One has heard in recent times of the gradual revival of Nationalism, and

it is commonly argued that the principle of Nationality must stand in

the way of co-operation between States. But the facts do not justify

that conclusion for a moment. The formation of States has disregarded

national divisions altogether. If conflicts are to coincide with

national divisions, Wales should co-operate with Brittany and Ireland

against Normandy and England; Provence and Savoy with Sardinia

against--I do not know what French province, because in the final

rearrangement of European frontiers races and provinces have become so

inextricably mixed, and have paid so little regard to "natural" and

"inherent" divisions, that it is no longer possible to disentangle them.

In the beginning the State is a homogeneous tribe or family, and in the

process of economic and social development these divisions so far break

down that a State may include, as the British State does, not only half

a dozen different races in the mother country, but a thousand different

races scattered over various parts of the earth--white, black, yellow,

brown, copper-colored. This, surely, is one of the great sweeping

tendencies of history--a tendency which operates immediately any

complicated economic life is set up. What justification have we,

therefore, for saying dogmatically that a tendency to co-operation,

which has swept before it profound ethnic differences, social and

political divisions, which has been constant from the dawn of men's

attempts to live and labor together, is to stop at the wall of modern

State divisions, which represent none of the profound divisions of the

human race, but mainly mere administrative convenience, and embody a

conception which is being every day profoundly modified?

Some indication of the processes involved in this development has

already been given in the outline sketch in Chapter II. of this section,

to which the reader may be referred. I have there attempted to make

plain that _pari passu_ with the drift from physical force towards

economic inducement goes a corresponding diminution of pugnacity, until

the psychological factor which is the exact reverse of pugnacity comes

to have more force even than the economic one. Quite apart from any

economic question, it is no longer possible for any government to order

the extermination of a whole population, of the women and children, in

the old Biblical style. In the same way, the greater economic

interdependence which improved means of communication have provoked must

carry with it a greater moral interdependence, and a tendency which has

broken down profound national divisions, like those which separated the

Celt and the Saxon, will certainly break down on the psychological side

divisions which are obviously more artificial.

Among the multiple factors which have entered into the great sweeping

tendency just mentioned are one or two which stand out as most likely to

have immediate effect on the breakdown of a purely psychological

hostility embodied by merely State divisions. One is that lessening of

the reciprocal sentiment of collective responsibility which the complex

heterogeneity of the modern State involves. What do I mean by this sense

of collective responsibility? To the Chinese Boxer all Europeans are

"foreign devils"; between Germans, English, Russians, there is little

distinction, just as to the black in Africa there is little

differentiation between the various white races. Even the yokel in

England talks of "them foreigners." If a Chinese Boxer is injured by a

Frenchman, he kills a German, and feels himself avenged--they are all

"foreign devils." When an African tribe suffers from the depredations

of a Belgian trader, the next white man who comes into its territory,

whether he happens to be an Englishman or a Frenchman, loses his life;

the tribesmen also feel themselves avenged. But if the Chinese Boxer had

our clear conception of the different European nations, he would feel no

psychological satisfaction in killing a German because a Frenchman had

injured him. There must be in the Boxer's mind some collective

responsibility as between the two Europeans, or in the negro's mind

between the two white men, in order to obtain this psychological

satisfaction. If that collective responsibility does not exist, the

hostility to the second white man, in each case, is not even raised.

Now, our international hostilities are largely based on the notion of a

collective responsibility in each of the various States against which

our hostility is directed, which does not, in fact, exist. There is at

the present moment great ill-feeling in England against "the German."

Now, "the German" is a non-existent abstraction. Englishmen are angry

with the German because he is building warships, conceivably directed

against them; but a great many Germans are as much opposed to that

increase of armament as are the English, and the desire of the yokel to

"have a go at them Germans" depends absolutely upon a confusion just as

great as--indeed, greater than--that which exists in the mind of the

Boxer, who cannot differentiate between the various European peoples.

Mr. Blatchford commenced that series of articles which has done so much

to accentuate this ill-feeling with this phrase:

Germany is deliberately preparing to destroy the British Empire;

and later in the articles he added:

Britain is disunited; Germany is homogeneous. We are

quarrelling about the Lords' Veto, Home Rule, and a dozen other

questions of domestic politics. We have a Little Navy Party, an

Anti-Militarist Party; Germany is unanimous upon the question

of naval expansion.

It would be difficult to pack a more dangerous untruth into so few

lines. What are the facts? If "Germany" means the bulk of the German

people, Mr. Blatchford is perfectly aware that he is not telling the

truth. It is not true to say of the bulk of the German people that they

are deliberately preparing to destroy the British Empire. The bulk of

the German people, if they are represented by any one party at all, are

represented by the Social Democrats, who have stood from the first

resolutely against any such intention. Now the facts have to be

misstated in this way in order to produce that temper which makes for

war. If the facts are correctly stated, no such temper arises.

What has a particularly competent German to say to Mr. Blatchford's

generalization? Mr. Fried, the editor of _Die Friedenswarte_, writes:

There is no one German people, no single Germany.... There are

more abrupt contrasts between Germans and Germans than between

Germans and Indians. Nay, the contradistinctions within Germany

are greater than those between Germans and the units of any

other foreign nation whatever. It might be possible to make

efforts to promote good understanding between Germans and

Englishmen, between Germans and Frenchmen, to organize visits

between nation and nation; but it will be forever impossible to

set on foot any such efforts at an understanding between German

Social Democrats and Prussian Junkers, between German

Anti-Semites and German Jews.[108]

The disappearance of most international hostility depends upon nothing

more intricate than the realization of facts which are little more

complex than the geographical knowledge which enables us to see that the

anger of the yokel is absurd when he pummels a Frenchman because an

Italian has swindled him.

It may be argued that there never has existed in the past this

identification between a people and the acts of its Government which

rendered the hatred of one country for another logical, yet that hatred

has arisen. That is true; but certain new factors have entered recently

to modify this problem. One is that never in the history of the world

have nations been so complex as they are to-day; and the second is that

never before have the dominating interests of mankind so completely cut

across State divisions as they do to-day. The third factor is that never

before has it been possible, as it is possible by our means of

communication to-day, to offset a solidarity of classes and ideas

against a presumed State solidarity.

Never at any stage of the world's development has there existed, as

exists to-day, the machinery for embodying these interests and class

ideas and ideals which cut across frontiers. It is not generally

understood how many of our activities have become international. Two

great forces have become internationalized: Capital on the one hand,

Labor and Socialism on the other.

The Labor and Socialist movements have always been international, and

become more so every year. Few considerable strikes take place in any

one country without the labor organizations of other countries

furnishing help, and very large sums have been contributed by the labor

organizations of various countries in this way.

With reference to capital, it may almost be said that it is organized so

naturally internationally that formal organization is not necessary.

When the Bank of England is in danger, it is the Bank of France which

comes automatically to its aid, even in a time of acute political

hostility. It has been my good fortune in the last ten years to discuss

these matters with financiers on one side and labor leaders on the

other, and I have always been particularly struck by the fact that I

have found in these two classes precisely the same attitude of

internationalization. In no department of human activity is

internationalization so complete as in finance. The capitalist has no

country, and he knows, if he be of the modern type, that arms and

conquests and jugglery with frontiers serve no ends of his, and may very

well defeat them. But employers, as apart from capitalists, are also

developing a strong international cohesive organization. Among the

Berlin despatches in the London _Times_ of April 18, 1910, I find the

following concerning a big strike in the building trade, in which nearly

a quarter of a million men went out. Quoting a writer in the _North

German Gazette_, the correspondent says:

The writer lays stress upon the efficiency of the employers'

arrangements. He says, in particular, that it will probably be

possible to extend the lock-out to industries associated with

the building industry, especially the cement industry, and that

the employers are completing a ring of cartel treaties, which

will prevent German workmen from finding employment in

neighboring countries, and will insure for German employers all

possible support from abroad. It is said that Switzerland and

Austria were to conclude treaties yesterday on the same

conditions as Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Holland, and France, and

that Belgium and Italy would come in, so that there will be

complete co-operation on the part of all Germany's neighbors

except Russia. In the circumstances the men's organs rather

overlabor the point when they produce elaborate evidence of

premeditation. The _Vorwaerts_ proves that the employers have

long been preparing for "a trial of strength," but that is

admitted. The official organ of the employers says, in so many

words, that any intervention is useless until "the forces have

been measured in open battle."

Have not these forces begun already to affect the psychological domain

with which we are now especially dealing? Do we place national vanity,

for instance, on the same plane as individual vanity? Have we not

already realized the absurdity involved?

I have quoted Admiral Mahan as follows:

That extension of national authority over alien communities,

which is the dominant note in the world politics of to-day,

dignifies and enlarges each State and each citizen that enters

its fold.... Sentiment, imagination, aspiration, the

satisfaction of the rational and moral faculties in some object

better than bread alone, all must find a part in a worthy

motive. Like individuals, nations and empires have souls as

well as bodies. Great and beneficent achievement ministers to

worthier contentment than the filling of the pocket.

Whatever we may think of the individuals who work disinterestedly for

the benefit of backward and alien peoples, and however their lives may

be "dignified and enlarged" by their activities, it is surely absurd to

suppose that other individuals, who take no part in their work and who

remain thousands of miles from the scene of action, can possibly be

credited with "great and beneficent achievement."

A man who boasts of his possessions is not a very pleasant or admirable

type, but at least his possessions are for his own use and do bring a

tangible satisfaction, materially as well as sentimentally. His is the

object of a certain social deference by reason of his wealth--a

deference which has not a very high motive, if you will, but the outward

and visible signs of which are pleasing to a vain man. But is the same

in any sense true, despite Admiral Mahan, of the individual of a big

State as compared to the individual of a small one? Does anyone think of

paying deference to the Russian _mujik_ because he happens to belong to

one of the biggest empires territorially? Does anyone think of despising

an Ibsen or a Bjoernsen, or any educated Scandinavian or Belgian or

Hollander, because they happen to belong to the smallest nations in

Europe? The thing is absurd, and the notion is simply due to

inattention. Just as we commonly overlook the fact that the individual

citizen is quite unaffected materially by the extent of his nation's

territory, that the material position of the individual Dutchman as a

citizen of a small State will not be improved by the mere fact of the

absorption of his State by the German Empire, in which case he will

become the citizen of a great nation, so in the same way his moral

position remains unchanged; and the notion that an individual Russian is

"dignified and enlarged" each time that Russia conquers some new Asiatic

outpost, or Russifies a State like Finland, or that the Norwegian would

be "dignified" were his State conquered by Russia and he became a

Russian, is, of course, sheer sentimental fustian of a very mischievous

order. This is the more emphasized when we remember that the best men of

Russia are looking forward wistfully, not to the enlargement, but to the

dissolution, of the unwieldy giant--"stupid with the stupidity of

giants, ferocious with their ferocity"--and the rise in its stead of a

multiplicity of self-contained, self-knowing communities, "whose members

will be united together by organic and vital sympathies, and not by

their common submission to a common policeman."

How small and thin a pretence is all the talk of national prestige when

the matter is tested by its relation to the individual is shown by the

commonplaces of our everyday social intercourse. In social consideration

everything else takes precedence of nationality, even in those circles

where Chauvinism is a cult. British Royalty is so impressed with the

dignity which attaches to membership of the British Empire that its

Princes will marry into the royal houses of the smallest and meanest

States in Europe, while they would regard marriage with a British

commoner as an unheard-of _mesalliance_. This standard of social

judgment so marks all the European royalties that at the present time

not one ruler in Europe belongs, properly speaking, to the race which he

rules. In all social associations an analogous rule is followed. In our

"selectest" circles an Italian, Rumanian, Portuguese, or even Turkish

noble, is received where an American tradesman would be taboo.

This tendency has struck almost all authorities who have investigated

scientifically modern international relations. Thus Mr. T. Baty, the

well-known authority on international law, writes as follows:

All over the world society is organizing itself by strata. The

English merchant goes on business to Warsaw, Hamburg, or

Leghorn; he finds in the merchants of Italy, Germany, and

Russia the ideas, the standard of living, the sympathies, and

the aversions which are familiar to him at home. Printing and

the locomotive have enormously reduced the importance of

locality. It is the mental atmosphere of its fellows, and not

of its neighborhood, which the child of the younger generation

is beginning to breathe. Whether he reads the _Revue des Deux

Mondes_ or _Tit-Bits_, the modern citizen is becoming at once

cosmopolitan and class-centred. Let the process work for a few

more years; we shall see the common interests of cosmopolitan

classes revealing themselves as far more potent factors than

the shadowy common interests of the subjects of States. The

Argentine merchant and the British capitalist alike regard the

Trade Union as a possible enemy--whether British or Argentine

matters to them less than nothing. The Hamburg docker and his

brother of London do not put national interests before the

primary claims of caste. International class feeling is a

reality, and not even a nebulous reality; the nebula has

developed centres of condensation. Only the other day Sir W.

Runciman, who is certainly not a Conservative, presided over a

meeting at which there were laid the foundations of an

International Shipping Union, which is intended to unite

ship-owners of whatever country in a common organization. When

it is once recognized that the real interests of modern people

are not national, but social, the results may be

surprising.[109]

As Mr. Baty points out, this tendency, which he calls "stratification,"

extends to all classes:

It is impossible to ignore the significance of the

International Congresses, not only of Socialism, but of

pacificism, of esperantism, of feminism, of every kind of art

and science, that so conspicuously set their seal upon the

holiday season. Nationality as a limiting force is breaking

down before cosmopolitanism. In directing its forces into an

international channel, Socialism will have no difficulty

whatever[110].... We are, therefore, confronted with a coming

condition of affairs in which the force of nationality will be

distinctly inferior to the force of class-cohesion, and in

which classes will be internationally organized so as to wield

their force with effect. The prospect induces some curious

reflections.

We have here, at present in merely embryonic form, a group of motives

otherwise opposed, but meeting and agreeing upon one point: the

organization of society on other than territorial and national

divisions. When motives of such breadth as these give force to a

tendency, it may be said that the very stars in their courses are

working to the same end.

PART III

THE PRACTICAL OUTCOME

CHAPTER I

THE RELATION OF DEFENCE TO AGGRESSION

Necessity for defence arises from the existence of a motive for

attack--Platitudes that everyone overlooks--To attenuate the motive

for aggression is to undertake a work of defence.

The general proposition embodied in this book--that the world has passed

out of that stage of development in which it is possible for one

civilized group to advance its well-being by the military domination of

another--is either broadly true or broadly false. If it is false, it

can, of course, have no bearing upon the actual problems of our time,

and can have no practical outcome; huge armaments tempered by warfare

are the logical and natural condition.

But the commonest criticism this book has had to meet is that, though

its central proposition is in essence sound, it has, nevertheless, no

practical value, because--

1. Armaments are for defence, not for aggression.

2. However true these principles may be, the world does not

recognize them and never will, because men are not guided by

reason.

As to the first point. It is probable that, if we really understood

truths which we are apt to dismiss as platitudes, many of our problems

would disappear.

To say, "We must take measures for defence" is equivalent to saying,

"Someone is likely to attack us," which is equivalent to saying,

"Someone has a motive for attacking us." In other words, the basic fact

from which arises the necessity for armaments, the ultimate explanation

of European militarism, is _the force of the motive making for

aggression_. (And in the word "aggression," of course, I include the

imposition of superior force by the _threat_, or implied threat, of its

use, as well as by its actual use.)

That motive may be material or moral; it may arise from real conflict of

interest, or a purely imaginary one; but with the disappearance of

prospective aggression disappears also the need for defence.

The reader deems these platitudes beside the mark?

I will take a few sample criticisms directed at this book. Here is the

London _Daily Mail_:

The bigger nations are armed, not so much because they look for

the spoils of war, as because they wish to prevent the horrors

of it; arms are for defence.[111]

And here is the London _Times_:

No doubt the victor suffers, but who suffers most, he or the

vanquished?"[112]

The criticism of the _Daily Mail_ was made within three months of a

"raging and tearing" big navy campaign, all of it based on the

assumption that Germany _was_ "looking for the spoils of war," the

English naval increase being thus a direct outcome of such motives.

Without it, the question of English increase would not have arisen.[113]

The only justification for the clamor for increase was that England was

liable to _attack_; every nation in Europe justifies its armaments in

the same way; every nation consequently believes in the universal

existence of this motive for attack.

The _Times_ has been hardly less insistent than the _Mail_ as to the

danger from German aggression; but its criticism would imply that the

motive behind that prospective aggression is not a desire for any

political advantage or gain of any sort. Germany apparently recognizes

aggression to be, not merely barren of any useful result whatsoever, but

burdensome and costly into the bargain; she is, nevertheless, determined

to enter upon it in order that though she suffer, someone else will

suffer more![114]

In common with the London _Daily Mail_ and the London _Times_, Admiral

Mahan fails to understand this "platitude," which underlies the relation

of defence to aggression.

Thus in his criticism of this book, he cites the position of Great

Britain during the Napoleonic era as proof that commercial advantage

goes with the possession of preponderant military power in the following

passage:

Great Britain owed her commercial superiority then to the armed

control of the sea, which had sheltered her commerce and

industrial fabric from molestation by the enemy.

_Ergo_, military force has commercial value, a result which is arrived

at by this method: in deciding a case made up of two parties you ignore

one.

England's superiority was not due to the employment of military force,

but to the fact that she was able to prevent the employment of military

force against her; and the necessity for so doing arose from Napoleon's

motive in threatening her. But for the existence of this motive to

aggression--moral or material, just or mistaken--Great Britain, without

any force whatsoever, would have been more secure and more prosperous

than she was; she would not have been spending a third of her income in

war, and her peasantry would not have been starving.

Of a like character to the remark of the _Times_ is the criticism of the

_Spectator_, as follows:

Mr. Angell's main point is that the advantages customarily

associated with national independence and security have no

existence outside the popular imagination.... He holds that

Englishmen would be equally happy if they were under German

rule, and that Germans would be equally happy if they were

under English rule. It is irrational, therefore, to take any

measures for perpetuating the existing European order, since

only a sentimentalist can set any value on its maintenance....

Probably in private life Mr. Angell is less consistent and less

inclined to preach the burglar's gospel that to the wise man

_meum_ and _tuum_ are but two names for the same thing. If he

is anxious to make converts, he will do well to apply his

reasoning to subjects that come nearer home, and convince the

average man that marriage and private property are as much

illusions as patriotism. If sentiment is to be banished from

politics, it cannot reasonably be retained in morals.

As the reply to this somewhat extraordinary criticism is directly

germane to what it is important to make clear, I may, perhaps, be

excused for reproducing my letter to the _Spectator_, which was in part

as follows:

How far the foregoing is a correct description of the scope and

character of the book under review may be gathered from the

following statement of fact. My pamphlet does _not_ attack the

sentiment of patriotism (unless a criticism of the duellist's

conception of dignity be considered as such); it simply does

not deal with it, as being outside the limits of the main

thesis. I do _not_ hold, and there is not one line to which

your reviewer can point as justifying such a conclusion, that

Englishmen would be equally happy if they were under German

rule. I do not conclude that it is irrational to take measures

for perpetuating the existing European order. I do _not_

"expose the folly of self-defence in nations." I do _not_

object to spending money on armaments at this juncture. On the

contrary, I am particularly emphatic in declaring that while

the present philosophy is what it is, we are bound to maintain

our relative position with other Powers. I admit that so long

as there is danger, as I believe there is, from German

aggression, we must arm. I do _not_ preach a burglar's gospel,

that _meum_ and _tuum_ are the same thing, and the whole

tendency of my book is the exact reverse: it is to show that

the burglar's gospel--which is the gospel of statecraft as it

now stands--is no longer possible among nations, and that the

difference between _meum_ and _tuum_ must necessarily, as

society gains in complication, be given a stricter observance

than it has ever heretofore been given in history. I do _not_

urge that sentiment should be banished from politics, if by

sentiment is meant the common morality that guides us in our

treatment of marriage and of private property. The whole tone

of my book is to urge with all possible emphasis the exact

reverse of such a doctrine; to urge that the morality which has

been by our necessities developed in the society of individuals

must also be applied to the society of nations as that society

becomes by virtue of our development more interdependent.

I have only taken a small portion of your reviewer's article

(which runs to a whole page), and I do not think I am

exaggerating when I say that nearly all of it is as untrue and

as much a distortion of what I really say as the passage from

which I have quoted. What I do attempt to make plain is that

the necessity for defence measures (which I completely

recognize and emphatically counsel) implies on the part of

someone a motive for aggression, and that the motive arises

from the (at present) universal belief in the social and

economic advantages accruing from successful conquest.

I challenged this universal axiom of statecraft and attempted

to show that the mechanical development of the last thirty or

forty years, especially in the means of communication, had

given rise to certain economic phenomena--of which re-acting

bourses and the financial interdependence of the great economic

centres of the world are perhaps the most characteristic--which

render modern wealth and trade intangible in the sense that

they cannot be seized or interfered with to the advantage of a

military aggressor, the moral being, not that self-defence is

out of date, but that aggression is, and that when aggression

ceases, self-defence will be no longer necessary. I urged,

therefore, that in these little-recognized truths might

possibly be found a way out of the armament _impasse_; that if

the accepted motive for aggression could be shown to have no

solid basis, the tension in Europe would be immensely relieved,

and the risk of attack become immeasurably less by reason of

the slackening of the motive for aggression. I asked whether

this series of economic facts--so little realized by the

average politician in Europe, and yet so familiar to at least a

few of the ablest financiers--did not go far to change the

axioms of statecraft, and I urged re-consideration of such in

the light of these facts.

Your reviewer, instead of dealing with the questions thus

raised, accuses me of "attacking patriotism," of arguing that

"Englishmen would be equally happy under German rule," and much

nonsense of the same sort, for which there is not a shadow of

justification. Is this serious criticism? Is it worthy of the

_Spectator_?

To the foregoing letter the _Spectator_ critic rejoins as follows:

If Mr. Angell's book had given me the same impression as that

which I gain from his letter, I should have reviewed it in a

different spirit. I can only plead that I wrote under the

impression which the book actually made on me. In reply to his

"statement of fact," I must ask your leave to make the

following corrections: (1) Instead of saying that, on Mr.

Angell's showing, Englishmen would be "equally happy" under

German rule, I ought to have said that they would be equally

well off. But on his doctrine that material well-being is "the

very highest" aim of a politician, the two terms seem to be

interchangeable. (2) The "existing European order" rests on the

supposed economic value of political force. In opposition to

this Mr. Angell maintains "the economic futility of political

force." To take measures for perpetuating an order founded on a

futility does seem to me "irrational." (3) I never said that

Mr. Angell objects to spending money on armaments "while the

present philosophy is what it is." (4) The stress laid in the

book on the economic folly of patriotism, as commonly

understood, does seem to me to suggest that "sentiment should

be banished from politics." But I admit that this was only an

inference, though, as I still think, a fair inference. (5) I

apologize for the words "the burglar's gospel." They have the

fault, incident to rhetorical phrases, of being more telling

than exact.

This rejoinder, as a matter of fact, still reveals the confusion which

prompted the first criticism. Because I urged that Germany could do

England relatively little harm, since the harm which she inflicted would

immediately react on German prosperity, my critic assumes that this is

equivalent to saying that Englishmen would be as happy or as prosperous

under German rule. He quite overlooks the fact that if Germans are

convinced that they will obtain no benefit by the conquest of the

English they will not attempt that conquest, and there will be no

question of the English living under German rule either less or more

happily or prosperously. It is not a question of Englishmen saying, "Let

the German come," but of the German saying, "Why should we go?" As to

the critic's second point, I have expressly explained that not the

rival's real interest but what he deems to be his real interest must be

the guide to conduct. Military force is certainly economically futile,

but so long as German policy rests on the assumption of the supposed

economic value of military force, England must meet that force by the

only force that can reply to it.

Some years ago the bank in a Western mining town was frequently

subjected to "hold-ups," because it was known that the great mining

company owning the town kept large quantities of gold there for the

payment of its workmen. The company, therefore, took to paying its

wages mainly by check on a San Francisco bank, and by a simple system of

clearances practically abolished the use of gold in considerable

quantities in the mining town in question. The bank was never attacked

again.

Now, the demonstration that gold had been replaced by books in that bank

was as much a work of defence as though the bank had spent tens of

thousands of dollars in constructing forts and earthworks, and mounting

Gatling guns around the town. Of the two methods of defence, that of

substituting checks for gold was infinitely cheaper, and more effective.

Even if the inferences which the _Spectator_ reviewer draws were true

ones, which for the most part they are not, he still overlooks one

important element. If it were true that the book involves the "folly of

patriotism," how is that in any way relevant to the discussion, since I

also urge that nations are justified in protecting even their follies

against the attack of other nations? I may regard the Christian

Scientists, or the Seventh Day Adventists, or the Spiritualists, as very

foolish people, and to some extent mischievous people; but were an Act

of Parliament introduced for their suppression by physical force, I

should resist such an act with all the energy of which I was capable. In

what way are the two attitudes contradictory? They are the attitudes, I

take it, of educated men the world over. The fact has no importance, and

it hardly bears on this subject, but I regard certain English

conceptions of life bearing on matters of law, and social habit, and

political philosophy, as infinitely preferable to the German, and if I

thought that such conceptions demanded defence indefinitely by great

armaments this book would never have been written. But I take the view

that the idea of such necessity is based on a complete illusion, not

only because as a matter of present-day fact, and even in the present

state of political philosophy, Germany has not the least intention of

going to war with us to change our notions in law or literature, art or

social organization, but also because if she had any such notion it

would be founded upon illusions which she would be bound sooner or later

to shed, because German policy could not indefinitely resist the

influence of a general European attitude on such matters any more than

it has been possible for any great and active European State to stand

outside the European movement which has condemned the policy of

attempting to impose religious belief by the physical force of the

State. And I should regard it as an essential part of the work of

defence to aid in the firm establishment of such a European doctrine, as

much a part of the work of defence as it would be to go on building

battleships until Germany had subscribed to it.

A great part of the misconception just dealt with arises from a hazily

conceived fear that ideas like those embodied in this book must

attenuate our energy of defence, and that we shall be in a weaker

position relatively to our rivals than we were before. But this

overlooks the fact that if the progress of ideas weakens our energies

of defence, it also weakens our rival's energy of attack, and the

strength of our relative positions is just what it was originally, with

this exception: that we have taken a step towards peace instead of a

step towards war, to which the mere piling up of armaments, unchecked by

any other factor, must in the end inevitably lead.

But there is one aspect of this failure to realize the relation of

defence to aggression, which brings us nearer to considering the bearing

of these principles upon the question of practical policy.

CHAPTER II

ARMAMENT, BUT NOT ALONE ARMAMENT

Not the facts, but men's belief about facts, shapes their

conduct--Solving a problem of two factors by ignoring one--The

fatal outcome of such a method--The German Navy as a "luxury"--If

both sides concentrate on armament alone.

"Not the facts, but men's opinions about the facts, are what matter,"

one thinker has remarked. And this is because men's conduct is

determined, not necessarily by the right conclusion from facts, but the

conclusion they believe to be right.

When men burned witches, their conduct was exactly what it would have

been if what they believed to be true _had_ been true. The truth made no

difference to their behavior, so long as they could not see the truth.

And so in politics. As long as Europe is dominated by the old beliefs,

those beliefs will have virtually the same effect in politics as though

they were intrinsically sound.

And just as in the matter of burning witches a change of behavior was

the outcome of a change of opinion, in its turn the result of a more

scientific investigation of the facts, so in the same way a change in

the political conduct of Europe can only come about as the result of a

change of thought; and that change of thought will not come about so

long as the energies of men in this matter are centred only upon

perfecting instruments of warfare. It is not merely that better ideas

can only result from more attention being given to the real meaning of

facts, but that the direct tendency of war preparation--with the

suspicion it necessarily engenders and the ill-temper to which it almost

always gives rise--is to create both mechanical and psychological checks

to improvement of opinion and understanding. Here, for instance, is

General von Bernhardi, who has just published his book in favor of war

as the regenerator of nations, urging that Germany should attack certain

of her enemies before they are ready to attack her. Suppose the others

reply by increasing their military force? It suits Bernhardi entirely.

For what is the effect of this increase on the minds of Germans possibly

disposed to disagree with Bernhardi? It is to silence them and to

strengthen Bernhardi's hands. His policy, originally wrong, has become

relatively right, because his arguments have been answered by force. For

the silence of his might-be critics will still further encourage those

of other nations who deem themselves threatened by this kind of opinion

in Germany to increase their armaments; and these increases will still

further tend to strengthen Bernhardi's school, and still further silence

his critics. The process by which force tends to crush reason is,

unhappily, cumulative and progressive. The vicious circle can only be

broken by the introduction somewhere of the factor of reason.

And this is precisely, my critics urge, why we need do nothing but

concentrate on the instruments of force!

The all but invariable attitude adopted by the man in the street in this

whole discussion is about as follows:

"What, as practical men, we have to do, is to be stronger than our

enemy; the rest is theory, and does not matter."

Well, the inevitable outcome of such an attitude is catastrophe. It

leads us not toward, but away from, solution.

In the first edition of this book I wrote:

Are we immediately to cease preparation for war, since our

defeat cannot advantage our enemy nor do us in the long run

much harm? No such conclusion results from a study of the

considerations elaborated here. It is evident that so long as

the misconception we are dealing with is all but universal in

Europe, so long as the nations believe that in some way the

military and political subjugation of others will bring with it

a tangible material advantage to the conqueror, we all do, in

fact, stand in danger from such aggression. Not his interest,

but what he deems to be his interest, will furnish the real

motive of our prospective enemy's action. And as the illusion

with which we are dealing does, indeed, dominate all those

minds most active in European politics, we (in England) must,

while this remains the case, regard an aggression, even such as

that which Mr. Harrison foresees, as within the bounds of

practical politics. (What is not within the bounds of

possibility is the extent of devastation which he foresees as

the result of such attack, which, I think, the foregoing pages

sufficiently demonstrate.)

On this ground alone I deem that England, or any other nation,

is justified in taking means of self-defence to prevent such

aggression. This is not, therefore, a plea for disarmament

irrespective of the action of other nations. So long as current

political philosophy in Europe remains what it is, I would not

urge the reduction of the British war budget by a single

sovereign.

I see no reason to alter a word of this. But if preparation of the

machinery of war is to be the only form of energy in this matter--if

national effort is to neglect all other factors whatsoever--more and

more will sincere and patriotic men have doubts as to whether they are

justified in co-operating in further piling up the armaments of any

country. Of the two risks involved--the risk of attack arising from a

possible superiority of armament on the part of a rival, and the risk of

drifting into conflict because, concentrating all our energies on the

mere instrument of combat, we have taken no adequate trouble to

understand the facts of this case--it is at least an arguable

proposition that the second risk is the greater. And I am prompted to

this expression of opinion without surrendering one iota of a lifelong

and passionate belief that a nation attacked should defend itself to the

last penny and to the last man.

In this matter it seems fatally easy to secure either one of two kinds

of action: that of the "practical man" who limits his energies to

securing a policy which will perfect the machinery of war and disregard

anything else; or that of the Pacifist, who, persuaded of the brutality

or immorality of war, is apt to deprecate effort directed at

self-defence. What is needed is the type of activity which will include

both halves of the problem: provision for education, for a Political

Reformation in this matter, _as well as_ such means of defence as will

meantime counterbalance the existing impulse to aggression. To

concentrate on either half to the exclusion of the other half is to

render the whole problem insoluble.

What must inevitably happen if the nations take the line of the

"practical man," and limit their energies simply and purely to piling up

armaments?

A British critic once put to me what he evidently deemed a poser: "Do

you urge that we shall be stronger than our enemy, or weaker?"

To which I replied: "The last time that question was asked me was in

Berlin, by Germans. What would you have had me reply to those

Germans?"--a reply which, of course, meant this: In attempting to find

the solution of this question in terms of one party, you are attempting

the impossible. The outcome will be war, and war would not settle it. It

would all have to be begun over again.

The British Navy League catechism says: "Defence consists in being so

strong that it will be dangerous for your enemy to attack you."[115] Mr.

Churchill, even, goes farther than the Navy League, and says: "The way

to make war impossible is to make victory certain."

The Navy League definition is at least possible of application to

practical politics, because rough equality of the two parties would make

attack by either dangerous. Mr. Churchill's principle is impossible of

application to practical politics, because it could only be applied by

one party, and would, in the terms of the Navy League principle, deprive

the other party of the right of defence. As a matter of simple fact,

both the British Navy League, by its demand for two ships to one, and

Mr. Churchill, by his demand for certain victory, deny in this matter

Germany's right to defend herself; and such denial is bound, on the part

of a people animated by like motives to themselves, to provoke a

challenge. When the British Navy League says, as it does, that a

self-respecting nation should not depend upon the goodwill of foreigners

for its safety, but upon its own strength, it recommends Germany to

maintain her efforts to arrive at some sort of equality with England.

When Mr. Churchill goes farther, and says that a nation is entitled to

be so strong as to make victory over its rivals certain, he knows that

if Germany were to adopt his own doctrine, its certain outcome would be

war.

In anticipation of such an objection, Mr. Churchill says that

preponderant power at sea is a luxury to Germany, a necessity to

Britain; that these efforts of Germany are, as it were, a mere whim in

no way dictated by the real necessities of her people, and having

behind them no impulse wrapped up with national needs.[116]

If that be the truth, then it is the strongest argument imaginable for

the settlement of this Anglo-German rivalry by agreement: by bringing

about that Political Reformation of Europe which it is the object of

these pages to urge.

Here are those of the school of Mr. Churchill who say: The danger of

aggression from Germany is so great that England must have an enormous

preponderance of force--two to one; so great are the risks Germany is

prepared to take, that unless victory on the English side is certain she

will attack. And yet, explain this same school, the impulse which

creates these immense burdens and involves these immense risks is a mere

whim, a luxury; the whole thing is dissociated from any real national

need.

If that really be the case, then, indeed, is it time for a campaign of

Education in Europe; time that the sixty-five millions, more or less, of

hard-working and not very rich people, whose money support alone makes

this rivalry possible, learned what it is all about. This "whim" has

cost the two nations, in the last ten years, a sum larger than the

indemnity France paid to Germany. Does Mr. Churchill suppose that these

millions know, or think, this struggle one for a mere luxury, or whim?

And if they did know, would it be quite a simple matter for the German

Government to keep up the game?

But those who, during the last decade in England, have in and out of

season carried on this active campaign for the increase of British

armaments, do _not_ believe that Germany's action is the result of a

mere whim. They, being part of the public opinion of Europe, subscribe

to the general European doctrine that Germany is pushed to do these

things by real national necessities, by her need for expansion, for

finding food and livelihood for all these increasing millions. And if

this is so, the English are asking Germany, in surrendering this

contest, to betray future German generations--wilfully to withhold from

them those fields which the strength and fortitude of this generation

might win. If this common doctrine is true, the English are asking

Germany to commit national suicide.[117]

Why should it be assumed that Germany will do it? That she will be less

persistent in protecting her national interest, her posterity, be less

faithful than the British themselves to great national impulses? Has not

the day gone by when educated men can calmly assume that any Englishman

is worth three foreigners? And yet such an assumption, ignorant and

provincial as we are bound to admit it to be, is the only one that can

possibly justify this policy of concentrating upon armament alone.

Even Admiral Fisher can write:

The supremacy of the British Navy is the best security for the

peace of the world.... If you rub it in, both at home and

abroad, that you are ready for instant war, with every unit of

your strength in the first line and waiting to be first in, and

hit your enemy in the belly and kick him when he is down, and

boil your prisoners in oil (if you take any), and torture his

women and children, then people will keep clear of you.

Would Admiral Fisher refrain from taking a given line merely because,

if he took it, someone would "hit him in the belly," etc.? He would

repudiate the idea with the utmost scorn, and probably reply that the

threat would give him an added incentive to take the line in question.

But why should Admiral Fisher suppose that he has a monopoly of courage,

and that a German Admiral would act otherwise than he? Is it not about

time that each nation abandoned the somewhat childish assumption that it

has a monopoly of the courage and the persistence in the world, and that

things which would never frighten or deter it will frighten and deter

its rivals?

Yet in this matter the English assume either that the Germans will be

less persistent than they, or that in this contest their backs will

break first. A coadjutor of Lord Roberts is calmly talking of a Naval

Budget of 400 or 500 million dollars, and universal service as well, as

a possibility of the all but immediate future.[118] If England can stand

that now, why should not Germany, who is, we are told, growing

industrially more rapidly than the English, be able to stand as much?

But when she has arrived at that point, the English, at the same rate,

must have a naval budget of anything from 750 to 1000 million dollars, a

total armament budget of something in the region of 1250 millions. The

longer it goes on, the worse will be England's relative position,

because she has imposed on herself a progressive handicap.

The end can only be conflict, and already the policy of precipitating

that conflict is raising its head.

Sir Edmund C. Cox writes in the premier English review, the _Nineteenth

Century_, for April, 1910:

Is there no alternative to this endless yet futile competition

in shipbuilding? Yes, there is. It is one which a Cromwell, a

William Pitt, a Palmerston, a Disraeli, would have adopted long

ago. This is that alternative--the only possible conclusion. It

is to say to Germany: "All that you have been doing constitutes

a series of unfriendly acts. Your fair words go for nothing.

Once for all, you must put an end to your warlike preparations.

If we are not satisfied that you do so, we shall forthwith sink

every battleship and cruiser which you possess. The situation

which you have created is intolerable. If you determine to

fight us, if you insist upon war, war you shall have; but the

time shall be of our choosing and not of yours, and that time

shall be now." And that is where the present policy, the sheer

bulldog piling up of armaments without reference to or effort

towards a better political doctrine in Europe, inevitably

leads.

CHAPTER III

IS THE POLITICAL REFORMATION POSSIBLE?

Men are little disposed to listen to reason, "therefore we

should not talk reason"--Are men's ideas immutable?

We have seen, therefore--

1. That the need for defence arises from the existence of a

motive for attack.

2. That that motive is, consequently, part of the problem of

defence.

3. That, since as between the advanced peoples we are dealing

with in this matter, one party is as able in the long run to

pile up armaments as the other, we cannot get nearer to

solution by armaments alone; we must get at the original

provoking cause--the motive making for aggression.

4. That if that motive results from a true judgment of the

facts; if the determining factor in a nation's well-being and

progress is really its power to obtain by force advantage over

others, the present situation of armament rivalry tempered by

war is a natural and inevitable one.

5. That if, however, the view is a false one, our progress

towards solution will be marked by the extent to which the

error becomes generally recognized in international public

opinion.

That brings me to the last entrenchment of those who actively or

passively oppose propaganda looking towards reform in this matter.

As already pointed out, the last year or two has revealed a suggestive

shifting of position on the part of such opposition. The original

position of the defenders of the old political creeds was that the

economic thesis here outlined was just simply wrong; then, that the

principles themselves were sound enough, but that they were irrelevant,

because not interests, but ideals, constituted the cause of conflict

between nations. In reply to which, of course, came the query, What

ideals, apart from questions of interest, lie at the bottom of the

conflict which is the most typical of our time--what ideal motive is

Germany, for instance, pursuing in its presumed aggression upon England?

Consequently that position has generally been abandoned. Then we were

told that men don't act by logic, but passion. Then the critics were

asked how they explained the general character of _la haute politique_,

its cold intrigues and expediency, the extraordinary rapid changes in

alliances and _ententes_, all following exactly a line of passionless

interest reasoned, though from false premises, with very great logic

indeed; and were asked whether all experience does not show that, while

passion may determine the energy with which a given line of conduct is

pursued, the direction of that line of conduct is determined by

processes of another kind: John, seeing James, his life-long and

long-sought enemy, in the distance, has his hatred passionately stirred,

and harbors thoughts of murder. As he comes near he sees that it is not

James at all, but a quiet and inoffensive neighbor, Peter. John's

thoughts of murder are appeased, not because he has changed his nature,

but because the recognition of a simple fact has changed the direction

of his passion. What we in this matter hope to do is to show that the

nations are mistaking Peter for James.

Well, the last entrenchment of those who oppose the work is the dogmatic

assertion that though we are right as to the material fact, its

demonstration can never be made; that this political reformation of

Europe the political rationalists talk about is a hopeless matter; it

implies a change of opinion so vast that it can only be looked for as

the result of whole generations of educative processes.

Suppose this were true. What then? Will you leave everything severely

alone, and leave wrong and dangerous ideas in undisturbed possession of

the political field?

This conclusion is not a policy; it is Oriental fatalism--"Kismet," "the

will of Allah."

Such an attitude is not possible among men dominated by the traditions

and the impulses of the Western world. We do not let things slide in

this way; we do not assume that as men are not guided by reason in

politics, therefore we shall not reason about politics. The time of

statesmen is absorbed in the discussion of these things. Our press and

literature are deeply concerned in them. The talk and thought of men are

about them. However little they may deem reason to affect the conduct of

men, they go on reasoning. And progress in conduct is determined by the

degree of understanding which results.

It is true that physical conflict marks the point at which the reason

has failed; men fight when they have not been able to "come to an

understanding" in the common phrase, which is for once correct. But is

this a cause for deprecating the importance of clear understanding? Is

it not, on the contrary, precisely why our energies should be devoted to

improving our capacity for dealing with these things by reason, rather

than by physical force?

Do we not inevitably arrive at the destination to which every road in

this discussion leads? However we may start, with whatever plan, however

elaborated or varied, the end is always the same--the progress of man in

this matter depends upon the degree to which his ideas are just; man

advances by the victories of his mind and character. Again we have

arrived at the region of platitude. But also again it is one of those

platitudes which most people deny. Thus the London _Spectator_:

For ourselves, as far as the main economic proposition goes, he

preaches to the converted.... If nations were perfectly wise

and held perfectly sound economic theories, they would

recognize that exchange is the union of forces, and that it is

very foolish to hate or be jealous of your co-operators.... Men

are savage, bloodthirsty creatures ... and when their blood is

up will fight for a word or a sign, or, as Mr. Angell would put

it, for an illusion.

Criticism at the other end of the journalistic scale--that, for

instance, from Mr. Blatchford--is of an exactly similar character. Mr.

Blatchford says:

Mr. Angell may be right in his contention that modern war is

unprofitable to both belligerents. I do not believe it, but he

may be right. But he is wrong if he imagines that his theory

will prevent European war. To prevent European wars it needs

more than the truth of his theory: it needs that the war lords

and diplomatists and financiers and workers of Europe shall

believe the theory.... So long as the rulers of nations believe

that war may be expedient (see Clausewitz), and so long as they

believe they have the power, war will continue.... It will

continue until these men are fully convinced that it will bring

no advantage.

Therefore, argues Mr. Blatchford, the demonstration that war will not

bring advantage is futile.

I am not here, for the purpose of controversy, putting an imaginary

conclusion into Mr. Blatchford's mouth. It is the conclusion that he

actually does draw. The article from which I have quoted was intended to

demonstrate the futility of books like this. It was by way of reply to

an early edition of this one. In common with the other critics, he must

have known that this is not a plea for the impossibility of war (I have

always urged with emphasis that our ignorance on this matter makes war

not only possible, but extremely likely), but for its futility. And the

demonstration of its futility is, I am now told, in itself futile!

I have expanded the arguments of this and others of my critics thus:

The war lords and diplomats are still wedded to the old

false theories; _therefore_ we shall leave those

theories undisturbed, and generally deprecate discussion

of them.

Nations do not realize the facts; _therefore_ we should

attach no importance to the work of making them known.

These facts profoundly affect the well-being of European

peoples; _therefore_ we shall not systematically

encourage the efficient study of them.

If they were generally known, the practical outcome would be

that most of our difficulties herein would disappear;

_therefore_ anyone who attempts to make them known is an

amiable sentimentalist, a theorist, and so on, and so on.

"Things do not matter so much as people's opinions about

things"[119]; _therefore_ no effort shall be directed to

a modification of opinion.

The only way for these truths to affect policy, to become

operative in the conduct of nations, is to make them

operative in the minds of men; _therefore_ discussion of

them is futile.

Our troubles arise from the wrong ideas of nations;

_therefore_ ideas do not count--they are "theories."

General conception and insight in this matter is vague and

ill-defined, so that action is always in danger of being

decided by sheer passion and irrationalism; _therefore_

we shall do nothing to render insight clear and

well-defined.

The empire of sheer impulse, of the non-rational, is

strongest when associated with ignorance (_e.g._,

Mohammedan fanaticism, Chinese Boxerism), and only yields

to the general progress of ideas (_e.g._, sounder

religious notions sweeping away the hate and horrors of

religious persecution); _therefore_ the best way to

maintain peace is to pay no attention to the progress of

political ideas.

The progress of ideas has completely transformed religious

feeling in so far as it settles the policy of one

religious group in relation to another; _therefore_ the

progress of ideas will never transform patriotic feeling,

which settles the policy of one political group in

relation to another.

What, in short, does the argument of my critics amount to? This: that so

slow, so stupid is the world that, though the facts may be

unassailable, they will never be learned within any period that need

concern us.

Without in the least desiring to score off my critics, and still less to

be discourteous, I sometimes wonder it has never struck them that in the

eyes of the profane this attitude of theirs must appear really as a most

colossal vanity. "We" who write in newspapers and reviews understand

these things; "we" can be guided by reason and wisdom, but the common

clay will not see these truths for "thousands of years." I talk to the

converted (so I am told) when my book is read by the editors and

reviewers. _They_, of course, can understand; but the notion that mere

diplomats and statesmen, the men who make up Governments and nations,

should ever do so is, of course, quite too preposterous.

Personally, however flattering this notion might be, I have never been

able to feel its soundness. I have always strongly felt the precise

opposite--namely, that what is plain to me will very soon be equally

plain to my neighbor. Possessing, presumably, as much vanity as most, I

am, nevertheless, absolutely convinced that simple facts which stare an

ordinary busy man of affairs in the face are not going to be for ever

hid from the multitude. Depend upon it, if "we" can see these things, so

can the mere statesmen and diplomats and those who do the work of the

world.

Moreover, if what "we" write in reviews and books does not touch men's

reasons, does not affect their conduct, why do we write at all?

We do _not_ believe it impossible to change or form men's ideas; such a

plea would doom us all to silence, and would kill religious and

political literature. "Public Opinion" is not external to men; it is

made by men; by what they hear and read and have suggested to them by

their daily tasks, and talk and contact.

If it _were_ true, therefore, that the difficulties in the way of

modifying political opinion were as vast as my critics would have us

believe, that would not affect our conduct; the more they emphasize

those difficulties, the more they emphasize the need for effort on our

part.

But it is not true that a change such as that involved here necessarily

"takes thousands of years." I have already dealt with the plea, but

would recall only one incident that I have cited: a scene painted by a

Spanish artist of the Court and nobles and populace in a great European

city, gathered on a public holiday as for a festival to see a beautiful

child burned to death for a faith that, as it plaintively said, it had

sucked in with its mother's milk.

How long separates us from that scene? Why, not the lives of three

ordinarily elderly people. And how long after that scene--which was not

an isolated incident of uncommon kind, but a very everyday matter,

typical of the ideas and feelings of the time at which it was

enacted--was it before the renewal of such became a practical

impossibility? It was not a hundred years. It was enacted in 1680, and

within the space of a short lifetime the world knew that never again

would a child be burned alive as the result of a legal condemnation by a

duly constituted Court, and as a public festival, witnessed by the King

and the nobles and the populace, in one of the great cities of Europe.

Or, do those who talk of "unchanging human nature" and "thousands of

years" really plead that we are in danger of a repetition of such a

scene? In that case our religious toleration is a mistake. Protestants

stand in danger of such tortures, and should arm themselves with the old

armory of religious combat--the rack, the thumbscrew, the iron maiden,

and the rest--as a matter of sheer protection.

"Men are savage, bloodthirsty creatures, and will fight for a word or a

sign," the _Spectator_ tells us, when their patriotism is involved.

Well, until yesterday, it was as true to say that of them when their

religion was involved. Patriotism is the religion of politics. And as

one of the greatest historians of religious ideas has pointed out,

religion and patriotism are the chief moral influences moving great

bodies of men, and "the separate modifications and mutual interaction of

these two agents may almost be said to constitute the moral history of

mankind."[120]

But is it likely that a general progress which has transformed religion

is going to leave patriotism unaffected; that the rationalization and

humanization which have taken place in the more complex domain of

religious doctrine and belief will not also take place in the domain of

politics? The problem of religious toleration was beset with

difficulties incalculably greater than any which confront us in this

problem. Then, as now, the old order was defended with real

disinterestedness; then it was called religious fervor; now it is called

patriotism. The best of the old inquisitors were as disinterested, as

sincere, as single-minded, as are doubtless the best of the Prussian

Junkers, the French Nationalists, the English militarists. Then, as now,

the progress towards peace and security seemed to them a dangerous

degeneration, the break-up of faiths, the undermining of most that holds

society together. Then, as now, the old order pinned its faith to the

tangible and visible instruments of protection--I mean the instruments

of physical force. And the Catholic, in protecting himself by the

Inquisition against what he regarded as the dangerous intrigues of the

Protestant, was protecting what he regarded not merely as his own social

and political security, but the eternal salvation, he believed, of

unborn millions of men. Yet he surrendered such instruments of defence,

and finally Catholic and Protestant alike came to see that the peace and

security of both were far better assured by this intangible thing--the

right thinking of men--than by all the mechanical ingenuity of prisons

and tortures and burnings which it was possible to devise. In like

manner will the patriot come finally to see that better than

_Dreadnoughts_ will be the recognition on his part and on the part of

his prospective enemy, that there is no interest, material or moral, in

conquest and military domination.

And that hundred years which I have mentioned as representing an

apparently impassable gulf in the progress of European ideas, a period

which marked an evolution so great that the very mind and nature of men

seemed to change, was a hundred years without newspapers--a time in

which books were such a rarity that it took a generation for one to

travel from Madrid to London; in which the steam printing-press did not

exist, nor the railroad, nor the telegraph, nor any of those thousand

contrivances which now make it possible for the words of an American

statesman spoken to-day to be read by the millions of Europe to-morrow

morning--to do, in short, more in the way of the dissemination of ideas

in ten months than was possible then in a century.

When things moved so slowly, a generation or two sufficed to transform

the mind of Europe on the religious side. Why should it be impossible to

change that mind on the political side in a generation, or half a

generation, when things move so much more quickly? Are men less disposed

to change their political than their religious opinions? We all know

that _not_ to be the case. In every country in Europe we find political

parties advocating, or at least acquiescing in, policies which they

strenuously opposed ten years ago. Does the evidence available go to

show that the particular side of politics with which we are dealing is

notably more impervious to change and development than the rest--less

within the reach and influence of new ideas?

I must risk here the reproach of egotism and bad taste to call attention

to a fact which bears more directly on that point, perhaps, than any

other that could be cited.

It is some fifteen years since it first struck me that certain economic

facts of our civilization--facts of such visible and mechanical nature

as reacting bourses and bank rate-movements, in all the economic

capitals of the world, and so on--would soon force upon the attention of

men a principle which, though existing for long past in some degree in

human affairs, had not become operative to any extent. Was there any

doubt as to the reality of the material facts involved? Circumstances of

my occupation happily furnished opportunities of discussing the matter

thoroughly with bankers and statesmen of world-wide authority. There was

no doubt on that score. Had we yet arrived at the point at which it was

possible to make the matter plain to general opinion? Were politicians

too ill-educated on the real facts of the world, too much absorbed in

the rough-and-tumble of workaday politics to change old ideas? Were

they, and the rank and file, still too enslaved by the hypnotism of an

obsolete terminology to accept a new view? One could only put it to a

practical test. A brief exposition of the cardinal principles was

embodied in a brief pamphlet and published obscurely without

advertisement, and bearing, necessarily, an unknown name. The result

was, under the circumstances, startling, and certainly did not justify

in the least the plea that there exists universal hostility to the

advance of political rationalism. Encouragement came from most

unlooked-for quarters: public men whose interests have been mainly

military, alleged Jingoes, and even from soldiers. The more considerable

edition has appeared in English, German, French, Dutch, Danish, Swedish,

Spanish, Italian, Russian, Japanese, Erdu, Persian, and Hindustani, and

nowhere has the Press completely ignored the book. Papers of Liberal

tendencies have welcomed it everywhere. Those of more reactionary

tendencies have been much less hostile than one could have

expected.[121]

Does such an experience justify that universal rebelliousness to

political rationalism on which my critics for the most part found their

case? My object in calling attention to it is evident. If this is

possible as the result of the effort of a single obscure person working

without means and without leisure, what could not be accomplished by an

organization adequately equipped and financed? Mr. Augustine Birrell

says somewhere: "Some opinions, bold and erect as they may still stand,

are in reality but empty shells. One shove would be fatal. Why is it not

given?"

If little apparently has been done in the modification of ideas in this

matter, it is because little relatively has been attempted. Millions of

us are prepared to throw ourselves with energy into that part of

national defence which, after all, is a makeshift, into agitation for

the building of _Dreadnoughts_ and the raising of armies, the things in

fact which can be seen, where barely dozens will throw themselves with

equal ardor into that other department of national defence, the only

department which will really guarantee security, but by means which are

invisible--the rationalization of ideas.

CHAPTER IV

METHODS

Relative failure of Hague Conferences and the cause--Public opinion

the necessary motive force of national action--That opinion only

stable if informed--"Friendship" between nations and its

limitations--America's role in the coming "Political Reformation."

Much of the pessimism as to the possibility of any progress in this

matter is based on the failure of such efforts as Hague Conferences.

Never has the contest of armament been so keen as when Europe began to

indulge in Peace Conferences. Speaking roughly and generally, the era of

great armament expansion dates from the first Hague Conference.

Well, the reader who has appreciated the emphasis laid in the preceding

pages on working through the reform of ideas will not feel much

astonishment at the failure of efforts such as these. The Hague

Conferences represented an attempt not to work through the reform of

ideas, but to modify by mechanical means the political machinery of

Europe, without reference to the ideas which had brought it into

existence.

Arbitration treaties, Hague Conferences, International Federation

involve a new conception of relationship between nations. But the

ideals--political, economical, and social--on which the old conceptions

are based, our terminology, our political literature, our old habits of

thought, diplomatic inertia, which all combine to perpetuate the old

notions, have been left serenely undisturbed. And surprise is expressed

that such schemes do not succeed.

French politics have given us this proverb, "I am the leader, therefore

I follow." This is not mere cynicism, but expresses in reality a

profound truth. What is a leader or a ruler in a modern parliamentary

sense? He is a man who holds office by virtue of the fact that he

represents the mean of opinion in his party. Initiative, therefore,

cannot come from him until he can be sure of the support of his

party--that is, until the initiative in question represents the common

opinion of his party. The author happened to discuss the views embodied

in this book with a French parliamentary chief, who said in effect: "Of

course you are talking to the converted, but I am helpless. Suppose that

I attempted to embody these views before they were ready for acceptance

by my party. I should simply lose my leadership in favor of a man less

open to new ideas, and the prospect of their acceptance would not be

increased, but diminished. Even if I were not already converted, it

would be no good trying to convert me. Convert the body of the party and

its leaders will not need conversion."

And this is the position of every civilized government, parliamentary or

not. The struggle for religious freedom was not gained by agreements

drawn up between Catholic States and Protestant States, or even between

Catholic bodies and Protestant bodies. No such process was possible, for

in the last resort there was no such thing as an absolutely Catholic

State or an absolutely Protestant one. Our security from persecution is

due simply to the general recognition of the futility of the employment

of physical force in a matter of religious belief. Our progress towards

political rationalism will take place in like manner.

There is no royal road of this kind to a better state. It seems decreed

that we shall not permanently achieve improvement which we as

individuals have not paid for in the coin of hard thinking.

Nothing is easier to achieve in international politics than academic

declarations in favor of Peace. But governments being trustees have a

first duty in the interests of their wards, or what they conceive to be

such interests, and they disregard what is still looked upon as a

conception having its origin in altruistic and self-sacrificing motives.

"Self-sacrifice" is the last motive governments can allow themselves to

consider. They are created to protect, not to sacrifice, the interests

of which they are placed in charge.

It is impossible for governments to base their normal policies on

conceptions which are in advance of the general standard of the

political opinion of the people from whom they derive their power. The

average man will, it is true, quite readily subscribe abstractly to a

peace ideal, just as he will subscribe abstractly to certain religious

ideals--to take no thought for the morrow, not to save up treasure upon

earth--without the faintest notion of making them a guide of conduct,

or, indeed, of seeing how they _can_ be a guide of conduct. At peace

meetings he will cheer lustily and sign petitions, because he believes

Peace to be a great moral idea, and that armies, like the Police, are

destined to disappear one day--on about the same day in his belief--when

the nature of man shall have been altered.

One may be able fully to appreciate this attitude of the "average

sensual man" without doubting the least in the world the sincerity,

genuineness, wholeheartedness of these emotional movements in favor of

peace, which from time to time sweep over a country (as on the occasion

of the Taft-Grey exchange of views on arbitration). But what it is

necessary to emphasize, what cannot be too often reiterated, is that

these movements, however emotional and sincere, are not movements which

can lead to breaking up the intellectual basis of the policy which

produces armaments in the Western World. These movements embrace only

one section of the factors making for peace--the moral and the

emotional. And while those factors have immense power, they are

uncertain and erratic in their operation, and when the shouting dies and

there is a natural reaction from emotion, and it is a question once more

of doing the humdrum week-day work of the world, of pushing our

interests, of finding markets, of achieving the best possible generally

for our nation as against other nations, of preparing for the future, of

organizing one's efforts, the old code of compromise between the ideal

and the necessary will be as operative as ever. So long as his notions

of what war can accomplish in an economic or commercial sense remain

what they are, the average man will not deem that his prospective enemy

is likely to make the peace ideal a guide of conduct. Incidentally he

would be right. At the bottom of his mind--and I say this not lightly

and as a guess, but as an absolute conviction after very close

observation--the ideal of peace is conceived as a demand that he weaken

his own defences on no better assurance than that his prospective rival

or enemy will be well-behaved and not wicked enough to attack him.

It appeals to him as about equivalent to asking that he shall not lock

his doors because to suppose people will rob him is to have a low view

of human nature!

Though he believes his own position in the world (as a colonial Power,

etc.) to be the result of the use of force by himself, of his readiness

to seize what could be seized, he is asked to believe that foreigners

will not do in the future what he himself has done in the past. He finds

this difficult to swallow.

Save in his Sunday moods, the whole thing makes him angry. It appeals to

him as "unfair," in that he is asked by his own countrymen to do

something that they apparently do not ask of foreigners; it appears to

him as unmanly, in that he is asked to surrender the advantage which his

strength has secured him in favor of a somewhat emasculate ideal.

The patriot feels that his moral intention is every bit as sincere as

that of the pacifist--that, indeed, patriotism is a finer moral ideal

than pacifism. The difference between the pacifist and the advocate of

_real-politik_ is an intellectual and not a moral one at all, and the

assumption of superior morality which the former sometimes makes does

the cause which he has at heart infinite harm. Until the pacifist can

show that the employment of military force fails to secure material

advantage, the common man will, in ordinary times, continue to believe

that the militarist has a moral sanction as great as that underlying

pacifism.

It may seem gratuitously ungracious to suggest that the very elevation

which has marked peace propaganda in the past should have been the very

thing that has sometimes stood in the way of its success. But such a

phenomenon is not new in human development. There was as much good

intention in the world of religious warfare and oppression as there is

in ours. Indeed, the very earnestness of the men who burnt, tortured,

and imprisoned and stamped out human thought with the very best motives,

was precisely the factor which stood in the way of improvement.

Improvement came finally, not from better intention, but from an acuter

use of the intelligence of men, from hard mental work.

So long as we assume that high motive, a better moral tone is all that

is needed in international relations, and that an understanding of these

problems will in some wonderful way come of itself, without hard and

systematic intellectual effort, we shall make little headway.

Good feeling and kindliness and a ready emotion are among the most

precious things in life, but they are qualities possessed by some of the

most retrograde nations in the world, because in them they are not

coupled with the homely quality of hard work, in which one may include

hard thinking. This last is the real price of progress, and we shall

make none of worth unless we pay it.

A word or two as to the role of "friendship" in international relations.

Courtesy and a certain measure of good faith are essential elements

wherever civilized men come in direct contact; without them organized

society would go to pieces. But these invaluable elements never yet of

themselves settled real differences; they merely render the other

factors of adjustment possible. Why should one expect courtesy and

good-fellowship to settle grave political differences between English

and Germans when they altogether fail to settle such differences between

English and English? What should we say of a statesman professing to be

serious who suggested that all would be well between President Wilson

and the lobbyists concerning the tariff, between the Democrats and

Republicans on protection, between the millionaire and the day laborer

on the question of the income tax, and a thousand and one other

things--that all these knotty problems would disappear, if only the

respective protagonists could be persuaded to take lunch together? Is it

not a little childish?

Yet I am bound to admit that a whole school of persons who deal with

international problems would have us believe that all international

differences would disappear if only we could have enough junketings,

dinner-parties, exchange visits of clergymen, and what not. These things

have immense use in so far as they facilitate discussion and the

elucidation of the policy in which the rivalry has its birth, and to

that extent only. But if they are not vehicles of intellectual

comprehension, if the parties go away with as little understanding of

the factors and nature of international relationship as they had before

such meetings took place, they have served no purpose whatsoever.

The work of the world does not get done merely by being good friends

with everybody; the problems of international diplomacy are not to be

solved merely by a sort of international picnic; that would make the

world too easy a place to live in.

However ungracious it may seem, it is nevertheless dangerous to allow to

go unchallenged the notion that the cultivation of "friendship and

affection" between nations, irrespective of the other factors affecting

their relationship, can ever seriously modify international politics.

The matter is of grave importance, because so much good effort is spent

in putting the cart before the horse, and attempting to create an

operative factor out of a sentiment that can never be constant and

positive one way or the other, since it must in the nature of things be

largely artificial. It is a psychological impossibility in any ordinary

workaday circumstances to have any special feeling of affection for a

hundred or sixty or forty millions of people, composed of infinitely

diverse elements, good, bad, and indifferent, noble and mean, pleasing

and unpleasing, whom, moreover, we have never seen and never shall see.

It is too large an order. We might as well be asked to entertain

feelings of affection for the Tropic of Capricorn. As I have already

hinted, we have no particular affection for the great mass of our own

countrymen--your lobbyist enthusiast for Mr. Wilson, your railroad

striker for the employer of labor, your Suffragette for your

anti-Suffragette, and so on _ad infinitum_. Patriotism has nothing to do

with it. The patriot is often the person who had the heartiest

detestation for a large mass of his fellow-countrymen. Consider any

anti-administration literature. As an English instance a glance at Mr.

Leo Maxse's monthly masterpieces of epithet-making, or at what the

pan-Germans have to say of their own Empire and Government ("poltroons

in the pay of the English" is a choice tit-bit I select from one German

newspaper), will soon convince one.

Why, therefore, should we be asked to entertain for foreigners a

sentiment we do not give to our own people? And not only to entertain

that sentiment, but to make (always in the terms of the present

political beliefs) great sacrifices on behalf of it!

Need it be said that I have not the least desire to deprecate sincere

emotion as a factor in progress? Emotion and enthusiasm form the divine

stimulus without which no great things would be achieved; but emotion

divorced from mental and moral discipline is not the kind on which wise

men will place a very high value. Some of the intensest emotion of the

world has been given to some of the worst possible objects. Just as in

the physical world, the same forces--steam, gunpowder, what you

will--which, controlled and directed may do an infinitely useful

work--may, uncontrolled, cause accidents and catastrophes of the gravest

kind.

Nor is it true that the better understanding of this matter is beyond

the great mass of men, that sounder ideas depend upon the comprehension

of complex and abstruse points, correct judgment in intricate matters of

finance or economics. Things which seem in one stage of thought obscure

and difficult are cleared up merely by setting one or two crooked facts

straight. The rationalists, who a generation or two ago struggled with

such things as the prevalent belief in witchcraft, may have deemed that

the abolition of superstitions of this kind would take "thousands of

years."

Lecky has pointed out that during the eighteenth century many judges in

Europe--not ignorant men, but, on the contrary, exceedingly

well-educated men, trained to sift evidence--were condemning people to

death by hundreds for witchcraft. Acute and educated men still believed

in it; its disproof demanded a large acquaintance with the forces and

processes of physical nature, and it was generally thought that, while a

few exceptional intelligences here and there would shake off these

beliefs, they would remain indefinitely the possessions of the great

mass of mankind.

What has happened? A schoolboy to-day would scout the evidence which, on

the judgment of very learned men, sent thousands of poor wretches to

their doom in the eighteenth century. Would the schoolboy necessarily be

more learned or more acute than those judges? They probably knew a great

deal about the science of witchcraft, were more familiar with its

literature, with the arguments which supported it, and they would have

hopelessly worsted any nineteenth-century schoolboy in any argument on

the subject. The point is, however, that the schoolboy would have two or

three essential facts straight, instead of getting them crooked.

All the fine theories about the advantages of conquest, of territorial

aggrandizement, so learnedly advanced by the Mahans and the von

Stengels; the immense value which the present-day politician attaches to

foreign conquest, all these absurd rivalries aiming at "stealing" one

another's territory, will be recognized as the preposterous illusions

that they are by the younger mind, which really sees the quite plain

fact that the citizen of a small State is just as well off as the

citizen of a great. From that fact, which is not complex or difficult

in the least, will emerge the truth that modern government is a matter

of administration, and that it can no more profit a community to annex

other communities, than it could profit London to annex Manchester.

These things will not need argument to be clear to the schoolboy of the

future--they will be self-evident, like the improbability of an old

woman causing a storm at sea.

Of course, it is true that many of the factors bearing on this

improvement will be indirect. As our education becomes more rational in

other fields, it will make for understanding in this; as the visible

factors of our civilization make plain--as they are making plainer every

day--the unity and interdependence of the modern world, the attempt to

separate those interdependent activities by irrelevant divisions must

more and more break down. All improvement in human co-operation--and

human co-operation is a synonym for civilization--must help the work of

those laboring in the field of international relationship. But again I

would reiterate that the work of the world does not get itself done. It

is done by men; ideas do not improve themselves, they are improved by

the thought of men; and it is the efficiency of the conscious effort

which will mainly determine progress.

When all nations realize that if England can no longer exert force

towards her Colonies, others certainly could not; that if a great modern

Empire cannot usefully employ force as against communities that it

"owns," still less can we employ it usefully against communities that

we do not "own"; when the world as a whole has learned the real lesson

of British Imperial development, not only will that Empire have achieved

greater security than it can achieve by battleships, but it will have

played a part in human affairs incomparably greater and more useful than

could be played by any military "leadership of the human race," that

futile duplication of the Napoleonic role, which Imperialists of a

certain school seem to dream for us.

It is to Anglo-Saxon practice, and to Anglo-Saxon experience, that the

world will look as a guide in this matter. The extension of the

dominating principle of the British Empire to European society as a

whole is the solution of the international problem which this book

urges. That extension cannot be made by military means. The English

conquest of great military nations is a physical impossibility, and it

would involve the collapse of the principle upon which the Empire is

based if it were. The day for progress by force has passed; it will be

progress by ideas or not at all.

Because these principles of free human co-operation between communities

are, in a special sense, an Anglo-Saxon development, it is upon us that

there falls the responsibility of giving a lead. If it does not come

from us, who have developed these principles as between all the

communities which have sprung from the Anglo-Saxon race, can we ask to

have it given elsewhere? If we have not faith in our own principles, to

whom shall we look?

English thought gave us the science of political economy; Anglo-Saxon

thought and practice must give us another science, that of International

Polity--the science of the political relationship of human groups. We

have the beginnings of it, but it sadly needs systemization--recognition

by those intellectually equipped to develop it and enlarge it.

The developments of such a work would be in keeping with the

contributions which the practical genius and the positive spirit of the

Anglo-Saxon race have already made to human progress.

I believe that, if the matter were put efficiently before them with the

force of that sane, practical, disinterested labor and organization

which have been so serviceable in the past in other forms of

propaganda--not only would they prove particularly responsive to the

labor, but Anglo-Saxon tradition would once more be associated with the

leadership in one of those great moral and intellectual movements which

would be so fitting a sequel to our leadership in such things as human

freedom and parliamentary government. Failing such effort and such

response, what are we to look for? Are we, in blind obedience to

primitive instinct and old prejudices, enslaved by the old catchwords

and that curious indolence which makes the revision of old ideas

unpleasant, to duplicate indefinitely on the political and economic side

a condition from which we have liberated ourselves on the religious

side? Are we to continue to struggle, as so many good men struggled in

the first dozen centuries of Christendom--spilling oceans of blood,

wasting mountains of treasure--to achieve what is at bottom a logical

absurdity; to accomplish something which, when accomplished, can avail

us nothing, and which, if it could avail us anything, would condemn the

nations of the world to never-ending bloodshed and the constant defeat

of all those aims which men, in their sober hours, know to be alone

worthy of sustained endeavor?

APPENDIX

ON RECENT EVENTS IN EUROPE

APPENDIX

ON RECENT EVENTS IN EUROPE

At the outbreak of the Balkan War "The Great Illusion" was subjected to

much criticism, on the ground that the war tended to disprove its

theses. The following quotations, one from Mr. Churchill, the First Lord

of the Admiralty, and the other from the English _Review of Reviews_,

are typical of many others.

Mr. Churchill said, in a speech at Sheffield:

Whether we blame the belligerents or criticise the powers, or

sit in sackcloth and ashes ourselves is absolutely of no

consequence at the present moment....

We have sometimes been assured by persons who profess to know

that the danger of war has become an illusion.... Well, here is

a war which has broken out in spite of all that rulers and

diplomatists could do to prevent it, a war in which the Press

has had no part, a war which the whole force of the money power

has been subtly and steadfastly directed to prevent, which has

come upon us, not through the ignorance or credulity of the

people, but, on the contrary, through their knowledge of their

history and their destiny, and through their intense

realization of their wrongs and of their duties, as they

conceived them, a war which from all these causes has burst

upon us with all the force of a spontaneous explosion, and

which in strife and destruction has carried all before it. Face

to face with this manifestation, who is the man bold enough to

say that force is never a remedy? Who is the man who is foolish

enough to say that martial virtues do not play a vital part in

the health and honor of every people? (Cheers.) Who is the man

who is vain enough to suppose that the long antagonisms of

history and of time can in all circumstances be adjusted by

the smooth and superficial conventions of politicians and

ambassadors?

The London _Review of Reviews_ said in an article on "The Debacle of

Norman Angell":

Mr. Norman Angell's theory was one to enable the citizens of

this country to sleep quietly, and to lull into false security

the citizens of all great countries. That is undoubtedly the

reason why he met with so much success.... It was a very

comfortable theory for those nations which have grown rich and

whose ideals and initiative have been sapped by overmuch

prosperity. But the great delusion of Norman Angell, which led

to the writing of "The Great Illusion," has been dispelled for

ever by the Balkan League. In this connection it is of value to

quote the words of Mr. Winston Churchill, which give very

adequately the reality as opposed to theory.

In reply to these and similar criticisms I wrote several articles in the

London Press, from which the following few pages are selected.

What has Pacifism, Old or New, to say now?

Is War impossible?

Is it unlikely?

Is it futile?

Is not force a remedy, and at times the only remedy?

Could any remedy have been devised on the whole as conclusive and

complete as that used by the Balkan peoples?

Have not the Balkan peoples redeemed War from the charges too readily

brought against it as simply an instrument of barbarism?

Have questions of profit and loss, economic considerations, anything

whatever to do with this war?

Would the demonstration of its economic futility have kept the peace?

Are theories and logic of the slightest use, since force alone can

determine the issue?

Is not war therefore inevitable and must we not prepare diligently for

it?

I will answer all these quite simply and directly without casuistry or

logic-chopping and honestly desiring to avoid paradox and "cleverness."

Nor will these quite simple answers be in contradiction to anything that

I have written, nor will they invalidate any of the principles I have

attempted to explain.

My answers may be summarized thus:

(1) This war has justified both the Old Pacifism and the New.

By universal admission events have proved that the Pacifists

who opposed the Crimean War were right and their opponents

wrong. Had public opinion given more consideration to those

Pacifist principles, this country would not have "backed the

wrong horse" and this war, two wars which have preceded it and

many of the abominations of which the Balkan peninsula has been

the scene during the last 60 years might have been avoided. In

any case Great Britain would not now carry upon her shoulders

the responsibility of having during half a century supported

the Turk against the Christian and of having tried uselessly to

prevent what has now taken place--the break-up of the Turk's

rule in Europe.

(2) War is not impossible, and no responsible Pacifist ever

said it was; it is not the likelihood of war which is the

illusion, but its benefits.

(3) It is likely or unlikely according as the parties to a

dispute are guided by wisdom or folly.

(4) It _is_ futile and force is no remedy.

(5) Its futility is proven by the war waged daily by the Turks

as conquerors, during the last 400 years. And if the Balkan

peoples choose the less evil of two kinds of war and will use

their victory to bring a system based on force and conquest to

an end, we who do not believe in force and conquest will

rejoice in their action and believe it will achieve immense

benefits. But if instead of using their victory to eliminate

force, they in their turn pin their faith to it, continue to

use it the one against the other and to exploit by its means

the populations they rule; if they become not the organizers of

social co-operation among the Balkan populations, but merely,

like the Turks, their conquerors and "owners," then they in

their turn will share the fate of the Turks.

(6) The fundamental causes of this war are economic in the

narrower, as well as in the larger sense of the term; in the

first because conquest was the Turk's only trade--he desired to

live out of taxes wrung from a conquered people, to exploit

them as a means of livelihood, and this conception was at the

root of most of Turkish misgovernment. And in the larger sense

its cause is economic because in the Balkans, remote

geographically from the main drift of European economic

development, there has not grown up that interdependent social

life, the innumerable contacts which in the rest of Europe have

done so much to attenuate primitive religious and racial

hatreds.

(7) A better understanding by the Turk of the real nature of

civilized government, of the economic futility of conquest, of

the fact that a means of livelihood (an economic system) based

upon having more force than someone else and using it

ruthlessly against him is an impossible form of human

relationship bound to break down, _would_ have kept the peace.

(8) If European statecraft had not been animated by false

conceptions, largely economic in origin, based upon a belief in

the necessary rivalry of states, the advantages of preponderant

force and conquest, the Western nations could have composed

their quarrels and ended the abominations of the Balkan

peninsula long ago--even in the opinion of the _Times_. And it

is our own false statecraft--that of Great Britain--which has a

large part of the responsibility for this failure of European

civilization. It has caused us to sustain the Turk in Europe,

to fight a great and popular war with that aim, and led us into

treaties which, had they been kept, would have obliged us to

fight to-day on the side of the Turk against the Balkan States.

(9) If by "theories" and "logic" is meant the discussion of and

interest in principles, the ideas that govern human

relationship, they are the only things that can prevent future

wars, just as they were the only things that brought religious

wars to an end--a preponderant power "imposing" peace playing

no role therein. Just as it was false religious theories which

made the religious wars, so it is false political theories

which make the political wars.

(10) War is only inevitable in the sense that other forms of

error and passion--religious persecution for instance--are

inevitable; they cease with better understanding, as the

attempt to impose religious belief by force has ceased in

Europe.

(11) We should not prepare for war; we should prepare to

prevent war; and though that preparation may include

battleships and conscription, those elements will quite

obviously make the tension and danger greater unless there is

also a better European opinion.

These summarized replies need a little expansion.

Had we thrashed out the question of war and peace as we must finally, it

would hardly be necessary to explain that the apparent paradox in Answer

No. 4 (that war is futile, and that this war will have immense benefits)

is due to the inadequacy of our language, which compels us to use the

same word for two opposed purposes, not to any real contradiction of

fact.

We called the condition of the Balkan peninsula "Peace" until the attack

was made on Turkey merely because the respective Ambassadors still

happened to be resident in the capitals to which they were accredited.

Let us see what "Peace" under Turkish rule really meant and who is the

real invader in this war. Here is a very friendly and impartial

witness--Sir Charles Elliot--who paints for us the character of the Turk

as an "administrator":

The Turk in Europe has an overweening sense of his superiority,

and remains a nation apart, mixing little with the conquered

populations, whose customs and ideas he tolerates, but makes

little effort to understand. The expression, indeed, "Turkey in

Europe" means indeed no more than "England in Asia," if used as

a designation for India.... The Turks have done little to

assimilate the people whom they have conquered, and still less,

been assimilated by them. In the larger part of the Turkish

dominions, the Turks themselves are in a minority.... The Turks

certainly resent the dismemberment of their Empire, but not in

the sense in which the French resent the conquest of

Alsace-Lorraine by Germany. They would never use the word

"Turkey" or even its oriental equivalent, "The High Country" in

ordinary conversation. They would never say that Syria and

Greece are parts of Turkey which have been detached, but merely

that they are tributaries which have become independent,

provinces once occupied by Turks where there are no Turks now.

As soon as a province passes under another Government, the

Turks find it the most natural thing in the world to leave it

and go somewhere else. In the same spirit the Turk talks quite

pleasantly of leaving Constantinople some day, he will go over

to Asia and found another capital. One can hardly imagine

Englishmen speaking like that of London, but they might

conceivably speak so of Calcutta.... The Turk is a conqueror

and nothing else. The history of the Turk is a catalogue of

battles. His contributions to art, literature, science, and

religion, are practically nil. Their desire has not been to

instruct, to improve, hardly even to govern, but simply to

conquer.... The Turk makes nothing at all; he takes whatever he

can get, as plunder or pillage. He lives in the houses which he

finds, or which he orders to be built for him. In unfavorable

circumstances he is a marauder. In favorable, a _Grand

Seigneur_ who thinks it his right to enjoy with grace and

dignity all that the world can hold, but who will not lower

himself by engaging in art, literature, trade, or manufacture.

Why should he, when there are other people to do these things

for him. Indeed, it may be said that he takes from others even

his religion, clothes, language, customs; there is hardly

anything which is Turkish and not borrowed. The religion is

Arabic; the language half Arabic and Persian; the literature

almost entirely imitative; the art Persian or Byzantine; the

costumes, in the Upper Classes and Army mostly European. There

is nothing characteristic in manufacture or commerce, except an

aversion to such pursuits. In fact, all occupations, except

agriculture and military service are distasteful to the true

Osmanli. He is not much of a merchant. He may keep a stall in a

bazaar, but his operations are rarely undertaken on a scale

which merits the name of commerce or finance. It is strange to

observe how, when trade becomes active in any seaport, or upon

the railway lines, the Osmanli retires and disappears, while

Greeks, Armenians, and Levantines thrive in his place. Neither

does he much affect law, medicine or the learned professions.

Such callings are followed by Moslems but they are apt to be

of non-Turkish race. But though he does none of these things

... the Turk is a soldier. The moment a sword or rifle is put

into his hands, he instinctively knows how to use it with

effect, and feels at home in the ranks or on a horse. The

Turkish Army is not so much a profession or an institution

necessitated by the fears and aims of the Government as the

quite normal state of the Turkish nation.... Every Turk is a

born soldier, and adopts other pursuits chiefly because times

are bad. When there is a question of fighting, if only in a

riot, the stolid peasant wakes up and shows surprising power of

finding organization and expedients, and alas! a surprising

ferocity. The ordinary Turk is an honest and good-humored soul,

kind to children and animals, and very patient; but when the

fighting spirit comes on him, he becomes like the terrible

warriors of the Huns or Genghis Khan, and slays, burns, and

ravages without mercy or discrimination.[122]

Such is the verdict of an instructed, travelled, and observant English

author and diplomatist, who lived among these people for many years and

who learned to like them, who studied them and their history. It does

not differ, of course, appreciably, from what practically every student

of the Turk has discovered: the Turk is the typical conqueror. His

nation has lived by the sword and to-day he is dying by the sword,

because the sword, the mere exercise of force by one man or group of men

upon another, conquest in other words, is an impossible form of human

relationship.

In order to maintain this evil form of relationship--its evil and

futility constitute the whole basis of the principles I have attempted

to illustrate--he has not even observed the rough chivalry of the

brigand. The brigand, though he might knock men on the head, will

refrain from having his force take the form of butchering women and

disembowelling children. Not so the Turk. His attempt at Government will

take the form of the obscene torture of children, of a bestial ferocity

which is not a matter of dispute or exaggeration, but a thing to which

scores, hundreds, thousands even of credible European witnesses have

testified. "The finest gentleman, sir, that ever butchered a woman or

burned a village," is the phrase that _Punch_ most justly puts into the

mouth of the defender of our traditional Turcophil policy.

This condition is "Peace" and the act which would put a stop to it is

"War"! It is the inexactitude and inadequacy of our language which

create much of the confusion of thought in this matter; we have the same

term for action destined to achieve a given end and for counter-action

destined to prevent it.

Yet we manage in other than the international field, in civil matters,

to make the thing clear enough.

Once an American town was set on fire by incendiaries and was threatened

with destruction. In order to save at least a part of it the authorities

deliberately burned down a block of buildings in the pathway of the

fire. Would those incendiaries be entitled to say that the town

authorities were incendiaries also and "believed in setting fire to

towns"? Yet this is precisely the point of view of those who tax

Pacifists with approving war because they approve the measure aimed at

bringing it to an end.

Put it another way. You do not believe that force should determine the

transfer of property or conformity to a creed, and I say to you: "Hand

me your purse and conform to my creed or I kill you." You say: "Because

I do not believe that force should settle these matters, I shall try to

prevent it settling them; therefore if you attack I shall resist; if I

did not I should be allowing force to settle them." I attack; you resist

and disarm me and say: "My force having neutralized yours and, the

equilibrium being now established, I will hear any reasons you may have

to urge for my paying you money or any argument in favor of your creed.

Reason, understanding, adjustment shall settle it." You would be a

Pacifist. Or, if you deem that that word connotes non-resistance, though

to the immense bulk of Pacifists it does not, you would be an

Anti-bellicist, to use a dreadful word coined by M. Emile Faguet in the

discussion of this matter. If however you said: "Having disarmed you and

established the equilibrium, I shall now upset it in my favor by taking

your weapon and using it against you unless you hand me _your_ purse and

subscribe to _my_ creed. I do this because force alone can determine

issues and because it is a law of life that the strong should eat up the

weak," you would then be a Bellicist.

In the same way, when we prevent the brigand from carrying on his

trade--taking wealth by force--it is not because we believe in force as

a means of livelihood, but precisely because we do not. And if, in

preventing the brigand from knocking out brains, we are compelled to

knock out his brains, is it because we believe in knocking out people's

brains? Or would we urge that to do so is the way to carry on a trade or

to govern a nation or that it could be the basis of human relationship?

In every civilized country, the basis of the relationship on which the

community rests is this: no individual is allowed to settle his

differences with another by force. But does this mean that if one

threatens to take my purse, I am not allowed to use force to prevent it?

That if he threatens to kill me, I am not to defend myself, because "the

individual citizens are not allowed to settle their differences by

force"? It is _because_ of that, because the act of self-defence is an

attempt to prevent the settlement of a difference by force, that the law

justifies it.[123]

But the law would not justify me if, having disarmed my opponent, having

neutralized his force by my own and re-established the social

equilibrium, I immediately proceeded to upset it by asking him for his

purse on pain of murder. I should then be settling the matter by

force--I should then have ceased to be a Pacifist and have become a

Bellicist.

For that is the difference between the two conceptions; the Bellicist

says: "Force alone can settle these matters; it is the final appeal,

therefore fight it out; let the best man win. When you have preponderant

strength, impose your view; force the other man to your will; not

because it is right, but because you are able to do so." It is the

"excellent policy" which Lord Roberts attributes to Germany and

approves.

We Anti-bellicists take an exactly contrary view. We say: "To fight it

out settles nothing, since it is not a question of who is stronger, but

of whose view is best and, as that is not always easy to establish, it

is of the utmost importance in the interest of all parties, in the long

run, to keep force out of it."

The former is the policy of the Turks. They have been obsessed with the

idea that, if only they had enough of physical force ruthlessly

exercised, they could solve the whole question of government, of

existence for that matter, without troubling about social adjustment,

understanding, equity, law, commerce; that "blood and iron" were all

that was needed. The success of that policy can now be judged.

Good or evil will come of the present war according as the Balkan States

are on the whole guided by the Bellicist or by the opposed principle.

If, having now momentarily eliminated force as between themselves, they

re-introduce it; if the strongest, presumably Bulgaria,[124] adopts Lord

Roberts's "excellent policy" of striking because she has the

preponderant force, enters upon a career of conquest of other members of

the Balkan League and of the populations of the conquered territories

and uses them for exploitation by military force--why then there will be

no settlement and this war will have accomplished nothing save futile

waste and slaughter. For they will have taken under a new flag, the

pathway of the Turk to savagery, degeneration, death.

If on the other hand they are guided more by the Pacifist principle, if

they believe that co-operation among States is better than conflict, if

they believe that the common interest of all in good Government is

greater than the special interest of anyone in conquest, that the

understanding of human relationships, the capacity for the organization

of society are the means by which men progress and not the imposition of

force by one man or group upon another, why, they will have taken the

pathway to better civilization. But then they will have disregarded Lord

Roberts's advice.

This distinction between the two systems, far from being a matter of

abstract theory of metaphysics or logic-chopping, is just the difference

which distinguishes the Anglo-Saxon from the Turk, which distinguishes

America from Turkey. The Turk has as much physical vigor as the

American, is as virile, manly, and military. The Turk has the same raw

materials of Nature, soil, and water. There is no difference in the

capacity for the exercise of physical force--or if there is, the

difference is in favor of the Turk. The real difference is a difference

of ideas, of mind, outlook on the part of the individuals composing the

respective societies; the Turk has one general conception of human

society and the code and principles upon which it is founded, mainly a

Militarist one; the American has another, mainly a Pacifist one. And

whether the European society as a whole is to drift towards the Turkish

ideal or towards the Anglo-Saxon ideal will depend upon whether it is

animated mainly by the Pacifist or mainly by the Bellicist doctrine; if

the former, it will stagger blindly like the Turk along the path to

barbarism; if the latter, it will take a better road.

In dealing with answer No. 4 I have shown how the ambiguity of

terms[125] used leads us so much astray in our notions of the real role

of force in human relationships. But there is a curious phenomenon of

thought which explains perhaps still more how misconceptions grow up on

this subject and that is the habit of thinking of a war which, of

course, must include two parties in terms solely of one party at a time.

Thus one critic[126] is quite sure that because the Balkan peoples

"recked nothing of financial disaster," economic considerations have had

nothing to do with their war--a conclusion which seems to be arrived at

by the process of judgment just indicated: to find the cause of

conditions produced by two parties you shall rigorously ignore one. For

there is a great deal of internal evidence for believing that the writer

of the article in question would admit very readily that the efforts of

the Turk to wring taxes out of the conquered peoples--not in return for

a civilized administration, but simply as the means of livelihood, of

turning conquest into a trade--had a very great deal to do in explaining

the Turk's presence there at all and the Christian's desire to get rid

of him; while the same article specifically states that the mutual

jealousies of the great Powers, based on a desire to "grab" (an economic

motive), had a great deal to do with preventing a peaceful settlement of

the difficulties. Yet "economics" have nothing to do with it!

I have attempted elsewhere to make these two points--that it is on the

one hand the false economics of the Turks and on the other hand the

false economics of the Powers of Europe, coloring the policy and

statecraft of both, which have played an enormous, in all human

probability, a determining role in the immediate cause of the war; and,

of course, a further and more remote cause of the whole difficulty is

the fact that the Balkan peoples, never having been subjected to the

discipline of that complex social life which arises from trade and

commerce have not, or at least not so completely, outgrown those

primitive racial and religious hostilities which at one time in Europe

as a whole provoked conflicts like that now raging in the Balkans. The

following article which appeared[127] at the outbreak of the war may

summarise some of the points with which we have been dealing:--

"Polite and good-natured people think it rude to say 'Balkans'

if a Pacifist be present. Yet I never understood why, and I

understand now less than ever. It carries the implication that

because war has broken out that fact disposes of all objection

to it. The armies are at grips, therefore peace is a mistake.

Passion reigns in the Balkans, therefore passion is preferable

to reason.

"I suppose cannibalism and infanticide, polygamy, judicial

torture, religious persecution, witchcraft, during all the

years we did these 'inevitable' things, were defended in the

same way, and those who resented all criticism of them pointed

in triumph to the cannibal feast, the dead child, the maimed

witness, the slain heretic, or the burned witch. But the fact

did not prove the wisdom of those habits, still less their

inevitability; for we have them no more.

"We are all agreed as to the fundamental cause of the Balkan

trouble: the hate born of religious, racial, national, and

linguistic differences; the attempt of an alien conqueror to

live parasitically upon the conquered, and the desire of

conqueror and conquered alike to satisfy in massacre and

bloodshed the rancor of fanaticism and hatred.