make us sure that he intended to carry through at all costs a peace of

reconciliation, extremely different from that which took place when he

was gone. The British war against the Boers in 1899-1902, though open to

the severest criticism in its origin, ended in a genuine peace of

reconciliation in the settlement of 1906, for which the reward came

rapidly and in full measure at the outbreak of the Great War. Had things

been a little different in 1918, had President Wilson had the same

support from his own people that he had from the best elements in

Europe, had a Liberal or Labour Government been in power to make a

settlement of the Great War like the settlement which followed the Boer

War, had the popular influences of the time been better guided, Europe

might have had a genuinely Liberal peace. Indeed, it seemed at the last

moment almost certain that a Liberal peace had been secured. In an

address to Congress on January 8, 1918, President Wilson laid down his

memorable Fourteen Points to be observed in any treaty of peace with

Germany. The first five may be especially noted:

1. Open covenants of peace openly arrived at, after which there

shall be no private international understandings of any kind, but

diplomacy shall always proceed frankly and in the public view.

2. Absolute freedom of navigation upon the seas outside territorial

waters, alike in peace and in war, except as the seas may be closed

in whole or in part by international action for the enforcement of

international covenants.

3. The removal as far as possible of all economic barriers, and the

establishment of an equality of trade conditions among all nations

consenting to the peace and associating themselves for its

maintenance.

4. Adequate guarantees given and taken that national armaments will

be reduced to the lowest point consistent with domestic safety.

5. A free, open-minded and absolutely impartial adjustment of all

colonial claims, based upon a strict observance of the principle

that in determining all such questions of sovereignty the interests

of the populations concerned must have equal weight with the

equitable claims of the Government whose title is to be

determined.[1]

[Footnote 1: The other points were briefly: Evacuation of Russia:

restoration of Belgium; of France; transference of Alsace-Lorraine;

territorial settlement of Italy; autonomy of peoples of Austria-Hungary;

settlement of Balkan States; of Turkey; restoration of Poland; and

lastly a League of Nations--though President Wilson never used that

somewhat inaccurate phrase. I should like to acknowledge here my

indebtedness to the admirable and convenient series of publications

issued by the American Association for International Conciliation, 407

West 117th Street, New York.]

The Fourteen Points were not only acclaimed by Liberal opinion in

England: they were vigorously circulated by our Government propaganda in

Germany and Austria, as were all other statements considered likely to

induce the enemy peoples to weaken or surrender. On October 5, 1918, the

German Republican Government proposed peace on the basis of the Fourteen

Points. "They requested President Wilson to take into his hands the task

of establishing peace on the basis of the Fourteen Points contained in

his message to Congress of January 8, 1918, and on the basis of his

subsequent proclamations, especially his speech of September 27, 1918."

Later on they asked the President to inquire if the Allied Governments

also agreed to them. In response to his inquiries the Allied Governments

sent in to him an identical memorandum:

The Allied Governments have given careful consideration to the

correspondence which has passed between the President of the United

States and the German Government. Subject to the qualifications

which follow, they declare their willingness to make peace with the

Government of Germany on the terms of peace laid down in the

President's address to Congress of January 8, 1918, and the

principles of settlement enunciated in his subsequent addresses.

They must point out, however, that what is usually described as the

Freedom of the Seas is open to various interpretations, some of

which they could not accept. They must therefore reserve to

themselves complete freedom on this subject when they enter the

Peace Conference.

One further "qualification" was made by the Allied Powers: by the

"restoration" of the invaded territories they understood "that

compensation would be made by Germany for all damage done to the

civilian population of the Allies and their property by the aggression

of Germany by land, by sea and from the air."

Thus the Fourteen Points were converted into a solemn international

agreement. The Allies agreed that the treaty of peace should consist of

the application in detail of that fundamental document. On that

understanding the Germans laid down their arms and surrendered their

means of defence.

It is always difficult in the affairs of a democratic country to

determine the exact point where mere inconsistency and laxity of

thought, or even mere lack of coördination between the various organs of

government, merge into something like deliberate perfidy. It may so

easily happen that one set of individuals give the promise and quite

another set act in breach of it. But an Englishman who wishes seriously

to understand the present international situation must begin by

realizing clearly that the treaty imposed on the Germans at Versailles,

after they had surrendered their arms, appears to them and to a large

number of neutral observers as a monstrous breach of faith. It

contravened in spirit and in detail much of what they understood by the

Fourteen Points. I confess that, after reading carefully the German

Protest and the Allied Reply, it seems to me that the German reading of

President Wilson's terms was in some points the natural one; and, apart

from the treaty itself, that the action taken against the Germans when

they were disarmed was not consistent with the language and the pledges

addressed to them while they were still in the field. As a matter of

fact, certain of those responsible, or partly responsible, for the

negotiations on the Entente side, when they saw the way things were

going, recalled bitterly the great historic perfidy by which Rome

trapped Carthage to her doom.

A charge of this kind is, of course, very serious; and the results of

the action taken at Versailles have been more than serious. I will ask

my readers patiently to consider in broad outlines the causes,

psychological and other, which seem to have been at work; for of course

it is quite possible and even probable that, of the main actors

concerned, not one had any intention of trying to trap the Germans by

perjury. Some of them doubtless were unscrupulous men, such as wars

habitually throw to the surface; but they were not men of the

Machiavellian type.

Two broad facts stand out clearly to one who studies the documents.

First, the Governments which accepted President Wilson's Fourteen Points

as the basis of peace with Germany were from the start quite out of

sympathy with his spirit. Why, then, did they accept them? Because they

had really no choice. To refuse would not have been only to reject a

long delayed and desperately needed peace. It would have been to confess

to the world that, contrary to so many previous professions, their aims

were frankly what is now termed "imperialistic." Above all, it would

have been to alienate Mr. Wilson, without whom victory was impossible.

They were bound to accept.

But Mr. Wilson's language was often rather lacking in definiteness. Who

knows exactly what "justice" is, or what may be regarded as

consideration for "the true interests" of the German people? They

accepted the terms; but they were free to use all permissible ingenuity

in interpreting a document which they had not drawn up, and which had

been forced upon them in a time of need.

Furthermore, one who labours through the four hundred and forty articles

of the treaty, with their innumerable subdivisions, will find not merely

that the treaty represents broadly the victory of the right side over

the wrong, and is a charter of emancipation to large parts of Europe. He

will find also that four hundred or more of the detailed articles are

reasonable enough and many of them excellent. The injustice arises in

two ways. First, that on every doubtful point, and there are many, the

decision is apt to be given against the enemy; and next, that behind the

respectable structure of the treaty there existed in fact a flood of

white-hot war-passion--revenge, hate, terror, suspicion, and raging

covetousness--which poisoned the atmosphere and here and there made a

breach in the protecting wall.

A great English military critic somewhat shocked public opinion by

saying at the time of the armistice, "This armistice is wrong. We have

got them down, and now we ought to kick them till we have had enough."

The French, he said, ought to have continued the war and marched on to

Berlin, plundering and ravaging till they had satisfied their revenge.

The words sound like insanity, but the speaker explained them later on.

A war of revenge, he argued, is within the limits of pardonable human

nature. And it comes to an end. But, being cheated of their decisive

campaign of victory, the French were making a peace of revenge; and that

is a thing which is apt to admit of no forgiveness and no finish.

I quote these words not because I agree with them in practical policy,

but because of the profound psychological truth that they express.

Behind the statesmen who had pledged their words, however unwillingly,

remained masses of ignorant, violent, and war-maddened people, many of

them with terrible wrongs to avenge and no guide or leader to help them

against themselves. We need not recall, though few sensitive people will

ever forget, the horrors of the propaganda of hate. It is only worth

realizing that the mob-inspired journalists and journalist-inspired

mobs who clamoured for an utter and all-devouring peace of revenge,

including the starvation and enslavement of half Europe for thirty or

fifty or a hundred years, had never themselves signed the Fourteen

Points and felt no personal inconsistency or turpitude if they compelled

the Supreme Council of the Allies to break its faith.

The first step in this policy lay outside the treaty. The third of the

Fourteen Points established "equality of trade conditions" and the

"removal of economic barriers" between all the nations consenting to the

peace. Immediately after the armistice a proposal was made, and met with

strong American support, that the Allies should set themselves at once

to attempting to cope with the threatened famine and the lack of raw

materials in Central Europe, and thus get European trade on its legs

again as early as possible. This would relieve a vast amount of

distress, serve as a stepping-stone to reconciliation, save many nations

from the danger of irremediable collapse, and also make far more

possible the restoration of the invaded areas and the payment of large

reparations by Germany. It was proposed to follow the analogy of the

peace of 1871; to draw up a preliminary peace agreement, stating

principles and limits but not details. For example, it might be agreed

that Germany must surrender some territory in the West and in Poland,

but not beyond certain geographical lines; must pay an indemnity to be

fixed on certain principles, but not to exceed a certain sum, and the

like. The territorial agreement, again, might be based on the elaborate

statement of war aims issued by the British Government on January 10,

1917. The Germans could have accepted this, and the work of

reconstruction been begun immediately. Incalculable distress and

suffering would thus have been saved.

But another view prevailed. With the short-sightedness that so often

accompanies brutality, the German High Command had, in the very last

months of the war, when their defeat was certain, tried systematically

to cripple the industry of Belgium and France by destroying mines,

breaking machinery, carrying off movable plant, and the like. Their own

manufacturing plant was undamaged, and they indulged in the fatuous

expectation that they might recapture their lost markets and spring into

prosperity, while France and Belgium were still too crippled to commence

work. Of course, this could not be allowed. The obvious alternatives,

such as allocating certain German factories to French or Belgian

companies whose plant had been destroyed, or simply allocating the

profits to purposes of reparation, appear not to have been considered.

The blinder motives were too strong, and no statesman arose to give

guidance. All Germany must be punished. She had not been invaded and

ravaged. She must be made to suffer the pains of invasion. She must be

ravaged in cold blood. The complete ruin of Germany, argued certain

French journalists and politicians, was demanded by all considerations

both of justice and of safety, and it had not by any means been

attained. Russia was paralyzed and wrecked by Bolshevism. But the German

Revolution had been carried successfully through. The people were not

yet demoralized, and the problem was how to demoralize them. Perhaps

starvation would do it. Hence was started the policy of deliberately

ruining Germany, after her surrender, by a long blockade in time of

what, to the ordinary man, appeared to be peace, and immediately after a

promise of "the removal of economic barriers and the establishment of

equality of trade conditions." This was not a technical breach of faith;

technically we were still at war with Germany, and we had never promised

not to starve our enemies after their surrender. The promise of equality

of trade conditions only applied to conditions after the peace.

Nevertheless, a historian will probably regard the establishment and

continuance of this blockade of the enemy lands after their surrender as

one of those many acts of almost incredible inhumanity which have made

the recent Great War conspicuous in the annals of mankind and shaken

thoughtful men's faith in the reality of modern civilization. Certain

articles in the _Matin_ discussing the exact dose of famine desirable in

order to create the maximum of individual suffering and public weakness

in the Boche are difficult to parallel in the literature of morbid hate,

except among some of the German war pamphlets.

Thus the Fourteen Points, besides a regrettable indefiniteness of

phrasing, had the fatal fault of being utterly out of touch with the

feeling of most of the belligerents. As the time wore on this feeling

asserted its influence on the terms of the treaty. The Boche had

deliberately and treacherously plunged Europe into war; he had waged the

war with revolting cruelty; he had inflicted unheard-of suffering on the

innocent, and, by a miracle, he had been beaten. Now let him pay the

penalty! President Wilson had pledged the Allies "to be just to the

German people as to all others. . . . To propose anything but justice to

Germany at any time would be to renounce our own cause." "Very good,"

answered the dominant voices of 1918; "the criminal asks for justice,

and so far as our power reaches, justice he shall have!" The total of

wrongs done by Germany, in plotting the war, in waging it, and in the

destruction of life and property, could easily be regarded as an almost

infinite sum, and "Justice" surely demanded for that an almost infinite

punishment.

The first concession to this insistent pressure was on a point of form.

The language of the Fourteen Points and the accompanying documents

implied that the treaty would be a matter of discussion and negotiation.

The basis was agreed upon; it seemed natural to suppose that the next

step was to negotiate. But popular feeling had caught at the phrase

"unconditional surrender"; and, though nothing could be clearer than the

fact that the German army had surrendered on perfectly explicit

conditions, signed and agreed to by every Government concerned, it was

decided that terms were not to be negotiated but "imposed." Mr. Keynes

has shown in an interesting way how great was the effect of this

decision. Terms were drawn up with a view to bargaining, leaving a

margin for possible concessions; and then there was no bargaining. The

whole demand was suddenly enforced.

Questions of territory outside Europe were decided purely by conquest.

Immense areas in Asia and Africa were seized as spoil by the strongest

Powers, though the conditions of their tenure were, so it was hoped, to

be regulated by the League of Nations. In some cases there was a

pretence of consulting the wishes of the inhabitants; in most cases this

was not practicable. In Syria and South Tyrol the wishes of the

inhabitants were notoriously overridden. In Europe as a whole, however,

the decisions were made on Wilsonian principles. True, they told heavily

against Germany. But as a matter of fact the Germans and German

Austrians, by reason of their great strength and high organizing power,

had an imperial position in Europe, and any liberation of subject or

quasi-subject nationalities was bound to be at the expense of the

Germans. The territorial settlement, in spite of the great and needless

distress produced by the break-up of the Austro-Hungarian system, is on

principles of nationality juster than that which preceded it. The more

extreme anti-German claims were successfully resisted. France was not

allowed to annex Germany up to the Elbe, as M. Hanotaux wished; nor even

up to the Rhine. No partition of Germany by force was permitted, though

an agitation for that purpose still continues in France and the

prohibition of any future union between German-Austria and the rest of

Germany was actually embodied in the treaty. The treaty of Berlin had in

just the same way attempted to forbid the unity of Bulgaria.

As regards the penal clauses, it may be convincingly argued that the

great crimes and cruelties and breaches of law which have signalized

this war ought emphatically to meet with judgment and punishment from

some tribunal representing the conscience of civilized mankind. On

grounds of justice the presence of such penal clauses in the treaty

could be amply justified, though considerations of policy make it more

questionable. But all thoughts of equal justice disappeared in derision

when it was found that only crimes committed by the enemies of the

Entente were to be punished; crimes committed by British, French,

Italian, Serbian or American criminals were privileged acts, to which

"Justice" had nothing to say.

This absurd clause has, of course, given rise to suspicions, more absurd

than itself, of dark crimes committed by Entente generals which must be

concealed at any cost. Such suggestions are nonsense. Indefensible as it

is, the clause was dictated by no more sinister passion than ordinary

national vanity. The economic clauses were open to graver suspicions. It

was whispered that trade interests of not quite unimpeachable character

had some influence with members of the French, the Italian, and even the

English Government; and the old German accusation that England entered

the war in order to destroy a trade rival, utterly untrue at the time,

seemed to receive some colour by the terms of peace. Germany depended

for her prosperity on her industry and her overseas trade. Her industry

was wrecked by an immense demand upon her coal. The mines of Lorraine,

the Saar Valley, and, subject to plebiscite, of Silesia, were handed

over to other states; and out of the remainder Germany was condemned to

pay an amount of coal which proved, on investigation at Spa, two years

later, to be beyond her powers. Her overseas trade was annihilated at a

blow by the seizure of all the vessels of her mercantile marine

exceeding 1600 tons gross and a large proportion of her small vessels

and fishing-boats, combined with a demand upon such ships as she might

build in future. Her voice was stifled by the seizure of all her

telegraphic cables: news henceforth was to be a monopoly of the

conquerors. At the same time all her colonies were taken from her. She

was forbidden to set up any tariffs for her own protection. Her

navigable rivers were put under the control of international commissions

on which the Germans or Austrians were a small minority. And while it

was somewhat unctuously explained to Germany that in a virtuous world

trade would be free and untrammelled, and that the commissions only

intended to see that she did not erect barriers against her innocent

neighbours, there was no provision whatever made to debar the Allies

from erecting what barriers they pleased against Germany. "It would

appear to be a fundamental fallacy," declared the Allied Reply, "that

the political control of a country is essential in order to procure a

reasonable share of its products. Such a proposal finds no foundation in

economic law or history." It has found some foundation in history since.

The triumph of penal ingenuity, however, was the indefinite indemnity.

It was agreed on both sides that Germany was to pay an indemnity. She

did not demur. Indeed, her mouth was closed by the monstrously

oppressive and inhuman proposals various Germans had themselves put

forward when they expected to win the war. She had openly intended to

"bleed France and England white." Now that she was beaten she was

prepared to pay. She accepted the duty of "restoring" the invaded

territories. This was defined as "reparation for all damage done to the

civil population of the Allies by German aggression." The Germans

probably understood this to mean the damage done to civilian life and

property by invasions or raids; but they were told that this view was

too narrow. Every soldier killed or wounded had civilians dependent on

him; nay, he himself was really a civilian forced by German aggression

to desert his business. All his business losses, the separation

allowances to his wife, the pensions to ex-soldiers or to their

dependents, all damage to any one's "health or honour," were ultimately

"due to German aggression" and should be paid by Germany. No such terms

had ever been heard of before, true; but the British electors had been

promised that "Germany should pay the whole cost of the war"; and the

sense of the solemn contract was distorted to suit the election cry.

After 1871 the Germans had imposed on France what was then considered

the extremely severe indemnity of two hundred million pounds sterling.

Some experts now proposed two thousand million sterling as an adequate

indemnity to be paid by Germany, others three thousand million. That was

emended by popular orators to ten thousand million; thirty thousand

million; fifty thousand million. Absurd to say that Germany could not

pay! If all German property were confiscated and all Germans for

seventy-five years were made to work for the Allies at a bare

subsistence wage, a well-known English public man was prepared to get

more than fifty thousand million out of them.

The Americans bluntly refused to endorse demands which they considered

extortionate. The indemnity was left unspecified. It should depend on

Germany's capacity to pay. Let the Germans get to work at once and do

their best. The more they produced, the more the Allies would take; and

if, after two years or so, it became necessary to fix the sum, the less

the Germans had produced in those two years the less they would

eventually have to pay. It is said that some of the British Ministers,

secretly anxious to be more reasonable than was consistent with

popularity at the moment, wished to postpone the fixing of the indemnity

until the rage of their own "Khaki Election" should have cooled down.

But their calculation was a bad one. As the German delegation observed:

"The German people would feel themselves condemned in slavery, because

everything they accomplished would benefit neither themselves nor even

their children, but merely strangers. But the system of slave labour has

never been successful."

For the purpose of raising money the proposal was merely fatuous. It

took away from the Germans every possible motive for producing wealth.

But its object in some minds was not money: its object was the permanent

ruin of Germany. It was feared in France that, though the Germans were

now exhausted and beggared, their notorious industry and ingenuity might

in time enable them to pay off their indemnity and rise again to

affluence and strength. So it was arranged that, for some years at

least, they should be deprived of every motive for industry.

Lastly, a new provision was made about private property. The rule

hitherto observed in the land wars of civilized states was that enemy

private property was respected, and if seized during the war was

restored at the conclusion of peace. This rule was, of course, enforced

in favour of any property belonging to nationals of the Entente

countries situated in enemy lands; but reciprocity was not admitted. The

private property of any German situate in any part of the world which

was under the control of the Ententes was _ipso facto_ confiscated. "The

Allied and Associated Powers reserve the right to retain and liquidate

all" such property. Every German, however innocent, who had settled in

our territory before the war was thus exposed to be robbed of everything

he possessed. Nay, it seems almost incredible, but in the original form

of the treaty which was put before the enemy for signature the

stipulation seems actually to have been laid down that any property

which a German might hereafter make or acquire in Entente territory

should be liable to confiscation at the will of the Entente Governments!

This clause was too much even for the atmosphere of Versailles, and in

response to the German protest the stipulation about the future was

dropped.[2] For the rest of the confiscation, the Entente Reply brazens

it out with the remark that the property is not really taken from the

individual, as his own Government can always pay him back! And in case

the private property of Germans in neutral countries should have an

unfair advantage, the Reparation Commission obtained special powers for

confiscating that too, up to the limit of £100,000,000.

[Footnote 2: See Keynes, pp. 60-102. A provision was kept enabling all

such private property to be confiscated in case the German Government

should "voluntarily fail" to fulfil its engagements. But this also was

dropped by the British Government in October, 1920.]

We need not stop to consider whether there was any extraordinary

exhibition of "Teutonic insolence" in the action of certain German

officials who resigned their offices rather than sign this treaty; nor

need we swell the chorus of English, French, Italian, and American

newspapers in expressing the natural horror of those refined nations at

the bad manners of Count Brockdorf-Rantzau in actually breaking a

paper-knife in the stress of his emotion, when, under protest, he

consented to sign. There was one man among the British representatives

who had known what it was to be conquered after a desperate war.

General Smuts was a man of imagination as well as a soldier and a

statesman. He hesitated long before signing the treaty; and when, in the

end, he decided that it was necessary to do so, he immediately published

a statement of protest. "I have signed the peace treaty, not because I

consider it a satisfactory document, but because it is imperatively

necessary to close the war. . . . The six months since the armistice was

signed have perhaps been as upsetting, unsettling, and ruinous to Europe

as the previous four years of war. I look upon the peace treaty as the

close of those two chapters of war and armistice, and only on that

ground do I sign it." Liberal opinion in England muttered assent. Some

important officials resigned. But the fear of upsetting peace altogether

prevented any open protest in Parliament. We need not lose ourselves in

speculations as to the strange devices to which public men can sink when

their self-interest is clear and their responsibility can be denied or

evaded; nor yet as to the infinite ramifications by which war spreads

its poison through human society, a thing twice-cursed, cursing him that

strikes and him that suffers. The old German Government had committed a

vast crime against humanity; its people had backed it up, as all

European peoples back up their own Governments, and could not expect to

escape heavy punishment. The one question we need ask ourselves is this:

Is it not as certain, as anything in human nature can be, that a treaty

of such a character, imposed on a conquered nation by force, if not also

by treachery, will, as a matter of course and without the faintest

scruple, be broken as soon as there is a favourable opportunity for

breaking it? Of course the Germans will break it if they can; and of

course they will make another war, call it a war of revenge or a war for

freedom as you please, as soon as there is any chance of winning it.

So said the Justizrat in the train. So, in effect, says Herr Simons; so

almost _ad nauseam_ repeat all the German Conservative and patriotic

newspapers. It is difficult to see how any German who is not a

convinced pacifist should do otherwise than prepare with all his

energies for the next war, unless some other way is made possible of

escape from a tormenting servitude.

II. THE POSITION OF FRANCE

If that is so, what is the position of France? France in 1914 was forced

into a war which she tried hard to avoid. The French suffered horribly

and fought heroically. They sacrificed everything to the war. And we,

who know what our own people paid in broken nerve, in bitterness, and in

economic dislocation, cannot be surprised that France has paid a heavier

price. They escaped defeat by the help of England, Russia, Italy, and

America; without these powerful allies they would certainly have been

defeated. We need not try to estimate exactly what their fate would have

been if they had lost the late war, because if they lose the next their

treatment will be infinitely worse. It will be, as far as possible,

_tabula rasa_. It will be the passing of the horse-hoofs of Attila.

Meantime France's allies are, naturally enough, going home and

attending to their own businesses; her population is much smaller than

Germany's and increases even more slowly.

A French statesman of the type of M. Poincaré or M. Hanotaux makes

himself no illusions. Germany is the enemy. Germany will fight again as

soon as she is strong enough. Therefore she must never be allowed to

become strong enough. M. Hanotaux, who was Foreign Minister during the

years 1894-98, when French foreign policy was more ably managed than

now, has recently published a book in criticism of the Treaty of

Versailles. He does not deal in any Wilsonian phrases about justice or

humanity; he considers the treaty solely with a view to the security of

France, and he finds it sadly wanting. And a large mass of opinion,

probably the prevailing opinion, in France supports him.

First of all, it must be remembered, France wanted, and thought she had

received, a special guarantee against future German attacks in the form

of a defensive Alliance between France, England, and America. The

representatives at Paris had agreed to this treaty, which definitely

pledged England and America to come again to the help of France in case

of another unprovoked attack by Germany. The English Parliament, amid

some protests, ratified the treaty, but the United States Senate threw

it out, and therewith the treaty ceased to be binding on England.

I think, after considerable hesitation, that the rejection of the treaty

was a misfortune. Formally, no doubt, it was open to objection. It

seemed like an unnecessary excrescence upon the Covenant of the League

of Nations, which already gave guarantees against war. It contravened

one of Mr. Wilson's principles, and a very sound one, laid down on

September 27, 1918: "Thirdly, there can be no leagues or alliances or

special covenants and understandings within the general and common

family of the League of Nations." Yet the practical importance of

reassuring France was so urgent that a little formal incorrectness might

have been worth incurring; and even formal incorrectness could have been

avoided by the simple expedient of making this guarantee to France take

the form of a special rider to Article XVI of the Covenant.

That article provides: "Should any member of the League resort to war in

disregard of its covenants under Articles XII, XIII, or XV, it shall

_ipso facto_ be deemed to have committed an act of war against all other

members of the League, which hereby undertake immediately to . . ." To

do what? One expects that they will undertake to declare war, and this

is what the French wanted. But no. They only undertake to apply an

economic boycott to the offending state, while the Council may

"recommend to the several Governments concerned what effective military,

naval, or air force they shall severally contribute to the armed forces

to be used to protect the covenants of the League." In case of a future

attack by Germany on France, France's late allies are bound to boycott

German trade, but are not explicitly bound to give military help to

France. I suggest that it would have been possible for Great Britain and

America to add a rider stating specifically that in one of the cases

contemplated by this article, namely, an unprovoked attack on France by

Germany, they would not merely proclaim a blockade and consider what to

do next, but would immediately and unconditionally declare war. Such an

undertaking would involve some risk and be contrary to our usual policy;

but I am inclined to suggest that the risk would have been worth taking.

However, this was not done. France was left with the impression that if

attacked she could not count with confidence on the military support of

her late allies or of the other Powers of the League. The result was

disastrous. While the rest of Europe, supported by a small but generous

and brilliant band of French radicals and Socialists, considered the

Treaty of Versailles intolerably harsh, the dominant French policy

complained that it was inadequate for her protection. The line of

criticism was somewhat as follows:

1. Germany should have been broken up. No peace should have been made

with Germany as a whole, but separate treaties of peace with Saxony,

Bavaria, Westphalia, Prussia, etc. These states should have been

provided with separate systems of coinage, postage, tariffs, laws, etc.,

so as to make the diversity stable and permanent. They should be

forbidden ever to unite. Also, France should have annexed a large part

of Germany; not up to the Rhine--which was the view of Marshal Foch--but

up to the Elbe. The occupation of this territory might impose a burden

on France, but burdens must be borne when such important purposes are

involved. And after all the cost could be charged to the Germans! . . .

As this simple precaution was not taken, the next best thing is to keep

Germany weak. Starve her by the blockade till sheer misery produces a

Bolshevik revolution and society collapses in common ruin. Then apply

the indefinite indemnity, not from the desire to get money, but to

prevent Germany again raising her head.

2. Since France's late allies cannot be relied upon, she must make by

diplomacy new allies whose hands she can force, and who occupy a

convenient geographical situation. Poland is in just the right place.

Let France help Poland and stimulate Polish ambitions. She too is a

nation maddened by suffering and now dazzled by success. A great

imperialist Poland, on bad terms with her neighbours, but backed by

France, will need a large and effective army, and will be ready to

strike at Germany's rear the moment she attempts to move westward.

Unfortunately, Poland is apt to be on bad terms with Russia; and as

things now are Russia is so much the enemy of the Entente that she is

thrown into the arms of Germany. That is deplorable and must not be

allowed to continue. The Bolsheviks must be overthrown and a Government

set up in Russia which is dependent for its existence on French support.

As an additional safeguard, perhaps it will be necessary to secure a

pro-French Hungary, to back up the pro-French Poland. But we must not

despair yet of overthrowing the Bolsheviks.

3. Lastly, France herself needs more soldiers. And she knows where to

get them! The late King Leopold of Belgium once said to M. Hanotaux,

"Qu'est-ce que vous cherchez en Afrique, vous autres Français?" and M.

Hanotaux replied, "Sire, des soldats!" France during the war established

conscription in her African territories and, in spite of a somewhat

bloody rebellion by the ignorant savages, who thought the slave trade

was being reëstablished, succeeded in importing to France a black army

which at one time numbered 600,000 fighting men. With a little more

energy and greatly increased territories, that number might be trebled.

France is a smaller nation than Germany; but France plus Algeria, Tunis,

Morocco, Senegambia, French Congo, and the new German territories is a

much larger nation than Germany without colonies. And blacks fortunately

have not the same rights as white men!

A permanently wrecked Germany, vast black armies for France, armed

allies always ready on Germany's eastern frontier; with these conditions

fulfilled, France, it is hoped by these politicians, may at last breathe

freely.

* * * * *

What is wrong with this policy? You may call it devilish, if you will,

since it is based on the deliberate and artificial creation of human

misery; but is it bad policy? After all, air-bombs and poison gas and

the like may be called devilish. But, devilish or not, they have

sometimes to be used. If Germany is certainly and confessedly looking

out for the next opportunity of escaping from the consequences of the

treaty and retrieving her fortunes on the battlefield, is not France

bound to take every precaution to see that Germany shall never be strong

enough to do so with success? The next war will be far worse than the

last. The terms imposed on the beaten party will be even more desolating

and destructive. France is probably a less vigorous plant than her

enemy. She has failed to kill Germany, but Germany might succeed in

killing her.

It seems that Germany is absolutely bound to fight, if there is no other

way of recovering her freedom and her right to live, while France is

absolutely bound to hold her enemy down mercilessly, if there is no

other way of securing her own safety.

III. THE SOLUTION

But perhaps after all there is. Last among the Fourteen Points came the

proposal to found "A general Association of Nations under specific

covenants for the purpose of affording mutual guarantees of political

independence and territorial integrity to small and great states alike."

The Treaty of Versailles has after all two faces. It had to express two

great waves of feeling and two international necessities. Mr. Wilson was

not so utterly "bamboozled" as Mr. Keynes would have us believe. General

Smuts and Lord Robert Cecil were not so utterly without influence on the

settlement. The least depressing paragraphs in the Allied Reply to the

German delegation are those in which they explain that the terrific

severity of the greater part of the treaty applies only to a "transition

period" of punishment, of reparation and of trial, at the end of which

they see the realization of Mr. Wilson's promises. "The conditions of

peace contain some provisions for the future which may outlast the

transition period during which the economic balance"--between Germany

and the invaded countries--"is to be restored; and a reciprocity is

foreseen after that period which is very clearly that equality of trade

conditions for which President Wilson has stipulated." The phrasing of

the paragraph is awkward, but the main drift is clear. The Fourteen

Points are accepted, but adjourned; when Germany has been punished and

reparation made, they will come into force. "The Allied and Associated

Powers look forward to the time when the League of Nations established

by this treaty shall extend its membership to all peoples." "They see no

reason why Germany should not become a member of the League in the early

future," provided she satisfies certain tests. "It has never been their

intention that Germany or any other Power should be indefinitely

excluded from the League of Nations." They are convinced that the

Covenant of the League "introduces an element of progress into the

relations of peoples which will develop and strengthen to the advantage

of justice and of peace."

This is as it should be; but the world does not stand still while

Germany is making reparation and being taught gradually to love her

chastisers. If the League "introduces an element of progress," the

sooner it gets to work the better. It is only too clear that every month

which passes with the League entirely dominated by England, France, and

Italy encourages and deepens the suspicion with which the League is

regarded by its critics. I say nothing of American criticisms, in which

many factors coöperate. But the Swiss Federal Council, in the very able

and persuasive message which it issued to the Assembly on February 17,

1920, in favour of joining the League, has to deal with this suspicion.

"One has been tempted at times to consider the League as an alliance of

the conquerors against the conquered. The fact that Germany, Austria,

and the former Russian Empire remain provisionally excluded from the

League may have given a semblance of truth to this manner of thinking."

The suspicion is afterwards described as "this apparently accurate

criticism." Switzerland as a whole has fortunately rejected the

suspicion and by a small majority joined the League. But in most of

Central Europe the League of Nations movement is strangled in its birth

by the general feeling that the present League means merely the Entente

Powers and their clients, and the elements for starting a counter-league

are consolidating month by month. This counter-league would probably not

be an open and confessed alliance. But Russia, Germany, and the United

States are still outside, and there are many unpaid grudges amongst the

Moslems of Asia. The test which is exacted by Article I from any new

state desiring to become a member of the League is that "it shall give

effective guarantees of its sincere intention to observe its

international obligations." Interpreted with theological strictness,

this would probably result in the rejection of all candidates, to say

nothing of the expulsion of many of the original members. Perfect

sincerity in observing unpleasant obligations is not a common

characteristic of human societies. But in the ordinary sense of the

words the test is already satisfied by Germany and Austria and most of

the succession states. The Assembly of the League meets for the first

time on November 15, 1920. It ought not to dissolve without admitting to

its membership Germany and Austria, as well as several other candidates

who have already applied. At the moment of writing (November, 1920),

Lord Grey, Lord Selborne, and Mr. Barnes have issued a joint appeal for

the immediate admission of Germany, which has long been the accepted

policy of the League of Nations Union. There are many obstacles, but the

result will doubtless be known before these words are in print.

Fortunately, the admission of new members is decided by a two-thirds

majority of the Assembly and does not require a unanimous vote. Once the

League is established on a broad base, including the conquered nations

on equal terms with the victorious, the prospect of that war of revenge

which has hitherto seemed almost inevitable will dwindle and become

remote.

* * * * *

The hope expressed above has not been realized. Austria, Bulgaria, and

many less important states applied for admission to the League and were

accepted, but French feeling was known to be very strong, and Germany

did not even apply. Had she done so she would probably have had a

majority in her favour, and it was considered until the beginning of

March, 1921, that she was certain of admission at the next meeting of

the Assembly in September. But in the meantime untoward events have

taken place.

The French Government, like the English, obtained success at the

elections by wild promises to make Germany pay all the costs of the war.

As M. Poincaré has observed, "the French people will not understand how

the victors in a great war can be on the verge of bankruptcy."

Consequently they think their rulers are cheating them. Educated people,

in France as in England, have long since ceased to expect much from

German indemnities, but the Governments still depend on their appeal to

mob-psychology; and it was believed that if M. Briand ventured to make

any concessions in the direction of reason or moderation he would lose

his majority in the Chamber. The proposals made at the Inter-Allied

Conference at Brussels and drawn up by the French expert, M. Seydoux,

had been silently dropped as unsatisfying; the subsequent British

proposals made at Boulogne had been rejected for the same reason. It was

necessary, however, to make some definite proposals to Germany without

much further delay, since the treaty had laid down May 1, 1921, as the

time for a settlement. Germany was by that time to have paid a thousand

million pounds on account, and was to learn the extent, finite or

infinite, of the total bill. Mr. Lloyd George, as might have been

expected, showed much sympathy with M. Briand in his awkward position,

and agreed to a demand for reparations on a scale which was obviously

fantastic. It began, reasonably enough, with a system of annuities,

though the first figure was probably too high and the last figures can

scarcely have been meant seriously. Germany was to pay £150,000,000 a

year for the first five years; then the annual sum was to increase at

intervals for the extraordinary period of forty-two years, towards the

end of which time Germany was expected to pay annually £300,000,000, or

half as much again every year as the total indemnity exacted from France

after the war of 1870. Even that was not enough for a population which

had been sedulously fed on lies by a class of politician who at times

seem to possess among them no single sane and honest man. And an

additional payment was demanded of a yearly sum equivalent to a duty of

twelve per cent _ad valorem_ on all German exports.

Opinion in Germany was sharply divided. All they had to pay with was an

enormous deficit on the Budget, with the prospect of presently losing

the Silesian coal-mines and having prohibitive duties placed by the

Allies upon their exports. One party insisted that the Government should

make no promise which it could not expect to perform; another, that what

Germany wanted was peace, and that they had better sign anything

required of them. The first party, on the whole, carried the day. The

German delegation in London made a counter-proposal based, very

sensibly, on the idea of finding the present value of the forty-two-year

annuities and raising that sum by means of a loan; but as they worked

out the idea they favoured Germany on every detailed calculation to an

extent which they must have known to be unacceptable. Apparently they

expected a long and serious bargaining march. But, to most people's

surprise, Mr. George leapt with alacrity at the prospect of a rupture.

The proposal was rejected with every semblance of virtuous indignation.

No time was allowed for the delegation to consult the German Government.

A hurried second proposal, to pay the terms demanded for five years and

then have the matter reconsidered, was tossed aside without

consideration, and French and British troops proceeded to invade

Germany, occupy more territory, and set up a new and artificial

customs-barrier in the most unsuitable places, at which they proceeded

themselves to collect the German customs.

The plan is very expensive, and utterly unprofitable. It involves a

straining if not a breach of the treaty,[3] and it is likely, if any

untoward event occurs, to provoke a war of the most humiliating and

embittered kind--the war of a desperate and helpless population trying

to rid themselves of foreign oppressors. But it has saved M. Briand's

Government. If he had agreed to accept any German terms whatever, he

would have been upset for not exacting more. But if he marches French

and British troops into the heart of Germany no one can accuse him of

lack of spirit. So for the present all is well; and as for the future,

it is conceivable that the Germans will give way and make some

impossible promise. That will increase M. Briand's prestige. It is more

likely that they will simply sit still and let the Allied armies do

their worst. Then there will be a chance of carrying out one of the

darling aims of the French chauvinists, and annexing, or at least

separating from Germany, all the German provinces which they occupy.

[Footnote 3: The Allies are apparently acting under Part VIII, clause

18, of the treaty. This gives them the right to "take such other

measures as the respective Governments may determine to be necessary" in

case of "voluntary default" by Germany in the payment of her dues under

Part VIII (Reparations). A failure by Germany to disarm sufficiently

gives the Allies no right to increase the area of their occupation,

since the present occupation is specifically laid down in the treaty

negotiations as the means of enforcing disarmament. Nor has Germany yet

actually committed a voluntary default in the payment of her

reparations, since the first payment, £100,000,000, is not to be

completed until May 1, 1921. I am informed on high authority that the

Allied case probably rests on the point that they judge by their

debtor's manner and by statements which she has made that she intends

not to pay by May 1; according to English law this would apparently give

them some right of taking immediate action.]

In face of these lunatic proceedings the German Government has behaved

with considerable dignity and good sense, though naturally the German

newspapers are running a little wild. It has announced its intention of

appealing to the Assembly of the League of Nations, and although, not

being a member, Germany cannot herself raise the subject, it may be

taken as certain that some member will take it up on her behalf. This

produces a most critical situation.

According to the Covenant, Article III, the Assembly may be summoned to

meet "from time to time as occasion may require." But presumably it is

the Council which decides whether occasion does require it or not, and

no one can expect the Council to favour Germany's appeal. The appeal

will only be considered when the Assembly has its next regular meeting

in September. We shall then see whether the Assembly possesses the force

and courage necessary to discuss freely and, if necessary, to condemn

the actions of the two leading European Powers; or if the two can

successfully silence all criticism. For my own part I think the

discussion will take place; and that, for the first time since the war,

the voice of an impartial third party wilt be heard in discussing the

terms imposed on Germany by her conquerors. That does not mean the

realization of the "enthronement of public right on the common law of

nations," but it is one of the first steps toward it.

* * * * *

The League of Nations is in a position to say to France: "You are afraid

of another attack by Germany; and to avert that danger you propose in

various ways to follow a policy which will plunge Europe into continued

distress. We hereby guarantee you against attack. Thirty-nine nations

at present, who will shortly be increased to fifty-one, if not more,

have signed a definite and unqualified contract to preserve your

'existing political independence and territorial integrity' against any

'external aggression'; and further, if you are attacked in such a way as

not actually to threaten your territory or independence, all the States

of the League will consider that an act of war has been committed

against themselves, will apply the complete economic boycott to your

enemy, and arrange plans for giving you immediate military support. We

offer you here a far more effective guarantee of safety than you can

possibly attain by your own diplomacy. But we demand in return that your

foreign policy shall be frankly and sincerely a League of Nations

policy; that you shall not make secret treaties, not set up inequitable

tariffs, not plot the ruin of your late enemies or any other people; but

work as a loyal member of the League with a view to the welfare of the

whole."

The League says to Germany: "You complain of the undue severity of the

treaty and the impossibility of carrying out its economic provisions.

Commissions already exist, and you have taken part in them, for

discussing these latter and fixing the terms of the reparation which you

owe. But, beyond that, if there is any clause in the treaty which

appears to any member of the League as 'threatening to disturb

international peace or the good understanding between nations upon which

peace depends,' it will, under Article XI, be brought before the League

and considered. Further, if any clause in the treaty appears to 'have

become inapplicable' or to give rise to 'international conditions which

might endanger the peace of the world,' under Article XXIII the Assembly

of the League may at any time 'advise their reconsideration.' You

complain that the terms of the present treaty were imposed upon you,

without discussion, by implacable enemies who had you at their mercy;

that you have been made a sort of outlaw nation, without freedom,

without colonies, without ships, sitting apart while the world is

administered by your enemies. But at our Assembly table you will sit as

an equal and free member, with the same rights as those who were lately

your conquerors. We submit to you that this gives you a far better

chance of improving your condition than another war could. Your lot must

be for some time a hard one. That is inevitable, and we cannot think it

unjust. You challenged the Entente to war, you staked all on victory,

and you were beaten. Now you have to make reparation. But the

recuperative power of a great nation is immense; and wherever you have

been subjected to a definitely unjust or dangerous condition, we offer

you a remedy. Wherever you may have a dispute with any other Power, we

offer you a Court of Arbitration as impartially constituted as the wit

of man could devise."

* * * * *

At present neither party quite believes this guarantee. If they did, it

would probably be enough for them. It used to be said of Sir Edward Grey

in the Balkan Conferences that he was not only sincere; he had the power

of making other people see that he was sincere. If Europe is to be saved

from new Great Wars, the Powers of the League must first of all be

sincere in their undertakings, and next, they must convince the world in

general of their sincerity. To that subject we must return later.

CHAPTER II

THE EAST

But the world is not merely threatened by the prospect of future wars.

It is filled with wars at the present moment. There are quarrels and

bickerings between most of the newly liberated states in eastern Europe;

there is a war, sometimes avowed and sometimes underground, between

Communist Russia and all her neighbours and rivals, a war whose

tentacles reach far throughout Europe and Asia; and there are wars

against the British and French in various parts of the East. Let us

briefly touch upon a few sample cases.

I. SYRIA, MESOPOTAMIA, EGYPT, AND INDIA

The simplest case is Syria. In 1915, during the war, a Syrian National

Committee, including representatives from Damascus and Mosul, negotiated

with us through Sherif Husein, and we signed a document promising to

"recognize and uphold Arab independence" in an area including the whole

of Arabia, Palestine, Syria, and Mesopotamia, except (1) Aden and (2)

the Syrian coast. Within the independent area we merely claimed for

ourselves "a measure of administrative control" in Bagdad and Bosra--not

in Mosul--and reserved any special interests of France. The French were

informed of the negotiations immediately. They expressed themselves

content with the possession of the Syrian coast, and agreed in our

promises to Husein. On the strength of this agreement the Hejaz

revolted, and Feisul's army, consisting mainly of Syrian and

Mesopotamian soldiers who had formerly been in the Turkish service,

fought as our allies to the end of the war. An attempted rising in Syria

proper was crushed with great severity by the Turks.

In 1918 the Syrians welcomed the Entente armies as liberators, and were

again promised their national independence, though this time it was to

be under the guidance of one of the Entente Powers as mandatory. They

asked that the mandatory should be England, but England had too much on

her hands. The Syrians next asked for America; but America refused all

mandates. France, meantime, had always claimed special rights in Syria,

and England by a treaty made during the war had recognized Syria as a

French interest. If they must be under France, the Syrian

representatives specially demanded pledges that the government should be

a civil government, that a certain degree of independence should be

allowed to the natives, and that the country should not be occupied by

French troops. How far these pledges were given and broken by the

French; how far it was only we ourselves who gave assurances which we

had neither the right nor the power to carry out, and thus unconsciously

deceived Feisul, these are questions still in dispute. It seems

unfortunately certain that the Syrians considered themselves betrayed.

In the end, Syria was occupied by French troops; the native government

was not recognized, but dispersed; there were raids and pitched battles,

and the Emir Feisul, one of our most popular heroes during the Great

War, was expelled from his throne and country. He is now an exile, and

was for a time officially forbidden to land in England.

France so far has neither accepted nor asked for any mandate from the

League of Nations, and appears not fully to realize the obligations

undertaken by her in signing the Covenant of the League, or the pledge

repeated in the Reply of the Allied Powers to Germany, "that the

Mandatory Powers, in so far as they may be appointed trustees by the

League of Nations, will derive no benefits from such trusteeship."

In Mesopotamia the British established themselves during the war after a

long and chequered campaign by defeating the Turks and capturing Bagdad.

The Indian soldiers and officials who were in command showed the most

praiseworthy zeal and energy in proceeding at once to develop the

country: to drain and irrigate, to plant crops, to establish order and

good government in regions which had not known such things since a

remote antiquity. The English were welcomed as liberators and made

explicit promises to set up an independent Arab kingdom under a "measure

of British administrative control." So much propagandist literature was

poured forth on the glories of the independent Arab nation which the

English were to create, that serious discontent was caused in Egypt. "Is

a half-naked Arab to have independence, and am I not good enough to have

even self-government?" wrote a highly educated Egyptian to a British

official. Meantime the actual government of Mesopotamia became more and

more severely effective, and remained entirely concentrated in the hands

of the British. The expenses were enormous and the rate of taxation per

head appears to have risen to four times what it had been under the

Turks. The productivity of the country, however, was so great as to hold

out a prospect of almost making up the loss, and the important oil-wells

at Mosul were expected to do so completely. The native cultivators

profited by the improved harvests and the increased area of cultivation,

and the expenses of government were in part to be met out of the future

oil profits. And the best British administrators were certainly beloved

by their people.

The educated classes in Bagdad, the sheikhs and the ex-Turkish

officials, became restive at the high taxation and the indefinite delay

of "Arab independence." The turbulent desert tribes and the disorderly

elements in general were disgusted at the good policing. But there was

no general discontent, because personal assurances were given to leading

Arabs that the Covenant of the League of Nations, which Great Britain

had signed, laid down definitely that Mesopotamia was to be recognized

provisionally as an independent nation and that the mandate was to be

given to Great Britain. There would be, it was promised, a native

Government with a British Resident to advise it, as in an Indian native

state. Doubtless the Government would also ask for other help from

England, especially in the matter of public works, irrigation, and the

engineering of the oil-wells.

But the League issued no mandate. According to rumour, it had offered a

scheme of mandate to the Great Powers concerned, and one at least of

them had refused the terms. The precious oil, it was discovered, had

already been divided by a private treaty between France and England,

which left only a small fraction for the Mesopotamians and none for the

rest of the world. There was no attempt to set up an Arab Government.

Some beginnings were occasionally made of associating Arab officials

with the Englishmen who did the real work of governing. But they were

not whole-hearted. A letter was accidentally divulged in which an

English soldier said of the high Arab official attached to him, "I will

soon make him lick my boots." There were symptoms of disaffection,

non-payment of taxes, the resurgence of old discredited Turkish and

German agents, open rebellions. And the Government replied by numerous

executions and punitive expeditions. The bombing aeroplane, which had

revealed itself as a very convenient weapon of war, proved an utterly

disastrous instrument of police. The British liberators, who had come by

the special desire of the population to establish a free Arab nation

helped by friendly advice from British Residents, ended, according to

Colonel Lawrence's estimate, in killing ten thousand Arabs and setting

the whole country in a blaze of war. An army of over one hundred

thousand men is now reconquering it. And at the same time, perhaps at

the eleventh hour and perhaps too late altogether, that section in the

British Government which believed in the League of Nations and wished

scrupulously to carry out in victory the pledges it had given in time of

distress, prevailed to bring about a definite change of policy. Sir

Percy Cox and Mr. Philby were sent to Mesopotamia with instructions, so

it was stated, to reverse the previous policy and try to set up that

independent Arab Government which we had promised in 1915 and again in

1917, and ought to have set working before the end of 1919. The

"rebellion" will doubtless be crushed, and the native Government may or

not be successfully organized. There is a strong desire among the Arab

leaders to have it based on a treaty of alliance with Great Britain

after the Egyptian model, and not on Article XXII of the Covenant. In

any case the task is infinitely more difficult than it was before so

much blood was shed, and the original friendship of the Arabs turned to

hatred. On simple men executive action makes a much deeper impression

than policy. In Mesopotamia our policy itself was bad because it was not

consistent. It was a muddle of two contradictory policies, resulting in

confusion and hypocrisy. But the executive action seems to have been

such as to make the chances of even the best policy very precarious. A

government which multiplies the taxes by four and shoots and hangs its

subjects in batches is seldom excused because of its good drainage or

its progressive ideas.

The story in Egypt is shorter and perhaps less unhappy, but essentially

similar. Early in the war, when Turkey joined the enemy, we declared a

British protectorate over Egypt, accompanied by a promise to give the

country independence or free institutions at the end of the war. This in

itself was a perfectly good and defensible policy, though, to be

correct, it should have had the concurrence of Egypt. But in the course

of the war Egypt became full of discontent. Experienced officials were

wanted elsewhere, and inexperienced substitutes made mistakes. Labour in

great quantities was required for the Army, and was obtained through

native contractors or headmen, who practised the ordinary Oriental

methods of extortion and corruption while professing to act by orders of

the English. The peasant who was dragged off to forced labour, or

compelled to buy his freedom by heavy bribes, blamed the British for

both. At one time Egypt was garrisoned by large numbers of Australian

troops, who had the habit of thinking of all Asiatics as "blackfellows,"

and whose ways of dealing with "blackfellows" were not of the gentlest.

The seed was thus sown of a passionate hatred, partly just and partly

unjust; and feeling was already ripe for explosion when it transpired at

the end of the war that the British Government had no apparent intention

of fulfilling their promise to confer on Egypt "free institutions." Open

rebellion was impossible, owing to the presence of overpowering numbers

of British troops; but a time of danger and infinite trouble, well

controlled by Lord Allenby, led at last to the appointment of a

Commission under Lord Milner, which grasped its almost desperate problem

with great courage and skill.

Among other curious misfortunes, it turned out that the word

"protectorate" had been translated into Arabic by a term which denoted

the sort of protection that is extended to an outcast or a person with

no national rights. The Commissioners were met on their arrival by a

universal boycott, and by constant threats of assassination. They lived

in considerable danger, and no Egyptian would be seen speaking to them.

But tact and patience gradually broke down the boycott; and a much

larger measure of agreement was obtained with Zaghlul and the moderate

Nationalists than had at the outset seemed possible. After inquiry, the

Commission has taken the line of recommending, first, the cancellation

of the Capitulations, or special privileges granted to European states,

which have paralyzed the progress of Egypt for several generations; the

separation from Egypt of the Canal zone, as a special British interest

and of vital importance to the Empire; the retention of British advisers

in two posts, the ministries of Justice and of Finance--a safeguard

without which the European Powers would not consent to forgo the special

protection of the Capitulations; and in other respects the establishment

of Egypt as an independent national state. As far as is possible to

forecast, it looks as if this settlement would succeed.

The history of recent events in India is too large and complicated a

subject to be dealt with here. But in its main outline it has been

curiously similar to that of the other regions of the East. A wonderful

response from almost the whole continent to the need of Great Britain

during the war; blunders of the War Office and reactions of discontent;

German propaganda; Turkish and Pan-Islamic intrigue; repressive Press

Acts and Conspiracy Acts; passive resistance, dangerous riots, and

widespread conspiracies; the severe and sometimes lawless coercion of

the Punjab; the savage massacre of Amritsar, and at last, amid great

obstructions and hesitations, the passing of the Montagu-Chelmsford Act

and the conferring of a new and liberal constitution upon India. It is

the same story as in Egypt and Mesopotamia. So much time was wasted in

doing the wrong thing, that when at last resort was had to the right

thing the right time was past. The Indian Government was faced with

great difficulties and very real dangers. Its errors have been so signal

and notorious that public opinion is apt to forget or ignore the

admirable skill and patience with which most officials steered their

districts through periods of extreme strain. But reforms long promised

were delayed until too late. The executive plunged into excesses which

will not be forgotten for centuries. And when the long-hoped-for reforms

at last have come, it may be that they come to a people too exasperated

to give them a fair trial.

II. AN EASTERN POLICY

The policies here described have been so full of errors that it is hard

to derive from them a very clear moral. Government without principle

has many conveniences; if life consisted of isolated moments it might be

entirely successful. But life is continuous, and human beings have

memories and expectations. And almost any policy that is continuous and

consistent and true to itself is more likely to succeed in the end than

a mixture of momentary expedients and plunges for safety. It is

conceivable that a perfectly resolute and unfaltering military coercion

of India, Egypt, and Mesopotamia might have succeeded. But such a

policy, if it was ever possible, is certainly so no longer; and also it

would hardly be a policy for avoiding international strife. And that is

the subject we are considering.

If we look below the mistakes of policy and administration committed by

the British or French Governments, we find underneath the surface a

profound and instinctive resentment of the Moslem East against the

Western Powers. The Western Powers, which for convenience we term

Christian, have been for some centuries far more efficient than any

Moslem state. The West has increasingly taken charge of the East;

beaten it, managed it, "run" it, governed it, and in some cases

exploited it. Western government, or at least British government, has

been just, incorruptible, impartial, strong, intelligent, far beyond

ordinary Eastern standards. It may have been unsympathetic and grossly

expensive; it may, in spite of the unexampled personal integrity of the

whole governing class, have led to the presence in Eastern countries of

undesirable money-seekers. But it has been, on the whole, essentially

and undeniably good, efficient government, backed by a military power

which committed few excesses, lived on its own pay, and never failed in

an emergency. No one who studies even superficially the history of

average Oriental governments, from Morocco or Bokhara to Oudh, can be

surprised or sorry that they have been superseded by the better

governments of the West. The peoples of the East themselves have gained

by Western penetration; nay, more, they are conscious of their need of

the West. But they have had too much of it; they resent it, and they

are frightened of it. The Moslem nations have lost their independence

one after another. At the beginning of the Great War only one Moslem

Power remained free and powerful--the Turkish Empire. At the end of the

war there was not one.

The Turks were not popular in the East. The Syrians and Arabs hated them

almost as much as their Christian subjects did. The Turkish peasants of

Anatolia suffered cruelly under the exactions of Constantinople,

especially in the matter of military service. But all through the Moslem

East ran the consciousness that the Sultan, with all his faults, was

their own man. He was the acknowledged Head of the great majority of

Moslems in the world. He was, above all, the last barrier that seemed to

protect them from the overwhelming flood of Western aggression, and the

last great Moslem figure which enabled them to preserve their

self-respect.

While the Turkish Empire stood, the Moslem peoples, though fallen on

evil days, could think of Islam as an independent and even an imperial

entity. In places, doubtless, they had to kiss the feet of dogs; but

their Caliph still ruled masses of Christian subject populations and

still was master of the capital city of the world. With the fall of

Turkey, the last free Moslem state was gone. Not here and there, but

everywhere throughout the whole world, the faithful were set beneath the

heel of these rich, drunken, pork-eating idolaters with their indecent

women, their three Gods, and their terrific material civilization.

"Pan-Islamism," as Mr. Toynbee says, "is only an extreme example of the

feeling at the back of almost any modern Oriental movement we may

examine. It may take aggressive forms, but the essence of it is a

defensive impulse. Its appeal is to fear, and if the fear of the West

could be lifted from off the minds of the Oriental peoples, its

mainspring would be gone."

The problem of our Eastern policy is to remove that fear. And that ought

not to be so very difficult. The essential fact to grasp is that the

East needs us far more than we need the East. We need markets; but that

idea is only suggested to us by the fact that Eastern peoples want our

goods. We do almost everything better than they do. They want our

textiles, our knives and tools, our engines and ploughs, our books, our

learning. They cannot make railways or ships without us. They cannot

work their mines or oil-wells except by Western help. They cannot really

govern their countries satisfactorily without European advisers. The

language of Article XXII of the League of Nations Covenant is quite

correct when it says that "Certain communities formerly belonging to the

Turkish Empire have reached a stage of development where their existence

as independent nations can be provisionally recognized, subject to the

rendering of administrative advice and assistance by a mandatory until

such time as they are able to stand alone." At present "they are not yet

able to stand by themselves under the strenuous conditions of the modern

world."

They ought to want us, and if left alone they would want us. We have

frightened them into fighting and hating us by forcing ourselves upon

them instead of waiting to be asked. We have conferred incalculable

benefits on India: the benefit of protection from invasion, of

comparative protection from plague and famine, of social order, of

administrative justice, to say nothing of roads and railways, and the

enlivening force of Western knowledge. We have immensely increased the

prosperity of Egypt, we have put down all kinds of Oriental abuses and

protected the fellaheen against _corvées_ and extortions and tortures.

We were in process of beginning to perform the same services for

Mesopotamia. But in the latter regions at any rate--for in India our

roots are far deeper and the problem is more complex--the people did not

want us. We only held them and did them good by force. And the chief

reason why they did not want us was fear. We came to them with machine

guns and bombing planes as conquerors and masters, having destroyed the

only free Moslem Power; and they found it difficult to believe in our

good intentions. We came to them, most unfortunately, also with

specious promises which we made in time of need and broke in the days

of victory.

The right policy is something very easy to state and extremely difficult

to carry out, even for a single-minded and clear-headed Government. It

needs first, perhaps, an effort of imaginative understanding more

far-reaching than has ever yet in history been demanded of an Imperial

Power. Only those who understand the East can win the respect and

confidence of the East. But in the meantime, if we cannot fully

understand, there is a way at least to make ourselves understood.

Justice is the passport to confidence all the world over. And our first

business is to act quite simply and sincerely up to all our engagements.

We undertook certain obligations when we signed Article XXII of the

Covenant. We should make the "wishes of these communities a principal

consideration" in deciding whether we should go to them at all. We

should really treat them "as independent nations," and should honestly

give them "administrative advice and assistance until they shall be able

to stand alone." And we should not allow our minds to be confused by

thoughts of gain, nor our advice to take the form of horse, foot, and

artillery. Two illustrations may make this point clear. An experienced

and very successful administrator was asked a few weeks ago whether he

would accept the post of adviser to a certain Moslem Government. He

said, "Yes, upon one condition. That there is no British army anywhere

in the country." That is the right and wise spirit. The second is even

simpler. One of the most obvious and matter-of-course obligations laid

upon imperial administrators and civil servants is that they shall not

embark in trade or in any way make a profit out of the administration of

their office. That is the right rule. The Empire should set an example

of the behaviour that it expects from its best servants.

When we apportioned to ourselves the German colonies, we specially

declined to take over their public debts. And when protest was raised

against this proceeding, we stated definitely in our official Reply: "It

would be unjust to make this responsibility rest on the Mandatory

Powers, which, in so far as they may be appointed trustees by the League

of Nations, will derive no benefit from such trusteeship." Is it

entirely quixotic and idealist to hope that, even in post-war

conditions, a great nation may remain true to her word?

It seems at least as if the only alternative was to hold these Eastern

territories by armed force, and that is no longer possible. It might be

possible to hold by force India alone, or Egypt alone, or Mesopotamia

alone. It is not possible so to hold all three. We must govern by

consent of the governed or not all.