_July, 1894._
[The following article was requested by the Editor of the "North
American Review," as one of a number, by several persons, dealing
with the question of a formal political connection, proposed by
Mr. Andrew Carnegie, between the United States and the British
Empire, for the advancement of the general interests of the
English-speaking peoples. The projects advocated by previous
writers embraced: 1, a federate union; 2, a merely naval union or
alliance; or, 3, a defensive alliance of a kind frequent in
political history.]
The words "kinship" and "alliance" express two radically distinct
ideas, and rest, for both the privileges and the obligations involved
in them, upon foundations essentially different. The former represents
a natural relation, the latter one purely conventional,--even though
it may result from the feelings, the mutual interests, and the sense
of incumbent duty attendant upon the other. In its very etymology,
accordingly, is found implied that sense of constraint, of an
artificial bond, that may prove a source, not only of strength, but of
irksomeness as well. Its analogue in our social conditions is the
marriage tie,--the strongest, doubtless, of all bonds when it realizes
in the particular case the supreme affection of which our human nature
is capable; but likewise, as daily experience shows, the most fretting
when, through original mistake or unworthy motive, love fails, and
obligation alone remains.
Personally, I am happy to believe that the gradual but, as I think,
unmistakable growth of mutual kindly feelings between Great Britain
and the United States during these latter years--and of which the
recent articles of Sir George Clarke and Mr. Arthur Silva White in the
"North American Review" are pleasant indications--is a sure evidence
that a common tongue and common descent are making themselves felt,
and are breaking down the barriers of estrangement which have
separated too long men of the same blood. There is seen here the
working of kinship,--a wholly normal result of a common origin, the
natural affection of children of the same descent, who have quarrelled
and have been alienated with the proverbial bitterness of civil
strife, but who all along have realized--or at the least have been
dimly conscious--that such a state of things is wrong and harmful. As
a matter of sentiment only, this reviving affection well might fix the
serious attention of those who watch the growth of world questions,
recognizing how far imagination and sympathy rule the world; but when,
besides the powerful sentimental impulse, it is remembered that
beneath considerable differences of political form there lie a common
inherited political tradition and habit of thought, that the moral
forces which govern and shape political development are the same in
either people, the possibility of a gradual approach to concerted
action becomes increasingly striking. Of all the elements of the
civilization that has spread over Europe and America, none is so
potential for good as that singular combination of two essential but
opposing factors--of individual freedom with subjection to law--which
finds its most vigorous working in Great Britain and the United
States, its only exponents in which an approach to a due balance has
been effected. Like other peoples, we also sway between the two,
inclining now to one side, now to the other; but the departure from
the normal in either direction is never very great.
There is yet another noteworthy condition common to the two states,
which must tend to incline them towards a similar course of action in
the future. Partners, each, in the great commonwealth of nations which
share the blessings of European civilization, they alone, though in
varying degrees, are so severed geographically from all existing
rivals as to be exempt from the burden of great land armies; while at
the same time they must depend upon the sea, in chief measure, for
that intercourse with other members of the body upon which national
well-being depends. How great an influence upon the history of Great
Britain has been exerted by this geographical isolation is
sufficiently understood. In her case the natural tendency has been
increased abnormally by the limited territorial extent of the British
Islands, which has forced the energies of their inhabitants to seek
fields for action outside their own borders; but the figures quoted by
Sir George Clarke sufficiently show that the same tendency, arising
from the same cause, does exist and is operative in the United States,
despite the diversion arising from the immense internal domain not yet
fully occupied, and the great body of home consumers which has been
secured by the protective system. The geographical condition, in
short, is the same in kind, though differing in degree, and must impel
in the same direction. To other states the land, with its privileges
and its glories, is the chief source of national prosperity and
distinction. To Great Britain and the United States, if they rightly
estimate the part they may play in the great drama of human progress,
is intrusted a maritime interest, in the broadest sense of the word,
which demands, as one of the conditions of its exercise and its
safety, the organized force adequate to control the general course of
events at sea; to maintain, if necessity arise, not arbitrarily, but
as those in whom interest and power alike justify the claim to do so,
the laws that shall regulate maritime warfare. This is no mere
speculation, resting upon a course of specious reasoning, but is based
on the teaching of the past. By the exertion of such force, and by the
maintenance of such laws, and by these means only, Great Britain, in
the beginning of this century, when she was the solitary power of the
seas, saved herself from destruction, and powerfully modified for the
better the course of history.
With such strong determining conditions combining to converge the two
nations into the same highway, and with the visible dawn of the day
when this impulse begins to find expression in act, the question
naturally arises, What should be the immediate course to be favored by
those who hail the growing light, and would hasten gladly the perfect
day? That there are not a few who seek a reply to this question is
evidenced by the articles of Mr. Carnegie, of Sir George Clarke, and
of Mr. White, all appearing within a short time in the pages of the
"North American Review." And it is here, I own, that, though desirous
as any one can be to see the fact accomplished, I shrink from
contemplating it, under present conditions, in the form of an
alliance, naval or other. Rather I should say: Let each nation be
educated to realize the length and breadth of its own interest in the
sea; when that is done, the identity of these interests will become
apparent. This identity cannot be established firmly in men's minds
antecedent to the great teacher, Experience; and experience cannot be
had before that further development of the facts which will follow the
not far distant day, when the United States people must again betake
themselves to the sea and to external action, as did their forefathers
alike in their old home and in the new.
There are, besides, questions in which at present doubt, if not even
friction, might arise as to the proper sphere of each nation,
agreement concerning which is essential to cordial co-operation; and
this the more, because Great Britain could not be expected reasonably
to depend upon our fulfilment of the terms of an alliance, or to yield
in points essential to her own maritime power, so long as the United
States is unwilling herself to assure the security of the positions
involved by the creation of an adequate force. It is just because in
that process of adjusting the parts to be played by each nation, upon
which alone a satisfactory cooperation can be established, a certain
amount of friction is probable, that I would avoid all premature
striving for alliance, an artificial and possibly even an irritating
method of reaching the desired end. Instead, I would dwell continually
upon those undeniable points of resemblance in natural characteristics,
and in surrounding conditions, which testify to common origin and
predict a common destiny. Cast the seed of this thought into the
ground, and it will spring and grow up, you know not how,--first the
blade, then the ear, then the full corn in the ear. Then you may put
in your sickle and reap the harvest of political result, which as yet
is obviously immature. How quietly and unmarked, like the slow
processes of nature, such feelings may be wrought into the very being
of nations, was evidenced by the sudden and rapid rising of the North
at the outbreak of our civil war, when the flag was fired upon at Fort
Sumter. Then was shown how deeply had sunk into the popular heart the
devotion to the Union and the flag, fostered by long dwelling upon the
ideas, by innumerable Fourth of July orations, often doubtless
vainglorious, sometimes perhaps grotesque, but whose living force and
overwhelming results were vividly apparent, as the fire leaped from
hearthstone to hearthstone throughout the Northern States. Equally in
the South was apparent how tenacious and compelling was the grip which
the constant insistence upon the predominant claim of the State upon
individual loyalty had struck into the hearts of her sons. What paper
bonds, treaties, or alliances could have availed then to hold together
people whose ideals had drifted so far apart, whose interests, as each
at that time saw them, had become so opposed?
Although I am convinced firmly that it would be to the interest of
Great Britain and the United States, and for the benefit of the world,
that the two nations should act together cordially on the seas, I am
equally sure that the result not only must be hoped but also quietly
waited for, while the conditions upon which such cordiality depends
are being realized by men. All are familiar with the idea conveyed by
the words "forcing process." There are things that cannot be forced,
processes which cannot be hurried, growths which are strong and noble
in proportion as they imbibe slowly the beneficent influence of the
sun and air in which they are bathed. How far the forcing process can
be attempted by an extravagant imagination, and what the inevitable
recoil of the mind you seek to take by storm, is amusingly shown by
Mr. Carnegie's "Look Ahead," and by the demur thereto of so ardent a
champion of Anglo-American alliance--on terms which appear to me to
be rational though premature--as Sir George Clarke. A country with a
past as glorious and laborious as that of Great Britain, unprepared
as yet, as a whole, to take a single step forward toward reunion,
is confronted suddenly--as though the temptation must be
irresistible--with a picture of ultimate results which I will not
undertake to call impossible (who can say what is impossible?), but
which certainly deprives the nation of much, if not all, the
hard-wrought achievement of centuries. Disunion, loss of national
identity, changes of constitution more than radical, the exchange of a
world-wide empire for a subordinate part in a great federation,--such
_may_ be the destiny of Great Britain in the distant future. I know
not; but sure I am, were I a citizen of Great Britain, the prospect
would not allure me now to move an inch in such a direction. Surely in
vain the net is spread in the sight of any bird.
The suggestions of Sir George Clarke and of Mr. White are not open to
the reproach of repelling those whom they seek to convince. They are
clear, plain, business-like propositions, based upon indisputable
reasons of mutual advantage, and in the case of the former quickened,
as I have the pleasure of knowing through personal acquaintance, by a
more than cordial good-will and breadth of view in all that relates to
the United States. Avoiding criticism of details--of which I have
little to offer--my objection to them is simply that I do not think
the time is yet ripe. The ground is not prepared yet in the hearts and
understandings of Americans, and I doubt whether in those of British
citizens. Both proposals contemplate a naval alliance, though on
differing terms. The difficulty is that the United States, as a
nation, does not realize or admit as yet that it has any strong
interest in the sea; and that the great majority of our people rest
firmly in a belief, deep rooted in the political history of our past,
that our ambitions should be limited by the three seas that wash our
eastern, western, and southern coasts. For myself, I believe that
this, once a truth, can be considered so no longer with reference even
to the present--much less to a future so near that it scarcely needs a
prophet's eye to read; but even if it be but a prejudice, it must be
removed before a further step can be taken. In our country national
policy, if it is to be steadfast and consistent, must be identical
with public conviction. The latter, when formed, may remain long
quiescent; but given the appointed time, it will spring to mighty
action--aye, to arms--as did the North and the South under their
several impulses in 1861.
It is impossible that one who sees in the sea--in the function which
it discharges towards the world at large--the most potent factor in
national prosperity and in the course of history, should not desire a
change in the mental attitude of our countrymen towards maritime
affairs. The subject presents itself not merely as one of national
importance, but as one concerning the world's history and the welfare
of mankind, which are bound up, so far as we can see, in the security
and strength of that civilization which is identified with Europe and
its offshoots in America. For what, after all, is our not unjustly
vaunted European and American civilization? An oasis set in the midst
of a desert of barbarism, rent with many intestine troubles, and
ultimately dependent, not upon its mere elaboration of organization,
but upon the power of that organization to express itself in a
menacing and efficient attitude of physical force, sufficient to
resist the numerically overwhelming, but inadequately organized hosts
of outsiders. Under present conditions these are diked off by the
magnificent military organizations of Europe, which also as yet cope
successfully with the barbarians within. Of what the latter are
capable--at least in will--we have from time to time, and not least of
late, terrific warnings, to which men scarcely can shut their eyes and
ears; but sufficient attention hardly is paid to the possible dangers
from those outside, who are wholly alien to the spirit of our
civilization; nor do men realize how essential to the conservation of
that civilization is the attitude of armed watchfulness between
nations, which is maintained now by the great states of Europe. Even
if we leave out of consideration the invaluable benefit to society, in
this age of insubordination and anarchy, that so large a number of
youth, at the most impressionable age, receive the lessons of
obedience, order, respect for authority and law, by which military
training conveys a potent antidote to lawlessness, it still would
remain a mistake, plausible but utter, to see in the hoped-for
subsidence of the military spirit in the nations of Europe a pledge of
surer progress of the world towards universal peace, general material
prosperity, and ease. That alluring, albeit somewhat ignoble, ideal is
not to be attained by the representatives of civilization dropping
their arms, relaxing the tension of their moral muscle, and from
fighting animals becoming fattened cattle fit only for slaughter.
When Carthage fell, and Rome moved onward, without an equal enemy
against whom to guard, to the dominion of the world of Mediterranean
civilization, she approached and gradually realized the reign of
universal peace, broken only by those intestine social and political
dissensions which are finding their dark analogues in our modern times
of infrequent war. As the strife between nations of that civilization
died away, material prosperity, general cultivation and luxury,
flourished, while the weapons dropped nervelessly from their palsied
arms. The genius of Cæsar, in his Gallic and Germanic campaigns, built
up an outside barrier, which, like a dike, for centuries postponed the
inevitable end, but which also, like every artificial barrier, gave
way when the strong masculine impulse which first created it had
degenerated into that worship of comfort, wealth, and general
softness, which is the ideal of the peace prophets of to-day. The wave
of the invaders broke in,--the rain descended, the floods came, the
winds blew, and beat upon the house, and it fell, because not founded
upon the rock of virile reliance upon strong hands and brave hearts to
defend what was dear to them.
Ease unbroken, trade uninterrupted, hardship done away, all roughness
removed from life,--these are our modern gods; but can they deliver
us, should we succeed in setting them up for worship? Fortunately, as
yet we cannot do so. We may, if we will, shut our eyes to the vast
outside masses of aliens to our civilization, now powerless because we
still, with a higher material development, retain the masculine
combative virtues which are their chief possession; but, even if we
disregard them, the ground already shakes beneath our feet with
physical menace of destruction from within, against which the only
security is in constant readiness to contend. In the rivalries of
nations, in the accentuation of differences, in the conflict of
ambitions, lies the preservation of the martial spirit, which alone is
capable of coping finally with the destructive forces that from
outside and from within threaten to submerge all the centuries have
gained.
It is not then merely, nor even chiefly, a pledge of universal peace
that may be seen in the United States becoming a naval power of
serious import, with clearly defined external ambitions dictated by
the necessities of her interoceanic position; nor yet in the cordial
co-operation, as of kindred peoples, that the future may have in store
for her and Great Britain. Not in universal harmony, nor in fond
dreams of unbroken peace, rest now the best hopes of the world, as
involved in the fate of European civilization. Rather in the
competition of interests, in that reviving sense of nationality, which
is the true antidote to what is bad in socialism, in the jealous
determination of each people to provide first for its own, of which
the tide of protection rising throughout the world, whether
economically an error or not, is so marked a symptom--in these jarring
sounds which betoken that there is no immediate danger of the leading
peoples turning their swords into ploughshares--are to be heard the
assurance that decay has not touched yet the majestic fabric erected
by so many centuries of courageous battling. In this same pregnant
strife the United States doubtless will be led, by undeniable
interests and aroused national sympathies, to play a part, to cast
aside the policy of isolation which befitted her infancy, and to
recognize that, whereas once to avoid European entanglement was
essential to the development of her individuality, now to take her
share of the travail of Europe is but to assume an inevitable task, an
appointed lot, in the work of upholding the common interests of
civilization. Our Pacific slope, and the Pacific colonies of Great
Britain, with an instinctive shudder have felt the threat, which able
Europeans have seen in the teeming multitudes of central and northern
Asia; while their overflow into the Pacific Islands shows that not
only westward by land, but also eastward by sea, the flood may sweep.
I am not careful, however, to search into the details of a great
movement, which indeed may never come, but whose possibility, in
existing conditions, looms large upon the horizon of the future, and
against which the only barrier will be the warlike spirit of the
representatives of civilization. Whate'er betide, Sea Power will play
in those days the leading part which it has in all history, and the
United States by her geographical position must be one of the
frontiers from which, as from a base of operations, the Sea Power of
the civilized world will energize.
For this seemingly remote contingency preparation will be made, if men
then shall be found prepared, by a practical recognition now of
existing conditions--such as those mentioned in the opening of this
paper--and acting upon that knowledge. Control of the sea, by maritime
commerce and naval supremacy, means predominant influence in the
world; because, however great the wealth product of the land, nothing
facilitates the necessary exchanges as does the sea. The fundamental
truth concerning the sea--perhaps we should rather say the water--is
that it is Nature's great medium of communication. It is improbable
that control ever again will be exercised, as once it was, by a single
nation. Like the pettier interests of the land, it must be competed
for, perhaps fought for. The greatest of the prizes for which nations
contend, it too will serve, like other conflicting interests, to keep
alive that temper of stern purpose and strenuous emulation which is
the salt of the society of civilized states, whose unity is to be
found, not in a flat identity of conditions--the ideal of
socialism--but in a common standard of moral and intellectual ideas.
Also, amid much that is shared by all the nations of European
civilization, there are, as is universally recognized, certain radical
differences of temperament and character, which tend to divide them
into groups having the marked affinities of a common origin. When, as
frequently happens on land, the members of these groups are
geographically near each other, the mere proximity seems, like similar
electricities, to develop repulsions which render political variance
the rule and political combination the exception. But when, as is the
case with Great Britain and the United States, the frontiers are
remote, and contact--save in Canada--too slight to cause political
friction, the preservation, advancement, and predominance of the race
may well become a political ideal, to be furthered by political
combination, which in turn should rest, primarily, not upon cleverly
constructed treaties, but upon natural affection and a clear
recognition of mutual benefit arising from working together. If the
spirit be there, the necessary machinery for its working will not pass
the wit of the race to provide; and in the control of the sea, the
beneficent instrument that separates us that we may be better friends,
will be found the object that neither the one nor the other can
master, but which may not be beyond the conjoined energies of the
race. When, if ever, an Anglo-American alliance, naval or other, does
come, may it be rather as a yielding to irresistible popular impulse
than as a scheme, however ingeniously wrought, imposed by the
adroitness of statesmen.
We may, however, I think, dismiss from our minds the belief, frequently
advanced, and which is advocated so ably by Sir George Clarke, that
such mutual support would tend in the future to exempt maritime
commerce in general from the harassment which it hitherto has undergone
in war. I shall have to try for special clearness here in stating my
own views, partly because to some they may appear retrogressive, and
also because they may be thought by others to contradict what I have
said elsewhere, in more extensive and systematic treatment of this
subject.
The alliance which, under one form or another,--either as a naval
league, according to Sir George, or as a formal treaty, according to
Mr. White,--is advocated by both writers, looks ultimately and chiefly
to the contingency of war. True, a leading feature of either proposal
is to promote good-will and avert causes of dissension between the two
contracting parties; but even this object is sought largely in order
that they may stand by each other firmly in case of difficulty with
other states. Thus even war may be averted more surely; but, should it
come, it would find the two united upon the ocean, consequently
all-powerful there, and so possessors of that mastership of the
general situation which the sea always has conferred upon its
unquestioned rulers. Granting the union of hearts and hands, the
supremacy, from my standpoint, logically follows. But why, then, if
supreme, concede to an enemy immunity for his commerce? "Neither Great
Britain nor America," says Sir George Clarke, though he elsewhere
qualifies the statement, "can see in the commerce of other peoples an
incentive to attack." Why not? For what purposes, primarily, do navies
exist? Surely not merely to fight one another,--to gain what Jomini
calls "the sterile glory" of fighting battles in order to win them. If
navies, as all agree, exist for the protection of commerce, it
inevitably follows that in war they must aim at depriving their enemy
of that great resource; nor is it easy to conceive what broad military
use they can subserve that at all compares with the protection and
destruction of trade. This Sir George indeed sees, for he says
elsewhere, "Only on the principle of doing the utmost injury to an
enemy, with a view to hasten the issue of war, can commerce-destroying
be justified;" but he fails, I think, to appreciate the full
importance of this qualifying concession, and neither he nor Mr. White
seems to admit the immense importance of commerce-destroying, as such.
The mistake of both, I think, lies in not keeping clearly in
view--what both certainly perfectly understand--the difference between
the _guerre-de-course_, which is inconclusive, and commerce-destroying
(or commerce prevention) through strategic control of the sea by
powerful navies. Some nations more than others, but all maritime
nations more or less, depend for their prosperity upon maritime
commerce, and probably upon it more than upon any other single factor.
Either under their own flag or that of a neutral, either by foreign
trade or coasting trade, the sea is the greatest of boons to such a
state; and under every form its sea-borne trade is at the mercy of a
foe decisively superior.
Is it, then, to be expected that such foe will forego such
advantage,--will insist upon spending blood and money in fighting, or
money in the vain effort of maintaining a fleet which, having nothing
to fight, also keeps its hands off such an obvious means of crippling
the opponent and forcing him out of his ports? Great Britain's navy,
in the French wars, not only protected her own commerce, but also
annihilated that of the enemy; and both conditions--not one
alone--were essential to her triumph.
It is because Great Britain's sea power, though still superior, has
declined relatively to that of other states, and is no longer supreme,
that she has been induced to concede to neutrals the principle that
the flag covers the goods. It is a concession wrung from relative
weakness--or possibly from a mistaken humanitarianism; but, to
whatever due, it is all to the profit of the neutral and to the loss
of the stronger belligerent. The only justification, in policy, for
its yielding by the latter, is that she can no longer, as formerly,
bear the additional burden of hostility, if the neutral should ally
himself to the enemy. I have on another occasion said that the
principle that the flag covers the goods is forever secured--meaning
thereby that, so far as present indications go, no one power would be
strong enough at sea to maintain the contrary by arms.
In the same way it may be asserted quite confidently that the
concession of immunity to what is unthinkingly called the "private
property" of an enemy on the sea, will never be conceded by a nation
or alliance confident in its own sea power. It has been the dream of
the weaker sea belligerents in all ages; and their arguments for it,
at the first glance plausible, are very proper to urge from their
point of view. That arch-robber, the first Napoleon, who so
remorselessly and exhaustively carried the principle of war sustaining
war to its utmost logical sequence, and even in peace scrupled not to
quarter his armies on subject countries, maintaining them on what,
after all, was simply private property of foreigners,--even he waxes
quite eloquent, and superficially most convincing, as he compares the
seizure of goods at sea, so fatal to his empire, to the seizure of a
wagon travelling an inland country road.
In all these contentions there lies, beneath the surface plausibility,
not so much a confusion of thought as a failure to recognize an
essential difference of conditions. Even on shore the protection of
private property rests upon the simple principle that injury is not to
be wanton,--that it is not to be inflicted when the end to be attained
is trivial, or largely disproportionate to the suffering caused. For
this reason personal property, not embarked in commercial venture, is
respected in civilized maritime war. Conversely, as we all know, the
rule on land is by no means invariable, and private property receives
scant consideration when its appropriation or destruction serves the
purposes of an enemy. The man who trudges the highway, cudgel in hand,
may claim for his cudgel all the sacredness with which civilization
invests property; but if he use it to break his neighbor's head, the
respect for his property, as such, quickly disappears. Now, private
property borne upon the seas is engaged in promoting, in the most
vital manner, the strength and resources of the nation by which it is
handled. When that nation becomes belligerent, the private property,
so called, borne upon the seas, is sustaining the well-being and
endurance of the nation at war, and consequently is injuring the
opponent, to an extent exceeding all other sources of national power.
In these days of war correspondents, most of us are familiar with the
idea of the dependence of an army upon its communications, and we
know, vaguely perhaps, but still we know, that to threaten or harm the
communications of an army is one of the most common and effective
devices of strategy. Why? Because severed from its base an army
languishes and dies, and when threatened with such an evil it must
fight at whatever disadvantage. Well, is it not clear that maritime
commerce occupies, to the power of a maritime state, the precise
nourishing function that the communications of an army supply to the
army? Blows at commerce are blows at the communications of the state;
they intercept its nourishment, they starve its life, they cut the
roots of its power, the sinews of its war. While war remains a factor,
a sad but inevitable factor, of our history, it is a fond hope that
commerce can be exempt from its operations, because in very truth
blows against commerce are the most deadly that can be struck; nor is
there any other among the proposed uses of a navy, as for instance the
bombardment of seaport towns, which is not at once more cruel and less
scientific. Blockade such as that enforced by the United States Navy
during the Civil War, is evidently only a special phase of
commerce-destroying; yet how immense--nay, decisive--its results!
It is only when effort is frittered away in the feeble dissemination
of the _guerre-de-course_, instead of being concentrated in a great
combination to control the sea, that commerce-destroying justly incurs
the reproach of misdirected effort. It is a fair deduction from
analogy, that two contending armies might as well agree to respect
each other's communications, as two belligerent states to guarantee
immunity to hostile commerce.