the "self-determination" of peoples can meet all the cases. In
Macedonia, for instance, there is a jumble of Albanian, Serbian,
Bulgarian, Greek and Rumanian villages always jostling one another and
maintaining an intense irritation between the kindred nations close at
hand. And quite a large number of areas and cities in the world, it has
to be remembered, are not homogeneous at all. Will the great nations of
the world have the self-abnegation to permit a scattered subject
population to appeal against the treatment of its ruling power to the
Supreme Court? This is a much more serious interference with sovereignty
than intervention in an external quarrel. Could a Greek village in
Bulgarian Macedonia plead in the Supreme Court? Could the Armenians in
Constantinople, or the Jews in Roumania, or the Poles in West Prussia,
or the negroes in Georgia, or the Indians in the Transvaal make such an
appeal? Could any Indian population in India appeal? Personally I should
like to see the power of the Supreme Court extend as far as this. I do
not see how we can possibly prevent a kindred nation pleading for the
scattered people of its own race and culture, or any nation presenting a
case on behalf of some otherwise unrepresented people--the United
States, for example, presenting a case on behalf of the Armenians. But I
doubt if many people have made up their minds yet to see the powers of
the Supreme Court of the League of Nations go so far as this. I doubt
if, to begin with, it will be possible to provide for these cases. I
would like to see it done, but I doubt if the majority of the sovereign
peoples concerned will reconcile their national pride with the idea, at
least so far as their own subject populations go.
Here, you see, I do no more than ask a question. It is a difficult one,
and it has to be answered before we can clear the way to the League of
Free Nations.
But the Supreme Court, whether it is to have the wider or the narrower
scope here suggested, would be merely the central function of the League
of Free Nations. Behind the decisions of the Supreme Court must lie
power. And here come fresh difficulties for patriotic digestions. The
armies and navies of the world must be at the disposal of the League of
Free Nations, and that opens up a new large area of delegated authority.
The first impulse of any power disposed to challenge the decisions of
the Supreme Court will be, of course, to arm; and it is difficult to
imagine how the League of Free Nations can exercise any practical
authority unless it has power to restrain such armament. The League of
Free Nations must, in fact, if it is to be a working reality, have power
to define and limit the military and naval and aerial equipment of every
country in the world. This means something more than a restriction of
state forces. It must have power and freedom to investigate the military
and naval and aerial establishments of all its constituent powers. It
must also have effective control over every armament industry. And
armament industries are not always easy to define. Are aeroplanes, for
example, armament? Its powers, I suggest, must extend even to a
restraint upon the belligerent propaganda which is the natural
advertisement campaign of every armament industry. It must have the
right, for example, to raise the question of the proprietorship of
newspapers by armament interests. Disarmament is, in fact, a necessary
factor of any League of Free Nations, and you cannot have disarmament
unless you are prepared to see the powers of the council of the League
extend thus far. The very existence of the League presupposes that it
and it alone is to have and to exercise military force. Any other
belligerency or preparation or incitement to belligerency becomes
rebellion, and any other arming a threat of rebellion, in a world League
of Free Nations.
But here, again, has the general mind yet thought out all that is
involved in this proposition? In all the great belligerent countries the
armament industries are now huge interests with enormous powers. Krupp's
business alone is as powerful a thing in Germany as the Crown. In every
country a heavily subsidized "patriotic" press will fight desperately
against giving powers so extensive and thorough as those here suggested
to an international body. So long, of course, as the League of Free
Nations remains a project in the air, without body or parts, such a
press will sneer at it gently as "Utopian," and even patronize it
kindly. But so soon as the League takes on the shape its general
proposition makes logically necessary, the armament interest will take
fright. Then it is we shall hear the drum patriotic loud in defence of
the human blood trade. Are we to hand over these most intimate affairs
of ours to "a lot of foreigners"? Among these "foreigners" who will be
appealed to to terrify the patriotic souls of the British will be the
"Americans." Are we men of English blood and tradition to see our
affairs controlled by such "foreigners" as Wilson, Lincoln, Webster and
Washington? Perish the thought! When they might be controlled by
Disraelis, Wettins, Mount-Battens, and what not! And so on and so on.
Krupp's agents and the agents of the kindred firms in Great Britain and
France will also be very busy with the national pride of France. In
Germany they have already created a colossal suspicion of England.
Here is a giant in the path....
But let us remember that it is only necessary to defeat the propaganda
of this vile and dangerous industry in four great countries. And for the
common citizen, touched on the tenderest part of his patriotic
susceptibilities, there are certain irrefutable arguments. Whether the
ways of the world in the years to come are to be the paths of peace or
the paths of war is not going to alter this essential fact, that the
great educated world communities, with a social and industrial
organization on a war-capable scale, are going to dominate human
affairs. Whether they spend their power in killing or in educating and
creating, France, Germany, however much we may resent it, the two great
English-speaking communities, Italy, Japan China, and presently perhaps
a renascent Russia, are jointly going to control the destinies of
mankind. Whether that joint control comes through arms or through the
law is a secondary consideration. To refuse to bring our affairs into a
common council does not make us independent of foreigners. It makes us
more dependent upon them, as a very little consideration will show.
I am suggesting here that the League of Free Nations shall practically
control the army, navy, air forces, and armament industry of every
nation in the world. What is the alternative to that? To do as we
please? No, the alternative is that any malignant country will be free
to force upon all the rest just the maximum amount of armament it
chooses to adopt. Since 1871 France, we say, has been free in military
matters. What has been the value of that freedom? The truth is, she has
been the bond-slave of Germany, bound to watch Germany as a slave
watches a master, bound to launch submarine for submarine and cast gun
for gun, to sweep all her youth into her army, to subdue her trade, her
literature, her education, her whole life to the necessity of
preparations imposed upon her by her drill-master over the Rhine. And
Michael, too, has been a slave to his imperial master for the self-same
reason, for the reason that Germany and France were both so proudly
sovereign and independent. Both countries have been slaves to Kruppism
and Zabernism--_because they were sovereign and free_! So it will always
be. So long as patriotic cant can keep the common man jealous of
international controls over his belligerent possibilities, so long will
he be the helpless slave of the foreign threat, and "Peace" remain a
mere name for the resting phase between wars.
But power over the military resources of the world is by no means the
limit of the necessary powers of an effective League of Free Nations.
There are still more indigestible implications in the idea, and, since
they have got to be digested sooner or later if civilization is not to
collapse, there is no reason why we should not begin to bite upon them
now. I was much interested to read the British press upon the alleged
proposal of the German Chancellor that we should give up (presumably to
Germany) Gibraltar, Malta, Egypt, and suchlike key possessions. It
seemed to excite several of our politicians extremely. I read over the
German Chancellor's speech very carefully, so far as it was available,
and it is clear that he did not propose anything of the sort. Wilfully
or blindly our press and our demagogues screamed over a false issue. The
Chancellor was defending the idea of the Germans remaining in Belgium
and Lorraine because of the strategic and economic importance of those
regions to Germany, and he was arguing that before we English got into
such a feverish state of indignation about that, we should first ask
ourselves what we were doing in Gibraltar, etc., etc. That is a
different thing altogether. And it is an argument that is not to be
disposed of by misrepresentation. The British have to think hard over
this quite legitimate German _tu quoque_. It is no good getting into a
patriotic bad temper and refusing to answer that question. We British
people are so persuaded of the purity and unselfishness with which we
discharge our imperial responsibilities, we have been so trained in
imperial self-satisfaction, we know so certainly that all our subject
nations call us blessed, that it is a little difficult for us to see
just how the fact that we are, for example, so deeply rooted in Egypt
looks to an outside intelligence. Of course the German imperialist idea
is a wicked and aggressive idea, as Lord Robert Cecil has explained;
they want to set up all over the earth coaling stations and strategic
points, _on the pattern of ours._ Well, they argue, we are only trying
to do what you British have done. If we are not to do so--because it is
aggression and so on and so on--is not the time ripe for you to make
some concessions to the public opinion of the world? That is the German
argument. Either, they say, tolerate this idea of a Germany with
advantageous posts and possessions round and about the earth, or
reconsider your own position.
Well, at the risk of rousing much patriotic wrath, I must admit that I
think we _have_ to reconsider our position. Our argument is that in
India, Egypt, Africa and elsewhere, we stand for order and civilization,
we are the trustees of freedom, the agents of knowledge and efficiency.
On the whole the record of British rule is a pretty respectable one; I
am not ashamed of our record. Nevertheless _the case is altering_.
It is quite justifiable for us British, no doubt, if we do really play
the part of honest trustees, to remain in Egypt and in India under
existing conditions; it is even possible for us to glance at the
helplessness of Arabia, Palestine, and Mesopotamia, as yet incapable of
self-government, helpless as new-born infants. But our case, our only
justifiable case, is that we are trustees because there is no better
trustee possible. And the creation of a council of a League of Free
Nations would be like the creation of a Public Trustee for the world.
The creation of a League of Free Nations must necessarily be the
creation of an authority that may legitimately call existing empires to
give an account of their stewardship. For an unchecked fragmentary
control of tropical and chaotic regions, it substitutes the possibility
of a general authority. And this must necessarily alter the problems not
only of the politically immature nations and the control of the tropics,
but also of the regulation of the sea ways, the regulation of the coming
air routes, and the distribution of staple products in the world. I will
not go in detail over the items of this list, because the reader can
fill in the essentials of the argument from what has gone before. I
want simply to suggest how widely this project of a League of Free
Nations swings when once you have let it swing freely in your mind! And
if you do not let it swing freely in your mind, it remains nothing--a
sentimental gesture.
The plain truth is that the League of Free Nations, if it is to be a
reality, if it is to effect a real pacification of the world, must do no
less than supersede Empire; it must end not only this new German
imperialism, which is struggling so savagely and powerfully to possess
the earth, but it must also wind up British imperialism and French
imperialism, which do now so largely and inaggressively possess it. And,
moreover, this idea queries the adjective of Belgian, Portuguese,
French, and British Central Africa alike, just as emphatically as it
queries "German." Still more effectually does the League forbid those
creations of the futurist imagination, the imperialism of Italy and
Greece, which make such threatening gestures at the world of our
children. Are these incompatibilities understood? Until people have
faced the clear antagonism that exists between imperialism and
internationalism, they have not begun to suspect the real significance
of this project of the League of Free Nations. They have not begun to
realize that peace also has its price.
IV
THE LABOUR VIEW OF MIDDLE AFRICA
I was recently privileged to hear the views of one of those titled and
influential ladies--with a general education at about the fifth standard
level, plus a little French, German, Italian, and music--who do so much
to make our England what it is at the present time, upon the Labour idea
of an international control of "tropical" Africa. She was loud and
derisive about the "ignorance" of Labour. "What can _they_ know about
foreign politics?" she said, with gestures to indicate her conception of
_them_.
I was moved to ask her what she would do about Africa. "Leave it to Lord
Robert!" she said, leaning forward impressively. "_Leave it to the
people who know._"
Unhappily I share the evident opinion of Labour that we are not blessed
with any profoundly wise class of people who have definite knowledge and
clear intentions about Africa, that these "_people who know_" are mostly
a pretentious bluff, and so, in spite of a very earnest desire to take
refuge in my "ignorance" from the burthen of thinking about African
problems, I find myself obliged, like most other people, to do so. In
the interests of our country, our children, and the world, we common
persons _have_ to have opinions about these matters. A muddle-up in
Africa this year may kill your son and mine in the course of the next
decade. I know this is not a claim to be interested in things African,
such as the promoter of a tropical railway or an oil speculator has;
still it is a claim. And for the life of me I cannot see what is wrong
about the Labour proposals, or what alternative exists that can give
even a hope of peace in and about Africa.
The gist of the Labour proposal is an international control of Africa
between the Zambesi and the Sahara. This has been received with loud
protests by men whose work one is obliged to respect, by Sir Harry,
Johnston, for example, and Sir Alfred Sharpe, and with something
approaching a shriek of hostility by Mr. Cunninghame Graham. But I think
these gentlemen have not perhaps given the Labour proposal quite as much
attention as they have spent upon the details of African conditions. I
think they have jumped to conclusions at the mere sound of the word
"international." There have been some gross failures in the past to set
up international administrations in Africa and the Near East. And these
gentlemen think at once of some new Congo administration and of
nondescript police forces commanded by cosmopolitan adventurers. (See
Joseph Conrad's "Out-post of Civilization.") They think of
internationalism with greedy Great Powers in the background outside the
internationalized area, intriguing to create disorder and mischief with
ideas of an ultimate annexation. But I doubt if such nightmares do any
sort of justice to the Labour intention.
And the essential thing I would like to point out to these authorities
upon African questions is that not one of them even hints at any other
formula which covers the broad essentials of the African riddle.
What are these broad essentials? What are the ends that _must_ be
achieved if Africa is not to continue a festering sore in the body of
mankind?
The first most obvious danger of Africa is the militarization of the
black. General Smuts has pointed this out plainly. The negro makes a
good soldier; he is hardy, he stands the sea, and he stands cold. (There
was a negro in the little party which reached the North Pole.) It is
absolutely essential to the peace of the world that there should be no
arming of the negroes beyond the minimum necessary for the policing of
Africa. But how is this to be watched and prevented if there is no
overriding body representing civilization to say "Stop" to the
beginnings of any such militarization? I do not see how Sir Harry
Johnston, Sir Alfred Sharpe, and the other authorities can object to at
least an international African "Disarmament Commission" to watch, warn,
and protest. At least they must concede that.
But in practice this involves something else. A practical consequence of
this disarmament idea must be an effective control of the importation of
arms into the "tutelage" areas of Africa. That rat at the dykes of
civilization, that ultimate expression of political scoundrelism, the
Gun-Runner, has to be kept under and stamped out in Africa as
everywhere. A Disarmament Commission that has no forces available to
prevent the arms trade will be just another Hague Convention, just
another vague, well-intentioned, futile gesture.
And closely connected with this function of controlling the arms trade
is another great necessity of Africa under "tutelage," and that is the
necessity of a common collective agreement not to demoralize the native
population. That demoralization, physical and moral, has already gone
far. The whole negro population of Africa is now rotten with diseases
introduced by Arabs and Europeans during the last century, and such
African statesmen as Sir Harry Johnston are eloquent upon the necessity
of saving the blacks--and the baser whites--from the effects of trade
gin and similar alluring articles of commerce. Moreover, from Africa
there is always something new in the way of tropical diseases, and
presently Africa, if we let it continue to fester as it festers now, may
produce an epidemic that will stand exportation to a temperate climate.
A bacterium that may kill you or me in some novel and disgusting way may
even now be developing in some Congo muck-heap. So here is the need for
another Commission to look after the Health of Africa. That, too, should
be of authority over all the area of "tutelage" Africa. It is no good
stamping out infectious disease in Nyasaland while it is being bred in
Portuguese East Africa. And if there is a Disarmament Commission already
controlling the importation of arms, why should not that body also
control at the same time the importation of trade gin and similar
delicacies, and direct quarantine and such-like health regulations?
But there is another question in Africa upon which our "ignorant" Labour
class is far better informed than our dear old eighteenth-century upper
class which still squats so firmly in our Foreign and Colonial Offices,
and that is the question of forced labour. We cannot tolerate any
possibilities of the enslavement of black Africa. Long ago the United
States found out the impossibility of having slave labour working in the
same system with white. To cure that anomaly cost the United States a
long and bloody war. The slave-owner, the exploiter of the black,
becomes a threat and a nuisance to any white democracy. He brings back
his loot to corrupt Press and life at home. What happened in America in
the midst of the last century between Federals and Confederates must not
happen again on a larger scale between white Europe and middle Africa.
Slavery in Africa, open or disguised, whether enforced by the lash or
brought about by iniquitous land-stealing, strikes at the home and
freedom of every European worker--_and Labour knows this_.
But how are we to prevent the enslavement and economic exploitation of
the blacks if we have no general watcher of African conditions? We want
a common law for Africa, a general Declaration of Rights, of certain
elementary rights, and we want a common authority to which the black man
and the native tribe may appeal for justice. What is the good of trying
to elevate the population of Uganda and to give it a free and hopeful
life if some other population close at hand is competing against the
Baganda worker under lash and tax? So here is a third aspect of our
international Commission, as a native protectorate and court of appeal!
There is still a fourth aspect of the African question in which every
mother's son in Europe is closely interested, and that is the trade
question. Africa is the great source of many of the most necessary raw
materials upon which our modern comforts and conveniences depend; more
particularly is it the source of cheap fat in the form of palm oil. One
of the most powerful levers in the hands of the Allied democracies at
the present time in their struggle against the imperial brigands of
Potsdam is the complete control we have now obtained over these
essential supplies. We can, if we choose, cut off Germany altogether
from these vital economic necessities, if she does not consent to
abandon militant imperialism for some more civilized form of government.
We hope that this war will end in that renunciation, and that Germany
will re-enter the community of nations. But whether that is so or not,
whether Germany is or is not to be one of the interested parties in the
African solution, the fact remains that it is impossible to contemplate
a continuing struggle for the African raw material supply between the
interested Powers. Sooner or later that means a renewal of war.
International trade rivalry is, indeed, only war--_smouldering_. We
need, and Labour demands, a fair, frank treatment of African trade, and
that can only be done by some overriding regulative power, a Commission
which, so far as I can see, might also be the same Commission as that we
have already hypothesized as being necessary to control the Customs in
order to prevent gun-running and the gin trade. That Commission might
very conveniently have a voice in the administration of the great
waterways of Africa (which often run through the possessions of several
Powers) and in the regulation of the big railway lines and air routes
that will speedily follow the conclusion of peace.
Now this I take it is the gist of the Labour proposal. This--and no more
than this--is what is intended by the "international control of tropical
Africa." _I do not read that phrase as abrogating existing sovereignties
in Africa_. What is contemplated is a delegation of authority. Every one
should know, though unhappily the badness of our history teaching makes
it doubtful if every one does know, that the Federal Government of the
United States of America did not begin as a sovereign Government, and
has now only a very questionable sovereignty. Each State was sovereign,
and each State delegated certain powers to Washington. That was the
initial idea of the union. Only later did the idea of a people of the
States as a whole emerge. In the same way I understand the Labour
proposal as meaning that we should delegate to an African Commission the
middle African Customs, the regulation of inter-State trade, inter-State
railways and waterways, quarantine and health generally, and the
establishment of a Supreme Court for middle African affairs. One or two
minor matters, such as the preservation of rare animals, might very well
fall under the same authority.
Upon that Commission the interested nations, that is to say--putting
them in alphabetical order--the Africander, the Briton, the Belgian, the
Egyptian, the Frenchman, the Italian, the Indian the Portuguese--might
all be represented in proportion to their interest. Whether the German
would come in is really a question for the German to consider; he can
come in as a good European, he cannot come in as an imperialist brigand.
Whether, too, any other nations can claim to have an interest in African
affairs, whether the Commission would not be better appointed by a
League of Free Nations than directly by the interested Governments, and
a number of other such questions, need not be considered here. Here we
are discussing only the main idea of the Labour proposal.