Commission I do not see why the existing administrations of tutelage
Africa should not continue. I do not believe that the Labour proposal
contemplates any humiliating cession of European sovereignty. Under that
international Commission the French flag may still wave in Senegal and
the British over the protected State of Uganda. Given a new spirit in
Germany I do not see why the German flag should not presently be
restored in German East Africa. But over all, standing for
righteousness, patience, fair play for the black, and the common welfare
of mankind would wave a new flag, the Sun of Africa representing the
Central African Commission of the League of Free Nations.
That is my vision of the Labour project. It is something very different,
I know, from the nightmare of an international police of cosmopolitan
scoundrels in nondescript uniforms, hastening to loot and ravish his
dear Uganda and his beloved Nigeria, which distresses the crumpled
pillow of Sir Harry Johnston. But if it is not the solution, then it is
up to him and his fellow authorities to tell us what is the solution of
the African riddle.
V
GETTING THE LEAGUE IDEA CLEAR IN RELATION TO IMPERIALISM
§ 1
It is idle to pretend that even at the present time the idea of the
League of Free Nations has secure possession of the British mind. There
is quite naturally a sustained opposition to it in all the fastnesses of
aggressive imperialism. Such papers as the _Times_ and the _Morning
Post_ remain hostile and obstructive to the expression of international
ideas. Most of our elder statesmen seem to have learnt nothing and
forgotten nothing during the years of wildest change the world has ever
known. But in the general mind of the British peoples the movement of
opinion from a narrow imperialism towards internationalism has been wide
and swift. And it continues steadily. One can trace week by week and
almost day by day the Americanization of the British conception of the
Allied War Aims. It may be interesting to reproduce here three
communications upon this question made at different times by the
present writer to the press. The circumstances of their publication are
significant. The first is in substance identical with a letter which was
sent to the _Times_ late in May, 1917, and rejected as being altogether
too revolutionary. For nowadays the correspondence in the _Times_ has
ceased to be an impartial expression of public opinion. The
correspondence of the _Times_ is now apparently selected and edited in
accordance with the views upon public policy held by the acting editor
for the day. More and more has that paper become the organ of a sort of
Oxford Imperialism, three or four years behind the times and very ripe
and "expert." The letter is here given as it was finally printed in the
issue of the _Daily Chronicle_ for June 4th, 1917, under the heading,
"Wanted a Statement of Imperial Policy."
Sir,--The time seems to have come for much clearer statements of outlook
and intention from this country than it has hitherto been possible to
make. The entry of America into the war and the banishment of autocracy
and aggressive diplomacy from Russia have enormously cleared the air,
and the recent great speech of General Smuts at the Savoy Hotel is
probably only the first of a series of experiments in statement. It is
desirable alike to clear our own heads, to unify our efforts, and to
give the nations of the world some assurance and standard for our
national conduct in the future, that we should now define the Idea of
our Empire and its relation to the world outlook much more clearly than
has ever hitherto been done. Never before in the history of mankind has
opinion counted for so much and persons and organizations for so little
as in this war. Never before has the need for clear ideas, widely
understood and consistently sustained, been so commandingly vital.
What do we mean by our Empire, and what is its relation to that
universal desire of mankind, the permanent rule of peace and justice in
the world? The whole world will be the better for a very plain answer to
that question.
Is it not time for us British not merely to admit to ourselves, but to
assure the world that our Empire as it exists to-day is a provisional
thing, that in scarcely any part of the world do we regard it as more
than an emergency arrangement, as a necessary association that must give
place ultimately to the higher synthesis of a world league, that here we
hold as trustees and there on account of strategic considerations that
may presently disappear, and that though we will not contemplate the
replacement of our flag anywhere by the flag of any other competing
nation, though we do hope to hold together with our kin and with those
who increasingly share our tradition and our language, nevertheless we
are prepared to welcome great renunciations of our present ascendency
and privileges in the interests of mankind as a whole. We need to make
the world understand that we do not put our nation nor our Empire before
the commonwealth of man. Unless presently we are to follow Germany along
the tragic path her national vanity and her world ambitions have made
for her, that is what we have to make clear now. It is not only our duty
to mankind, it is also the sane course for our own preservation.
Is it not the plain lesson of this stupendous and disastrous war that
there is no way to secure civilization from destruction except by an
impartial control and protection in the interests of the whole human
race, a control representing the best intelligence of mankind, of these
main causes of war.
(1) The politically undeveloped tropics;
(2) Shipping and international trade; and
(3) Small nationalities and all regions in a state of political
impotence or confusion?
It is our case against the Germans that in all these three cases they
have subordinated every consideration of justice and the general human
welfare to a monstrous national egotism. That argument has a double
edge. At present there is a vigorous campaign in America, Russia, the
neutral countries generally, to represent British patriotism as equally
egotistic, and our purpose in this war as a mere parallel to the German
purpose. In the same manner, though perhaps with less persistency,
France and Italy are also caricatured. We are supposed to be grabbing at
Mesopotamia and Palestine, France at Syria; Italy is represented as
pursuing a Machiavellian policy towards the unfortunate Greek
republicans, with her eyes on the Greek islands and Greece in Asia. Is
it not time that these base imputations were repudiated clearly and
conclusively by our Alliance? And is it not time that we began to
discuss in much more frank and definite terms than has hitherto been
done, the nature of the international arrangement that will be needed to
secure the safety of such liberated populations as those of Palestine,
of the Arab regions of the old Turkish empire, of Armenia, of reunited
Poland, and the like?
I do not mean here mere diplomatic discussions and "understandings," I
mean such full and plain statements as will be spread through the whole
world and grasped and assimilated by ordinary people everywhere,
statements by which we, as a people, will be prepared to stand or fall.
Almost as urgent is the need for some definite statement about Africa.
General Smuts has warned not only the Empire, but the whole world of the
gigantic threat to civilization that lies in the present division of
Africa between various keenly competitive European Powers, any one of
which will be free to misuse the great natural resources at its disposal
and to arm millions of black soldiers for aggression. A mere elimination
of Germany from Africa will not solve that difficulty. What we have to
eliminate is not this nation or that, but the system of national shoving
and elbowing, the treatment of Africa as the board for a game of
beggar-my-neighbour-and-damn-the-niggers, in which a few syndicates,
masquerading as national interests, snatch a profit to the infinite loss
of all mankind. We want a lowering of barriers and a unification of
interests, we want an international control of these disputed regions,
to override nationalist exploitation. The whole world wants it. It is a
chastened and reasonable world we live in to-day, and the time for white
reason and the wide treatment of these problems is now.
Finally, the time is drawing near when the Egyptian and the nations of
India will ask us, "Are things going on for ever here as they go on now,
or are we to look for the time when we, too, like the Africander, the
Canadian and the Australian, will be your confessed and equal partners?"
Would it not be wise to answer that question in the affirmative before
the voice in which it is asked grows thick with anger? In Egypt, for
example, we are either robbers very like--except for a certain
difference in touch--the Germans in Belgium, or we are honourable
trustees. It is our claim and pride to be honourable trustees. Nothing
so becomes a trustee as a cheerful openness of disposition. Great
Britain has to table her world policy. It is a thing overdue. No doubt
we have already a literature of liberal imperialism and a considerable
accumulation of declarations by this statesman or that. But what is
needed is a formulation much more representative, official and permanent
than that, something that can be put beside President Wilson's clear
rendering of the American idea. We want all our peoples to understand,
and we want all mankind to understand that our Empire is not a net about
the world in which the progress of mankind is entangled, but a
self-conscious political system working side by side with the other
democracies of the earth, preparing the way for, and prepared at last to
sacrifice and merge itself in, the world confederation of free and equal
peoples.
§ 2
This letter was presently followed up by an article in the _Daily News_,
entitled "A Reasonable Man's Peace." This article provoked a
considerable controversy in the imperialist press, and it was reprinted
as a pamphlet by a Free Trade organization, which distributed over
200,000 copies. It is particularly interesting to note, in view of what
follows it, that it was attacked with great virulence in the _Evening
News_, the little fierce mud-throwing brother of the _Daily Mail_.
The international situation at the present time is beyond question the
most wonderful that the world has ever seen. There is not a country in
the world in which the great majority of sensible people are not
passionately desirous of peace, of an enduring peace, and--the war goes
on. The conditions of peace can now be stated, in general terms that are
as acceptable to a reasonable man in Berlin as they are to a reasonable
man in Paris or London or Petrograd or Constantinople. There are to be
no conquests, no domination of recalcitrant populations, no bitter
insistence upon vindictive penalties, and there must be something in the
nature of a world-wide League of Nations to keep the peace securely in
future, to "make the world safe for democracy," and maintain
international justice. To that the general mind of the world has come
to-day.
Why, then, does the waste and killing go on? Why is not the Peace
Conference sitting now?
Manifestly because a small minority of people in positions of peculiar
advantage, in positions of trust and authority, and particularly the
German reactionaries, prevent or delay its assembling.
The answer which seems to suffice in all the Allied countries is that
the German Imperial Government--that the German Imperial Government
alone--stands in the way, that its tradition is incurably a tradition of
conquest and aggression, that until German militarism is overthrown,
etc. Few people in the Allied countries will dispute that that is
broadly true. But is it the whole and complete truth? Is there nothing
more to be done on our side? Let us put a question that goes to the very
heart of the problem. Why does the great mass of the German people still
cling to its incurably belligerent Government?
The answer to that question is not overwhelmingly difficult. The German
people sticks to its militarist imperialism as Mazeppa stuck to his
horse; because it is bound to it, and the wolves pursue. The attentive
student of the home and foreign propaganda literature of the German
Government will realize that the case made by German imperialism, the
main argument by which it sticks to power, is this, that the Allied
Governments are also imperialist, that they also aim at conquest and
aggression, that for Germany the choice is world empire or downfall and
utter ruin. This is the argument that holds the German people stiffly
united. For most men in most countries it would be a convincing
argument, strong enough to override considerations of right and wrong. I
find that I myself am of this way of thinking, that whether England has
done right or wrong in the past--and I have sometimes criticized my
country very bitterly--I will not endure the prospect of seeing her at
the foot of some victorious foreign nation. Neither will any German who
matters. Very few people would respect a German who did. But the case
for the Allies is that this great argument by which, and by which alone,
the German Imperial Government keeps its grip upon the German people at
the present time, and keeps them facing their enemies, is untrue. The
Allies declare that they do not want to destroy the German people, they
do not want to cripple the German people; they want merely to see
certain gaping wounds inflicted by Germany repaired, and beyond that
reasonable requirement they want nothing but to be assured, completely
assured, absolutely assured, against any further aggressions on the
part of Germany.
Is that true? Our leaders say so, and we believe them. We would not
support them if we did not. And if it is true, have the statesmen of the
Allies made it as transparently and convincingly clear to the German
people as possible? That is one of the supreme questions of the present
time. We cannot too earnestly examine it. Because in the answer to it
lies the reason why so many men were killed yesterday on the eastern and
western front, so many ships sunk, so much property destroyed, so much
human energy wasted for ever upon mere destruction, and why to-morrow
and the next day and the day after--through many months yet,
perhaps--the same killing and destroying must still go on.
In many respects this war has been an amazing display of human
inadaptability. The military history of the war has still to be written,
the grim story of machinery misunderstood, improvements resisted,
antiquated methods persisted in; but the broad facts are already before
the public mind. After three years of war the air offensive, the only
possible decisive blow, is still merely talked of. Not once nor twice
only have the Western Allies had victory within their grasp--and failed
to grip it. The British cavalry generals wasted the great invention of
the tanks as a careless child breaks a toy. At least equally remarkable
is the dragging inadaptability of European statecraft. Everywhere the
failure of ministers and statesmen to rise to the urgent definite
necessities of the present time is glaringly conspicuous. They seem to
be incapable even of thinking how the war may be brought to an end. They
seem incapable of that plain speaking to the world audience which alone
can bring about a peace. They keep on with the tricks and feints of a
departed age. Both on the side of the Allies and on the side of the
Germans the declarations of public policy remain childishly vague and
disingenuous, childishly "diplomatic." They chaffer like happy imbeciles
while civilization bleeds to death. It was perhaps to be expected. Few,
if any, men of over five-and-forty completely readjust themselves to
changed conditions, however novel and challenging the changes may be,
and nearly all the leading figures in these affairs are elderly men
trained in a tradition of diplomatic ineffectiveness, and now overworked
and overstrained to a pitch of complete inelasticity. They go on as if
it were still 1913. Could anything be more palpably shifty and
unsatisfactory, more senile, more feebly artful, than the recent
utterances of the German Chancellor? And, on our own side--
Let us examine the three leading points about this peace business in
which this jaded statecraft is most apparent.
Let the reader ask himself the following questions:--
Does he know what the Allies mean to do with the problem of Central
Africa? It is the clear common sense of the African situation that while
these precious regions of raw material remain divided up between a
number of competitive European imperialisms, each resolutely set upon
the exploitation of its "possessions" to its own advantage and the
disadvantage of the others, there can be no permanent peace in the
world. There can be permanent peace in the world only when tropical and
sub-tropical Africa constitute a field free to the commercial enterprise
of every one irrespective of nationality, when this is no longer an area
of competition between nations. This is possible only under some supreme
international control. It requires no special knowledge nor wisdom to
see that. A schoolboy can see it. Any one but a statesman absolutely
flaccid with overstrain can see that. However difficult it may prove to
work out in detail, such an international control _must_ therefore be
worked out. The manifest solution of the problem of the German colonies
in Africa is neither to return them to her nor deprive her of them, but
to give her a share in the pooled general control of mid-Africa. In
that way she can be deprived of all power for political mischief in
Africa without humiliation or economic injury. In that way, too, we can
head off--and in no other way can we head off--the power for evil, the
power of developing quarrels inherent in "imperialisms" other than
German.
But has the reader any assurance that this sane solution of the African
problem has the support of the Allied Governments? At best he has only a
vague persuasion. And consider how the matter looks "over there." The
German Government assures the German people that the Allies intend to
cut off Germany from the African supply of raw material. That would mean
the practical destruction of German economic life. It is something far
more vital to the mass of Germans than any question of Belgium or
Alsace-Lorraine. It is, therefore, one of the ideas most potent in
nerving the overstrained German people to continue their fight. Why are
we, and why are the German people, not given some definite assurance in
this matter? Given reparation in Europe, is Germany to be allowed a fair
share in the control and trade of a pooled and neutralized Central
Africa? Sooner or later we must come to some such arrangement. Why not
state it plainly now?
A second question is equally essential to any really permanent
settlement, and it is one upon which these eloquent but unsatisfactory
mouthpieces of ours turn their backs with an equal resolution, and that
is the fate of the Ottoman Empire. What in plain English are we up to
there? Whatever happens, that Humpty Dumpty cannot be put back as it was
before the war. The idea of the German imperialist, the idea of our own
little band of noisy but influential imperialist vulgarians, is
evidently a game of grab, a perilous cutting up of these areas into
jostling protectorates and spheres of influence, from which either the
Germans or the Allies (according to the side you are on) are to be
viciously shut out. On such a basis this war is a war to the death.
Neither Germany, France, Britain, Italy, nor Russia can live
prosperously if its trade and enterprise is shut out from this
cardinally important area. There is, therefore, no alternative, if we
are to have a satisfactory permanent pacification of the world, but
local self-development in these regions under honestly conceived
international control of police and transit and trade. Let it be granted
that that will be a difficult control to organize. None the less it has
to be attempted. It has to be attempted because _there is no other way
of peace_. But once that conception has been clearly formulated, a
second great motive why Germany should continue fighting will have
gone.
The third great issue about which there is nothing but fog and
uncertainty is the so-called "War After the War," the idea of a
permanent economic alliance to prevent the economic recuperation of
Germany. Upon that idea German imperialism, in its frantic effort to
keep its tormented people fighting, naturally puts the utmost stress.
The threat of War after the War robs the reasonable German of his last
inducement to turn on his Government and insist upon peace. Shut out
from all trade, unable to buy food, deprived of raw material, peace
would be as bad for Germany as war. He will argue naturally enough and
reasonably enough that he may as well die fighting as starve. This is a
far more vital issue to him than the Belgian issue or Poland or
Alsace-Lorraine. Our statesmen waste their breath and slight our
intelligence when these foreground questions are thrust in front of the
really fundamental matters. But as the mass of sensible people in every
country concerned, in Germany just as much as in France or Great
Britain, know perfectly well, unimpeded trade is good for every one
except a few rich adventurers, and restricted trade destroys limitless
wealth and welfare for mankind to make a few private fortunes or secure
an advantage for some imperialist clique. We want an end to this
economic strategy, we want an end to this plotting of Governmental
cliques against the general welfare. In such offences Germany has been
the chief of sinners, but which among the belligerent nations can throw
the first stone? Here again the way to the world's peace, the only way
to enduring peace, lies through internationalism, through an
international survey of commercial treaties, through an international
control of inter-State shipping and transport rates. Unless the Allied
statesmen fail to understand the implications of their own general
professions they mean that. But why do they not say it plainly? Why do
they not shout it so compactly and loudly that all Germany will hear and
understand? Why do they justify imperialism to Germany? Why do they
maintain a threatening ambiguity towards Germany on all these matters?
By doing so they leave Germany no choice but a war of desperation. They
underline and endorse the claim of German imperialism that this is a war
for bare existence. They unify the German people. They prolong the war.
§ 3
Some weeks later I was able, at the invitation of the editor, to carry
the controversy against imperialism into the _Daily Mail_, which has
hitherto counted as a strictly imperialist paper. The article that
follows was published in the _Daily Mail_ under the heading, "Are we
Sticking to the Point? A Discussion of War Aims."
Has this War-Aims controversy really got down to essentials? Is the
purpose of this world conflict from first to last too complicated for
brevity, or can we boil it down into a statement compact enough for a
newspaper article?
And if we can, why is there all this voluminous, uneasy, unquenchable
disputation about War Aims?