principle that is worth saving? There is not. It is the last
disreputable relic of the extreme individualism of the Manchester School
of the early nineteenth century, which taught a political theory that
has been abandoned by all serious thinkers. Everyone now admits that it
is the function of the State to secure as far as it can the conditions
of the good life to its citizens. It is the logical and inevitable
corollary that it is the duty of every citizen to support and safeguard
the State. It has long been one of the gravest weaknesses of our modern
democracy that, while it has insisted vehemently upon its claims against
the State--claims to education, employment, office, insurance, pension,
and so on--it has remained comparatively oblivious to its
responsibilities. Its so-called political leaders, who too often are but
self-seeking flatterers fawning for its favour, have persistently
encouraged it to concentrate its efforts upon getting without giving. It
has been taught that it is proper to use political power in pursuit of
selfish aims and to employ all manner of compulsion therein; but in the
matter of national service it has received soothing lessons on the
surpassing glories of the voluntary principle. It is the State which is
to be coerced by threats of passive resistance or general strikes; but
if the State attempts coercion in the exercise of its functions it is
met by the passionate proclamation of the rights of personal freedom.
Similarly, we have the amazing spectacle of Trade Unionists meeting in
congress to condemn "conscription" and at the same time sanctioning the
most extreme measures of illegal persecution to drive non-Unionists into
the ranks of their own organizations. It is a monstrous and intolerable
perversion of all sound political principles. The whole sorry business
is a flagrant example of the subtle way in which a democracy can be
cajoled, corrupted, and depraved.
I elaborated this point in a letter to the _Observer_ which the Editor
kindly allows me to reprint here. It will be found in the issue of
January 17th, 1915:
One of the most curious phenomena of present-day politics is the
opposition offered by collectivists to conscription--under which
term they persistently and disingenuously include both the
compulsory service of the German army and the very different
universal military training of the Swiss citizen.
Even Mr. Herbert Spencer and the extreme individualists of his
school admitted that national defence is a proper function of the
State, and that a government may rightly use compulsory powers to
safeguard the community from attack.
But Mr. Arnold Bennett and the semi-socialists of the _Daily
Chronicle_ and the _Daily News_--although they are filled with
horror and indignation if it is suggested that an artisan should be
allowed to choose whether or not he will enjoy the advantages of
the Insurance Act; or that a collier, if he wishes to do so, should
be permitted to work for more than eight hours a day; or that a
labourer should be exempted from persecution as a blackleg if he
prefers to remain outside the fold of a trade union--are fired
with a long-dormant zeal for individual liberty, if it is urged
that a young man's citizenship is incomplete until he has been
called and prepared to defend his home and his country in case of
need.
Their collectivism is, in fact, a peculiarly perverted or inverted
type of individualism. It insists on the right of the individual,
if unemployed, to come to the State for work; if in poverty, to
come to the State for relief; if ignorant, to come to the State for
education: but it strenuously resists the exercise by the State of
its reciprocal claim on the service of the individual. It is
engrossed by the contemplation of the rights of the individual and
the duties of the State; it ignores the rights of the State and the
duties of the individual.
It is true that our voluntary system of military service has done
wonders in this war, far more indeed than could ever have been
expected of it; but this does not alter the fact that it is _wrong
in principle_. It is quite conceivable that a similar voluntary
system of monetary contributions would, if compulsory taxation were
abolished, supply the necessities of government; but it would be a
most iniquitous system, pressing heavily on the generous, and
allowing the niggardly to escape. We all, in fact, admit that it
would be entirely improper to replace the income-tax form by the
begging-letter. For precisely the same reasons it is entirely
improper that enlistment for home defence should depend on the
voluntary sacrifice of the patriotic minority, while the careless
and worthless majority elude their duty.
It is, moreover, deeply humiliating to the national pride to see
the protection of our shores, and the existence of our Empire,
dependent on the response made to advertisements, to platform
appeals, to music-hall songs, and to the kisses so generously
proffered by popular actresses.
It will be no small compensation for the immeasurable losses of this war
if the lofty old-English ideals of duty and service are restored to
their rightful place in our political system, and if in respect of the
essentials of national existence, viz., defence of the realm and
obedience to law, we completely eliminate and frankly repudiate--as we
have already done in the sphere of taxation--the enervating one-sided
individualism of the voluntary principle.
IV
PASSIVE RESISTANCE
I. THE NEW PERIL
For a long time past there has existed in this country a sort of
smouldering rebellion known as passive resistance. It is difficult to
say when it had its origin; but probably it could be traced back to the
Reformation. For it is merely a veiled manifestation of that anarchic
individualism and that morbid conscientiousness--the extremes of
qualities admirable in moderation--which first became formidable in
England on the break-up of mediæval Christendom. In recent times it has
displayed itself in many new forms, and on an increasingly large scale,
until now, in this great crisis of our fate, it has grown to be a
serious menace to the national unity, and a grave danger to the very
existence of the State. We have in our midst at the present day--to
mention only the leading specimens--Ritualists who refuse to obey
judgments of the Privy Council, or to heed injunctions issued by bishops
appointed by the Crown; Anti-Vivisectionists who resist regulations
regarded as essential by the health authorities; Undenominationalists
who decline to pay rates necessary to maintain the system of education
established by law; Christian Scientists whose criminal neglect in the
case of dangerous diseases not only renders them guilty of homicide, but
also imperils the welfare of the whole community; Suffragists who defy
all law comprehensively, on the ground that the legislature from which
it emanates is not constituted as they think it ought to be; Trade
Unionists who combine to stultify any Act of Parliament which conflicts
with the rules of their own organizations; and finally, a
No-Conscription Fellowship whose members expressly "deny the right of
Government to say, 'You _shall_ bear arms,'" and threaten to "oppose
every effort to introduce compulsory military service into Great
Britain."[42] Here is a pretty collection of aliens from the
commonwealth! It contains examples of almost every variety of
anti-social eccentricity. So diverse and conflicting are the types of
passive resistance represented that there is only one thing that can be
predicated of all the members of all the groups, and it is this--that
they are rebels.
FOOTNOTE:
[42] No-Conscription Manifesto printed in full in the _Morning Post_,
May 31st, 1915.
II. PASSIVE RESISTANCE AS REBELLION
The essential preliminary to any useful discussion of passive resistance
is the clear recognition of the fact that it is rebellion, and nothing
less. To say, or admit, this is not necessarily to condemn it; for there
are few persons to-day, I suppose, who would contend that rebellion is
never justifiable. All it asserts is that passive resistance has to be
judged by the same measures and according to the same standards as any
other kind of revolt against constituted political authority. It is all
the more needful to make this plain because some of the milder but more
muddled among the resisters try to shut their eyes to the fact that they
are rebels. They claim to be sheep and not goats. They call themselves
Socialists; they profess an abnormal loyalty to the idea of the State;
they protest their devotion to the Great Society; they ask to be allowed
to make all sorts of sacrifices to the community; they announce their
willingness to do anything--except the one thing which the Government
requires them to do. The exception is fatal to their claim. "To obey is
better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams." The State
does not and cannot submit the validity of its enactments to the private
judgment of its subjects. It expresses and enforces the general will,
and it dare not leave to the choice, or even to the conscience, of the
individual an option as to which of its commands shall be obeyed, and
which not. To do so would be to loose the bands of society, to bring to
an end the reign of law, and to plunge the community once again into
that primal chaos of anarchy from which in the beginning it painfully
emerged. The State demands, and must necessarily demand, implicit
obedience. From the loyal it receives it. Those from whom it does not
receive it are rebels, no matter how conscientious they may be, how
lofty their moral elevation, how sublimely passive their resistance. So
far as their disobedience extends they are the enemies of organized
society, disrupters of the commonwealth, subverters of government, the
allies and confederates of criminals and anarchists. It is worth noting,
moreover, how easily their passive resistance develops into more active
forms of rebellion. Not for long was the Suffragist content to remain
merely defensive in revolt; soon she emerged with whips for Cabinet
Ministers, hammers for windows, and bombs for churches. Resistant Trade
Unionists rapidly and generally slide into sabotage and personal
violence. The No-Conscriptionists of Ireland threaten through Mr.
Byrne, M.P., for Dublin, that "if Conscription is forced on Ireland, it
will be resisted by drilled and armed forces"[43]--a delightfully
Hibernian type of anti-militarism, which, nevertheless, throws a lurid
light on the real meaning of the movement. It is seen to be rebellion,
open, naked and unashamed.
FOOTNOTE:
[43] See _Times_, November 22nd, 1915.
III. THE RIGHT OF REBELLION
Passive resistance, then, is rebellion; but, as has already been
admitted, it is not on that account necessarily unjustifiable. An
established government may be so hopelessly iniquitous that it ought to
be overthrown; an organized society may be so irremediably corrupt that
it merits disruption; duly enacted laws may, when judged by moral
standards, be so flagrantly unjust as to demand the resistance of all
good men. There is no need to labour the point: actual examples crowd
upon the mind. Who would condemn the revolt of the Greeks against
Turkish rule? Who would contend that the degenerate society of the later
Bourbon monarchy did not deserve dissolution? Who would maintain that
John Hampden and Oliver Cromwell had no moral warrant for their
resistance to Charles I, or their successors to James II. We may freely
allow that in these cases, and in many similar ones, there existed on
ethical grounds a right, or more strictly a communal duty, to rebel. Few
would now proclaim with Filmer the divine right of any government to
exact obedience quite irrespective of the wishes or the interests of its
subjects. Still fewer would agree with Hobbes that an original contract
precludes for ever all opposition to sovereign political authority. The
ground on which political obligation is asserted has been shifted. The
State is recognized as "an institution for the promotion of the common
good," and it is admitted that if it ceases to promote the common good
the obligation to obey it is transformed into an obligation to reform
it, or even to
Shatter it to bits--and then
Remould it nearer to the heart's desire.
But, viewed thus, the right of rebellion assumes an aspect of awful
responsibility, perhaps the most tremendous within the sphere of
politics that the mind can conceive. For rebellion means the breaking-up
of the existing order, the throwing of institutions into the
melting-pot, the letting loose of incalculable forces of discord and
destruction, the suspension of law, the return to chaos, in the hope
that out of the welter a new and better cosmos--one more fitted to
promote the common good--may be evolved. Every rebel, or prospective
rebel, whether of the passive or the active type, ought to ponder well
the logical consequences of his revolt against authority, ought to
consider the inevitable results that would flow from the general
adoption of the principles which he professes, ought to decide whether
or not he really desires to overthrow the polity under which he lives,
ought to ask if he and his fellows are able to face with any serious
hope of success the colossal task of constructing a new society on the
ruins of the old. Now the historic rebels to whom I have referred above
by way of example--the Greek Nationalists, the French Revolutionists,
the English Puritans and Whigs--did not hesitate to acknowledge the
nature of their acts, and were not unprepared to face their
consequences. They did not deceive themselves, or attempt to deceive
others, by false professions of loyalty. The Greeks proclaimed their
undying hostility to the Turks, fought them, shook off their yoke, and
erected a national kingdom on the ruins of Turkish tyranny. The French
Revolutionists openly declared war upon the old regime, eradicated it
by means of the guillotine, and established a republic where it had
been. Similarly the English Puritans repudiated allegiance to Charles I,
brought him to the block, and instituted the Commonwealth in his place;
while the Whigs drove out James II and set up the constitutional
monarchy of William and Mary. One can respect heroic rebels of these
types. They were honest and open; they attacked great abuses; they took
great risks, and they achieved notable results. Very different are our
modern rebels. They profess with nauseating unction loyalty to the State
whose dominion they are undermining; they claim to be exceptionally
virtuous members of the Society whose unity they are destroying; above
all they continue to demand with insolent effrontery the protection of
the very law and the very courts whose authority they are denying and
defying. They can be freed from the charge of the most revolting
hypocrisy only on the plea that "they know not what they do."
IV. REBELLION AGAINST A DEMOCRACY
It is granted, then, that rebellion may sometimes be not only a
justifiable act, but also a bounden public duty. Three examples have
been given which perhaps may be allowed to have illustrated and
confirmed this view. It will be noted, however, that in each of the
cases cited the revolt was that of an oppressed community against a
government in which it had no part or lot, and over which it had no
constitutional control. Rebellion against a democracy on the part of
members of that democracy stands on a widely different footing. It is
treachery as well as insurrection. One can, indeed, conceive
circumstances which would justify it; but they would be rare and
exceptional, and that for two reasons. First, in a democracy
constitutional means are provided for the alteration of law and even for
the remodelling of the form of government. Secondly, if a democratic
government is undermined by disobedience, discredited by successful
defiance, destroyed by treasonable betrayal on the part of its own
professed supporters, there is nothing to take its place; the community
is bound either to drift into anarchy, or to revert to some sort of
tyranny. Let us consider these two points in turn. (1) The essence of
democracy is government according to the will of the majority. This
almost necessarily implies government in opposition to the will of one
or more minorities. But democratic minorities have a remedy--and it is
the peculiar virtue of democracy to provide it. It is this: by means of
argument, persuasion, and appeal; by press agitation and platform
campaign; through organization and combination, to convert themselves
into a majority. The whole of our English political system, the very
existence of our democratic constitution, depends upon the recognition
and acceptance of this rule of the game. If the will of the majority is
not to be regarded as authoritative, measures for reform of the
franchise, extension of the suffrage, and adjustment of the electoral
machine have no rational meaning at all. They are merely vanity and
vexation of spirit. What matter who makes the laws, or what laws are
made, if laws are not to be implicitly obeyed? Our extremists want to
have it both ways: they want to enforce law with majestic severity as
"the Will of the People," when they are in a majority; but they also
want to defy law with conscientious obstinacy as a violation of personal
freedom when they are in a minority. Some members of "The Union of
Democratic Control" are also members of the "No-Conscription
Fellowship"! Could inconsistency or muddle-headedness go further? Those
who wish to rule as part of a majority must be prepared to be overruled
as part of a minority. If minorities, instead of employing the
constitutional machinery placed at their disposal to secure the repeal
of obnoxious laws, are going to resist and rebel whenever the majority
does something of which they strongly disapprove, there is an end of
democratic government altogether, and a reversion to the state of
nature. T. H. Green in his _Principles of Political Obligation_ puts the
case clearly and well. He asks this very question, What shall an
individual do when he is faced by a command of a democratic government
which he believes to be wrong? He replies: "In a country like ours with
a popular government and settled methods of enacting and repealing laws,
the answer of common sense is simple and sufficient. He should do all he
can by legal methods to get the command cancelled, but till it is
cancelled, he should conform to it. The common good must suffer more
from resistance to a law or to the ordinance of a legal authority than
from the individual's conformity to the particular law or ordinance that
is bad, until its repeal can be obtained."[44] Here we have the true
ground of the duty of obedience. The antagonistic principle of passive
resistance provides a charter for criminals and anarchists.
(2) The second point needs little enlargement. It is clear from many
examples in both ancient and modern history that if a monarchy is
overthrown an aristocracy can take its place, and that if an aristocracy
is dispossessed of power, room is made for a democracy. But what do our
rebels against democracy propose to substitute for the sovereign will of
the majority, if they succeed by resistance in reducing it to impotence?
Possibly they hope that their own exalted will may prevail. Let them not
flatter themselves by any such vain dream. Even assuming what is
improbable, viz., that they remain united among themselves, can they
suppose that their example of successful revolt will remain without
imitators, or that their anti-social doctrines will never be applied
again? If they will not render obedience when they are in a minority,
who will obey them even if they have a majority behind them? Government
will cease; the reign of order will be at an end; Society will be
dissolved amid "red ruin and the breaking-up of laws."
FOOTNOTE:
[44] Green. _Principles of Political Obligation_, p. 111. _Cf._ Ritchie,
Natural Rights, p. 243.
V. THE DUTY OF THE STATE
The case seems clear. Passive resistance is rebellion, and it is
entirely inconsistent with loyalty to any form of government. In
relation to democratic government it is, moreover, on the part of
members of the democracy, treachery of a peculiarly heinous type, since
it is a betrayal of the sovereign community by those within its own
ranks. If the sovereign community does (as it easily may) by the vote of
its majority make enactments which seem to any one of its subjects to be
morally wrong, that subject has two legitimate courses open to him. He
may either obey under protest, and meantime use all lawful influence at
his disposal to convince the majority of the error of their ways, and
convert them to his way of thinking; or he may withdraw from the
community and its territories altogether, and go to some other part of
the wide world where the obnoxious enactment is not in force. What he
may _not_ do, is to remain within the community, enjoy all the
advantages of its ordered life, exercise its franchises, receive the
protection of its forces, claim the securities of its courts and the
liberties of its constitution, and at the same time refuse to render it
obedience.
If in his misguided perversity he adopts this last-named course, the
duty of the State is plain. It is to call him to submission, or to
withdraw its protection from him. The person who will not recognize the
State's sovereignty, has no claim upon the services of the State. The
first essential of a government is that it should govern. It should, of
course, exercise the utmost care in issuing commands to avoid as far as
possible the giving of offence to tender consciences; but when once its
deliberate commands are issued, and so long as they remain unrepealed,
it should enforce them with calm but inexorable determination. Nothing
is more fatal to the very foundations of political society, than the
spectacle of a government that can be defied with impunity.[45] That
demoralizing spectacle has been seen far too often during recent years,
and at the moment when the war broke out it had led us to the verge of
national disaster. The war has brought us into closer touch with
realities than we had been for many a long year before, and it has
taught us how ruinous it is in fatuous complacency to "wait and see"
whither disorder, disloyalty, and disobedience will conduct us. If,
however, there are still in our midst ministers who tremble before
rebellion, and do not know how to act in the presence of organized
passive resistance, let me commend to them the worthy example of Edward
I, who in 1296 was faced by a general refusal on the part of the clergy
to pay taxes. He simply excluded them from the protection of the laws,
and closed his courts to their pleas. A few weeks of well-merited
outlawry brought to an end their ill-advised experiment in passive
resistance.
FOOTNOTE:
[45] Maine (_Popular Government_, p. 64) emphasizes this point. "If," he
says, "any government should be tempted to neglect, even for a moment,
its function of compelling obedience to law--if a Democracy, for
example, were to allow a portion of the multitude of which it consists
to set some law at defiance which it happens to dislike--it would be
guilty of a crime which hardly any other virtue could redeem, and which
century upon century might fail to repair."
V
CHRISTIANITY AND WAR
I. A CONFLICT OF CONVICTIONS