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WHERE ARE WE GOING?
by
The Right Honourable
DAVID LLOYD GEORGE
O.M., P.C., M.P.
BRITISH PRIME MINISTER 1916-1922
[Illustration: Logo]
New York
George H. Doran Company
Copyright, 1923,
by George H. Doran Company
[Illustration: Logo]
WHERE ARE WE GOING? II
Printed in the United States of America
PREFACE
The chapters collected in this book represent a running comment on the
European situation during the past ten months. Although in the haze
that covers the Continent it is difficult always to see clearly what
is happening, and still more difficult to forecast what is likely to
occur, I have not deemed it necessary to revise any of the estimates
I made from time to time in these periodic reviews on the position.
In the period covered by them peace has gone back perceptibly and
unmistakably. Of the years immediately after the end of the Great War
it may be said that up to the present year each showed a distinct
improvement over its predecessor. The temper of the warring nations
showed a gradual healing and improvement, and East and West there was a
return to reason and calm in their attitude towards each other. In the
Cannes discussions of January 1922 the atmosphere of hostility which
poisoned the Spa discussions in 1920 had largely disappeared, and the
applause which greeted Herr Rathenau's fine speech at Genoa in April
1922 was cordial and general. The electric messages from Paris failed
to provoke a thunderstorm, and one of the speakers, at the last meeting
of the Assembly, drawing an illustration from the weather outside, said
the Conference had broken up under blue skies and a serene firmament.
That was in May 1922. Those words, when used, met with cheering
approval: if used to-day they would be greeted with scoffing laughter.
The present year has been one of growing gloom and menace. The
international temper is distinctly worse all round. A peace has been
patched up with the Turkish Empire. No one believes it can endure
long. The only question is, How long? There may be other patched-up
treaties between struggling nations before the year is out. There is
only one prediction concerning them which can at this stage be safely
made--they will leave European peace in a more precarious plight than
ever. A peace wrung by triumphant force out of helplessness is never a
good peace. That is why I view with apprehension the character of the
settlement which may soon be wrung out of German despair in the Ruhr
and imposed on Greek impotence in the Adriatic. The Fiume settlement
may turn out to be more satisfactory in spite of threatening omens.
The Jugo-Slavs are a formidable military proposition to be tackled by
any Power. The War proved them to be about the best fighting material
in Europe. They are also fairly well equipped with modern weapons, and
if unhappily the need arose their deficiencies in this respect would
soon be supplied from the workshops of Czecho-Slovakia and elsewhere. I
am, therefore, still hopeful that Fiume may be remitted for settlement
to diplomatists and not to gunmen. International right in these
turbulent days seems to depend, not on justice, but on a reckoning of
chances. The Slavs are ready to defend their rights and can do so.
There is, therefore, some talk of conferences and even arbitration in
their case. Germany and Greece cannot put up a fight. Unconditional
surrender is, therefore, their lot. All the same, this is not only a
wrong but a miscalculation. Unjust concessions, extracted by violence,
are not settlements; they are only postponements. Unfortunately, the
decisions at the next great hearing of the cause are just as likely to
be provisional--and so the quarrel will go on to the final catastrophe
unless humanity one day sees the light and has the courage to follow
it. But that day must not be too distant, otherwise it will come too
late to save civilisation. The last conflict between great nations has
exposed the devastating possibilities of modern science. Henceforth
progress in the destructiveness of the apparatus of war has been, and
will continue to be, so rapid that a conflict to-morrow would spread
ten times the desolation caused by the Great War of 1914-18. There is a
concentration of much scientific and mechanical skill on strengthening
the machinery of devastation. Incredible progress--if progress be the
word--has been made within the last three or four years in perfecting
and increasing the shattering power of this kind of devilry. What will
it be like five, ten, twenty years hence!
Whilst nations are piling up, perfecting and intensifying their
explosives, they are also saturating the ground with the inflammable
passions which one day will precipitate the explosion. Injustice,
insult, insolence, distilled into the spirit of revenge, is everywhere
soaking into the earth.
I have never doubted that France could impose terms on Germany. It was
clear that she could starve Germany into submission to any conditions
dictated to her. It is astonishing that the Germans should have held
out so long. What I have steadily predicted in these articles is that
those terms will not produce as much reparation as a more conciliatory
course would have brought--that to operate them will be a source of
constant friction, and that the methods employed to impose and execute
them will rouse a spirit of patriotic wrath which will in the end bring
disaster to the victor of to-day.
When the invasion of the Ruhr was decided upon, the shortage in the
promised coal deliveries upon which default was declared was barely
10 per cent. A little better organisation of the wagon service on the
French side would have made up that deficiency in a very short time.
During the months of the occupation the French and Belgians have not
succeeded in collecting one-sixth the tonnage delivered during the
corresponding months last year. It will take weeks after passive
resistance has collapsed to restore railways and collieries to working
order. The new _régime_ will have to liquidate arrears of at least
15,000,000 tons before it begins its regular monthly deliveries. What
about cash payments? It is not too much to say that Germany is much
less able to meet her obligations in this respect than she was before
the invasion. Her credit has been blown out of sight into infinite
space. It will take a long time to pull it back from its wanderings and
set its feet once more firmly on European earth. There are only four
ways in which the huge sum due from Germany can be liquidated:--
(1) By handing over to the Allies the gold reserves of Germany
and of Germans either at home or on deposit abroad. The former
is negligible; the amount of the latter is disputable. Much of
it is essential to enable Germany to purchase abroad the raw
material and food necessary to her existence. The worse German
credit becomes the larger must this deposit be. As for the foreign
securities and deposits which are not strictly necessary for
trading, they cannot all be made available, for nothing will
induce some of the depositors to part with the whole of these
securities. The sum, therefore, derivable from this source would
amount to but a small percentage of the total figure payable for
reparations.
(2) Deliveries of coal, timber, potash, dyes and other raw
material. With the exception of timber, these deliveries have
been, on the whole, satisfactory--since the Spa Agreement. It
did not require the pressure of armed invasion to improve these
deliveries, including the timber demands of the Allies.
(3) A percentage levied on German exports. These are paid for in
gold or its equivalent, and the levy would therefore be remitted
in gold. A levy of 20 per cent. on German exports would have
produced between £40,000,000 and £50,000,000 a year on the basis
of last year's exports. When German trade returned to normal it
would yield £100,000,000. This sum, added to the value of the
material delivered, would cover interest and sinking fund on
the £2,500,000,000 which is now the accepted maximum of German
capacity.
(4) The restoration of German credit with a view to the immediate
raising of a loan on reparation account. This would help the
Allies over their urgent financial difficulties.
These four methods of payment are the only known and knowable means of
obtaining reparations. They would have been more immediately fruitful
if so much time, money and resource had not been wasted over this
ill-judged invasion.
The apologists of French action in the Ruhr contend that France was
driven to these extremes by the refusal of Britain to co-operate
with her in bringing legitimate pressure to bear on Germany to carry
out the Treaty. Those who put forward this contention argue in
ignorance of the proposals submitted by the British Government to the
Allied Conference in August 1922. These would have exploited all the
methods above set forth to the limit of their productiveness. These
proposals were substantially accepted by all the Allies except France.
Repeated efforts have been made this year in Parliament to induce the
Government to publish this scheme. Both the present and the late Prime
Minister gave favourable if not definite answers to the request for
publication. But so far the August proceedings have not made their
public appearance. Why this reluctance to give the whole facts to the
public? The discussions at the November and January Conferences have
been published in full. These meetings were only adjournments from the
August Conference. The story of the fateful Conference is, therefore,
incomplete if August is suppressed. Ought not the world to know the
proposals which France rejected in August 1922? In the absence of
official publication I will take the responsibility now of giving a
Summary.
It was proposed:--
(1) That Germany should be called upon to take such measures as
the Reparations Commission should stipulate, in order to balance
her Budget and restore her financial stability.
(2) That the Reichsbank should be made independent of Government
control.
(3) That 26 per cent. of the total value of German exports
should be collected in gold or foreign currencies and paid
into a separate account in the Reichsbank in the name of the
Sub-Committee of the Reparations Commission known as the Committee
of Guarantees.
(4) That the produce of all German import and export duties other
than the levy should be paid monthly to a special account at the
Reichsbank, which should be under the scrutiny of the Committee
of Guarantees. The German Government should have the disposal
of the sums standing to the credit of this account so long as
the Reparations Commission was satisfied that it fulfilled the
obligations imposed upon it. If at any time the Commission was
not satisfied that this was the case the Committee of Guarantees
should have the right to take over the sums standing to the credit
of this account and to secure the payment to it of the produce of
these duties thereafter.
(5) There were stern provisions for supervision of German finance
by the Committee of Guarantees and for preventing the export of
German capital.
(6) There were provisions for supervision over State mines and
forests in the event of their being a failure in delivery of coal
or timber as the case might be.
A Moratorium up to December 1922 was to be given conditionally on
the acceptance of the above terms by the German Government, and the
Reparations Commission were then to proceed to fix the further annual
payments.
Had these drastic proposals been adopted and enforced by the Allies,
what would have been the result? Deliveries of coal and timber would
have been ensured up to the full quota arranged. By means of the levy
on exports, £50,000,000 would have been already collected in gold and
paid into Allied account. The mark would have been stabilised, and
could have been made the basis of a considerable loan. As German trade
gradually recovered the export levy would bring in larger amounts. This
year would certainly have produced a yield of between £60,000,000 and
£70,000,000. This is what would have been effected for Reparations if
the plan put forward by the British Government had been accepted and
put into execution in August. By the settlement of this most troublous
question, the great cost and the still greater irritation of the
Ruhr episode would have been avoided, trade would have continued its
convalescence, and the peace of Europe would have been established.
What would have happened if Germany had refused these terms? We should
certainly have heard what objections or counter-proposals Germany had
to offer. But we were resolved to have a settlement that would put an
end to the fiscal chaos inside Germany, and having thus put her in a
position to pay we were equally resolved that she should pay up to the
limit of her capacity. We, therefore, undertook, if Germany rejected
the terms finally agreed upon, to join France and the other Allies
in any coercive measures deemed advisable to compel acceptance. M.
Poincaré refused to agree. His refusal alone rendered that Conference
fruitless. Over a year has elapsed since then. He has pursued a
different policy. So far it has brought him nothing. I am bold enough
to predict that in future it will bring France considerably less than
the August 1922 plan would have yielded.
If he is out for reparations his policy will inevitably fail in
comparison with that he so rashly threw over. But if he is out for
trouble it has been a great success, and in future it will be an even
greater triumph for his statesmanship. A permanent garrison in the Ruhr
has possibilities of mischief which it does not require any special
vision to foresee.
Enduring peace can only rest on a foundation of justice. It is just
that Germany should exert herself to the limit of her strength to
repair the damage wrought by her armies. She was the aggressor; she was
the invader. Her aggression inflicted serious hurt on her neighbours.
By the established precepts of every civilised law in the world she
ought to pay up. A peace which did not recognise that obligation
would be unjust and provoke a righteous resentment in the breasts of
the wronged. That sentiment would have been inimical to the good
understanding that is one of the essentials of peace. Moreover, it
is not conducive to good behaviour amongst nations that they should
be allowed to ravage and destroy without paying the penalty of their
misdeeds. That is why I do not agree with those who would wipe out
the claim for reparations entirely. On the other hand, civilised
jurisprudence has also advanced to the stage where it forbids the
creditor to attach his debtor's freedom and independence as security
for the payment of the debt. The law that permitted a debtor to be sold
into bondage for an unliquidated liability has now been voted barbarous
by the more humane usage and wont of the day. That is why I protest
against using armed force to occupy and control a country whilst the
scourge of starvation is being used to whip its workmen into toiling
for payment of a foreign debt. As Mr. Gladstone once said: "Justice
means justice to all." The main difficulty of a just settlement of
reparations comes from the growing disposition to take sides blindly
in this dispute. One party sees nothing but the outrage of 1914-18,
the costly vindication of right, and the just claim of the victims to
compensation for their losses. The other party sees nothing but the
harsh fury with which the victors in the cause press their verdict
to execution. Peace can only be restored by a full recognition of the
equities as well as the humanities--of the humanities as well as the
equities. I have sought in these pages to deal fairly with both.
D. LLOYD GEORGE.
_September 13th, 1923._
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I: THE GREAT PERIL 25
POST-WAR EUROPE REVISITED--IMPOVERISHMENT
AND TAXATION--RACE HATREDS UNCHANGED--HOW
WAR IS BEGUN--VENGEANCE IS THE
LORD'S--THE CHURCHES AND THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS.
II: EUROPE STILL ARMING 51
MARSHAL FOCH AND THE CAUSE OF THE GREAT
WAR--NAVIES FOR DEFENCE--STRENGTH OF EUROPE'S
ARMIES--EUROPE MORE MILITANT THAN EVER.
III: THE ERUPTION IN THE MEDITERRANEAN 59
DROPPING HOT CINDERS IN THE BALKANS--SEEING
WAR IN PICTURES--FORCE THE ARBITER OF RIGHT
AND WRONG--LIMITING THE ACTIVITIES OF THE
LEAGUE--BOTTLING UP THE ADRIATIC.
IV: IS THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS A SUCCESS? 68
TRIUMPHS OF THE LEAGUE--ALL GREAT
POWERS SHOULD BE IN IT--AMERICA AND
THE LEAGUE--TREATY AND THE LEAGUE--ENDING
THE ARBITRAMENT OF THE SWORD.
V: THE TREATY OF VERSAILLES AND ITS CRITICS 81
TREATY CRITICISED BUT NOT READ--AMERICA
AND THE TREATY--LABOUR AND THE TREATY--TREATY
AND LEAGUE OF NATIONS INTERWOVEN.
VI: 1922 95
WAR DANCE STILL IN THE WORLD--ULTIMATUM
INSTEAD OF CONFERENCE--CANNES
AND GENOA--ENEMIES AT COUNCIL TABLE--TALK
OF AN AMERICAN LOAN.
VII: WHAT IS FRANCE AFTER? 104
CLEMENCEAU AND THE RHINE--ANNEXATION
AND REVENGE--ANGLO-AMERICAN GUARANTEE
TO FRANCE--POINCARÉ AND THE RHINE.
VIII: WHAT IS FRANCE AFTER? 116
VERSAILLES TREATY AND THE RHINE FRONTIER--FOCH
AND THE POLITICAL FRONTIER--AMERICAN AND
BRITISH PRESSURE--SHAM REPUBLIC OF THE RHINE.
IX: WHAT IS FRANCE AFTER? 130
BONAR LAW AND POINCARÉ--PRODUCTIVE
SANCTIONS AND REPARATIONS--MORATORIUM
FOR GERMANY FAILS--BRITAIN STANDS ASIDE.
X: REPARATIONS 136
REPARATIONS AND THE TREATY--CAPACITY TO
PAY--REPARATIONS COMMISSION CHANGED--AMERICA'S
VACANT CHAIR--WORTHLESS "C" BONDS FOR BRITAIN.
XI: MR. HUGHES'S NEW HAVEN SPEECH 147
SECRETARY HUGHES'S NEW HAVEN SPEECH,
A TIMID DELIVERANCE--IMPARTIAL TRIBUNAL
OF EXPERTS--OFFER OF AMERICAN HELP.
XII: THE FRENCH INVASION OF THE RUHR 156
WHAT GERMANY HAS PAID--"IN TECHNICAL
DEFAULT"--WRONG WAY TO MAKE GERMANY
PAY--RUINING GERMAN INDUSTRY--FRANCE'S
SECRET AIM.
XIII: LOST OPPORTUNITIES 167
FRENCH FAILURE IN THE RUHR--WILD OATS
OF REPARATION--THE RUHR AND THE LEAGUE
OF NATIONS--THE BANKERS' CONFERENCE.
XIV: FRENCH SCHEMES 175
ITALY AND THE RUHR--IRON ORE OF LORRAINE
AND GERMAN COAL DEPOSITS--LOUCHEUR
AND HUGO STINNES--GERMAN WORKMEN IN BONDAGE.
XV: THE QUICKSAND 183
LOUCHEUR AND THE RUHR--LACK OF LEADER
IN FRANCE--DISREGARD OF ALLIES--AGGRESSION
AND SECURITY--FAILURE OF BONAR LAW.
XVI: THE FIRST GERMAN OFFER 191
DOES FRANCE SEEK A SETTLEMENT?--DEMAND
FOR SUBMISSION IN THE RUHR--GERMAN
OFFER INADEQUATE--KEEPING AMERICA
OUT--TREATY IDEA NOT FOLLOWED.
XVII: THE SECOND GERMAN NOTE 202
GERMAN OFFER AND THE LOAN TO GERMANY--CAN
BERLIN ASSENT TO INVASION?--REINTRODUCING
AMERICA--WEAKENING DEBTORS ABILITY TO PAY.
XVIII: THE NAPOLEONIC DREAM 213
EUROPEAN MIND UNHINGED--WHAT EVERY
FRENCHMAN KNOWS--PICKWICK FOLLOWS
SNODGRASS--GERMANY MAY COLLAPSE--UNDOING
THE WORK OF BISMARCK.
XIX: IS IT PEACE? 225
STRESEMANN MAN OF ENERGY--CHAOS AHEAD
FOR GERMANY--BRITISH UNEMPLOYMENT--FRANCE
A SELF-CONTAINED COUNTRY--BALFOUR'S
NOTE A GENEROUS OFFER.
XX: WHAT NEXT? 234
PEN-AND-INK JOUSTING--TORY "DIEHARDS"
AND FRANCE--POINCARÉ AND THE DOVE OF
PEACE--WHAT "PAY AND STAY" MEANS--FRANCE'S
MINIMUM AND BRITAIN'S SURRENDER.
XXI: THE BRITISH DEBT TO AMERICA 244
BORROWING FOR ALLIES--BRITISH TAXPAYER'S
BURDEN--CREDITOR NATION NOW DEBTOR--BRITAIN
MUST PAY HER WAY--HER CURRENCY
NOT DISCREDITED--INTER-ALLIED DEBTS.
XXII: INTER-ALLIED DEBTS 252
DISCOVERY OF THE MIDDLE WEST--LEGEND
OF BRITISH WEALTH--1,400,000 UNEMPLOYED--THE
BALFOUR NOTE--CAN BRITAIN AFFORD
TO BE MORE GENEROUS THAN AMERICA?
XXIII: THE BRITISH ELECTIONS 264
MINORITY RULE AND MORAL AUTHORITY--NATIONAL
LIBERALS AT THE POLLS--DANGER
OF ENGLAND'S ELECTORAL SYSTEM--LABOUR'S
PROSPECTS--WARRING LIBERAL FACTIONS.
XXIV: HOW DEMOCRACY WORKS 282
GROWTH OF BRITAIN'S ELECTORATE--WOMEN
SUFFRAGE--NEW VOTERS WITHOUT A PARTY--ABSENTEES
FROM THE POLLS--FREAKS OF THE GROUP SYSTEM.
XXV: POLITICAL REALITIES 291
POST-WAR LEGISLATION--THE IRISH CAULDRON--LABOUR
AND CAPITAL--AGRICULTURE AND
INDUSTRY--SOCIALISM COURTING FASCISM.
XXVI: SHOULD WE MAKE PEACE WITH RUSSIA? 301
PRE-REVOLUTIONARY RUSSIA--CORRUPTION AND
BETRAYAL--"SHAKING HANDS WITH MURDER"--IF
TURKEY, WHY NOT RUSSIA?--NEED FOR
RUSSIA'S EXPORTS.
XXVII: PALESTINE AND THE JEWS 312
STUPIDITY OF ANTI-SEMITISM--BLIGHTING RULE
OF THE TURK--THE JEW AS A CULTIVATOR--RACE
EQUALITY IN PALESTINE--ZIONIST DECLARATION.
XXVIII: THE TREATY OF LAUSANNE 322
TURKISH FEZZES IN THE AIR--BLOW OF PRESTIGE
OF THE WEST--MASSACRES AND MISGOVERNMENT--FERTILE
COUNTRY A WILDERNESS--HAD WILSON
SUCCEEDED--LAUSANNE A MILESTONE, NOT A TERMINUS.
XXIX: THE SIGNING OF THE IRISH TREATY 339
GLADSTONE'S HOME-RULE FIGHT--SCENE IN
NO. 10 DOWNING STREET--GRIFFITH AND COLLINS--TO
SIGN OR NOT TO SIGN--CHILDERS,
SULLEN AND DISAPPOINTED--TREATY A PILLAR
OF HOPE FOR FUTURE.
XXX: PROHIBITION 350
THE LESSON FROM RUSSIA--BRITAIN NOT
CONVINCED--EXPERIMENTS DIFFICULT--PUBLIC
UNEDUCATED--OUTLOOK NOT ENCOURAGING.
XXXI: UNOFFICIAL PUBLICATION OF "OFFICIAL" INFORMATION 361
JULIUS CÆSAR BEGAN IT--SELF DEFENCE AND
SECRET INFORMATION--THE VERSAILLES
DECISION--GENERAL RULES AND SPECIAL CASES.
WHERE ARE WE GOING?
I
THE GREAT PERIL
If a man on a bright July morning in 1914 had sailed abroad and had the
misfortune to be wrecked on a desert island, returning to civilisation
a week ago, the change which Europe presented to him would be
sufficient to induce him to believe that his long solitude had unhinged
his mind. To him it would have appeared as the stuff of which dreams
are made. He would have remembered a German empire with an august
head, ruling with autocratic sway a population striding with giant
steps into prosperity and wealth, possessing a matchless army, whose
tread terrified Europe; with a fleet that provoked articles and novels
and agitations about the invasion of England; with vast possessions
across the seas. In its place he would see Germany, instead of being a
confident, powerful, arrogant empire, a timid, nervous, and apologetic
republic presided over by a respectable and intelligent workman, her
minister issuing notes to propitiate Belgium, and having them sent
back like the stupid exercises of a backward schoolboy to be rewritten
in accordance with the pleasure of the taskmaster; the great army
reduced to a force one-half the size of that of Serbia; the menacing
fleet at the bottom of the sea; the watch on the Rhine kept by French,
British, and Belgian soldiers. He would see the Krupp works in French
occupation; not a German colony left.
Russia he would have recollected as a powerful autocracy rooted in a
superstitious belief by the peasantry in the divinity of its head.
He would find it now a revolutionary area ruled by the exiles of
yesterday, shunned by the rest of the world because of the violence
of its communistic doctrines; tsardom, with its gilded retinue of
splendour, flung into a hideous doom, and the sceptre of Peter the
Great enforcing the doctrines of Karl Marx. He would see the Austrian
empire as much a thing of the past as the empire of Nebuchadnezzar, a
poor province lifted out of beggary by the charity of her foes: new
states, which had been dead and buried for centuries, risen from the
dead, casting off their shrouds, marching in full panoply; Trieste
an Italian port; the Dolomites an Italian bastion. The Turk alone
quite unchanged, a few more amputating operations performed upon
him, but still preserving sufficient vitality to massacre Christians
irrespective of denomination or race, and to become a sore trial and
perplexity to the rest of the world.
If our returned voyager travelled through Europe he would find
even more fundamental changes in the world of finance, trade and
commerce. He would find impoverishment, dislocation; the elaborate
and finely-spun web of commerce rent to pieces, and its torn threads
floating in the wind. With a few sovereigns in his pocket, he would
expect in return 25 francs, 20 marks, and about 26 lire. Instead of
that, with a paper sovereign he would find that he could buy 70 francs,
nearly 100 lire, 250,000 German marks, 300,000 Austrian kronen, and
millions of Russian roubles. The money-changers who once prospered on
decimal fractions now earning a precarious livelihood in the flights
of the multiplication table. That would give him a better indication
perhaps of the reality of the change than even the fall of empires. On
his journeys he would travel through prosperous provinces rutted and
overturned as by a gigantic earthquake; he would pass vast cemeteries
where 10,000,000 young men fallen in the Great War were having their
last sleep; he would see on all hands signs of mutilation of men who
had been engaged in the great struggle. Taxation everywhere quintupled
with nothing but debt to show for it; industry with its back bent under
a burden of taxation which when he left existed only in the nightmares
of the dyspeptic rich. He would then be able to realise something of
the tremendous upheaval that had taken place in the world.
But what would surprise him more than all these amazing and bewildering
transformations would be the one thing in which there was no change.
He would naturally expect that after such terrifying experiences, the
world would have learnt its lesson, turned its back finally on war,
its crimes and its follies, and set its face resolutely toward peace.
It is the one thing he discovers has not changed--the world has not
learned one single syllable. Suspicions amongst nations exist just
as ever, only more intense; hatreds between races and peoples, only
fiercer; combinations forming everywhere for the next war; great
armies drilling; conventions and compacts for joint action when the
tocsin sounds; general staffs meeting to arrange whether they should
march, where they should march, how they should march, and where they
should strike; little nations only just hatched, just out of the
shell, staggering under the burden of great armaments, and marching
along towards unknown battlefields; new machinery of destruction and
slaughter being devised and manufactured with feverish anxiety; every
day science being brought under contribution to discover new methods to
destroy human life--in fact, a deep laid and powerfully concerted plot
against civilisation, openly organised in the light of the sun. And
that after his experience of four or five years ago! Man the builder,
and man the breaker, working side by side in the same workshop, and
apparently on the best of terms with each other, playing their part
in the eternal round of creation and dissolution, with characteristic
human energy. What a complex creature is man! It is little wonder that
God gave him up repeatedly in despair. He is unteachable.
I wonder whether it is realised that if war were to break out again,
the calamity would be a hundredfold greater than that of the last
experience. Next time, cities will be laid waste. Possible, and I am
sorry to say, probable enemy nations are more closely intertwined,
and the engines of havoc are becoming more and more terrible. I have
called attention repeatedly to the developments which took place during
the late War, in the variety, the range, and the power of destructive
weapons. Compare the aëroplane at the beginning of the war, and its
small bomb which could easily be manhandled, with the same machine at
the end. By the end of the war machines had been built, and but for
the armistice would have been used, the devastating power of which
was terrific. Since then the power of the machine, the weight of the
explosive, and the incendiary material it drops, have grown, and are
still growing. Science is perfecting old methods of destruction, and
searching out new methods. One day, in its exploration, it may hit on
something that may make the fabric of civilisation rock.
Can anything be done to avert this approaching catastrophe? That is
the problem of all problems for those who love their fellowmen. I warn
you that it is madness to trust to the hope that mankind, after such
an experience, will not be so rash as to court another disaster of the
same kind. The memory of the terrors, the losses, the sufferings of the
war, will not restrain men from precipitating the world into something
which is infinitely worse, and those who think so, and, therefore, urge
that it is not necessary to engage in a new crusade for peace, have
not studied the perverse, the stubborn, and the reckless nature of
man. There is the danger that the last war may even make some nations
believe in war.
I have talked to many young soldiers who were fortunate enough to have
passed unscathed through some of the worst experiences of the war, to
many who suffered mutilation in some of these experiences; they have
given me one common impression that the memory of fear is evanescent,
and that they cannot now re-create in their own minds the sensations
of terror through which they passed. If that is true of those who
went through the furnace, what of the multitudes who simply looked
on?--the multitudes of those who were too young to take part, and can
only recall the excitement produced by the conflict and the glory of
victory? The recollection of the headaches of an orgy never lasts as
long as that of its pleasures. It is useless to recall memories of the
terror and torture of the war, and expect them to crusade for peace.
Memory is a treacherous crusader. It starts with a right purpose fresh
and hot on its path, but its zeal gets fainter as the days roll past,
and it ends by handing over its banner to the foe.
You can only redeem mankind by appealing to its nobler instincts.
Fear is base, and you cannot lift mankind by using it as a lever. The
churches alone can effectively rouse the higher impulses of our nature.
That is where their task comes in.
There is another reason why we cannot regard the danger as having
passed away. You have all the elements which made for the Great War of
1914 more potent than ever to-day. The atmosphere of Europe is charged
with them.
What made the last war? Armed international dislikes, rivalries, and
suspicions. The dislikes were based on age-long racial feuds stimulated
by memories of recent wrongs. Celt and Teuton disliking each other;
Slav and Teuton suspicious of each other; the hatred of the Slav for
the Teuton intensified by the arrogance with which Germany humiliated
Russia at the moment of her weakness immediately after the Japanese
War, when she was peculiarly sensitive to insult. You will recollect
the peremptoriness and the insolence of her gesture over the Bosnian
annexation, and insolences are always more painful than wrongs and
rankle longer. They corrode the flesh, and burn into the soul of a
nation, keeping its anger aflame. I wish nations always remembered
that. There was the hatred of the Celt for the Teuton deepened by the
annexation of Alsace-Lorraine, and by the incidents inseparable from
the invasion of a foreign soil. There was Germany suspecting that
every railway constructed by Russia was aimed at her heart. There
was France convinced that Germany was only waiting her opportunity
to pick a quarrel which would enable her to deprive France of her
much-coveted colonies. There was England watching with vigilant insight
and increasing anger the growth of Germany's great fleet, which she
was convinced was aimed at her shores. There were great armies in
every continental country ready to march at a moment's notice, fully
equipped, each commander firmly persuaded that his own legions were
irresistible. You had there all the conditions that made for war. Had
it come of set purpose? I have read most of the literature concerning
the events that led up to that war, and it is full of warning as to
how wars happen. They do not come because the majority of those who
are concerned are bent upon bloodshed, not even the majority who have
the decisive voice if they exercised it in time. Had a plebiscite been
taken in every country in Europe a week before war was declared as to
whether they wished to engage in a European conflict, the proposal
would have been turned down by a majority so overwhelming as to show
that the proposition was one that no nation had the slightest idea of
entertaining. That is not the reason why it came. But you have always
in control of the affairs of nations some men who hesitate; many who
are apathetic, many who are merely inefficient and stupid; and then
most men, even in a government, have their minds concentrated on their
own immediate tasks.
I will give you an illustration of how war is begun, once you have the
predisposition to quarrel, without anybody wanting it and with the
vast majority of the people who are to be engaged in it opposed to it.
Austria issued an ultimatum to Serbia. There is nothing a big bully
likes better than to hector a little man who is near the point of his
toe. Serbia was so near the boot that Austria was constantly tempted
to give it a kick, and it did. It issued an ultimatum, which was a
very insolent one. The Serbian reply was a practical acceptance of the
Austrian demands. This is the note the kaiser wrote on it: "A brilliant
performance this. But with it disappears"--listen to this written by
the Kaiser of Germany just a few days before war was declared--"but
with it disappears every reason for war, and the Austrian minister
ought to have remained quietly in Belgrade. After that I would never
have given orders for mobilisation." In three days there was war.
Let me give another illustration. Admiral Tirpitz said he saw Von
Jagow two days after the Austrian reply. Von Jagow, the German foreign
minister, was so little interested in the Austro-Serbian conflict that
he confessed to the German ambassador to Austria on July 27th, two days
after the reply had been received, that he had not yet found time to
read the Serbian reply to Austria. Here is the document on which ten
million young men who had no responsibility for it have been slain,
homes have been desolated, and a debt of taxation, confusion and
sorrow incurred which will not be wiped out as long as this generation
lasts.
It is inconceivable, if one had not some knowledge of the carelessness
and the procrastination which are bred in official circles by long
practice. That was only three days before war was declared. This high
official in the Wilhelmstrasse, who subsequently agreed to the fateful
decision to declare war against Russia, had not even read the critical
document which ought to have averted the struggle. But there are
always the vigilant few, the very few resolute men whose whole mind
and energy and skill is engaged ceaselessly in driving forward the
chariots of war. Whilst others are asleep, they are craftily dodging
the traffic, and stealing along unawares, slowly getting their chariots
into position for the next push forward. Whilst others are asleep, they
lash the fiery steeds along their destructive course. In the press,
on the platform, in the council chambers, in the chancelleries, in
society of all kinds, high and low, they are always pressing along.
When the precipice is reached, they dash through the feeble resistance
of the panic-stricken mob of counsellors and officials, and nations are
plunged into the abyss before they know it.
This is the way most wars come.
Read the history of the war of 1870. It came about in the same
confused, clumsy, purposeless way. In all these cases there is always
in the background the sinister figure of that force for mischief which
used to be known by our Puritan fathers as the devil. Have these
hatreds and suspicions abated? Are there no rivalries to-day? Are
there no men whose one joy is in war? Was the devil numbered amongst
the slain in the last war? I have never seen his name in any casualty
list. Look around. His agents are more numerous, more active, more
pressing and efficient than ever. Europe to-day is a cauldron of
suspicions and hatreds. It is well to speak frankly. Celt and Teuton
are now interlocked in a conflict which is none the less desperate
because one of the parties is disarmed. There is a suppressed savagery
which is but ill concealed, and there are new hatreds which, if they
have not been brought into existence during the war, have at any
rate come to the surface. Mankind has learnt no lesson from the four
or five years of war, although it has been scourged with scorpions.
There was nothing that contributed more to the last catastrophe than
the annexation by Germany of Alsace-Lorraine. As long as that act
of folly remained uncorrected there was no real peace possible in
Europe. The nations concerned were just abiding their opportunity,
and the opportunity came. Now you have two Alsace-Lorraines at least.
There is the annexation of Vilna by force; there is the annexation
of Galicia by force, by violence, by the use of arms against the
will of the population. Elsewhere you have the German and the Pole
quarrelling over Silesia; the Russian and the Pole over doubtful
boundaries; the Czech and the Magyar; the Serbian and the Bulgarian;
the Russian and the Rumanian; the Rumanian and the Magyar. There is
the age-long feud between Greek and Turk. All have an air of biding
opportunity, all are armed ready for slaughter. Europe is a seething
cauldron of international hates, with powerful men in command of the
fuel stores feeding the flames and stoking the fires. It is no use
blaming the treaty of Versailles. This state of things has nothing
to do with treaties. Here it is the spirit that killeth and not the
letter. Sometimes wrongs are imaginary. Where the wrongs are imaginary
time will heal the sense of hurt, but sometimes they are real, and
time will fester the wound, but everywhere and always the hatreds are
real enough. Can nothing be done? If it can, let it be done in time.
Let it be done at once. Yet, once more I remind you that if the gun
is loaded--and it is loaded in every land--when the quarrel begins it
is apt to go off, not because the trigger is deliberately pulled, but
because some clumsy fellow in his excitement stumbles against it.
In a continent which is nominally Christian, the churches surely are
not impotent. When the West was all Catholic, and it had the good
fortune to have a high-minded and capable occupant of the throne
of St. Peter, many a struggle was averted by his intervention. Can
the churches not once more display their power? They can only do
so by moving together, not merely every denomination in Britain,
but every Christian community throughout Europe--Catholic and
Protestant--Catholics even more than Protestants, for the countries
where the peril is most imminent are more under the domination of the
Catholic churches than of the Protestant faiths. If all the heroism
of millions, their sacrifice and their sufferings, are to be thrown
away, it will be the most colossal, criminal and infamous waste ever
perpetrated in human history. Millions of men endangered their lives
willingly. Millions lost their lives for the sake of establishing peace
on earth on the basis of international right. A temple to human right
was built with material quarried out of all that is choicest in the
soul of man. But its timbers are being drenched with the kerosene of
hatred, and one day a match will be lit by some careless or malignant
hand which will set fire to this magnificent edifice; its splendour
will be reduced to black embers, and the hope of mankind will be once
more laid in ashes. The task of the churches is to put forth the whole
of their united strength to avert that catastrophe.
Peace is only possible when you introduce into the attitude of nations
towards each other principles which govern the demeanour of decent
people in a community towards their neighbours. If international
methods were introduced into the dealings of neighbours with each other
life would become intolerable--the unconcealed suspicions, distrusts
and ill-will which rule everywhere, the eternal expectancy of and
preparation for blows, the readiness of the strong to use violence,
either to enforce his will on his weaker neighbour or to deprive him of
his liberty or his possessions, or even his life, to satisfy anger,
revenge, or greed. Had this been the rule in private affairs, we should
all have to live in caves, or in castles, according to our means. As a
matter of fact, man is only half civilised. In international matters he
is still a savage, in his heart he recognises no law but that of force.
The savage has his restraints. His instinct warns him not to pounce
save when he thinks he can do so effectively and with impunity, and
for some purpose which he thinks worth his while. Whether he hates or
covets, he has no other restraint. I wish I could say that in essence
nations to-day obey any other impulse. Man must be civilised in his
international relations, otherwise wars will go on as long as mankind
remains on this earth.
I have seen a city wrenched from its people. I have seen a whole
province appropriated against the protests of its people, and
all within the last four years, since the Great War to establish
international right. There was no conceivable justification for either
of these depredations except that both the city and the province were
desirable, were at hand, were very tempting, and that the owners were
too feeble to resist their pillagers.
The lesson must be taught that larceny does not diminish in turpitude
as it increases in the scale of its operations. A nation that
feloniously steals, takes, and carries away a city or province is just
as criminal as the thief sentenced to imprisonment for robbery by
violence on the high-road. And these national felonies will assuredly
bring trouble one day. They invariably do so, and unfortunately
international trouble is never confined to the felon. Human
retribution, once it begins, is as indiscriminating and uncontrollable
as a prairie fire. The flames consume the wheat as well as the tares.
Hell fire administered by the hand of man scorches the innocent
equally with the guilty. The doom of Germany involved millions in its
tortures who were outside her gates, abominated her crimes, and did all
they could to prevent their perpetration. That is why it is written:
"'Vengeance is mine, I will repay,' saith the Lord." It is the supreme
duty of the churches to teach nations to understand that the moral law
is just as applicable to them in their corporate capacity as it is to
the individuals who compose them; to teach them that hatred is just as
unseemly between nations as it is between individuals, and far more
dangerous. Goodwill must be assiduously cultivated between nations.
It must be ingeminated in every way--in schools, in the press, in
sermons, in classes. The men who are always sowing distrust and dislike
of men of other races and lands should be picked out, condemned,
shown up, hunted by the scorn, the contempt and the wrath of their
fellowmen. They are more dangerous than the incendiary who burns down
an occasional hay-rick or habitation.
Let the best side of every nation be better known. Each nation has made
its contribution to the sum of human greatness. Dwell on that, and not
on the failings and the deficiencies, the errors, and the crimes which
are unhappily common to all nations. Name me the land that has no stain
on its record. There is no end to the resourcefulness of hate. Its
variety is infinite. I recollect, not so long ago, a time when you were
not a patriot if you were pro-French; the fact that you were pro-French
stamped you as a Little Englander. France was supposed to be a busy
and malignant foe of Britain all the world over, scheming everywhere
against British interests. She stood for all that was unpleasant and
repugnant to the British mind--in her thought, her literature, her
politics, and her manners. France heartily reciprocated our dislike.
There were at least two occasions when war between the two countries
was apprehended, was openly talked of, and was even likely. The
atmosphere of the press in both capitals was charged with brimstone.
Now it is to Germany you must not utter one word of toleration or even
fair play. I am not counselling the abandonment of the just measure of
our national rights as against either of these two countries, but they
are both great nations. They are both nations that have contributed
richly of the things that make for the elevation, for the happiness,
for the splendour of mankind. If Germany is the land of Bismarck with
its blood and iron, all Protestants will remember that she is also the
land of Luther and the Reformation. If she fought in the late war for
four years to establish a military domination in Europe, she fought
for thirty years with enduring valour and much suffering to establish
the freedom of conscience in Europe. She has given to the world great
literature, great painters, great philosophers, great explorers in
all the continents of thought. She is the land of unrivalled song.
Even in the middle of the bloody conflict with Germany, every Sunday
we praised God in our churches to the notes of German music. Let us
give credit for these things in our efforts to reconstitute the reign
of goodwill. And if we feel angry with France, let us remember her
dazzling array of great writers, her gigantic struggles for liberty,
the penetrating imagination devoted to scientific research, which has
brought incalculable blessings to humanity. Let us not judge France
by the fussy little men that give expression to her petulance in the
fits of temper that overtake every nation, but by the great men who
have given noble expression to her immortal soul. France is the land
of Victor Hugo, of Pascal, of Renan, and many another teacher who has
taken humanity by the hand along the upward road.
Everything depends on a consistent, determined, continuous inculcation
of the principles and the ideal of goodfellowship, between nations.
Goodwill on earth means to think well of and dwell on the best side
of others, and goodwill on earth and peace have been linked together.
Without the one you will not have the other. Let us, therefore,
cultivate the spirit of brotherhood amongst men. The church must
appeal to the noblest sentiments of the human heart. Mankind can
only be redeemed by an appeal to those higher instincts. Not by an
appeal to ignoble fear. War means terror, war means death, war means
anguish. That will not prevent war, and never has. Man is the most
fearless of God's creatures, and when his passions are roused there
is no fear that will restrain him. The fire of his passion burns the
restraints of self-preservation like bands of tow, so that fear will
not restrain the nations and make peace among them. War destroys trade,
it brings unemployment. Look at all the losses, reckoning them up in
cash. That will not prevent war: it never has. Selfish interests have
a means of deluding themselves. Greed has a blind side. Do not trust
to selfishness and selfish interest to ensure peace. Selfishness will
ensure nothing which is worth keeping in the world. Selfishness pays
good dividends, but it wastes capital. The nation or the individual
that makes self-love the managing-director of the soul will end in
bankruptcy--bankruptcy of respect, bankruptcy of ideals--bankruptcy of
honour--bankruptcy of friendships. What is it that Germany is suffering
from now? Her great tragedy is not her indemnity, not even her gigantic
casualties, not even the destruction of her trade. The one great
tragedy of Germany is that she has lost the respect of mankind. It
affects her trade, it affects her business, it makes it difficult for
her to climb to the pitch whence she fell. The rope is gone. She has
done things of which she herself is now ashamed. Her people--I can
see it when I meet them--are ashamed. That is the tragedy. They are a
gallant people, they are a brave people, they fought bravely, but they
are broken-spirited. Why? They have lost their self-respect because
they have done something that they know in their hearts was wrong.
These are the things that have to be taught to nations.