cannot be solved, says this treatise (_Idea for a Universal
History_), until the external relations of states are regulated
in accordance with principles of right. For, even if the ideal
internal constitution were attained, what end would it serve in the
evolution of humanity, if commonwealths themselves were to remain
like individuals in a state of nature, each existing in uncontrolled
freedom, a law unto himself? This condition of things again cannot
be permanent. Nature uses the same means as before to bring about a
state of law and order. War, present or near at hand, the strain
of constant preparation for a possible future campaign or the heavy
burden of debt and devastation left by the last,—these are the evils
which must drive states to leave a lawless, savage state of nature,
hostile to man’s inward development, and seek in union the end of
nature, peace. All wars are the attempts nature makes to bring about
new political relations between nations, relations which, in their
very nature, cannot be, and are not desired to be, permanent. These
combinations will go on succeeding each other, until at last a
federation of all powers is formed for the establishment of perpetual
peace. This is the end of humanity, demanded by reason. Justice
will reign, not only in the state, but in the whole human race when
perpetual peace exists between the nations of the world.
This is the point of view of the _Idea for a Universal History_. But
equally, we may say, law and justice will reign between nations,
when a legally and morally perfect constitution adorns the state.
External perpetual peace presupposes internal peace—peace civil,
social, economic, religious. Now, when men are perfect—and what
would this be but perfection—how can there be war? Cardinal Fleury’s
only objection—no light one—to St. Pierre’s project was that, as
even the most peace-loving could not avoid war, all men must first
be men of noble character. This seems to be what is required in
the treatise on _Perpetual Peace_. Kant demands, to a certain
extent, the moral regeneration of man. There must be perfect honesty
in international dealings, good faith in the interpretation and
fulfilment of treaties and so on (Art. 1)[55]: and again, every state
must have a republican constitution—a term by which Kant understands
a constitution as nearly as possible in accordance with the spirit
of right. (Art. 1.)[56] This is to say that we have to start with
our reformation at home, look first to the culture and education
and morals of our citizens, then to our foreign relations. This is
a question of self-interest as well as of ethics. On the civil and
religious liberty of a state depends its commercial success. Kant
saw the day coming, when industrial superiority was to be identified
with political pre-eminence. The state which does not look to the
enlightenment and liberty of its subjects must fail in the race. But
the advantages of a high state of civilisation are not all negative.
The more highly developed the individuals who form a state, the more
highly developed is its consciousness of its obligations to other
nations. In the ignorance and barbarism of races lies the great
obstacle to a reign of law among states. Uncivilised states cannot
be conceived as members of a federation of Europe. First, the
perfect civil constitution according to right: then the federation of
these law-abiding Powers. This is the path which reason marks out.
The treatise on _Perpetual Peace_ seems to be in this respect more
practical than the _Idea for a Universal History_. But it matters
little which way we take it. The point of view is the same in both
cases: the end remains the development of man towards good, the order
of his steps in this direction is indifferent.
[55] See p. 107.
[56] See p. 120.
_The Political and Social Conditions of Kant’s Time._
The history of the human race, viewed as a whole, Kant regards
as the realisation of a hidden plan of nature to bring about a
political constitution internally and externally perfect—the only
condition under which the faculties of man can be fully developed.
Does experience support this theory? Kant thought that, to a certain
degree, it did. This conviction was not, however, a fruit of his
experience of citizenship in Prussia, an absolute dynastic state,
a military monarchy waging perpetual dynastic wars of the kind he
most hotly condemned. Kant had no feeling of love to Prussia,[57]
and little of a citizen’s patriotic pride, or even interest, in its
political achievements. This was partly because of his sympathy with
republican doctrines: partly due to his love of justice and peculiar
hatred of war,[58] a hatred based, no doubt, not less on principle
than on a close personal experience of the wretchedness it brings
with it. It was not the political and social conditions in which he
lived which fostered Kant’s love of liberty and gave him inspiration,
unless in the sense in which the mind reacts upon surrounding
influences. Looking beyond Prussia to America, in whose struggle
for independence he took a keen interest, and looking to France
where the old dynastic monarchy had been succeeded by a republican
state, Kant seemed to see the signs of a coming democratisation of
the old monarchical society of Europe. In this growing influence on
the state of the mass of the people who had everything to lose in
war and little to gain by victory, he saw the guarantee of a future
perpetual peace. Other forces too were at work to bring about this
consummation. There was a growing consciousness that war, this costly
means of settling a dispute, is not even a satisfactory method of
settlement. Hazardous and destructive in its effect, it is also
uncertain in its results. Victory is not always gain; it no longer
signifies a land to be plundered, a people to be sold to slavery. It
brings fresh responsibilities to a nation, at a time when it is not
always strong enough to bear them. But, above all, Kant saw, even at
the end of the eighteenth century, the nations of Europe so closely
bound together by commercial interests that a war—and especially a
maritime war where the scene of conflict cannot be to the same extent
localised as on land—between any two of them could not but seriously
affect the prosperity of the others.[59] He clearly realised that
the spirit of commerce was the strongest force in the service of the
maintenance of peace, and that in it lay a guarantee of future union.
[57] Unlike Hegel whose ideal was the Prussian state, as it was
under Frederick the Great. An enthusiastic supporter of the power
of monarchy, he showed himself comparatively indifferent to the
progress of constitutional liberty.
[58] Isolated passages are sometimes quoted from Kant in support
of a theory that the present treatise is at least half ironical[A]
and that his views on the question of perpetual peace did not
essentially differ from those of Leibniz. “Even war,” he says,
(_Kritik d. Urteilskraft_, I. Book ii. § 28.) “when conducted in
an orderly way and with reverence for the rights of citizens has
something of the sublime about it, and the more dangers a nation
which wages war in this manner is exposed to and can courageously
overcome, the nobler does its character grow. While, on the other
hand, a prolonged peace usually has the effect of giving free
play to a purely commercial spirit, and side by side with this,
to an ignoble self-seeking, to cowardice and effeminacy; and the
result of this is generally a degradation of national character.”
[A] Cf. K. v. Stengel: _Der Ewige Friede_, Munich, 1899; also
Vaihinger: _Kantstudien_, Vol. IV., p. 58.
This is certainly an admission that war which does not violate
the Law of Nations has a good side as well as a bad. We could
look for no less in so clear-sighted and unprejudiced a thinker.
Kant would have been the first to admit that under certain
conditions a nation can have no higher duty than to wage war.
War is necessary, but it is in contradiction to reason and the
spirit of right. The “scourge of mankind,” “making more bad men
than it takes away,” the “destroyer of every good,” Kant calls it
elsewhere. (_Theory of Ethics_, Abbott’s trans., 4th ed., p. 341,
_note_.)
[59] Cf. _Idea for a Universal History_, Prop. 8; _Perpetual
Peace_, pp. 142, 157.
This scheme of a federation of the nations of the world, in
accordance with principles which would put an end to war between
them, was one whose interest for Kant seemed to increase during the
last twenty years of his life.[60] It was according to him an idea
of reason, and, in his first essay on the subject—that of 1784—we
see the place this ideal of a perpetual peace held in the Kantian
system of philosophy. Its realisation is the realisation of the
highest good—the ethical and political _summum bonum_, for here the
aims of morals and politics coincide: only in a perfect development
of his faculties in culture and in morals can man at last find true
happiness. History is working towards the consummation of this end. A
moral obligation lies on man to strive to establish conditions which
bring its realisation nearer. It is the duty of statesmen to form a
federative union as it was formerly the duty of individuals to enter
the state. The moral law points the way here as clearly as in the
sphere of pure ethics:—“Thou can’st, therefore thou ought’st.”
[60] The immediate stimulus to Kant’s active interest in this
subject as a practical question was the Peace of Basle (1795)
which ended the first stage in the series of wars which followed
the French Revolution.
Let us be under no misapprehension as to Kant’s attitude to the
problem of perpetual peace. It is an ideal. He states plainly that he
so regards it[61] and that as such it is unattainable. But this is
the essence of all ideals: they have not the less value in shaping
the life and character of men and nations on that account. They are
not ends to be realised but ideas according to which we must live,
regulative principles. We cannot, says Kant, shape our life better
than in acting as if such ideas of reason have objective validity and
there be an immortal life in which man shall live according to the
laws of reason, in peace with his neighbour and in freedom from the
trammels of sense.
[61] It is _eine unausführbare Idee_. See the passage quoted from
the _Rechtslehre_, p. 129, _note_.
Hence we are concerned here, not with an end, but with the means by
which we might best set about attaining it, if it were attainable.
This is the subject matter of the _Treatise on Perpetual Peace_
(1795), a less eloquent and less purely philosophical essay than that
of 1784, but throughout more systematic and practical. We have to do,
not with the favourite dream of philanthropists like St. Pierre and
Rousseau, but with a statement of the conditions on the fulfilment of
which the transition to a reign of peace and law depends.
_The Conditions of the Realisation of the Kantian Ideal._
These means are of two kinds. In the first place, what evils must
we set about removing? What are the negative conditions? And,
secondly, what are the general positive conditions which will make
the realisation of this idea possible and guarantee the permanence
of an international peace once attained? These negative and
positive conditions Kant calls Preliminary and Definitive Articles
respectively, the whole essay being carefully thrown into the form of
a treaty. The Preliminary Articles of a treaty for perpetual peace
are based on the principle that anything that hinders or threatens
the peaceful co-existence of nations must be abolished. These
conditions have been classified by Kuno Fischer. Kant, he points
out,[62] examines the principles of right governing the different
sets of circumstances in which nations find themselves—namely, (_a_)
while they are actually at war; (_b_) when the time comes to conclude
a treaty of peace; (_c_) when they are living in a state of peace.
The six Preliminary Articles fall naturally into these groups. War
must not be conducted in such a manner as to increase national
hatred and embitter a future peace. (Art. 6.)[63] The treaty which
brings hostilities to an end must be concluded in an honest desire
for peace. (Art. 1.)[64] Again a nation, when in a state of peace,
must do nothing to threaten the political independence of another
nation or endanger its existence, thereby giving the strongest of
all motives for a fresh war. A nation may commit this injury in
two ways: (1) indirectly, by causing danger to others through the
growth of its standing army (Art. 3)[65]—always a menace to the
state of peace—or by any unusual war preparations: and (2) through
too great a supremacy of another kind, by amassing money, the
most powerful of all weapons in warfare. The National Debt (Art.
4)[66] is another standing danger to the peaceful co-existence of
nations. But, besides, we have the danger of actual attack. There
is no right of intervention between nations. (Art. 5.)[67] Nor can
states be inherited or conquered (Art. 2),[68] or in any way treated
in a manner subversive of their independence and sovereignty as
individuals. For a similar reason, armed troops cannot be hired and
sold as things.
[62] _Geschichte der neueren Philosophie_, (4th ed., 1899), Vol.
V., I. Ch. 12, p. 168 _seq._
[63] See p. 114.
[64] See p. 107.
[65] See p. 110.
[66] See p. 111.
[67] See p. 112.
[68] See p. 108.
These then are the negative conditions of peace.[69] There are,
besides, three positive conditions:
[69] A large part of Kant’s requirements as they are expressed in
these Preliminary Articles has already been fulfilled. The first
(Art. 1) is recognised in theory at least by modern international
law. More cannot be said. A treaty of this kind is of necessity
more or less forced by the stronger on the weaker. The formal
ratification of peace in 1871 did not prevent France from longing
for the day when she might win back Alsace-Lorraine and be
revenged on Prussia. Not the treaty nor a consciousness of defeat
has kept the peace west of the Rhine, but a reluctant respect for
the fortress of Metz and the mighty army of united Germany.
Articles 2 and 6 are already commonplaces of international
law. Article 2 refers to practices which have not survived the
gradual disappearance of dynastic war. Art. 6 is the basis of
our modern law of war. Art. 3 has been fulfilled in the literal
sense that the standing armies composed of mercenary troops to
which Kant alludes exist no longer. But it is to be feared that
Kant would not think that we have made things much better, nor
regard our present system of progressive armaments as a step in
the direction of perpetual peace. Art. 4 is not likely to be
fulfilled in the near future. It is long since Cobden denounced
the institution of National Debts—an institution which, as Kant
points out, owes its origin to the English, the “commercial
people” referred to in the text. Art. 5 no doubt came to Kant
through Vattel. “No nation,” says the Swiss publicist, (_Law of
Nations_, II. Ch. iv. § 54) “has the least right to interfere
with the government of another,” unless, he adds, (Ch. v. §
70) in a case of anarchy or where the well-being of the human
race demands it. This is a recognised principle of modern
international law. Intervention is held to be justifiable only
where the obligation to respect another’s freedom of action comes
into conflict with the duty of self-preservation.
Puffendorf leaves much more room for the exercise of benevolence.
The natural affinity and kinship between men is, says he, (_Les
Devoirs de l’homme et du citoien_, II. Ch. xvi. § xi.) “a
sufficient reason to authorise us to take up defence of every
person whom one sees unjustly oppressed, when he implores our
aid _and when we can do it conveniently_.” (The italics are
mine.—[Tr.])
(_a_) The intercourse of nations is to be confined to a right of
hospitality. (Art. 3.)[70] There is nothing new to us in this
assertion of a right of way. The right to free means of international
communication has in the last hundred years become a commonplace of
law. And the change has been brought about, as Kant anticipated,
not through an abstract respect for the idea of right, but through
the pressure of purely commercial interests. Since Kant’s time
the nations of Europe have all been more or less transformed from
agricultural to commercial states whose interests run mainly in the
same direction, whose existence and development depend necessarily
upon “conditions of universal hospitality.” Commerce depends upon
this freedom of international intercourse, and on commerce mainly
depends our hope of peace.
[70] See p. 137. The main principle involved in this passage
comes from Vattel (_op. cit._, II. Ch. viii. §§ 104, 105: Ch. ix.
§§ 123, 125). A sovereign, he says, cannot object to a stranger
entering his state who at the same time respects its laws. No one
can be quite deprived of the right of way which has been handed
down from the time when the whole earth was common to all men.
(_b_) The first Definitive Article[71] requires that the constitution
of every state should be republican. What Kant understands by this
term is that, in the state, law should rule above force and that
its constitution should be a representative one, guaranteeing
public justice and based on the freedom and equality of its members
and their mutual dependence on a common legislature. Kant’s demand
is independent of the _form_ of the government. A constitutional
monarchy like that of Prussia in the time of Frederick the Great,
who regarded himself as the first servant of the state and ruled
with the wisdom and forethought which the nation would have had
the right to demand from such an one—such a monarchy is not in
contradiction to the idea of a true republic. That the state should
have a constitution in accordance with the principles of right is
the essential point.[72] To make this possible, the law-giving
power must lie with the representatives of the people: there must be
a complete separation, such as Locke and Rousseau demand, between
the legislature and executive. Otherwise we have despotism. Hence,
while Kant admitted absolutism under certain conditions, he rejected
democracy where, in his opinion, the mass of the people was despot.
[71] See p. 120.
[72] Kant believed that, in the newly formed constitution of the
United States, his ideal with regard to the external forms of
the state as conforming to the spirit of justice was most nearly
realised. Professor Paulsen draws attention, in the following
passage, to the fact that Kant held the English government of
the eighteenth century in very low esteem. (_Kant_, p. 357,
_note_. See Eng. trans., p. 352, _note_.) It was not the English
state, he says, which furnished Kant with an illustration of
his theory:—“Rather in it he sees a form of despotism only
slightly veiled, not Parliamentary despotism, as some people
have thought, but monarchical despotism. Through bribery of the
Commons and the Press, the King had actually absolute power, as
was evident, above all, from the fact that he had often waged war
without, and in defiance of, the will of the people. Kant has
a very unfavourable opinion of the English state in every way.
Among the collected notes written by him in the last ten years
of the century and published by Reicke (_Lose Blätter_, I. 129)
the following appears:—‘The English nation (_gens_) regarded as
a people (_populus_) and looked upon side by side with other
races is, as a collection of individuals, of all mankind the
most highly to be esteemed. But as a state, compared with other
states, it is the most destructive, high-handed and tyrannical,
and the most provocative of war among them all.’”
Kuno Fischer (_op. cit._, Vol. V., I. Ch. 11, pp. 150, 151) to
whom Professor Paulsen’s reference may here perhaps allude,
states that Kant’s objection to the English constitution is that
it was an oligarchy, Parliament being not only a legislative
body, but through its ministers also executive in the interests
of the ruling party or even of private individuals in that party.
It seems more likely that what most offended a keen observer of
the course of the American War of Independence was the arbitrary
and ill-directed power of the king. But see the passage quoted
by Fischer (pp. 152, 153) from the _Rechtslehre_ (Part II. Sect.
I.) which is, he says, unmistakeably directed against the English
constitution and certain temporary conditions in the political
history of the country.
An internal constitution, firmly established on the principles of
right, would not only serve to kill the seeds of national hatred and
diminish the likelihood of foreign war. It would do more: it would
destroy sources of revolution and discontent within the state. Kant,
like many writers on this subject, does not directly allude to civil
war[73] and the means by which it may be prevented or abolished.
Actually to achieve this would be impossible: it is beyond the
power of either arbitration or disarmament. But in a representative
government and the liberty of a people lie the greatest safeguards
against internal discontent. Civil peace and international peace must
to a certain extent go hand in hand.
[73] St. Pierre actually thought that his federation would
prevent civil war. See _Project_ (1714), p. 16.
We come now to the central idea of the treatise: (_c_) the law of
nations must be based upon a federation of free states. (Art. 2.)[74]
This must be regarded as the end to which mankind is advancing. The
problem here is not out of many nations to make one. This would
be perhaps the surest way to attain peace, but it is scarcely
practicable, and, in certain forms, it is undesirable. Kant is
inclined to approve of the separation of nations by language and
religion, by historical and social tradition and physical boundaries:
nature seems to condemn the idea of a universal monarchy.[75] The
only footing on which a thorough-going, indubitable system of
international law is in practice possible is that of the society
of nations: not the world-republic[76] the Greeks dreamt of, but a
federation of states. Such a union in the interests of perpetual
peace between nations would be the “highest political good.” The
relation of the federated states to one another and to the whole
would be fixed by cosmopolitan law: the link of self-interest which
would bind them would again be the spirit of commerce.
[74] See p. 128.
[75] This was the ideal of Dante. Cf. _De Monarchia_, Bk. I.
54:—“We shall not find at any time except under the divine
monarch Augustus, when a perfect monarchy existed, that the world
was everywhere quiet.”
Bluntschli (_Theory of the State_, I. Ch. ii., p. 26 _seq._)
gives an admirable account of the different attempts made to
realise a universal empire in the past—the Empire of Alexander
the Great, based upon a plan of uniting the races of east and
west; the Roman Empire which sought vainly to stamp its national
character upon mankind; the Frankish Monarchy; the Holy Roman
Empire which fell to pieces through the want of a central
power strong enough to overcome the tendency to separation and
nationalisation; and finally the attempt of Napoleon I., whose
mistake was the same as that which wrecked the Roman Empire—a
neglect of the strength of foreign national sentiment.
[76] Reason requires a State of nations. This is the ideal,
and Kant’s proposal of a federation of states is a practical
substitute from which we may work to higher things. Kant, like
Fichte, (_Werke_, VII. 467) strongly disapproves of a universal
monarchy such as that of which Dante dreamed—a modern Roman
Empire. The force of necessity, he says, will bring nations at
last to become members of a cosmopolitan state, “or if such a
state of universal peace proves (as has often been the case
with too great states) a greater danger to freedom from another
point of view, in that it introduces despotism of the most
terrible kind, then this same necessity must compel the nations
to enter a state which indeed has the form not of a cosmopolitan
commonwealth under one sovereign, but of a federation
regulated by legal principles determined by a common code of
international law.” (_Das mag in d. Theorie richtig sein_,
_Werke_, (Rosenkranz) VII., p. 225). Cf. also _Theory of Ethics_,
(Abbott), p. 341, _note_; _Perpetual Peace_, pp. 155, 156.
This scheme of a perpetual peace had not escaped ridicule in the
eighteenth century: the name of Kant protected it henceforth.
The facts of history, even more conclusively than the voices of
philosophers, soldiers and princes, show how great has been the
progress of this idea in recent years. But it has not gained its
present hold upon the popular mind without great and lasting
opposition. Indeed we have here what must still be regarded as a
controversial question. There have been, and are still, men who
regard perpetual peace as a state of things as undesirable as
it is unattainable. For such persons, war is a necessity of our
civilisation: it is impossible that it should ever cease to exist.
All that we can do, and there is no harm, nor any contradiction in
the attempt, is to make wars shorter, fewer and more humane: the
whole question, beyond this, is without practical significance.
Others, on the other hand,—and these perhaps more thoughtful—regard
war as hostile to culture, an evil of the worst kind, although a
necessary evil. In peace, for them, lies the true ideal of humanity,
although in any perfect form this cannot be realised in the near
future. The extreme forms of these views are to be sought in what has
been called in Germany “the philosophy of the barracks” which comes
forward with a glorification of war for its own sake, and in the
attitude of modern Peace Societies which denounce all war wholesale,
without respect of causes or conditions.
_Hegel, Schiller and Moltke._
Hegel, the greatest of the champions of war, would have nothing
to do with Kant’s federation of nations formed in the interests
of peace. The welfare of a state, he held, is its own highest
law; and he refused to admit that this welfare was to be sought
in an international peace. Hegel lived in an age when all power
and order seemed to lie with the sword. Something of the charm of
Napoleonism seems to hang over him. He does not go the length of
writers like Joseph de Maistre, who see in war the finger of God or
an arrangement for the survival of the fittest—a theory, as far as
regards individuals, quite in contradiction with the real facts,
which show that it is precisely the physically unfit whom war, as a
method of extermination, cannot reach. But, like Schiller and Moltke,
Hegel sees in war an educative instrument, developing virtues in a
nation which could not be fully developed otherwise, (much as pain
and suffering bring patience and resignation and other such qualities
into play in the individual), and drawing the nation together, making
each citizen conscious of his citizenship, as no other influence can.
War, he holds, leaves a nation always stronger than it was before;
it buries causes of inner dissension, and consolidates the internal
power of the state.[77] No other trial can, in the same way, show
what is the real strength and weakness of a nation, what it _is_, not
merely materially, but physically, intellectually and morally.
[77] See the _Philosophie d. Rechts_, (_Werke_, Vol. VIII.) Part
iii. § 324 and appendix.
With this last statement most people will be inclined to agree. There
is only a part of the truth in Napoleon’s dictum that “God is on
the side of the biggest battalions”; or in the old saying that war
requires three necessaries—in the first place, money; in the second
place, money; and in the third, money. Money is a great deal: it is a
necessity; but what we call national back-bone and character is more.
So far we are with Hegel. But he goes further. In peace, says he,
mankind would grow effeminate and degenerate in luxury. This opinion
was expressed in forcible language in his own time by Schiller,[78]
and in more recent years by Count Moltke. “Perpetual peace,” says
a letter of the great general,[79] “is a dream and not a beautiful
dream either: war is part of the divine order of the world. During
war are developed the noblest virtues which belong to man—courage
and self-denial, fidelity to duty and the spirit of self-sacrifice:
the soldier is called upon to risk his life. Without war the world
would sink in materialism.”[80] “Want and misery, disease, suffering
and war,” he says elsewhere, “are all given elements in the Divine
order of the universe.” Moltke’s eulogy of war, however, is somewhat
modified by his additional statement that “the greatest kindness in
war lies in its being quickly ended.” (Letter to Bluntschli, 11th
Dec., 1880.)[81] The great forces which we recognise as factors
in the moral regeneration of mankind are always slow of action as
they are sure. War, if too quickly over, could not have the great
moral influence which has been attributed to it. The explanation
may be that it is not all that it naturally appears to a great and
successful general. Hegel, Moltke, Trendelenburg, Treitschke[82]
and the others—not Schiller[83] who was able to sing the blessings
of peace as eloquently as of war—were apt to forget that war is as
efficient a school for forming vices as virtues; and that, moreover,
those virtues which military life is said to cultivate—courage,
self-sacrifice and the rest—can be at least as perfectly developed in
other trials. There are in human life dangers every day bravely met
and overcome which are not less terrible than those which face the
soldier, in whom patriotism may be less a sentiment than a duty, and
whose cowardice must be dearly paid.
[78] Cf. _Die Braut von Messina_:—
“Denn der Mensch verkümmert im Frieden,
Müssige Ruh’ ist das Grab des Muths.
Das Gesetz ist der Freund des Schwachen,
Alles will es nur eben machen,
Möchte gerne die Welt verflachen;
Aber der Krieg lässt die Kraft erscheinen,
Alles erhebt er zum Ungemeinen,
Selber dem Feigen erzeugt er den Muth.”
This passage perhaps scarcely gives a fair representation of
Schiller’s views on the question, which, if we judge from
_Wilhelm Tell_, must have been very moderate. War, he says, in
this oft-quoted passage, is sometimes a necessity. There is
a limit to the power of tyranny and, when the burden becomes
unbearable, an appeal to Heaven and the sword.
_Wilhelm Tell_: Act. II. Sc. 2.
“Nein, eine Grenze hat Tyrannenmacht.
Wenn der Gedrückte nirgends Recht kann finden,
Wenn unerträglich wird die Last greift er
Hinauf getrosten Muthes in den Himmel
Und holt herunter seine ew’gen Rechte,
Die droben hangen unveräusserlich
Und unzerbrechlich, wie die Sterne selbst—
Der alte Urstand der Natur kehrt wieder,
Wo Mensch dem Menschen gegenüber steht—
Zum letzten Mittel, wenn kein andres mehr
Verfangen will, ist ihm das Schwert gegeben.”
[79] Letter to Bluntschli, dated Berlin, 11th Dec., 1880
(published in Bluntschli’s _Gesammelte Kleine Schriften_, Vol.
II., p. 271).
[80] Cf. Tennyson’s _Maud_: Part I., vi. and xiii.
“Why do they prate of the blessings of Peace? we have made them a curse,
Pickpockets, each hand lusting for all that is not its own;
And lust of gain, in the spirit of Cain, is it better or worse
Than the heart of the citizen hissing in war on his own hearthstone?
For I trust if an enemy’s fleet came yonder round by the hill,
And the rushing battle-bolt sang from the three-decker out of the foam,
That the smooth-faced snub-nosed rogue would leap from his counter and till,
And strike, if he could, were it but with his cheating yardwand, home.”
See too Part III., ii. and iv.
“And it was but a dream, yet it lighten’d my despair
When I thought that a war would arise in defence of the right,
That an iron tyranny now should bend or cease,
The glory of manhood stand on his ancient height,
Nor Britain’s one sole God be the millionaire:
No more shall commerce be all in all, and Peace
Pipe on her pastoral hillock a languid note,
And watch her harvest ripen, her herd increase,
Nor the cannon-bullet rest on a slothful shore,
And the cobweb woven across the cannon’s throat
Shall shake its threaded tears in the wind no more.
Let it go or stay, so I wake to the higher aims
Of a land that has lost for a little her lust of gold,
And love of a peace that was full of wrongs and shames,
Horrible, hateful, monstrous, not to be told;
And hail once more to the banner of battle unroll’d!
Tho’ many a light shall darken, and many shall weep
For those that are crush’d in the clash of jarring claims,
For God’s just wrath shall be wreak’d on a giant liar;
And many a darkness into the light shall leap,
And shine in the sudden making of splendid names,
And noble thought be freer under the sun,
And the heart of a people beat with one desire.”
[81] Moltke strangely enough was, at an earlier period, of the
opinion that war, even when it is successful, is a national
misfortune. Cf. Kehrbach’s preface to Kant’s essay, _Zum Ewigen
Frieden_, p. XVII.
[82] See his discussion on constitutional monarchy in Germany.
(_Hist. u. Pol. Aufsätze_, Bd. III., p. 533 _seq._)
[83] See _Die Piccolomini_: Act. I. Sc. 4.
_War under Altered Conditions._
The Peace Societies of our century, untiring supporters of a point of
view diametrically opposite to that of Hegel, owe their existence
in the first place to new ideas on the subject of the relative
advantages and disadvantages of war, which again were partly due to
changes in the character of war itself, partly to a new theory that
the warfare of the future should be a war of free competition for
industrial interests, or, in Herbert Spencer’s language, that the
warlike type of mankind should make room for an industrial type.
This theory, amounting in the minds of some thinkers to a fervid
conviction, and itself, in a sense, the source of what has been
contemptuously styled our British “shopkeeper’s policy” in Europe,
was based on something more solid than mere enthusiasm. The years of
peace which followed the downfall of Napoleon had brought immense
increase in material wealth to countries like France and Britain.
Something of the glamour had fallen away from the sword of the great
Emperor. The illusive excitement of a desire for conquest had died:
the glory of war had faded with it, but the burden still remained:
its cost was still there, something to be calmly reckoned up and not
soon to be forgotten. Europe was seen to be actually moving towards
ruin. “We shall have to get rid of war in all civilised countries,”
said Louis Philippe in 1843. “Soon no nation will be able to afford
it.” War was not only becoming more costly. New conditions had
altered it in other directions. With the development of technical
science and its application to the perfecting of methods and
instruments of destruction every new war was found to be bloodier
than the last; and the day seemed to be in sight, when this very
development would make war (with instruments of extermination)
impossible altogether. The romance and picturesqueness with which
it was invested in the days of hand-to-hand combat was gone. But,
above all, war was now waged for questions fewer and more important
than in the time of Kant. Napoleon’s successful appeal to the masses
had suggested to Prussia the idea of consciously nationalising the
army. Our modern national wars exact a sacrifice, necessarily much
more heavy, much more reluctantly made than those of the past which
were fought with mercenary troops. Such wars have not only greater
dignity: they are more earnest, and their issue, as in a sense the
issue of conflict between higher and lower types of civilisation, is
speedier and more decisive.
In the hundred years since Kant’s death, much that he prophesied
has come to pass, although sometimes by different paths than he
anticipated. The strides made in recent years by commerce and the
growing power of the people in every state have had much of the
influence which he foretold. There is a greater reluctance to wage
war.[84] But, unfortunately, as Professor Paulsen points out, the
progress of democracy and the nationalisation of war have not worked
merely in the direction of progress towards peace. War has now become
popular for the first time. “The progress of democracy in states,”
he says, (_Kant_, p. 364[85]) “has not only not done away with war,
but has very greatly changed the feeling of people towards it. With
the universal military service, introduced by the Revolution, war
has become the people’s affair and popular, as it could not be in
the case of dynastic wars carried on with mercenary troops.” In the
people the love of peace is strong, but so too is the love of a
fight, the love of victory.
[84] An admirable short account of popular feeling on this matter
is to be found in Lawrence’s _Principles of International Law_, §
240.
[85] The first Peace Society was founded in London in 1816, and
the first International Peace Congress held in 1843.
It is in the contemplation of facts and conflicting tendencies like
these that Peace Societies[86] have been formed. The peace party is,
we may say, an eclectic body: it embraces many different sections
of political opinion. There are those who hold, for instance, that
peace is to be established on a basis of communism of property.
There are others who insist on the establishment throughout Europe
of a republican form of government, or again, on a redistribution
of European territory in which Alsace-Lorraine is restored to
France—changes of which at least the last two would be difficult to
carry out, unless through international warfare. But these are not
the fundamental general principles of peace workers. The members
of this party agree in rejecting the principle of intervention, in
demanding a complete or partial disarmament of the nations of Europe,
and in requiring that all disputes between nations—and they admit the
prospects of dispute—should be settled by means of arbitration. In
how far are these principles useful or practicable?
[86] In Eng. trans. see p. 358.
_The Value of Arbitration._
There is a strong feeling in favour of arbitration on the part of all
classes of society. It is cheaper under all circumstances than war.
It is a judgment at once more certain and more complete, excluding
as far as possible the element of chance, leaving irritation perhaps
behind it, but none of the lasting bitterness which is the legacy
of every war. Arbitration has an important place in all peace
projects except that of Kant, whose federal union would naturally
fulfil the function of a tribunal of arbitration. St. Pierre,
Jeremy Bentham,[87] Bluntschli[88] the German publicist, Professor
Lorimer[89] and others among political writers,[90] and among rulers,
Louis Napoleon and the Emperor Alexander I. of Russia, have all made
proposals more or less ineffectual for the peaceful settlement of
international disputes. A number of cases have already been decided
by this means. But let us examine the questions which have been
at issue. Of a hundred and thirty matters of dispute settled by
arbitration since 1815 (cf. _International Tribunals_, published
by the Peace Society, 1899) it will be seen that all, with the
exception of one or two trifling cases of doubt as to the succession
to certain titles or principalities, can be classified roughly
under two heads—disputes as to the determination of boundaries or
the possession of certain territory, and questions of claims for
compensation and indemnities due either to individuals or states,
arising from the seizure of fleets or merchant vessels, the insult
or injury to private persons and so on—briefly, questions of money
or of territory. These may fairly be said to be trifling causes,
not touching national honour or great political questions. That they
should have been settled in this way, however, shows a great advance.
Smaller causes than these have made some of the bloodiest wars in
history. That arbitration should have been the means of preventing
even one war which would otherwise have been waged is a strong reason
why we should fully examine its claims. “Quand l’institution d’une
haute cour,” writes Laveleye, (_Des causes actuelles de guerre en
Europe et de l’arbitrage_) “n’éviterait qu’une guerre sur vingt,
il vaudrait encore la peine de l’établir.” But history shows us
that there is no single instance of a supreme conflict having been
settled otherwise than by war. Arbitration is a method admirably
adapted to certain cases: to those we have named, where it has been
successfully applied, to the interpretation of contracts, to offences
against the Law of Nations—some writers say to trivial questions of
honour—in all cases where the use of armed force would be impossible,
as, for instance, in any quarrel in which neutralised countries[91]
like Belgium or Luxembourg should take a principal part, or in a
difference between two nations, such as (to take an extreme case)
the United States and Switzerland, which could not easily engage in
actual combat. These cases, which we cannot too carefully examine,
show that what is here essential is that it should be possible to
formulate a juridical statement of the conflicting claims. In Germany
the _Bundestag_ had only power to decide questions of law. Other
disputes were left to be fought out. Questions on which the existence
and vital honour of a state depend—any question which nearly concerns
the disputants—cannot be reduced to any cut and dry legal formula
of right and wrong. We may pass over the consideration that in some
cases (as in the Franco-Prussian War) the delay caused by seeking
mediation of any kind would deprive a nation of the advantage its
state of military preparation deserved. And we may neglect the
problem of finding an impartial judge on some questions of dispute,
although its solution might be a matter of extreme difficulty,
so closely are the interests of modern nations bound up in one
another. How could the Eastern Question, for example, be settled by
arbitration? It is impossible that such a means should be sufficient
for every case. Arbitration in other words may prevent war, but can
never be a substitute for war. We cannot wonder that this is so. So
numerous and conflicting are the interests of states, so various
are the grades of civilisation to which they have attained and the
directions along which they are developing, that differences of the
most vital kind are bound to occur and these can never be settled
by any peaceful means at present known to Europe. This is above all
true where the self-preservation[92] or independence of a people are
concerned. Here the “good-will” of the nations who disagree would
necessarily be wanting: there could be no question of the arbitration
of an outsider.
[87] See “A Plan for a Universal and Perpetual Peace” in the
_Principles of International Law_ (_Works_, Vol. II). One of
the main principles advocated by Bentham in this essay (written
between 1787 and 1789) is that every state should give up its
colonies.
[88] See his _Kleine Schriften_.
[89] _Institutes of the Law of Nations_ (1884), Vol. II., Ch. XIV.
[90] John Stuart Mill holds that the multiplication of federal
unions would be a benefit to the world. [See his _Considerations
on Representative Government_ (1865), Ch. XVII., where he
discusses the conditions necessary to render such unions
successful.] But the Peace Society is scarcely justified, on the
strength of what is here, in including Mill among writers who
have made definite proposals of peace or federation. (See _Inter.
Trib._)
[91] See what Lawrence says (_op. cit._, § 241) of neutralisation
and the limits of its usefulness as a remedy for war.
[92] Montesquieu: _Esprit des Lois_, X. Ch. 2. “The life of
governments is like that of man. The latter has a right to kill
in case of natural defence: the former have a right to wage war
for their own preservation.”
See also Vattel (_Law of Nations_, II. Ch. XVIII. § 332):—“But
if anyone would rob a nation of one of her essential rights, or
a right without which she could not hope to support her national
existence,—if an ambitious neighbour threatens the liberty of a
republic, if he attempts to subjugate and enslave her,—she will
take counsel only from her own courage. She will not even attempt
the method of conferences, in the case of a contention so odious
as this. She will, in such a quarrel, exert her utmost efforts,
exhaust every resource and lavish her blood to the last drop if
necessary. To listen to the slightest proposal in a matter of
this kind is to risk everything.”
But, indeed, looking away from questions so vital and on which there
can be little difference of opinion, we are apt to forget, when we
allow ourselves to talk extravagantly of the future of arbitration,
that every nation thinks, or at least pretends to think, that it
is in the right in every dispute in which it appears (cf. Kant:
_Perpetual Peace_, p. 120.): and, as a matter of history, there has
never been a conflict between civilised states in which an appeal to
this “right” on the part of each has not been made. We talk glibly
of the right and wrong of this question or of that, of the justice
of this war, the iniquity of that. But what do these terms really
mean? _Do_ we know, in spite of the labour which has been spent on
this question by the older publicists, which are the causes that
justify a war? Is it not true that the same war might be just in one
set of circumstances and unjust in another? Practically all writers
on this subject, exclusive of those who apply the biblical doctrine
of non-resistance, agree in admitting that a nation is justified in
defending its own existence or independence, that this is even a
moral duty as it is a fundamental right of a state. Many, especially
the older writers, make the confident assertion that all wars of
defence are just. But will this serve as a standard? Gibbon tells us
somewhere, that Livy asserts that the Romans conquered the world in
self-defence. The distinction between wars of aggression and defence
is one very difficult to draw. The cause of a nation which waits
to be actually attacked is often lost: the critical moment in its
defence may be past. The essence of a state’s defensive power may
lie in a readiness to strike the first blow, or its whole interests
may be bound up in the necessity of fighting the matter out in its
enemy’s country, rather than at home. It is not in the strictly
military interpretation of the term “defensive”, but in its wider
ethical and political sense that we can speak of wars of defence as
just. But, indeed, we cannot judge these questions abstractly. Where
a war is necessary, it matters very little whether it is just or not.
Only the judgment of history can finally decide; and generally it
seems at the time that both parties have something of right on their
side, something perhaps too of wrong.[93]
[93] The difficulties in the way of hard and fast judgments on a
complicated problem of this kind are convincingly demonstrated in
a recent essay by Professor D. G. Ritchie (_Studies in Political
and Social Ethics_, Sonnenschein, 1902). Professor Ritchie
considers in detail a number of concrete cases which occurred
in the century between 1770 and 1870. “Let any one take the
judgments he would pass on these or any similarly varied cases,
and I think he will find that we do not restrict our approval
to wars of self-defence, that we do not approve self-defence
under all circumstances, that there are some cases in which we
approve of absorption of smaller states by larger, that there
are cases in which we excuse intervention of third parties in
quarrels with which at first they had nothing to do, and that
we sometimes approve war even when begun without the authority
of any already existing sovereign. Can any principles be found
underlying such judgments? In the first place we ought not to
disguise from ourselves the fact that our judgments after the
result are based largely on success. ... I think it will be
found that our judgments on the wars of the century from 1770 to
1870 turn very largely on the question, Which of the conflicting
forces was making for constitutional government and for social
progress? or, to put it in wider terms, Which represented the
higher civilisation? And thus it is that we may sometimes approve
the rise of a new state and sometimes the absorption of an old.”
(_Op. cit._, pp. 152, 155.)
A consideration of difficulties like these brings us to a realisation
of the fact that the chances are small that a nation, in the heat of
a dispute, will admit the likelihood of its being in the wrong. To
refuse to admit this is generally tantamount to a refusal to submit
the difficulty to arbitration. And neither international law, nor the
moral force of public opinion can induce a state to act contrary to
what it believes to be its own interest. Moreover, as international
law now stands, it is not a duty to have recourse to arbitration.
This was made quite clear in the proceedings of the Peace Conference
at the Hague in 1899.[94] It was strongly recommended that
arbitration should be sought wherever it was possible, but, at the
same time definitely stated, that this course could in no case be
compulsory. In this respect things have not advanced beyond the
position of the Paris Congress of 1856.[95] The wars waged in Europe
subsequent to that date, have all been begun without previous attempt
at mediation.
[94] See Fred. W. Holls: _The Peace Conference at the Hague_,
Macmillan, 1900.
[95] The feeling of the Congress expressed itself thus
cautiously:—“Messieurs les plénipotentiaires n’hésitent pas à
exprimer, au nom de leur gouvernements, le voeu, que les Etats
entre lesquels s’éléverait un dissentiment sérieux, avant d’en
appeler aux armes, eussent recours, en tant que les circonstances
l’admettraient, aux bons offices d’une puissance amie.”
But the work of the peace party regarding the humaner methods of
settlement is not to be neglected. The popular feeling which they
have been partly the means of stimulating has no doubt done something
to influence the action of statesmen towards extreme caution in
the treatment of questions likely to arouse national passions and
prejudices. Arbitration has undoubtedly made headway in recent
years. Britain and America, the two nations whose names naturally
suggest themselves to us as future centres of federative union, both
countries whose industrial interests are numerous and complicated,
have most readily, as they have most frequently, settled disputes
in this practical manner. It has shown itself to be a policy as
economical as it is business-like. Its value, in its proper place,
cannot be overrated by any Peace Congress or by any peace pamphlet;
but we have endeavoured to make it clear that this sphere is but a
limited one. The “good-will” may not be there when it ought perhaps
to appear: it will certainly not be there when any vital interest
is at stake. But, even if this were not so and arbitration were
the natural sequence of every dispute, no coercive force exists
to enforce the decree of the court. The moral restraint of public
opinion is here a poor substitute. Treaties, it is often said,
are in the same position; but treaties have been broken, and will
no doubt be broken again. We are moved to the conclusion that a
thoroughly logical peace programme cannot stop short of the principle
of federation. Federal troops are necessary to carry out the decrees
of a tribunal of arbitration, if that court is not to run a risk
of being held feeble and ineffectual. Except on some such basis,
arbitration, as a substitute for war, stands on but a weak footing.
_Disarmament._
The efforts of the Peace Society are directed with even less hope
of complete success against another evil of our time, the crushing
burden of modern armaments. We have peace at this moment, but at
a daily increasing cost. The Peace Society is rightly concerned
in pressing this point. It is not enough to keep off actual war:
there is a limit to the price we can afford to pay even for peace.
Probably no principle has cost Europe so much in the last century as
that handed down from Rome:—“Si vis pacem, para bellum.” It is now
a hundred and fifty years since Montesquieu[96] protested against
this “new distemper” which was spreading itself over Europe; but
never, in time of peace, has complaint been so loud or so general
as now: and this, not only against the universal burden of taxation
which weighs upon all nations alike, but, in continental countries,
against the waste of productive force due to compulsory military
service, a discontent which seems to strike at the very foundations
of society. Vattel relates that in early times a treaty of peace
generally stipulated that both parties should afterwards disarm. And
there is no doubt that Kant was right in regarding standing armies
as a danger to peace, not only as openly expressing the rivalry and
distrust between nation and nation which Hobbes regards as the basis
of international relations, but also as putting a power into the
hand of a nation which it may some day have the temptation to abuse.
A war-loving, overbearing spirit in a people thrives none the worse
for a consciousness that its army or navy can hold its own with any
other in Europe. Were it not the case that the essence of armed peace
is that a high state of efficiency should be general, the danger to
peace would be very great indeed. No doubt it is due to this fact
that France has kept quietly to her side of the Rhine during the last
thirty years. The annexation of Alsace-Lorraine was an immediate
stimulus to the increase of armaments; but otherwise, just because of
this greater efficiency and the slightly stronger military position
of Germany, it has been an influence on the side of peace.
[96] _Esprit des Lois_, XIII. Chap. 17. “A new distemper has
spread itself over Europe: it has infected our princes, and
induces them to keep up an exorbitant number of troops. It has
its redoublings, and of necessity becomes contagious. For as
soon as one prince augments what he calls his troops, the rest
of course do the same: so that nothing is gained thereby but the
public ruin. Each monarch keeps as many armies on foot as if his
people were in danger of being exterminated: and they give the
name of Peace to this general effort of all against all.”
Montesquieu is of course writing in the days of mercenary troops;
but the cost to the nation of our modern armies, both in time of
peace and of war, is incomparably greater.
The Czar’s Rescript of 1898 gave a new stimulus to an interest in
this question which the subsequent conference at the Hague was
unable fully to satisfy. We are compelled to consider carefully
how a process of simultaneous disarmament can actually be carried
out, and what results might be anticipated from this step, with a
view not only to the present but the future. Can this be done in
accordance with the principles of justice? Organisations like a great
navy or a highly disciplined army have been built up, in the course
of centuries, at great cost and at much sacrifice to the nation.
They are the fruit of years of wise government and a high record
of national industry. Are such visible tokens of the culture and
character and worth of a people to be swept away and Britain, France,
Germany, Italy, Spain, Turkey to stand on the same level? And, even
if no such ethical considerations should arise, on what method are
we to proceed? The standard as well as the nature of armament depends
in every state on its geographical conditions and its historical
position. An ocean-bound empire like Britain is comparatively immune
from the danger of invasion: her army can be safely despatched to
the colonies, her fleet protects her at home, her position is one of
natural defence. But Germany and Austria find themselves in exactly
opposite circumstances, with the hard necessity imposed upon them of
guarding their frontiers on every side. The safety of a nation like
Germany is in the hands of its army: its military strength lies in an
almost perfect mastery of the science of attack.
The Peace Society has hitherto made no attempt to face the
difficulties inseparable from any attempt to apply a uniform method
of treatment to peculiarities and conditions so conflicting and
various as these. Those who have been more conscientious have not
been very successful in solving them. Indeed, so constantly is
military technique changing that it is difficult to prophesy wherein
will lie, a few years hence, the essence of a state’s defensive power
or what part the modern navy will play in this defence. No careful
thinker would suggest, in the face of dangers threatening from the
East,[97] a complete disarmament. The simplest of many suggestions
made—but this on the basis of universal conscription—seems to be
that the number of years or months of compulsory military service
should be reduced to some fixed period. But this does not touch the
difficulty of colonial empires[98] like Britain which might to a
certain extent disarm, like their neighbours, in Europe, but would
be compelled to keep an army for the defence of their colonies
elsewhere. It is, in the meantime, inevitable that Europe should keep
up a high standard of armament—this is, (and even if we had European
federation, would remain) an absolute necessity as a protection
against the yellow races, and in Europe itself there are at present
elements hostile to the cause of peace. Alsace-Lorraine, Polish
Prussia, Russian Poland and Finland are still, to a considerable
degree, sources of discontent and dissatisfaction. But in Russia
itself lies the great obstacle to a future European peace or
European federation: we can scarcely picture Russia as a reliable
member of such a union. That Russia should disarm is scarcely
feasible, in view of its own interest: it has always to face the
danger of rebellion in Poland and anarchy at home. But that Europe
should disarm, before Russia has attained a higher civilisation, a
consciousness of its great future as a north-eastern, inter-oceanic
empire, and a government more favourable to the diffusion of liberty,
is still less practicable.[99] We have here to fall back upon
federation again. It is not impossible that, in the course of time,
this problem may be solved and that the contribution to the federal
troops of a European union may be regulated upon some equitable basis
the form of which we cannot now well prophesy.
[97] Even St. Pierre was alive to this danger (_Projet_,
Art. VIII: in the English translation of 1714, p. 160):—“The
_European_ Union shall endeavour to obtain in _Asia_, a
_permanent_ society like that of _Europe_, that Peace may be
maintain’d There also; and especially that it may have no cause
to fear any _Asiatic_ Sovereign, either as to its tranquillity,
or its Commerce in _Asia_.”
[98] Bentham’s suggestion would be useful here! See above, p. 79,
_note_.
[99] The best thing for Europe might be that Russia (perhaps
including China) should be regarded as a serious danger by all
the civilised powers of the West. _That_ would bring us nearer to
the United States of Europe _and_ America (for the United States,
America, is Russia’s neighbour on the East) than anything else.
European federation would likewise meet all difficulties where
a risk might be likely to occur of one nation intervening to
protect another. As we have said (above, p. 64, _note_) nations
are now-a-days slow to intervene in the interests of humanity:
they are in general constrained to do so only by strong motives
of self-interest, and when these are not at hand they are said to
refrain from respect for another’s right of independent action.
Actually a state which is actuated by less selfish impulses is apt to
lose considerably more than it gains, and the feeling of the people
expresses itself strongly against any quixotic or sentimental policy.
It is not impossible that the Powers may have yet to intervene to
protect Turkey against Russia. Such a step might well be dictated
purely by a proper care for the security of Europe; but wars of this
kind seem not likely to play an important part in the near future.
We have said that the causes of difference which may be expected
to disturb the peace of Europe are now fewer. A modern sovereign
no longer spends his leisure time in the excitement of slaying or
seeing slain. He could not, if he would. His honour and his vanity
are protected by other means: they play no longer an important part
in the affairs of nations. The causes of war can no more be either
trifling or personal. Some crises there are, which are ever likely to
be fatal to peace. There present themselves, in the lives of nations,
ideal ends for which everything must be sacrificed: there are rights
which must at all cost be defended. The question of civil war we
may neglect: liberty and wise government are the only medicine for
social discontent, and much may be hoped from that in the future.
But now, looking beyond the state to the great family of civilised
nations, we may say that the one certain cause of war between them
or of rebellion within a future federated union will be a menace to
the sovereign rights, the independence and existence of any member
of that federation. Other causes of quarrel offer a more hopeful
prospect. Some questions have been seen to be specially fitted for
the legal procedure of a tribunal of arbitration, others to be such
as a federal court would quickly settle. The preservation of the
balance of power which Frederick the Great regarded as the talisman
of peace in Europe—a judgment surely not borne out by experience—is
happily one of the causes of war which are of the past. Wars of
colonisation, such as would be an attempt on the part of Russia to
conquer India, seem scarcely likely to recur except between higher
and lower races. The cost is now-a-days too great. Political wars,
wars for national union and unity, of which there were so many
during the past century, seem at present not to be near at hand; and
the integration of European nations—what may be called the great
mission of war—is, for the moment, practically complete; for it is
highly improbable that either Alsace-Lorraine or Poland—still less
Finland—will be the cause of a war of this kind.
Our hope lies in a federated Europe. Its troops would serve to
preserve law and order in the country from which they were drawn and
to protect its colonies abroad; but their higher function would
be to keep peace in Europe, to protect the weaker members of the
Federation and to enforce the decision of the majority, either, if
necessary, by actual war, or by the mere threatening demonstrations
of fleets, such as have before proved effectual.
We have carefully considered what has been attempted by peace
workers, and we have now to take note that all the results of the
last fifty years are not to be attributed to their conscientious
but often ill-directed labour. The diminution of the causes of war
is to be traced less to the efforts of the Peace Society, (except
indirectly, in so far as they have influenced the minds of the
masses) than to the increasing power of the people themselves.
The various classes of society are opposed to violent methods of
settlement, not in the main from a conviction as to the wrongfulness
of war or from any fanatical enthusiasm for a brotherhood of nations,
but from self-interest. War is death to the industrial interests of
a nation. It is vain to talk, in the language of past centuries,
of trade between civilised countries being advanced and markets
opened up or enlarged by this means.[100] Kings give up the dream
of military glory and accept instead the certainty of peaceful
labour and industrial progress, and all this (for we may believe
that to some monarchs it is much) from no enthusiastic appreciation
of the efforts of Peace Societies, from no careful examination of
the New Testament nor inspired interpretation of its teaching. It
is self-interest, the prosperity of the country—patriotism, if you
will—that seems better than war.
[100] Trade in barbarous or savage countries is still increased
by war, especially on the French and German plan which leaves no
open door to other nations. Here the trade follows the flag. And
war, of course, among civilised races causes small nations to
disappear and their tariffs with them. _This_ is beneficial to
trade, but to a degree so trifling that it may here be neglected.
_What may be expected from Federation._
Federation and federation alone can help out the programme
of the Peace Society. It cannot be pretended that it will do
everything. To state the worst at once, it will not prevent war.
Even the federations of the states of Germany and America, bound
together by ties of blood and language and, in the latter case, of
sentiment, were not strong enough within to keep out dissension and
disunion.[101] Wars would not cease, but they would become much less
frequent. “Why is there no longer war between England and Scotland?
Why did Prussian and Hanoverian fight side by side in 1870, though
they had fought against each other only four years before?... If
we wish to know how war is to cease, we should ask ourselves how it
_has_ ceased” (Professor D. G. Ritchie, _op. cit._, p. 169). Wars
between different grades of civilisation are bound to exist as long
as civilisation itself exists. The history of culture and of progress
has been more or less a history of war. A calm acceptance of this
position may mean to certain short-sighted, enthusiastic theorists
an impossible sacrifice of the ideal; but, the sacrifice once made,
we stand on a better footing with regard to at least one class of
arguments against a federation of the world. Such a union will lead,
it is said, to an equality in culture, a sameness of interests fatal
to progress; all struggle and conflict will be cast out of the
state itself; national characteristics and individuality will be
obliterated; the lamb and the wolf will lie down together: stagnation
will result, intellectual progress will be at an end, politics will
be no more, history will stand still. This is a sweeping assertion,
an alarming prophecy. But a little thought will assure us that there
is small cause for apprehension. There can be no such standstill,
no millennium in human affairs. A gradual smoothing down of sharply
accentuated national characteristics there might be: this is a result
which a freer, more friendly intercourse between nations would be
very likely to produce. But conflicting interests, keen rivalry
in their pursuit, difference of culture and natural aptitude, and
all or much of the individuality which language and literature,
historical and religious traditions, even climatic and physical
conditions produce are bound to survive until the coming of some more
overwhelming and far-spreading revolution than this. It would not
be well if it were otherwise, if those “unconscious and invisible
peculiarities” in which Fichte sees the hand of God and the guarantee
of a nation’s future dignity, virtue and merit should be swept away.
(_Reden an die deutsche Nation_,[102] 1807.) Nor is stagnation to be
feared. “Strife,” said the old philosopher, “is the father of all
things.” There can be no lasting peace in the processes of nature and
existence. It has been in the constant rivalry between classes within
themselves, and in the struggle for existence with other races that
great nations have reached the highwater mark of their development.
A perpetual peace in international relations we may—nay, surely
will—one day have, but eternity will not see the end to the feverish
unrest within the state and the jealous competition and distrust
between individuals, groups and classes of society. Here there must
ever be perpetual war.
[101] Cf. also the civil war of 1847 in Switzerland.
[102] See _Werke_, VII., p. 467.
It was only of this political peace between civilised nations that
Kant thought.[103] In this form it is bound to come. The federation
of Europe will follow the federation of Germany and of Italy, not
only because it offers a solution of many problems which have long
taxed Europe, but because great men and careful thinkers believe in
it.[104] It may not come quickly, but such men can afford to wait.
“If I were legislator,” cried Jean Jacques Rousseau, “I should not
say what ought to be done, but I would do it.” This is the attitude
of the unthinking, unpractical enthusiast. The wish is not enough:
the will is not enough. The mills of God must take their own time: no
hope or faith of ours, no struggle or labour even can hurry them.
[103] The other he knew was impossible. Peace within the state
meant decay and death. In the antagonism of nations, he saw
nature’s means of educating the race: it was a law of existence,
a law of progress, and, as such, eternal.
[104] For a vivid picture of the material advantages offered by
such a union and of the dismal future that may lie before an
unfederated Europe, we cannot do better than read Mr. Andrew
Carnegie’s recent Rectorial Address to the students of St.
Andrews University (Oct 1902). Unfortunately, Mr. Carnegie’s
enthusiasm stops here: he does not tell us by what means the
difficulties at present in the way of a federation, industrial or
political, are to be overcome.
It is a misfortune that the Peace Society has identified itself
with so narrow and uncritical an attitude towards war, and that the
copious eloquence of its members is not based upon a consideration
of the practical difficulties of the case. This well-meaning, hard
working and enthusiastic body would like to do what is impossible
by an impossible method. The end which it sets for itself is an
unattainable one. But this need not be so. To make unjustifiable
aggression difficult, to banish unworthy pretexts for making war
might be a high enough ideal for any enthusiasm and offer scope wide
enough for the labours of any society. But the Peace Society has not
contented itself with this great work. Through its over-estimation
of the value of peace,[105] its cause has been injured and much of
its influence has been weakened or lost. Our age is one which sets
a high value upon human life; and to this change of thinking may be
traced our modern reform in the methods of war and all that has been
done for the alleviation of suffering by the great Conventions of
recent years. For the eyes of most people war is merely a hideous
spectacle of bloodshed and deliberate destruction of life: this is
its obvious side. But it is possible to exaggerate this confessedly
great evil. Peace has its sacrifices as well as war: the progress of
humanity requires that the individual should often be put aside for
the sake of lasting advantage to the whole. An opposite view can only
be reckoned individualistic, perhaps materialistic. “The reverence
for human life,” says Martineau, (_Studies of Christianity_, pp. 352,
354) “is carried to an immoral idolatry, when it is held more sacred
than justice and right, and when the spectacle of blood becomes
more horrible than the sight of desolating tyrannies and triumphant
hypocrisies.... We have, therefore, no more doubt that a war may be
right, than that a policeman may be a security for justice, and we
object to a fortress as little as to a handcuff.”
[105] Professor D. G. Ritchie remarks that it is less an
over-estimation of the value of peace than a too easy-going
acceptance of abstract and unanalysed phrases about the rights of
nations that injures the work of the Peace Society. Cf. his note
on the principles of the Peace Congresses (_op. cit._, p. 172).
The Peace Society are not of this opinion: they greatly doubt that a
war may be right, and they rarely fail to take their doubts to the
tribunal of Scripture. Their efforts are well meant, this piety may
be genuine enough; but a text is rarely a proof of anything, and in
any case serves one man in as good stead as another. We remember that
“the devil can cite Scripture for his purpose.” This unscientific
method of proof or persuasion has ever been widely popular. It is
a serious examination of the question that we want, a more careful
study of its actual history and of the possibilities of human nature;
less vague, exaggerated language about what ought to be done, and a
realisation of what has been actually achieved; above all, a clear
perception of what may fairly be asked from the future.
It used to be said—is perhaps asserted still by the war-lovers—that
there was no path to civilisation which had not been beaten by the
force of arms, no height to which the sword had not led the way. The
inspiration of war was upon the great arts of civilisation: its hand
was upon the greatest of the sciences. These obligations extended
even to commerce. War not only created new branches of industry, it
opened new markets and enlarged the old. These are great claims,
according to which war might be called the moving principle of
history. If we keep our eyes fixed upon the history of the past, they
seem not only plausible: they are in a great sense true. Progress
did tread at the heels of the great Alexander’s army: the advance of
European culture stands in the closest connection with the Crusades.
But was this happy compensation for a miserable state of affairs not
due to the peculiarly unsocial conditions of early times and the
absence of every facility for the interchange of ideas or material
advantages? It is inconceivable that now-a-days[106] any aid to the
development of thought in Europe should come from war. The old
adage, in more than a literal sense, has but too often been proved
true:—“Inter arma, Musae silent.” Peace is for us the real promoter
of culture.
[106] The day is past, when a nation could enjoy the exclusive
advantages of its own inventions. Vattel naively recommends that
we should keep the knowledge of certain kinds of trade, the
building of war-ships and the like, to ourselves. Prudence, he
says, prevents us from making an enemy stronger and the care of
our own safety forbids it. (_Law of Nations_, II. Ch. I. § 16.)
We have to endeavour to take an intermediate course between
uncritical praise and wholesale condemnation, between extravagant
expectation and unjustifiable pessimism. War used to be the rule: it
is now an overwhelming and terrible exception—an interruption to the
peaceful prosperous course of things, inflicting unlimited suffering
and temporary or lasting loss. Its evils are on the surface, apparent
to the most unthinking observer. The day may yet dawn, when Europeans
will have learned to regard the force of arms as an instrument for
the civilisation of savage or half-savage races, and war within
their continent as civil war, necessary and justifiable sometimes
perhaps, but still a blot upon their civilisation and brotherhood as
men. Such a suggestion rings strangely. But the great changes, which
the roll of centuries has marked, once came upon the world not less
unexpectedly. How far off must the idea of a civil peace have seemed
to small towns and states of Europe in the fifteenth century! How
strange, only a century ago, would the idea of applying steam power
or electrical force have seemed to ourselves! Let us not despair. War
has played a great part in the history of the world: it has been ever
the great architect of nations, the true mother of cities. It has
justified itself to-day in the union of kindred peoples, the making
of great empires. It may be that one decisive war may yet be required
to unite Europe. May Europe survive that struggle and go forward
fearlessly to her great future! A peaceful future that may not be. It
must never be forgotten that war is sometimes a moral duty, that it
is ever the natural sequence of human passion and human prejudice. An
unbroken peace we cannot and do not expect; but it is this that we
must work for. As Kant says, we must keep it before us as an ideal.