^ V,** s^ v « ^ V >° n* < The UNITED STATES OF EUROPE ON THE EVE OF THE PARLIAMENT OF PEACE BY W. T. STEAD NEW YORK DOUBLEDAY & MrCLURE CO. ig 59 PREFACE In the year 1898 two strange things happened. It is difficult to say which was more unexpected. In the "West the American Bepublic, which for more than a hundred years had made as its proudest boast its haughty indifference to the temptation of territorial conquest, suddenly abjured its secular creed, and con- cluded a war upon which it had entered with every protestation of absolute disinterestedness by annexa- tions so sweeping as to invest the United States with all that was left of the heritage of imperial Spain. In the East a Sovereign autocrat, commanding the bayonets of four millions of trained soldiers and the implicit obedience of one hundred and twenty millions of loyal subjects, amazed and bewildered mankind by formally and publicly arraigning tte armaments of the modern world, and summoning a Conference of all the Powers to discuss practical measures for abating an evil which threatened to land civilized society in the abyss. Many other things happened in 1898, but nothing for a moment to compare with the significance of these two immense events, which, each in its own way, con- stitute landmarks in the evolution of the human race. vi PREFACE The Peace Rescript of the Tsar of Russia, the Treaty of Peace extorted at the sword's point from prostrate Spain — these two strongly contrasted documents con- stitute together one of the paradoxes of History. It is the pacific Republic which makes war, which multi- plies its army fourfold, and which seizes by the right of conquest the colonial possessions of Spain. It is the Imperial autocrat of a military empire who im- peaches the war system of the world, and, himself the master of a thousand legions, invites the nations to a Parliament of Peace. It is not surprising that a contrast so startling, an exchange of roles so unexpected, should at once arrest and bewilder the contemporary observer. We are still too near this great transformation scene ade- quately to realize its full significance. In order better to ascertain what might be the true meaning and vital import of the sudden apparition of an industrial Commonwealth as a conquering and an- nexing Imperial power, and the not less startling ap- parition of the Tsar of Russia in the garb of an angel of peace, I unde .took a rapid journey round Europe in the autumn of 1898, for the twofold purpose of ascertaining what the men of the Old World thought of the latest development of the ISTew World, and of discovering the true inwardness of the Tsar's Rescript, and the degree of welcome which it was likely to re- ceive from the peoples to whom it was addressed. I left London on September 15th for Brussels, and visited in rapid succession Liep;e, Paris, Berlin, St. PREFACE vii Petersburg, Moscow, Sebastopol and Yalta. At Yalta I had the honor of being twice received by the Tsar at Livadia. Keturning to Sebastopol, I took the steamer to Constantinople. The Orient Express brought me to Sofia, the capital of the Principality of Bulgaria, from whence I passed by Belgrade and Buda Pesth to Vienna. From Vienna, I went by Florence to Kome. On my way home I called at Cannes, Geneva and Berne, revisiting Paris on No- vember 26th, and reaching London on November 28th. In one respect I was advantageously placed for hear- ing the views of trained and experienced observers. Most travellers consider themselves lucky if they can count upon the assistance of one Ambassador in each country which they visit. I, fortunately, can always call upon three. Born in Britain, and carrying on business in America, I found myself equally at home in the British and American Embassies; while Russia has so long been to me as a second country, that her Ambassadors were at least as helpful as those of the English-speaking nations. Besides these official representatives, I naturally found myself everywhere at home with the unofficial ambassadors of the public, who, under the unassuming guise of newspaper correspondents, do much more to form the opinion of the civilized world than all the ambassadors, ministers, and plenipotentiaries put to- gether. Without their aid, generously afforded me wherever I went, it would have been idle to attempt viii PREFACE such a rapid survey of the Continent as I venture to present in these pages. It would be the maddest presumption to pretend that in a rush round Europe, begun and completed in less than three months, anything can be obtained be- yond a series of general impressions, instantaneous photographs as it were, of the ever-shifting panorama of Continental politics. But on the two points to which I specially addressed myself it is perhaps not too much to hope that I may at least have succeeded in bringing into clear relief the salient features of the situation. Everywhere I asked what the men of the Old World thought of the newest New World that had suddenly revealed itself beyond the seas. Every- where also I asked what about the Peace Conference to which the world had been summoned by the Tsar. Incidentally, of course, I treat upon many other sub- jects, but the answers to these inquiries form the central essence of this book. I have drawn freely upon the letters and articles which in the course of my tour I contributed to the Daily News, the Associated Press of America, and the Review of Reviews. In conclusion, I may take the opportunity of an- nouncing that should this Annual meet with public appreciation, I hope to begin with the twentieth cen- tury a series of Annuals which would provide the gen- eral reader with a more or less comprehensive survey of the movements of the twelvemonth, written from a special standpoint after personal converse with the PREFACE ix sovereigns and statesmen, the diplomatists and jour- nalists of Europe. Of year-books of the statistical and dry-as-dust order there are enough and to spare. But of Annuals written to be read, and not merely to be referred to, I do not know of one. WILLIAM T. STEAD. Review of Reviews Office, Mowbray House, Norfolk Street, London, W.C. January 1st, 1899. CONTENTS PART I TOWARDS THE FEDERATION OF THE WORLD CHAP. PAGE I. U.S.A. and U.S.E. 1 II. Links and Barriers 8 III. The Capital of the Continent . 25 IV. The European Concert . 38 V. Europa 54 PART II ENGLAND IN 1S98 I. The Fashoda Fever II. The Chinese Puzzle III. HlSPANIOLIZATION 83 115 145 PART III THE NORTHWESTERN STATES I. Belgium II. France III. Germany IV. The Minor States of Europe 173 188 211 226 Xll CONTENTS PART IV RUSSIA OF THE RESCRIPT CHAP. I. At St. Petersburg in 1898 . II. The Peace Rescript III. Two Letters from St. Petersburg IV. M. Witte and His Work V. A Russian Cobden .... VI. The Ideas of Prince Ouchtomsky VII. The Emperor of Peace PAGE 233 252 280 297 308 319 345 PART V POSSIBLE OUTCOMES I. America and Russia II. Constantinople .... III. From the Capital of the Old World IV. What will the Outcome be ? V. A Pilgrimage of Peace 395 411 428 443 459 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS The Tsar, Nicholas II . Frontispiece FACING PAGE Sir Horace Rumbold .10 Lord Currie . 10 Sir Edmund Monson . 10 Sir Nicholas O'Connor 10 Mr. Saunders . 20 Mr. Dobson . 20 M. de Blowitz 20 Mr. Lavigno 20 The Reichstag Building, Berlin 56 The Reichsrath, Vienna .... 56 Queen Wilhelmina of Holland 58 The Late Queen of Denmark . 58 Queen Margharita of Italy 58 The Empress of Germany .... 58 Emperor William of Germany . 66 Emperor Franz Joseph of Austria-Hungary 66 King Oscar of Sweden .... 66 The King of Servia 66 Count Goluchowski 72 Count Thun 72 Herr Von Kallay 72 The Heir Apparent of Austria-Hungary 72 M. Dupuy . 84 The Late President Faure 84 M. Hanotaux 84 M. Delcass£ ...... 84 Major Marchand ..... 86 Sir Edward Grey, M.P 90 Right Hon. John Morley, M.P. 90 xiv LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS FACING PAGE Right Hon. H. H. Asquith, M.P 90 Right Hon. Sir Henry Fowler, M.P 90 The Marquis of Salisbury 94 The Rt. Hon. A. J. Balfour 94 The Rt. Hon. Lord Rosebery 94 The Rt. Hon. Joseph Chamberlain 94 Sir Claude Macdonald 130 Lord Curzon of Kedleston 130 The Hon. W. P. Schreiner 130 Lord Aberdeen 130 Dezos Szilagy 153 Baron Banffy 153 M. Tisza 153 Maurus Jokai 153 M. Drumont 168 M. Pressense 168 M. Rochefort 168 M. Georges Clemenceau 168 Leopold, King of the Belgians 176 M. Cremer 176 The Crown Prince of Belgium 176 The Queen of Belgium 176 M. Beenaert 186 M. Woeste 186 Baron Von Eetvelde . . 186 M. d'Alviella 186 The Paris Bourse 188 The Arc de Triomphe, Paris 188 M. Brisson 190 M. Brunetiere 190 M. Jaures 190 General Zurlinden 190 Ex-Captain Dreyfus 208 General Mercier 208 Ex-Colonel Picquart 208 Count Esterhazy 208 Dr. Richter , 214 Count Herbert Bismarck 214 Herr Liebknecht 214 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS xv FACING PAGE Herr Bebel 214 Prince Hohenlohe 222 Dr. von Miquel 222 Prince Henry op Prussia 222 Sir F. Lascelles 222 M. Sergitjs Witte 288 Prince Kouropatkin 288 M. Goremykin 288 Prince Khilkoff 288 M. de Nelidoff 324 Count Muravieff 324 Prince Ourosoff 324 M. Zinovieff 324 The Kremlin, Moscow 330 The Tsarina 346 On the Koad from Livadia to Sebastopol . . . 360 Balaklava Town and Bay 360 An Italian Representation of the Russian Eagles . 380 M. Geveshoff 414 Prince Ferdinand 414 M. Zankoff 414 Dr. Yankoloff 414 Marquis di Rudjni 428 King Humbert I. of Italy 428 SlGNOR SONNINO 428 General W. F. Dhaper 428 The Palais de Justice, Brussels 430 The Houses of Parliament, Rome : The King Leaving after Delivering his Speech from the Throve . 430 Cardinal Jacobini 434 Cardinal Parocchi 434 Cardinal Rampolla 434 Cardinal Steinhuber 434 St. Peter's and the Vatican, Rome 440 The Capitol, Rome ...,*,,. 440 LIST OF MAPS FACING PAGE Map of Europe Showing Mr. Stead's Route vi The U.S.E. and the U.S.A 10 Map of Europe Showing International Railways and Rivers 22 Map Showing Relation of Port Arthur to Talien- wan — as the spithead ports are to southampton . 12(3 Russian Manchuria 126 Map of the Yang-tse-Kiang Valley .... 142 The Rest of Europe inside Russia 252 Map Showing Shrinkage of the Turkish Empire . . 412 Turkey in Europe . 424 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE PART I TOWARDS THE FEDERATION OF THE WORLD CHAPTEE I U.S.A. AND TT.S.E. " The United States of Europe " is a phrase natu- rally suggested by the United States of America. The latter enables the former to be at least thinkable. For a hundred years the world has been familiarized with the spectacle of a continually increasing number of independent and sovereign States living together in federal union. An experiment which has lasted so long, and which on the whole has borne such good fruits, naturally suggests the question whether a sim- ilar arrangement may not be the ultimate solution of many of the problems which perplex us in the Old "World. It is true that the United States of America have not survived their century without at least one 2 THE UNITED Sl'ATES OF EUROPE bloody war. But although for four years the Repub- lic trod knee-deep in the winepress of the wrath of God, the Union emerged from that ordeal not merely no weaker, but infinitely stronger than before. The war that saved the Union was infinitely more impor- tant because it secured the unity of the American State, than even because it indirectly effected the emancipation of the negro. For it was the preserva- tion of the Union which enabled the Americans to escape the blighting curse of the Armed Peace against which Europe is at last beginning to rise in revolt. Thus the United States of Europe, the United States of America, and the Tsar's Rescript are all bound to- gether much more closely than might at first sight have been imagined. The United States of America, because they are united, have succeeded down to the present year in maintaining peace and order through- out their vast territories, and in building up one of the greatest of world powers, not merely without any resort to conscription, but even without any standing army at all. It will be objected that, down to the outbreak of the recent war, the Americans had what was called a standing army. What they had was 25,000 Federal gendarmes — a force not twice as large as the total number of the London Metropolitan Constabulary. Now a force of 25,000 men in a nation of seventy millions can hardly be regarded as other than the sceptre of sovereign power wielded by the Federal Executive, a sceptre rather than a sword, the symbol U.S.A. AND U.S.B. 3 of sovereignty rather than the instrument by which it can be exerted. The collapse of the great Rebel- lion, the extinction of the attempt to found a slave Republic in the Southern States, enabled the Ameri- cans to escape the plague of hostile frontiers. Being united in a fraternal and federal Republic, -they have had no occasion to build fortresses or to create forti- fied camps, nor have they, even in their nightmares, dreamed of subjecting the whole of their able-bodied youth to the enforced slavery of compulsory military service. Had the Confederacy triumphed, all this would have been altered, and two rival republics would have confronted each other north and south of a geo- graphical line which would have bristled with bay- onets, and frowned with cannon. The secret of their deliverance from this plague of the Old World must lie found in the preservation of their Union. It is therefore natural, when the young War Lord of the greatest of European armies issued his memorable indictment of the armed system of the Old World, that Europeans should turn their eyes with wistful longing to the continent which has hitherto been im- mune to militarism, and which has exhibited to the world the greatest example of disarmament on record. ]STor is it surprising, perceiving the open secret of the way in which the Americans have escaped the worst forms of the malady which is eating out the vitals of the modern State, that dwellers in the Old World should begin to ask themselves anxiously whether or not the ultimate solution of the problem which will 4 TEE UNITED STATE 8 OF EUROPE be considered by the Peace Conference is to be found in the realization of the conception which has hitherto been confined to idealists like Victor Hugo or seers like Mazzini. In other words, the summoning of the Par- liament of Peace brings us within sight, if not within hailing distance, of the recognition of the United States of Europe. Such at least was the idea which, in the autumn of 1898, led me to undertake for the first time a tour of the new Continental Comnionwearth in posse, with the twofold object — first, of seeing by personal experi- ence how far the nations and states were already for practical purposes welded into one; and secondly, dis- covering how far public opinion in the various capitals was prepared to welcome the next step which it was proposed to take in the direction of settled peace. On the day bef ore I started from London, Mr. ISTeaf , the European editor of the Associated Press — that organization which, from its hold on the newspapers of the United States, may be regarded as the keeper of the ear of Uncle Sam — asked me whether I would write him a letter from each of the capitals I visited, describing what the Old "World thought of the newest evolution of the ]STew World — the sudden flaming up of American enthusiasm on behalf of the victims of Spanish oppression, and the consequent expansion of the boundaries of the American Commonwealth. Closely allied with this evolution of American Im- perialism was the apparition of the United States as an active competitor in the neutral markets of the world. U.S.A. AND U.S.E. 5 I accepted the commission, and the contents of this volume are necessarily more or less influenced by the double task to which I addressed myself. At the same time I venture to hope that the very complexity of the study will add somewhat to the interest of the book. From one point of view Europe contemplates the United States of America as having realized the ideal towards which the Rescript of the Tsar appears ulti- mately to point. On the other hand, Europe perceives the United States devoting themselves to a war of liberation, which, according to the familiar precedent, appeared to develop into a war of conquest; while simultaneously the American producer, already su- preme in the supply of produce of the soil, suddenly reveals himself as a formidable rival in all manner of manufactured goods. This last factor in the prob- lem, although regarded (as Count Goluchowsky pub- licly declared) with consternation and alarm, counts nevertheless as a very valuable element in the forces making for peace and disarmament. It brings home to the average man the enormous advantages in in- dustrial competition which are enjoyed by a nation that is free to devote the whole of its inventive capacity to the arts of production, and to pass the whole of its youth into the factory and the mill, without previously taking tithe of their years in the heavy corvee of the barracks. Thus at the same time that the United States of America afford the disunited States of Europe the spectacle of a great nation, orderly and 6 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE free, which has grown up to greatness without any more than a mere symbol of an army, the menacing ascendancy of the American producer in the markets of the world tends to drive the lesson home that the ways of militarism are the ways of death. In the long run it may be found that the phenomenal increase of American exports in the year 1898 may do more to induce the acceptance of the Russian Emperor's pro- posals than all the appeals of the moralists and all the arguments of the philanthropists. " This is the way : walk ye in it," is the word uttered from the Imperial throne of Muscovy, while from across the Atlantic comes as a deep response — " And if ye do not walk in it, ye will assuredly die." Die — not necessarily by the sword, but by the absolute in- ability of nations, weighed down with the ever-increas- ing burden of modern armaments, to compete with their disencumbered rivals. England, Erance, Ger- many and Italy have been desperately struggling for some years past to obtain possession of unopened mar- kets. They have spent millions like water in order to secure prior rights over great expanses of African and Asiatic territory which are only prospective mar- kets at the best; and all the while they have ignored the fact that they are in imminent danger of losing control of their own market, and that while they may gain a more or less doubtful chance of a turnover of hundreds of thousands in distant continents, the in- crease of American exports to the European market is to be reckoned every year by millions. This economic U.S.A. AND U.8.E. 7 portent, to which for the moment the public turns a blind eye, will every day more and more assert itself, and more and more tend to compel the Old World to adopt the New World conditions, or to give up the struggle. What are the New World conditions? They are these — all the States dwell together in Fede- ral Union, without hostile frontiers and without stand- ing armies, and with a greater expenditure upon edu- cation than upon armaments. There are other factors in the problem, no doubt; these are the chief. We in the Old World cannot hope to rival the vast re- sources of a continent which even now is but partially developed; but the fact that we are naturally handi- capped in competing with the virgin resources of the New World renders it all the more necessary that we should disembarrass ourselves of all the artificial im- pediments which render it difficult, not to say impos- sible, for us to hold our own in the struggle for exist- ence in the markets of the world. The United States of Europe, therefore, however remote it may appear to those who look merely at the surface of things, may be much nearer than even the most sanguine amongst us venture at present to hope. CHAPTEE II LINKS AND BARRIERS A tour round Europe seemed to me the most natu- ral way of bringing forcibly to my mind a sense of the factors which impede this natural development. The problem can be approached from many points of view, and studied in many ways; but I elected to choose the simple method of going round Europe to see places and things for myself at first hand, and to form some kind of an idea as to what were the forces making for union, and what were those which tended to make the adoption of the federal principle difficult or impossible. To begin with, it is impossible not to be impressed with the contrast between Europe to-day and Europe a few centuries ago. Five hundred years ago it would have been practically impossible for me to have made the circular tour from which I have just returned. In the first place, the countries through which I passed would not have been at peace one with the other; in the second place, I should have had great difficulty in obtaining permission to cross many frontiers, and thirdly, I should in some countries have been in im- minent danger of losing my life, or at least my liberty. LINES AND BARRIERS 9 Last year Europe was in profound peace. There was no difficulty whatever in crossing any frontier, nor did I experience any more risk to life or liberty in travelling through the Continent than I should have done in making a tour round Kent, or passing from Sew York to San Francisco. For travelling purposes Europe is already a commonwealth. But there are two relics of barbarism still remaining which compel the wayfaring man to admit the existence of inde- pendent, rival, or hostile states. The first is common to all countries; the second is confined to one or two. The first is a custom-house. But for the pestilent nuisance of the douane, the tourist could go from the North Cape to Gibraltar, from Cape Finisterre to Transylvania, without ever being aware that he was passing from one jurisdiction to another. The uni- forms of the police and of the soldiery differ somewhat, but so also do the features of the landscape. Person- ally he would experience no more inconvenience in passing from France to Germany or from Belgium to Holland, than he would in passing from New York into Pennsylvania, or from Illinois into Minnesota. The second obstacle which stands in the way of this continental unity is the maintenance in the two coun- tries of Russia and the Ottoman Empire of the system of the passport. This passport — a nuisance at one time almost universal — has gradually retreated east- wards, until now no one ever asks to look at your pass- port outside Russia and Turkey. It is not very pleas- ant for a Russian or a friend of Russia to have to 10 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE bracket the two countries together; but in this matter of passports they are much of a muchness, Russia per- haps being even the worse of the two. Without a passport duly vised by Russian consular authorities, no foreigner can pass into the Russian Empire. With- out that passport duly surrendered to the police at each town where he arrives, no foreigner can take up his abode in Russia. The same thing is true to a less extent in Turkey. These two countries, therefore, are outside the pale of passportless civilization. They belong to the States which, for domestic or other rea- sons, dare not make their territories free to mankind to come and to go. The United States of Europe, therefore, is as the United States of America in three parts of its surface, so far as travelling is concerned, plus the irritating reminder by the custom-house of the existence of frontiers; while over the rest of its surface it is as the United States of America, plus the custom-house and the passport. The great ideal of international freedom and union is to be found in the post-office. Wherever you see the red pillar-box, there you see a dumb prophet of the Millennium. The moment the stamped missive enters its ever open portal it becomes a citizen of the universe, free from all custom houses, and protected, by virtue of the Queen's head which it carries, in all lands, irrespective of differences of nationality, law and religion. The International Postal Union is the avant-courier or John the Baptist of the Kingdom of Heaven, in which all frontiers would disappear and APIIZONA; •*»»'' * Pho'en,, . : ''E" "" ; N oakota: WYOMINfc „£ . c«™>/, . ?... C*ey««»« j hcbraska'. 1 ° <" * ■° *. UTAH :«•"««■• ; •-. ipr,»yfei/ # I~t«v5.. U-ti i|t ° '-., .COLORADO: ~ r °F'- k *- % ';J,Uvs^-. ' KANSAS . .-ncinuiitn.. /H E X I C 0-. Sajnt, SfJc «u Europe. State BounJarits CafitaJl THE U.S.E. AND THE U.S.A. LINKS AND BARRIERS 11 all mankind would be made free of the planet in which they dwell. Often on my journey I witnessed, with a feeling of satisfaction not untinged with envy, the way in which the mail-bags were carried across the frontier without word or question, while we luckless ones, who were not franked with a postage stamp, had to laboriously carry our luggage to the Zollhaus and wait until the custom-house official had made a more or less perfunctory examination of our belongings. It is true that the customs examination was in most cases exceedingly formal; in some, as in Switzerland, and in coming back to England, it was the merest form. But this only increases your irritation at the exasperat- ing worry and delay occasioned by a formality so mani- festly futile. How often did I sigh for the adoption of Sir Algernon West's sensible proposal, by which all the nuisance of custom-house examination was to be done away with — at least between England and France. But although it is nearly two years since he made his excellent suggestion, nothing seems as yet to have come of it. The only other institution in Europe which can be compared to the post-office for the success with which it has triumphed over the limitations of frontiers and the restrictions imposed by short-sighted governments upon the free movement of men and things, is that marvellous agency by which it is possible for the trav- eller, with the aid of Circular Notes, to draw whatever money he requires wherever he may be. I never used to cash my Circular Notes without feeling a dumb 12 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE wonder at the marvellous ingenuity of man and the skill with which he is able to do all things, if only " there is money in it." Instead of having to carry round with me a pocketful of gold, I simply took in my pocket-book a bundle of Circular Notes, utterly valueless to any one who had not got the circular which must be produced whenever they w T ere cashed. Armed with these bits of paper, I found in every capital, one, or two, or sometimes three financial in- stitutions which were ready at a moment's notice to pay me down as much money as the Circular Notes represented, without any deduction or trouble what- ever. You give no notice, but simply walk into the office, announce that you want so much money, and present notes for the amount required. In five or ten minutes the money is handed to you, calculated carefully at the current rate of exchange of the day, and you depart, feeling impressed with the perfection of the organization of credit by which at a thousand different points in your journey, not in Europe only, but in other continents, you can convert a bit of paper, valueless to any one else, into gold, by producing it and the corresponding circular in any of the agencies in connection with the central office. If, after the fashion of Orientals, you converted your cash into precious stones, you would only be allowed to enter the country after having paid tax and toll to the cus- tom-house; but thanks to the Circular Note you can snap your fingers at this institution, and cash your notes in a kingdom where no custom-house officer can Photograph by Be Laviete?-, The Hagut SIR HORACE RUMBOLD Vienna Elliott and Fry LORD CURRIE Rome Elliott and Fry Elliott and Fry SIR EDMUND MONSON SIR NICHOLAS O'CONNOR Paris Constantinople LEADING BRITISH AMBASSADORS ON THE CONTINENT LIXKS AND BARRIERS 13 interfere. The Circular Note is the nearest approach to an international currency which we have arrived at, for unlike coins of the realm, Circular Notes are con- vertible in every land and at the full current rate of exchange. I was exceedingly fortunate in being saved the diffi- culties of the two worst custom-houses through which I had to pass. I had a laissez-passer from the Russian Embassy, which cleared me from all the inquisition at Wirballen. Thanks to the timely kindness of M. Kroupensky, who has now succeeded ]\I. Pavloff at Pekin, I was able to evade the Turkish custom-house altogether, as I landed from the Sebastopol steamer in the Russian guard-boat. Only once was there a question of paying as much as a single penny on my luggage. I had bought a Bulgarian peasant dress for my daughter, and narrowly escaped having to pay duty upon it as wearing apparel not for my own use, when I crossed the frontier from Servia into Hungary; but the custom-house officer was merciful, although he mildly lamented that I had not sent it through under seal. But from first to last, in a tour round an oval which had London and Sebastopol as its two extreme points, I had much less inconvenience from the custom house than what one hundred years ago I should have experienced in passing from Rotterdam to Vienna. It may be difficult to see how the custom- house is to be finally abolished, but already its incon- veniences are minimized; and if the douane does not bear in its visage the evidence of galloping consump- 14 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE tion, it seems to be in a decline which, under the impulse of modern ideas, will probably be accelerated. As for passports, that is a more difficult question. Certainly in Turkey and in the states, such as Servia and Bulgaria, which have been carved out of the ruins of the Ottoman Empire, the utility of the passport is not very obvious. Whether it can be dispensed with in Russia is a matter upon which a non-Russian is not competent to express an opinion. The utility of the passport from the point of view of keeping out danger- ous characters or inconvenient visitors is not very obvious to the stranger, who soon discovers that the people whom it is sought to keep out are always those who have their passports in the most splendid order. Of course there is a great deal to be said in favor of a system by which no person can move a step without an authentic document duly certifying who he is, and where he comes from, and all about him; but in prac- tice the passport system falls far short of this ideal. Those persons who have least reputation have the most passports, and the less regular a man may be in his life, the more scrupulous he is that there shall be no complaint as to the regularity of his official papers. I am not, however, either defending or complaining of what exists. I am only endeavoring to explain what are those things which differentiate the United States of Europe from the United States of America. When we leave those elements Avhich tend to dis- union and come to consider those which tend to bring about the formation of the United States of Europe, LINKS AND BARRIERS 15 it will be a surprise to some that the institution of monarchy holds a high place. We are so much under the influence of the poetry and political writing of generations when wars were common, that it is diffi- cult for us to understand that the world has changed since then. The poetry of the beginning of the cen- tury has as its note the assumption that the wars which afflicted mankind were the direct product of the rapa- city of monarchs. The " monarch-murdered soldier " was an excellent phrase, which has been carried down for generations. When Byron describes the innocent mirth of a Spanish festival, he cannot refrain from exclaiming: — " Oh, monarchs ! could ye taste the mirth ye mar, Not in the toils of glory would ye sweat, The hoarse dull drum would sleep, and man be happy yet. " That superstition as to the war-making influence of monarchy dies hard; but if we look at things as they are, there is very little room for continuing to cherish the delusion that blinds us to the real sources of the perils which menace the peace of the world. Of this I was continually being reminded in my journey round Europe. The day I arrived at Brussels was the day on which the memorial mass was being said for the Empress- Queen, Elizabeth of Austria-Hungary. Her death by the knife of the assassin placed one-half of Europe in mourning; and the death of the Queen of Denmark, which occurred immediately afterwards, was even 16 THE Ills! IT ED STATES OF EUROPE more widely felt. The death of " the grandmamma of Europe,'' as she was familiarly called, was incident- ally the cause of delaying the publication of this [\ Christmas Annual " until the month of March. Her daughter, the Dowager Empress of Eussia, wished to have her son, the Emperor Nicholas, at the funeral. This compelled him to leave Livadia, cross Eussia, and repair to Copenhagen, where he remained for a fort- night. My interview was therefore postponed until his return. These are only trifles, but they serve as reminders of the closeness of the family tie which unites one country with the other. Our own royal family has ramifications which cover Europe. The Emperor of Eussia and the Emperor of Germany are both nephews of the Prince of Wales, whose brother- in-law is the King of Greece, and whose son-in-law will be King of Eoumania. If the ultimate ideal of Europe is to become one family without any barriers separating one from the other — a family, all the members of which are famil- iar enough to be interested in each other's affairs, to attend each other's weddings, to go into mourning for each other's deaths — then Eoyalty has attained what the rest of mankind will only attain after some cen- turies. The monarchical families form a group which, from a physical and physiological point of view, is even too closely united. Marrying in-and-in has con- sequences which are not by any means calculated to contribute to the robustness or to the intellectual vigor of the stock. Indeed, one eminent man, whom I LINKS AND BARRIERS 17 heard at Rome, is devoting no end of time and atten- tion to a demonstration of the thesis that all dynasties are dying out, and must die ont by the nature of things and by the law of the universe. It may be so, but the process is a slow one, and they will not perish before they have familiarized mankind with the spectacle of an international family group, speaking practically a common language, having common interests, and capable of understanding each other from the in- side. Sign or Sonnino, with whom I had a long, interesting- conversation at Rome, told me that he considered the coming century would be a monarchical century, and that that monarchical principle, which had been some- what depressed since the clays of the French Revolu- tion, was destined to be re-vindicated in the years that are to come. However that may be, there is no doubt that our Queen by the vigor of her intellect, the keen- ness of the interest which she has taken in public af- fairs, the marvellous memory with which she has been blessed, and her strong sense of the obligations of family relationship, has done much to reestablish the monarchical idea. Her correspondence with the mem- bers of the royal caste or royal family throughout Europe is, and has always been, carefully kept up. Hence, all monarchical States have at their head a semi-cosmopolitan European family, capable of acting as a telephonic system for the Continent. France, which is outside this royal ring, may have her compensations elsewhere, but she certainly suffers 2 18 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE deprivations in the lack of continuity of tradition, and of the permanence of persons who direct her policy. The uneasy consciousness of this is one of the causes, when the compensating advantages of the Republic seem to fade away, which leads to the perpetual re- newal of the talk of Restoration, even after thirty years of the third Republic. Whether we regard the recrudescence of monarchy as a symptom of reaction or as a sign of progress, there is no doubt as to its existence. What we have to do is to make the most of it and to recognize in what way it makes for progress. After Royalty, it is probable that the most potent things tending to make Europeans conscious of the unity of the Continental Commonwealth are the tele- graphic agencies, such as Renter's, the Havas, and others, which, chiefly through the daily papers, con- tinually distribute the political and social gossip of the Continent among the nations. Let no one overlook the value of gossip in the formation of the ties which bind men together. Take away family gossip, and the family would in most cases become a mere skele- ton, without flesh, blood or nervous system. It is by the kindly gossip of the fireside, in which every one talks about everybody else, that the sense of family union is created and preserved. The chatterers of the telegraph who, in every capital, carefully extract the kernel of grain from the bushel of chaff, and telegraph all round the Continent such items of intelligence as may be of general interest, contribute probably the LINKS AND BARRIERS 19 most constantly potent influence that can be discov- ered in the growth of that common sentiment which is the precursor of common action in support of the Commonwealth. Great and ubiquitous is the tele- graphic agency. Our fathers used to think that the newspaper represented the highest organized intelli- gence, seeking day and night for information with which to feed its ever hungry press. But no news* paper, not even the Times itself, can bear comparison with the telegraphic agencies, such as ."Renter's, the Havas, and the Associated Press, for the collection and distribution of intelligence. Every great newspaper is more than a collector of news: it is always a com- mentator, and usually a preacher of its own ideas. A telegraphic agency is neither of these things, and dis- seminates news only. It is creedless alike in politics and in religion. Its sole duty is to see the nuggetty fact in the amount of dross brought to surface by the illimitable labor of the human race, and promptly to put that nuggetty fact into general circulation. Hence, no river can burst its dam in Northern Italy, or in remoter Roumania, and sweep away any appre- ciable number of the human race to a watery death, but the fact is served up the next morning at all the breakfast tables of the Continent. And here again the Royalties, in addition to the service which they render to unity by the creation of a family that is prac- tically co-extensive with the Continent, are hardly less useful in the supply of that personal gossip which is always most appreciated by the average man and 20 TEE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE woman. The birth and the death, the betrothal and the marriage, the accident, and even the scandals of the Koyal caste, are all food for gossip; and in this fashion the telegraph wire and the Koyal and Im- perial dynasties act and react upon each other. The King of Lillipnt cannot sprain his ankle without the fact being a subject for comment and of interest throughout the whole Continental area. A thousand greater men than lie might break their necks with- out the fact being considered of sufficient interest to be chronicled. Therein consists the superior utility of the Kingdom of Lilliput. Thrones are but pedestals on which human beings stand visibly above the crowd, and therefore objects of more general human interest than any of the undistinguished mass below. The railway and the telegraph are both becoming more and more international institutions. There are still, no doubt, shreds of nationalism left in the man- agement of the telegraphs of the world, but on the whole they tend more and more to become a common nerve-centre of the whole human race. But the rail- way and telegraph are subjects which must be dealt with in a separate chapter. There is a steady approximation to unity through- out the Continent. We have not yet a European coin- age, but throughout the Latin countries there is an international currency, and sooner or later Europe will have a common currency. The railways and the telegraphs are inventions of W. and D. Downey MR. SAUNDERS Berlin E. Westly, Sf. Petersburg MR. DOBSON St. Petersburg Bary, Paris M. Lom?ntz, London M. DE BLOWITZ MR. LAVIGNO Paris Vienna THE TIMES' "OWN" CORRESPONDENTS IX EUROPE. LINKS AND BARRIERS 21 this century, and they have, therefore, adapted them- selves, almost from the outset, to the complex circum- stances of their environment. It is different with the great rivers of Europe, which were international highways long before Watt and Stephenson taught steam to do the haulage of the world, or electricians harnessed the lightning as the Hermes of the modern Olympus. All the traffic upon such great arterial waterways of the Continent as the Rhine and the Danube has long been subject to in- ternational control and regulation. At this point we reach a further stage in the evolution of the United States of Europe. In the case of the railways it may be regarded to a great extent as unconscious, inasmuch as the International Railway Bureau has no direct con- nection with the Foreign Offices of the world. It is different with the Riverain Commissions. The navi- gation of the Danube is indeed one of the most inter- esting illustrations of the way in which the European Powers modify the machinery of their joint action for the purpose of securing efficiency of working. At the outset, the River Danube was under the control of the six great Powers and Turkey. But the practical management of the river now is intrusted to a com- mission of the Riverain States, plus one delegate from the great Powers. That is to say, the International Danube is managed by a committee of five, one dele- gate being appointed for six months by each of the great Powers in turn, while there are four permanent delegates appointed by the Riverain States of Austria, 22 TEE UNITED STATES OF EUBOPE Bulgaria, Roumania and Servia. This is interesting in more ways than one, because it establishes the prin- ciple of the appointment of a European delegate on the principle of rotation. Each representative of the great Powers only holds his seat for six months, so that each great Power has only one turn in three years. The European delegate, however, although represent- ing his own State, is in reality the representative of the United States of Europe, and in that capacity de- fends the general interest, in case it should be attacked, in the interest of the Riverain States. Another principle which it embodies is that a great Power when it happens to have local interest is not debarred from having two representatives when its turn conies round to appoint a general delegate. Austria, for instance, has its permanent delegate, and once in three years it has a general representative as one of the Committee of the great Powers in the affairs of Europe. The third principle, we shall see, bears directly upon the question of the status of Bulgaria. According to the Treaty of Berlin, Bulgaria is part of the Ottoman Empire. It is a tributary State. Strictly speaking, it is the Sultan, and not the Prince of Bul- garia, who should nominate the delegate on the Danu- bian Commission, who represents the Riverain Prin- cipality. The Sultan, however, can only appoint a general delegate as one of the signatories of the Treaty of Berlin, while the right of Bulgaria to appoint its permanent representative on the Riverain Commission is recognized. Acting on this precedent, we shall find 3oC\ •1 h LINKS AND BARRIERS 23 that Bulgaria will expect to be represented at the Peace Conference, although it would, I believe, be the first occasion at which a tributary Principality has claimed to sit at the council-board with its own suzerain. From the regulation of international rivers on the Continent it is but a short step to the European Con- cert, which primarily exists for the safeguarding of that great international waterway known as the Bos- phorus and the Dardanelles. Reduced to its essence, this, and very little else but this, is the basis of the Concert of the Powers formally established by the Treaty of Paris in 18 5 G, and asserted anew at the Berlin Congress of 1878. Behind all the fine prin- ciples which are invoked in the diplomatic instruments governing the complex congeries of problems known as the Eastern Question, the bedrock of the whole, the kernel, the central essence, is this supreme question as to the international regulation of the waterways connecting the Black Sea and the Mediterranean. Be- cause the Turk squats astride of both sides of these famous Straits, the Turk has been a European interest for at least a century. He is no longer regarded as an exclusively British interest, but his charmed life is due to the fact that he is keeper of the Dardanelles and the Bosphorus, and in that capacity he possesses the merit of utility, which in the eye of many is more efficacious than charity in covering a multitude of sins. In order to deal with a question of such inter- national interest, international action was necessary. 24 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE Hence the intervention of the principle of the Euro- pean Concert, that great and fertile principle which, more than anything else, holds within it the promise and potency of every form of international develop- ment. CHAPTER III THE CAPITAL OF THE CONTINENT On returning from Rome, at one time the capital of the world, and still the capital of that section of the Christian Church which recognizes in the Roman Bishop the successor of St. Peter, I made a detour in order to visit Berne, which is the nearest approxima- tion there is in Europe to a common capital. At Berne it was my good fortune to make the acquaintance of M. Numa Droz, the head of the International Railway Bureau, which is one of four international administra- tions that have their seats in the federal capital of Switzerland. M. I\ T uma Droz is a very remarkable man, and I met no one in my tour whose conversation was at once so intelligent, so reasonable, and so hope- ful. A man still in the prime of life, he has served his country in almost every capacity, from the Presi- dent of the Republic downwards. When the Euro- pean Powers were puzzled as to the best international representative to nominate for the Governorship of Crete, their choice fell upon M. Droz, and afterwards, when the task of restoring order was entrusted to Prince George, it was again to M. E"uma Droz that they turned when they wished to provide a typical, 20 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE sensible, trustworthy European to hold the balance even between the various interests in the island. A man of judicial temperament, with great administra- tive experience, M. jNTuma Droz is at once a patriotic Swiss and a broad-minded citizen of the world. Should he be selected as the representative of Switzer- land at the Conference of Peace, there will be no dele- gate from any of the great Powers who will command greater respect or whose judgment will carry greater weight. In February last year M. Droz read a paper at a conference in Zurich, in which he described the organ- ization and the work of the international bureaus at Berne. It is one of the most interesting and sugges- tive papers that I came across in my run round Europe. In it he described with admirable perspicacity and brevity the rapid growth of these central bureaus, which are to the United States of Europe like the ice- crystals which form on the surface of the water before the cold is sufficiently intense to freeze the whole sur- face into one solid sheet. These international bureaus represent the evolution of what may be called the Con- tinental ganglia of nerve centres, and each of them may be regarded as an embodied prophecy of the com- ing of the United States of Europe. And not only the United States of Europe, but the United States of the World. Eor the area which three of those admin- istrations represent is far wider than that of any single continent. As M. Droz said, there is no doubt that \he formation of these international bureaus is one of TEE CAPITAL OF TEE CONTINENT 27 the most interesting and hopeful signs of our epoch — that these international organizations have been cre- ated by the Governments in order to serve the ends of civilization. As a Switzer, M. Droz is naturally proud of the fact that four of these should have their head in the capital of his own country. There are other bureaus which have their seats elsewhere. For instance, the International Bureau of Metrical Weights and Measures is domiciled in Paris. The Bureau Geodesique is seated at Berlin, while at Brus- sels there are two international bureaus, one which arranges for the publication of the customs tariffs of all nations, and the other is concerned with the sup- pression of the slave-trade. But at Berne they glory in the possession of four, as many as are to be found in all the rest of the world put together. These are the bureaus of the International Postal Union, the Telegraphic Union, the Union of Inter- national Railways, and that which looks after Patents, Copyrights and Trade-marks, which are summed together under the common title of " Intellectual Property." When we were children, we used to hear much con- cerning " Commerce, the white-winged peace-maker," and have only, after a series of disillusions, wakened to the fact that in the present day commerce has be- come the pretext, if not the cause, for most of our international quarrels. It is, therefore, with a pleas- ant surprise, such as one feels when discovering that a fairy-tale of the nursery had been but a poetic em- 28 THE UXITED STATES OF EUROPE bodiment of a scientific fact, that we come upon the following passage in M. Droz's paper : — It is the chief glory of commerce to be the principal agent in drawing nations together. It is of no use to try to isolate them by making the walls of the custom-house as thick and as high as possible; trade has an expansive force and a subtle pervasiveness so great that in the end it always succeeds in overcoming or overthrowing these obstacles. It is useless to try to keep up with jealous and also legiti- mate solicitude the national spirit of each people; commerce knows how to combine the great interests which they have in common, thanks to which all nations only form one universal family. As far as trade is concerned, diversity of languages is no barrier, as they can be learned; distance is annihilated, or, at least, reduced to its narrowest limits. For the most part, trade asks little from the State, as it is accustomed to settle its own difficulties in its own way, and the State rather hinders it in its movements. But there are two things which it needs most certainly and most im- peratively: one is rapidity and exactitude in its relations, the other is legal security. Of these various bureaus, now located in what may be regarded as the incipient capital of the Continent, the first, which was established in 1865, related to telegraphs. The second was the Postal Union, which was established in 1874; while the bureau dealing with trade-marks and patents was founded in 1883, and its function was extended to deal with copyrights in 1886. The International Railway Bureau, over which M. Droz presides, was the latest born of all, having only come into existence in 1890. The motive which led to the foundation of these bureaus was in all cases the same. Telegraphs, post-offices and railways had THE CAPITAL OF THE CONTINENT 29 relations with each other before they established a common centre to act both as a clearing-house and as a supreme court of appeal for the settlement of their various differences, just in the same way as the present governments of Europe have relations with each other. But before the conventions establishing the bureaus, these relations created no end of friction and caused almost as many questions as those which at present exist between neighboring States in the polit- ical sphere. M. Droz says: — Letters used to pass from one administration to another, by each of which a tax was imposed, and this caused ex- pense and delay. It was the same with telegraphic mes- sages. There was no international protection for inventors, proprietors of trade-marks, or authors. And with regard to railway transport, new regulations were found at every frontier, the times of delivery were not the same, indem- nities in case of loss or damage depended on the caprice of officials; it was impossible to discover who was in fault, or against whom a charge could be made. It was the most utter juridical confusion. It is the difficulties of the world which pave the way for the solutions of its problems. But for our difficul- ties we should make no progress — a salutary doctrine which is a constant consolation to the reformer. These bureaus were not established without considerable misgivings, and even now, although they have func- tioned and functioned well for years, it is necessary for them to be very prudent, since the respective adminis- trations of the various States are as jealous of their autonomy and as prompt to resent any infringement 30 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE of their sovereignty as if they were high contracting parties dealing with territorial or political rights. Nevertheless, they have managed in spite of those jealousies and misgivings to do very good work — do it so quietly that hardly any one knows it is being done at all. As all these bureaus are founded upon the same general principle, it is reasonable to expect that the United States of Europe will probably follow the same road in the evolution of the Continental organization. M. Droz says : — All the common features of these various Unions depend upon agreements, the wording of which is decided at con- ferences, partly technical and partly diplomatic, which meet from time to time to inquire into the changes and improve- ments which can be introduced into the general regulations. All of them, with the exception of that which has to do with railway transport, are concluded for an unlimited period, and the States can accede to them or withdraw at any time, by a simple declaration made to the Swiss Federal Council. With regard to the railways, on the contrary, the agreement is renewable by each State every three years, and the States may be consulted about the adhesion of new mem- bers. This last point is very important considering the in- terests which are at stake. It would not be desirable to have in the Union railways which are either insolvent, or belong- to countries whose law and whose law courts did not offer the most complete security. The cost of these international offices is very small. In 1896 the cost of the four was altogether only 370,- 000 francs, or, let us say, £15,000, a sum which is divided proportionately among the various States. In the railways, for instance, the charge is based upon the number of kilometers under the control of the Con- THE CAPITAL OF THE CONTINENT 31 vention. The importance and the nature of the func- tions of these international bureaus, which may be regarded as avant-couriers of the United States of Eo rope that is to come, may best be studied by briefly describing each of them with some detail. Beginning with the Telegraphic Bureau, M. Droz says : — The working agreement applies to forty-six countries, containing 846 millions of inhabitants. It requires that States should have a sufficient number of direct telegraphic lines, for international telegraphy; it recognizes the right of every person to make use of them; it guarantees the secrecy of all communications; it fixes the order of priority for the dispatch of telegrams, with regard to their nature; it authorizes the sending of messages in cipher; it settles a universal charge, which is based, for European countries, on groups of three, ten, or fifty words, and for lands beyond the ocean, on the single word; it accepts the franc as the unit of coinage; it undertakes to send reply-paid and regis- tered telegrams. The bureau has many duties. Its first task is to collect, to coordinate and to publish information of every kind relating to international telegraphy. In discharging this duty, it publishes a general map of all the great telegraphic communications of the world, and other maps more detailed, one for Europe and the other for the rest of the world outside of Europe. It publishes a telegraphic journal, and carefully edits and reedits a list of the telegraph stations of the world. These stations now number 80,000, and as they are constantly changing, it is no wonder that the list is now in the sixth edition. This is not so heavv a task 32 THE U2UTED STATES OF EUROPE as that which is undertaken by the Postal Union Bu- reau, for there are 200,000 post-offices in the world. The bureau, therefore, it will be seen, acts as a kind of intelligence department for the telegraphs of the world. Incidentally the bureau has undertaken a task which, although a very long way removed from that of the construction of a cosmopolitan language, never- theless points in that direction. In passing on to the Postal Union, it is interesting to note that the formation of this International Bureau was first mooted by the United States of America even before their great Civil War was over. It is not less suggestive that the proposal, although made in 1863, led to no result beyond the publication of resolutions as to desiderata in postal administration which had no binding effect on any of the parties who took part in the Conference. Nevertheless, these desiderata being definitely formulated and agreed to as desirable by the representatives of the various Powers, a foundation was laid, upon which the Union was founded eleven years later. The first Postal Conference was held in Paris; the second, which was summoned on the initi- ative of Germany, met in Berne, where an inscription in black marble commemorates the signing of the Con- vention which established the 2-Jd. rate for all letters within the limits of the Postal Union. It marked the transition of an organization previously organized upon a particular^ national basis to the wider and more rational status of a cosmopolitan institution. At the present moment the Postal Union includes fifty- THE CAPITAL OF THE CONTINENT 33 nine States, or groups of colonial possessions, contain- ing, roughly stated, 1,000,000,000 inhabitants. The bureau serves as a clearing-house between the admin- istrations; it is perpetually engaged in settling dis- puted questions which arise and points as to the ques- tion of interpretation, and it also acts as a kind of arbi- tral judge on litigious questions between the various administrations. In this case also it is very important to note, with a view to the future international devel- opment of the United States of Europe, that it is pos- sible to refer questions to the bureau for its opinion without entering into any preliminary obligation to abide by its decision. The Administration which deals with " intellectual property " was founded by the Convention of Paris in 1883; and it now includes sixteen States, with a population of 305,000,000 inhabitants. There is no need to describe its operations at length. Their nature can best be understood by the following statement of the services which the bureau is prepared to render : — If, therefore, you have ever any need of precise informa- tion concerning industrial property which you cannot obtain elsewhere, here you have an almost gratuitous source — the cost is one franc per consultation — a source at once im- partial and exact. In 1896, this bureau received or sent out 1,554 communications in connection with its inquiry de- partment. Another institution which places this bureau in direct contact with the public is that dealing with the international registration of trade-marks. The special arrangement relative to this is at the present time binding on nine States: Belgium, Brazil, Spain, France, Italy, Holland, Portugal, 3 34 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE Switzerland and Tunis. If you wish to protect a trade- mark in these countries, you may, after having registered it in the federal Bureau, send it to the international Bureau, together with a sum of 100 francs. This means a saving of time as well as of money, obviating, as it does, the necessity of registering in each separate country. The Union for the Protection of the Rights of Authors includes thirteen countries with 534,000,000 inhabitants. In the fourth great organization, which deals with International Railways, England has no part. There are only ten States represented on this International Institution, viz.: Germany, Austria-Hungary, Den- mark, France, Italy, Luxembourg, Holland and Swit- zerland. The network of railway thus submitted to the jurisdiction of the bureau is 173,000 kilometres. It deals at present only with the goods traffic; but al- ready the Russians, who somewhat oddly (according to English ideas) seem much more frequently to take the initiative in progressive internationalism than England, suggest that passenger traffic should also be placed under the control of the bureau: — The Convention is remarkable in this, that it unites all the European railroads belonging to it in one network of rails, worked under a common tariff as regards international transport, and in such a manner that all the managing de- partments are conjointly answerable, the one with the other, as regards any goods they have undertaken to carry, so that any one can sue either the sending or receiving agents with- out taking into consideration on what part of the system the damage or delay arose. Definite sums have been fixed in case of loss or damage, or if there is delay in delivering goods, for the mutual claims of sender and receiver, for the THE CAPITAL OF THE CONTINENT 35 demands of the customs, etc. All that concerns the trans- port of merchandise is arranged in so complete a manner that Swiss federal law has been copied word for word from the Convention. The bureau has a list of 2,000 international tariffs to publish and a catalogue of all the railway stations open to international traffic, of which there are about 45,000. The International Railway Bureau is prac- tically an international arbitration court dealing with great institutions, whose revenue is considerably greater than that of many States: — It acts as an umpire to shorten litigation between different administrations when the different parties desire it. Here we have an institution which is of quite a novel character, and which is of great interest — a permanent tribunal in- stituted to regulate international differences. Generally speaking, railway bureaus arrange their dis- putes by special arbitration for each department of traffic. But for all that, interesting cases are brought before the permanent tribunal. These judicial functions, and those by which the Central Office has the right of intervention, at the request of one of the parties concerned, to arrange matters which have been left in abeyance, are destined in time to become more important still. It is possible to foresee the establish- ment of a court to facilitate monetary arrangements be- tween different administrations. When the institution, which is still in its infancy, has developed, there is no doubt that new departments will come into existence, and that those which already exist will develop still further. For instance, Russia has proposed to regulate the transport of travellers and of merchandise, and this proposal has been already taken into consideration by the administration. M. Droz dwells with natural and patriotic pride on the fact that these bureaus, domiciled in Switzerland 36 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE and officered almost entirely by Swiss, have neverthe- less succeeded in functioning to the satisfaction of all the States whose interests they represent. It is a fact of good augury for the future pacific evolution of the Continental organism. To have assisted in the devel- opment of these centres for international organization is one of the services which Switzerland has rendered to mankind. Is it, then, too much to describe Berne, capital of SAvitzerland and headquarters of so many international administrations, as the incipient Capital of the United States of Europe? Another potent factor in human progress is the in- ternational wagon-lit which has hitherto attracted little attention from the statesman or the philosopher. It is a dumb thing, the wagon-lit, & dull, mechanic thing, inanimate, with neither heart, soul, conscience, nor reason, but nevertheless it has achieved results which prophets and apostles and poets and seers have despaired of. Its fatherland is co-extensive with the metal track of the Continent, and every time it passes it erases, although with imperceptible touch, the fron- tiers which divide the nations. It is, indeed, the high- est example of human ingenuity in the matter of a locomotive dwelling-place. What the Atlantic steamer is to the ocean, the wagon-lit is to the solid land. Its passengers no sooner cross its threshold than they be- come citizens of the world in a very real sense. Not even the humble snail of the hedgerow is more com- pletely self-contained than your traveller in a wagon- lit. He has his own apartment, his bed-chamber, his THE CAPITAL OF THE CONTINENT 37 dining-room, his lavatory; the whole country is spread out before him on either side, in one endless gallery and panorama of living pictures. He can be alone or in society as he pleases. He can take his constitu- tional by walking down the long corridors while the train is speeding along at the rate of forty or fifty miles an hour. The conductor waits upon him as a valet, the chef cooks for him, all manner of wine is provided for his delectation, he lives in a peripatetic palace as comfortably and as luxuriously as he could do in any hotel on the Continent. For him even the barrier of the clouane is, if not abolished, at least minimized, and in many cases the examination of luggage is made on the car without any necessity for carrying of packages across the barrier to the place of revision. Compare for one moment the ease with which I travelled around Europe, using the international ivagon-lit wherever it was accessible, and the difficul- ties with which any monarch or prince of the blood would have had to deal only one hundred years ago in making the same tour. Neither in speed, in comfort, nor economy could the greatest monarch in the world have traversed the same distance which a plain plebe- ian now covers without the slightest sense of strain or of physical exertion. Locomotion has really become not so much an exercise as a luxury, and instead of regarding a journey of a thousand miles as an enter- prise entailing exertion and exposure, we have come to regard it as more or less a mode of recuperative recreation. CHAPTER IV THE EUROPEAN CONCERT No more signal instance of the possibility of mo- mentary aberration on the part of statesmen and peo- ples can be imagined than the extraordinary way in which Mr. Gladstone and many of his followers took to blaspheming the European Concert in the last years of his life. All the cheap wit of the newspaper men of the world was launched upon the European Con- cert: it was slow; it was unwieldy; it might be a steam- roller, but a steam-roller which was stuck in the mud. A perfect hailstorm of criticisms and witticisms held up to ridicule and contempt what was, after all, the only principle which the European nations have yet discovered for the regulation of their joint affairs with- out bloodshed. Apart from its humanitarian aspect, the great political merit of Mr. Gladstone's Eastern agitation of 1876 to 1878 was due to his advocacy of the principle of the European Concert, and the grava- men of his impeachment of Lord Beaconsfield's harum- scarum Jingo policy was that he had wantonly de- stroyed the great instrument by which any improve- ments could be effected in the East. Lord Salisbury, fortunately, learned his lesson well, and through good TEE EUROPEAN CONCERT 39 report and through ill he has cleaved to the principle of concerted action in dealing with the Eastern Ques- tion. In that Concert we have not only the germ of the United States of Europe, but an actual evolution and realization, although still very imperfect, of the conception of a federal centre of the Continent, which can not only deliberate, but on occasion can act. The New Year has opened auspiciously with the triumph — tardy but nevertheless genuine — of the principle of concerted action in Crete. The four Powers, acting in concert, have at last succeeded in expelling the Turkish troops from Crete without the exertion of any more than police force. There have been no pitched battles, and the Crescent has given place to the Cross without any of the desperate trials of strength between the Turk and the Greek which have marked the concession of autonomy to every other Turkish province. There were massacres, no doubt, which might have been avoided; but there was no war: there was only an operation of police. There is in the settlement of Cretan affairs a welcome precedent, in- dicating the road along which humanity has to travel. When the United States of Europe come into or- ganic being as complete as that already enjoyed by the United States of America, they will still need armed forces to execute the decisions of the Federal Govern- ment. It will be an international police rather than an international soldiery. Mankind passes through regu- lar stages in its progress towards peace. First, there is the primitive state of universal war, in which every man 10 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE is free to slay his fellow-man, if he can and if he will. From that stage it is by a natural process of easy grada- tion that we arrive at a period when the right of levy- ing war is practically confined to powerful individuals, feudal chieftains and the like. They exercised the right of private war, which degenerated in many cases into brigandage, out of which Europe emerged, thanks to the evolution of the soldier. The trained fighting man of the central power, whatever his faults may be, nevertheless represents an immense stride in progress from the armed bands of the soldiers of fortune and feudal chiefs who filled Europe with bloodshed in the later Middle Ages. We are now on the verge of the next step of evolution — the conversion of the soldier into the policeman. The final stage, of course, will come when humanity has attained such measure of moral development as to stand in no need of coercive authority at all, when every one, as the American humorist puts it, " can do as he darned well pleases," but when every one will only please to do what is right and just to his fellow-men. That ultimate ideal of the Christian and of the Anarchist lies far ahead, but on the road thither stands the evolution of the soldier into the policeman. But this will not be attained until the United States of Europe have come into for- mal and juridical existence. In Crete we can see it on the way. Crete also has established the great prin- ciple that the unity of the European Concert is not destroyed when a couple of its members refuse to take any active part in giving effect to its decisions. We TEE EUROPEAN CONCERT 41 are therefore within measurable range of seeing the establishment of a real federated Europe which will not be crippled by the principle of the liberum veto. At one time there seemed a great danger that this mistake would be committed. By the liberum veto, in the old Polish kingdom any one member of the Assembly could defeat any proposition by simply ut- tering his protest. In like manner it has been held that the six Powers must all keep step or they can do nothing at all. The necessary consequence was that the Powers were often reduced to impotence. But this is a passing phase. Sooner or later — probably sooner than later — it will be discovered that the libe- rum veto will be as fatal to Europe as it proved to Poland. In the European Areopagus decisions will have to be taken without absolute unanimity, and in this, as in other things, the minority will have to yield to the majority. Of course, each of the great Powers will always have a sovereign right to go to war to en- force its protest, if it should feel so disposed ; but there is a very great difference between going to war to en- force your veto and securing the rejection of any pro- posal by simply recording your dissent. In this respect, Mr. Gladstone took a very significant initiative in the year 1880. No one had insisted more strongly upon the maintenance of the European Con- cert as the one weapon with which it was possible to extort anything from the Sultan. But when Mr. Gladstone took in hand the task of enforcing the pro- visions of the Berlin Treaty, he found that one or more 42 THE UXITED STATES OF EUROPE of the Powers were disposed to liang back. He suc- ceeded with great difficulty iu mustering an inter- national fleet in the Adriatic for the purpose of induc- ing the Turk to make the necessary cession of territory to Montenegro, but when the question arose as to what further measures should be adopted to enforce submis- sion to the demands which Europe had formulated, France and Germany drew back. Russia and Italy supported Mr. Gladstone's generous initiative. Mr. Gladstone had then to decide what should be done. If he had adopted the liberum veto theory of the Con- cert, and had meekly acquiesced in the doctrine that nothing should be done unless all the Powers were agreed as to what that something should be, the Turk would have snapped his fingers at the Powers, and vital clauses of the Berlin Treaty would never have been executed. But Mr. Gladstone fortunately was made of different material. All the Powers had agreed as to what should be done. The Turk himself has signed the treaty which ceded territory to Mon- tenegro and Greece. There was, therefore, unanimity of opinion as to what should be clone; there was only difference of opinion as to how to carry it into effect. France, Germany, and Austria hung back, but Mr. Gladstone, with Bussia and Italy at his back, decided to seize the Turkish custom-house at Smyrna, in order to enforce the Sultan's submission to the mandate of Europe. The three Powers which abstained did not, although they murmured and held aloof, absolutely veto any such action on the part of their allies. Had THE EUROPEAN CONCERT 43 they done so, it would have been difficult for Mr. Gladstone to proceed, for Europe would then have been equally divided, three against three. As the matter stood, the three who were bent on action did not allow the refusal of the support of the others to paralyze their action. If in 1896 Lord Salisbury could have secured the support of two other Powers, it is possible that he would have dealt as drastically with the Turk as Mr. Gladstone. Unfortunately, in the recent crisis we had not even a single Power at our back, and some of the Powers were believed to be ready to oppose our isolated action even by force of arms. Under these circumstances, with a strong majority in the European Council Chamber against action, the minority can only submit until such time as it has converted itself into a majority. It is probable that for some time to come the European Concert will con- tinue to insist upon unanimity in defining the pro- posals which are to be made to the Turk, but the method of securing compliance therewith will be de- cided by a majority vote. We have come very near adopting this principle in the case of Crete. When it became evident that sub- mission to the will of Europe in Crete would entail expense and would mortally offend the Turk, Ger- many withdrew and was followed by Austria. They did not actually protest against the enforcement of the decree of Europe, but they repudiated any responsi- bility, and declined to take- any share in the active 44 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE operations. Undeterred by this shrinking from the logical consequences of their acts, the four Powers went on, and succeeded in putting the matter through, although not, unfortunately, until the conscience of England had been stirred up by the slaying of several of our own soldiers. These details, however, will shrink out of sight when the historian of the future comes to describe the evolution of the United States of the Old World. The broad fact is that the six Powers having decreed, the four Powers carried out the decree. When success was achieved, the spokes- man of the abstaining Powers publicly approved of what was done, and remarked that four Powers were probably a more effective instrument than six in en- forcing a policy agreed upon by all. It is an awkward question whether the four Powers would have ven- tured to put the thing through, if the two, instead of merely deserting, had taken up an active policy of protest against any further military or naval action in Crete. Such an attitude at some future crisis will probably test the cohesion and the determination of the majority of the European Powers. Everything points in the direction of Europe having so much to do in providing for the liquidation of the Ottoman Empire that the six foreign ministers of the great Powers will become more and more a European Cabinet, who will learn the habit of working together under the daily pressure of events. If so, it would seem as if the Turk were going to make amends in the final years of his reign for the innumerable atrocities THE EUROPEAN CONCERT 45 which have been his chief resource in government since the time he entered Europe. For if Europe can be accustomed to act practically as a unity, it will in time bring about the United States of Europe, which will be none the less welcome because it will be born of mutual fear and distrust rather than of brotherly love and neighborly confidence. In the old myth, when Jupiter bore Europa across the sea, he landed her in the Island of Crete, where she bore three sons — Minos, Sarpedon, and Rhada- manthus. It was a curious coincidence that a Euro- pean army commissioned by the six great Powers, and acting under the collective orders of Europe, should for the first time have made its appearance on the Island of Crete. But the coincidence was of happy omen, that the new Europa may bring forth, if not Minos the lawgiver, and Rhadamanthus the inexorable judge, at least a system of international law which will be interpreted by an international tribunal. In discussing elsewhere the question as to the forces which would tend to bring the United States of Europe into the most visible and tangible existence, I pointed out that there were two elements that were needed if the Federation of Europe was to be attained by the same road as that by which other federations had been brought about on a similar scale: — The first and the most necessary is the existence of some extraordinary force sufficiently powerful to necessitate the union of those whose existence it threatens. In other words, in order to found a Kingdom of Heaven it is neces- sary that you must have an effective working Devil. John 46 THE I SITED STATES OF EUROPE Bull in the eighteenth century was the incarnation of evil, in protest against which the American Union came into existence. In our own century it was the menace of French aggres- sion which alone possessed sufficient force to overcome the centrifugal tendencies of the German peoples. Where are we to find an adequate Devil to overcome the force of inertia as well as the more active elements of national rivalry and race antipathies, so as to bring about the federation of Europe? The other element which is lacking is a central power sufficiently strong to compel the recalcitrant States to come into the alliance. Of course it is a nobler ideal that free and equal States should voluntarily, of their own good- will, unite on a basis of absolute independence. But human nature is not made that way. There is usually a recalcitrant minority which needs to be compelled to volunteer. Nearly every European State, England not excepted, represents the result of a process in which a strong central power has gradually crushed all rivals and established authority which is now recognized by consent, by the summary process of beheading or slaughtering those whose devotion to their private and local interests led them to refuse to cooperate in the larger unity. The most helpful analogies are to be found in the United States of America and the Republic of Switzerland. There the federation was established by the cooperation of the sovereign States without the need for the intervention of any predominant central power; but alike in Switzerland and the United States, the federation which began in goodwill had to be enforced by the armed hand, and we need not be surprised if the United States of Europe only gets itself into material existence after con- siderable bloodshed. That, however, is a detail, and it is a thousand times better that men should be killed in order that their corpses should pave the way to the reign of law, than that they should be slaughtered merely to perpetuate the existing anarchy. In looking round for the necessary Devil whose evil influence is strong enough to compel the European States to federate, we fail to find any excepting our old friend the Assassin at Constantinople. THE EUROPEAN CONCERT 47 The Turk, I admitted, although evil, was hardly important enough to play the great role; and yet, fail- ing him, I did at that time not see where to find any other. The second indispensable condition was to find a leader who would marshal the forces making for union and lead them to victory. Two years ago it seemed doubtful whether such a leader could be found. Last year brought us light on both subjects, for it brought us a leader in the person of the Tsar, and in his Rescript he indicated a danger quite suffi- ciently grave to overcome the force of inertia, as well as the more active elements of national rivalry and race antipathies. In the year 1897 Lord Salisbury himself — a man not given to indulge in day-dreams — put an unerring finger upon this sore point. Speaking at the Mansion House on November 9th, 1897, after dwelling upon the ever-increasing competition in armaments among the nations, Lord Salisbury said : — The one hope that we have to prevent this competition (in armaments) from ending in a terrible effort of mutual destruction, which will be fatal to Christian civilization — the one hope that we have is that the Powers may gradually be brought together to act together in a friendly spirit on all subjects of difference that may arise., until at last they shall be welded together in some international constitution which shall give to the world, as the result of their great strength, a long spell of unfettered commerce, prosperous trade and continued peace. That was Lord Salisbury's one hope. When a year later the Peace Rescript of the Tsar appeared, it was evident that it was a hope equally entertained at St. 48 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE Petersburg. Except in international action, there was no hope of escaping from a peril which, mi- checked, would overwhelm civilization in ruin. I marvel at my own blindness when, writing in 1897, I failed to perceive what was plainly manifest under our very eyes. Compared with the catastrophe so clearly foreseen and described by the Tsar, the dangers involved in the partition of the Ottoman Empire fade into utter insignificance. My only excuse is that I was no blinder than the majority of mankind appear to be even to-day when the clarion call from St. Peters- burg is echoing through the world. So now we have the necessary stimulus in the revelation of a visible danger, and at the same time we have at the head of the family of nations a ruler young enough, brave enough, and enthusiastic enough to undertake a task from which the rest of his contemporaries have shrunk in despair. I do not claim for Nicholas II. of Russia that he towers aloft above his contemporaries, or that he, who is the most modest of men, has any aspirations to play the role of the founder of the European Common- wealth. I only say that he, more than any sovereign in Europe, has the eye to see and the courage to say the essential truth of the situation. It is probable that he himself but dimly realizes whither his initiative will lead him. The British people who, in Seeley's famous phrase, " founded an empire in sheer absence of mind," are the last people in the world to demand that those who do great things should know before- THE EUROPEAN CONCERT 49 hand what they are about. But if the Emperor does not see it himself, it is plain enough to all the rest of the world, and will, in due season, make itself manifest to him also, that if the ideals set before the world in his Rescript are to be achieved, it will be done by fol- lowing the well-worn path which leads to the federa- tion of the Continent. This is not the only century in which the idealist has dreamed of a Continental State and sovereigns have labored for the realization of the sublime con- ception of a federated Europe. The ideas associated with the Amphictyonic Council have haunted as will- o'-the-wisps the imagination of successive generations of mankind. Under the Caesars, western, southern and central Europe was rough-hewn into an effective imperial unity. All the greater Popes had the vision of united Europe, and most of them, seeing that no one else grasped the great conception, sought sedu- lously to confer upon the chair of St. Peter the he- gemony of the Continent, Mr. Edwin R. Mears in the New England Magazine recently summarized in a series of articles the sugges- tions made by eminent thinkers for securing the peace of the world. Here, for instance, is his account of the great design of Henri IV. in the very last years of the sixteenth century : — Henri IV., acting in concert with Queen Elizabeth in her old age, conceived the plan of what he called the Christian Commonwealth, to be formed among the Powers of Europe. His plan in brief was this, to reduce the number of European states, much as the Congress of Vienna eventually did two 4 50 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE hundred years afterwards, or so that all Europe should be divided among fifteen Powers. Russia did not then count as part of Europe; and Prussia was not then born. Of these Powers, six were the kingdoms of England, France, Spain, Denmark, Sweden and Lombardy. Five were to be elective monarchies, viz.: The German Empire, the Papacy, Poland, Hungary and Bohemia; and there were to be four repub- lics — Switzerland, Venice, the States of Holland and Bel- gium, and the Republic of Italy, made up somewhat as the kingdom of Italy is now. These fifteen Powers were to maintain but one standing army. The chief business of this army was to keep the peace among the States, and to pre- vent any sovereign from interfering with any other, from enlarging his borders, or other usurpations. This army and the navy were also to be ready to repel invasions of Mussul- mans and other barbarians. For the arrangement of com- merce, and other mutual interests, a Senate was to be ap- pointed of four members from each of the larger, and two from each of the smaller States, who should serve three years, and be in constant session. It was supposed that, for affairs local in their character, a part of these Senators might meet separately from the others. On occasions of universal importance, they would meet together. Smaller congresses, for mOre trivial circumstances, were also pro- vided for. . . . According to Sully, at the moment of Henri's murder, he had secured the practical active co- operation of twelve of the fifteen Powers, who were to unite in this confederation. The immediate aim of this arrangement was to humble the overweening power of Austria, but the further purpose was to secure permanent peace. One hundred years later, in 1693, William Penn brought out his " Essay Towards the Present and Future Peace of Europe, by the Establishment of an European Diet, Parliament or Estates." Penn's fundamental proposition was, in his own words: — THE EUROPEAN CONCERT 51 The sovereign princes of Europe, who represent that society or independent state of men that was previous to the obligations of society, should, for the same reason that engaged men first into society, viz., love of peace and order, agree to meet by their stated deputies in a general diet, estates or parliament, and there establish rules of justice for sov- ereign princes to observe one to another; and thus to meet yearly, or once in two or three years at farthest, or as they shall see cause, and to be styled the Sovereign or Imperial Diet, Parliament, or State of Europe, before which sovereign assem- bly should be brought all differences depending between one sovereign and another that cannot be made up by private embassies before the session begins; and that if any of the sovereignties that constitute these Imperial States shall refuse to submit their claims or pretensions to them, or to abide and perform the judgment thereof, and seek their remedy by arms or delay their compliance beyond the time prefixed in their resolutions, all the other sovereignties, united as one strength, shall compel the submission and performance of the sentence, with damages to the suffering that obliged their party and charges to the sovereignties' submission. It will be observed that Perm was not afraid of that " blessed word compulsion." In this respect he dis- tinguishes himself from most of the " peace at any price " people who are generally eager to consider themselves his followers. But Penn was a statesman with actual and intimate knowledge of affairs. Just as many nowadays quote the precedents of the United States, so Penn referred to Sir William Temple's account of the United Provinces of Holland " as fur- nishing a practical illustration in narrow limits of that constitution which he would have extended to cover all Europe." 52 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE Yet another hundred years and Immanuel Kant published in 1795 his " Towards Eternal Peace/' of which the leading ideas were local autonomy and world-wide federalism, or the federation of self -gov- erned States. There is a strange periodicity about these great dreams of universal peace. At the end of the sixteenth century, Henri IY.'s "Great Design" ; at the end of the seventeenth, Penn's " Essay " ; at the end of the eighteenth, Kant's " Zum ewigen Frieden," to be followed at the end of the nineteenth century by the Imperial Rescript of the Emperor of Russia. Even the Napoleons, the first as well as the third, saw the coining of Europe afar off, and each in his own way labored to bring it to birth. The first, a Mars who had clutched the thunderbolt of Jove, stormed across the Continent, crumbling beneath his mail-clad feet whole acres of feudal masonry which cumbered the ground. The offspring and the Nemesis of the Revolution, he was the greatest leveller the Continent had ever seen. The third Napoleon, whose favorite occupation he himself defined as devising solutions for insoluble problems, dreamed much of the possibility of reconstituting some kind of federation of Europe. It was this cloudy notion that prompted those con- tinual proposings of conferences with which he used to trouble his hand-to-mouth contemporaries. Nor was it only in Kings' courts or in Imperial or Papal Councils that the great idea brooded over the minds of men. It was the theme of the poet's song, of the saint's devotions. It inspired much of the swelling TEE EUROPEAN CONCERT 53 rhetoric of Victor Hugo. It was the burden of the prophetic vision of Mazzini. And now this far-off, unseen event, toward which the whole Continent has been moving with slow but resistless march, has come within the pale of practical politics, and on the threshold of the twentieth century we await this latest and greatest new birth of Time. CHAPTER Y EUROPA I had the good fortune to be in Berlin two years ago. A great capital is always a great inspiration. And Berlin, with its heroic associations of past wars, is more inspiring than most of the younger cities of the world. But that which impressed me most on this visit was the new building of the Reichstag, which had not been completed the last time I was in Ger- many. It was not the building itself — although that is imposing, if rather squat, with noble equestrian statues standing boldly against the sky — but the polit- ical fact which it represented. Here under one roof, around the same tribune, gather in peaceful debate the representatives of as many States as those which now make up the anarchy of Europe. It is the fashion nowadays to speak of language as if it were a tie closer than all others. But the belief in the unity of the Fatherland because of its common speech is hardly a century old, and long after Arndt had embodied the idea in verse, German fought German with the Utmost indifference to the German tongue. The intense in- dividuality of the German, his tendency to construct a special theory of the universe entirely for his own EUROPA 55 use out of his own consciousness, made the German races the most intractable material for empire-building on the Continent. They fought each other for the love of God; they fought for the pride of place; they were capable of fighting for a theory of irregular verbs. They were divided, and sub-divided, and re- divided again into kingdoms, principalities, duchies, and all manner of smaller States. Every ruler was as touchy as a Spanish hidalgo about his precedence, and no miser ever clutched his gold with more savage determination to keep and to hold than every German princelet maintained to the uttermost the princely pre- rogative of making war and peace. Not even the con- stant pressure of foreign peril sufficed to overcome the centrifugal tendency of the German genius. Again and again the wiser heads amongst them had devised more or less elaborate plans for securing German unity. After the fall of Napoleon, the best that could be done was the Bund, which was almost as provoking in its deliberative inaction as the European Concert is to-day. But the Bund perished at the sword's point, to be succeeded by the North and South German Con- federations, which in turn disappeared when the vic- tories over France rendered it possible for the Prus- sian King to be proclaimed German Emperor in the Palace at Versailles. Since then unified Germany has been at peace. Germany has become a unit, and the Reichstag, although sorely distracted by the fis- siparous tendency of the German parliamentary man, has been the parliament of the United Empire. 56 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE How long will it be, I wondered, as I wandered through the building of the Reichstag, before unified Europe has its Parliament House, and the Federation of Europe finds for itself a headquarters and a local habitation for a permanent representative assembly? What Germany has done, Europe may do. The union of Germany has not resulted in the dis- armament of Germans, neither would the Constitution of the United States of Europe lead to the disarma- ment of the Continent. But no German now buckles on the sword with any dread lest he may have to un- sheathe it against a brother German. The area within which peace reigns and the law court is supreme is now widened so as to include all German lands between Russia and France. That is an enormous gain. If we could achieve anything like it for Europe we might be well content. The progress of mankind to a higher civilization has been marked at every stage by the continuous widening of the area within which no sword shall be drawn and no shot fired save by command of the cen- tral authority. In pure savagery every individual is a sovereign unit. The mateless tiger in the jungle is the most perfect type of the first stage of human individualism. "Whom he will or can he slays, and whom he will or must he spares alive. His appetite or his caprice is his only law. He has power of life and death, and the sole right of levying war or making peace without reference to any other sovereignty than his own. From that starting-point man has gradually THE REICHSTAG BUILDING, BERLIN THE REKIISKATII, VIENNA EUROPA 57 progressed by irregular stages across the centuries, until the right to kill, instead of being the universal prerogative of every man, is practically vested in about twenty hands — so far as white-skinned races are con- cerned. The first step was the substitution of the family for the individual as the unit of sovereignty. War might prevail ad libitum outside, but there must be peace at home. After the family came the tribe. After the tribe, the federation of tribes for purposes of self-defence or of effective aggression. Then came the cities, with the civic unit. From time to time a despot or conqueror, driven by sheer ambition, estab- lished an empire, which, however imperfect it might be, maintained peace within its boundaries. Then nations were formed, each with their own organism and each allowing at first a very wide latitude for pri- vate and local war to their component parts. In our own history, not even our insular position prevented our forefathers, long after they had achieved some kind of nominal unity, preserving with jealous eye the right of private and provincial war. By slow de- grees, however, the right to kill has been confined to even fewer and fewer hands. The mills of God have ground as usual very slowly, but those who took the sword perished by the sword, and the pertinacious as- serters of the ancient inalienable right of private war were converted from the error of their ways by the effective process of extermination at the hands of a stronger power, determined that no one should wield the power of the sword but itself. In Germany to- 58 TEE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE day, in place of a hundred potentates, each enjoying the right to kill, William II. is the sole War Lord. And as it is in Germany so it is elsewhere. The right to suspend the Decalogue so far as the command " Thou shalt not kill " is concerned is now confined in Europe to William II., Nicholas II., Francis Joseph, Humbert, Victoria, and President Faure. These are the lords of the first degree, whose right to kill is practically absolute. After them come the lords of the second degree, who are allowed a certain lati- tude of killing provided they can secure the neutrality of one or more of the War Lords of the first degree. There is a nominal right to kill enjoyed by all the kings of all the States. But as a matter of fact it cannot be exercised except in alliance with one or other of the greater Powers. Greece thought that it was possible to exercise this nominal prerogative of independent sovereignty. Her experience is not such as to encourage other small States to follow her example. But in reality the persons who have the unrestricted right to kill in Europe are even fewer than the six absolute war lords. Europe is now practically divided into two camps. There is the Eusso-French Alliance, entered into for the purpose of restraining France from precipitating war, which practically gives Nich- olas II. a veto upon the right of levying war enjoyed by the French Republic. On the other hand, there is the Triple Alliance of Germany, Austria, and Italy, which practically renders it impossible for Austria or QUEEN AVILIIELMINA OF HOLLAND Hansen & Wetter, Copenhagen THE LATE QUEEN OF DENMARK ■ 3d b*l „£_ | -5^*'";"'-"'. ^ ^*~>, 0" 5 k \ J k« Giucomo and Brogi, Florence QUEEN MARGHARITA OF ITALY Schaaruachter, Berlin THE EMPRESS OF GERMANY SOME QUEENS OF EUROPE EURO PA 59 Italy to go to war without the permission of William II. Between these two Alliances there is the British Empire. In Europe, therefore, the right of levying war is vested almost solely in the Queen, her grandson, and her granddaughter's husband. Nicholas II., Wil- liam II., and Victoria — these three are the Trium- virate of Europe. And as the late Tsar said to me at Gatschina, " If these three — Kussia, Germany, and England — hold together, there will be no war." So far, therefore, we have come in our pilgrimage to the United States of Europe, that the power of the sword, which last century was a practical reality in the hands of a hundred potentates, is now practically limited to three persons, without whose permission no gun may be fired in wrath in the whole Continent. ]STo reproach is more frequently brought against me than that of inconsistency. It is the most familiar of the jibes which are flung at me by both friends and foes alike when they differ from me, that they never know what I am going to be at next, and that I am everything by turns and nothing long. These re- proaches and sarcasms I have borne with the equanim- ity of one whose withers are unwrung, for I happen to be in the fortunate position of a man whose opinions have been on record from day to day and from month to month for the last twenty-five years. To all such accusations there is only one answer: Litem scripta manet. It is quite true that I have infinitely varied the method by which I have sought to attain the ulti- mate ideal that at the very beginning of my journal- 60 TEE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE istic career I set myself to realize. I have supported and opposed in turn almost every leading statesman, and I have from time to time thrown whatever influ- ence I had, now on the side of Imperialism, and then on the side of peace, and I have done all this, and hope to go on doing it till the end of my time. But to base the charge of inconsistency on this continual change of tactics is as absurd as it would be to accuse a mariner of not steering for his port because from day to day and from hour to hour he tacks from side to side in order the more expeditiously to reach his distant port. This question of the United States of Europe has been one of the ideals towards which I have constantly, in fair weather and in foul, directed my course. Nineteen years ago, in the critical election of 1880, it was my lot to draw up an electoral catechism which was more widely used as an electoral weapon by the party which issued triumphant from the polls than any other broadsheet in the campaign. In this cate- chism I formulated my conception of the English for- eign policy in terms which, after the lapse of nineteen years, I do not find necessary to vary by a single syllable : — Question: "What is England's mission abroad?" Answer: " To maintain the European Concert — that germ of the United States of Europe — against isolated ac- tion; to establish a Roman peace among the dark-skinned races of Asia, Polynesia, and Africa; to unite all branches of the English-speaking race in an Anglo-Saxon Bund, and to spread Liberty, Civilization and Christianity throughout EUROPA 61 the world." — " The Elector's Catechism." General Election of 1880. My last visit to Russia and the publication of this book are the latest efforts that I have made to realize the ideal which was clearly set out in the above sen- tence written in 1880. The conception in those days was confined to few, but nowadays the parties led by Lord Rosebery and Lord Salisbury would vie with each other in asserting their readiness to recognize the European Concert as the germ of the United States of Europe, and to develop the concerted action of six Powers in relation to the question of the East into a Federated Union of all the European States. It may perhaps be well worth while to form some idea of this new organic entity which it is the first object of our foreign policy to create. Are we repeating the crime of Frankenstein, or are we fashioning, like Pygmalion, a beautiful creature into which at the appointed time the gods will breathe the breath of life? In other words, what is this Europe whose United States we are seeking to federate? Europe is a continent. It is hardly as yet a realized personality. There was a fair Europa in the myth- ology of the ancients, whom Jove loved, and whose story once suggested to Tenniel the idea that John Bull might aspire successfully to play the part of the Father of gods and men. But outside mythology there is little personification of Europe. The sym- bolical group at the base of the Albert Memorial, representing Europe as one of the four continents, is A 02 THE UNITED XTATEH OF EUROPE almost the only effort with which we are familiar in England. But such personification of a Federation of States is possible enough. The United States of America form a federation which has its recognized symbolical embodiment in Columbia and its humorous personifi- cation in Uncle Sam. The British Empire is a con- glomerate far more heterogeneous and wide-scattered than the United States of Europe, but we have our symbol in the heroic figure of Britannia and our famil- iar personification in John Bull. The German Em- pire, to take another illustration, is also a conglomerate of kingdoms and duchies and cities; but the first great effort of German art to express in permanent form the triumph of German arms in the attainment of German unity was the erection of the colossal statue of Ger- mania upon the wooded heights of the Mederwald, where she still keeps watch and ward over the German Rhine. But in all these cases it must be admitted there is a certain unity of national type which facili- tates the task of personifying the federal combination. The caricaturist, who often precedes the more seri- ous artist in the selection and illustration of themes of national and international importance, has not been slow to seize the opening offered by the first crude, tentative efforts towards international action in Crete by portraying the European soldier as a fantastic con- glomerate, a thing of shreds and patches, clothed in fragments of all uniforms. ~Not so will the artist pro- ceed who endeavors to present before the world the EUROPA 63 heroic proportions of her who, although the least among the Continents, is now, as she has been for two thousand years, greatest amongst them all. The Star of Empire which shone in the remote past over the valley of the Mle and the plains watered by the Euphrates has since the great day of Salamis been faithful to Europe. It may be that the new Conti- nent of the West may yet challenge successfully the primacy of the older world. But except in alliance with Britain, no such challenge can be dreamed of for a century, and Britain is European as well as Ameri- can, Asiatic as well as African. Eor as the Tsar is Emperor of All the Russias, so Her Majesty is Em- press on All the Continents and of All the Seas. There is a charming little poem by Russell Lowell entitled " The Beggar." The poet describes himself as a beggar wandering through the world, asking from all things that he meets something of their distinguish- ing characteristics. Erom the old oak he craves its steadfastness, from the granite gray its stern unyield- ing might, from the sweetly mournful pine he asks its pensiveness serene, from the violet its modesty, and from the cheerful brook its sparkling light content. The idea is a pretty conceit, but it may help us to consider the distinctive qualities which the world may crave not in vain from the various component parts of this new composite entity, the United States of Europe. It is indeed good to regard our sister nations with grateful heart, to contemplate the gifts which they 64 TEE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE bring with them to the fraternal banquet of the peo- ples, and to realize, if only in imagination, what we should lose if any of the European States were to drop out of the world. First among the States in area and in power stands Russia, the sword of Europe against the Infidel, for centuries the only hope and shelter of the Christian East. Upon the threshold of the Russian home burst the full horrors of Asiatic conquest. Time was when every wandering Tartar from the steppes rode as mas- ter and owner over prostrate Muscovy. But the storm of nomad savagery spent itself upon the Russian land, which, though submerged for a time, nevertheless saved Europe. After a time the Russians threw off the yoke of the oppressor and entered upon their secular mission as liberators and champions of the Christian East. To their self-sacrificing valor the world owes the freedom of Roumania, the emancipation of Servia, the inde- pendence of Greece, and the liberation of Bulgaria. Not a freeman breathes to-day between the Pruth and the Adriatic but owes his liberty to Russia. Liberty in these Eastern lands was baptized in Russian blood freely spent in the Holy War against the Moslem op- pressor. ~Nor is it only liberty in Eastern lands which owes a heavy debt to Russian sacrifices. As Russia in the Middle Ages received upon her ample breast the shock of the Tartar spears, and made for Europe a rampart with her bleeding form against the Asiatic horde, so Russia at the dawn of this century arrested EUROPA 65 the devastating wave of Napoleonic conquest. The flames of her burning capital were as the star of the dawn to the liberties of Europe. Moscow delivered the death-blow to which Leipsic and "Waterloo were but the coup de grace. In later years Kussia has done yeoman's service to the cause of humanity by bri- dling the savages of the Asiatic steppes and destroying slavery in the heart of Asia. She is now bridging the Continent with a road of steel, and from Archangel to Odessa, from Warsaw to Saghalien is maintaining with somewhat heavy hand the Roman peace. Russia has preserved in the midst of her dense forests and illimitable steppes the principle of cooperative hus- bandry, of a commune based on brotherly love, and has realized the dream of village republics locally autonomous under the aegis of the Tsar. In the face of Asia, fanatically Moslem, and Europe, fanatically Papal, Russia has maintained alike against Turkish scimitar and Polish lance her steadfast allegiance to the Christian Creed. Her travellers penetrate the remotest fastnesses of Asia; her men of science are in the foremost rank of modern discovery; the stubborn valor of her soldiers has taught the world new lessons as to the might of self-sacrificing obedience; her poor- est peasant preserves unimpaired the splendid loyalty and devotion of the Middle Ages; her writers of genius, like Turgenieff, delight the civilized world with their romances; her painters, Gay and Verest- chagin, display a genius as great on canvas as her Rubinstein and Paderewski in music; while in all the 5 66 TEE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE world to-day no voice sounds out over sea and land with such prophetic note as that of Count Tolstoi. There is in Russia, as in every other land, much that even the most patriotic Russians would wish absent; but who is there who can deny that, take her all in all, the disappearance of Russia as she is from the European galaxy would leave us poor indeed? From the largest to the smallest, from the Empire of the plain to the Republic of the Alps, is but a step. Both are European. Who is there among free men whose pulse does not beat faster at the thought of all that Switzers have dared and Switzers have done? Here in the heart of surrounding despotism these hardy peasants and mountaineers tended the undying flame of Liberty, and century after century furnished an envious world with the spectacle of a frugal Re- public, whose more than Roman virtue remained proof against the blandishments of royal ambition or the menaces of imperial power. William Tell may be a myth, but the legend that is associated with his name is more of a living reality than all the deeds of all the Hapsburgs duly certified by the official Dry-as- dusts. And Arnold von "Winkelried, he at least was real both in history and in song, and for all time the story of his dying cry, "Make way for Liberty! " as he gathered the Austrian spears into his breast, will lift the soul of man above the level of selfish common- place and inspire even the least imaginative of mortals with some gleam of the vision — the beatific vision — of the heroism of sacrifice. To-day, when the day of EMFEROR WILLIAM OF GERMANY EMPEROR FRANZ JOSEPH OF AUSTRIA- HUNGARY Gosta Florman, Stockholm Adele Vienna KING OSCAR OF SWEDEN THE KING OF SERVIA FOUR MOXARCHS OF EUROPE EUROPA 67 storm and stress has given place to more tranquil times, Switzerland has become at once the political and social laboratory of the world and the playground and health resort of Europe. Here at the base of her snowclad hills Europe cherishes as the elite of the Continent the intelligent and energetic democracy which defends its frontier without the aid of a standing army; and while lacking alike rivers, seaport, coal, and iron, has nevertheless proved itself able to hold its own in the competition of the world. " Italia, oh! Italia, thou who hast the fatal gift of beauty," hast the not less priceless gift of associations of history and romance, before which those of all other nations but Greece simply disappear. The nation which boasts as its capital the city of the Csesars can never yield to any other the primacy of fame. Europe once centred in the Eternal City. The unity of the Continent, as far as the Rhine and the Danube, was for centuries a realized fact, when the sceptre had not departed from Rome nor the lawgiver from the banks of the Tiber. Nor is the Italian claim to primacy solely traditional. Eor whatever may be the political power of the Quirinal as a world power, Italy makes herself felt through the Vatican. At this moment, in Chicago, public life is more or less demoralized be- cause an Italian old man in Rome made a mistake in the selection of the Irishman who rules the great Cath- olic city of the West as the Pope's archbishop. And as it is in Chicago, so it is to a greater or lesser extent in every vast centre of population throughout the 68 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE world. But the Papacy, although more than Euro- pean, is nevertheless a constant factor which must be reckoned with in discussing the evolution of Europe. The instinct of Leo is entirely in favor of peace and unity, but a firebrand in Peter's chair could easily per- petuate for another generation the armed anarchy of the Continent. Apart alike from politics and religion, Italy has always been a potent influence in promoting the growth of a wider than national culture, develop- ing European rather than provincial interest. For centuries before Cook arose and a trip to the Continent became a thing of course, Italy alone possessed in her treasures of art sufficient attraction to induce men of every nation to brave the discomforts and perils of a Continental journey. From being the Mistress, Italy became the Loadstone of the Continent, and that dis- tinction she has still preserved. To those treasure- cities of mediaeval art which shine like stars in the firmament, reverent pilgrims every year bend their way as to most sacred shrines. But in every age, Italy, whether poor, distracted, and overrun by barbarian conquerors, or queening it as mistress over a Conti- nent, has ever possessed a strange and magic charm. Dante was hers, and Raphael, Michael Angelo, and Savonarola — four names, the power and the glory of which are felt even where they are not understood, in the remote backwoods of America, or in the depths of the Australian bush. In modern times the revolu- tionary energy of the mid-century was cradled in Italy. Garibaldi restored to politics of the present day some- EURO PA 69 what of the fascination which charms in the pages of Ariosto, while Mazzini revived in our latter day the primitive type of prophet-seer. Nor must we forget, in paying our homage to Italy as Queen of the Arts and custodian of the great sites from which Pope and Caesar in former times swayed the sceptre, spiritual and secular, over mankind, that Italy of the present day is peopling the New World more rapidly than any of her sister nations. While emigration from almost every other country has fallen off in the last" decade of the century, that from Italy has increased until it amounts to well nigh half of the European overflow. If this be kept up, we may see a new Italy in South America which may be for the Italian language and the Italian race what New England has been for Britain in the northern hemi- sphere. Erom Italy, which on the extreme south approaches almost to the torrid heat of Africa, I would turn to another land at the opposite extremity of the Conti- nent, whose northern frontier lies within the Arctic Circle. Sweden and Norway, at present far removed from the troubled vortex of European politics, cannot vie with Italy in art or with Russia in political power, but none the less the sister States represent much which Europe could ill spare. "We of the north land, at least, and all the teeming progeny that have sprung from our loins, can never forget the Scandinavian home from whence the sea kings came; and although our culture is largely Hebraic on one side and Hellenic 70 TEE UNITED STATE 8 OF EUROPE on the other, the warp and woof upon which the He- brew and the Greek have embroidered their ideas is essentially Norse. Nor can we of the Kef ormed faith, at least, ever forget the heroic stand made on behalf of the Protestant religion -by Gustavus Adolphus and the brave men whom he led to victory on so many a hard-fought field. Charles XII., too, that meteor of conquest and of war, supplies one of those heroic and chivalrous figures of the European drama whose ro- mantic career still inspires those who live under widely different circumstances and under remoter skies. Norway is the only country in Europe which vies with Switzerland in enabling the dwellers in our great plains and crowded cities easy access to the sublimest mountain scenery. In the social and political realm, we owe to Gothenburg, a Swedish town, the most help- ful of all the experiments that have been tried for the solution of the liquor traffic; while in the world of books there are to-day no three names more constantly on the lips of the librarians of the world than the three great Scandinavians whose fame is the common herit- age of our race; Bjornson in fiction, Ibsen in the drama, and Nansen in Arctic exploration. Again turning southward, we find in Spain another of the nations which, in the flush of its Imperial prime, endeavored to realize the dream of United Europe. Spain at one time seemed destined by Providence to the over-lordship of the Old "World and the Xew. Between Spain and Portugal the Pope divided the whole world which was discovered bv the Genoese EUROPA 71 sailor who was financed by Isabella of Spain. It is but three hundred years ago since Spain loomed as large before the eyes of Europe as Germany plus Eng- land would do to-day. Alike on land and sea there was none to challenge her supremacy. To-day Spain is the mere shadow of her former self, but even if the shadow itself vanished from the earth, the memory of the great days of Spanish chivalry when, like Russia on the east, she stood warden of Europe on the south, can never be forgotten. The chivalrous Moors, who have left the imperishable monuments of their pres- ence in the fairy-like ruins of the Alhambra, were very different from the Tartar horde which nearly extinguished Russia; but the secular struggle waged against them equally called out the heroic qualities of the race. As the Moor was the anvil on which the Spanish sword was beaten until it became a veritable Toledo blade, so in turn Spain became the anvil on which our malleable English metal was beaten into the broadsword and trident by which we rule the sea to-day. Of all her possessions abroad, Spain to-day retains but a few straggling islets in the Eastern seas. But Spanish pride is as great to-day in the hour of national decline as when Spain was at the zenith of imperial prosperity. To European literature she has contributed two great names — Cervantes and Calde- ron — one of whom is to-day to the majority of us but a name and nothing more ; while the other, Cervantes, has contributed to the literature of the world one of the dozen books which are read evervwhere bv everv- 72 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE body in every language and in every land. To Europe of to-day Spain contributes little but an imposing tra- dition and somewhat of the stately dignity of the hidalgo, which the modern world, in the rush and tumble of these democratic days, is in danger of for- getting. Her authors are read but little beyond the Pyrenees, her statesmen exercise little weight in Euro- pean affairs, but in Castelar she contributed to the Par- liament of Europe the most eloquent orator of the Continent. How incredible it would have seemed in the six- teenth century had any one predicted that in the cen- turies to come Spain would be a Power of the third magnitude, while the Austrian Empire, shorn of all influence in Germany, would nevertheless rank among the half-dozen great Powers of Europe! But the incredible thing has come to pass, and Austria-Hun- gary, torn by domestic dissensions and threatened by powerful foes, continues to exhibit a marvellous vital- ity and indestructible youth. The land of the Danube with a dual throne, broad based upon a dozen races speaking as many languages — the Empire-kingdom is the political miracle of the nineteenth century. Mr. Gladstone once scornfully asked, " On what spot of the map of the world could Ave place our finger and say, here Austria has done good? " But the answer is obvious. Outside her frontiers she may have done as little good as England has done in eastern Europe, but within the limits of the Empire-kingdom Austria has rendered invaluable service to the cause of peace E. Bieber, Berlin COUNT GOLUCHOWSKI Minister of Foreign Affairs, Austria-Hungary C. Pietzner, Vienna COUNT TIIUN Austrian Premier V ■ Ellinger Ede, Budapest HERR VON K ALLAY Minister of Finance, Austria-Hungary. Krzinanek, Vienna THE HEIR APPARENT OF AUSTRIA- HUNGARY EVROPA 73 and civilization of the semi-savage races whom she has tamed and kept in line. To act as schoolmaster, not on despotic but on constitutional principles, to Ruth- enians and Slovaks, Poles and Czechs; to organize a State which is indispensable for European stability, out of such discordant elements as those which com- pose the conglomerate of Austria-Hungary, these are achievements indeed for which Europe is not ungrate- ful. The dual kingdom not only bears testimony to the possibility of creating an organic entity out of the most heterogeneous conglomerate of nationalities, it further affords the most signal illustration in contem- porary history of the fact that States, like individuals, can find salvation by conversion when they truly re- pent and bring forth fruits meet for repentance. Fifty years ago Austria was a byword to every Liberal. To-day there is hardly any State in Central Europe which has worked out so many problems of decentrali- zation on constitutional lines as the Empire of the Hapsburgs. Turning from the composite dual kingdom, we come to a State which in all things is the antithesis of Austria-Hungary. Austria-Hungary, although ex- tremely diverse in its nationalities, is nevertheless, territorially, within a ring fence. The Danish nation, on the other hand, compact, homogeneous to an extent almost without parallel in Europe, a unity both in race, religion, and in language, is nevertheless scattered over a peninsula and half-a-dozen islands. In the State system of Europe, Denmark, with its handful 74 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE of population, can throw no sword of Brennus into the scale which decides the destinies of nations; but the nation inarches in the van of European progress. Our farmers have learnt by sore experience the energy and initiative which have enabled the Danish peasant to distance all competitors in the markets of Europe. The nation, simple, honest, hardy, and industrious, free from the vices of caste, is one of the most con- spicuous examples extant of monarchical democracy. The days have long gone by since Denmark held the keys of the Sound and levied tax and toll on the ship- ping of the world as it passed through the Baltic to the North Sea. But it is worth while remembering that the freeing of the Sound was an international act, which, as far back as 1857, foreshadowed the collec- tive action of Europe. The royal House of Den- mark, which has given a King to Greece, an Empress to Russia, and a future Queen to the British Empire, may fairly claim to be one of the nerve-centres of the Continent. Nor can it be forgotten that in Thor- waldsen, Denmark has the supreme distinction of pro- ducing a sculptor whose work recalls the sculpture of ancient Greece. But there are hundreds of millions who have no opportunity of visiting Copenhagen, and to whom the genius of Thorwaldsen is but a thing they have heard but do not understand. The one name which is above every name among the sons of Den- mark, which is enshrined within the heart of every child in every land, is that of Hans Christian Ander- sen, whose fairy tales are the classics of every nursery, EUROPA 75 and whose " Ugly Duckling " is one of the Birds of Paradise of the world. We may not agree with Victor Hugo in describing Paris as the Capital of Civilization, the City of Light, but Europe is unthinkable without France. The na- tion which for centuries was the eldest son of the Church, and which in 1789 became the standard- bearer of the Revolution, has ever played the fore- most role in European history. If in the last thirty years she has fallen from her pride of place, and no longer lords it in the Council Chamber, she is none the less an invaluable element in the comity of nations. The French novel has made the tour of the world, the French stage is the despair of all its rivals, and in painting and sculpture the French artists reign su- preme. There is a charm about the French character, a lucidity about French writing, a grace about France generally, to which other nations aspire in vain. France is the interpreter to the continent of ideas con- ceived in Germany or worked out in practical fashion in English-speaking lands. In all the arts and graces of life, especially in everything that tends to make the most of the body, whether in the food of it, the cloth- ing of it, or in the ministering to the universal in- stincts of the creature man, they leave the rest of the world helplessly behind. We English — a slow-witted race, who did not even know how to build a decent man-of-war until we captured one from the French and used it as a model in our dockyards — can never adequately acknowledge the debt which we owe to our 76 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE neighbors. They preceded us in conquest round the world; they were the pioneers of empire both in Asia and America. But the supreme distinction of France in the commonwealth of nations to-day is seldom or never appreciated at its full significance. France is the one nation in the world which, fearlessly confront- ing with remorseless logic the root problems of the world, has decided apparently with irrevocable deter- mination that there are not more than thirty-nine mil- lions of Frenchmen needed as a necessary ingredient in the population of this planet. Other nations may increase and multiply and replenish the earth, but France has made up her mind that, having reached her appointed maximum, therewith she will be con- tent. Xo temptation, not even the continual multi- plication of the surplus millions of German fighting- men on her eastern frontier, nor the envy occasioned by the immense expansion of the English race over the sea, is able to tempt her to forsake her appointed course. TVhat is more remarkable is that this deter- mination can only be executed by asserting the right of will and reason to control in a realm that the Church, to which all French women belong, declares must be left absolutely to the chance of instinct on pain of everlasting damnation. France may or may not have chosen the better part; but the self-denying ordinance by which she deliberately excludes herself from competition with the multiplying races of the world has an aspect capable of being represented in the noblest light. EUROPA ?7 France! heroic France! France of St. Louis and of Jeanne d'Arc, is also France of Voltaire and of Diana of Poictiers, of Moliere and Dumas, of Louis Pasteur and Sarah Bernhardt! What other nation has produced so many of the highest realized ideals of human capacity on so many different lines? Even now, when the nation that built Notre Dame and Chartres Cathedral has taken to riveting together the girders which make the Eiffel Tower, France is still France, the glory and the despair of the human race. Space fails me to do more than cast a rapid glance at the smaller States, each of which nevertheless con- tributes elements of vital worth to the great European whole. Much indeed might be said of Holland, that land won by spadefuls from the sea, protected by dykes and drained by windmills, in order to provide a level spot of verdure on which the most phlegmatic and in- dustrious of mortal men could rear a sober common- wealth under a regal shade, and which, before it be- came a kingdom, had bidden high for the Empire of the Indies. Sea-power, now the sceptre of our sove- reignty, was grasped by the Dutch before it was seized by the English. It was only in the last two hundred years that the Netherlands fell behind us in the race for empire. Belgium, once the cock-pit of Europe, is now the most crowded hive of human industry. In no State are more men reared per acre, nowhere does patient husbandry win larger crops from indifferent soil; while in forge and factory and in mine the Belgian 78 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE workmen challenge comparison with the world. Bel- gian competition is pressing us hard in Russia, in Per- sia, and in many lands where Belgian goods were re- cently unknown. At the other end of Europe there is Greece — a name which, if nothing more than a name, is in itself an inspiration. The modern Greek, only too faithful an inheritor of many of the failings of his famous ancestors, has at least succeeded to the heritage of Olympus. No matter what may be his political feel- ings or his misfortune in war, the Greek is still the Greek, and behind the rabble rout of office-seekers which renders government impossible at Athens there still looms the majestic shades of those " lost gods and godlike men " which have kindled the imagination of our race since the days when Homer sang the tale of Troy divine. As the Acropolis is the crown of Athens, so Hellas was the crown of the world, and that crown neither Turk, barbarian, nor the place-hunting poli- tician of modern Greece can ever take away. The myths, the traditions, and the history of Hellas form the brightest diamonds in the tiara of Europe. Earth proudly wears the Parthenon As the best gem upon her zone. There remain to be noticed but two of all the band of nations whose States will form the European Union — England and Germany. These two Empires, which are at present sundered by a certain jarring dissonance that is all the more keenly felt because their tempera- EUROPA 79 ments and ambitions are so much alike, are the Powers naturally marked out for promoting the complete real- ization of the ideal of the United States of Europe. Some months ago I took the liberty of describing the German Emperor as the Lord Chief Justice of Europe. It is a role which he alone is competent to fill. No other potentate on the Continent has either the en- ergy, the ambition, or the idealism capable of playing so great a role. Germany, which, after the travail of ages, has achieved her own unity, is of all the Powers the best fitted to undertake the leadership in the great work of completing the federation of Europe. Germany, also, from her central situation, is better placed than any other Power for undertaking the task. The traditions also of the Holy Roman Empire still linger around the Eagles of Germany, and the Empire is already the nucleus of a combination which places the forces of Central Europe, from Kiel to Brindisi, at the disposal of the Alliance. The Kaiser quite re- cently informed us that it is not his fault that more cordial relations have not been established between the Triple Alliance and France. As this is written he is about to visit St. Petersburg, when he will undoubt- edly endeavor to draw closer the ties which unite Ger- many to Russia. Should he succeed in his endeavors, the attainment of a practical federation of Europe without England would lie within his reach. But if Europe without France would be unthink- able, and if Europe without Germany would be Europe without the reflective brain and the mailed 80 THE EM TED STATES OF EUROPE hand, what could we think of Europe without Eng- land? It does not become me as an Englishman to say much in praise of my own people. But this I may say, that Europe without England would be Europe without the one Power the expansive force of whose colonizing and maritime genius has converted Asia and Africa into European vassals and has secured the American and Australian continents as receptacles for the overflow of Europe's population. And this also may be added, that Europe without England would be Europe without the one Power whose sovereignty of the seas is nowhere exerted for the purpose of secur- ing privilege or favor for English flag or English trade. Nor must it be forgotten that Europe without Eng- land would be Europe without the one country which for centuries has been the inviolable asylum alike of fugitive kings and of proscribed revolutionists, the sea-girt citadel of civil and religious liberty, whose Parliamentary institutions have been imitated more or less closely by almost every civilized land. Europe without England would be Europe without her wings, a Europe without the sacred shrine where in every age the genius of Human Liberty has guarded the undying flame of Freedom. The Federation of Europe at the present moment is like an embryo in the later stages of gestation. It is not yet ready to be born. But it has quickened with conscious life, and already the Continent feels the ap- proaching travail. It has been a slow process. The great births of EUROPA 81 Time need great preparations. Under the founda- tions of the Cathedral of St. Isaac at St. Petersburg a whole forest of timber was sunk in piles before a basis strong enough for the mighty dome could be secured. The Federation of Europe is a temple far vaster than any pile of masonry put together by the hands of man. In the morass of the past its founda- tions have been reared, not upon the spoils of the for- est, but upon generation after generation of living men who have gone down into the void from red battlefield and pest-smitten camp and leaguered city in order that upon their bones the Destinies might lay the first courses of the new State. Carlyle's famous illustra- tion of the Russian regiment at the siege of Zeidnitz, which was deliberately marched into the fosse in order that those who followed after might march to victory over a pavement of human heads, represents only too faithfully the material on which these great world fabrics are reared. Nor is it only the individuals who have perished by the million, in blind struggling towards they knew not what, which have supplied the substratum upon which the United States of Europe were slowly to be built. Political systems, laboriously constructed by the wis- dom of statesmen and minutely elaborated to meet the ever-varying exigencies of their day, royal dynasties and great empires have all equally been flung into the abyss like rubble, after having served their turn to make foundation material for that which is to come. In preparing great political events Nature works with 6 82 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE the same almost inconceivable patience and inexhaust- ible profusion that may be witnessed in the formation of the crust of the earth or in the evolution of a highly organized species. For, as Ibsen has said, Nature is not economical. And in the preparation of the foun- dation of Europe she has hurled into the deep trench so much of the finished workmanship of preceding ages as to provoke a comparison with the work of the barbarians, who made hearthstones of the statues chis- elled by the pupils of Praxiteles, and who utilized the matchless sculpture of the temples of the gods in the construction of their styes. PART II ENGLAND IN 1898 CHAPTER I THE FASHODA FEVER When I returned to England from my visit to the Continent, I was assured by a member of the Admin- istration that the country had just passed through an outburst of " drunken Imperialism." The phrase, coming from such a conservative quarter, was very significant. Things must have been pretty bad before such a man in such a position could have expressed himself in such a fashion to a political opponent. And they seem to have been pretty bad, judging from the impression which the English newspapers produced upon those who read them abroad. To judge from the papers, and from the telegrams and letters in for- eign newspapers which professed to give information as to how things were going in England, they could hardly have been worse in the great orgie of Jingoism, when Lord Beaconsfleld was supposed to have brought back " Peace with honor " from Berlin. I left England on September 15th, when the news 83 84 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE had arrived of the presence of Marchand at Fashoda — news which was generally known, although not offi- cially confirmed. I came back immediately after the French Government had decided to recall him. I was therefore absent from England during the whole of the Fashoda fever, and my impressions of what took place during that somewhat excited period are necessarily the impressions of an onlooker from the outside. I saw England from the various foreign capitals with such lenses as were supplied by the telegrams in the foreign newspapers, and by the more or less belated English newspapers which followed me from place to place. Hence, whatever I say upon the subject must be taken, not as the judgment of one on the spot, who is on the inside track of things, but as a faithful ex- pression of how things looked to foreigners. The very day on which I left London I was assured by a prominent statesman, not in the Government, that we ought to be preparing for instant war with France. France had done " the unfriendly act," which, in diplomatic parlance, was equivalent to stat- ing that she had picked up the gauntlet flung down at her feet by Sir Edward Grey, speaking on behalf of the Rosebery Cabinet. Therefore there was noth- ing for it but to sound the alarum and prepare for instant excursions, invasions and war by land and by sea all over the world. Lord Salisbury was staying at Contrexeville, displaying, in the opinion of his im- patient censors, a criminal indifference to the peril of the Commonwealth. The night before I left Eng- Nadar, Paris M. 1HTPUY Nadar, Paris THE LATE TTiESTDENT FAUKE Walery, Pari* M. IIANOTAUX Nadar, Paris M. DELCASSE THE FAS HOD A FEVER 85 land I talked with one of the persons who may be re- garded as perhaps the most directly responsible for the efficiency of our first line of defence. I asked him if he was preparing for instant war. He innocently asked, " With whom?" and on my replying, " France," he blandly answered, "Why?" When I said, " Marchand," he shrugged his shoulders. " Non- sense," he said, " Marchand is in the air; he will go away when he is told to. It is not serious; it might have been if the Khalifa had not been smashed, but as he is smashed, and Marchand lies in the hollow of our hand, it is nonsense to talk of war." Such were the opinions of an insider and an outsider — who would be recognized, if I were at liberty to give their names, as about the best authorities to be found in the country. With such opposing views of best authorities in my wallet, I crossed the Channel, to find the moment I put foot in Belgium, that the Fashoda question had temporarily obscured that of the Peace Rescript. The brave Belgians were all agog to know whether or not England and France were going to war. Apart from the interest which they naturally felt in such a con- tingency, arising from the fact that a conflict between England and France would probably extend to the Rhine, when they would have to stand to arms in order to prevent the violation of their neutrality by the contending French and Germans, there was a more personal reason why the Belgians were interested in Fashoda. They had been roundly accused in the 86 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE English press of having connived at " the unfriendly act " of the French. The case against the Congo State, as briefly stated by an English statesman, was that Captain Marchand had been allowed to invade and occupy Fashoda from the territory of the Congo Free State, although the Congo Government had formally recognized, together with Germany and Italy, that Fashoda was within the British sphere of influence, and that the British Gov- ernment had publicly declared in the House of Com- mons that it would regard such an occupation as an " unfriendly act." To this the Belgians replied hotly, and very much to the point — firstly, that declarations made in the House of Commons as to the way in which one Power will regard the possible action of another Power do not amount to the establishment of a state of war be- tween these two Powers; and, secondly, that as long as no state of war exists, the Congo State is compelled by its constitution and the conditions imposed by the Powers to place no obstacle in the way of free transit through its territory. Further, they maintained that they had no knowledge of any intention of Captain Marchand to commit any unfriendly act by attempting to exercise any authority in any place within the Brit- ish sphere of influence, and it was therefore absolutely impossible for them to have stopped him. To this the objectors replied that the Congo Free State must have had a very shrewd notion of what Captain Marchand was up to, and that they ought to MAJOR MARCHAND THE FASHODA FEVER 87 have given our Government a friendly hint as to what was going on. To this the Belgians answered tri- umphantly, " And how do you know that we did not? " That is a question which our Foreign Office alone can answer — the Foreign Office and the Queen. For everywhere and always when you begin to probe below the surface in foreign affairs, you come upon the all-pervasive, subtle, and beneficent influence of the Queen. The King of the Belgians, who is in fact, if not in name, autocrat of the Congo, may or may not communicate the secrets of that Empire to the British Minister at Brussels. But it is an open secret that there are very few affairs of state upon which it is not his invariable rule to avail himself of the privi- lege accorded him by the tradition of his family of taking counsel with her Majesty. Every week, it is said, whenever the King of the Belgians is at home, he follows the example of his father by writing to the Queen. The first Leopold was the political mentor of the girl Queen. The second Leopold, having one of the shrewdest political heads in Europe, has always appreciated the advantage of profiting by the counsels of the aged lady who is the Nestor of the Sovereigns of Europe. It is probable, then, they say in Brussels, that if the King knew, the Queen knew; and if the Queen knew, we may depend upon it that the Sirdar was not taken unawares when the news came about the white men at Fashoda. The King, who had just arrived from a yachting expedition to the Azores, in the course of which he 88 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE met with a slight accident which compelled him to keep his room on his arrival at Ostend, preserved a diplomatic attitude of nescience. In reply to my in- quiry, I learnt that " His Majesty is totally ignorant of what has happened at Fashoda, and even whether anything has happened at Fashoda at all." The calm nonchalance with which the English assumed as a mat- ter of course that if Marchand was at Fashoda he would have " to git/' was a subject of amazement not unmixed with alarm. "But it is war you will be making! " they said. " War! " we replied. " What nonsense! You don't call it war when a picnic party caught trespassing is courteously assisted to find its way home." " Oh, you English! Was there ever such a people! " was the exclamation, and there the matter stopped. The French point of view, as stated to me repeat- edly, was that the Southern Soudan was a kind of Tom Tiddler's ground, which England had abandoned to anarchy. So long as anarchy reigned on the Southern Nile, no declaration made by under-secretaries could deprive France of the right which she possessed as a civilized Power of restoring law and order when it was within the range of her armed hand so to do. The French repudiated as utterly untenable the theory that the sovereign right of any Power to exert its influ- ence on behalf of civilization could be arbitrarily cur- tailed by the ipse dixit of Great Britain. Sir Edward Grey's warning had been promptly met by protest on the part of the French Foreign Office, and they main- THE FA8H0DA FEVER 89 tained that we had no moral or legal right to treat the derelict province in the Southern Soudan as shut out from all civilized influence merely because of our sup- posed revisionary rights. But the very people who took this position most vehemently were equally frank in declaring that after the stricken field of Omdurman the Marchand expedition was an anachronism, and the sooner it disappeared the better. " There is no one, believe me/' said an eminent French journalist, who had excellent opportunities of knowing what he was talking about — " there is no one single Frenchman in the Government or out of it who does not know that after you reconquered Khartoum, Marchand's position became untenable, and the only question was how he was to be withdrawn. That is admitted on all hands; it ought not to be beyond the task of diplomacy to enable us to extract him without inflicting upon us a public humiliation. We made a false move and we admit it, and only wish to save our face." " And how can that be done? " I asked. " Oh, very easily/' he replied; " it can easily be arranged; a little pourboire! Delcasse's position is rather serious. If he were to retreat under menace, it might bring down the Gov- ernment, and we cannot afford to affront the Army by the public acceptance of any humiliation. We all heartily wish that Marchand had never reached Fa- shoda, but as he is there, we are equally anxious not to bring about a Ministerial crisis, or something that might be more serious than a Ministerial crisis, by our being compelled to eat humble pie. Eo, what is to 90 THE UXITED STATES OF EUROPE be done is very simple. You can either ignore the Marckand expedition, regarding it as only a mission of civilization, which you are glad to welcome to the territory under your dominion, or you can grant Delcasse a little pourboire in the shape of some more or less empty concession anywhere you like all round the world, anything that would enable M. Del- casse to claim a diplomatic victory which would save his prestige with the country. At the same time you would get all that you want." So said my friend, expressing therein the feeling of his nation. In British official circles there seemed to be a gen- eral expectation that some such 'pourboire would be forthcoming, and that France would be let off cheap for having made a false move — " the unfriendly act " — just at the time when England had reestablished her prestige by smashing the Khalifa at Omdurman. On the other hand, there was a general expectation among the bystanders, especially the Americans, that the matter would not pass over so easily. " You may depend upon it," said one keen observer, " John Bull will take it out of the French this time, mark my words if lie does not. After all, human nature is human na- ture, and the old gentleman has stood so much, you can't blame him greatly, if having got the French in a corner, he gives them beans. Germany smacked your face in the Transvaal, Kussia wiped your eye at Port Arthur, the Turk has drawn a long nose at you in Constantinople, the French have been tricking you Russell and Son* SIR EDWARD GREY, M.P. Elliott and Fry rtoitt nox. jonx morley, M.P. Elliott and Fry Elliott and Fry RIGHT HON. H. II. ASQUITH, M.P. RIGHT HON. SIR nENRY FOWLER, M.P. TEE FAHEODA FEVER 91 in Madagascar and worrying yon on the Niger — be sure John Bull will pay them out now, if only to set himself up again in his own conceit. Let the French out quietly — don't you believe it! They have got to be kicked down the front doorsteps with full musical honors.'' That, or something like it, was what my American friend said to me, and events, it must be admitted, subsequently justified his estimate of the situation. The one easy and obvious way out of the difficulty was for Sir Edmund Monson to have accepted M. Del- casse's assurance that Marchand was only a missionary of civilization, to have welcomed him with effusion, to have declared that one reason why we had recon- quered the Soudan was in order to open it up to such gallant explorers as Marchand, and to offer the adven- turous little man all the assistance which all civilized Governments are called upon to render to shipwrecked travellers who may be stranded upon their coasts. Such an assurance could have been given with suffi- cient ironical emphasis to give the French clearly to understand that we appreciated to its full extent the unfriendly nature of the act which launched Captain Marchand on his bootless expedition. It would also have asserted in the strongest possible terms the in- herent strength of our position, a strength so great that it was ludicrous to assume the possibility that half a dozen Frenchmen with a tricolor could possibly raise the Fashoda question by sitting down on a marshy island in the Nile under the cover of our guns, under 92 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE the shelter of our flag, and under the authority of the Sirdar. An American Peace Commissioner, with whom I was discussing the matter in Paris, said that an infinite deal of nonsense was talked about this matter of the flag. " When I went to visit Mount Sinai I travelled with a cortege — bearers, escorts, etc. — and everywhere I always flew the Stars and Stripes. If the Sultan had been in a mind to pick a quarrel with me, he could have discovered that Uncle Sam was raising the Mount Sinai question because I had camped on the slopes of the famous mountain; but the Turk, not choosing to make a quarrel, ignored the flag, regarding it as the merely patriotic flourish of a traveller within his dominions. You could have done the same about Marchand if you had not wanted to pick a quarrel." When I went to Berlin, and from Berlin to St. Petersburg, I heard the same kind of talk always. By the time I reached Russia the Government had pub- lished Sir Edmund Monson's dispatches; and, to use the vulgar phrase, all the fat was in the fire at once. It was difficult on the other side of the Continent to follow all the details of things in England; but one fact stood out conspicuously — namely, that the fore- cast of the American observer had been a correct one : John Bull was about to compel the French to undergo public humiliation before Europe. The disadvantage of making the immense concession that a strolling Frenchman with a few yards of bunting could raise the Fashoda question seemed to have been overlooked, THE FASHODA FEVER 93 compared with the advantage of having it out with the French. The Government having taken up this line, what could a patriotic Opposition do but support it? Nay, they rallied to the appeal all the more eagerly because of the opportunity which it afforded them of emphasizing their dislike of what they de- lighted to regard as the feebleness of Lord Salisbury's policy. Lord Rosebery led the way by a speech which showed that, although he had abandoned the leader- ship, he was still the leader of the Liberal Party. When he gave the word, great was the multitude of the preachers. Nearly every Liberal newspaper in the country wheeled into line, and of all the occupants of the front Opposition bench there was not one who ventured to dispute his authority. In discussing this extraordinary unanimity with a very clear-headed Liberal friend, after my return, he replied, " What other course could we take ? No doubt your phrase that we should treat Marchand's expedition as a picnic party and welcome him to the shelter and protection of the British flag was the simple, the natural, and by far the easiest way out. No one felt that more strongly than myself. But in order to avail ourselves of it, it was necessary that Sir Edmund Monson and Lord Salisbury should have taken that line from the first, and, as politely and iron- ically as possible, smothered with ridicule the prepos- terous idea that an explorer in difficulties could, by the mere process of setting up his tent on British ter- ritory, have raised any question about sovereignty, any 94 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE more than if he had set up his tent on Dartmoor. But, unfortunately for us, the Government did not take that line. When they published Monson's dispatches, they made France the present of admitting that the Fashoda question had been raised, apparently for the purpose of driving them out of it. Under these cir- cumstances, what could a good patriot do? Surely nothing but what we did — namely, to insist that as Lord Salisbury had refused to take the short cut out, and had apparently made up his mind that the French had to be turned out neck and crop, the only thing that we could do was to bar the door against any more of those graceful concessions which would have made us ridiculous in the eyes of Europe and humiliated us before France. The fact was, the whole of the agita- tion in this country, from Lord Rosebery's speech downwards, instead of being a manifestation of confi- dence in the Government, was in reality the strongest possible illustration of the fact that we knew Ministers would not stand to their guns unless they were backed up from behind. If we had possessed a really strong Government, there would have been no need for bottle-holding them in the extraordinary fashion that was adopted; but, as we all knew our Salisbury, and knew that he would run away if he got the chance, it was necessary to adjure him by all our gods, every morning and every afternoon, that our unanimous opinion was backing him up, and that we would as- suredly trample him under foot if he tried on any more of his graceful concessions. Believe me," said Elliott and Fry THE MARQUIS OF SALISBURY Elliott and Fry THE KT. HON. A. J. BALFOUR Elliott and Fry Elliott and Fry THE RT. HON. LORD ROSEBERY THE RT. HON. JOSEPH CHAMBERLAIN THE FAS HOD A FEVER 95 my friend, " that is the verite vraie of the whole affair. We had got a weak, fumbling Government, one sec- tion of which was always threatening war, and the other half was always backing down. We had stood that kind of thing till we could stand it no longer. Then you must remember that the French had been very irritating. They were firmly convinced that under no circumstances would Lord Salisbury stand firm. You could not talk to the politicians and jour- nalists of Paris without feeling that they, one and all, had got the ingrained conviction that at the last mo- ment Lord Salisbury's love of peace would overpower all other considerations, and he would give way rather than fight. So we upheld him, and barred the door in such a way behind him, that with the best will in the world he was shut up to war if the French refused to budge." That, no doubt, is the true explanation of the extraordinary rally of the Opposition, headed by Lord Rosebery, in support of an Administration concerning whose foreign policy each and all of the said " rallied," beginning with Lord Rosebery, had expressed publicly and privately their utter distrust and contempt. The effect of these tactics on the Continent, so far as it came under my observation, was to create the impression that the English were spoiling for a fight, that they had France on the hip, and they knew it, and were determined to force her to accept the grim alternatives — Back Down or Fight! A friend of mine to whom I had written from St. Petersburg ask- 96 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE ing what cliance there was of a national movement in favor of the Peace Conference, replied : " Yonr letter finds this city in a ferment," (he was writing on Octo- ber 15th), " and all our people pouring oil on flame, which makes my heart half sick, half hot. A cry for the Tsar's policy or for peace to-day would only drive the swine more violently down the steep. But the day will soon come for a deliverance." Three weeks later, I received another letter from London, dated November 4th, in reply to a suggestion that something should be done to back up the Peace Conference in England. " Back up the Conference, you say ! But I tell you the British lion is roaring at his loudest. I have never seen the noble brute so intractable; you must wait until the fever has passed out of the acute and delirious stage. I feel that this will not last. Lord Salisbury is the only man in England for your purpose, and he is blase and sceptical. He ought to take John Bull by the throat; nobody else can! The Liberal Party is wholly useless — a fearful saying, but true." When I got to Constantinople, I found that the general impression among the English there was en- tirely in accord w T ith the estimate which I had formed of the situation in St. Petersburg; that is to say, they believed that an amount of fanfaronade had been made, apparently in order to force an open door, but really to force France to fight. Private letters from London showed that, however far Ministers and the responsible leaders of the Opposition might be from THE FASHODA FEVER 97 desiring so great a crime, there were undoubtedly many among those who gave impulse and momentum to the public movement who were passionately bent upon forcing on war. As one correspondent put it, " We are never likely to have such a chance again for settling old scores with France. It would be a thou- sand pities not to smash her, now we have got the chance." The chance, of course, consisted in the fact that the Russian Government was publicly committed to a policy of peace, that the raw which had existed for some years between London and Berlin had been healed, at least on the surface, that France was dis- tracted by the passions excited by the Dreyfus case, and that the inferiority of her fleet was so notorious that the immediate result of a declaration of war would have been the disappearance of the French flag from the ocean. When, in 1878, Lord Beaconsfield, having failed to fight his three campaigns against Russia for the deliverance of his friend and ally the Turk, made war on Afghanistan, a Liberal leader made a sarcastic re- mark which the recent clamor of the war party in England forcibly recalls to my mind. A gentleman was out driving one day, when his horse suddenly bolted and dashed frantically down the street. " Can't you stop him? " said the owner to his coachman. " No," said the Jehu, " he has got the bit between his teeth." " Then," said the gentleman philosophically, " take care and run into something cheap ! " Last year France was alone, France was weak, France was 7 98 TEE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE distracted by internal troubles; therefore she was cheap enough to run into. And so all the barbaric tomtoms of the unregenerate Jingo were set beating; and Alfred Austin, who may be regarded as medicine- man and witch-doctor, crisped the British lion's mane, and made him roar to his heart's content. To out- siders, who looked at the matter across the Continent, this blatant bellicosity of the public seemed somewhat cowardly, with too much of " hit him because he's down " in it altogether to minister to the self-respect of the self -regarding Briton abroad. But to others wmo approached it from a different standpoint the folly of it seemed even more conspicuous than its meanness. For, the moment it was known that Russia would not support the French in going to war about Fashoda, it was certain that France would yield, and all this tre- mendous pounding of heavy artillery secured for us no permanent advantage. Fashoda was in our hands, for the French occupation was an occupation pour rive. When France gave way, she abandoned noth- ing that she could possibly have maintained; whereas, the kicking of her downstairs with musical honors, while it gave us nothing that was not in our possession before we started, was not calculated to make France more easy and accommodating in dealing with us in a cause when she had a stronger case both in letter and in fact. In other words, the French would have gone out of Fashoda quietly if we had given them a little pourboire; whereas, now that we have insisted upon kicking them out publicly in the presence of the ser- THE FASHODA FEVER 99 vants, the pourboire will have to be much larger. We may object, and swear that we shall never, never, never give any pourhoire; but all negotiations are matters of give and take, and we may depend upon it the recent performance of the British lion has not been of a na- ture to make France more amenable to reason, or more desirous of straining a point in order to come to an amicable understanding with us on other questions where she is better able to hold her own. When I came to Rome I found that opinions varied. Among our countrymen there were those who gave full expression to the feeling that it was high time to teach these French a lesson, and that we had been put upon so much that we should now put our foot down and show that we could fight, and so forth; while others were impressed by the frightful possibility of the general war which seemed to be so lightly hazarded by the war-mongers of the press. One acute observer said to me, when we were discussing this question under the shadow of the Quirinal, " It has been a great deliverance. You may not believe me, but I am firmly convinced that no power in Italy could have held the Italian people back from declaring war on France the day after the first French fleet had been swept from the sea. Any Ministry that attempted to check such a movement would have been swept away at once. The Italians would have felt that their chance had come, and they would have struck in a moment at their hated foe." This may be so, or it may not; but that the contingency was believed to be 100 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE not only possible, but probable, and even certain, was a grim reminder of the gigantic issues which trem- bled in the balance when our Government decided to reject the picnic-party solution, and elected to compel France, on risk of war, to atone for her " unfriendly act " by formally evacuating Fashoda. The theory that John Bull has been bested every time for years past in his negotiations with his neigh- bors, and that in the struggle for existence and the scrimmage for the world he has been badly worsted, is one of those delusions which seem to indicate that a morbid hypochondriasis has taken temporary posses- sion of a part of our people. There is one, and only one, region in which there are alarming signs of our not being able to hold our own. But, character- istically enough, this one serious danger is entirely ignored by those who are most prompt to sound the alarm. The notion that the statesmen and sovereigns of the Continent form their estimate of the fighting capacity of the British from the bellowing claque of London newspapers is one of the most extraordinary delusions that ever possessed the public mind. If any- thing were required to convince the Continental mind that English newspapers are utterly worthless, even as reporters of what is actually going on in their own country, there could hardly be a more striking instance than has been supplied by this Fashoda incident. For weeks, nay, for months, the British newspaper press stuffed its columns with the most alarming accounts of the feverish activity that prevailed in all our ar- THE FASHODA FEVER 101 senals and dockyards. Every day brought forth new reports of fresh preparations for instant war. It was mobilization here, there and everywhere. The whole land seemed to be reverberating with the clangor of preparations for war. Again and again I was asked by most intelligent foreigners how many millions we had spent in making ready for war. I always shrugged my shoulders and said that I did not believe that the expenditure would exceed a hundred thousand pounds. The whole affair was a gigantic mise-en- scene, a game of bluff, played out to the end with astonishing intrepidity and nerve by gentlemen of my own profession, who felt it necessary to beat the big drum in order to keep their Government up to the mark. The utter amazement with which this explana- tion was received led me to justify the faith that was in me by two very important facts which had escaped public attention. One was that the Chief Constructor of the Navy, the man who has designed all our modern battleships, and who is the one man of all others whose presence would be indispensable at Whitehall were there any real question of the expenditure of millions on the Navy, was quietly enjoying his two months' holiday on Sir George Newnes's dahabeeyah on the Nile. The other was that the head of the Victualling Department, instead of working double tides at Ports- mouth in order to make ready for war, was placidly enjoying his holiday under the sunny skies of Italy. No one believed me. They were quite certain that we were pouring out millions like water in order to 102 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE make ready for war. It was not, therefore, without a certain grim satisfaction that I noticed, when I ar- rived in Paris, that the Chancellor of the Exchequer had found it necessary to make public statement of the fact that, so far from having spent millions, the extra expenditure upon all the amazing manifestations of activity which our newspapers had reported had only amounted to £50,000, chiefly incurred in replacing the stocks of coal which had been depleted owing to the strike in South Wales. After such an anti-climax, our newspapers will have to beat a very big drum a very long time before any one abroad takes rat-tat-too seriously. The fact, of course, is that our Navy does not re- quire any tremendous expenditure in order to prepare it for war. The story goes that Yon Moltke, after having dispatched his famous telegram, " K?*ieg, mobil!" that launched the German armies upon Im- perial France, was found by a friend amusing himself placidly as if nothing had happened. When his friend expressed his amazement, Moltke replied, "Everything has been arranged, mobilization is being carried out, there is nothing more at present for me to do." So it is with every well-equipped army or navy, and all this preternatural parade of fluster and fidget is an evidence, not of strength, but of weakness, a confes- sion of unreadiness, not the calm composure of con- scious strength. Looking at England and the manifestations of Eng- lish public opinion from abroad, it seemed as if the THE FASHODA FEVER 103 country were suffering from a bad attack of fidgets. The element of John Bull's strength in times past has been due to the fact that he has been exceedingly tough, with a very robust faith in his own integrity and his own strength. The idea of good old John Bull caring a single straw for all the pin-pricks of his envious rivals is inconceivable. He cared no more for these things than his bovine prototype for the croaking of frogs in a marsh. But of late there seems to have grown up an astonishing school of hysterical patriots who imagine that they show their devotion to their country by the vehemence with which they bel- low when any puny Frenchman pricks them with a pin or with a pen. It would do these gentlemen good to see a bull-fight in Spain. It might teach them, if they were capable of understanding anything, that the whole art and mystery of circumventing the bull is to make him mad by pin-pricking him till he loses his self-possession. Then he rushes down upon the sword of the matador. The angry bellowings, the pawing of the sand of the arena, the tail-lashing, and the savage and fatal final rush upon his tormentors, reproduce, only too faithfully, the way in which many of our journalists would conduct the foreign policy of Eng- land. In the hubbub of Fleet Street and the cheers of the music-halls these considerations are often lost sight of; but nevertheless it is equally true of nations as of individuals, " in quietness and confidence shall be your strength." If our Navy had been weak, there might have been some excuse for endeavoring to make 104 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE up for our feebleness by the shrilly outcries and bar- baric war whoop of the savage. But as our Navy is strong enough to sweep any possible adversary from the seas, it would be more sensible, to say nothing of being more Christian, if our Mohawks would spend less time over their war-paint, and cease to make night and day hideous by their yells. Of course, I shall be roundly assailed for saying monstrous things, in thus stating how the recent out- burst of English feeling appeared to an Englishman travelling abroad. But the fact is as I have stated it. I shall be told, no doubt with perfect truth, that noth- ing was further from Lord Salisbury's mind and will than a war with France. That is undoubtedly true. In the sanity and sober sense of the Prime Minister the Empire has found a strong refuge from the vio- lence of the Jingo faction. Neither would I for a moment assert that any responsible statesman, whether Liberal or Conservative, deliberately played for war, although most of them seemed to have taken the risk of war with a very light heart. But it is not there that the mischief lay. When it was decided to publish Monson's dispatches, and prac- tically to appeal for a patriotic demonstration against France, the Ministers called a spirit from the vasty deep to serve their purpose which they might have found it very difficult to cope with when they wished to dispense with its assistance. To excite the war pas- sion in a people so warlike as the English is a crime against civilization, which can only be justified, as THE FASHODA FEVER 105 homicide is justified, by absolute necessity. The oc- casion was tempting and the moment propitious for such an appeal. The Sirdar with his victorious troops, fresh from the reconquest of the Soudan, had arrived in England in the midst of the Fashoda fever. Not even the most envious rival could deny that Sir Her- bert Kitchener had displayed in an eminent degree the great administrative and military qualities which have enabled men of our race to build up the British Empire. He had fought and won two great battles against a savage foe, and he had reestablished British authority in the city of the Soudan which will be for ever associated with the greatest humiliation inflicted on England in our time. There was, therefore, ample explanation of the enthusiastic welcome with which he was received at home. At the same time, those who saw things from the outside could not help a cer- tain feeling of regret at the lack of perspective dis- played in the extraordinary demonstration with which the Sirdar and his men were received. What more could have been done to mark our national gratitude and esteem if he had been Wellington returning from a ten years' death-grapple with the Despot of the Con- tinent ? Here, again, there was visible that absence of dignity and reserve which used to be so characteristic of our people. The almost Roman triumph which was accorded to the Sirdar naturally ministered to the pas- sions which made a certain section of our people fall an easy prey to their besetting sin. Hence there sprang up many who openly and constantly talked of a 106 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE war with France. " "Now is our chance; we should be fools to miss it. We shall never have such an oppor- tunity again of settling with her once for all." Shortly after my return, I was in the editorial office of a well-known newspaper, where we were talking about peace and war. The editor remarked that he was almost the only person on his staff who had not wanted to have " a slip into France," and appealed for confirmation to his assistant, who remarked that nine out of ten persons whom he met even then (this was at the beginning of December) were much disap- pointed that we had not " had it out with France." " You must be keeping very bad company," I re- marked. " Not at all," he said; " I go in and out of the City a great deal, and certainly that is the impres- sion that I gain from what I hear from the people I meet." " The City! " I exclaimed; " but the City of London, whenever a war fever is in the air, is one of the worst places in the world. Don't you know that when a war fever breaks out the devil always sets up his headquarters in the City? He has another favorite haunt — the clubs of Pall Mall; and he divides his time between the two." " Yes," said the editor, " and as he goes from one to the other, he must of necessity pass most of his time in Fleet Street." The observa- tion was just, for of all energetic children of the devil the London pressman, like the journalist of Paris, when the cannon-thunder is in the air, is about the worst. It was so in 1878; it has been so in 1898. I was repeating this conversation to a well-known pub- THE FASHODA FEVER 107 lie man, who smiled and added : " Yes, no doubt ; the Evil One spends much of his time in perambulating Fleet Street; but he always has a chop and a cup of tea in Printing-house Square." It won Id be an interesting subject for discussion as to how far the spectacle of the easy victories won by our American kinsfolk over the Spanish fleet tended to create, or at any rate to strengthen, this ground- swell of the lower passions of the English nature. Cer- tainly, it seemed somewhat unnatural to English- speaking men on this side of the sea that English- speaking men on the other side of the sea should have won great sea-fights, and mopped up the navies of a moribund Latin Empire, while we, with the greatest fleet in the world, were standing by with folded arms, enduring the taunts of the boulevard press. The Old Adam is strong in the average Briton. His fingers began to itch for a fight, and the talk that has gone on, the echoes of which were still audible when I returned to England, showed an unmistakable readiness on the part of many of our people to fight, with or without a justification, should an opportunity arise, especially when it was what, in the slang of the street, might be regarded as " a sure thing." This readiness on the part of our people to fight for mere fighting's sake is much better appreciated on the Continent than it is in England. At home we plume ourselves so greatly upon our love for peace, that many of us have actually come to the conclusion that John Bull when seen from abroad is a huge, fat, overgrown 108 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE sheep. Nothing could be further from the reality of things. A Russian poet once called us " the gray wolf of the Northern Seas/' and that phrase embodies accu- rately enough the impression of other European na- tions as to our real character. We may hate war, but we have made more wars in the last fifty years than all the other nations put together. They might be little wars, but, nevertheless, they were wars. The chances that an English soldier will see action and kill his man are very many times greater than that a similar fate will befall any soldier on the Continent. As for am- bition and aggression, there is not, in the opinion of Europeans, any Power in the universe that is so im- perious and so aggressive as Great Britain. Of course, we repudiate this indignantly, but the cynical and sceptical foreigner shrugs his shoulders, and replies, " To begin with, you claim as your natural birthright the dominion of the seas — that is to say, two-thirds at least of the planet belong to you in fee simple. Next, if you look round the world, you will find that you have snapped up every bit of the land that is worth having either for colonizing or for trade. You have taken all the vantage spots of all the continents, and if any one of us ventures to pick up any of your leavings, there is immediately a howl raised throughout the English-speaking world, and imperious demands are made that you must immediately take something else, in order to balance our pickings. The net result is that though you started with much more territory abroad than all of us put together, you have gone on THE FASHODA FEVER 109 multiplying your additions until there is practically nothing left for other people. As for Russian aggres- sion, of which you are always talking, it is indeed a case of Satan reproving sin. In the last fifteen years, for every square mile of territory which Russia has annexed, you have annexed a hundred, and we might multiply that by a thousand if you were to take into account the spheres of influence which you have established." * Yet, notwithstanding all this, which is no overstate- ment of things as they are, nothing is so common as * Speaking on this subject when he resigned the Liberal leadership, Lord Rosebery said: "You have acquired so enormous a mass of territory that it will be years before you can settle it, or control it, or make it capable of defence, or make it amenable to the arts of your administration. Have you any notion what it is that you have added to the Em- pire in the last few years? I have taken the trouble to make a computation which I believe to be correct. In twelve years you have added to the Empire, whether in the shape of actual annexation, or of dominion, or of what is called the sphere of influence, 2,600,000 square miles of territory. But just compare these figures. It will show you more clearly what you have done. The area of the United Kingdom' — England, Scotland, Wales, Ireland, the Channel Islands, and so forth— is 120,000 square miles. Therefore, to the 120,000 square miles of the United Kingdom, which is the heart of your Empire, you have added in the last twelve years twenty-two areas as large as that of the United Kingdom itself. That marks out for many years a policy from which you cannot depart if you would. You may be compelled to draw the sword — I hope you may not be — but the foreign policy of Great Britain, until this territory is consolidated, filled up, settled, and civilized, must inevitably be a policy of peace." 110 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE to find in English newspapers perpetual lamentations over the extent to which we have lost our position in the world, owing, be it remarked, to our meekness, our patience, our unwillingness to fight, and scrupulous observance of our neighbors' landmarks! I remember once being visited by a poor woman whose mind was diseased, and who came to inform me of a great and terrible disaster that had overtaken her. She referred to it in terms of such unaffected horror, that it was some time before I could induce her to tell me the nature of the terrible evil from which she was suffering. At last it came out. Owing to the machi- nations of a certain enemy of hers, who had practised his foul arts in order to injure her, the whole of her inside was undergoing a mysterious change by which it was being transformed into the inside of a dog. Nothing that I could say could persuade her that she was mistaken. To arguments and to ridicule she was utterly impervious; she knew that her inside was be- coming a dog's inside, and the process would soon be complete, unless something — she did not know what — could be done in order to break the spell and restore her to her natural condition. I have often thought of this poor lunatic when reading English papers. They seem to imagine that, by some marvellous magi- cal incantation of some wizard of peace, the whole of the interior of honest John Bull is being converted into the " innards " of a sheep. They are possessed with the idea, the thought of the transformation which they are undergoing has got upon their nerves, and in THE FAtSHODA FEVER 111 order to counteract it they are continually clamoring for something to be done, some sabres to be rattled, or some drums to be beaten, or volleys to be fired. Not unless the cannon-thunder sounds in their ears, morn- ing, noon, and night, can they be persuaded that they are not becoming the sheep of their imagination. It is a mental malady and a very distressing one, especially for their neighbors, who know that John Bull, so far from being a sheep at heart, is in reality one of the most pugnacious, self-assertive entities that the world contains. He is only too reckless with his fists, and only too regardless of his neighbors' toes. Side by side with this pugnacious element, which is ever prompt to respond to outward stimulus, there is another characteristic of our people which is even more unlovely. There is, after all, a certain amount of heroism in the spectacle of a man who, in a good cause or ill, is willing to go forth and kill or be killed in support of his country's cause. But that element of greatness is absolutely absent from those who clamor for war much as the Roman mob clamored for gladiatorial games in the amphitheatre. Papers are dull unless there is some fighting going on somewhere ; therefore, " the war for our money." Our people have not the conscription, and the people who write in the newspapers, as the Emperor of Russia once somewhat bitterly and sarcastically remarked, " are never sent to fight in the first line." It is now as it was when Coleridge wrote: — ■ 112 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE Secure from actual warfare, we have loved To swell the war-whoop, passionate for war! We — this whole people — have been clamorous For war and bloodshed; animating sports, The which we pay for as a thing to talk of, Spectators, and not combatants. All the while that our people have been surrender- ing themselves to the unholy passion of military glory, and revelling in the thought that they were strong enough to whip France, and, in conjunction with the United States, to rule the world, they have been ob- livious to the real danger which threatens our suprem- acy, nay, even our very existence as a nation. We are the workshop of the world; we do not grow food enough in our island to feed our people for more than one-third or one-fourth of the year. We earn our daily bread, literally in very real fashion, by the fact that we are able to command the markets of the world by the excellence of our manufactures, the skill of our workmen, and the cheapness with which we produce our goods. This is the base, the solid foundation of our Imperial grandeur. If the factory and the work- shop are not busy, neither army nor navy would be able to keep us in existence. Yet each of the three great conditions upon which our commercial ascendency rests is threatened without the mass of our people giv- ing it even a thought. Whether it is in the excellence of our manufactures, the skill of our workmen, or in the economy of our methods of production, we are losing our premier position. Although we have been extending our Empire and pegging out claims for THE FASHODA FEVER 113 future colonies and dependencies with the utmost per- tinacity and courage, the tell-tale statistics of our for- eign trade remain obstinately silent as to the com- mercial benefits which we have gained therefrom. A thousand pin-pricks, such as those which so irritated our journalists, are as nothing compared with the one portentous fact that for the last ten years our trade has practically remained at a standstill. The trade of Germany has increased; the trade of the United States has gone up by leaps and bounds, until it has now taken the first place in the world's records. But our trade remains stationary. Instead of concentrat- ing our attention upon the removal of the causes which have enabled our competitors to beat us in our own markets, and gradually to threaten us with extinction in the neutral markets, we have fretted and fumed about prestige and " open doors " to impasses, and we know not what. The real weakness is that of the heart and the brain — of the interior, not of the remote extremities. We have grown too comfortable to exert ourselves and to hold our own in the real struggle for existence, which is waged, not in the battlefield, but in the markets of the world. We spend millions over armaments, and grudge thousands for education. We send military expeditions to the uttermost ends of the world, but grudge the expense requisite to make any careful or systematic use of the money which we de- vote for the promotion of technical education. Our trade is periodically paralyzed by insensate disputes between masters and men, the idea being that as it 114 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE was said that France was rich enough to pay for her glory, so we are rich enough to afford to play ducks and drakes with our business. For the moment all goes well; there is a boom in trade; the cry of the unemployed is no longer heard in our streets. But booms are temporary; depression follows inflation as night follows day, and then there will be an evil look- out for our people and for our country, unless our statesmen are wise betimes, and, turning their atten- tion from the barren competition of armaments and of conquests, are, in the words of Count Muravieff, " to utilize for productive purposes the wealth which is now exhausted in a ruinous and, to a great extent, useless competition for increasing the powers of destruction." CHAPTER II THE CHINESE PUZZLE The causa causans of my visit to Russia was not the Peace Rescript, which, at the time when I decided on my journey, had not appeared. My real objective was quite other than that. Ten years before, at the close of my audience with the late Emperor Alexander III., he invited me to return to Russia to see him again, should relations between Russia and England threaten to become strained. During his lifetime there was no occasion to act upon this invitation, but in the midsummer of this year it seemed as if the occa- sion had arisen which, ten years before, had been dis- cussed as a conceivable but regrettable possibility. Until the last year or two the one great source of difficulties between England and Russia was the slow decay of the Ottoman Empire. The difficulty of har- monizing our clashing interests, or what were believed to be clashing interests, in the east of Europe has suf- ficed for the last twenty years to employ the energies of the diplomats of London and St. Petersburg. Of late, the troubles of Turkish origin have steadily diminished. Russia under Prince Lobanoff went far in the direction of adopting the policy of Lord Bea- 116 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE consfield, by which the maintenance of the indepen- dence and integrity of the Ottoman Empire was treated as the interest of a civilized European Power. On the other hand, Britain, under the influence of Mr. Gladstone's enthusiasm, and the ever-increasing force of facts, had gone far towards adopting the traditional policy of Russia as protector of the Christians of the East. But neither country was sufficiently at home in its exchanged role to feel firm enough on the new ground to adopt any policy likely to bring them into collision in the Levant. When the Armenian atroci- ties reached their acute stage, the divergence of opin- ion between the two countries came to. a head. But England was not sufficiently Gladstonian nor Russia sufficiently Beaconsfieldian for either Empire to push its views to such an extreme as to endanger the general peace. So the Armenians were sacrificed, and Abdul chortled in his joy over the paralysis of Europe, and blessed Allah for the efficient protection of Prince LobanofT, who was not ashamed to wear on his Musco- vite bosom a decoration which he received from the Great Assassin. But just when the good people who were willing to sacrifice hecatombs of Eastern Chris- tians for the sake of a quiet life were congratulating themselves upon the fact that peace reigned in Ar- menia, another question rose in the Further East which threatened to revive and accentuate the differ- ences between the two Empires. The rivalry of diplo- matists, which had almost died out at Stamboul, shot up into new and intenser activity in Pekin. The Sick THE CHINESE PUZZLE 117 Man of Europe ceased to command attention, for the eyes of the world were turned to the Sick Man of Asia, whose demise appeared to be rapidly approaching. It was a false alarm, but for the time it lasted it was all the same as if it were true. Our experience of Turkey might have taught us to take the crisis in China a little more philosophically. At any time dur- ing this century the acutest observers of men and af- fairs at Constantinople have expressed their opinion that the Sick Man was very sick, sick even unto death. Sick he was, no doubt, and sick unto death; but his death was not yet. Over and over again has been re- peated the warning which, nevertheless, we are con- stantly forgetting, that old empires which have lasted for hundreds of years are much too toughly put to- gether to go to pieces like a pack of cards before the first flip of a hostile finger. Threatened empires, like threatened men, live long. Generation after genera- tion of ardent souls have lived and died in the fervent faith that that great edifice of iniquity which the Otto- man horde reared upon human skulls and watered by human blood was about to pass away and defile the world no more; but the last year of the century finds the Turk still in possession of Stamboul, still lording it over the heritage of the Christian East, still living, and likely to live until all those who wish him dead and gone have themselves been gathered to the vast majority. ^Notwithstanding this great object-lesson as to the tenacity of life in old-established empires, the British 118 THE UXITED STATES OF EUROPE public no sooner heard that the Chinese Government was sick, and very sick, than they incontinently jumped to the conclusion that the Sick Man of Asia was going to die, and that we must bestir ourselves if we wished to obtain a share of his intestate estate. As a matter of fact, the Yellow Man may be sick, but he is very far removed from the door of death. The co- hesion and unity of that vast conglomerate of human- ity which stretches from Siberia to Burma, and from the Yellow Sea to Turkestan, depends far more upon the moral influence of its Government than upon the material nexus of armies and navies and police ; and a moral influence once firmly established over four hun- dred millions of men is far too deeply rooted to be pulled up like a garden weed by the finger and thumb of a victorious Power. Eo doubt the Chinese cut a very poor figure in the war with Japan. Their fleet vanished from the sea, their army was defeated in every battle, and they were compelled to cede to the victorious Japanese whatever their victor chose to de- mand. When the war was over, the Japanese found themselves in possession of the two great strongholds of Wei-Hai-Wei and Port Arthur, and all the world hailed them as the rising Power of the Far East. The blow to Chinese prestige in Europe and America was immense, but in China itself the loss of the fleet and the cession of the northern fortresses affected the dim myriads of yellow men in China about as much as the trimming of a man's beard affects his digestion. Prob- ably ninety-nine out of every hundred never so much THE CHINESE PUZZLE 119 as knew that a war had taken place, and those who had heard the rumor of hostility are probably to this day in a state of blissful ignorance as to which Power triumphed in the fray. The moral authority of the Government at Pekin remains as supreme — with never a soldier to back it or a gunboat to fly its flag — as it was before the war broke out. All this was forgotten and ignored even by those who should have known much better. The Russians, it must be admitted, showed a sounder appreciation of the tenacity of Chinese vitality than did the other Powers. With the aid of Germany and France they cleared the Japanese off the Asiatic mainland and re- stored the territorial integrity of China. There the matter might have remained without any complication arising had it not been for the uncontrollable outburst of the colonial fever in Germany. The opportune murder of some German missionaries in the province of Shantung afforded the German Emperor a welcome pretext for seizing a portion of Chinese territory. Before seizing Kiao-Chau he cautiously approached the Russian Emperor by tentative inquiries behind which his real object was carefully concealed. Russia had the right of anchoring her warships in the port of Kiao-Chau. Would the Emperor object if Germany were to share that privilege? ~No direct answer was given at first, but ultimately it was understood that Russia would have no objection to share that privilege with Germany. So the first preliminary was gained. The second preliminary was to ascertain whether 120 TEE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE Russia would have any objection to Germany's exact- ing reparation for the murder of her missionaries. The offhand answer was returned : " Certainly not. Russia could have no objection to the exaction of a rep- aration." With these two assurances, one relating to the anchoring of German ships in the harbor of Kiao- Chau, and the other to the exaction of reparation for the murder of German missionaries, the German Em- peror made his great coup. Kiao-Chau was seized and occupied, at first under the pretext of demanding reparation for the murder of German missionaries. Not until afterwards was it revealed that the repara- tion demanded included the leasing or virtual cession of the province of Kiao-Chau to the German Emperor. It is believed, and even to this day it is sometimes asserted, that the action of Germany in seizing Kiao- Chau was prearranged beforehand with Russia. Noth- ing could be further from the fact. The seizure of Kiao-Chau under the mask of a demand for reparation for the murder of German missionaries was, and is, bitterly resented in Russia as a bit of sharp practice of which they have ample ground to complain. So intense, indeed, was the irritation created by the mere suspicion of the German design, that I was told in Berlin a telegram had been dispatched to Shanghai countermanding Admiral Diedrichs's orders. Unfor- tunately the Admiral had sailed before the telegram arrived, and Europe was confronted with the fait accompli of the German occupation of Kiao-Chau. Nothing could have been more opposed to the wishes THE CHINESE PUZZLE 121 of Russia. Russia's policy was the maintenance of the integrity of the Chinese Empire. In defence of that integrity the Japanese at the very end of a vic- torious war had been compelled under virtual threat of war to clear out of the Liaotong Peninsula ; and now one of the Powers by which the integrity of China had been vindicated against the Japanese became herself the aggressor and despoiler of Chinese territory. If at that time Russia and England had but been on cordial terms of mutual confidence, it is probable that concerted action on the part of all the other Powers would have compelled Germany to discover that her occupation of Kiao-Chau was temporary and would cease the moment the Chinese paid compensation for the murdered missionaries. Unfortunately the Pow- ers all mistrusted each other, and concerted action was regarded as out of the question. Even without con- cert the question was considered as to whether or not Russia should insist upon the evacuation of Kiao- Chau; and it was only when, upon grave deliberation, it was decided that Germany would not clear out with- out a war, that it was resolved at St. Petersburg to acquiesce in the inevitable and seek compensation else- where. The Russians may have been right, or they may have been wrong in their belief that the Germans could not have been turned out without a war. If they were right, no one can doubt that in their own and in the interest of the general European peace they did well to swallow the bitter mouthful and make the best of it. It is indeed difficult to believe that the 122 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE German Emperor or the German people would have accepted the frightful risk of a European war in order to persist in seizing a port on the Chinese littoral. But it is only just to admit that the opinion arrived at by the Russians as to the impossibility of turning the Germans out of Kiao-Chau except by a war was shared by the best authorities in Europe. Rightly or wrongly the Russians decided that it was not worth while to risk a war for the sake of Kiao- Chau; but it was felt that the action of Germany had materially changed the situation. It was no longer possible to maintain formally the integrity of China. That integrity had been violated by the " mailed fist " which had seized possession of Kiao-Chau. Germany had established herself in force, if not within striking distance, at least within easy proximity to Pekin. The example of the ease with which the Chinese could be plundered by any one who chose to pick their pockets was likely to prove contagious. No one knew what would be the next step. The signal once having been hoisted for the partition of China, it was felt at St. Petersburg that any day might bring the news of a fresh seizure of Chinese territory. If by some exercise of imagination we could realize the conception of England which has been formed by, let us say, the King of Uganda, we should probably find that it would compare not unfavorably with the conception which the British public has formed about Russia. To the King of Uganda England is an en- tity, a unit. England's policy, whether for peace or THE CHINESE PUZZLE 123 for war, for annexation or for evacuation, is to him the expression of a single will. He does not discrim- inate between Liberals and Conservatives, between Government and Opposition. He knows nothing of those details which are imperceptible from a great dis- tance. Hence he has probably strange ideas concern- ing the vacillations, inconsistencies and bad faith of the Power with which he has to do. In the same way, while we speak about Russia, we imagine the great Empire of one hundred and twenty millions as a unit. "We speak of its Government as if it were the will of a single man being brought to bear continuously upon the problem in question. In reality the Russian Gov- ernment, like every other state, is a composite body. It is swayed from time to time by opposing tendencies which find their embodiment not in parties so much as in ministerial groups, which make themselves more or less articulate exponents of the contending drifts of sentiment. Hence there is often an appearance of vacillation or of inconsistency, and sometimes of down- right bad faith, which would be perfectly understood if we could but abandon what may be called the " King of Uganda' 7 point of view in considering Russian ques- tions. The way in which the Chinese question was dealt with after the seizure of Kiao-Chau is an appo- site illustration of the inadequacy of the Uganda method for appreciating what actually happened. As soon as the German flag was hoisted over Kiao-Chau, the Russians with one consent believed that the one thing which they dreaded more than anything — a 124 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE scramble for the inheritance of the Sick Man of Asia — was about to begin, and their eyes turned instinct- ively to the one great Power whose armed force, con- stantly mobilized on a war footing, hovered within striking distance of Port Arthur. Strange though it may seem to Englishmen who alternately plume themselves upon the pharisaical vir- tue with which they abstain from picking and stealing, and display a Nebuchadnezzar-like pride in having picked out all the plums from the world's pie, the Rus- sians are firmly convinced that whenever there is a scramble for any corner lots in the universe, John Bull is dead sure to be first on the spot. Now there is one particular corner lot in China which the Russians could not and ought not to allow to pass into any other hands than their own. This particular corner lot in question was Port Arthur, with the related port of Talienwan. Port Arthur and Talienwan stand in pretty much the same relation to each other as the Spithead ports, Portsmouth and the Isle of Wight stand to the docks of Southampton. Talienwan is the only ice-free port through which Russia can obtain access to the Pacific at all seasons of the year. It was therefore absolutely necessary for the future develop- ment of their vast Siberian Empire that the port of Talienwan should be available as the terminus of their great trans-Continental line. The reasonableness of this opinion had been publicly recognized by Mr. Bal- four, who, in a famous speech, had declared that so far from England's having any objection to Russia's ob- THE CHINESE PUZZLE 125 taining an ice-free port in the Pacific, nothing was more to be desired in the interests of British trade than that Russia should have such a port, and the British Government therefore regarded her natural ambition to have a port in ice-free waters with satisfaction and approval. The Russians naturally took note of this declaration with much satisfaction; and inasmuch as Talienwan was the only ice-free port along that coast, they regarded Mr. Balfour's speech as being equiva- lent to a virtual handing over of Talienwan to the Rus- sian Government, whenever the railway had made suf- ficient progress to justify a demand for the cession of such a position on the coast. Here the Russians may have been mistaken or they may not. Mr. Balfour's words seemed to them sufficiently explicit ; and no one who reads them to-day can marvel that the Russians took them to mean exactly what they seemed to say, for it is no use pretending that when you invite an- other Power to " have " a port, you mean that she is simply to enjoy in common with all the other Powers a right of way through a port belonging to someone else. It is well to bear this in mind, because it is the key to much, if not to everything, that happened in the spring of last year. When the German flag was hoisted over Kiao-Chau, opinion in the Russian capital was divided. One sec- tion, which may be regarded as having its headquarters in the Foreign Office, held that it was absolutely neces- sary for the preservation of Russia's vital interests for her to forestall the attempt to seize Port Arthur on the 126 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE part of any other Power. This school maintained that England was certain to seize Port Arthur either di- rectly herself or indirectly through the Americans or the Japanese. In any case, Port Arthur was much too valuable a jewel to be left lying about loose, with the signal flying from Kiao-Chau for the general scramble. That was the view of one school. An altogether different opinion prevailed in the section which had as its centre and head the Ministry of Fi- nance. Here it was maintained that Lord Salisbury could be relied upon not to seize Port Arthur, and that Mr. Balfour, when he made his famous declaration as to the right of Russia to an ice-free port, was speaking in good faith, and meant exactly what he said. They maintained, therefore, that seeing the right of Russia to Talienwan had been recognized by England, and that Port Arthur was to all intents and purposes an integral part of Talienwan — for Port Arthur was un- tenable with Talienwan in other hands — it was better to let things remain as they were, to trust to England's declarations and to still hold on to the old formula of the integrity of China despite the inroad upon that integrity which had been made by Germany. This school violently opposed the occupation of Port Arthur. They contended that to occupy such a posi- tion would make Russia a partaker in the guilt and responsibility of the partition of China, the prevention of which had been the steady aim of Russian policy. They maintained that to occupy Port Arthur would set two signals flying, instead of one, for the partition MAP SHOWING RELATION OF PORT ARTHUR TO TALIENWAN — AS THE SPITHEAD PORTS ARE TO SOUTHAMPTON Sr\ r ^."' *w MILES 50 M» 150 100 *W 300 tsi** > L=r\ \ %mm Railways open no . bw/d.nj bs i projecfd Treaty Porti '""" : fw \ ^ *i f if ll%V fflj ta M 'l/TffN-~ Hhabarovkag' -^ ^^V *' \ <%if$W ,\1 # if k MONGOLIA V\ \Wh o t drT^*^ ,£L ^ 3BI ^** tc iL ^ \ J^fX~* m^ AY \ / 'v? \ v .•)'' ^^ ^Bwlewchwang | j^ / SEA OF / j /\?EKINC v |J«q» fi/ta/i/iojKrtagB ^^s~~- IP.LAZAQtf J f *> t «y J JTfcntsin J f\ J*" £Wonsan CULF ' 0F 'J*%l,enwan C*/Z/ P °" Arthur /korea\ 9<(rfufeK^»y/e.haivvai Chemu/ooK «SE0UL \ RUSSIAN MANCHURIA TEE CEINESE PUZZLE 127 of China, and would challenge the other Powers, not- ably England, to join in the game of grab. It was further insisted upon with great force, and, as the re- sult proved, with truth, that it would be impossible to take possession of Port Arthur without having to square the Japanese, and that this could only be done by the abandonment of Russia's vantage ground in Korea. Further, the railway was not built, and would not be built for some years, during which the status quo might remain. To occupy Port Arthur would at once make Russia vulnerable. It would en- tail an enormous expenditure, which the Treasury could ill afford, for arming of the ports, and a still more gigantic outlay in the building of a great Pacific fleet. In addition to all those arguments they had another, and perhaps the most powerful of all, in re- serve. " The Chinese," they said, " will bitterly resent our occupation of Port Arthur, and they will confound us with the Germans as the despoilers of their Empire. Our strength throughout the whole of the Chinese Empire depends upon our moral influence with the rulers at Pekin. Our position at Pekin is not weak- ened, but rather strengthened by the jealousy and sus- picion excited against Germany by the seizure of Kiao- Chau. Therefore let us severely abstain from any tampering with Chinese integrity. Let us emphasize our determination to maintain the integrity of the Chinese Empire against all comers. Let us push for- ward the construction of our railways, strengthen our commercial interests in China, and rely upon the good 128 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE faith of England to save ns from the dangers of see- ing Port Arthur and Talienwan pass under the con- trol of another European State." The balance of opinion at St. Petersburg was strongly in favor of this view. The Emperor for some time kept an open mind, with strong predispositions in favor of what may be regarded as the views of M. "Witte as against those of Count Muraviefr*. This was natural for many reasons. He had travelled in the East. He had no sympathy whatever with the earth- hunger which seems to possess some people like a con- suming passion. He wished to leave the Chinese alone. He deprecated anything that would lead him into collision with England. He was even painfully anxious to avoid saddling his treasury with any fur- ther expenditure for armaments and munitions of war. All the cards seemed to be in favor of the victory of Witte and the discomfiture of Muravieff. Unfor- tunately the whole scene was changed, and changed not so much by the action of the British Government as by the steps taken on their own initiative by the British Admiral and the British Ambassador. The Admiral acted innocently, never dreaming what mo- mentous results would follow from the orders which he had given. It is, alas! impossible to say as much for the action of the Ambassador. As will be seen from what has been said of the argu- ments of the contending schools of Russian statesmen, it was essential for the success of the non-annexation- ists that England's good faith should be undisputed, THE CHINESE PUZZLE 129 and that there should be no doubt whatever as to the honesty of Mr. Balfour's declaration in favor of Russia having an ice-free port, which could only be Talien- wan, to which Port Arthur was a mere corollary. On the other hand, the annexationists were keen to lay hold of any sign that would seem to prove the insin- cerity of the English Government, and to pounce upon anything that looked as if we were trying to wriggle out of Mr. Balfour's assurances. It was at this particular juncture that the Admiral commanding the British fleet on the Pacific stations, " being moved thereto of the devil," as the old legal phrase goes, bethought him that it would be well to order some of his ships to call at Port Arthur in the course of their cruise round the Chinese littoral. This was well within the authority of the Admiral in command, nor did he in the least imagine when the ships were ordered to take up their station for a time at Port Arthur that any political significance would be attached to their arrival in the port. So little im- portance did he attach to the matter that he made no report on the subject, and neither asked, sought, nor received permission from the Government at home. He sent the ships to Port Arthur as he had previously sent ships to Kiao-Chau, and as he would send them to any other port where he could find safe anchorage. Such, at least, is the positive declaration of the British Government, which we, of course, implicitly believe. It can easily be imagined with what feelings the news of the arrival of British warships at Port Arthur was 9 130 . THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE received in St. Petersburg. The intelligence dis- mayed the non-annexationists and filled the annexa- tionists with joy. "We told you so!" the latter cried exultingly, and immediately proceeded first to press their suspicions on the mandarins at Pekin, and then at St. Petersburg to point triumphantly to the presence of the ships as proof positive of our bad faith. Our Ambassador, Sir Nicholas O' Conor, who was then, with the best intentions in the world, working hand-and-glove with the non-annexationist section, anxiously inquired as to why the ships were sent there, and, apparently as one result of his telegrams acquaint- ing the Government with the exaggerated importance attached to the presence of these vessels, he received and transmitted to the Russian Government assurances as to the non-political nature of the visit of the ships, which may be found in the Blue Book. Meantime, the ships having stayed their time, sailed away, but the mischief which they had done lived after them. Still, the removal of the ships gave fresh heart to the non-annexationists, who renewed the battle; and they might have won the day, had it not been for the fatal move of Sir Claude MacDonald, our Ambassador in Pekin — a move which no attempt has ever been made to reconcile with ordinary good faith. The only ex- cuse that is possible is almost inconceivable. It is difficult to imagine that the British Ambassador at Pekin was unaware of the fact that Mr. Balfour had publicly declared that the British Government en- Elliott and Fry SIR CLAUDE MACDONALD Ambassador at Pekin Elliott and Fry LORD CURZON OF KEDLESTOX Viceroy of India Elliott and Fry TIIE HON. W. P. SCTIREINER Premier of Cape Colony Tuple y, Ottawa LORD ABERDEEN Retiring Governor-General of Canada TEE CHINESE PUZZLE 131 tirely approved of Russia having an ice-free port in the Pacific. Yet, except on that hypothesis, it is dif- ficult to acquit the British Ambassador of an act of deliberate treachery infinitely worse than the worst that could be charged against Count MuraviefL For what did he do? First, no sooner did he find that the Chinese Government was in difficulty about the negotiation of a loan, than he went to the man- darins at Pekin and offered to secure them a British loan on various conditions, one of which was that Talienwan (which, he was careful to explain in his telegram home, was the only ice-free port) should be made into a treaty port. The mandarins at once ob- jected that Russia would never agree to this; but Sir Claude MacDonald insisted. " Why should the Rus- sians object," he asked, " unless they had designs which, if they objected to his proposal, would then be unmasked? " But there was no need for unmasking their designs. Their designs, if one may call them so, were frankly avowed and had been publicly en- dorsed and approved by Mr. Balfour, the Leader of the House of Commons and First Lord of the Treas- ury. The Russians regarded their claim to have Talienwan as a matter that had passed beyond the pale of controversy. It had been virtually made over to them, whenever they wanted it, by Mr. Balfour on behalf of the British Government; and yet, with this assurance fresh in their minds, they were suddenly confronted with the spectacle of the British Ambas- sador at Pekin endeavoring by the promise of a British 132 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE loan to bribe the Chinese Government into cheating them out of the indispensable port. When this became known in St. Petersburg, the annexationists triumphed all along the line. Who could trust the English after that? Count Muravieff also, being anxious, it was said, to immortalize his family by bringing Russia to Port Arthur, as another Muravieff had brought Russia to the Amur, is said to have worked upon the Chinese by assurances more emphatic than accurate to induce them to request the Russians to occupy Port Arthur lest it should be seized by the English. The "Chinese refused, but in such a way as to give Muravieff a colorable pretext for representing to the Emperor that the Chinese implored him to take Port Arthur. After this last coup the fate of Port Arthur was sealed. I have entered at some length into this question, be- cause it bears directly on the charge which is brought against Russia of having deceived us in the course of these negotiations. When the fate of Port Arthur was still in the balance, questions were asked at St. Petersburg as to the presence of Russian ships of war at the port, and we were assured that they were only there for winter quarters. This statement is con- stantly brought forward as a proof of Russian decep- tion. But the fact is that if we had not thrown the whole game into the hands of the annexationists, the ships would only have been there for winter quarters, and would have left Port Arthur in the spring. The rampant Jingoism of certain sections of our press and TEE CEINESE PUZZLE 133 the bad faith of Sir Claude MacDonald rendered it impossible for the non-annexationists to hold their ground, so that what would in all probability have been only a sojourn for the winter, was converted into a definite occupation. Then came the question whether or not Talienwan should be a free port or an open port. There was a misunderstanding on the English side, which is ad- mitted in the dispatches, owing to Lord Salisbury's having mistaken the clear and definite statement made by M. de Stael that the port would be "open " as equiv- alent to its being " free." For that, however, the Rus- sians are admittedly in no sense to blame. Before it was leased to the Russians, Talienwan was not open to trade. The immediate result of leasing it to the Rus- sians was to open it to trade, subject to the provisions of the Treaty of Tientsin, by which the import duty was fixed at a maximum of seven per cent. Having gained this point, if therewith our Ministers had been content, a great deal of trouble would have been avoided. But unfortunately, from excessive zeal Sir Mcholas O' Conor deemed it necessary to raise the fur- ther question as to whether or not Port Arthur should also be an open port. Now from the public declara- tions of Her Majesty's Ministers, Port Arthur cannot be made a commercial port. It is essentially a mili- tary and naval position, corresponding to the Spithead ports and the Isle of Wight; and satisfactory answers having been given as to Talienwan, which corresponds to Southampton, there was neither sense nor reason 134 TEE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE in declaring that Port Arthur should also be declared an open port. Unfortunately, however, instead of pointing this out, assurances were given of the readi- ness to make it open, which the Russians afterwards took back. Instead of justifying this taking back of their promise, which they could perfectly well have done on the ground that Port Arthur, according to Lord Salisbury himself, could not be made into a com- mercial port of any kind, MuraviefT made statements which, if not intended to mislead, were, to say the least, very unfortunately phrased. From this mis- understanding, of which I have heard many explana- tions, none of Avhich seem to me either conclusive or satisfactory, there sprang a popular belief that the Russians had wilfully deceived us, although what con- ceivable advantage they could have derived from such deception has never been clearly pointed out. The disadvantage was obvious enough. The Ministerial papers, almost without an exception, fumed and foamed and published day after day attacks upon the Government to which at last Lord Salisbury yielded, and ordered the occupation of Wei-Hai-Wei. Thus the third step was taken towards the partition of the Chinese Empire. The advantage to England of the occupation of Wei-IIaiAVei still remains problematical. The dis- advantages are obvious. To Germany it has been no doubt a gain that we should have thrust ourselves into a position which makes us partners with them in the partition of Northern China, partners who, however, THE CHINESE PUZZLE 135 are precluded by our own voluntary protestations from attempting to derive any commercial advantages from the position. The only defence that was made was that it was necessary to advertise to Japan and the other nations that we were not out of the running, and that if Germany and Russia seized Chinese territory, we also were willing and able to take a part in the same game. It is stated — I cannot say with what authority — that the balance of naval authority was distinctly against taking Wei-Hai-Wei, and up to the present fortunately there has been no expenditure to speak of in the way of fortifying or garrisoning the place of arms over which our flag flies. Wei-Hai-Wei remains, and it is sincerely to be hoped will long remain, a place (Parmes, as worthless for Imperial purposes as that other place cVarmes in the Mediterranean, the filching of which, under the cover of the Anglo-Turkish Con- vention, is an indelible blot upon the good faith of Great Britain. The irritation produced by these various seizures of Chinese territory can easily be imagined. The Rus- sians said little but did much — that is to say, they fortified and garrisoned Port Arthur, and produced a naval programme at the beginning of last year which, if carried out, would entail the expenditure of twenty- four millions sterling in six years in the building of a great Pacific fleet. Of this twenty-four millions, ten millions were allocated for the construction of ships in their own dockyards, and in France, Germany and the United States. The remaining fourteen millions 136 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE sterling, which are also to be spent before the end of 1905, have not yet been allocated, but it is part of the programme officially announced at the beginning of last year, which was prepared as the necessary and natural corollary of the occupation of Port Arthur. Throughout the whole of the discussions on the Chinese question, no exception can be taken to either the tone or the matter of the speeches of Lord Salis- bury and Mr. Balfour. No such compliment, how- ever, can be paid to the utterances of Sir Michael Hicks-Beach and Mr. Chamberlain. It was Sir Michael Hicks-Beach who first spoke openly of main- taining our position, if necessary, by war. But his indiscretion was thrown into the shade by the outburst of Mr. Chamberlain, who in a famous, or infamous, speech virtually called Russia a devil with whom it was impossible to come to any understanding or to come to any agreement. This was the famous " long- spoon " speech, which had at least one good result. It revolted even those who most sympathized with the anti-Russian feeling, and brought down upon Mr. Chamberlain reproofs which were all the worse to bear because he knew them to be so well deserved. The popular conception of Mr. Chamberlain is erro- neous in many points, and in none so much as that which paints him as a man of strong convictions and of resolute purpose. Mr. Chamberlain in reality is a creature of impulse. He is a man of strong feelings, and when he feels strongly he speaks strongly. One of his colleagues, when explaining and apologizing THE CHINESE PUZZLE 137 for the " long spoon " speech, maintained that it really was an outburst of offended affection. Mr. Chamber- lain, to do him justice, has always been a great advo- cate of a good understanding with Russia. At the time when Mr. Gladstone seemed to be heading full swim for war with Russia over the Penjdeh affair in 1885, Mr. Chamberlain was almost, if not quite, alone in the Cabinet in maintaining that war was neither necessary nor expedient. u We are going to war all round the world on a pin's point/' he is said to have remarked to Mr. Gladstone. Eo one was better pleased than Mr. Chamberlain when the result proved that war was not only unnecessary but impossible, Germany and Austria having informed the Sultan that he was on no account to allow our fleet to pass the Dardanelles and the Bosphorus; and the Ameer of Afghanistan having informed Lord Dufferin at the same time that he would not on any account allow British troops to pass through Afghanistan to attack the Russians in Central Asia. When Mr. Chamberlain forswore his allegiance to Mr. Gladstone and went over into the Tory camp, he carried with him not only his thrall, Mr. Jesse Collings, and the whole Chamber- lain clan, but he also carried among his impedimenta his belief that an understanding with the Russians was both possible and desirable. In Council he had always advocated the establishment of an understand- ing with Russia, and hence when the negotiations about Port Arthur came to their unfortunate ending, he went off in a tangent in the opposite direction, and 138 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE in an outburst of temper declared that we would need a very long spoon if Ave were to sup with the Russians. It was only " pretty Fanny's way/' and thoroughly in accordance with the methods and manners of the new diplomacy, of which he is the patentee and sole pos- sessor of author's rights. I suppose Mr. Chamberlain would allege in self-defence, first, that he never ade- quately realized the extent to which Sir Claude Mac- Donald's attempt to convert Talienwan into a treaty port was inevitably regarded by the Russians as a scandalous breach of good faith on our part. The significance of the fact that Talienwan was the only ice-free port in that region through which Russia could have access to the sea may have escaped him. He fur- ther has the characteristic John Bullish belief that when you get mad the best thing to do is to swear at large. It blows off steam and relieves internal pres- sure to give your adversary a piece of your mind. That may be all very well for the individual citizen; but Mr. Chamberlain should never have forgotten that he was a Minister of the Crown, and in that capacity was bound to reduce the exuberance of his natural disposition within the limits of diplomatic propriety. When matters were in this troublous state, a further difficulty arose concerning the railway from Pekin to Neuchang. The Russians, whatever faults they may have had, and whatever mistakes they may have made in the conduct of their diplomacy in the Far East, can certainly not be accused of any reticence, reserve, or dissimulation as to the objects of their policy. They THE CHINESE PUZZLE 139 had, even before Port Arthur was taken, frankly avowed their objection to see any other European Power establish political influence in Manchuria. They had further made arrangements with the Chinese Government which precluded them from making any concessions giving political influence to any European Power within what they considered to be the sphere of their interest. The attempt made at Pekin in the interest of the concessionnaires who are financed by the Shanghai Bank, to obtain a concession for a rail- way to Neuchang, brought our Government face to face with the Russians. No sooner was it announced that the concession was to be granted than the Russians objected, the Chinese recoiled, and there was another outburst on the part of the Russophobist Jingo party against the interference of the Russian Government with British enterprise. The Russians said little but stood firm. The concession was inconsistent with the agreement which the Chinese had previously con- cluded with the Russians, and it had to be cancelled. Thereupon there was great ululation in the Jingo camp, and Lord Salisbury was abused in all the moods and tenses for making another of the graceful con- cessions which it was declared had made British policy a by-word for weakness and imbecility. As a matter of fact, Lord Salisbury could not help himself, for the Chinese had merely promised us a concession under pressure, which was incompatible with the agreement into which they had previously entered with the Rus- sian Government. Finally, after a good deal of angry 140 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE altercation, the Russian objection was sustained. Brit- ish money was to be used in the construction of the railway, but provision was taken to prevent the em- ployment of British capital being used as the lever for the establishment of a British imperium in imperio in Northern China. While the situation was in this strained state, mat- ters were made worse by various stories as to the con- cession of a railway running from Pekin southwards towards the Yang-tse-kiang valley which was financed by the Russo-Chinese Bank, and was held to be the mere stalking-horse for the extension of Russian polit- ical authority into a region which we had marked out for ourselves. I should have mentioned before that in the struggle between Russian and British diplomacy at Pekin, Eng- land had gained an extension of territory on the main- land opposite Hong Kong, and also had secured con- cessions for the opening of the Yang-tse-kiang valley to foreign vessels, which, in the opinion of those best competent to judge, counterbalanced a hundred-fold all the commercial advantages the Russians were likely to gain for twenty years to come in Manchuria. The British Government had also secured the still more important concession which went further towards creating an imperium in imperio in the Chinese Em- pire than all the other concessions put together. For a long time past the customs of the Chinese Empire have been under the control of Sir Robert Hart, who was Inspector-General of Customs. Sir Robert Hart's THE CHINESE PUZZLE 141 appointment, however, was purely personal. His sta- tus last year was changed by the arrangement arrived at between Great Britain and China, which not only secured Sir Robert Hart's position, but established the principle that his successor must be an Englishman, as long as the trade of Great Britain in China exceeded that of any of her competitors. All these advantages, however, seemed to the excited assailants of Lord Salis- bury as mere dust in the balance compared with the occupation of Port Arthur by Russia and the pruning of the concession of the JNeuchang railway. Hitherto it had been the established custom of the British Foreign Office not to lend the diplomatic sup- port of Great Britain to concession-hunters in China or elsewhere. It was Prince Bismarck who first be- gan the practice of using his Ambassadors as commer- cial travellers, and of employing the resources of Im- perial diplomacy in order to deflect orders to German firms. After struggling for some time against the clamor of the Ministerial press the Government gave way, and announced that they would support against Russia the Chinese Government's grant of any con- cession to a British subject. Mr. Gladstone called the Anglo-Turkish Treaty of 1878 "an insane conven- tion," but it was sanity itself compared with an under- taking which practically left it in the power of the Chinese Government to force us into a war with Rus- sia whenever it suited the policy of the mandarins to embroil her two great European neighbors. When things reached this pass, I thought it was about time 142 TEE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE that I recalled the suggestion made by the late Em- peror, and that I should proceed to Russia for the pur- pose of ascertaining, if possible, what the Russian Government was really driving at, and whether there was any possibility of clearing up misunderstandings and of ascertaining the real drift of events in the Far East. Before I started, however, matters began to mend, and negotiations — the " long spoon " notwithstanding — were begun between the Russian and the British Governments, the basis of which was the delimitation of their respective spheres of interest. The under- standing suggested by the Russian Foreign Office, and favorably considered by Great Britain, was that Britain should regard the province of Manchuria as lying en- tirely within the Russian sphere of interest, subject to the understanding that Talienwan was to be an open port, that no preferential duties were to be charged, and that all goods were to be admitted subject only to the maximum duties laid down in the Treaty of Tien- tsin. By this arrangement the door of Talienwan would be opened as wide as that of any other treaty port in the world ; British capital could be as fairly in- vested in Manchuria as in any other part of the Chinese Empire, but no concessions carrying political influence were to be sought by us in Manchuria. In return for this concession the Russians suggested that the valley of the Yang-tse-kiang should be regarded as the Brit- ish sphere of interest; and that they on their part would abstain from pushing for any concessions carrying THE CHINESE PUZZLE 143 political influence in the Yang-tse-kiang valley. The valley of the Yellow River, which lies between Man- churia and the Yang-tse-kiang, was to be a happy hunting-ground for the concessionnaires of both Em- pires — a kind of intermediate buffer State or sphere of interest, which would be common to both Empires. The matter did not go beyond diplomatic conversa- tions, in which the proposals put forward by the Rus- sians were not unfavorably considered by the British Government. Matters were in this state when, to the immense astonishment of every one, the Tsar's Rescript ap- peared, like a bolt from the blue sky. It was so utterly unexpected that, when one distinguished Rus- sian diplomatist was told by a friend what he had read in the papers, he put it down to the crass stupidity of his acquaintance, who, he thought, had probably mixed up some proposal for the disarmament of Cre- tan insurgents with a general proposal for an arrest of armaments. He was by no means alone in the amaze- ment which the Emperor's sudden initiative created throughout the ranks of diplomacy, both Russian and foreign. The publication of the Rescript gave at once a new objective to my tour. I had first merely intended to make a short trip to St. Petersburg, and to come back at once. But the Emperor by this time had gone to Livadia. It was the accident of his being in the Crimea that first suggested to me the idea of making the tour of Europe. I had never been further south 1U THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE than Toula in Kussia. I had never visited either the Balkan Peninsula or Austria-Hungary. I therefore decided to extend and enlarge my original design, and instead of merely going to see the Emperor, I pro- jected the tour round Europe which I subsequently carried out. Some of the first impressions of this run through the future Continental Commonwealth are embodied in the subsequent chapters. CHAPTER III HISPANIOLIZATIO^ The most conspicuous event in the history of 1898 was undoubtedly the sudden apparition of the United States on the field of world politics. It had long been foreseen as inevitable, but when the moment struck, the unanimity and enthusiasm with which the whole American nation rushed its Government into war startled the onlookers, especially those who had paid little attention to the development of American Im- perialism. It is tolerably safe to say that, outside Great Britain, there were very few persons who were in the least degree prepared for the outburst of 1898; and even in Great Britain there were many who were very much taken by surprise. The English, however, had one great advantage which enabled them to under- stand and appreciate the nature of the American move- ment. This was not so much community of language as the instinct of race. After all, what had happened in the United States was nothing but what had, time and again, happened in Great Britain. We had, in- deed, led the way in all such enterprises for more than a generation past. ~No Englishman who was in the least degree informed as to the nature of Spanish mis- 10 146 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE government in Cuba will deny that, had the policy of the United States been directed by the statesmen of Downing Street, and had the American people been subject to the impulses which sway the British public, the Spanish flag would long ago have disappeared from the American Continent. Another great advantage which enabled our people to understand the action of America was the close analogy which existed between the American move- ment for the liberation of Cuba and the great agita- tions which from time to time had swept over this country in favor of the liberation of Christian prov- inces from the Sultan. English policy has occasion- ally been revolutionized, and has frequently been deflected by a great humanitarian impulse beating pas- sionately in the hearts of the common people. On the Continent of Europe such experiences are either unknown or are extremely rare. Hence, when the United States declared war against Spain, it was only in England that the sincerity, the genuineness of the popular feeling found general recognition. Every- where else it was believed that the humanitarian professions which figured so conspicuously in the dip- lomatic and public declarations of the American Government were mere pretexts put forward to mask a long meditated design upon the possessions of a neighbor. The English, who have been accustomed to similar misrepresentations on the part of Continen- tal nations, found themselves in lively sympathy with their American kinsfolk, not merely because of what HISPANIOLIZATION 147 they were doing, but because of the way in which they were misjudged by their critics. But while this was true concerning the outbreak of the war, even the English were not a little amazed at the sudden development of American ambitions. It is true, no doubt, that the completeness and dramatic character of the American successes at Manila and at Santiago were sufficient- to elate a less excitable people than the Americans. But that the American Repub- lic, which for a century had been constantly held up before our eyes as a type of the staid, serious, business- like commonwealth, should suddenly have passed under the sway of Imperial ambitions, would not have been credited in England any more than it would have been in the United States itself before Dewey de- stroyed the Spanish fleet at Manila. It is, no doubt, true that the motives which led the Americans to in- sist upon the cession of the Philippines were largely humanitarian, and sprang in great measure from a con- ception of Imperial duty which was far removed from anything that could be described as Jingoism. The sentiment of the obligations which they owed to the islanders, whose government they had destroyed; the sense of supreme power, carrying with it obligations which must be fulfilled — even though they exposed the Commonwealth to misrepresentation and imposed upon the United States a burden much more onerous than profitable — undoubtedly counted for much more than censorious critics are willing to admit. At the same time it was impossible to deny that below all the 148 TEE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE lofty motives which impelled many Americans to take up their cross and accept the responsibility of civiliz- ing the Philippines, there was a strong turbid flood of masterful ambition. The Americans had felt their strength for the first time beyond the seas. They had made their debut in the arena of world politics. They had gained immediate and universal recognition as a world Power — as they believed, the greatest of the world Powers. They had conquered; why should they not annex ? Annexation was the fashion of the hour. All the other Powers had established outposts on the Asiatic Continent. It was not for the United States to shrink appalled from assuming a burden which much weaker states had borne with pride for genera- tion after generation. The pride of victory, the flush of conquest, the determination to assert themselves in the world — in short all the motives with which we are, alas! only too familiar, asserted themselves imperi- ously across the Atlantic, and combined with much more exalted sentiments in impressing upon the Old World the sense of the sudden advent of a new com- petitor for empire, richer than any of those which had already engaged in the partitioning of the world, and which was likely to bring to the great international game a spirit of audacity, not to say of recklessness, far greater than their own. We are even now much too near such a great world-event adequately to realize its importance. It was not only the advent of a new and formi- dable factor which must henceforth be reckoned with HISPANIOLIZATION 149 in the world problem that startled and bewildered Europe. There came along with it a curious sense of the instability of things. The older nations felt very much as the inhabitants in a region which for the first time has been swayed by an earthquake. Down to the day when Dewey destroyed the Spanish fleet at Manila, nothing seemed so absolutely fixed and stable in a mutable world as the determination of the United States not to fly their flag on any territory but their own. The traditional policy of the United States, the declarations of their statesmen, the appar- ently unanimous conviction of the people, all com- bined to make the rest of the world believe that what- ever might happen within the American Continent, they were quite safe in calculating that, excepting be- tween the Pacific and the Atlantic, the United States need not be reckoned with. The day after the destruc- tion of the fleet at Manila the whole scene changed as if by magic. The traditional policy, the declarations of statesmen, nay more, even the convictions of the people themselves, seemed to be totally transformed. The mariners who landed upon the back of the kraken, and imagined that they were on terra ftrma, were not more astonished when the huge monster suddenly dived beneath the sea, than was mankind when the United States asserted their determination to keep what the victory of Dewey had placed within their grasp. Simultaneously with the blazing apparition of American Imperialism there was witnessed another phenomenon, which in its way was equally disquieting. 150 TEE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE Spain, down to the beginning of this year, had been considered, not indeed as a great Power, but as a state which was capable of holding its own within the lim- ited area of its influence. The reputation of Spanish statesmen, it is true, was not very high, but it was be- lieved that they were at any rate sane — that at Madrid there were Ministers who realized their responsibility, and who would bring to the government of the country the same forethought and care that is displayed by or- dinary men in the ordinary affairs of life. The Span- ish fleet, for instance, was believed to be no inadequate opponent of the fleet of the United States. They had behind them a great tradition. The quality of the vessels was first class. Their armament was thought to be even superior to that of the American ships. In land forces they were overwhelmingly superior in number and equipment, in discipline and in experi- ence. The army in Cuba had been acclimatized by long campaigns waged against the insurgents. The almost universal calculation was that Spain at least could hold her own for a time, while in Cuba itself she would make a long and arduous resistance. 1898, however, showed that Spain had gone rotten at the head. They had the ships, but their armament was lacking. They had the sailors, but they were un- trained in gunnery, and lacked the necessary experi- ence in naval warfare. The advantages of material were useless, and when they were put to the test they went down like a row of ninepins before their assailants. HISPANIOLIZATION 151 Far more serious, however, than the failure of the fleet was the evidence which the war afforded of the lack of any serious thought or any practical common sense on the part of the so-called statesmen of Madrid. Imbecility is hardly too strong a term to use to de- scribe the way in which the Spanish Government en- countered the reverses which rained upon them in two Continents. It was then discovered that Spain had not only ceased to be a Power among the nations, but that she was no longer capable of producing adminis- trators who possessed either the nerve, the conscience, or the morale necessary for the maintenance of the national credit or the defence of the national interests. There then came into use a word of which we are likely to hear a good deal more in the years that are to come. That term was " hispayiiolization" A decaying state, when it reaches a certain point of what may be called national putrefaction, is said to be " hispaniolized." It marks an advanced stage in national decay. ITispaniolization, indeed, is no new phenomenon, but we have never seen it exhibited on so great a scale in a nation which at one time had played the foremost role in the drama of history. In the previous year there had been afforded another example in a young state of the same lack of serious purpose, the same absence of common sense, the same reckless indiffer- ence to the most simple and elementary facts of government, which were subsequently displayed in Madrid. The levity, the absurdity, the fantastic dis- regard of the plainest duties which characterized the 152 TEE EXITED STATES OF EUROPE policy of Greece when she challenged war with Tur- key, afforded only too close a parallel to the conduct of Spain. In both countries were constitutional mon- archies. In both the concession of representative government had resulted in producing nothing more worthy of respect than a scramble of office-seekers for the spoils, and neither country in the hour of its mis- fortune showed any capacity to produce a strong and capable administrator. Hence ensued, when the mo- ment of trial came, a paralysis which brought both states to the verge of ruin. Greece was saved by the intervention of the Powers, which threw their shield over the prostrate kingdom. Spain found no friends in need, and had to consent reluctantly to the sacrifice of almost all its possessions over sea. Financial dis- aster accompanied military defeat, and nations every- where realized more vividly than ever before that states, like individuals, could go reeling down to the grave with exhausted vitality and a paralyzed brain. At the same time that this tremendous world-drama was being enacted in the presence of the whole world, two of the greatest statesmen who had long towered aloft as pillars in the international Commonwealth were removed by death. Mr. Gladstone was the first to go ; but he had hardly been laid to rest in the Abbey before Germany had to lament the disappearance of the great statesman whose iron hand had rebuilt the fabric of German unity in the latter half of the nine- teenth century. The nations which had been gov- erned for nearly the lifetime of a generation by old, KoUtrtunai\ Budapest DEZOS SZILAGY Goszlelh, Bu lapest BARON BANFFY Kollertanar, Budapest Strelisky^ Budapest M. TISZA MAURUS JOKAI SOME STATESMEN OF AUSTRIA-HUNGARY HISPANIOLIZATION 153 experienced statesmen, found themselves in the hands of comparative tyros. The throne of Russia was occu- pied by an almost unknown young man. The desti- nies of Germany were in the hands of a monarch whose restless energy and feverish ambition offered the sharpest possible contrast to the traditional idea of the stolid, phlegmatic and matter-of-fact nation over which he ruled. In Austria-Hungary, the rivalry of the various nationalities which make up that com- posite empire-kingdom seemed to have escaped the con- trol of the Government. Between Austria-Hungary and chaos there existed but the barrier of a single life ; nor was there either in Hungary or in Austria a single statesman of European reputation. France was torn by internal dissensions, the end of which no one could foresee. For a moment M. Hanotaux had seemed to display some capacity to give permanence and con- sistency to French foreign policy; but M. Hanotaux disappeared, and a succession of ephemeral Ministries once more showed that while the Third Republic pos- sessed an infinite capacity for producing politicians eager for portfolios, she showed no sign of any ability to produce a directing class or a statesman with genius for government. In England the situation, although apparently more stable, had many elements of anxiety, not to say of danger. Foremost among these must be placed the disappearance of the balance of the Constitution. Hitherto the government of the British Empire had always been conducted on the assumption that the 154 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE party in power was confronted by an Opposition which conld be relied upon to act as a check upon the Govern- ment, and which was prepared at any moment to take office and form an administration composed of trained statesmen with a well-defined political programme. But of late years that security has disappeared. Lord Salisbury was in power at the head of a large majority almost entirely free from the restraint and the control which previous administrations had found in the ex- istence of an Opposition. Whenever a Liberal Gov- ernment is in power it has always to reckon with the House of Lords, which is a permanently Conservative body. Lord Salisbury was equally supreme both in the House of Lords and in the House of Commons. Confronting him in the House of Commons there was only a disorganized and distracted remnant of a great historical party, which had neither a leader to follow nor a policy to recommend. As a natural and inevit- able result, Ministers, freed from the usual restraints of Governments and finding themselves confronted by no organized Opposition, gave free scope to their individual idiosyncrasies. Under the semblance of a homogeneous Cabinet we were confronted with the spectacle of a Prime Minister whose pacific tendency was more or less openly countered by the current of bellicose sentiment which found its leader in Mr. Chamberlain. In the House of Commons party disci- pline preserved the outward semblance of unity; but in the press, especially in the newspapers which were nominally Ministerialist, this hostile tendency found HISPANIOLIZATION 155 vent in a series of unsparing criticisms which left little or nothing to be said by the recognized chiefs of the Liberal Opposition. The situation, indeed, was one Which in some re- spects bore an ominous resemblance to that which existed when the Aberdeen Cabinet controlled the destinies of England in the middle of the century. Lord Aberdeen, although differing in many respects from Lord Salisbury, nevertheless resembled him in a strong predisposition against war and against policies which were likely to necessitate the adoption of a course of warlike adventure. Mr. Chamberlain was the Lord Palmerston of the situation. Both had the same dominant characteristics — a swaggering deter- mination to assert themselves without much regard to the susceptibilities of their neighbors, and an un- compromising readiness to adopt the last arguments of kings when other arguments failed. If we were to carry the parallel further we might find considerable analogy between the position of Mr. Balfour in 1898 and that of Mr. Gladstone in 1854. Mr. Kinglake, in a well-known passage, has explained how it was that a Cabinet, whose Prime Minister was devoted to peace, and whose chief pillar of strength in the House of Commons was equally free from all imputation of Chauvinism, nevertheless drifted fatally into war. More than once in the course of the past year it seemed as if the parallel would hold true, even to the last bloody ultimate. Fortunately, so far, we have been spared, but no one who looks back over the history of 156 THE UXITED STATES OF EUROPE the twelve months, and sees the alternate phases of bluster and " bunkum/' of graceful concessions and prudent retreat which followed each other with almost the regularity of the black and white squares on a checker-board, can feel particularly proud of the ex- periment of governing without an Opposition. On the Opposition benches there was an utter and woful lack of either initiative or resolution. At the beginning of the year a great opportunity was offered to the Liberals of adopting a line which, as the result proved, would have commended itself to the country, and would have obviated most of the misfortunes which subsequently ensued. If they had definitely followed the plan laid down by Lord Kose- bery when he abandoned the leadership and insisted that the time had come to call "Halt ! " in the extension of the responsibilities, territorial and otherwise, of Great Britain ; and if they had steadily and resolutely supported Lord Salisbury in his efforts to maintain a rational and pacific policy in the Far East ; — much that is most to be regretted in the history of the year would not have been written. But the instinct of the Oppo- sition to oppose, even when it has neither an alterna- tive policy nor an alternative Cabinet to place before the country, was too strong for the adoption of a policy which would at once have been patriotic and prudent. The pacific section of the Ministry found themselves overwhelmed by the pitiless hail of snarling criticisms showered upon them by their own organs morning, noon and night. The young men of the party, wax- HISPANIOLIZATION 157 ing bold, and feeling that they conld indulge with im- punity in the license of irresponsible criticism, took a delight in assailing their own side for want of energy in defending British interests, which, being inter- preted, meant going to war with Russia. It is hardly possible to conceive of a more fatuous course than that which was taken by Sir William Har- court, who, while professedly desiring to maintain peace, used the whole of his great forces of raillery and sarcasm in ridiculing the Government and in hold- ing them up to derision for their lack of vigor and the inconsistency of their policy. One of his speeches which dwells in the memory was one long invective, every sentence of which tended directly in favor of the party that was endeavoring to hound the Govern- ment into war; and then by way of salve to his con- science he wound up by expressing a great desire for a good understanding and friendly relations with Russia. A member of the Cabinet said to me on the eve of the Southport election, " We shall lose Southport and we shall lose all the by-elections because we won't go to war with Russia." I replied, " Not at all. You would lose your by-elections much worse if you did go to war with Russia. The fact is, you can govern this country either on a peace tack or on a Jingo tack; but you can't govern this country and win your by- elections if you are Jingo one day and all for peace the next." As Mr. Spender frequently remarked in the Westminster Gazette, it is absolutely impossible to 158 TEE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE steer the British lion when tv\ T o men are on his back, one sticking his spurs rowel-deep into his flanks, while the next moment his colleague is reining him in with curb and bit. During the whole of that trying time, when the issues of peace and war were hanging in the balance, and it seemed as if the peace section in the Cabinet would be overborne by the clamors of their own sup- porters, Lord Rosebery, who had flung up the Liberal leadership rather than assent to what he regarded as a dangerous drift towards war for the redress of the wrongs of the Armenians, said never a word, but pre- served a silence of the Sphinx on the rare occasions on which he was visible to his countrymen. At last, when things came to a head, and the Government, after fumbling and floundering, felt that it must placate its supporters by seizing something somewhere, and Wei- Hai-Wei was occupied, the nation waited with anxiety for some words of wisdom from the men of light and leading who were responsible for the direction of the affairs of the Opposition. But Lord Rosebery w T as as dumb as a sheeted corpse, while the Liberal leaders in the House of Commons decided with only one dis- sentient that it would be impolitic for them to adopt the policy of a resolute opposition to such an extension of our imperial responsibilities. So the party which had been self-decapitated in order to prevent action in the interest of humanity in the near East, contented itself with the emission of barren and futile criticisms upon the seizure of a great stronghold in the China HISPANIOLIZATION 159 seas. The clamor of concessionaires, the angry de- nunciations of men whose business had not prospered as much as they hoped it might have done in the China trade, found no strong and resolute voice upraised to rebuke the heedless selfishness of financial greed. All this, it must be confessed, has an ominous resemblance to the beginnings of hispaniolization in our own Empire. Amid all this paralysis of self-effacement by a de- moralized and disheartened Opposition, and the con- flicting counsels and eddying policies of a Cabinet, in which it seemed as if Mr. Chamberlain and Lord Salis- bury were striving for mastery as Jacob and Esau struggled together before birth, it was impossible not to be impressed by a phenomenon which boded ill for the peace of nations. That phenomenon was the growth of the influence of the daily press. It may sound paradoxical, but it is nevertheless true that side by side w T ith this alarming development of the power of irresponsible journalism there has been as percept- ible a diminution of the influence of the press as an arena for the grave discussion of public questions. The paradox is easily explicable when we reflect upon the dual nature of a newspaper. The editor of a news- paper is the showman of the universe. It is given to him to display before the eyes of mankind the vast moving panorama which is continually in progress among mankind. You put your penny or your half- penny into the slot, and you are permitted to survey mankind from China to Peru. The keeper of this 160 TEE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE journalistic slot-machine, as a condition of his exist- ence, must make his living photographs move as viv- idly, picturesquely and dramatically as possible before the eyes of the public whom he wishes to attract, other- wise they will go to somebody else's slot-machine, and he will be left penniless. Side by side with this func- tion of showman, the editor combines the task of a mentor, discussing, praising, condemning and judging the actions of the characters which he displays in vivid life upon his broadsheet. But men are but grown-up children at the best; and no one who has had any experience of the nursery can have forgotten the impatience with which youngsters resent the morals that all serious-minded writers used to consider necessary to round off their tales. So inveterate is the habit of skipping the moral that I well remember, when I brought out an edition of zEsop's Fables in my " Books for the Bairns," I reversed the usual cus- tom, and condensed the moral into a headline as the only chance of its finding acceptance with the juvenile public. Editors are driven to act very much in the same manner. The showman gains more and more upon the moralist, and the influence of the editor is more felt in the headlines of his paper than in his leading articles. The " scare-heads," to give them the expressive name which they enjoy in the United States, have gained; the leading articles have lost. Hence the influence of the journalist which has devel- oped of late is not the influence of the writer of lead- ing articles, who at least is bound to state arguments HISPANIOLIZATION 161 in a more or less rational and consecutive fashion ; but it is the influence of journalism of the scare-head vari- ety, which employs all the resources of type for the purpose of emphasizing and deepening the sensation of the news of the day. It is easy to see how this change has come about. Twenty or thirty years ago the majority of our people did not read the daily newspapers, and those who did were more or less educated. Since the Education Act began to turn out millions of youths with sufficient education to read the newspapers, a new public was created unaccustomed to the serious discussion of polit- ical affairs, but quite willing to be interested in the endless sensations with which the progress of events is constantly supplying the reader of newspapers. They were willing to read the daily papers, but only on con- dition that the news was short and spicy, and served up in tit-bits with all the garnishing that effective sub- editing could give it. We see the ultimate outcome of this tendency in the Daily Mail, a journal established within the last two years by a man with a natural genius for journal- ism, with limitless resources and restless energy. The Daily Mail, a halfpenny morning paper, although the youngest of the London dailies, has far eclipsed all its older rivals in circulation. But its leading articles are but snippets, and its political comments are often little more than snap-shots. It owes its success to the ability, energy, and resources with which its editor has succeeded in making it the mirror in which you 11 162 TEE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE can see in miniature the reflection of everything that is going on in the world that is piquant, interesting, or sensational. It is a many-colored quilt of piquant paragraphs, all duly displayed with adequate scare- heads, and the whole served up with a snippety-snap smartness and up-to-dateness which abundantly ac- counts for its phenomenal success. A journal that has already achieved a circulation of half a mil- lion a day is a fact whose significance cannot be ignored as an index to the state of public feeling or as an influence in the direction of public af- fairs. The Daily Mail, in short, is a first-class half- penny show, which has counted for a good deal in the development of the impatient unrest of the London public to which Ministers are always more or less responsive. I give this prominence to the Daily Mail for an- other reason — because it so vividly illustrates the ascendency which the scare-head editor has over the responsible director of the responsible political opin- ions of the paper. There are few men in London who are so level-headed and so sane on the subject of China and our relations with Russia as the editor of the Daily Mail. Mr. Alfred Harmsworth is of the school of Cecil Rhodes; and Cecil Rhodes has never even had the mildest attack of Russophobia. No school in the Empire has looked more dispassionately and judicially upon the progress of Russia than the Rhodesians, and in this Mr. Harmsworth is a faithful disciple of his master. Although these may be the convictions of HISPANIOLIZATION 163 the editor, it unfortunately cannot be said that the Daily Mail's influence during the whole of the agi- tated period was in favor of rationality or of the pur- suance of a reasonable and sympathetic course in the region where the interests of Kussia and England were supposed to be at stake. It is more piquant, more in- teresting, and tends more to keep up the sensation and interest of the show to issue day by day a paper bris- tling with suggestions that the Kussians were over- reaching us and that Lord Salisbury was being bested; and so things went on until we had the Mail almost threatening the Government with disaster if it did not seize Wei-Hai-Wei or some other vantage point in China. Another example may be cited of latter-day journal- ism which in one respect is more apposite, but in an- other does not illustrate quite so clearly the conflicting influence of the editor and the writer of scare-heads. The New York Journal, which a few years ago came into the possession of Mr. W. R. Hearst, became last year in many ways the most notable specimen of the journalism which is now in the ascendant. If you wish to know the difference between America of thirty years ago and America of to-day, you only need to compare the New York Tribune with the New York Journal, and contrast Horace Greeley with "W. R. Hearst. The New York Journal is the supreme example of successful journalism achieved by what may be described as the persistent adoption of a policy of spasmodic sensation. Mr. Hearst is a man com- 164 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE paratively young, a millionaire with great journalistic flair e, and without any well-defined political prin- ciples, who nevertheless was possessed by a vast ambi- tion. At first the ambition seems to have taken no other definite shape or form than a determination to beat the New York World on its own ground. To this end he poured out money like water, and by a series of Napoleonic coups at last established himself in the premier position of American journalist. Dur- ing the Avar, when he had a fresh edition nearly every ten minutes, and filled up the intervals by painting the latest bulletins on enormous boardings in front of the office, the circulation is said to have reached 1,250,- 000 per clay, a circulation without previous parallel in the history of American journalism. A distinguished statesman speaking of the New York Journal and its rival the New York World, expressed with great vehemence his conviction that the " yellow journalism," as it is called, of ISTew York was " the most potent engine ever devised by the devil for the demoralization of the democracy." Strong as this declaration may appear, it is feeble compared with the denunciations which are rained upon the Journal by the Americans of the soberer and saner variety, whom you find in diplomatic posts abroad or meet in society. So vehement and violent are the diatribes levelled against Mr. Hearst and the Journal that I have occasionally found myself in danger of in- curring the major excommunication because I have occasionally acceded to his request to contribute spe- HISPANIOLIZATION 165 cial articles to his columns. In reality, the Journal is by no means the leprous rag which its enemies repre- sent it. It is a newspaper which appeals to the crowd. Kot even the greatest of journalistic Barnums could attract a million readers to his show without largely pandering, if we may use so strong a word, to the groundlings. It would be high treason in America to use the phrase once familiar in English politics and to describe the newspaper public as a " swinish multi- tude; " but there is a greater element of truth in the phrase than sticklers for the dignity of human nature would always be disposed to admit. The public is not so much swinish, as it is preoccupied with its own af- fairs, and if its attention is to be attracted it needs to be stimulated, to be shocked as by a perpetual succes- sion of electric thrills. All newspapers recognize this more or less, but Mr. Hearst last year was the supreme practitioner of the art. To get up a sensation, to keep it going, and before it has time to be played out to get up another sensation, and yet another, in endless suc- cession — with that whole art and mystery of latter-day journalism he was familiar to his finger-tips. But it would be a great mistake to regard these showman arts by which the crowd is attracted to the fair as repre- senting the whole or even the greater part of the phe- nomenal position which Mr. Hearst attained. For some time the Journal swung to and fro, apparently without either chart, compass, or steering directions; but within the last year it aspired to be much more than the mere sounding-board of the " cackle of the 16G THE UXITED STATES OF EUROPE bourg," or the journalistic cinematograph of the events of the world's history. More than any other man in the United States, Mr. Hearst was responsible for the war with Spain. As he constantly avowed in his leading columns, while other newspapers were content to try to chronicle his- tory, it was the boast of the Journal to make it; and he made it with a vengeance. Whatever we may think as to the wisdom or unwisdom of the course which the Journal has advocated, no one can deny that from first to last it preached what may be called the expansionist doctrine with a vehemence, an energy, an ability, and a persistency which could not be ex- celled. Responsible American statesmen will tell you that they never read the Journal, that it is a paper that is never seen in any respectable house, and that it is a great mistake to pay any attention to what they call its " ravings." But to all this I have only to make the same reply that Prince Bismarck made to a British Ambassador, to whom he had complained about some articles in the Pall Mall Gazette. " The Pall Mall Gazette;' said the Ambassador impatiently, " is in no sense a Ministerial organ." "No," said Bismarck, "perhaps not; but whatever the Pall Mall Gazette says to-day, Ministers do to-morrow." And it may safely be said that if any one wished to form a correct estimate of the prob- able drift of American policy during the whole of last year, he would have found a much safer guide in the leading columns of the Journal than in the avowed HISPANIOLIZATION 167 intentions and genuine convictions of President McKinley and his Cabinet. Nor is it only in the English-speaking countries that we find the influence of the latter-day journalist exert- ing more and more a dominant influence in the direc- tion of the affairs of nations. There is only one other paper in the world which can challenge primacy, in point of view of circulation, with the New York Journal. That is the Petit Journal of France. The Petit Journal is a creation largely of the publishing genius of Marinoni. It counts its daily circulation by the million, and there is no nook or corner of France into which it does not penetrate. It has many good qualities, and, like both the Daily Mail and the New York Journal, it is conspicuously free from any ap- peal to the great goddess Lubricity, whose modern Paphos is Paris. But of all engines for exciting and intensifying national hatred and envenoming the feel- ings of class against class, it would be difficult to find anvthinff worse than the Petit Journal. No accusa- tion against England is too absurd not to be welcomed in its columns, and no invective against the friends of Dreyfus can be too savage for the editorial taste. It goes forth day by day with its million voices into all the villages and hamlets of France, engendering hatred and stirring up strife. This perhaps is a natural and an inevitable result of the extension of the journalistic suffrage to great masses of the people to whom you can only appeal if you print in very large capitals, and whose attention 168 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE you can only command by a perpetual prodding with a very sharp pen. The old readers, the minority, may still read their papers, but they are no longer in the exclusive possession of the field. Their judgment is overborne; their voice is silenced by the murmur which rises from the great crowd at the show, which when it is tickled laughs, and when it is provoked roars from a million throats. This, it may be said, is only democracy, but it is democracy articulate. It is a partial return under modern conditions to the ancient practice in which the affairs of a state were decided by the whole people assembled together in a mass meet- ing. The modern nation is little better than a huge mass meeting, in which the voice of the scare-head editor alone has stridency sufficient to carry to the verge of the crowd. His voice is never still. It sounds from a vantage like that of the muezzin's tower, high above the city's din, when it cries; but not like the simple Mahometan, " To prayers, to prayers ! There is no God but God, and Mahomet is the prophet of God," — rather it cries aloud to the barbaric in- stinct of self-aggrandizement, self-assertion, self-glori- fication. " There is no people so great as the Ameri- can people," cries the Journal from its million issues, " no people so great, so glorious, so good, so altogether fashioned in the image of God." And so in similar fashion our latter-day journalists instead of acting as mentors, accept the role of flatterers, and diligently fan the flames of national egotism and imperial ambi- tion. It is, perhaps, too much to expect a journalist Nadar, Paris M. DRTJMONT Editor of the " Libre Parole " Gerschel, Paris M. PRESSENS^ Foreign Editor of the " Temps " Santony, Paris M. ROCHEFORT Editor of " I/Intransigeant '* Pirou, Pan GEORGES CLEMENCEAU Editor of " L'Aurore " SOME FRENCH EDITORS HISPANIOLIZATION 169 who depends for his existence upon the crowds which he can attract through his halfpenny peep-show, to don the mantle of a prophet and to risk stoning in the market-place for speaking stern but unpalatable truths in the ears of his countrymen; but the fact that the temptation to flatter the prejudices and minister to the passions of the crowd is almost irresistible increases rather than diminishes the danger of the position. This phenomenon is one of the most conspicuous and universally recognized perils which threaten the maintenance of peace. It is no longer in the cabinets of monarchs or in the closets of despots that we must seek for the greatest peril which threatens the tran- quillity of the world. The despot, especially if he be hereditary, is saddled with an ever-present sense of responsibility. He is trained for his task from his childhood, and he is chained to his throne by obliga- tions from which he cannot divest himself. But the irresponsible editor, who flings firebrands all day long amid the combustibles of national passion, lives only for the day, and has no restraint either of law or of custom placed upon his reckless incentives to war. I did not meet a single responsible man in the course of my tour through Europe, whether he might be jour- nalist or statesman, diplomatist or sovereign, who did not frankly admit that the unbridled license of the press, and the interest which it had in promoting situ- ations that create sensation, constituted the most alarming and serious danger against which it behoved V 170 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE statesmen to provide some barrier if the peace were to be maintained. A well-known journalist in Paris to whom I had made some such observation as this, exclaimed: "Noth- ing could be more true. There are men in Paris at this moment who, in order to sell ten more copies of their paper to-night, would not hesitate to make the whole planet swim with human blood." It is easier to point to the evil than to indicate the remedy, but one or two observations are forcing them- selves with increasing pressure upon the attention of responsible men. The liberty of the press is one of the most cherished palladia of human freedom. Eng- land is the home of such liberty, but in England the law is prompt to punish any attempt on the part of the press to express an opinion upon any question when once it has come before the attention of the courts. Is it too much to hope that when the United States of Europe comes more visibly into shape as a state organ- ism, a similar restraint may be laid upon newspapers in the discussion of international questions when they are lodged for settlement before an international tribunal ? In this connection I may be pardoned for recalling an incident in my own experience. Some years ago, Jabez Balfour, the founder of the Liberator Building Society, failed, and involved in his downfall the ruin of thousands of the most deserving and most unfor- tunate of British investors. Instead of waiting to answer before the tribunals of his country for the HISPANIOLIZATION 171 gigantic system of embezzlement and fraud by which he had plundered the widow and orphan in a thousand homes, he bolted from the country and took refuge in the Argentine Republic. Much diplomatic represen- tation was necessary and no small expense was in- curred before his extradition was agreed to, and he was handed over to the officers of the law, who brought him back to answer for his crimes in the dock at New- gate. In chronicling the fact of his being brought back to justice in my monthly review of events, under the heading of " The Progress of the World," I re- marked that the said Balfour was a rare rogue, and added that we should soon hear no more of him. That he was a rare rogue no one could deny. That we did hear no more of him was a prophecy literally fulfilled, because within a very few weeks he was consigned to a felon's cell, where he still remains in durance vile. Nevertheless for making that perfectly obvious remark concerning a man who had set our laws at defiance and was being brought back by the strong hand of the law to undergo his trial on a criminal charge, I was haled up before Her Majesty's Judges, severely re- proved and fined £100 and costs in order to teach me the limits of the liberties of the press in commenting upon affairs which are still sub judice. Against the justice of that verdict, and the sound- ness of the principle upon which the law was enforced, not one protest was raised in the press, nor do I make any complaint on my own account. It was no doubt a personal hardship, but the principle was worth main- 172 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE taming at the cost of such individual inconvenience. But if, instead of hazarding a passing observation as to a criminal not yet tried, who had virtually admitted his guilt by fleeing from the jurisdiction of the Courts, I had strained every resource of passion and of rhet- oric in order to inflame public opinion on a question involving peace or war which was being handled by the Foreign Offices of two countries — if I had suc- ceeded in rousing popular passion to such an extent that it was impossible for the still, small voice of rea- son to be heard, and if, as a result, I had succeeded in hounding my country into a terrible war, I should no doubt have been held answerable before the judgment- seat of the Almighty, but there exists no human power and no judicial authority on this planet that would have called me to account. The contrast between the excessive severity with which the law guards the impartiality and the serenity of the judicial bench in cases involving the liberty and property of private citizens, and the indifference which is displayed to passionate invectives avowedly directed against the dispassionate consideration of international disputes, can only be regarded as a recklessness too great to have been incurred deliberately by any sane people, and which, therefore, will sooner or later have to be corrected when the attention of mankind has been turned to this omission in the panoply of civili- zation. PART III TEE NORTHWESTERN STATES CHAPTEE I BELGIUM Before even I had landed on the Continent a catas- trophe that overwhelmed Cervera's fleet on the Cuban coast was vividly recalled to the mind by the associa- tions of the narrow seas through which the Ostend steamer ploughed its way. The very wind was still, the unquiet seas were smooth, and overhead the silent stars looked down from a cloudless sky. But along that low-lying coast, where glimmered here and there the sentinel lights, there swept three hundred years ago, in bloody confusion and smoking ruin, the wreck of the Armada of Spain. I had not been twelve hours in Brussels before I found myself in the Chapel Royal, attending the re- quiem mass for the hapless Empress of Austria. All the Diplomatic Corps attended in full dress, Protestant and Catholic, Christian and Moslem alike testifying in formal courtly fashion, as the solemn music wailed through the crowded church, the common sorrow of 174 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE the world for the Imperial victim. But even there the memory of the war obtruded. For among the throng of gorgeous uniforms two figures stood con- spicuous by the sombre plainness of their attire. The American Minister, of course, wore his usual plain clothes. But matching him, to the no small astonishment of the Diplomatic Corps, stood the Span- ish Minister in undress. Why, no one knew. Spain, we knew, had lost her colonies and her fleets, but she surely had a uniform left. Leaving the church, I strolled down to the most famous monument in the city, the famous square, sacred to the memory of Counts Egmont and Horn, the patriot victims of the Duke of Alva, the Weyler of his day. Everywhere in the Low Countries you stumble upon traces of the sanguinary flood-tide of Spanish conquest, of the heroic sacrifices by which these lands were redeemed for civilization and human- ity in the days bygone. Nowhere could I more fit- tingly begin my mission of inquiry as to what the Old World thought of the New America, than in the thriv- ing, industrious commonwealth which rose from the ashes of the Alva's vengeance. Belgium is not one of the Great Powers, but the little kingdom is a microcosm of Europe. Her inter- national position, her close proximity to and intimate relation with France and Germany, her traditional intimacy with England, the recent and astonishing development of her industrial enterprise in Russia, make her a vantage point from which the European BELGIUM 175 movement of opinion can be studied more conven- iently and advantageously than almost any other land. But from the point of view of my American mission to ascertain what the Old "World thinks of the latest new departure of the New World — that world which, ever since it was discovered by Columbus, has been an increasing source of astonishment to Europe — there was still another reason for making Belgium the start- ing point of a European tour of interrogation. The parallel between Belgium and the United States is curiously close. Both countries owe their political existence to a successful revolution. Although one is monarchical and the other Republican, both are alike blessed with a constitution which has its imperishable bases on the principles of the sovereignty of the people, the liberty of the press, and the liberty and equality of all religions. Both countries at their foundations abjured all ambition of foreign conquest. Each pro- fessed a resolute determination to cultivate its own garden without meddling with the lands beyond its borders. Both are industrious, prosperous, peaceful and contented, the envy of their neighbors and an example for the world. If the United States had no army, Belgium had no fleet. Nevertheless Belgium, or rather the ruler of Bel- gium, succumbed even sooner than the United States to the fascination of over-sea dominion. While Americans are still hesitating whether or not to make two bites of the Philippine cherry, Belgium has, within the last dozen years, built up for herself a 176 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE tropical Empire in Africa almost eighty times her own area. She is dreaming of concessions in China, she is making immense investments in Russia. Everywhere she is looking over the pale of her own little garden for fresh fields for the investment of her super- abundant capital and for the exercise of her exuberant energy. Belgium's experience, therefore, enables Bel- gians to form a sympathetic and intelligent judgment concerning the new departure in America. I spent some days in Brussels, during which I had an opportunity of forming a tolerably comprehensive conception of Belgian opinion on the subject. There is no feeling of alarm or antipathy in Belgium to America's expansion, either in the West Indies or in the Philippines. They criticize it impartially, feeling that it does not concern them. But they protest against any parallel being drawn between the found- ing of the Empire of the Congo and the acquisition of the Philippines. Belgium, the King protests emphatic- ally, is so small, so crowded a country — it has a popula- tion of 6,000,000 on the area of 11,300 square miles — that if he did not look out for fresh fields and pas- tures new his flock would ere long be compelled to eat each other. The King of the Belgians, who, if he had but a wider scope for the exercise of his abilities, might have achieved a foremost position in the history of our times, is the founder of the Congo State. His point of view is that it is the very smallness of the Belgian kingdom which justifies the policy of expansion. As (sife'ruzet, Brussels, after Numa Blanc, Camus LEOPOLD, KING OF THE BELGIANS C. F. Gordes, Haarh m M. CREMEE Minister for Colonies, Netherlands Ghmther, Brussels THE CROWN PlilNCE OF BELGIUM THE QUEEN OF BELGIUM BELGIUM 177 he wrote in 1890, when he made the will leaving the Congo to the Belgian Government — a gift not even yet accepted — I have never ceased calling the attention of my fellow countrymen to the necessity of looking towards the countries over the sea. History teaches us that it is the moral and material interest of countries with a restricted territory to extend beyond their narrow frontiers. Greece founded on the Mediterranean opulent cities, the home of arts and civ- ilization: Venice later on established her grandeur by the development of her maritime and commercial relations, no less than by her political successes. The Netherlands possess in the Indies thirty million subjects who exchange their tropical products for those of the Mother Country. It is in serving the cause of humanity and progress that peoples of the second rank appear as useful members of the great family of nations. More than any other should an indus- trial and commercial nation like ours strive to secure out- lets for the products of all its workers — of those who work with their brain, with their capital, or with their hands. These patriotic preoccupations have dominated my life. It is they which led to the creation of the African enterprise. My labor has not proved sterile. A young and vast State, directed from Brussels, has pacifically taken its place in the world. "For Belgium," said a former Prime Minister, a expansion is an economic necessity. The fact that we have no fleet is sufficient to prove that it is not prompted by Imperial ambition. But with the United States it is different. Their immense resources in their own territory are barely scratched. If they found colonies as the result of conquest it is due to the lust of power. I do not blame the Government. 12 178 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE They were powerless before the clamor of the crowd. Xone the less it seems to me an enormous mistake." It is quite true that the Belgians, as a nation or as a state, have never committed themselves to a policy of over-sea expansion. They are a cautious people. The Congo adventure is a speculation of the King's. The proposal to transfer the Congo State to Belgium has been vehemently and hitherto successfully resisted. For the last eight years the Belgian Parliament has devoted 400,000 dols. a year to subsidize the Congo administration, and it will continue to do so until 1900, when the question of annexation will once more come up. It is almost certain that the decision will be again postponed. One cause for this reluctance to regard the Congo kingdom as part of the national estate is well worthy of American attention. " If the Americans," said an experienced observer, " wish to make a success of the Philippines, as the Belgians have made of the Congo, the first thing they have got to do is to discover a Leopold. They need not call him a king. Of course that is impossible and unnecessary. But unless they have a capable admin- istrator with a permanent tenure of office and a free hand they had better leave it alone. In the Congo State, the King of the Belgians is a greater autocrat than the Tsar in Russia. He invented it, he financed it, he governs it. In every detail his will is supreme. He tells us just so much about its finances as he chooses. And, being a man of extraordinary ability, BELGIUM 179 with a quite exceptional genius for finance, he has achieved a remarkable success. But there is hardly a man who knows anything about the Congo and its affairs who will not tell you that the attempt to govern that vast empire by the ever-shifting agency of party government, based on universal suffrage, would be foredoomed to failure." But the scruples of the Belgians are disappearing in the presence of the boom in Congo stocks. The ten millions sterling which are now invested in the Congo railway and Congo commercial companies stands to-day, according to the Stock Exchange quota- tions, at no less a sum than thirty millions. The revenues of the State, including the Belgian and royal subsidies of £120,000, almost equal the expenditure, which last year was a trifle under £600,000. The Congo, therefore, promises to turn out a paying con- cern, and if the promises are made good, the objections of the Belgians to become a colonial power will prob- ably wane and disappear. Another point on which opinion was practically unanimous was that it is the merest midsummer mad- ness to touch the Philippines at all unless the Ameri- cans take the whole archipelago. To take away Luzon, the very hub of the wheel, and then leave the rest of the spokes to Spain on the condition that she shall govern them more or less on American principles, was regarded as such unspeakable nonsense that it can only be criticized by an expressive shrug of the shoulders. 180 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE Belgians are by no means indifferent to American expansion in two directions. They are keenly inter- ested in the question of the future government of the Philippines from the point of view of the Catholic Church. For Belgium for the last fourteen years has been governed by a succession of Catholic Ministries. The Liberals who attempted to establish secular edu- cation have been practically effaced. The Clericals are in power, confronted by a Socialist opposition; but the latter have no prospect of gaining office. I made it my duty to ascertain at first hand the views of the two men who, more than any others, repre- sent the feelings of the Catholics. Both were watch- ing with the keenest interest the development of the situation in the Far East. Both agreed in expressing an earnest hope that, whatever is done, no confiscating hand will be laid upon the property of the religious orders. One of them, the man Avho for years has been, while out of office, almost as potent as Mr. Croker is in Kew York, would not commit himself so far as to say that he disapproved of introducing religious liberty into the Philippines, but he evidently leant that way. " The question," he said, " is whether America intends to govern these new conquests in accordance with the wishes of the population, or whether she intends to exploit them for her ideas. It is not reasonable to say that, because Belgium grants perfect religious liberty to the heathen and missionaries of the Congo, there- fore she must approve of its introduction into the Philippines. There the unity of the faith exists. If BELGIUM 181 you break it down large masses will, as we see it every- where, forsake the Catholic Church without joining any other. The result is immorality, which is deplor- able." The other, an experienced statesman, once a Prime Minister and now the President of the Chamber of Representatives, was much more liberal in his views. I was fortunate in meeting him immediately after his return from the Vatican, where he had been sum- moned for lengthy conversations with the Pope and the Cardinal Secretary of State, Eampolla. He expressed without hesitation his absolute convic- tion that religions liberty, as in Belgium and in the United States, was the best thing for the Philippines, and that he, for his part, would as a Catholic rejoice to see abolished the whole fabric of intolerance and sectarian monopoly. As he had enjoyed the privilege of long conversa- tions with the Pope and his advisers, I asked him point blank whether he thought the Holy See shared his liberal views. " You cannot expect the Pope," he said, " to make any declaration in that sense. He could not do so without repudiating doctrines affirmed by his prede- cessors. But he is a statesman; he is a practical man, and Rome is swarming with American clerics who have considerable influence at the Vatican. You must always distinguish between what the Pope may think with the front of his head and the arrierepe7isee, the back of it. Of course, as a matter of principle, 182 TEE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE no Pope can declare in favor of any refusal to enforce religious uniformity. But if you ask me what I really believe, I must tell you that if the Americans establish religious liberty in the Philippines the Pope will find his compensations in the increased liberty which he will enjoy in dealing with the clergy without the inter- meddling of the civil power. Religious liberty, as in Belgium, would not in the long run be detrimental to Catholic interests." These questions are, however, more or less aca- demical, or at least they concern the few who, in the privacy of the closet of the confessional, meditate upon the affairs of this world from their ideal of the King- dom of Heaven. Far different was the keen interest excited by the pressure of American competition in the markets of the world. Opinions differ widely, but the best in- formed are the most alarmed. American competi- tion in food-stuffs has long since established itself as the most formidable factor with which the European agriculturist has to deal. They are now beginning to wake up to the fact that American competition is likely to be not less formidable in manufactured goods. American watches have long ago driven Swiss watches out of Belgium; but as a good Belgian remarked, that concerns the Swiss, not the Belgians. But in the iron and steel trades the shadow of American competition looms dark on the horizon. The other day, in a tender for locomotives, the Bald- win Works at Philadelphia offered to put on the rails BELGIUM 183 at Antwerp a locomotive at 500 dols. less than the lowest offer of the great firm of Cockerill. The general conviction that there will soon be a great slump in protection in America by no means lessens their uneasiness. Belgium, as befits a nation which exports manufactured goods averaging £10 per head of population, is all for free trade, and, like Mr. Gladstone, it is inclined to believe that American com- petition will not be seriously begun to be felt until the United States has thrown its markets open to the world. The brave Belgian is not disposed to despair, but those who know most about the resources and capa- bilities of America are the most alarmed. Prince Albert, who will one day sit on the Belgian throne, came back from his visit to the United States profoundly impressed by the manufacturing resources of America. He saw the bicycle factories at Hart- ford turning out seven hundred cycles a day ; he visited the Baldwin Works, where they build six locomotives a day; he visited Pullman's works, where they turn out a wagon every fourteen minutes; and he tells how Mr. Carnegie produces three-fifths of the whole steel output of England. He spent a week travelling in a private train with Mr. Hill, of St. Paul, and he came home overwhelmed by the spectacle of the mineral and mechanical resources of the Republic. " I saw," he said on his return, " in one place a mountain of ore in which the mineral extracted from the higher levels made its way by natural gravitation 184 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE down the hill to meet at the furnace the coal mined at its foot, and almost without the intervention of the hand of man the process was complete. How can we compete with such a country as that? " " Alas ! " said Prince Albert to an American friend, "you will eat us all up, you Americans; you will eat us all up." The response of the Belgians to the Tsar's Rescript has been most enthusiastic. On this subject Belgium is practically unanimous. Everywhere the proposal has been hailed with enthusiasm — even in quarters where it might have been scouted. The Catholics, from the highest to the lowest, are as one man in favor of the Tsar's philanthropic design. In this they are in absolute accord with their head. Nothing could exceed the delight of the Holy Father on receiving the appeal of the Tsar in such a cause. For once there is a veritable reunion of Christendom: the official chiefs of the Greek Orthodox and of the Boman Catholic Churches are now going hand in hand in a crusade of peace. There are special reasons why the Boman Catholics should welcome the Russian pro- posal. Even if the Conference did not go one step further than decreeing a stay of armaments for five years, it would deliver the Belgian people at once from a constantly pressing menace of increased armaments. For years past there has been a tug-of-war going on in Belgium between the King and his subjects on this very question. The Belgian standing army is only 31,000 strong. It is raised by the old-fashioned BELGIUM 185 method of conscription, and hitherto the Belgians have obstinately resented all the appeals of their King- to introduce universal compulsory military service. The King is not a man of war. He is emphatically a man of peace. But he stands between two fires. France is always whispering into his right ear that unless he increases his army the Germans will invade France via Brussels; while the Germans whisper as earnestly into his left ear that unless he introduces universal military service Belgium will inevitably be- come the cockpit of the bloodiest war ever fought between civilized men. But the Belgian, who hates even the conscription, will not tolerate the idea of uni- versal service. It appeals no doubt to certain demo- cratic prejudices, and it appeals specially to the in- stinct of self-preservation. The Belgian Parliament, however, will have none of it, and the Catholic party, which created and sustains the Government, is irrec- oncilably opposed to the whole scheme. The feud is so fierce that no General can be found who will ac- cept office as Minister of War unless the army is en- larged according to the King's desire. The present Minister of War is a civilian who tacks on the control of the military machine to the more congenial labors of the Ministry of Ways and Communications. It is obvious what a godsend the Tsar's proposal has been to the governing body in Belgium. At a stroke the Tsar has delivered them from the one dread which has haunted them for years. If the Conference succeeds, and the status quo is stereotyped, the ideal of the 186 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE Belgian Government is attained, for all talk of universal compulsory military service vanishes into limbo. The Socialists look the Russian gift horse in the mouth, and shake their heads when they find the prin- ciples on which they have so often insisted coun- tersigned by a Tsar. Some of their spokesmen have insisted upon the necessity of inaugurating the Millen- nium by establishing the universal reign of right against might, as a condition preliminary to any ac- ceptance of the disarmament proposal. But the popular feeling is unmistakable. Whether in the press or on the platform, in the palace of the King, or even in the camp of the army itself, there is only one opinion as to the sincerity of the Tsar and the duty of all civilized men to back him up. I spent a Monday afternoon in Liege, the great centre of the Belgian gun trade. There was there in session a Catholic Social Democratic Congress, attended by workmen and a host of Progressive priests from the country side. Although it was not in their regular agenda, a workingman from Brussels insisted upon interpolating into their proceedings a hearty vote of appreciation and support to the Tsar for his proposal of a Conference of Disarmament. The motion, stud- ded with copious " whereases " and couched in the choicest Catholic phraseology, was carried with una- nimity and enthusiasm. Men like General Brialmont, who believe in their profession, are dubious about the possibility of achiev- E. Fabronius, Brussels M. BEENAERT Ghemar Freres, Brussels M. WOESTE f>- ' 4 J Geruzet Freres, Brussels BARON VON EETVELDE State Secretary for the Congo Free State PROMINENT STATESMEN OF BELGIUM Russell and Sons M. D'ALVIELLA BELGIUM 187 ing any practical result. But the Belgians who do not wear epaulets are more sanguine. What ultimate outcome there may be no one can say. But I saw and heard enough in this microcosm of Europe to realize how grievous will be the disap- pointment, how terrible the disillusion if the splendid initiative of the Tsar is not energetically supported and carried to a successful conclusion. CHAPTEE II FRANCE Last autumn the New World invaded the Old World, and in Paris the Hotel Continental was the headquarters of the Army of Invasion. It was a pacific invasion, no doubt, but the invaders were bent, if not on conquest and annexation, at least upon appro- priation and extension of borders. The struggle that went on between the French authorities and the United States Commissioners of the Exposition of 1900 brought forcibly home to the European the great question of the future. It is a miniature reproduction on a small scale of the conflict of forces which looms ever more gigantic before the eyes of mankind. " Room, room, room there for the New World ! " cried Mr. Commissioner-General Peck. The Ameri- can must have room to spread himself and his wares at the World's Fair with which Paris will salute the new century, and the allocation of space in the Expo- sition grounds is far too small. The amiable French Ministers expostulate with polite shoulder shrug. " 'Tis impossible. What would our friends the Ameri- cans have us do? Germany and Great Britain are THE PARIS BOURSE THE ARC DE TRIOMPHE, PARIS FRANCE 189 also imperiously clamoring for more ground space. We have already allotted the United States all we can spare. It is impossible, quite impossible." "Impossible!" thunders the Commissioner-Gen- eral; "don't use to me that idiot of a word! Your space is small, I admit — only 336 acres as against 750 acres at Chicago. But our needs are great. Room, make room for the growing giant of the Western World! " What can be done? The 336 acres cannot be stretched like elastic. All the space is appropriated. If Uncle Sam were to have more room, he could only have it at someone else's expense. Perhaps a scrap of space can be secured from a concessionnaire — here and there a bit can be squeezed from some South American Republic. But if Mr. Commissioner- General Peck and his staff were to attain the object on which they had set their hearts, " somebody's got to git." The Americans were quite remorseless, ruthless, relentless in their demands. Chicago, in the person of Mr. Peck, and New York, in the person of Mr. Woodward, backed by President McKinley and the whole of the United States, were determined that who- ever got left in the scramble for space it should not be Uncle Sam. They were hustling round at a great rate, negotiating, blarneying, bullying, buying, push- ing, until the Old World felt that it was being crowded on its own ground, perhaps even crowded out of its own ground by the Western conqueror. 190 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE What went on in the Exposition grounds is going on on land and sea all round this planet. The shrink- age of the world has suddenly brought the nations face to face with each other. In the markets, in the colo- nies, and on the high seas the Old World is beginning to realize that perhaps there may no longer be enough to go round, that somebody is going to get left, and that that somebody is not going to be the New World. The conviction is coming home more slowly to the Frenchmen than to the Belgians, but they are learning it all the same. The result is an immediate increase of the deference paid to the United States by the French. Nothing succeeds like success ; and the difference in the attitude of the French to the Americans since Manila and Santiago is more marvellous than edifying. French- men of all classes, who twelve months ago sneered at the " dollar-hunting Yankee " as their forefathers scoffed at " the nation of shopkeepers " across the Channel, are running over each other in a helter- skelter race, vying with each other as to which can first fall on Uncle Sam's neck and embrace him. The way the Fourth of July was celebrated in Paris last year, as compared with its predecessors, was an object- lesson in the worship of the rising sun. If by any possibility any space could be discovered any way in the Exhibition of 1900 it was of course to be made over to the sister Republic, rather than to the German or to the Briton. Was not the Commissioner-General ready to erect a statue of Lafayette in the grounds — if Nadar, Paris M. BRISSON Premier of France C/). Ogerau, Park M. BUUNETIERE Editor ll Revue des Denx Mondes " Nutlar, Paris M. JAURES Socialist Leader fierre Vetit, Paris GENERAL ZURLINDEN Military Governor of Paris FOUR PROMINENT FRENCHMEN OF TO-DAY FRANCE 191 only lie could get the space on which to set it up \ The Minister of Commerce and the Minister of Foreign Af- fairs vied with each other in paying exceptional com- pliments to the Commissioners of the United States. Nay, it was even hinted that in 1899 American goods would be admitted to France under the minimum tariff, reciprocal concession being of course anticipated on the other side. The war was a revelation to the average Frenchman. When Dewey destroyed the Spanish fleet at Manila the scales began to fall from their eyes, and they " saw men as trees walking." When Cervera's fleet shared the same fate off Santiago, they realized that a new naval power had been born into the world, inheriting from the Destinies, as one of them put it, the good fortune that has always attended the English on the seas. Early in the war a. report that the American fleet had been destroyed and Admiral Sampson killed threw the Parisian populace into a paroxysm of de- light. In those days no one disguised his sympathies with Spain. But nowadays they all agree to forget all that, and they are already convinced that there were never such friends of the Americans as the French, and never have been since the world began. All this is very pleasant for Americans in Paris, and it contributed to facilitate the work of the Peace Commissioners. There was no trace of a disposition in official quarters to make any difficulties in settling the terms of peace. If the United States were to insist upon annexing every scrap of territory pos- 192 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE sessed by Spain in the West Indies and the Far East, France would not interfere. The only demur made to the Imperial expansion of the United States comes from experienced observers like M. de Pressense, of the Temps, who regret the new departure, not because it affects France, but because it endangers the Ameri- can Kepublic. The French are at present exhibiting to the world some of the deplorable results of domi- nant militarism. They sigh when they see the New World gliding down the inclined plane which leads to Caesarism. They declare that the annexation of the Antilles and of the Philippines will necessitate the creation of a large standing army, the enrolment of a corps of functionaries, a departure from all the traditions of the Republic, and a total transformation of the letter and spirit of the American Constitution. In France, as in Britain, it is the men who know most of the United States — such men as Mr. Bryce and M. de Fressense — who are most alarmed as to the conse- quences of the new departure of the New World. When I was in Paris I wrote to the Associated Press : — I see that there appears still to be some question as to whether the European Powers ever actually proposed to intervene on behalf of Spain. The story was that they had decided to do so, and were only stopped by the blunt intima- tion from Lord Salisbury that if they ever attempted any such thing the British fleet would be placed under the orders of Mr. McKinley. It is a very pretty tale, and Lord Salis- bury might have said something of the kind if the other Powers had been mad enough to propose any such thing. Possibly some influential Briton did say something of the FRANCE 193 kind when talk of intervention was in the air. But I have the highest official authority, both British and French, for stating that there was never any proposal brought forward by M. Hanotaux for European intervention against the United States, and that therefore no occasion arose for the exercise of the friendly offices of England. I regret having to destroy the legend, but magna est Veritas, and however delighted John Bull might have been to have lent a friendly hand to Uncle Sam if the Continental Powers had tried to interfere, he never had the chance. And for this reason. The European Powers, and France most of all, had too much sense. The origin of this story I discovered two months later when I visited Vienna. The legend had, after all, an indestructible basis of truth. Men of the world, men of experience, men of affairs — above all, men who are deeply versed in the tor- tuous wiles of diplomacy — agree in expecting nothing from the Conference of Disarmament, and in fearing much. If the hard-pressed toilers of the world are to obtain any appreciable relief from the crushing load of Militarism, they will have to extend to the generous initiative of the Tsar a much more hearty reception than it is receiving from the men in office. The Democracy may help the Autocracy to achieve this boon for the human race. It will certainly not reach them at the hands of the Bureaucracy. Everywhere the Governments have answered the Muravieff Rescript with the customary courtesy that is always extended to anything that is said by the master of many legions, but, with one or two excep- tions, of responsive enthusiasm there has been none. 13 194 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE Every one admits the sincerity of the Tsar, every one professes to admire his idealism and his philanthropy. But when all that is said and done, there is the most astonishing consensus of opinion that " it is not busi- ness." " Everything," they say with a shrug of the shoulders, " will go on exactly the same as before. There is only one Circular the more." So speak everywhere the cynical and very much disillusioned diplomatists. Diplomacy, it must be admitted, is not usually a forcing-bed for moral enthu- siasms. Ambassadors and Ministers who for the last thirty years have been perpetually face to face with the omnipresent activity of Bismarck may be pardoned for thinking twice, and even thrice, before they expect any good thing to come from the Nazareth of Imperial Chancelleries. Men who for the last half-dozen years have been familiarized with the ineptitude of the European Concert can hardly be expected to have many illusions left as to the possibility of bringing in the Kingdom of Heaven by any sort of international compact. It is only in the hearts of the common people, and among the masses where, far from the coulisses of diplomacy and the intrigues of Courts, men still cherish generous enthusiasms and an un- shaken faith in the great ideals of Peace, Justice and Progress, that the Tsar's proposal elicits any hearty response. " After all," said a young countryman, after a long discussion with a friend, " the Millennium is bound to come some day, and who can say whether it may not come this way as well as any other ! " " The FRANCE 195 Millennium is bound to come some day " — there is the keynote of the situation. From those who believe that, who cling to it as the great hope of the world, as the eternal pole star of the progress of mankind, the Conference on Disarmament receives a welcome the heartiness of which is only weakened by the haunting fear that it may be too good to be true. The full significance of the Tsar's initiative has, however, as yet been but dimly perceived, even by those who have welcomed it most heartily. Alto- gether apart from its proposals, or the subject of them, it carries written in every line of it the glad tidings of great joy that the winter of the period of old age is over and gone, and that once more mankind is facing the glad, joyous spring-time of a new century, under the leadership of those whose hearts are still fresh with the divine inspiration of youth. The old century is dying — let it die. Dr. Busch's " Secret Pages of Bis- marck's History " furnishes us at once with its epitaph and its condemnation. But lo! the sky glows in the East with the first promise of the splendor of the com- ing day. In the Imperial Rescript, however Utopian it may be, we have the first great challenge which the new age has flung at the feet of the most gigantic evil of our time. Here, at least, is something of the faith, the courage, and the magnificent audacity of youth. In the task of high emprise to which Nicholas II. sum- mons the nations of the world he may fail. It is not in mortals to command success. But it is better to have tried and failed than never to have tried at all. 196 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE Hence, the more we think of it, the more just, the more true, appears the pregnant dictum of Mr. Morley. The Tsar's appeal is a touchstone of the peoples. " It will show us what we are and where we stand." It is natural that in France, and most of all in Paris, the doubting spirit which denies should be paramount. It is a hundred years since France used up the enthu- siasm of the Revolution in lighting the camp fires of the Napoleonic armies. Since then, although there has ever been a remnant who have preserved the sacred fire, " the men who swing France," whether under monarchs, Empire or Republic, have not exactly been French-speaking Quixotes. So far, indeed, have mod- ern Frenchmen gone in the other direction that I well remember, ten years ago, hearing one, now recognized as one of the most influential diplomatists, laughing to scorn the notion that there was even enough idealism left in France to make the war of revenge popular with the people. " There are only two men in France," he said in his bitter, sarcastic fashion, " who ever think of such an ideal thing as the fate of Alsace- Lorraine, and one of them is a woman." He referred, of course, to the soldier-poet, Paul Deroulede, who has just been threatening M. Clemenceau with the guillo- tine, and Madame Adam, of the Nouvelle Revue. The worship of material comfort has succeeded all other ideals with most Frenchmen. Hence the Tsar's ap- peal falls upon ears stuffed as with cotton wool, and awakens slight response in hearts which resound all day long with the Babel of the Bourse. There is no FRANCE 197 longer a Victor Hugo worthily to respond in the name of France to the initiative of the Tsar. The faithful few who are true to the great ideals of the Revolution, and the still smaller remnant who worship in secret at the shrine of the Prince of Peace, are overborne in the roar and rush of politicians and financiers. They find it more than they can do even to keep the scales of justice free from the sword of Brennus at home. They have no energy left to com- bat militarism abroad. The army itself, which is tra- ditionally supposed to be the cradle of all that is most exalted in heroic sentiment, can hardly be expected to wax very enthusiastic in support of a Peace Confer- ence. But there is another reason for the coolness of Paris towards the Conference. The French felt hurt that they had not been consulted by their ally before he issued the Rescript. They anticipated nothing in the world so little as such a proposal from such a quar- ter. Not disarmament, but more armaments, was their idea of what the Tsar desired. To oblige him they had even allowed French shipbuilders to give priority to the construction of Russian warships over those of France, to the production of which it had re- peatedly been declared all the shipbuilding resources of the nation would be exclusively devoted. The Re- script, therefore, simply took away their breath. They felt themselves, in more senses than one, " up a tree." They did not know where they were or what the Tsar was driving at. They thought he was spoiling for a fight, and lo! he issued an encyclical to the 198 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE world at large, proclaiming the supreme importance of Peace! Behind all that first natural sensation of surprise there was another which went much deeper. The pro- posal to attend a Conference to discuss disarmament seemed to suggest that there was no longer a purpose for keeping up such gigantic military establishments. In other words, it appeared to imply that Europe had at last settled down in a state of normal equilibrium, and that everybody was practically content with the existing frontiers. That was, in effect to ask all the nations of the world to enter upon a pact of peace, the practical result of which would be that each and all of them would countersign and guarantee the Treaty of Frankfort. That treaty, indeed, would, in such a case, become the very charter and basis of the system which the Conference was to inaugurate. Farewell, then, to all hope of the Revanche; farewell for ever to Alsace and Lorraine ! To bid such farewells may be obeyed if it be a decree of the Destinies, against which it is vain to repine and impotent to rebel. But to be suddenly summoned by your own friend and partner, apropos de rine, to say those farewells at a moment's notice — that, indeed, was more than French human nature could bear. Hence, after the publication of the Rescript, a profound and miserable chill came over French sentiment towards their Russian ally. That mood existed, but it has passed. Count Mura- vieff had no difficulty in explaining that the Tsar was bound, in taking such initiative, to consult no other FRANCE 199 Power, for the twofold reason that if he had consulted any one it would have compromised the Power he took into his confidence and have offended the other Powers who were not consulted. It was equally easy to ex- plain that while the Rescript might initiate a policy that hereafter might have immense consequences, it did not even suggest any such chimerical a step as the immediate disbandment, or even the immediate reduc- tion, of armaments. What was suggested was merely to cry halt in the race to ruin, and to discuss arrange- ments for arresting the continuous increase of expen- diture on armies and navies. If France objected, of course nothing could be done. The absolute inde- pendence of each Power was intact. But there were good reasons why France should not object. She has already reached the ultimate limit of her resources in men. She could not increase the annual contingent of recruits, for the simple but sufficient reason that French mothers no longer bear enough boys to furnish any more food for powder. Germany has still a vast reservoir of surplus manhood to draw upon. To stereotype the status quo would therefore be at least as great a gain to France in this respect as it could be to Germany by its indirect and apparent consecration of the Treaty of Frankfort. There were still other reasons which have con- tributed not a little to assuage the irritation felt in France at the Tsar's proposal. It was obvious that the first condition sine qua non of the meeting of the Con- ference was that the Powers represented, in agreeing 200 TEE EXITED STATES OF EUROPE to discuss the financial, military, and economical prob- lem mooted by the Tsar, did so without prejudice to all the political and territorial questions on which they differed. At one time, it is conceivable, a Tsar might have refused to enter into a Conference with France, lest it might appear to imply that he recognized the principle of Republicanism. Now not even the great- est stickler for the Divine right of Kings feels that he is false to his convictions or consecrates the principle of the Revolution by meeting the representatives of the Republic, or even of entering into an alliance with a Republican Government. As it is with political questions, so it is with those relating to frontiers. They are as much out of the purview of the Confer- ence as questions of dynasties or of the rival principles of Monarchy and Democracy. The Conference will no more discuss the question of Alsace-Lorraine than it will discuss transubstantiation or the Rights of Man. But that is not all. For the Tsar has at hand a valuable and effective reply to the French complaint. The proposed Conference may postpone the immediate outbreak of a war of revenge for the revindication of the lost provinces, but it certainly does not do so more decisively than the French had done already by their great exhibition of 1900. That Exhibition is itself a kind of Peace Conference. When France invited Germany to exhibit her goods in the great show of the new century, she acquiesced in the status quo. Of course, she did not guarantee Germany the un- interrupted possession forever of her lost provinces. FRANCE 201 Neither will she do so by accepting the Tsar's invita- tion. Bnt she did give Germany the very best and most substantial security against a sudden French at- tack that any one could desire. These and other con- siderations have had their weight, and the momentary irritation against their Russian ally has already abated. The question as to whether the French people are longing for revenge and the revindication of their lost provinces is one on which the most widely diverse opinions are expressed. There is, however, substan- tial agreement among men of all shades of opinion that while France vigilantly maintains all her reserves and is resolved to take advantage of all the opportuni- ties which fortune may send her to regain her old provinces, she will never of her own motion or on her own initiative make war on Germany. A leading French statesman with whom I was discussing this question expressed in the very strongest terms his con- viction that no French Ministry will ever take the initi- ative in attacking Germany. " The risk would be too great, the sacrifices too immense. If Germany were involved in war elsewhere — ah, then, that would be another matter. But as long as Germany is at peace we shall not lift a finger to dispossess her." This helps to enable us to understand what a powerful security for peace the ineradicable yearning for the lost prov- inces has become in Europe to-day. A shrewd and experienced observer in Paris, on the other hand, told me that the popular feeling in favor of war was stronger now than it had ever been since 1870. 202 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE The lessons of that terrible year have been forgotten. Paris is now in the hands of young men to whom the bombardment of Paris is only a matter of history and of tradition. Bismarck is gone. All the great Gen- erals who conquered France are dead. The French army was never stronger or better equipped than now. If the French saw their chance, they would not hesi- tate for a moment. If, for instance, the Russian Em- peror but held up his little finger ! But the Russian Emperor is holding his little finger down. There is another side to this alleged eagerness of France for war. It is the French of the Parisian boulevards that talk so lightly of so dire a catastrophe. France of the provinces — laborious, thrifty, cautious France — is of another opinion. A brilliant and dis- tinguished Frenchman — diplomatist, journalist, and patriot — assured me that the French peasant was very far from sharing the views of the boulevards. " If you were to go to-day/' he said, " to the average French peasant, and tell him that the circumstances were so propitious that he could certainly reconquer Alsace-Lorraine by an expenditure of only 10,000 men and £10,000,000, he would reply unhesitatingly, 1 ~No; I will not spend either the men or the money. 7 " It may be so. But the worst of it is that the war is made before the peasant has an opportunity of having his say. It is not his to decide. It is only his to pay, to suffer, and to die. The question of the Peace Conference I found ex- cited little attention in Paris excepting on account of FRANCE 203 the bearing which it might have on the Franco-Rus- sian Alliance. When that alliance was formed, those who did not know the Tsar imagined that it was a menace to the peace of Europe. Those who knew the Tsar knew otherwise. The object of Alexander III. in thus restoring the equilibrium of Europe and in satisfying the wounded amour propre of France was the natural culmination of the policy which won for him the title of the Peace Keeper of the Continent. In his eyes France isolated, France nervous, France desperate, was a constant menace to the peace of the world. At any moment she might make a plunge, by which she would hurl not only herself but all other nations into the hell of a general war. To prevent this it was necessary to offer her inducements sufficient to lead her to acquiesce in the status quo. There were two perils of war before Europe, both threatened by France. She had never accepted either the German possession of Alsace-Lorraine or the British occupation of Egypt. To attempt to reestablish her position either in Metz or in Cairo meant war. To minimize the risk of any such peace-shattering policy, Alexander III., without asking for any express disclaimer by his ally of hostile designs directed either against Germany or Britain, virtually secured the practical acceptance of the status quo by offering France an alliance which was guaranteed to fall to pieces if she undertook an aggressive war. 'Russia flung over the French Repub- lic the immense segis of her alliance, delivering France from all dread of attack from without, and restoring 204 THE UXITED STATES OF EUROPE her at once to the position in Europe which she had lost in 1870. But all these advantages were forfeited if France drew the sword against the existing order, the status quo de facto on the Rhine and the Nile. Hence the Franco-Russian Alliance became, as it was intended it should become, a solid security for Euro- pean peace, and therefore, little as the French liked it, a virtual consecration of the Treaty of Frankfort. It was acclaimed, no doubt, by the Chauvinists of the boulevards as if it were the first step to the Revanche. It was exactly the opposite. But Baron Mohrenheim appears to have fooled the self -deluded Frenchmen to the top of their bent, while the Tsar, conscious that he had made the limitations of the alliance absolutely clear to the rulers of the Republic, felt under no obli- gation to make public declarations which might have annulled the whole object of his policy of peace. The Tsar knew also that although the boulevards of Paris might revel in the delirium of anticipated war, the French nation, pacific and industrious, hailed with im- mense relief an alliance which delivered it at once from all risk of foreign attack, or from the still greater peril of such a headlong rush to ruin as that which cul- minated on the battlefield of Sedan. France is preoccupied with the Dreyfus case. And the Dreyfus case is militarism come to judgment, mili- tarism made manifest before the world. The tree is known by its fruits, and the impeachment of militar- ism on economic grounds contained in the HuraviefT circular is supplemented and made complete by the FRANCE 205 revelation of the outcome of militarism in the moral field. " Militarism/' says the Tsar, " empties the pockets of the nations. 7 ' And France, responding across the Continent, as deep answers unto deep, answers, "And destroys their souls! " France, preoccupied, absorbed, possessed by the Dreyfus case, is the drunken helot of militarism to- day. She is as one bewitched, the prey of some foul obsessing demon, which takes a perverse delight in compelling her to wallow in all manner of defilements, from which " ideal France, the deathless, the divine, " would have recoiled with angry scorn. It is the Nem- esis of the system against which the Tsar has taken the field. France never had a more numerous or bet- ter equipped army than she possesses at present. But France never was weaker, more timorous, more under the terror of those nightmares which disturb the sleep of nations. It is not an exaggeration to say that the net result up to date of all the sacrifices which France has made over her armaments is to make her a prey to panic to an extent almost inconceivable to any one outside Paris. You ask in amazement : " Why all this tremendous hubbub over the revision of a sentence admittedly illegal, defended by evidence admittedly forged? " and the opponents of revision whisper with white lips that revision would inevitably bring about war! To avoid the risk of so terrible an alternative, better let a thousand innocent men perish in the Devil's Isle ! Thus it appears that France, despite all her armaments — nay, is it not because of them? — has 206 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE become so coward of heart and craven of spirit that she dare not even do justice to one of her own officers for fear of the foreigner! Such abject poltroonery would disgrace the pettiest of states without a gun in its arsenal or a fort on its frontiers. But to this pass has come to-day this distraught Eepublic. The delirium will pass. Revision is already virtu- ally secured, and the light is already beginning to break through the dense darkness in which France has lain so long. But for the present the country is still in the throes of a fever, which springs as directly from the atmosphere of the barrack-room as ague re- sults from the malaria of the marsh. Nations create armies that they may be strong and independent, able to do justice within their own frontier, none daring to make them afraid. But France, having sacrificed everything to the creation of her army, has been afraid to do justice because of her army. The army, no longer a means to an end, having become an end in itself, thus tends to defeat the very aim and object of its being. The nation, or at least such portions of the nation as find articulate expression in the press, has been in a very ague fit of fear. It cowered before its own shadow, It trembled at the thought of the wrath of the foreigner. It shrieked in panic dread at the mere suggestion that even officers of the General Staff should be compelled to obey the laws. There is no crime which its more demented spokesmen do not com- mit, either in imagination or in fact. They glorify forgery, applaud suicide, and openly exult in the pros- FRANCE 207 pective massacre of thousands of their fellow-country- men. Everything that is base, everything that is dis- honorable, everything that is cowardly, everything that is false, abject and criminal forms the constant meditation of Frenchmen to-day. Whichever side they belong to, these are the things they impute to each other; and if they are the party in power, these are the things they employ without hesitation in their panic-stricken warfare against a nightmare. To such a pass has militarism dominant brought our once noble France — France of the Revolution, France of Jeanne d'Arc. It is easy to see the direct bearing of this upon the proposal of the Tsar. In the Middle Ages the knights progressively increased the thickness of their armor until the fighting-man became a mere iron-cased mummy. He had not sufficient strength to move be- neath his defences. In France we see the same phe- nomenon in the moral field. Her moral vitality is no longer sufficient to move under the superincumbent mass of her armaments. The old ideas, so distinct- ively French, of Chivalry, Liberty, Justice, Law — all the sublime ideals which made France for centuries the knight-errant of humanity — appear to have per- ished beneath the weight of her immense military sys- tem. The amour propre of the army, the prestige of a staff, have superseded the nobler ideals of national life. Matters are much worse now than in the Middle Ages. For the iron and steel cuirasses of the over- loaded knights were at least inert matter. But the 208 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE armature beneath which the nation is perishing to-day has a horrible vitality of its own. It is, as it were, alive, and believes that the body exists for it, and that brain, heart, conscience, and the ideal, which are col- lectively the soul of the nation, is a minus quantity compared with the prestige, the authority, and the con- venience of the army. They, if not the ultimate, must at least be very near the ultimate, stage in the self -destructive evolution of modern militarism. No- where in Europe could the Tsar find so terrible an object-lesson of the results of the baneful system upon which he is making war. France is a puissant ally, indeed, in the great argument for disarmament. The danger spot in Europe is, no doubt, Alsace- Lorraine. But the beneficent Power who maketh even the wrath of man to praise Him seems to be em- ploying this Dreyfus delirium of panic and crime to reduce the acuteness of that danger. England long ago lost the moral allegiance of the Irish, the majority of whom are far more American than English. The Dreyfus business is probably the most direct means by which France could have alienated the moral alle- giance of the Alsatian people. That which the Treaty of Frankfort failed to effect the Dreyfus scandal is fast accomplishing. The people of Alsace see with amazement and indignation the denial of justice to Alsatians. Albert Dreyfus in the He du Diable is an Alsatian. So is Colonel Picquart. It is enough to bear an Alsatian name to be hounded down as a Ger- man. To be a Protestant is almost as heinous a crime EX-CAPTAIN DKEYFUS Yierre Yetit, Paris GENERAL MERCIER EX-COLONEL PICQTJART COUNT ESTERHAZY SOME OF THE PROMINENT FIGURES IN THE DREYFUS AFFAIR FRANCE 209 as to be a Jew. The honest Alsatians do not under- stand all this. Their patrie, to whose fortunes they have clung with a touching fidelity, was a different France from this. So they are ruthlessly being driven from their allegiance, and every day they are more and more strongly tempted to become more reconciled to the German. It was of no use discussing in Paris the details of the Conference on Disarmament. No one spares the subject a thought. That is not the way the Franco- Russian Alliance works. His French ally is helping the Tsar in a much more effective fashion. For this Dreyfus business has pretty effectively resulted in the practical disarmament of France. Never since the Commune stood at bay behind the ramparts of Paris has France been so paralyzed by internal divisions. As long as the Dreyfus business lasts, France is a cipher in Europe. Whenever for a moment the saner France emerges from the Malebolgic pool of passion, suspicion, hatred and savagery beneath which it is sub- merged, there always comes, as a flood tide, a revived interest in the affaire Dreyfus. What a turbid tide it is, reeking from the cloaca maxima of the world, bearing along upon its turbid waves the bloody corpse of the suicide Henry, which tosses about amid the wreck of much higher reputations, the disjecta mem- bra of the General Staff. It is a mournful spectacle. But who can deny that it makes for general peace? There is, of course, a possibility that the very mad- ness of the hour may lead to some sudden outbreak. 14 210 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE As Count Arnim wrote in 1871: " The French cannot be judged by the same standard as other nations. They have no sense of proportion, and attach impor- tance to matters that in reality have no significance. In a madhouse the merest trifles may lead to a revolt, and even if it be suppressed, it may first cost the lives of many honest people." There is a danger here, no doubt. But, as Bismarck wrote about the same time : " Two peoples dwell in France — the French and the Parisians. The former loves peace. The latter writes the newspapers, and seeks to pick a quarrel which the other then has to fight out. Both, however, should clearly remember how near the German army is at Chateau Thierry." The German army is no longer at Chateau Thierry. But the solid argument of force is quite as irresistible to-day as it was in 1871, perhaps even more so. And now there is added to that ultima ratio regum the fact that the Tsar, the ally and the friend of France, has summoned all nations to a Parliament of Peace. CHAPTEK III GERMANY In a bright apartment overlooking Friedrich Wil- lielm Strasse I sat pleading the other day for the Tsar's proposals. I was addressing myself to the gracious lady of the household, who, as she sat with her fifteen- months-old boy nestling in her arms, seemed a living personification of the Madonna and Child, uniting the glory of motherhood with the infinite promise of youth. She was no unworthy symbol of Europe. In her veins ran the mingled strain of noble blood of divers nations, and the face glowed with the noble enthusiasm of the political and social ideals to which she has dedicated her life. The curly-headed boy, coyly looking upon the stranger from the stronghold of his mother's arms, might have been the original of Raphael's Divine Child. As I talked of the need of the nations for release from the intolerable burden of militarism, she sighed. " Indeed, indeed, it is true. But will it come from such a quarter? His ideas in the Rescript are alto- gether our ideas. As Bebel said the other day, ' The Tsar is now our comrade and ally.' But we do not trust Russia." 212 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE " Do not look a gift horse in the month/' I replied, " is a very good proverb. And great good once came out of Nazareth. But if these are your ideas, why not support the ideas even when they are put forward by the Tsar? " " These are our ideas indeed. No Social Democrat nor any section of the working population of Germany but would welcome with open arms any practical pro- posal to deliver the people from the corvee of mili- tarismus, which is so terrible a burden upon " Here we were suddenly interrupted. The chubby cherub had climbed down from his mother's lap, and was foraging about for his picture-book. He found it, and turning over the pages, suddenly shouted with infantile glee, ignoring our talk — "'Daten! 'Daten! " The little fellow was standing erect, with flashing eye. No longer was he the Divine Child of Bethle- hem, but rather an infant Hercules, so stout, so stal- wart did he seem. And again he shouted imperi- ously — "'Daten! 'Daten!" " What does the little chap want? " I asked. " Ach," said his mother, looking down with pride upon her child, " it has always been so. I suppose it is in his blood. My father, you know, was a general. From the first moment he could observe anything it was the same. Always 'Daten, 'Daten! Soldaten he means. Soldiers. No picture pleases him so much as that of soldiers. Always a soldier passing by fas- GERMANY 213 cinates him. Thou little rogue," she said, " there is nothing like soldaten for thee, is it not so? " And I felt as she spoke that from the childish lips the "Word of the Situation had come. All the ele- ments of the problem were there. I was speaking up for the Tsar's proposal. She was replying as Europe has replied, and in the midst of our talk of peace and our invectives against militarism, the child, the herr of the future, interrupts with the cry, "'Daten! 'Daten! " Alas, it may now be that once more from the mouth of the babe and suckling there has fallen the winged word of truth. "When in Paris I asked Max Nordau if he believed there was any possible chance of evoking a genuine, widespread, passionate protest from the European masses against the burden of militarism, now for the first time challenged in the name of humanity in the name of the Tsar. " No," he replied unhesitatingly, " not at all." " Why," I asked; " do they not groan under the burden?" He answered, "I know inti- mately the South German peasant. Ask any of them if they wish for war. ' Gott bewahre ! ' they will reply, ' there is nothing that we hate more.' But then if you again ask, ' Then you do not love the uni- form? ' they will say, i Oh, that is another matter. We love the uniform and are proud to wear it. To protest against war — that is possible; to protest against the uniform, no, that would not succeed.' ' From which it would seem that the love of soldaten is not confined to the grandsons of generals. It is a 214 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE widespread if not a universal fascination. This is not due to any desire to fight. Much of it, indeed, is due to a desire to avoid fighting. The corvee of military service, the excessive burden of military expenditure are borne, if not cheerfully, then, at least, stolidly, as a necessary premium to ensure them against war. It is a kind of enchantment, as of some malevolent wiz- ardry, by which peoples, whose only desire is to remain at peace, are persuaded that the only protection against war is to arm themselves to the teeth. I spoke on the subject with the leader of the Free Trade party, who alike as deputy and journalist is free from all suspicions of militarism. He expressed in the strongest terms his conviction that no popular demand existed for a reduction of armaments in Ger- many. " Our people," he said, " have grown used to their military panoply. They do not feel its pressure as you might think they would. It is part and parcel of their national existence. They can hardly conceive life without military service, without the uniform. The best proof of this is that on every occasion when the question of an increase of armaments has been put to the people at a general election they have always voted in favor of the increase. Take last election. There existed, no doubt, a strong feeling against the increase of the fleet, but when the election was held any party that had opposed the fleet programme would have been swept away." " Your eminent deputy forgets," replied a leading Social Democrat, to whom I had repeated these obser- G. Michelle, Berlin E- Bieber, Berlin DR. RICIITER COUNT HERBERT BISMARCK Baruch, Berlin IIERR LIEBKNECHT F. Baruch, Berlin IIERR BEBEB LEADERS OF GERMAN POLITICAL PARTIES GERMANY 215 vations, " that the Social Democrats have always op- posed the increase of armaments, and that every gen- eral election has seen an increase of their total poll. What he says is true possibly of the lower middle class, of the trading class, of the higher class. But of the masses of the population it is not true. The men upon whom the blood tax falls, the artisan, the laborer, the peasant, by them militarism is detested. I wish you could attend our Conference at Stuttgart, mingle with the delegates, speak with those who are of the people, and judge for yourself what the mil- lions of workers think of armaments. As for the in- crease of the fleet, that was voted on under the clever management of the Kaiser, who used the Kiao-Chau incident to overpower the opposition. But no one would welcome more than the German masses any diminution in the weight which crushes them to-day." There is truth in both these opinions. 'No doubt the Social Democrats have made continuous protest against armaments, but their members are themselves not without pride at having served in the army, and anything more distant from the Quaker, or Stundist, or Tolstoian view of military things than that of the German Social Democrat it would be difficult to im- agine. Ever since 1808 this German nation has been passed through the military mill. The habit of mili- tary service has become a universal family tradition. Their fathers and their grandfathers before them wore the uniform. Their sons and their grandsons after them they expect will wear it. The uniform, in fact, 216 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE has become a second skin* even the suggestion of peel- ing it off is almost unthinkable. And as for peace, the Kaiser but expressed the universal conviction of his subjects when he said that the best security for peace was the sharp sword of the German army. This may be admitted, and still there may be ample grounds for welcoming the Congress, and for hoping that at that international parliament, some short simple measure may be agreed upon that might here- after come to be regarded by the historian as the line dividing the watershed of the old era and the new. All notion of any diminution of the effective strength of the armed forces of the world must be dismissed at once as at present absolutely out of the question. Of disarmament in the sense of even so much as one single soldier in the armed camp which we call the Continent disarming himself, laying down his rifle, and tramping off home, — that is not even to be thought of. To pro- pose to send that one soldier home might precipitate the one catastrophe the thought of which is the night- mare of Europe. But it is possible that the first step towards better things may be taken at the Conference in the shape, say, at first, of a proposal to limit the expenditure on armies and navies for the next five years to their present maximum, and afterwards, of a suggestion for the reduction of the term of military service. The former would be operative at once, and even if it were in some cases evaded, the mere fact that such an international agreement had been arrived at would powerfully strengthen the opposition which in GERMANY 217 every country would be made to any further addition to the naval and military budget. As for the latter, it would be for the time being a mere pious aspiration. But it is in the line of a reduction of the period during which men remain with the colors rather than by any reduction of the numbers called up that any progress is likely to be made. There is no country in Europe where the Tsar's pro- posal will be supported with more apparent heartiness than in Germany. The Kaiser welcomed it with ef- fusion — and then increased his army by 26,000 men. The press, with the curious exception of the Vorwarts, the Social Democratic organ, and the Preussische tTahrbilcher, the organ of the Conservative Dr. Del- briick, praised it with one accord. " Such a philan- thropic young ruler, such noble aspirations," and so forth. But after having delivered themselves of the conventional compliments that are necessary when the master of many millions proposes anything, the diplomatists and the journalists shrugged their shoul- ders, and with astonishing unanimity declared that " nothing would come of it." And, truly, nothing can come of it if it is left to them. For these cynical sceptics would addle even the egg of a phoenix if it were left to their care. Germany supports the proposal from considerations of German interest. It would not do to offend the Tsar by criticizing harshly a benevolent proposal that will come to nothing; and then, again, if by a miracle it did come to anything, it could only improve the 218 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE security of Germany by strengthening the guarantees for European peace. From a military point of view Germany never felt herself more absolutely secure. For them there is no more any question of Alsace-Lor- raine. That is vorbei. The Treaty of Frankfort has taken its place among the most stable and unques- tioned bases of the international law of Europe. Any- thing, therefore, that gives more stability to the status quo strengthens Germany, and increases the com- posure with which she can contemplate perils on her western frontier. The French General Staff appears to the Germans to have gone to pieces completely in the confusion over Dreyfus, and M. Deroulede and his patriots appear for the moment to be the most effective allies Germany could desire in keeping guard over Strasbnrg and Metz. So far, therefore, Germany can be relied upon to support the Tsar, but except in one direction there has been no sign as yet visible of any desire to give effect- ive expression to popular sympathy with his object. The solitary exception is significant. The Woman's League for International Disarmament which exists in Bavaria is endeavoring to bring about in all the capitals of Europe a simultaneous demonstration by the women of the Continent in favor of the Tsar's pro- posal. How the matter will be arranged it is as yet too early to say, or what measure of success may attend it. But if the International Council of Women were to desire an opportunity to justify its existence it could hardly desire a better opening than the present. No GERMANY 219 object more worthy of the combined effort of the womanhood of the world could be imagined than this of arresting the ever-increasing growth of modern armaments. Certain it is that if King Demos does not move, and if the mothers of the household are indifferent, then indeed in the future even more than in the present or the past, the word of the situation will be " 'Daten ! 'Daten! " Ever more soldaten! Berlin, which has been described by Maximilien Harden as Parvenuopolis, and is regarded by the Kaiser as the capital of Europe, is in reality the Chi- cago of the Old World. It has dethroned Vienna as the capital of the Holy Koman Empire as completely as Chicago has distanced St. Louis. It now challenges the supremacy of Paris with all the arrogance and more than the success with which Chicago has hitherto disputed the primacy of New York. It is like Chicago in many things, but most of all in self- confidence and a lordly disdain for its neighbors and rivals. From this central standpoint of the reconstituted Empire the German looks out upon the New "World with a sort of indignant surprise. The Intelligence Department of the Germans is believed to be the best in the world. What the German does not know is not knowledge. And when the recent war began, the German was quite sure he knew all about the way in which it would go. His impartiality was not impaired by any sympathy with the Latin race. He held both 220 TEE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE combatants in equal dislike. Spain had been very troublesome, both in Europe and in the Far East. The United States had by its food products almost ruined the German landed interest. " A plague on both your houses." Yet although there was no bias of affection to deflect the judgment of the scientific expert, he came to a mistaken conclusion every time. The naval expert glibly demonstrated with all the con- fidence of infallibility that the Americans had no chance with the Spaniards on the sea. Alike in ships, in guns, in discipline, and in sailors, the Yankees would be sorely put to it to hold their own against the Dons. As for the military men, nothing could ex- ceed their contempt for the United States. " With 40,000 men," it used to be said, " we could invade America." The improvised army of Volunteers was a " rabble," and the proposal to rely upon such a scratch pack of uniformed civilians seemed little short of high treason to the generals who have devoted their lives to the elaboration of the German race into a cast-iron military machine. It seemed presumption to question the conclusions of these oracles. They knew everything; they foresaw everything; they had decided that the non-military Republic would be sorely put to it to best the military monarchy, and as they said it, that settled it. Hence when the war actually broke out, nearly every German newspaper, excepting the Frankfurter Zeitung and Die Nation of Berlin, was bitterly, con- sistently and continuously anti- American. The atti- GERMANY 221 tude of the Government was scrupulously correct. It was absolutely neutral. But the sympathies of the nation were as unmistakably anti- American. This not only found expression in the press, it made itself disagreeably felt in the streets and in business. The American felt himself in a hostile atmosphere, and sometimes it was more than an atmosphere. This hostility was due to a mingled feeling of resent- ment, jealousy, envy, contempt, and the antagonism that is latent between states based on the opposing principles of liberty and authority, of democracy and imperialism. When the war began and every prediction of the experts was falsified, the Germans felt that something must have suddenly gone wrong in the constitution of the universe. They had all backed the wrong horse, relying upon the selections of their own infallible prophets, and they felt like losers. It did not sweeten their tempers, but they soon began to mend their man- ners. In a dazed kind of fashion they endeavored to find their bearings, and to regain their equilibrium in their new and unaccustomed surroundings. Their first instinct, as that of the drowning man, was to catch at something, and the flotsam and jetsam of the Philippines naturally suggested itself. They hurried their warships to Manila with an eye to eventualities, but the peremptory "Hands off! " from Uncle Sam gave them pause. Then they suddenly recollected that they had never thought of such a thing. The conclusion of peace gave them time to pull themselves 222 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE together, to put on their thinking cap, and to try to size things up. And this, so far as can be gathered, is the conclu- sion they have come to. The German is a practical man who is determined to make the best of a bad job. So he is now discovering that the sudden revelation of the fighting capacity of the Yankee is, perhaps, not such a bad thing after all — at least, for Germany. It may, for instance, lead to embroilment with England, at the thought of which the German chuckles. He has long warmed his hands at the fire that smoulders between Russia and England. If another flame were to spring up between England and the United States — well, he would be warmer still. Then, again, the startling advent of the American navy on the high seas as a first-class fighting force supplies the Kaiser with a new and irresistible argu- ment in favor of adding more ships to the German navy. It is an ill wind that blows nobody good, and the disaster that has overwhelmed the Spanish fleets may be utilized to increase the effective force of the German navy. But that is not all. The German practical politician, who always judges everything by his estimate of the way it will affect himself without reference to its influ- ence on his neighbors, eagerly profits by the stimulus given to colonialism by the appearance of the United States as a Colonial Power. He smiles as he thinks how the Americans will discover the fallacy of their fond illusions when they seriously begin to equip Schaarwachler, Hi rlin PRINCE HOHENLOIIE Chancellor of the German Empire and Premier of Prussia E. Bieber, Berlin DR. VOX MIQUEL Vice-President of the Prussian Council and Minister of Finance Schaarwachter, Berlin PRINCE HENRY OF PRUSSIA Brother of the German Emperor Elliott and Fry SIR F. LASCELLES British Ambassador at Berlin GERMANY 223 navies, maintain armies, and govern distant millions of dark-skinned races. But that is not his affair. What he has to do is first to silence the minority in Germany — that is, against armies and navies and colo- nies — by making the most of the sudden coming over of the American nation from a policy of mind-your- own-business and cultivate-your-own-garden-in-peace, to a policy of military, naval, and colonial expansion. America's casting vote, they say, is now given on the side of Colonialism and Aggression. Secondly — and this is perhaps the more important — the blow dealt at Spain by the United States has put the Spanish Empire in liquidation. Germany, like a smart man of business, intends to be in at the sale of the bankrupt stock. She has no intention of quarrel- ling with the United States. On the contrary, she will be effusively friendly. But she intends to have the first choice in whatever is left of Spain's goods and chattels after the Americans have had their pick. There are many trimmings left over after your treaty of peace is signed. Germany must at any cost acquire coaling-stations all round the world. Spain has coal- ing-stations to sell. Germany does not intend to be forestalled. She has long had an eye on the Caroline Islands. There are less probable contingencies than a deal by which Germany might at a stroke take over the whole wreck of the Spanish Empire in the Far East. No one can foresee what kaleidoscopic changes may come about in the near future, when the Colonial possessions of Spain and also of Portugal seem likely 224 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE to come upon the market to be knocked down to the highest bidder. The present Emperor is unlike his father in most things, but he inherited from his predecessor a haunt- ing dread of the immense potentialities of the Ameri- can Commonwealth. This dread, which has hitherto been chiefly commercial, is now extending to the polit- ical sphere. The Kaiser has no love for the Monroe doctrine. If the United States cuts the Nicaragua Canal, the need for a German coaling-station in the West Indian islands will be imperious. Nor is that the only possibility of collision between " American- ism " and Germany. The German colonists are in- creasing in Southern Brazil. Only the other day one of them got into trouble for hoisting the German flag, and his cause has been warmly taken up by his coun- trymen at home. The Government looks askance at the enthusiasm which begets societies for the promo- tion of Germanism in Brazil, foreseeing complications. Mr. McKinley was equally opposed to intervention in Cuba, but he made the war notwithstanding. The coyness of Governments is apt suddenly to give way before the awakened passions of their subjects. If the German colonists in Brazil revolt and declare their independence, it will not be a far cry, in the opinion of eager spirits in Berlin, to the establishment of a German Protectorate over the German independent States of South America. And in that case the Mon- roe doctrine might fail of enforcement unless the American fleet were stronger than that of Germany. GERMANY 225 The chief and immediate rivalry is not in colonies but in commerce. In the struggle for the world's market Germany is badly handicapped by her military burdens and by the comparative narrowness of her borders. America she recognizes as her most formi- dable competitor, and the contest every day becomes more keen. The admirable speech made by Mr. White, the American Ambassador, at Leipsic on July 4th did much to bring the Germans to their bearings. But it was significant of much that at that banquet but for the direct intervention of the Ambassador him- self no German flag would have been displayed. The room was draped with Union Jacks and Stars and Stripes intertwined. But neither German nor Saxon flag was visible. At the last moment a Saxon flag was procured, so that the conventions were preserved. 15 CHAPTEE IV THE MINOR STATES OP EUROPE "When I was in Home I had the pleasure of enjoying the hospitality of one of the most modern and least clerical of Europeans — none other than the famous Norwegian novelist, poet and political agitator, Bjorn- stjerne Bjornson, who has taken up his winter quar- ters next door to the King. If only his Majesty would replace the last dozen feet of the monstrously high wall which shuts out the Quirinal gardens from the views of his Norwegian neighbor by a trellis or a rail- ing, M. Bjornson would have no reason to wish to change quarters with King Humbert. For he has a charming set of apartments, far above the roar of the traffic in the street below — apartments which open out upon a delightful little garden on the roof, where, under the blue sky of Rome, surrounded by sweet- scented flowers, the Northern poet can look out upon the world as from the eyrie of an eagle. The stout Republican does not And the being next-door neigh- bors to Royalty altogether to his taste. " We share the music of the King's band," he said; " that is pleas- ant enough. But the roaring of his lion is less agree- able. And he is always roaring." The lion, it sterns, THE MINOR STATES OF EUROPE 227 was a gift from King Menelik of Abyssinia to the King of Italy. It is kept in the garden of the Quiri- nal, where it is as unhappy as the prisoner in the Vatican. Day and night the royal brute roars his unavailing protest to an unheeding world. But the lion, like his namesake in the Vatican, rages in vain behind his prison bars. I had met M. Bjornson for the first time at the studio of his friend and countryman, M. Ross. He was in famous spirits, and full of the very latest idea that has fascinated this most versatile and quick-witted of men. M. Bjornstjerne Bjornson is one of the veterans — he is half-way between sixty and seventy, and does not seem more than ^rve and fifty — in the campaign for peace. He has contended for arbitra- tion, for disarmament, for everything, in short, that makes for progress, even before the Tsar was born. To him, therefore, more than to most men, the Peace Rescript was welcome. He was full of interest in all that I had to tell him about Russia and her ruler, and, like every one else with whom I have had the oppor- tunity of speaking on the subject, he rejoiced with exceeding great joy on hearing how things stood. As, indeed, he had good cause. For everything that the friend of peace could hope for is true, and true to an extent which neither M. Bjornson nor any one else dared to venture would come true in our time. " But, after all " — for even M. Bjornson has a " but " — « But, after all," he said, " I am not very 228 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE sanguine about the Great Powers. They are one and all but beasts of prey." I vehemently objected, and, indeed, considering how the Peace Conference came to be the great hope of mankind, not without cause, against such a summary method of classification. But M. Bjornson paid no heed to my protest. " I am con- cerned," he went on, " about the smaller States, the little Powers. What is to come of them at the Con- ference ? " " What about the little Powers ? " I asked. " Are you not satisfied that they should have been in- vited to the Conference? Never before were the minor States invited equally with their more powerful neighbors to such an international assembly." " That is all very well," he replied, " but it is not enough. I am anxious to see something more than that. I want to see the smaller States group themselves together, so as to act and speak with effect. Each by itself can do nothing. In a league, or federation, or neutrality, they might be a very potent influence in international affairs." " I entirely agree with you," I replied, " and in Bel- gium at the very beginning of my tour I repeatedly wrote and spoke urging upon Belgium the importance of taking the lead in the matter. It would be a great opportunity for the King of the Belgians, who has never heretofore had a wide enough field for the exer- cise of his statesmanship." "Do you think," said M. Bjornson, "that King Leopold is the best man to undertake the organization of the small States?" "Who else would you sug- THE MINOR STATES OF EUROPE 229 gest?" I asked. "The Queen of Holland is too young. The King of Denmark is too old. The Presi- dent of the Swiss Federation is not known well enough. The King of Portugal has neither the en- ergy nor the ambition nor the central position. And your King, what about him? " " Why do you think it must be a king? " he asked; " would not some statesman be even better? " " But where will you find your statesman? " I answered. Then M. Ross broke in. " You have not far to seek ; you will find him in this very city. There is no man better than Baron de Bildt, the Minister of Sweden. He is a statesman of the first rank, a diplomatist, a scholar, and a man who has all the qualities that you need/' M. Boss did not exaggerate the capacity of the statesman he named. Three years Baron de Bildt declined the Ministerial post offered him by the king, which is now held by Count Douglass, and although he is but the representative of a small State, no one stands higher in the opinion of those who know than Baron de Bildt. But postponing for the moment the consideration of the man to do the work, I asked M. Bjornson what was the work that he wanted him to do. " I want," said M. Bjornson, " to secure an understanding among the small States before the Con- ference meets, so that when the representatives of the Powers meet, they will find that they are face to face, not with a disunited group of powerless little States, but with a federation representing 27,000,000 of 230 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE Europeans, who are determined to act together to se- cure their safety, and to obtain a guarantee of their neutrality.' 7 " What States do you mean? " I asked. From his reply I have constructed the following table, with the aid of the " xllmanach de Gotha" : — ' Population. Belgium 6,0C0,000 Denmark 2,000,000 Holland 5,000,000 Portugal 4,700,000 Sweden 5,000,000 Norway 2,000,000 Switzerland 3,000,000 Area in kil. car. 29,500 38,000 33,000 89,000 450,000 322,000 . 41,000 27,700,000 . 1,002,500 Army on Peace Footing. 50,000 11,000 29,000 26,000 39,000 20,000 175,000 M. Bjornson refused to regard the Southeastern States as eligible members for his League of Neutral- ity. He said they were full of their own ambitions, and some of them at least were by no means contented with their frontiers. But it may be worth while not- ing the statistics of these States, which have equally been invited to the Conference : — 1 Bulgaria 3,300,000 2 Servia 2,300,000 3 Montenegro 230,000 4 Greece 2,500,000 5 Roumania 5,500,000 , 94,000 . , 48,000 . . 9,000 . . 65,000 . 131,000 . 45,000 23,500 25,000 58,000 13,830,000 ,347,000 151,500 THE MINOR STATES OF EUROPE 231 Altogether, the small States represent a population of 41,000,000, and an army on a peace footing of 320,- 000 men, not reckoning the Swiss and Montenegrins, every man of whom is trained to arms. Clearly, the small States may claim to be regarded as constituting a conglomerate of population equal to that of any great Power. Their influence in the Euro- pean Concert, so far, at least, as the Northwestern States are concerned, would be solely for peace. They would constitute a most valuable element in the bal- ance of power. But will they be wise enough to rec- ognize their common interests and bestir themselves to make common cause in the Areopagus of the Na- tions? Time will show. But it will not be M. Bjorn- son's fault if they do not bestir themselves, and that without delay. PART IV RUSSIA OF THE RESCRIPT CHAPTER I AT ST. PETERSBURG IK 1898 When I was in Berlin, the Kaiser and his counsel- lors were making holiday preparatory to the Imperial tour to the Holy Land. The Kaiser was stag-shooting in the deer-forests in the extreme east of his dominions. One of the great events chronicled by the Berlin news- papers was the shooting of a stag with a greater num- ber of points on his antlers than had ever been secured as a trophy by any huntsman in Germany for more than two hundred years. We were reminded of this Imperial sport by the decoration at the railway sta- tions through which we passed immediately before crossing the Russian frontier. Russia has changed but little in ten years. One change there was, and that not a change for the better, so far as the traveller is concerned. The familiar German names of the stations had undergone an un- familiar metamorphosis. Wirballen, the frontier sta- tion, where the incoming traveller has his first experi- 234 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE ence of the indispensableness of the passport, is now Wirballavo, and so on all along the line. The old familiar names, some of which are branded deep on the memory of Europe in connection with the ever memorable retreat from Moscow, have now been dis- guised past all semblance of their former selves in the rage for Russofying everything which has been the fashion for some years past in Muscovy. In St. Petersburg itself little or nothing seemed to have changed. There were the old landmarks, the familiar churches and cathedrals; even the old pave- ment was much as I had seen it ten years before. The only change was the improved lighting of the Nevski Prospect, and the work which is going on all over the town in the laying down of electric mains for the fur- ther electric lighting of the city. To any electrical engineer accustomed to the heavy work needed for laying an electric cable through the streets of an Eng- lish or American city, the rough-and-ready, happy-go- lucky fashion in which the electric cable was laid down in the streets of St. Petersburg would seem little short of suicidal. They simply dug a long trench in the soil beneath the uneven cobble-stone surface of the roadway, uncoiled the electric cable from a huge roll, laid it in the trench, and then tumbling the loose earth on the top, restored the cobble-stones as they were be- fore, when the main was supposed to be laid. There was a good deal of talk in town of a company for sup- plying electricity by utilizing the falls of Imatra in Finland. By this means it was confidently expected AT ST. PETERSBURG IN 1898 235 that in a year or two St. Petersburg would be the best lighted city on the Continent, and that the slow-mov- ing trams and familiar droskies would be superseded by the electric trolley and motor-cars. The costless drainage of the Finnish wilderness would, it was cal- culated, enable the Russians to supply light and force to the city of Peter the Great at a cheaper rate than is possible elsewhere in the Old World. There was one other change noticeable in the droskies. They are all now fitted with hoods similar to those that fold backwards in a child's perambulator. The hood does not cover the drosky, but it is very convenient for the traveller. While w T e were in St. Petersburg in Octo- ber, we had the first foreshadowings of the coming winter in the shape of a fall of snow which, melting almost as soon as it fell, did not add to the amenities of existence. The Hotel d'Europe was overrun with English and Americans, chiefly Americans, who had returned from Siberia, where they had been travelling hither and thither in search of profitable concessions. They were all full of praises of the country, especially on account of its immense agricultural capacities, and some brought fabulous stories as to the richness of the mineral deposits. Life among the gold-miners of Siberia seems to be very much like life among the Argonauts of California in 1849, with the disagreeable addition of the presence of a great number of convicts, murderers, and others, who work fairly well in sum- mer time at the mines, but who in winter relapse into 236 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE homicidal habits and murder for gain to an extent which casts the worst records of the Wild West into the shade. The American prospectors did not, how- ever, report that they had come upon many plums. The best locations had been already snapped up, chiefly by Frenchmen, who were paying prices which in the opinion of the prudent American and British speculator, were far in excess of anything justified by reasonable prudence. On the other hand, the Sibe- rian holders of good things were all suffering more or less from " swelled head/' and were refusing to part, except at fabulous prices. They all praised the Gov- ernment for the generous way in which it encouraged business enterprise, but expressed great regret that the Siberian railway could not be pushed forward more rapidly and worked more expeditiously, for it was nothing short of a sin to see so many hundreds of tons of good grain rotting by the wayside for want of roll- ing stock to carry it away. The greatest change of all that I noticed in St. Petersburg was that which had taken place at the Brit- ish Embassy. When I was last in Russia Sir Robert Morier was the representative of Her Majesty at the Russian Court. The late Lord Derby once told me that he considered Sir Robert Morier knew more about European politics than all the rest of the Diplomatic Corps put together. He was a man who had thrown himself with all the energy of a very passionate nature into the study of Russia and the Russians. He was a persona grata with the Emperor and with his leading AT ST. PETERSBURG IN 1898 237 Ministers. Despite his somewhat brusque and savage manner when he was roused, the Russians liked him and trusted him, and M. de Giers told me that there would never be any difficulties between Russia and England so long as Sir Robert Morier remained at St. Petersburg. But alas ! the place that knew Sir Robert Morier now knows him no more. Since he reigned as a kind of British Tsar in the Embassy on the Neva, the familiar house near the Troitsky Bridge has seen three fresh occupants — Sir B. Lascelles, Sir Nicholas O'Conor, Sir Charles Scott. The last named, who is the present occupant of w T hat is perhaps the most re- sponsible post in the British diplomatic service, is a newcomer, suddenly pitchforked from Copenhagen to St. Petersburg. His appointment excited general surprise, and probably in no place more keenly than in the breast of Sir Charles Scott himself. The only explanation that was given was that Sir Charles Scott had been for some years a colleague of Count Mura- vieff at the Danish Court, and it was supposed he w r ould be able to understand the idiosyncrasies of the Foreign Minister better than anyone who was a complete stranger. Count MuraviefiPs appointment, which surprised Europe, had as its sequel the appoint- ment of Sir Charles Scott, which in a smaller way was equally surprising. Sir Charles is a North of Ireland man, almost as strong an anti-Home Ruler as Sir Robert Morier, and equally familiar with the Ger- man language. He had served with Sir Edward Malet at Berlin, and twenty-two years ago had been 238 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE attached at the Embassy, under Lord Augustus Lof tus, in St. Petersburg. He is a well-meaning man with the best intentions; but it will need a long course of Russian winters before the frost matures his intellect so as to give it the keen edge and temper of his pre- decessor, Sir Robert Morier. The disadvantage of holding an appointment at a court like Copenhagen is that it is a kind of diplomatic hibernation, during which mental alertness, continually stimulated in the great capitals, is apt to lose its spring. Count Muravieff, the titular head of the Foreign Office, whose appointment was generally attributed to the influence of the Empress-Dowager — an imputation which that august lady is said to repudiate as a cal- umny — left Russia immediately before my arrival. We had met ten years before at the Russian Embassy in Berlin, when no one anticipated he was destined to so sudden and remarkable a promotion. We met again in the hotel at Sebastapol as I was leaving Rus- sia. He had just returned from his European tour, and was repairing to Livadia. When I was at Berlin, an interview with a distinguished Russian diplomatist appeared in the Tageblatt. I was confidentially as- sured that the diplomatist in question was none other than Count Muravieff, to whose views I naturally turned with considerable interest. According to this authority, the Count had declared that England was the enemy of the pacific aspirations of the Tsar. Eng- land's motto had ever been to divide and conquer. Rome in her worst days of Imperial ambition was a AT ST. PETERSBURG IN 1898 239 sucking child compared to John Bull. So terrible, indeed, did this ogre appear in the interview, that it was not surprising to learn that nothing could save civilization from his fangs but a European coalition which would draw the teeth and clip the nails of this continent-devouring monster. When I reached St. Petersburg I naturally inquired as to the authenticity of this extraordinary interview. It was, of course, emphatically disclaimed. Some said that the inter- viewer had written the interview up to suit the Ger- man market. Others denied that there had been any interview at all; but if so, the Tageblatt must have been hoaxed, and Count Muravieff had been once more made the victim of the astonishing series of mis- conceptions which cause him to be so cruelly misunder- stood both in Russia and abroad. I had heard a good deal before I came to Russia of a ferocious anti-English feeling which found expres- sion in the St. Petersburg press, and I therefore made it my business to take the earliest possible opportunity of making the personal acquaintance of the chief Anglophobe on the Russian press. I found it was a case illustrating the old saying, " There is no hate like love to hatred turned." The journalist in question had at one time been a great Anglophil, and was still an enthusiastic student of our literature. But English foreign policy had been too much for him; and from loving us he had swept round to detesting us with a whole heart fervently. He began our interview by declaring with great emphasis that the Russians were 240 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE far too Christian, far too good-hearted, too amiable and too forgiving, and that therefore it was his duty to preach always hatred, hatred, hatred of the English! This was a promising beginning; but when we came to close quarters, and I ascertained what it was that he detested so heartily, I found that the sins he hated, I hated also, and had probably denounced much more vehemently in England than he had ever done in Russia. In any case, he was much better informed and much more sane in his appreciation of the Conti- nental position than are most Russophobist writers of the English press against whom he may be placed, as an unfortunate specimen of a journalist whose pen does not make for friendship and good understanding between the two nations. There is very much of a muchness between the complaints brought by the anti- English writers in St. Petersburg and the stock accu- sations of our anti-Russian writers in London. In fact, the same articles might often do service in both countries, English being substituted for Russian and Russian for English, according as they were published in London or St. Petersburg. Hatred, malice and uncharitableness find plenty of material on which to exercise their malevolent activity in the military and diplomatic achievements of both Empires. In discussing the causes which led some Russians to regard England with antipathy, there were many par- ticulars alleged, Mr. Chamberlain's " long spoon " speech being mentioned, but it did not occupy as conspicuous a place as might have been expected. AT ST. PETERSBURG IN 1898 241 Speeches, with Russians, always count less than acts. The appointment of Lord Curzon to the Viceroyalty of India was regarded as a far more significant illustra- tion of English hostility to Russia than all the speeches of all the Russophobists put together. Lord Curzon stoutly repudiated the imputation of being an enemy of Russia's on the eve of his departure for India, and expressed himself in terms of unimpeachable correcti- tude as to his desire to be on the best terms with his great Northern neighbor. The memory of our breach of faith in relation to Chitral sticks in the Russian memory; but even about this they do not say anything stronger than was said by those who expressed the unanimous opinion of the Rosebery Cabinet. About AVei-IIai-Wei very little was said, it being regarded as only another instance of the inveterate practice of England always to look about for an opportunity to do something disagreeable to Russia. A very excellent lady in St. Petersburg, who was a great friend of Prince LobanofFs, was deploring the great losses which Russia had sustained in the extinc- tion of that great intellect. " Yes," I said, " great intellect, no doubt, but he was very hostile to Eng- land." " And how can any Russian help being hostile to England," she exclaimed, " when England is always playing us such nasty tricks? " It was a genuine out- burst of real feeling, and it probably expresses more succinctly than any more labored speech the feeling of Russians concerning our attitude towards them. An Englishman often does not seem to be happy unless 16 242 TEE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE he can do an ill turn to a Russian. Sir Howard Yin- cent, who certainly cannot be regarded as belonging to the household of faith, who has, indeed, had his habitation for the most part among the dragons of Eussophobia, was profoundly impressed, when visiting Russia last year, with the universal conviction of the Russians that wherever they went and whatever they did, they would always find " the Englishwoman " — the Angiichanka, the Queen — popping up in order to thwart and annoy them. The chief mischief, however, in this as in other things is done not by the diplomatists, not even by the Admirals, so much as by the press. If my excel- lent confreres were forbidden to write a single mali- cious, suspicious or uncharitable article upon the action of Russia until they could read, even with the aid of the dictionary, a single sentence of the Russian language, there would be very little danger of a dis- turbance of the good relations between Russia and England. Since my last visit, ten years ago, death has made considerable havoc in the ranks of Russian statesmen. Very few of those who held portfolios in 1888 were still in office in 1898. There was, however, an excep- tion. M. PobedonostsefT, who was Procurator of the Holy Synod during the reign of Alexander III., is still holding the same post under Nicholas II. The position of M. PobedonostsefT is unique. No Minister has held office so long, and no other Minister has pre- sided over the education of two Emperors. He is also AT ST. PETERSBURG IN 1898 243 the only Russian Minister who has written books deal- ing with matters of general interest lying outside his immediate sphere. No Russian Minister is so dis- tinctively Russian, and at the same time so keenly in- terested in the doings of the world outside the Russian frontier. M. Pobedonostseff keeps himself constantly informed as to the literary, political, and philosophical movement in the West of Europe. He is a great stu- dent of English literature; his library table is always strewn with the latest magazines and newest books that are issued from London, and no one could be at the same time more careful to keep himself au courant with Western thought than the man who, of all others, may be regarded as the jealous guardian of Russian orthodoxy against any Western influences. In my " Truth about Russia " I devoted well-nigh sixty pages to a sustained invective against M. Pobedonostseff and the whole system of ecclesiastic intolerance of which he is the official exponent. In the course of several pages I expounded with considerable vehemence the only conception of the system of the Procurator of the Holy Synod which was possible to an English Noncon- formist reared in the straitest traditions of the sect of which Oliver Cromwell is the patron saint. I had called M. Pobedonostseff, Torquemada, Diocletian, and all other kinds of amiable epithets, and, therefore, I should have had no reason to complain if he had placed every obstacle in the way of my return to Russia, or the prosecution of my mission there. So far from this being the case, I must do M. Pobedonost- 244 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE serf the justice of admitting that, instead of resenting my denunciation of him, lie heaped coals of fire upon my head by treating me with exceptional kindness and consideration. lie invited me to his house at Tsarskoe Selo, and I had the privilege of two long conversations with him upon all manner of subjects, from the latest fashion in English novels to the persecution of the Stundists. It was an intellectual treat to sit at the feet of the Russian Gamaliel, even although you were utterly unable from temperament, education, or en- vironment to accept his eloquent vindication of the necessity for secluding the Russian peasant from the perils of a heretical propaganda. In his book, " The Reflections of a Russian Statesman," M. Pobedonost- sefT surveyed the Eastern World in its later develop- ments of democratic freedom, and proclaimed aloud that he found no good in it. From head to foot, the Western system of modern democracy was full of wounds and bruises and putrefying sores; there was no health in it. One hundred years after the out- break of the French Revolution, the West is more dis- posed to agree with its Russian mentor than at any former period. Two eminent statesmen of England and France were discussing the other day the sombre picture which M. Pobedonostseff gives in his book of the decadence of Western democracy. They both agreed that black as was the picture which the Russian Jere- miah had painted, each of them could have given him many points which would have enabled him to make AT ST. PETERSBURG IN 189S 245 it much blacker. Democracy seen from the inside seemed to them even more seamy than it appeared to M. Pobedonostseff from the point of view of the out- sider. ]STo one can look upon the condition of things either in France, Austria, or Italy without feeling that the devil's advocate has got a very strong brief when he undertakes to plead against what was at one time the almost universally accepted optimism of the Liberal. M. Pobedonostseff represents in Russia the same kind of sentiment which prevails in most country vicarages and in rural districts where the parson and the squire agree in regarding the intrusion of the dis- senter as a letting loose of one of the plagues of Egypt. There is much more excuse for M. Pobedonostseff than there is for the country parson, but their ideas are identical. Each uses the power which he has to the best of his ability to preserve the unity of the faith among the flock intrusted to his care. Both regard the masses of the people as children from whom as faithful guardians they must keep the poisonous influ- ences of schism and heresy. Clerical intolerance in this country has had its claws clipped and its teeth drawn. In Russia that process is still to come, but it will not come as long as M. Pobedonostseff is to the fore. He is still hale and vigorous, and, despite his seventy years, he is much more hearty than many English statesmen of sixty. In ten years he did not seem to have aged in the least. He was quite as free from the illusions of youth ten years ago as I found 246 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE him last year. It is, perhaps, impossible to expect a conservative statesman of seventy to share the gen- erous enthusiasm of youth, but he is by no means of a hide-bound or unsympathetic disposition. He was particularly pleased with a charming book on Burma, the author of which had drawn a much idealized picture of Buddhism. I also have to acknowledge that M. PobedonostsefT, by his voluntary and power- ful initiative, smoothed all difficulties in the way of my access to the Emperor. When I left Russia in 1888, nothing seemed to me more absolutely impos- sible than that I should return ten years later and be indebted to the Russian Torquemada for my introduc- tion to the young Emperor. In St. Petersburg almost everywhere I found a very strong feeling against the Armenians. It is a fixed idea among Russians that England had created the Armenian difficulty in order to embarrass Russia. "When asked for the grounds of this extraordinary theory, there was no hesitation in supplying the data upon which this superstructure had been reared. It must be admitted that they were much more substan- tial than most of the foundations on which national jealousy builds a superstructure of falsehood. The Russians began by pointing out that the Armenian difficulty owes its existence to the intervention of Eng- land at the Berlin Conference. If Lord Beaconsfield and Lord Salisbury had left the Treaty of San Stef ano alone, Russia would have had a treaty right and an assured position for protecting the Armenians AT ST. PETERSBURG IN 1898 247 against the Turks. Instead of permitting Russia to discharge the responsibilities she had undertaken, England interfered, cancelled the Russian guarantee, and superseded it by an ineffective international undertaking on the plea that everything relating to Turkey was a European concern, and that it was con- trary to the Treaty of Paris to make single-handed bargains with the Sultan as to the reform of any part of his empire. At the same moment that England was mutilating the Treaty of San Stefano on this pre- text, she was concluding secretly a convention with Turkey by which she placed herself in an exceptional position by a separate agreement with the Ottoman Empire in virtue of which she was allowed to occupy Cyprus. From that time, they maintain, England has done nothing but foment discontent in Armenia, knowing that it would make trouble for Russia. Eng- land, they say, operated through the American mis- sionaries who educated the Armenians in their schools, filled them with political aspirations, and provoked the insurrectionary movement which brought about the atrocities. If you object that this was done by Americans and not by British, they reply that the Americans and English work together in Asia Minor like right and left hands. The American missionary stirs up the trouble and the British Consul protects him. But for these two agencies the Armenians would never have provoked the reprisals which made the world shudder. By thus forcing the Armenian ques- tion to the front, England placed Russia in a disagree- 248 TEE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE able dilemma. The Armenians wished to form an Armenian principality like Bulgaria, with the avowed object of working for the unification of Armenia, even at the cost of the dismemberment of the Russian Em- pire. In the Caucasus the Russian administration is practically in the hands of the Armenians. The Armenian, who is extremely clever, not very scrupu- lous, and who has considerable political faculty, has monopolized the administration. At present he is prosperous and fairly content, but he cherishes aspira- tions after the revival of a great Armenian kingdom somewhat similar to those which the Poles cherish for the revival of the kingdom of Poland. To create an independent Armenia in Asia Minor would be to set up a standard round which to rally all the Armenian subjects of Russia. The prospect of establishing this centre of Armenian nationality was certainly not an inducement calculated to encourage Russian states- men to face the risk of intervention in Turkey. The creation of an Armenian nationality also was a difficult question, because the Armenians are so mixed up with the Kurds, that if the Turkish authority were elimi- nated from Armenia, and no foreign force introduced, the result would be, not an independent and self-gov- erning free Armenia, but a province in which the Armenians would be harried to the bone by the domi- nant Kurd, who for centuries has regarded the Ar- menian very much as wolves regard sheep. If any- thing useful were to be done in Armenia for liberty and the protection of life and property of the luckless AT ST. PETERSBURG IN 189S 249 Armenians, it could only be done by the introduction of an adequate military force, and Kussia was the only Power from which such a force could come. But the Russians, who remember what the Austrians had to face in Bosnia, vehemently resisted the suggestion that they should undertake the pacification of Armenia. The mere fact that it was favored in England led them to suspect that it was a trap, and they regarded the suggestion that they should pacify Armenia as an unmasking of the English design to weaken and em- barrass Russia by encouraging her in a profitless and costly enterprise which would waste her resources and divert her energies. Armed intervention in Armenia involved the risk of war. Russia had enough war in 1877 to last her for the rest of this century. To jus- tify their reluctance to embark upon the Armenian Crusade, they fell back upon all manner of pretexts. The Armenians, for instance, were not Greek Ortho- dox, neither were they Slavs. Russia formerly used to defend the cause of Christians of the East regard- less of nationality or of race. But she had grown wiser with painful experience; she was no longer to be the champion of the Christian East. France and Germany could, if they chose, wrangle for the right of the protectorate of the Roman Catholics, but Russia would stick to the Orthodox, and not only to the Ortho- dox, but to the Slavonic Orthodox. As for the Arme- nians, they were very well capable of taking care of themselves. The Russians know the Armenians, and do not like them. There is a saying which the Rus- 250 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE sians are never tired of repeating, that it takes two Greeks to swindle a Jew, two Jews to cheat the devil, but it takes two devils to cheat an Armenian; from which it would seem that the intellectual capacity of the Armenian in matters of cheating or being cheated is very highly appraised by those who have most to do with them. Whatever the cause, or whatever the pre- text, there is no question about the fact that the Arme- nians of all races under the sun seem to be least in favor at St. Petersburg. Nevertheless, many Rus- sians felt very keenly and expressed very frankly the shame and indignation with which they regarded Prince LobanofT's policy in dealing with the Armenian question. The massacres in Constantinople brought this home very forcibly to the Russian conscience, and no one would be better pleased than the best Russians if the happy termination of the Cretan question re- sulted in the adoption of a more vigorous policy in dealing with Turkish misrule in Asia Minor. My stay in Russia was much too brief for me to at- tempt any study of the currents beneath the surface, especially those among the young men in the univer- sities. At the same time, going in and out in St. Petersburg society, it was impossible to turn a deaf ear to what you heard on every side — namely, that the students in St. Petersburg universities are all more or less in sympathy with the Socialism of Karl Marx in one or other of its forms. Of Nihilism you heard little or nothing. There were some who shook their heads gravely when questioned on the subject; and AT ST. PETERSBURG IN 1898 251 the opinion was frequently expressed, especially among Americans, that the growth of great industrial communities in Southern Russia and in the neighbor- hood of the capital boded anything but good for the future tranquillity of the Empire. For the present, however, the chief social danger was not in the growth of revolutionary discontent so much as in the recur- rence of periods of great distress, which occasionally, as at present in certain districts in the Southeast Provinces, may almost attain the dimensions of a famine. CHAPTEE II THE PEACE KESCKIPT Russia, although a country of immense resources, which have as yet been very imperfectly developed, is, nevertheless, a country of poor men and poor women. There are a few individuals of very great wealth, there are many foreign companies developing the mineral and other resources of the country, and earning for their fortunate shareholders dividends that sometimes attain the noble dimensions of thirty-five and forty per cent.; but the great mass of the 129,- 000,000 of population over whom the Tsar reigns as a kind of terrestrial Providence are very poor, and are only able to provide their daily bread from year's end to year's end by a life of hard industry, which, were it not for the combined influences of the weather and the Church, would be unremitting. The population, though poor, is frugal and prolific. It is increasing at the rate of two millions per annum. In 1910 the Russian people will have reached 150,000,000; be- tween 1930 and 1940, 200,000,000; and at the end of the twentieth century there will be in all probability 300,000,000 Russians. The difference in density be- tween the populations of Western Europe and of Rus- Lf*m la Jr ^ M Hn^ v x ° w n |^ &^ 4 ^ -J 1 FRANCE ^^^^-^AUSTRIA-HUNGARY^y L AWITZPS —00T \ A s ^fe / 1 SPAIN P^jjto'Vi ^JHfc THE REST OP EUROPE INSIDE RUSSIA THE PEACE RESCRIPT 253 sia is decreasing every day. It is true that the last census gives to Russia in Europe only 51 inhabitants per square mile, while in France there are 183, in Germany 235, in England 316, in Belgium 518. But to find this average immense deserts in the north and south are included. In the habitable districts a much higher average is attained — 90 to 114 in Muscovy, 181 to 194 in Poland, 194 to 207 in the greater portion of the basin of the Dnieper. The birth-rate and death- rate are both phenomenally large (births 45 per 1,000, as against 30 in England and 22 in France), but the balance of life over death is two millions a year (death- rate 31 per 1,000, as against 19 in England). It is well for Europe that Russia has so immense a back- country, with territory all pegged out, in which her ever-swelling population can find maintenance. Noth- ing seems more obvious to the plain man, looking over the jealousies of nations, than the curious way in which people ignore serious dangers and alarm themselves about the very things which should minister to their sense of security. Take, for instance, this matter of the so-called Russian danger ; the alarmist looks at the map, sees the whole of Eastern Europe and of North- ern Asia labelled Russia, and he at once works him- self into a fidget as to the menace to the world implied in the allocation of so large a portion of its surface to the Russian race. But for the thousand persons who lie awake at night 'haunted by the extent that Russia bulks on the map, is there even one who spares a thought as to the one really serious fact in the situa- 254 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE tion — namely, the balance of Russian births over Rus- sian deaths every twelve months? The advent of an invading army of two millions of future Russian citi- zens every twelve months upon the surface of this planet is surely a phenomenon infinitely more por- tentous than the acquisition by Russia of an ice-free port, or the rounding out of her frontiers in the heart of Central Asia. If that fact were duly kept in mind, the expanse of her territory would sink into its proper place as an element of reassurance. For a nation of 129,000,000 that is increasing at the rate of two mil- lions per annum assuredly needs a continent in which to stretch itself. If the birth-rate rules the future, then the future is Russia's, hands down. Not even a death-rate nearly double that of Sweden can deprive her of that pride of place which enables her to distance even prolific Germany and the large-familied English. Fortunately she has all Siberia to people, and that immense expanse will for a century to come be cap- able of absorbing all the overflow of European Russia. The total population of Siberia at last census was only 5,731,000. If for a moment we sever ourselves from the baleful infatuations of Russophobia, it is obvious that the great enemy is the Russian cradle, not the Russian army, and until you can provide against the rapid refilling of the cradle, all the diplomatic and military victories that can be scored off the Northern Colossus are but written in water* It is no doubt this fact, the social fact, the increase of mouths to feed, and the uncertainty of being able THE PEACE RESCRIPT 255 to feed them, which is the real motive at the back of the Eescript. Russia, in the opinion of her sane and sober rulers, is not rich enough to go on wasting in- definitely her resources in expenditure on armaments. They are in charge of a vast undeveloped estate, and they want every penny that can be spared or that they can borrow for the development of that estate, not for the carrying on of lawsuits with neighbors across the fence. Russia, according to this year's budget, pro- poses to devote forty millions sterling to the construc- tion of railways, a sum six millions in excess of the sum demanded by the Ministry of War. Her railways, it is asserted by those who display the most pestilent ingenuity in devising pretexts for making themselves miserable, are all strategic military railways. They are strategic, no doubt; they are a part of a great strategic campaign which mankind is ever fighting against hunger, destitution, and barbarism. In one sense, every railway, even that supreme product of British civilization the London, Chatham and Dover Railway, is a military line; it connects the capital with the dockyards of Chatham and the military port of Dover. It is much more of a military line than the great Siberian Trunk Overland Railway, which the Russians are pushing on with such splendid energy for the development of the great waste continent which without a railway would continue waste. In the solu- tion of the social question, which means the ameliora- tion of the condition of the great masses of the human race, nothing could be more desired than that military 256 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE empires should spend their resources in the making of railways rather than the building of ironclads. In- deed, it may be regarded as the latter-day equivalent of the prophecy of the old Hebrew, who, had he lived in these days, would not have talked about beating swords into ploughshares and the spear into pruning- hooks, but would assuredly have predicted as the mark of the Golden Age the transfer of credits from the Ministry of War to the Ministry of Ways and Com- munications, and regarded as the distinctive mark of the coming of the Kingdom of Peace the conversion of the money intended for quick-firing artillery into the purchase of locomotives and the laying down of a permanent way. The original genesis of the Peace Kescript may be traced back for at least eight years. At Lord Salis- bury's instance seven years ago a confidential State paper was prepared, in which the actual cost of mili- tarism in Europe was set forth in detail. It was shoAvn, for example, that during the six years ending in 1888 no less a sum than £974,715,802 was spent by France, Germany, Austria-Hungary, Great Britain, Russia, Spain and Italy for military and naval pur- poses alone. The memorandum embodying this and other not less striking facts was originally prepared for the exclusive use of the Cabinet; but Lord Salis- bury communicated it to the Emperor of Germany, who was so impressed by it that he privately intimated his intention of summoning a European Congress " to consider practical measures for assuring universal TEE PEACE RESCRIPT 257 peace." As a preliminary the semi-official German press was instructed to ventilate the question, and it will be remembered that the summer of 1891 was largely occupied with this press campaign. The scheme met with a very unfavorable reception in I ranee, where, as now, it was urged that the question of Alsace-Lorraine stood in the way of any ideas of disarmament. Thereupon the German Emperor abandoned it, and the subject dropped for some years. One of the last statements made by Mr. Gladstone before he quitted office was to assure Mr. Byles, on February 11th, 1894, that he doubted whether the moment was opportune for initiating negotiations among other European Powers with a view to con- certed disarmament. About the same time Madame ISTovikofT wrote an earnest appeal in the Westminster Gazette in favor of something being done for the relief of Europe from the ever-increasing burden of arma- ments. Hardly two months later I stated in the pages of the Review of Reviews that I had " private intelli- gence from a sure source that the Emperor is giving his closest attention to the question as to whether some- thing cannot be done to relieve the intolerable burden of military expenditure." M. de Blowitz had already reported a conversation between the King of Denmark and a Spanish statesman, in which the Danish King- was reported as saying : — " I hope to live long enough to see Europe enter upon the pathway of military retrenchment, and to behold the sov- ereigns of Europe taking measures to protect their people 17 258 TEE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE against the constantly increasing burden of military ex- penditure. " My dear son-in-law, the Tsar of Russia, whose mission consists in maintaining peace, is quite ready to enter upon this pathway, and my great and good friend, the Emperor of Austria, is equally disposed to do his utmost towards that end." He had not ventured, lie said, to speak to the Kaiser, for a young sovereign is always dreaming of winning new laurels. In the Review of Reviews of May 15th I formally pressed the question whether the time had not come for the people collectively to take a stand against the steady increase of armaments, and suggested that the true line to take was to seek an international agree- ment by which the Powers should hind themselves not to allow their military and naval budgets to pass be- yond their present limits, at least till the end of the century. I wrote : — The whole social question is bound up in this. "Were it possible for the great Powers not merely to agree to arrest the growth of their military and naval expenditure, but to reduce it all round, say by 10 or 20 per cent., there would be liberated a fund available for the purposes of social improve- ment which would in the course of a few years transform the whole social position. At present everything is blocked because there is no cash. . . . It is the responsibility of the English democracy to take the initiative in promoting if possible a simultaneous reduction of armaments all along the line. It is understood that the Tsar is earnestly desirous of moving in this direction as soon as the opportunity offers. The Arbitration Alliance agreed to take up the mat- TEE PEACE RESCRIPT 259 ter in this country. The first public initiative in the matter was taken by a Conference of the representa- tives of all the Free Churches, which was held at the Friends' Meeting House, Devonshire Street, April 17th. By this Conference an address was drawn up, from which the following is an extract : — There are abundant signs that throughout Europe the feel- ing of general unrest and almost of despair under the bur- dens of militarism is giving place to a growing hope in the possibility of a pacific issue from the present situation. The views of M. Jules Simon and others have awakened a wide response upon the Continent, alike from the highest and the humblest quarters. As professed followers of the Prince of Peace we cannot be silent at this juncture. We believe that in urging upon Her Majesty's Government in the name of Christianity the duty of availing themselves of the present opportunity, we are asking for a course of action which is in harmony with all that is noblest in our country's history. There is a widespread belief that the initiative can be best taken by Her Majesty's Government. The neutral policy of this country, the smallness of her offensive armaments, her insular position, the commanding personal influence of Her Majesty and the friendly relations in which she finds herself with all the European Powers, appear to give her a unique opportunity, and to impose upon her in this matter a unique responsibility. While not presuming to suggest the precise line of action which may be expedient, we desire earnestly to ask Her Majesty's Government to propose to the other Powers the adoption of some practical step designed to pro- mote the international reduction of armaments and the establishment of some permanent system of International Arbitration. We are aware of the practical difficulties that may lie in the way of action. But we have every confidence that, in considering this momentous question, Her Majesty's Govern- ment will approach it in the spirit of greatness proper to the 260 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE great purpose in view and to the high influence which, under the blessing of God, England may exercise in the promotion of international peace. The following national Memorial was then drawn up for presentation to the British Government : — The continuous and unchecked growth of European arma- ments has now reached a point which necessitates some concerted action to secure relief. The pressure of military and naval expenditures threatens States with bankruptcy, cripples the industries and impoverishes the homes of the people, and diverts to wasteful preparation for slaughter funds that would otherwise be available for purposes of social amelioration and reform. This ruinous rivalry in armaments is the inevitable, al- though deplorable, result of the absence of any international understanding. It can only be arrested by an international agreement. We would, therefore, respectfully but earnestly suggest that communications should be opened with the European Powers, in order to ascertain whether it may not be possible as a first step towards arresting the further growth of na- tional armaments, and reducing burdens already almost intolerable, to secure a common and general agreement that, until the close of the century, no State will sanction any increase of its military and naval expenditure beyond the maximum of the estimates of the present year. As France is the chief and, indeed, almost the only source of danger to the peace of Europe, I asked M. Jules Simon what, in his opinion, would be the line of France on this subject. He wrote : — Senate, Paris, May 9th, 1894. You wish to ask me if France would be disposed to enter into an international agreement having for its end the arrest THE PEACE RESCRIPT 261 of any increase of military or naval expenditure until 1900? I answer that I have not the least doubt of it. If there were any difficulty, it could only be in the case of the navy, as it is necessary to incur expense for repairs in order to prevent the decay of the ships. No one thinks of an augmentation of force. It will be, I repeat, very easy to come to an understanding upon this point. I believe that France would enter with empressement on the path of a diminution of expenses. We have not to fear the fate of Italy, but there is a general indignation against the ex- penditure which the armed peace entails. France is not at all for war. It is horrible to think that one is journeying every day towards the universal war which will be the cataclysm of history, and no one wishes it. The Emperor of Germany said to me himself that he would regard whoever forced on war as a criminal. I return to your question, and I reply with energy that France passionately desires peace, and that she would sup- port every attempt in that direction which would not threaten her honor or compromise her security. — Pray ac- cept ' etc " . Jules Simon. This Memorial, which commanded the sympathy of the leaders of both political parties, secured the enthu- siastic support of the representatives of labor, of reli- gion, and of our municipalities. It was signed by the official heads of almost every religious denomina- tion with one exception. His Grace the Archbishop of Canterbury was, unfortunately, not able to see his way to take part in the Memorial. This was not, of course, due to any lack of sympathy with its object, only to a disinclination due probably to his position to help those who are endeavoring by this means to place some limitation to the intolerable burdens of modern 262 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE armaments. This, however, did not deter the Primate of Scotland and the Bishops of Durham, Ripon, Man- chester, Lichfield and Worcester from appending their names to the Memorial. Among the eighty members of Parliament who signed it Mr. Balfour was the most conspicuous. But the Ministers of the Front Bench were equally sym- pathetic, although, of course, they could not sign a Memorial addressed to themselves. The following letter, which Mr. Balfour addressed to Mr. Mark Stewart, M.P., who asked him to sign the Memorial, expresses the attitude of statesmen on both sides of the House : — 4 Carlton Gardens, June 22nd, 1894. Dear Mark Stewart, — I, in common, I believe, with other persons who have considered the subject, see clearly the deep-seated evils which flow from the gigantic military ex- penditure in which every Government in Europe is involved. I need not say that I shall be glad to assist in any practical policy which seems likely to remedy or mitigate the disease. The object therefore of tne Arbitration Alliance has my hearty sympathy. — Yours very truly, Arthur James Balfour. It was signed by the Lord Mayors of London, York, and Dublin, the Lord Provosts of Edinburgh and Dub- lin, and the mayors of about fifty boroughs. Most of our distinguished men of letters, headed by Mr. Her- bert Spencer, signed the Memorial, which received altogether nearly 35,000 signatures. While the Memorial was still in course of signature, THE PEACE RESCRIPT 263 but acting under the inspiration of the movement of which it was the visible outcome, Lord Rosebery com- municated with M. de Stael on the subject, suggesting the desirability of the initiative in this matter being taken by the Tsar. Hence, as the Westminster Gazette remarks, " the Tsar's proposal may fairly be called a British one. A very few years ago a British Prime Minister suggested to the Government of St. Petersburg that a conference for a stay of armaments or the reduction of armaments should be summoned, and that the right person to summon it was the Tsar of Russia. The suggestion was cordially received, but it was intimated that the time was hardly oppor- tune." The inopportuneness arose from the outbreak of the war between China and Japan. The death of Alexander III., nowhere so sincerely lamented as at the British Foreign Office, put a stop to further discussion. When the Memorial was complete, Lord Kimberley was asked to receive a deputation from the Arbitration Alliance in support of its prayer. He returned a coldly courteous refusal on the ground that the mo- ment was not propitious. M. Witte, the Russian Finance Minister, visited Vienna about the same time, and took advantage of the occasion to make a declara- tion on the subject which may be recalled with advan- tage to-day. He said: — It is to be regretted that the increase of armaments is still going on, despite the agreement on the part of the three most powerful sovereigns to maintain peace. Every new 264 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE effort a State may make in this respect compels other States to go and do likewise, and the result is that the relations between the forces of the respective Powers remain as they were, while the general strength is fruitlessly exhausted. The impulse to the increase of the armaments did not ema- nate from Russia; but she cannot avoid following the im- perative example of other States. What a blessing it would be for all States if they could save half that expenditure! There the matter remained; war rather than peace became the watchword of Europe — and not of Europe only. The War Budgets of Britain, Russia, and the other Powers swelled every year. Had the truce or halt been cried in 1894 it would have saved the British taxpayer several millions a year. This may be regarded as having ended the first or preliminary movement in favor of international action for the stay of armaments. It was not till 1896 that the movement received a fresh start. In that year the Interparliamentary Conference of Peace, an associa- tion of comparatively recent origin, which has Mr. W. R. Cremer as its indefatigable secretary, met in Pesth. M. Basili, who is now the chief of the Asiatic depart- ment in the Russian Foreign Office, attended some of its meetings, took a deep interest in its proceedings, and reported to his Government strongly in favor of action in stay of armaments. His suggestion was not received with approval by his official superiors, and it remained for a time in abeyance. Then came a notable utterance which attracted but little attention at the time, but which can now be seen to have an important place in the evolution of the Re- TEE PEACE RESCRIPT 265 script. Speaking at the Mansion Honse on November 9th, 1897, the Marquis of Salisbury, after referring to the ever-increasing competition of the nations in arma- ments, said: — The one hope that we have to prevent this competition from ending in a terrible effort of mutual destruction — which will be fatal to Christian civilization — the one hope that we have is that the Powers may gradually be brought together to act together in a friendly spirit on all subjects of difference that may arise, until at last they shall be welded together in some International Constitution which shall give to the world, as the result of their great strength, a long spell of unfettered commerce, prosperous trade, and continued peace. After this M. Basili again renewed his representa- tions in favor of an attempt to arrive at an inter- national agreement on the subject. He was now established in the Foreign Office, and the suggestion commended itself to Count Lamsdorff. He submitted the proposal to the Emperor, who adopted it with en- thusiasm, and after a short time we had the Rescript. The secrets of the Russian Foreign Office are well preserved, and when the Ambassadors and Ministers accredited to the Russian Court attended the usual weekly reception at the Foreign Office on Wednesday, August 24th, not one of them had the faintest inkling of the surprise that was awaiting him. As each Ambassador entered the room, Count Muravieff took a paper from a pile ready on his table and handed it to the visitor, who ran his eye over it with some astonishment. The representatives of all 266 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE the small States who were present also received copies of it in their turn. In forwarding this document to Lord Salisbury, Sir Charles Scott, Her Majesty's Ambassador in St. Petersburg, wrote in his dispatch of August 25th: — Count Muravieff begged me to remark that this eloquent appeal, which he had drawn up at the dictation of the Em- peror, did not invite a general disarmament, as such a pro- posal would not have been likely to be generally accepted as a practical one at present, nor did His Imperial Majesty look for an immediate realization of the aims he had so much at heart, but desired to initiate an effort the effects of which could only be gradual. His Excellency thought that the fact that the initiative of this peaceful effort was being taken by the Sovereign of the largest military Power, with resources for increasing its military strength unrestricted by Constitutional and Par- liamentary limitations, would appeal to the hearts and inn telligence of a very large section of the civilized world, and show the discontented and disturbing classes of society that powerful military Governments were in sympathy with their desire to see the wealth of their countries utilized for pro- ductive purposes rather than exhausted in a ruinous and, to a great extent, useless competition for increasing the powers of destruction. I observed, in reply, that it would be difficult to remain insensible to the noble sentiments which had inspired this remarkable document, which I would forward at once to your lordship, and I felt sure that it would create a profound impression in England. The Imperial Rescript was made known to the world by a Renter's telegram dated St. Petersburg, August 27th. The Official Messenger published the follow- ing:— THE PEACE RESCRIPT 267 By order of the Tsar, Count Muravieff, on August 24th, handed to all the foreign representatives accredited to the Court of St. Petersburg, the following com- munication: — " The maintenance of general peace and a possible re- duction of the excessive armaments which weigh upon all nations present themselves in the existing condition of the whole world, as the ideal towards which the endeavors of all Governments should be directed. " The humanitarian and magnanimous ideas of His Majesty the Emperor, my august master, have been won over to this view. In the conviction that this lofty aim is in conformity with the most essential interests and the legiti- mate views of all Powers, the Imperial Government thinks that the present moment would be very favorable to seeking, by means of international discussion, the most effectual means of ensuring to all peoples the benefits of a real and durable peace, and, above all, of putting an end to the progressive development of the present armaments. " In the course of the last twenty years the longings for a general appeasement have grown especially pronounced in the consciences of civilized nations. The preservation of peace has been put forward as the object of international policy; it is in its name that great States have concluded between themselves powerful alliances; it is the better to guarantee peace that they have developed in proportions hitherto unprecedented their military forces, and still con- tinue to increase them without shrinking from any sacrifice. " All these efforts nevertheless have not yet been able to bring about the beneficent results of the desired pacification. The financial charges following an upward march strike at the public prosperity at its very source. " The intellectual and physical strength of the nations, labor and capital, are for the major part diverted from their natural application, and unproductively consumed. Hun- dreds of millions are devoted to acquiring terrible engines of destruction, which, though to-day regarded as the last word of science, are destined to-morrow to lose all value in con- sequence of some fresh discovery in the same field. 268 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE " National culture, economic progress, and the production of wealth are either paralyzed or checked in their develop- ment. Moreover, in proportion as the armaments of each Power increase, so do they less and less fulfil the object which the Governments have set before themselves. " The economic crises, due in great part to the system of armaments d Voutrance, and the continual danger which lies in this massing of war material, are transforming the armed peace of our days into a crushing burden, which the peoples have more and more difficulty in bearing. It appears evi- dent then that if this state of things were prolonged it would Inevitably lead to the very cataclysm which it is desired to avert, and the horrors of which make every thinking man shudder in advance. " To put an end to these incessant armaments and to seek the means of warding off the calamities which are threaten- ing the whole world, — such is the supreme duty which is to- day imposed on all States. " Filled with this idea, His Majesty has been pleased to order me to propose to all the Governments whose repre- sentatives are accredited to the Imperial Court, the meeting of a conference which would have to occupy itself with this grave problem. " This conference would be, by the help of God, a happy presage for the century which is about to open. It would converge in one powerful focus the efforts of all the States which are sincerely seeking to make the great conception of universal peace triumph over the elements of trouble and discord. " It would, at the same time, cement their agreement by a corporate consecration of the principles of equity and right on which rest the security of States and the welfare of peoples." Mr. Balfour, then temporarily in charge of the Foreign Office, replied on August 30th: — As the Prime Minister is abroad and the Cabinet scattered, it is impossible for me at present to give any reply, but I feel THE PEACE RESCRIPT 269 confident that I am only expressing the sentiments of my colleagues when I say that Her Majesty's Government most warmly sympathize with and approve the pacific and eco- nomic objects which his Imperial Majesty has in view. The comments of the European press showed a tendency to misconstrue the meaning of the Emperor. Consequently on Sunday, September 4th, the follow- ing official communication appeared in the Journal de Saint Petersbourg : — All the utterances of the foreign press regarding the Cir- cular of the 24th ult. agree in testifying to the sympathy with which the action of the Russian Government has been received by the whole world. A high tribute of acknowledg- ment is paid to the noble and magnanimous conception which originated this great act. The unanimity of welcome proves in the most striking manner to what a degree the reflections, which lay at the root of the Russian proposal, corresponded with the innermost feelings of all nations and their dearest wishes. On all sides people had come to the conclusion that con- tinuous armaments were a crushing burden to all nations, and that they constituted a bar to the public prosperity. The most ardent wish of the nations is to be able to give themselves up to peaceful labor, looking calmly to the future, and they perceive clearly that the present system of armed peace is in its tendency peaceful only in name. It is to the excesses of this system that Russia desires to put an end. The question to be settled is without doubt a very complicated one, and some organs of public opinion have already touched on the difficulties which stand in the way of a practical realization. Nobody can conceal from himself the difficulties, but they must be courageously con- fronted. The intention of the Circular is precisely to provide for a full and searching investigation of this question by an 270 TEE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE international exchange of views. Certain other questions difficult of solution but of not less moment have already been settled in this century in r, manner which has done justice to the great interests of humanity and civilization. The results which in this connection have been obtained at international conferences, particularly at the Congresses of Vienna and Paris, prove what the united endeavors of Gov- ernments can achieve when they proceed in harmony with public opinion and the needs of civilization. The Russian proposal calls all States to greater effort than ever before, but it will redound to the honor of humanity at the dawn of the twentieth century to have set resolutely about this work that the nations may enjoy the benefits of peace, relieved of the overwhelming burdens which impede their economic and moral development. There the matter remained for some time. When I was in St. Petersburg at the end of September, I was told that all the Powers save Great Britain and, I think, one other had replied. Lord Salisbury, who had then been a fortnight in London, had made no sign. The Daily News remonstrated. The British public began to express its sentiments in the usual way by public meetings and resolutions. But it was not until October 24th that the British Government for- mally accepted the Tsar's invitation. On that day Lord Salisbury wrote as follows to Sir Charles Scott, the British Minister at St. Petersburg: — Her Majesty's Government have given their careful con^ sideration to the memorandum which was placed in your hands on August 24th last by the Russian Minister for Foreign Affairs, containing a proposal of His Majesty the Emperor of Russia for the meeting of a conference to discuss the most effective methods of securing the continuance of TEE PEACE RESCRIPT 271 general Peace, and of putting some limit on the constant increase of armaments. Your Excellency was instructed at the time by Mr. Bal- four, in my absence from England, to explain the reasons which would cause some delay before a formal reply could be returned to this important communication, and, in the meanwhile, to assure the Russian Government of the cordial sympathy of Her Majesty's Government with the objects and intentions of His Imperial Majesty. That this sympathy is not confined to the Government, but is equally shared by popular opinion in this country, has been strikingly mani- fested since the Emperor's proposal has been made generally known by the very numerous resolutions passed by public meetings and societies in the United Kingdom. There are, indeed, few nations, if any, which, both on grounds of feel- ing and interest, are more concerned in the maintenance of general Peace than is Great Britain. The statements which constitute the grounds of the Em- peror's proposal are but too well justified. It is unfortu- nately true that while the desire for the maintenance of peace is generally professed, and while, in fact, serious and successful efforts have on more than one recent occasion been made with that object by the great Powers, there has been a constant tendency on the part of almost every nation to increase its armed force, and to add to an already vast expenditure on the appliances of war. The perfection of the instruments thus brought into use, their extreme costli- ness, and the horrible carnage and destruction which would ensue from their employment on a large scale, have acted no doubt as a serious deterrent from war. But the burdens imposed by this process on the populations affected must, if prolonged, produce a feeling of unrest and discontent men- acing both to internal and external tranquillity. Her Majesty's Government will gladly cooperate in the proposed effort to provide a remedy for this evil; and if, in any degree, it succeeds, they feel that the Sovereign to whose suggestion it is due will have richly earned the gratitude of the world at large. Your Excellency is, therefore, authorized to assure Count 272 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE Muravieff that the Emperor's proposal is willingly accepted by Her Majesty's Government, and that the Queen will have pleasure in delegating a Representative to take part in the Conference whenever an invitation is received. Her Ma- jesty's Government hope that the invitation may be accom- panied by some indication of the special points to which the attention of the Conference is to be directed as a guide for the selection of the British Representative, and of the as- sistants by whom he should be accompanied. You will read this dispatch to the Minister for Foreign Affairs, and leave him a copy of it. After the replies were received tlie Continent began to reverberate with the reports of military and naval preparations in France and England. War seemed imminent for a time. Bnt Count Muravieff' s timely visit to Paris contributed materially to convince the French that they had better not resent too seriously the bullying talk too plainly audible across the Chan- nel. Captain Marchand was withdrawn from his untenable position, and the prospect of war died away, much to the regret of a small but influential party in England which lusted for an opportunity to " have it out with France " when she was isolated, distracted, and at a great disadvantage. But although war no longer seemed imminent, warlike preparations con- tinued on both sides. The Kaiser, returning from the East, immediately prepared to add 26,000 men to the army of the Fatherland. In St. Petersburg a feeling of profound discouragement prevailed. All the Gov- ernments had been polite, none of them had been in the least degree helpful. The masses to whom the Emperor had specially appealed had remained apa- THE PEACE RESCRIPT 273 thetic. At the beginning of December so profound was the feeling of disappointment that it was almost decided to abandon the project. The design then entertained was to substitute for the great Parliament of the Nations summoned to deal practically with the greatest scourge of the peoples, a mere formal confabulation of the Ambassadors sta- tioned at St. Petersburg. Fortunately, when the horizon was the blackest, light rose in the West. The proclamation of the International Crusade of Peace in London, and the extraordinary effect produced throughout the whole European press by the an- nouncement of the proposed Pilgrimage of Peace, renewed the hope of the Russian Government that something after all might be accomplished. The half- formed determination to get out of the Conference by a mere ambassadorial palaver was abandoned, and on Monday, January 16th, a summary of a Russian Circu- lar was telegraphed to the Times by its St. Petersburg correspondent : — A Preliminary Interchange of Ideas. The Russian Circular explains that although the horizon has been somewhat overclouded since Count Muravieff sent out his first communication in August last, and although some of the Powers have even taken steps to increase their armaments, it is hoped that the general situation will again become calm and favorable to the success of this great hu- manitarian undertaking. Points for Discussion. Meanwhile, the Russian Government thinks it possible and advisable to have a preliminary interchange of ideas on 18 274 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE the subject between the Cabinets in order to prepare the way for diplomatic discussion. If the present moment is considered opportune, it would be desirable that an under- standing should be arrived at between the Powers on the following points: — (1) The Arrest and Reduction of Armaments. An agreement not to increase military and naval forces for a fixed period, also not to increase the corresponding War Budgets; and to endeavor to find means for reducing these forces and their Budgets in the future. (2) The Humanizing of War. The second division of the subjects suggested for discus- sion includes several proposals for multiplying the restric- tions placed by the Brussels Conference of 1874 on the bru- tality of warfare. These points are thus indicated: — (a) To interdict the use of any kind of new weapon or explosive or any new powder more powerful than that which is in use at present for rifles and cannon. (6) To restrict the use in war of existing explosives of terrible force. (c) To forbid the throwing of any kind of explosives from balloons or by any analogous means. {d) To forbid the use of submarine torpedo boats or plungers and any other similar engines of destruction in naval warfare. (e) To undertake not to construct vessels with rams (navires de guerre a Veperon). (f) To apply to naval warfare the stipulations of the Ge- neva Convention of 1864. (g) The neutralization of ships and boats for saving those shipwrecked during and after naval battles. (70 The revision of the declaration concerning the laws and customs of war elaborated in 1874 by the Conference of Brussels which remains unratified down to this day. (3) Mediation and Optional Arbitration. The third, and far the most important, section of the Circular suggests that the Powers should — THE PEACE RESCRIPT 275 (a) Accept in principle the employment of good offices in mediation and optional arbitration in cases which lend themselves to such means in order to prevent armed con- flicts between nations. (b) Have an understanding on the subject of their mode of application, and (c) Establish some uniform practice in making use of them. As previously explained, nothing touching the political relations of States or the actual order of things as estab- lished by treaties will be admitted. These are the points which the Governments are invited to consider in view of a conference, which, it is suggested, should not be held in any capital of a great Power, where the concentration of various political interests might react unfavorably upon the progress and success of its labors. This, although only a summary, is perfectly authen- tic. And very satisfactory it is. It contains nothing that is new to those who have followed the subject closely. But it confirms and justifies all the asser- tions which have been made by the exponents of Rus- sian policy as to the real aim and drift of the ideas of Mcholas II. It dissipates the absurdities which have been diligently imputed to the Russian Government, and it confronts Europe with one of the most momen- tous and far-reaching issues that were ever submitted to an International Conference. This is good, very good, aud the more closely it is looked at the better it will appear to be. (1) Mediation and Optional Arbitration. Rightly to appreciate the immense importance of the memorandum it is necessary to reverse the order 276 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE of its proposals, and begin with the last first. The Kussian Circular invites the Powers to arrive at a preliminary understanding on several points, of which the last in order but the first in importance is — to accept in principle the employment of good offices in mediation and optional arbitration in cases which lend them- selves to such means in order to prevent armed conflicts between nations; an understanding on the subject of their mode of application, and the establishment of some uniform practice in making use of them. "We have here for the first time clearly foreshadowed the establishment of the principle of Mediation and optional Arbitration as the basis of the settled Peace which the nations desire. It is the first tentative step taken by a responsible Government towards the reali- zation of the " one hope " which Lord Salisbury enter- tains as to the avoidance of a disastrous and suicidal war. As the first step towards the establishment of the " International Constitution " of which Lord Salis- bury spoke, the Tsar invites the Cabinets of the world to a preliminary interchange of ideas as to the " estab- lishment of some uniform practice in making use of " the mode of applying mediation and optional arbitra- tion as a means of preventing armed conflicts between the nations. It is well to note the careful moderation and extreme caution with which this vital new depart- ure is approached. There is no dangerous suggestion of the immediate creation of a Supreme Court of Arbi- tration, the constitution of which would to the jealous THE PEACE RESCRIPT 277 susceptibilities of the Powers appear to be an infringe- ment upon the plenitude of their absolute sovereignty. There is not even a proposal for an agreement always to arbitrate in all cases before you fight. It is only proposed, in the first place, that Arbitration should be optional, and in the second place that it should only be invoked " in cases which lend themselves to such means." This is to recognize ah initio the broad dis- tinction which exists between questions that in the present state of national opinion can be arbitrated upon and those which are not capable of reference to an arbitral tribunal. The difference found very clear and decided expression in the last Anglo-American Arbitration Treaty. But all practical statesmen agree that the one thing of supreme importance is to make a beginning, to get some sort of international tribunal created and set to work. No matter how limited may be its scope, no matter how circumscribed its authority, the creation of such an international centre of pacific counsel and conciliation would be an enormous step forward in the evolution of the modern State. (2) The Arrest of Armaments. The second important proposal in the Circular is that which stands first in order. As has been repeat- edly stated, the Tsar wishes to arrive at an agreement not to increase military and naval forces for a fixed period, also not to increase the corresponding War Budgets; to endeavor to find means for reducing these forces and their Budgets in the future. That is the famous Halt or Arrest of Armaments which 278 TEE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE was four years ago first suggested in the Westminster Gazette by Madame XovikofT, after which it was for- mally mooted by the Kosebery Cabinet, and only abandoned because of the sudden outbreak of the Chinese-Japanese War. The suggestion for an inter- national quinquennium cannot be regarded as imprac- ticable. Germany voluntarily arranges her Naval Estimates for a term of six years, and her Army Bill fixes her expenditure for five years. What one Power can do all the Powers can do. Russia, which is the freest of all to do as she pleases, voluntarily takes the initiative in proposing that we should all subject our- selves to such a reasonable limitation of our liberty. The practical difficulties in the way of fixing the strength of the military and naval forces are not insup- erable, especially when supplemented by an agreement not to increase the War Budget. (3) Their Future Reduction. To arrive at a Halt or Arrest of Armaments is the first step towards the " endeavor to find means for re- ducing these forces and their Budgets in the future." That, however, we shall find, will be relegated to the future. It will at present only remain a pious opinion. It will be necessary to demonstrate the willingness and good faith of the Powers in maintaining the status quo before we can look for much progress in the shape of actual reduction. (4) The Humanizing of War. The second section of the Russian Circular will THE PEACE RESCRIPT 279 come as a surprise to many, especially to those who are not aware that the only two great efforts that have been made in our time to humanize war both emanated from the Russian initiative. The Geneva Convention for the succor of the wounded, the Brussels Conven- tion prohibiting the use of explosive rifle bullets of war — both were held at the suggestion of Russia. Nicholas II. wishes to take up and carry to its logical conclusion the humanitarian work of his grandfather, the Emancipator of the Serfs, the liberator of Bul- garia. I do not think that his ideas are likely to be seconded by the other Powers. They will appeal to the sentiment of our people. They are entirely in our interest. But the attempt to limit the use of mur- derous inventions, high explosives, balloons, and sub- marine boats will never commend itself to the Powers whose one hope of destroying the naval supremacy of England is by the use of the very weapons the em- ployment of which the Tsar wishes to forbid. Russia has sovereignty on land, England on water. "What is more natural and desirable than that they should agree to confine warlike operations to the elements in which they are supreme, and forbid the extension of the area of justifiable homicide to the sky that is over the earth or the depths that lie beneath the surface of the sea? So far as we are concerned, we may heartily second the proposed interdict on inventions which would ren- der the life of a million-pound ironclad not worth six days' purchase after the outbreak of war. CHAPTEE III TWO LETTERS FROM ST. PETERSBURG In the preceding chapter I have somewhat antici- pated the sequence of this chronicle in order to facili- tate reference to the diplomatic documents connected with this memorable State paper. I resume the narrative of my tour by reprinting here the substance of the two letters in which I sum- marized the result of my visit to St. Petersburg. The first appeared in the Daily News of October 15th, the second was written from Moscow on October 20th, 1898. " "When the Lord turned again the captivity of Zion, we were like them that dream. Then was our mouth filled with laughter, and our tongue with sing- ing. Then said they among the heathen: The Lord hath done great things for them; the Lord hath done great things for us, whereof we are glad." In these familiar w T ords alone do I find adequate expression to the lift of heart which I have experi- enced on coming to St. Petersburg. From Brussels to Paris, from Paris to Berlin, my pilgrimage of peace had been but a dolorous way, growing ever darker and more dark, until it seemed as if there was no hope. TWO LETTERS FROM ST. PETERSBURG 281 But it is ever the darkest hour before the dawn. Here, where I have now spent several days in ascer- taining the central facts of the situation, it is " glad, confident morning again." The snow is beginning to fall in the streets of St. Petersburg, but in my heart " the winter is past, the rain is over and gone, the flowers appear on the earth, and the time of the sing- ing of birds is come." For I have now satisfied my- self, and have absolute confidence in proclaiming aloud on the housetop, that all the gloomy and dis- heartening suggestions of sceptical pessimists are with- out foundation. In this proposal for the meeting of a Conference of the nations on the subject of disarma- ment there is no humbug, there is no nonsense. It may seem too good news to be true ; but it is true never- theless. The Tsar means business. He has com- mitted himself to this war against war with the same resolute determination and lofty enthusiasm that his grandfather launched the armies of Russia against the despoilers of Bulgaria. And, as in the case of Alex- ander II., it will not be the fault of the Tsar if the thing is not carried through to a triumphant close. It is difficult to exaggerate the importance of this certainty, which to me stands up like a great Pharos of Hope in the midst of the clouds and mists that obscure the horizon. But that it is a certainty no one of the few but influential persons who are in the con- fidence of the Tsar has any doubt at all. The scheme of the Conference was conceived in a mind imbued from childhood with a horror of war and 282 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE that passion for peace which distinguished his father. It was fostered by the continually increasing evidence as to the fatuous and suicidal results of the policy of beggar-my-neighbor which culminated in the promul- gation of the extra naval programme of the Russian Government last spring, which was answered by Mr. Goschen's supplementary naval programme of last summer. It found a congenial environment in the personal and domestic entourage of the Tsar, and finally it was launched with all the splendid audacity of youth. The Tsar felt that he could never make a more fitting exercise of his autocratic prerogative. He thus confronted and confronts Europe with an initia- tive of leadership which, while it confounds and dis- mays the blinking owls of the diplomatic ivy-bush, will more and more evoke, as the real truth becomes known, the enthusiasm of the peoples for the young Emperor of Peace. I admit frankly that this seems to be too good news to be true. But the answer of all those who are in a position to speak with an authority only second to that of the Emperor himself agree in asserting that it is true. Some deplore it, believing that in this false and sceptical generation such high ideals of youth are des- tined to be cruelly cut down by the sharp frost of experience. Others rejoice with trembling, hardly daring to make head against the flood of derision and suspicion which the press has let loose against the scheme. But all alike, whether they like it or whether they hate it, agree that the Emperor is thoroughly in TWO LETTERS FROM ST. PETERSBURG 283 earnest about the matter, and that there is on this sub- ject no question that he is master in his own house. Count MuraviefT will do his Imperial master's bidding. His ambition, his energy, and his detachedness of mind may make him a more effective instrument than one who was more heartily in accord with the order of ideas which possess the mind of the Tsar. Such, at least, is the hope for Count MuraviefT. But with whatever instruments he can find ready to his hand, the Tsar has gone to work to put the thing through. We are therefore face to face with the opportunity of the century, and woe be unto us if we do not avail ourselves of it to the uttermost of our ability ! Never since Mr. Gladstone published his famous Bulgarian pamphlet has so clear a clarion note rung upon the ear of the world. And not even in 1876 was there any issue presented to the conscience of mankind so wide in its scope, so vast in its results, as the impeach- ment of the armaments of the world by the Russian Tsar. From his watch-tower in Livadia Nicholas II. looks out over the armed camp of the world, through the tents of which he has sounded his Evangel of Peace. What will the answer be? It is a moment of profound suspense, for on that answer hangs the future of the world. As to the time and the place of the Conference, nothing has yet been decided. These details are left over to be discussed when all the replies come in. Russia has no wish to impose her will upon the other Powers. That which meets best the convenience of 284 TEE EXITED STATES OF EUROPE the States represented she will accept. These ques- tions of detail will be arranged solely from one point of view, viz., how can they best secure the success of the object which the Emperor has at heart? This one thing he will seek, considering no minor question of importance except so far as it contributes to the reali- zation of his great ideal. Count Lamsdorff, who, in Count MuraviefFs absence, is now directing the Rus- sian Foreign Office, reminds me in many respects of his predecessor M. de Giers, whom I met ten years ago in the same office. That is to say, he is a man who impresses you with the honesty of his convictions and the sincerity of his words — a man sincerely desirous of peace, and thoroughly imbued with the sentiments of his Imperial master. The question of the extra naval programme to which Russia stands committed is frankly discussed. It was probably the immense object-lesson which that pro- gramme afforded, together with the corresponding programmes which it provoked in England, that con- vinced the Tsar that the moment had come for declar- ing war against war. I have, of course, no official authority to make any formal notification on this point, but it is everywhere assumed as a matter too obvious for remark that if the Conference meets and agrees upon a stay of armaments, Russia will be the first to stop the execution of her previous programme, so far as relates to all ships not already in course of construc- tion. I need hardly emphasize the significance of such an act on Russia's part. It would be the outward TWO LETTERS FROM ST. PETERSBURG 285 and visible sign of the inward grace which is animating the ruler of Russia. The programme of the Conference is not drawn up. There is no desire on the part of the Tsar to thrust any cut-and-dry proposal clown the throats of the other Powers. There is, indeed, a manifest shrinking from anything that might look like a desire to dictate or to presume in any way to influence the free deliberations of the representatives of the nations. But one thing is certain. ~No political or territorial question in dis- pute between the nations will be mooted at the Con- ference. It will no more deal with Fashoda than with the Philippines, and it is as absolutely debarred from touching the future of Alsace and Lorraine as it is from raising the question of the independence of Ire- land or Poland. Neither will there be any proposal for the disarmament of any national force at present in existence. What is sought is to make a beginning, a safe beginning, by arriving at a solid agreement against any further increase of armaments, which, if it lasted for only five years, w T ould serve as the founda- tion for indefinite progress in the direction of a pro- portionate and simultaneous reduction of the burden of armaments. The Tsar has taken the initiative; but that does not mean that he intends to ask the Conference to register any preconceived plan or scheme that may commend itself to his judgment. What he wishes is that an honest endeavor should be made by all the Powers to ascertain whether it is possible to arrive at any com- 286 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE mon ground of agreement for checking the continu- ance and indefinite expansion of the ruinous game of beggar-my-neighbor. If there is any definite idea at the back of the Russian mind, it is that the status quo as it exists at this moment might with advantage be accepted as the normal maximum, and that all the nations might agree to cry halt at their present rate of naval and military expenditure. How this most desirable end should be secured, whether the status quo should be defined in terms of the contingents under arms or the ships on the Navy List, or whether it should be expressed in the figures of the expendi- ture on the Services, are matters upon which the Con- ference must be left quite free to decide. Where there is a will there is a way, and if the Tsar's desire is shared by the other nations, there is no question but that some definite resolution will emerge from the Con- ference which will operate as a very effective check upon the growth of the exactions of militarism. The prejudice that exists in many quarters against any humanitarian movement which is initiated in Russia is comprehensible, but it is unjust, and in the light of history it is absurd. To support Russia's initi- ative in such a matter does not in the least commit any one to approval of every detail of Russian internal or external policy. "What Englishmen are apt to forget is that it was Russia to whose initiative the world owed the two international Conferences which have done anything in our time to abate the horrors of war. The Conference which established the Red Cross move- TWO LETTERS FROM ST. PETERSBURG 237 ment was proposed by Russia, and so was the Confer- ence which forbade the use of explosive rifle bullets in warfare. The Russian Tsar, despot though he may have been, was a better friend to human liberty when he supported the cause of emancipation in America at a time when free England spoke with uncertain voice and her upper classes openly supported the slave power. ISTor should it be forgotten that it was the grandfather of the present Tsar who unsheathed the sword that liberated Bulgaria, while England sent her ironclads to prop up the tottering throne of the Turk- ish Assassin. In issuing this Peace Circular the Tsar is faithful to the best traditions of his fathers. Let us hope that this time at last he may find only a generous emulation and rivalry in good works on the part of the English people. The chances of the suc- cess of the Conference depend more upon the nature of the response in Britain than on any other considera- tion whatever. A vigorous national manifestation of Britain's determination to unite heartily with the Tsar in the war against war might mark the dawn of a new epoch in human history. If to the chivalrous and eloquent appeal of the young Autocrat of the East the free peoples of the West make only a halting and indifferent response, an opportunity will be lost the like of which we may never see again. But if, on the contrary, from the heart and conscience of great democracy, there should be heard a response over- whelming and universal, an alliance would be formed between the two greatest forces of our time — an alii- 288 TEE UXITED STATES OF EUROPE ance based on the fraternity of the peoples and dedi- cated to a Holy War against the greatest evil of our time. The second letter was as follows: — AY hen I came to Russia I was told that this was the worst time in the year for finding anybody. I have, however, already seen almost everybody — except the Tsar — who counts for anything in Russia. Count MuraviefT, it is true, I have not seen. He is away in Western Europe. General Kouropatkin is also ab- sent. But, with the exception of these two, I think I can fairly say that I have seen everybody whose opin- ion counts for anything in the direction of Russia's policy. I have seen, for instance, Count LamsdorfT, of the Foreign Office, now, in the temporary absence of his chief, the apparent as well as the real mainspring of the office to which he has devoted for years the trained energies of his whole life. I have met on three occasions M. Witte, the Minister of Finance, the strongest, the most original, and the most successful of the Chancellors who have ever presided over the Rus- sian Exchequer. I have twice been received in the most friendly and hospitable fashion by M. Pobedo- nostseff, the famous Procurator of the Holy Synod, whose power is recognized the more by those who like it the least. Prince KhilkofT, the Minister of Ways and Communications, who is now pushing on the con- struction of the great Siberian Railway with some- thing of American energy, was not less kind and cour- teous or ready to reply to my inquiries. I also had an M. SERGIUS MITTE Minister of Finance PRINC E KO D R OPATKIN Minister of War M. GOREMYKIN Minister of the Interior PRINCE KIIILKOFF Minister of Railways LEADING RUSSIAN STATESMEN TWO LETTERS FROM ST. PETERSBURG 289 interesting conversation with M. de Martens, the fa- mous jurist who is to preside over the Venezuela arbi- tration, and who, from his frequent arbitrations, has come to be regarded as a kind of Deputy Lord Chief Justice of Christendom. I repeatedly saw M. Basili, the chief of the Asiatic Department of the Foreign Office, to whose charge the oversight of the Peace Conference is entrusted, and had long and interesting discussions both with him and his assistants. I spent a long afternoon in company with M. Jean de Block, the Warsaw banker. General Mossoulofr", Director of the Department of the Foreign Cultes, was another official whom I was glad to meet. !Not less interesting than these representatives of official Russia were the unofficial Russians, with whom I spent no little time in St. Petersburg. Chief among these were Prince Ukhtomsky, of the St. Petersburg Yiedemosti, a man reputed to be a veritable Anglo- phobe, but whom I found to be one with whose opin- ions I was in almost absolute accord. I had also a couple of long interviews with M. Rothstein, the Director of the Russo-Chinese Bank, the bete noire of English officialdom, but a man with whose views, especially on Chinese affairs, English men of business would find it extremely difficult not to sympathize. Besides these, I saw, of course, both the Ambassadors of the English-speaking nations, and any number of unofficial representatives both of Britain and the United States. Of press men and professors I saw not a few. Hence, when I left St. Petersburg I did 19 290 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE so with the happy consciousness that I had missed no- bod}' who was worth seeing, and that I had got down to the bedrock of the question which I had come to Russia to investigate. For be it noted that my visits to the Ministers and others named above were by no means mere calls of courtesy. I came on a mission of inquiry, and I interviewed every one " down to the ground." It is no small test of the urbanity and cour- tesy and hospitality of the Russians that they bore with my inquiries so patiently and entertained me with a cordiality and generosity that could hardly have been exceeded if I had been an accredited envoy from a friendly and allied state. The net result of the fortnight I spent in St. Peters- burg is to confirm in every way the convictions which I expressed in my last letter. Whatever else may be in doubt, one thing is no longer in doubt — namely, that Russia is now definitely, publicly, and solemnly committed to a policy of peace. The Tsar has gone into this Conference affair with hearty goodwill. He means business. And not only does he mean business, but his Ministers mean business also. I cannot speak for Count MuraviefL He has already spoken for him- self, and everybody says that he can be relied upon to do the will of the Tsar. But all the other Ministers are of one mind on the subject. Some, it is true, being old and having long since parted with the enthu- siasm of their youth, are dubious as to whether any other nation will follow the lead so chivalrously taken by Nicholas II. All of them, whether old or young, TWO LETTERS FROM ST. PETERSBURG 291 agree in asserting that the young Emperor has taken a lead which renders it practically impossible for Russia to embark upon an increased expenditure on armaments, and ties her hands behind her back so far as any aggressive action is concerned in any part of the world. It was not until the very last day of my stay in St. Petersburg, when I had long and important interviews at the Foreign Office and with M. Witte, that I fully realized the immense practical significance of the Re- script. It is the fashion to say, " It is very lofty, very noble, etc., etc. But " Always a " but." So far as the other nations are concerned, the Tsar's pro- posals may be accepted with as many buts as you please. But in Russia the Tsar's declarations have a force and a binding authority which does not depend upon the resolutions of any Conference. " The Tsar," said one of his Ministers, " must have been mad if he had publicly and solemnly affirmed his determination to abate the plague of armaments unless he himself intended to abide by his own declarations. His Re- script may bind no one else; it undoubtedly binds Russia. As the other Powers have none of them ex- pressed an opinion that the Tsar is mad, I suppose they accept his Rescript as the public promulgation in the most formal and solemn fashion possible of his own unalterable resolve to oppose to all policies of aggres- sion a policy of peace, and to endeavor more and more to divert to fruitful enterprises of peace the immense sums now spent on the army and the navy." 292 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE I put to the Minister the frequently stated difficulty about the contrast between the £10,000,000 allocated for extra naval purposes in spring and the Peace Re- script of late midsummer. He replied at once: — " If the Peace Rescript had been issued seven months earlier we should have saved all these millions. We cannot get them back, but we shall now be deliv- ered from the fear of seeing other millions take the same road." M. Witte, as might be expected from the Sir M. Hicks-Beach of Russia, was most jubilant over the Peace Rescript. He explained to me with somewhat sonorous eloquence that the famous invitation to the Powers not merely made manifest and unmistakable the pacific resolution of the Tsar; it immensely re- lieved M. Witte himself. For it need not be stated that in Russia, as in other countries, the army and navy are veritable daughters of the horseleech, per- petually crying, "Give! Give!" The new quick- firing guns for the field artillery are to be put in hand without delay. Universal military service is to be enforced in Finland. The new ships ordered and now in course of construction have to be paid for. Alto- gether, the assault on the Treasury is not likely to be lacking in vigor and persistence. But M. Witte is no longer afraid. " Henceforth," he said, " if my col- leagues should clamor for more millions for the army and the navy I shall have no more trouble in rebutting their demands. I shall simply hold up the Emperor's Rescript, and they will not be able to say a word." TWO LETTERS FROM ST. PETERSBURG 293 " Yes/' somewhat lugubriously remarked a friend of mine in the Foreign Office, to whom I repeated this conversation, " that is just what we fear. We shall find the Rescript used to tie Russia's hands behind her back, and whenever we need money for a strategic rail- way or anything else, we shall be told by M. Witte that we cannot have it because the Tsar has issued the Rescript. It is a serious danger for us, no doubt, but we must just make the best of it." I mention this because it illustrates better than a hundred declarations the real practical value of the Russian Rescript as a pledge and guarantee of Russian policy. If the Rescript acts as an effectual check upon the spending departments of the army and navy, it is not less valuable as indicating the trend of Russia's policy — especially in the Far East. There are Rus- sians who believe that it is the manifest destiny of their race to rule the whole of Asia, just as there are many amongst us who publicly proclaim that it is the manifest destiny of the English-speaking race to domi- nate not one Continent, but the whole round world. But of aggressive designs against China on the part of any Russian official or unofficial I found none. The Russians indeed are more anxious than the British to resist any further encroachments upon the independ- ence and integrity of the Chinese Empire. They are going to leave the Chinese as much alone as possible. M. PavlofT will soon be cooling his heels in Korea. The new Russian Ambassador at Pekin is M. de Giers, 294 THE US IT ED STATES OF EUROPE a man bearing a name which has long been a synonym for peace and good relations all round. Kussia will now go slow in China, and she will go all the slower becanses she realizes better than we do the penalty that is exacted when the pace is forced. I had an idea before I came here that Russians resented our sticking up our flagstaff over the unarmed, ungarrisoned posi- tion of Wei-Hai-Wei. I do not find this idea con- firmed. On the contrary, they seem to admit that we, like themselves, acted under the stress of dire neces- sity. With, perhaps, the doubtful exception of Count Mairavieff, of whom I cannot speak at first hand, there are only two opinions about the occupation of Port Arthur and Talienwan. One opinion is that Russia should not have occupied these ports on any considera- tion whatever. The other opinion is that it was a most regrettable necessity, which Russia could not escape when once Germany had given the signal for the parti- tion of China by the occupation of Kiao-Chau. Eo one, so far as I could ascertain, regarded the occupa- tion of Port Arthur and Talienwan as other than a misfortune for Russia. But while some thought it a less misfortune than the risk of the seizure of Port Arthur by England, a very strong section was willing to face that risk rather than take part in the partition of China. Of one thing I am quite certain, and that is that Russia would to-day be in military possession of the Port of Manchuria but for two things. The first and most important was the seizure of Kiao-Chau by Germany, which ought to have been forbidden; TWO LETTERS FROM ST. PETERSBURG 295 and secondly, the raving rant of our Jingo papers, which seem really to have convinced the Russians that, if they were not quick about it, England would snap up Port Arthur under their very nose. To prevent our seizing the place, and to establish a counterpoise to Kiao-Chau, they took Port Arthur. But they are by no means pleased about it. " Ach! " said a Rus- sian Minister to me, piously crossing himself as he spoke — " if it had not been for the German Emperor seizing Kiao-Chau, we should not to-day have had Port Arthur and Talienwan hung like a millstone round our necks. They are white elephants to us; we want no more of the breed.' 7 People in England may believe that this is all put on for my benefit if they please. If they knew a little more of the dead set that was made against the seizure of the Manchurian ports, they would be less sceptical and more rational in their appreciation of their neigh- bor's policy. The Russian mood about Port Arthur is, I take it, almost exactly Lord Salisbury's mood about Wei-Hai-Wei. It was a mistake to take it, but it was perhaps a greater danger to leave it alone. But now that it is done, for heaven's sake make an end to the breaking of China, and do what we can to keep going the only Government which rules 400,000,000 of human beings without an army and without a navy. Hence, from these and other indications of Russian policy, I am more than ever convinced that, so far as Russia is concerned, the barometer is set steady for peace. Certainly, I have found nowhere here, even 296 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE among the most bitter assailants of the policy of the Government, the faintest echo of the nonsense so freely talked in England about the Circular being " a ruse or trick issued in order to conceal some deep-laid plan of the wily Muravieff." " The wily Muravieff " is hardly a description that would commend itself to his critics in St. Petersburg, who usually assail him for quite an opposite quality. But although Count Muravieff is Foreign Minister, the real direction of Kussia's policy lies in other hands than his. I repeat once more that the Tsar is in earnest about this mat- ter, and that it will not be his fault if the Conference is not crowned by signal success. When I left the city on October 17th nothing was decided as to the place or date of the assembly of the Conference. The suggestion that it should be held in Brussels may be regarded as disposed of by the fact that in the opinion of the King of the Belgians the proper place of meeting would be St. Petersburg, where the Conference would assemble under the eyes and under the direction of the noble and powerful sovereign who conceived the generous idea of sum- moning the Parliament of Peace. CHAPTEE IV M. WITTE A^D HIS WORK M. Serge Yulevich Witte (or Vitte, if you conform the orthography of the name to its proper pronuncia- tion) is one of the most remarkable Russians who has ever occupied his present important post of Minister of Finance and Trade, and by far the strongest of the ten holders of Ministerial portfolios who now govern Russia under the Tsar. Since Rentern — who was Minister in the " sixties/' and whose ultimate success in producing surpluses of revenue in the place of pre- vious deficits was nipped in the bud by the outbreak of the war against Turkey — no other Russian Minister of Finance has played such a conspicuous part in the affairs of State and accomplished so many important reforms in such a comparatively short space of time. It must be remembered, however, in estimating his achievements that the way had, to a great extent, been paved for him by his immediate predecessor M. Vish- negradsky, who was also a very able Minister of Fi- nance. It was, in fact, due to the patronage of Vish- negradsky that Witte emerged from the obscurity in which he began life as a minor railway employe at Odessa, and Vishnegradsky, on breaking down in 298 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE health, proposed M. Witte as his successor to Alex- ander III. M. Witte, like Prince Khilkoff, the present Minister of Ways and Communications, is essentially a railway man ; and his ability in railway administration appears to have been his sole recommendation for the onerous task of directing the finances of the Empire. And to this circumstance must be attributed the enormous extension of Russia's railways during his term of office. Serge Yulevich Witte was born at Tinis, where his father was at the head of an Agricultural Department under the Imperial Lieutenant of the Caucasus. After graduating at the University of Odessa, Witte entered the service of the Southwestern Railways in that town, and gradually rose to be traffic manager. In 1878 he was called to St. Petersburg, and took part in a special commission on railways, which led to his appointment as Director of a newly devised Railway Department. Finally, in 1892, he became Minister of Finance, after first acting for a few months as Min- ister of Ways and Communications. As a Minister, he was at once confronted with the opposition of the aristocratic and bureaucratic society of St. Petersburg, who looked at him askance as an upstart and an outsider. All the details of his private life were made the common gossip of the town ; anony- mous and secret pamphlets against him were published abroad and circulated in Russia by thousands; but, nothing daunted, Witte forged ahead and took the Jews into his confidence as indispensable auxiliaries. M. WITTE AND HIS WORK 299 He said to Pobedonostseff, the powerful official head of the Kussian Church : — " You leave my Jews in peace, and I will not interfere with your priests." All the traits of his character, as well as personal appear- ance, indicate a strong, determined individual. He is a very tall, largely built man, with a ponderous, ungainly movement in walking, as if he suffered from gout, with no polish of manner, and a disdain for cere- mony and etiquette when he has any point to gain. All the clever politicians and journalists who can serve his purpose he attracts within the widely spread jurisdiction of his ever extending Ministry by tempt- ing offers of more lucrative employment; and if they turn against him he generally finds means to silence or crush them. When they take refuge abroad, like his deadly enemy M. Cyon, who has published an entire library of anti-Witte literature, he does not scruple to have them outlawed by order of the Tsar. His first work in preparation for the monetary re- form was to put down speculation in paper roubles between St. Petersburg and Berlin, and clear out the Augsean stable of the Russian Bourse. He prohibited the exportation of rouble notes; withdrew a large quantity of them from circulation ; limited their future issue by the State Bank on the security of bullion; fixed the rate of exchange in the proportions then pre- vailing on the market between gold and paper, whereby the value of the paper rouble became settled at 1 J roubles metallic, and finally reduced the standard silver rouble to a part of the fractional currency, and 300 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE introduced a gold standard by minting a whole series of new gold coins interchangeable everywhere for paper on this basis. The critics who vainly imagined that they might some day get back all that their forefathers fifty years before had gradually lost, or fancied that they had lost, by the depreciation of the paper money, accused him of " devaluation " and repudiation, but Witte kept on his way without flinching. A money agent who was discovered to be sending false or alarming information abroad in cipher telegrams was promptly expelled the country. Witte's agents were everywhere in Russia and abroad. He endeavored to regulate the business on " 'Change " by compelling the sworn brokers to stand within chalk-marked squares drawn on the floor of the building; but everybody revolted at this absurd and ridiculous measure, and a special commission of Exchange reform was then appointed. The bank directors complained that they were no longer their own masters — Witte dictated to them how they should transact their business, and bullied them if they did not at once comply. One banking firm, suspected of speculating in grain, had their books suddenly over- hauled by a special commission sent by Witte, and their shares immediately fell in value. In spite of all this, it is now generally recognized that the results of this redoubtable Minister's work have so far proved highly beneficial to the country at large. It would fill a volume to describe all the meas- ures and reforms which he has had adopted. One of M. WITTE AND HIS WORK 301 the most important has been the brilliant completion of the conversion of the State loans, the interest on which has thereby been reduced from 5 and 5 J per cent, to 44 and 4 per cent. It is true that in order to do this, and also to supply the wherewithal for the prodigious activity in railway construction, he has had to increase the national debt by hundreds of millions of borrowed money, but the excuse is that this is nearly all for productive objects which will return an equiva- lent and more in due course of time. The last, but not the least, of AYitte's great reforms is the introduc- tion of the State liquor monopoly. There is probably no idea more firmly fixed in the mind of most Englishmen than that the Russian people are as drunken as Russian diplomatists are tricky. I am not going to deny it. I think it is true. But that is because the statistical returns prove that the Russians drink much less spirits per head than the virtuous Scotch, and many other nations in Europe. Those who care to go into the subject, not of diplomacy, but of drunkenness, will find it carefully treated by Mr. Carnegie, the second secretary to our Embassy at St. Petersburg, in a report received as recently as last June. I believe that it can be proved that much of the disrepute of Russian diplomacy is due, not to the dishonesty of the diplomatists, but to the honest desire of the Russian Government to meet the wishes of its neighbors. In like manner Mr. Carnegie affirms that the bad reputation of the Russian peasants for drunk- enness is really due to their superior sobriety. It 302 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE sounds like a paradox, but it is a simple truth. Mr. Carnegie says: — In Russia the average consumption of spirits was and still remains very much lower than in many other countries, and if drunkenness is more apparent than elsewhere it is be- cause the lower classes are unaccustomed to a regular usage of spirits, and are, therefore, more liable to succumb to the temptation to drink in excess when the occasion offers. — Dipl. and Cons. Reports No. 485, p. 5. There are few subjects more interesting to the traveller in Russia than to note the drastic fashion in which the Russian Government has dealt with the liquor trade. We pride ourselves upon our superior morality, but King Demos is powerless in the grasp of that greater than he — King Bung; whereas the Russian autocracy handles the elsewhere omnipotent liquor trade with unceremonious severity. It is enough to turn Sir Wilfrid Lawson green with envy. The United Kingdom Alliance would be delirious with delight if it could in a single English county achieve the results that the Russian Government has attained without fuss or fury in the shape of temperance legislation. In one half of European Russia all sale of spirits for consumption on the premises has been absolutely and ruthlessly suppressed. The only exceptions are the few high-class restaurants and buffets which prove the rule. If any one wants a glass of vodka, for in- stance, in St. Petersburg, he cannot procure it for love or money outside hotels, restaurants and railway buf- M. WITTE AND HIS WORK 303 f ets, except in a sealed bottle, which he is not allowed to open on the premises. " No corkscrews are allowed in the shops, nor are the buyers allowed to open the bottles on the premises or while carrying them to their destination." To attempt to enforce such a draconian law in England would provoke a revolution. In Rus- sia there has not even been a protest. Nor is that all. At the same time that the Government interdicted corkscrews and prohibited all sale of spirits " to be drunk on the premises/' it cut down with unsparing hand the number of places licensed to sell strong drink even under these severe conditions. In St. Peters- burg at one fell blow 400 of the 650 traktirs or spirit shops lost their licenses. In place of 937 wine and spirit shops only 178 were allowed to continue in busi- ness, while 325 Government and private spirit shops but partially replaced the 759 others that had been closed. Mr. Carnegie estimates the number of per- sons who lost their livelihood by this sweeping reform at 10,000 in the capital alone. As for compensation for vested interests, read the following extract from a semi-official publication : — In Russia there can be no question of giving compensation to the evicted retailers of spirits. The license they were granted by which they were permitted to carry on their deplorable business has always been considered by the legislator, the administration, the public, and by themselves as a permission liable to be withdrawn without explanation or comment. — Dipl. and Cons. Reports No. 485, p. 9. If the United Kingdom Alliance does not elect Mr. 304 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE Witte president for life, gratitude must be extinct in the Local Option breast. Nor is it only the dealers in ardent spirits that have felt the knife of the reformer. Beer — tell it not in Burton and name it not in the streets of Milwaukee — has also suffered. The restrictions imposed on the sale of beer in St. Petersburg are said to have reduced the consumption by 30 per cent. On the principal holidays — and holidays are numerous in Russia — the drink-shops are shut up either altogether or for the greater part of the day. In the last thirty years the tax on spirits in England has remained practically stationary. In Russia it has been increased until it is two-and-a-half times more than it was in 1863. Even this was not all. The Government., not con- tent with persecuting the Trade in this high-handed fashion, confiscating licenses, destroying vested in- terests, and abolishing all sale for consumption on the premises, proceeded in still more insidious fashion to undermine the very ground upon which John Barley- corn was still permitted to stand. Side by side with the doomed traktir, the Government is endeavoring to establish tea shops, " intended to become harmless places of resort for the lower classes where they can meet without any temptation to intemperance." Tem- perance committees have been formed whose function it is to make tea-rooms as attractive as possible, and so to combat the temptation to drink vodka. When in England we see Government grants made for the establishment of coffee taverns, and when the Lord M. WITTE AND HIS WORK 305 Lieutenant of the county is expected as a matter of course to act as president of the local temperance committee, we shall have come up to the Russian standard. Of course, those who would discover that the Arch- angel Gabriel was a disguised devil if they overheard him speaking Russian, are quite sure that all this tem- perance legislation is only a ruse of the wily Witte to fill his coffers. It is unfortunate for those suspicious critics who have substituted for the charity that think- eth no evil the hatred that thinketh no good thing- can come out of the Russian Nazareth, that so far as statistics prove anything, the revenue has suffered rather than gained by the change. It is too soon to come to a definite conclusion on the subject, but Mr. Carnegie thinks that the system by which the Russian Government makes the supply of spirits a monopoly of the state will ultimately both increase the revenue and " act at the same time as a check on intemperance/' Few things in St. Petersburg will more startle the untravelled Briton than the discovery that it is the temperance societies which have taken in hand the supply of popular recreation. Imagine Lincoln's Inn Fields handed over to a City Temperance Society for the purpose of making it available for the amusement of the crowded denizens of the back streets of Hol- born. Imagine, if you can, a spacious theatre erected in the centre of the square, and around it various booths, band-stands, and dancing floors, to all of which 20 30G THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE everyone is admitted on paying a few halfpence. Decorate the trees with festoons of colored lamps, brilliantly illuminate the whole area with electric light, and keep the fun of the fair going till mid- night. In the theatre perform Shakespeare's trage- dies and other dramas, classic and otherwise, twice or thrice a week, filling in the alternate nights with concerts and other entertainments. When you have done all that and more besides, you will only have reproduced in London what the St. Petersburg Temperance Society, under the presidency of Prince Oldenburg, has done and is doing every summer in the public squares and gardens of St. Petersburg. No doubt, as the Russian scoffer said : " God made the English and someone else the other people." But even the God-made race may here and there discover among " the other people " hints by which it might profit in the solution of the social problems of our time. A summary of Witte's work would not be complete without a reference to the commercial treaty with Ger- many in 1894, which he succeeded in compelling the Germans to make only after a fierce war of tariffs. Germany had never before been met with such a policy of retaliation on the part of a Russian Minister. M. Witte has not confined himself to Russian inter- nal affairs. His railway and financial schemes in Man- churia and Korea by means of the Russo-Chinese Bank, the now defunct Russo-Korean Bank, and the M. WITTE AND HIS WORK 307 Eastern Chinese Railway Company, afford proof that he knows also how to conduct an insinuating foreign policy which must be far more effective in the end than such disturbing acts of violent aggression as the seizures of Kiao-Chau and Port Arthur, against which he was the first to protest. CHAPTEK V A RUSSIAN" COBDEN Soon after the Peace Rescript was issued, a story went the round of the press that it had its origin in a remarkable interview which had taken place between the young Emperor and M. B , who was described as a famous banker, a millionaire, and the author of a ponderous work on the future of war. The story, like most such stories, had a foundation of truth. M. Jean de Bloch, a banker and a political economist of Warsaw, who for the last seven years had devoted his life to the writing of a great book on the development of modern war and its influence on the nations, was received some time ago by the Tsar and afforded an opportunity of expounding his views at great length. Shortly after that interview the Rescript appeared. Post hoc is, however, by no means propter hoc. The famous Rescript had, as a matter of fact, quite another genesis — but into that I need not enter here. Suffice it to say that the interview did take place, and that M\ de Bloch found the Emperor keenly and sympathetic- ally interested in all that he had to say. It was not the first time M. de Bloch had enjoyed an opportunity of expounding his conclusions before A RUSSIAN COBDEN 309 the ruler of Russia. He had been received by Alex- ander III. But the difference between the father and the son was most marked. Alexander III. lis- tened courteously, but made no remarks, while Nich- olas II. accompanied and interrupted M. de Bloch's discourse by perpetual questions and comments, which showed the keenness with which he followed the ex- position of the subject. A long discourse it was, two hours on end, and in the middle of it M. de Bloch grew weary, and had to halt for breath. But his Im- perial listener never wearied, and always seemed eager for more. Nor is this surprising. M. de Bloch is a most interesting man. He has got hold of a great idea, and he has quite exceptional gifts of exposition. He is of Jewish origin and was born in Poland, a Rus- sian subject. He has travelled much and far, and for the last seven years of his life has devoted his learned leisure and ample means to the production of his magnum opus, " The Future of War." I have called him the Russian Cobden, because he reminds me in many ways of that most famous of all the English economists who were also statesmen. He possesses an engaging exterior, a great persuasiveness, and he is absolutely dominated by his conception of the truth, which he devotes his life to study and to teach. M. de Bloch is not a Free Trader, although he is not a Protectionist of the ordinary type. His resemblance to Cobden does not lie in the particular economical doctrine he professes, so much as in the originality and simplicity of his mode of thought and 310 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE his absolute certainty that he has struck the root of things. He is like Cobden in being an international man, in taking wide views of things, and yet in always standing four square upon the solid facts and material- ities of life. " Give me figures," he said to me; u let me see the facts; it is no use discussing abstractions; we should always see how they work out." What Free Trade was to Cobden, a conception of the approaching extinction of war is to M. de Bloch. Possibly the Warsaw banker may be as much mistaken as was the Corn Law repealer in anticipating the speedy triumph of his opinions. That is a matter which the future alone can reveal. But his great idea is that the immense progress in the deadliness of fire- arms and explosives which has been made in the last quarter of a century, together with what is practically the arming of the whole manhood of Europe, has brought us within close range of the time when war will become practically impossible. Lord Lytton pre- dicted the end of war by the discovery of Yril, that mysterious compound of lightning and dynamite by which a child could annihilate an entire army. M. de Bloch is much too staid and solid a' writer to dream of that which does not exist. He takes his stand upon the results already attained, and he maintains, with inexhaustible eloquence and a marvellous store of de- tailed information, that even now, little as the nations dream of it, war has become practically out of the question. And in his opinion the chief object of the Peace Conference ought to be the definite ascertain- A RUSSIAN COB DEN 311 ing and certifying of the truth of this fact before the eyes of the whole world. " What people have not realized/' said M. de Bloch to me, " is that modern war is something altogether dif- ferent from all the wars that have ever been fought since the world began. If I were to prescribe the right way in which to educate a soldier to-day, I should begin by burning all military history before 1875. Nothing that happened before then affords any in- struction as to what will happen now. The long range, high velocity, and great accuracy of the modern weap- ons of destruction render the war of the future some- thing altogether different from the wars of the past, so that all conclusions based upon previous campaigns are at fault. High explosives, quick-firing guns, to say nothing of air ships and submarine boats, are rap- idly making war impossible. The carnage, especially of officers, will be such that even a successful war will destroy the social fabric and open wide the door to revolution, which will then triumph everywhere." " But," I asked, " are you sure of your facts? You are not a soldier, and how can you speak with authority on such a question? " " For my facts," he said, with pardonable pride, " you can seek in my book. There I have laid the foundation — as I believe, a foundation which no one can shake — of the faith that is within me. I am not a soldier, it is true, I am an economist. But the quali- ties which make the best soldier — the gift of leader- ship, personal prowess, great physical endurance, the 312 TEE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE talent to divine and anticipate an enemy's movements — these do not necessarily enable the soldier to discern the net result of modern inventions or their influence on the future of war. The student who avails himself of all existing materials furnished by military and other authorities need not necessarily be a soldier. In my book, which has already appeared in Russian, and will soon appear in German and in French, you will find the conclusions which I have stated based upon an incontrovertible array of statistics culled from the best authorities on the art of modern war." " How far lias that conviction of the suicidal deadli- ness of modern war spread throughout Europe? " I asked. " At present not far, because few comparatively are aware of the full consequences of recent changes. But in all armies, many of the more intelligent officers realize the fact that for them a declaration of war will be equivalent to a sentence of death. Among Ger- man officers especially I have found of late years a remarkable disappearance of all desire for war. There is no war party among German officers to-day, for they know that war for them would mean death. Again and again they have said to me : ' If war breaks out we shall, of course, go to the front. It is our duty. But none of us will come back.' And they are right. Sharpshooters with arms of precision of immense range will pick off the officers; nor will any tell-tale smoke betray the source of the sudden death." " But," I object, " such ideas have always prevailed A RUSSIAN COBDEN 313 whenever any new deadly weapon was invented. Gunpowder superseded the bow and arrow, but it did not abolish war. Neither will high explosives." " By itself perhaps not/' replied M. de Bloch. " But it is not by itself. For the main contention of my book is twofold. First, that the conditions of modern war- fare as to implements of destruction are too deadly to permit of war without mortality before undreamed of; and secondly, that the disorganization of society which would be occasioned by the mobilization for war of the whole male population would produce results ut- terly destructive to the State. It is with the economic effects of war on the complex system of modern society that I am most interested. The subject has never been studied. But there lies the secret, the fatal secret which will render war impossible." " In what way? " I ask. " Modern society," he replied, " daily grows more and more complex, more and more delicate. The interdependence of the whole upon the proper func- tioning of each of its parts is every year becoming more palpable. This is no theory, nor does it concern itself with luxuries. It is the simple fact; the daily bread of each of us more and more depends upon the coordi- nation and cooperation of an immense multitude of agencies, most of which are international, but all of which would be readily thrown out of gear by a decla- ration of war. I do not hesitate to declare that the mobilization of the whole manhood of the nation for purposes of war would have on the body politic, on 314 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE the social organism, very much what the sudden ex- traction of all the bones would have upon the body of a man." " But surely these things have been duly considered and prepared for? " I object. " ^Nothing of the kind/' he replied. " In England there have been one or two imaginative attempts to forecast the results that would follow the outbreak of war; for England, being the most artificial State in existence, and less self-dependent, is of all others that which would be soonest destroyed if by any means the regular functioning of her food supply were interfered with. But in other countries there has been no study of the economic results of war under modern condi- tions. In France some years ago, when M. de Frey- cinet was Prime Minister, M. Burdeau told me that a proposal was made to appoint a Committee of Econo- mists to report upon the economic results that would follow an outbreak of war. But the soldiers vetoed it. They do not wish to have the consequences of war brought home to the knowledge of the people. But that is what the Peace Conference ought to do." " In what way? " I ask. " It is not for me," said M. de Bloch, " to draw up the programme for the Congress, much less to pre- scribe its procedure or dictate its resolutions. But my idea of what might be done to the most advantage is, if the Congress after its first meeting were to appoint a committee or committees of the ablest of its mem- bers to conduct what would be an international inquiry A RUSSIAN COBDEN 315 into the extent to which modern warfare, under the modern conditions of society, has practically become impossible without sacrifices of life hitherto unheard of on the battlefield, without total dislocation of the fabric of society, and without inevitable bankruptcy and revolution. That is the abyss towards which the nations are rapidly sliding. The Congress should en- deavor to open their eyes to envisage the situation as a whole, from the military, naval, and economic points of view. After the committees had completed their inquiry, the results could be reported to an adjourned meeting of the Congress, which would then busy it- self with providing some other method of adjudicating international disputes than that of war, which would then be perceived to have become absolutely im- possible." Such, in brief, are the ideas of this Russian Cobden. It is obvious that if he is right we are nearer the end of war than any of us ventured to suspect. The proofs of the impossibility of going to war on a great scale without practical suicide of the nation are, he main- tains, to be found in his great book, the six volumes of which lie before me as I write. As I have under- taken to have the gist of them published this spring in English, they will be generally accessible before the meeting of the Congress. But even if M. de Bloch is mistaken in the confidence which he reposes in what may be described as the self-destructive energies of modern war, he is not mistaken in the conviction that the miserably wretched condition of the masses of 816 TEE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE mankind renders the waste of resources in provision for homicides. It did one's heart good to hear M. de Bloch expatiate upon the immense possibilities that lay before the social reformer who had at his disposal even one-tenth of the sum now lavished on armaments, which, if he be correct, have now attained dimensions which render it impossible to use them. Mr. Cham- berlain in his early days, when he talked of ransom and shed tears over the wretched condition of the serfs of the soil, would have found himself in absolute ac- cord with this bold assailant of the bloated armaments of the modern world. Not even John Burns of Bat- tersea could have spoken with more passionate earnest- ness in describing the horrors of the extreme and squalid poverty which abounds beneath the gilded crust of our boasted civilization. I could have counted my visit to Russia well spent if only it had brought me into personal living relations with so remarkable a man as M. de Bloch. Of his book it is impossible to speak here, except in generalities. It is in six volumes, and is very copi- ously illustrated with all manner of diagrams, plans, and pictures. It is entitled in Russian, " The War of the Future in its Technical, Economic, and Political Relations." I have only been able to look through it enough to see that it would be impossible to give a detailed summary without reading it thoroughly, prob- ably more than once. As far as I can make out from the indexes, the first five volumes, including the sup- plement to the fourth, are statistical, analytical, and A RUSSIAN COB D EX 317 descriptive, while the sixth is devoted to " General Conclusions/' which tend to show the potential dan- gers of future wars, and summarize the dangers which have occurred in the past. The sixth also treats of the religious, racial, and territorial " open questions " in Europe, and also in the Far East. This volume is the more important just at the present time, and its most important part in its turn is the final portion, " The Conclusion," which treats of possible causes of war, and illustrates their comparative triviality, advo- cates the constitution of an International Court, point- ing out that the present is the most convenient mo- ment, and insists on the necessity for investigating the conditions and consequences of war in a scientific man- ner. The immense ground covered by the work may be gathered from the fact that there is a list, twenty- six closely-printed pages long, of authorities from all languages, in all about a thousand authorities. The book seems to comprise everything directly or indirectly connected with warfare and its conse- quences. It treats the question at the same time in the broadest and the most detailed and technical man- ner. In fact, it resembles a cyclopaedia compiled upon a philosophical principle, for it coordinates all the in- formation it contains and brings them into a harmoni- ous system, and only differs from a cyclopaedia inso- much as its ultimate aim is polemical, though as far as bulk is concerned it is mainly statistical. There are nearly four thousand pages in the volumes. M. de Bloch told me that in the Trench and Ger- 318 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE man editions he has changed the title. " When I went to look over the proofs at the printing establishment in Germany where the German edition is being printed, the foreman printer came to speak to me. It was just after the Tsar's Rescript had appeared. ' Sir/ he said, i do you not think that your book is now mis- named? You call it "Die Zukunft des Kriegs." ' ' Why so ? ' I replied. i Because/ he said, ' after the Tsar's Rescript there should be no more wars. And if so, how can you speak of the Future of "War? ' I was so impressed by the man's remark that I call my book simply ' War ' — for war, I hope, has no more a future." CHAPTEK VI THE IDEAS OF PRINCE OUCHTOMSKY Of Russian notables who are known beyond the con- fines of their own country the number are few. It is probable that there are not a dozen men in Russia whose names have even been heard by the majority of Englishmen and Frenchmen. But among this dozen there must be included Prince Ouchtomsky, who has a very definite, if not very conspicuous posi- tion. Prince Ouchtomsky is the author of the stately volumes in which are described the incidents of the tour of the present Emperor through Asia. Prince Ouchtomsky accompanied the Emperor on his journey as a kind of historian-in-waiting, and afterwards acted more or less as private secretary to the heir apparent during the latter half of his journey. Since his re- turn he has founded a newspaper in St. Petersburg, the St. Petersburg Viedemosti, which is honorably dis- tinguished in the Russian press for the independence with which it criticises public affairs. Prince Ouch- tomsky may be described as the Russian Wilfrid Blunt. He is a poet, like Mr. Blunt, and he is con- sumed by the same passionate devotion for the Chinese that Mr. Wilfrid Blunt displayed in the cause of the 320 TEE UXITED STATES OF EUROPE Egyptian Fellaheen. As Mr. Wilfrid Blunt was de- voted to Arabi, so Prince Oucktomsky pins his faith to Li Hung Chang. He was personally attached to Li Hung Chang during the latter's visit to Russia; and the reverent devotion which he displayed to the Chinese statesman is still the subject of laughing com- ment among his friends in St. Petersburg. Prince Ouchtomsky is a man of culture and of sincere political and religious convictions. He has travelled exten- sively in China, and has spent some time as an inmate of a Buddhist monastery, where he lived the better to imbibe the spirit of the people and familiarize himself with the Buddhist idea of life. He has one of the most remarkable collections of Buddhas in bronze and in silver that exists in Europe. He collected them with infinite pains from all parts of China and Thibet. He was not allowed publicly to exhibit his spoils in St. Petersburg, M. Pobedonostseff, it is said, believing that it would not befit an Orthodox Christian State to permit an exhibition of so many Buddhas under the shadow of its cathedral; so the hundreds of Buddhas remain in Prince Ouchtomsky's own house, standing in rows, like soldiers on parade. There are Buddhas of all sorts and sizes, every one in its own time the object of the reverence and devotion of numberless worshippers. As I sat in the midst of that great com- pany of images of him whom Asia adores, I could not resist a curious impression as to the influence of a shrine. The atmosphere was Asiatic, and not Euro- pean, and the room seemed to be peopled with the in- THE IDEAS OF PRINCE OUCHTOMSKY 321 numerable company of those who for many genera- tions past had bowed the knee in adoration before these solemn, silent images, which serve as keys to unlock the inner mystery of the physical consciousness of man. Prince Ouchtomsky has the reputation of being a terrible Anglophobe. He speaks English ex- tremely well; lie is very familiar with English litera- ture; he has an enfant terrible on his staff, Mr. Hallstrom, who frequently writes fearsome articles concerning the iniquities of England; but Prince Ouchtomsky, although an unsparing critic of what he considers the barbarity and ambition of Great Britain, has never abandoned himself to any of the excesses of Anglophobia. At the Foreign Office they regard him as, first and foremost, a Chinese, just as the people at our Foreign Office regarded Mr. Wilfrid Blunt as, first and foremost, an Egyptian; and he re- sents much more bitterly any attacks upon the inde- pendence of his beloved Chinese than all our offences, real or imaginary, against the Russian Emperor. But one great question which created some difference of late between Russia and England — the duty of pro- tecting the Armenians against their Turkish oppres- sors — found Prince Ouchtomsky in strong opposition to the policy of his own country. ~No one can speak more unhesitatingly as to the wickedness of Prince Lobanoff's policy. Prince Ouchtomsky is very much of Mr. Gladstone's opinion in that matter, and as he expressed his opinion freely in his newspaper, he may be regarded as a valuable witness for truth and liberty 21 322 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE in the very heart of the Russian Empire. He is also a strong advocate of religious toleration, and has set himself firmly against the persecuting policy which has so long been in favor in high quarters. All this tends to show that Prince Ouchtomsky deservedly holds a high place among the few independent indi- vidualities who, from force of character or from advan- tageous circumstances, have been able to make their identity felt and realized outside Russia. In China Prince Ouchtomsky is very popular, and was received at Pekin on a recent visit with honors greater than those which had been accorded to the Ambassador of any foreign Power. I made it my duty to make his acquaintance imme- diately on arriving at St. Petersburg. I was warned in advance that I should find him a virulent Anglo- phobe. I was glad to find that this reputation was undeserved. In his paper, the St. Petersburg Viede- mosti, there have appeared certain articles which have attacked England with considerable vehemence. These, however, do not emanate from his own pen, but are contributed, for the most part, by a very able but much afflicted journalist, who told me quite frankly, at the beginning of a three hours' interview, that he regarded it as his duty to correct the excessive charity and Christian forbearance of his countrymen by preaching, in season and out of season, the neces- sity of hating England, whose sentiments, as expressed by her newspapers and embodied in such acts as the seizing of Cyprus and the continued occupation of THE IDEAS OF PRINCE OUCHTOMSKY 323 Egypt, and the appointment of Lord Curzon as Vice- roy of India, indicated unmistakably her hostility to Russia. I had many opportunities of meeting Prince Ouchtomsky, and found him one of the most charm- ing, cultivated and sympathetic men that I have come across in my travels. Those Englishmen who know him more intimately than was possible to me with such short acquaintance, assure me that I am not mis- taken in believing him to be absolutely sincere, a man of high principles and noble aspirations, possibly too great an idealist for this present evil world, but never- theless one who brings to the responsible discharge of his journalistic duties the sincere desire to contend for liberty, progress and peace. At the Russian Foreign Office he is regarded with the same alarm and, shall we say, derision, with which Sir Wilfrid Blunt was regarded in Downing Street seventeen years ago. They consider him a somewhat light weight, and I was repeatedly assured that I had not to take him too seriously. Outside official circles there was, however, a general belief that Prince Ouchtomsky, by reason of his former intimate relations with the Emperor during his Asiatic tour, and the opportunity which he still possessed of printing whatever he pleased in the St. Petersburg Yiedemosti — a paper which every day comes before the eye of the Emperor — was a man to be reckoned with very seriously indeed. Whichever estimate we take of him, there is no doubt that the Emperor has a high regard for him; and although he may differ from his judgments, he recognizes his sin- 324 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE cerity and ability, and certainly accords to him the liberty of criticism which other journalists in Russia have sighed for in vain. I had many long talks with him concerning subjects that were nearest to his heart, and I do not think I can do anything better in order to interpret Prince Ouchtomsky to the outside world than by reproducing here an article on " Our Crime Against China/' which I wrote in St. Petersburg as the result of a long conversation with him. Most of the article I submitted to him in manuscript, in order that he might correct or modify any sentences which might not have accurately expressed his opinions. He returned the manuscript, however, without alteration, expressing his entire concurrence in the views therein set forth. In that, of course, I alone am responsible, both for their form and for the suggestion with which it concludes as to the possibility of Prince Ouch- tomsky's playing an important and useful role as a European adviser to the mandarins of Pekim That suggestion, I know, has been received with horror in Russia by French officials who declare, I believe with reason, that Prince Ouchtomsky is much more Chinese than the Chinese, and that the European Powers would find it much more easy to deal with the man- darins direct than to approach them through such an unsympathetic intermediary as Prince Ouchtomsky. English foreign ministers would have said much the same, no doubt, if it had been proposed that Mr. Wil- frid Blunt should be recognized as a European adviser of Arabics cabinet. That suggestion, however, is a Abdullah Freres, Constantinople M. DE NELIDOFF Rome COUNT MUKAYIEFF P1UXCE OUKOSOFF M. ZINOVIEFF Paris Constantinople RUSSIA'S FOREIGN MINISTER AND SOME OF HER AMBASSADORS TEE IDEAS OF PRINCE OUCHTOMSKY 325 detail which stands distinctly apart from the opinions of Prince Ouchtoinsky, embodied more or less faith- fully in the following pages : — The spectacle presented by the European nations in China is not edifying; it may indeed be described as truly revolting and even terrible. For what is the meaning of this mustering of warships, this landing of soldiers in the Far East? Does it not proclaim as with a trumpet voice that the partition of China has begun? Where the carcase is, the vultures will be gathered together, and the aspect of the European Powers is vulturous indeed. The harpies of civiliza- tion — the exploiter, the concessionnaire, the stock- jobber and company promoter — are swarming like blow-flies around carrion, and behind them all are shaking the mailed fists of Germany, England, and Russia. It is an empire that is being cut and carved for the looters of the world. Years ago the English and French soldiers sacked and plundered the Summer Palace of the Chinese Emperor. To-day the white- skinned nations, panting to join in the commercial exploitation of the whole of China, thunder with iron hands at the gates of the empire. The catastrophe which statesmen have foreseen and shuddered at for two generations is being precipitated by the headlong rush of financiers and traders. Who can say what the end will be? To this method of opening markets at the cannon's mouth, and extorting commercial concessions by the menaces of Ambassadors, grave objection may be 326 THE UXITED STATES OF EUROPE taken in any case on many grounds. But that which chiefly concerns us in the present crisis is the extra- ordinary peril which is heing heedlessly created hy applying these methods to China under the present circumstances. It was once regarded as an axiom of European statesmanship that the vast mass of homo- geneous humanity which inhabits China should be re- garded as a vast preserve in which no one should go poaching on his own account, that what one nation gained all the other nations should share, and that nothing should be asked from the rulers of China which it would be beyond their power to grant. In other words, the "White World was to treat the Yel- low World as if each was a great unit, and it was the recognized interest of one world to avoid the dis- integration of the other. This established tradition went by the board when the German Emperor seized Kiao-Chau. We are still too near the event ade- quately to realize the tremendous results which fol- lowed the success of that somewhat piratical venture. The seizure of Kiao-Chau advertised to the world that in China there Avas no longer a government capable of repelling invasion or of resisting spoliation by its neighbors. It was as if the Kaiser had placarded a huge " To be Let or Leased to the First Comer " over the whole map of China. The example was not lost. Russia — whose Siberian railway, as Mr. Balfour had publicly acknowledged two years ago, gave her a moral claim based on economic necessity for an ice-free out- let in the Yellow Sea — no longer dared to wait until TEE IDEAS OF PRINCE OUCHTOMSKY 32? her engineers had brought the railway to the frontiers of Manchuria. If China was to be let or leased to the first comer, then Russia must make secure without hesitation the northern province through which her railway was to run. So Manchuria passed under Rus- sian domination. Port Arthur and Talienwan were leased and occupied, and the second step in the par- tition of China was taken precipitately under the in- fluence of the alarm created by the occupation of Kiao- Chau. Since then the work of demolishing the power and prestige of the Chinese State has gone merrily on, until at last we have detachments of German, Russian and English soldiers marching into the city of Pekin to supply a garrison, minute but significant, to the very capital itself. What is going to be the end of all this? It is a question which it is well worth asking, although it is not much thought of amid the eager rush of conces- sionnaires and the tramp of armed men. Is the great Yellow Reservoir of humanity at last about to be forced to burst its banks and overflow the world ? That is of course a possibility, regarded by General Gordon for instance, and by many of the shrewdest observers, as a probability of which it is surely well to take ac- count. It has hitherto hardly seemed to be an object devoutly to be desired by the White World, but it may be inevitable and in the order of the universe. But if the Yellow Man is to become no longer a fixed but a soluble element in this teacup of a world, are we quite so sure that the infusion of this new and immense 328 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE ingredient will altogether improve the flavor of the beverage — that it is either wise or prudent to stir it about so vigorously with ambassadorial teaspoons? Above all — to change the figure — is it necessary to blast breaches in the banks of the Yellow Reservoir by all the explosives of modern armaments? If ever there were a situation in which experience and pru- dence combine to teach us to " go slow/' it is the posi- tion of China to-day. But that is not exactly the order of the day in Pekin Embassies. What is likely to follow the break up of the long sleep of the Far East? There have been numerous more or less fantastic descriptions of the Yellow Peril. We are all familiar enough with pictures of the Yellow Man with the White Money destroying Lancashire by Chinese competition, and ultimately installing himself as millionaire master of the castles and palaces of those splendid paupers, the aristocracy of Britain. Still more recently Mr. Sheil sketched in gore his vision of a myriad host of Yellow Men pouring forth bent on the extermination of the Whiteskin. But neither of these perils is that which immediately impends. One of these is more remote, the other is at our doors. The remote peril is that the White Man may perish from the planet by the superior vitality of the Yellow Man. The Chinese have no scruples about mixed marriages. There is less prejudice among white races against mar- riage with Yellow Men than that which undoubtedly exists against intermarriage with blacks. The Chi- nese, indeed, by some white women, appear to be pre- THE IDEAS OF PRINCE OUCHTOMSKY 329 ferred to men of their own race — for reasons chiefly physical. But it is stated by those who have watched the results of the cross between the yellow and the white, that in the children the white man disappears. The child of a Chinaman is always Chinese, no matter how white its mother may have been. The toughness and vigor, the virility and vitality of the Yellow Man overpower the weaker physique of the White Man in the offspring of a mixed marriage. In the Straits Settlements, where the Chinese marry with the Ma- lays, the children lose the Malay type of their mother, and are indistinguishable from pure Chinese. Even if this, which is attested by many observers, be some- what exaggerated, there is sufficient truth in it to give the Whiteskin pause when contemplating the diffusion of the Yellow Man. Unless we wish the whole world to become yellow, it may be worth while keeping the Yellow Man where he is. What may be the ultimate consequences of this blending of the races in which the yellow strain alone seems able to persist, it is easy to speculate but impos- sible to predict. What is likely to be the first conse- quences is not so difficult to foresee. The Russians will be the first European race to receive the yellow strain into its veins. The Russians assimilate with Asiatics more easily than any other Europeans. Their frontier marches with that of China for more than four thousand miles. They have a vast undeveloped country in Siberia, into which the Chinese will flow by millions. The Chinese are hard-working, econom- 330 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE ical, and absolutely indifferent to politics. They will marry and settle and breed, and their offspring will carry the Chinese strain into the very heart of the Kussian nation. In many ways they will add to it elements of which it stands in some need. The ma- terialism of the Chinese would be a corrective of the somewhat dreary mysticism of the Russian, and his sobriety and thrift would not be an undesirable addi- tion to the moral and economic outfit of the moujik. It is therefore by no means improbable, even if the partition of China were stayed, that the opening up of Siberia by the railway, and the extent to which China has already been upset, Avill result in the conver- sion of the Russia as we know it to-day into a mixed Russo-Chinese Empire — the possible sceptre by which Asia may rule Europe, and avenge in the twenty-first century the humiliations which she has received from the White Man since the days of Clive and Hastings even until now. That, however, is remote. Of more immediate and pressing importance is the deliberate attempts which Christendom is making to inoculate the Yellow Race with the destructive virus of militarism. This is the real crime against China — and against ourselves — which we seem to be preparing in the Far East. What irony of coincidence ! The Tsar summons all nations to a great Parliament of Peace, declaring that " to put an end to these incessant armaments, and to seek the means of warding off the calamities which are threat- ening the whole world, such is the supreme duty which THE IDEAS OF PRINCE 0UCHT0M8KY 331 is to-day imposed on all States." And at the same time, by way of a practical illustration of the earnest- ness with which the Christian nations believe the maxims of the Prince of Peace and follow the counsels of the Emperor, they are busily engaged in preparing to inflict upon China the very curse from which they pray to be freed in Europe. What a spectacle for the mocking gods is this contrast between precept in Europe and practice in Asia! There are at this moment about as many millions of Yellow Men in the world as of White Men. There are many differences between the two races besides that of the color of their skins. The chief difference between the Yellow mass of humanity and the White is that the former is disarmed and the latter is armed. China is not an armed State. It is rather a flock of helpless sheep penned within the ancient walls of the Eastern sheepfold, without ironclads, without Max- ims, without any of the armaments of the Western world. The Chinese is the Empire of Peace. The Yellow Man is the only denizen of this planet who genuinely dislikes and despises the art of war. The White Man, whatever religion he may profess, is au fond a fighting man. " 'Daten! 'Daten! " is the uni- versal cry of the White-skinned child, though in the case of the Quakers the military instinct is sometimes exorcised. There is no White-skinned race that is or- ganized on a basis as strictly pacific as is that of China. By the Chinese the soldier is regarded with something of the contempt felt only for the slave in the White 332 TEE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE World. For a time this was concealed by the chevaux de frise of modern Enropean-bnilt ironclads and can- non by which the Chinese masked their real sheep-like character. It was assumed that they could fight. It is now known that they cannot fight, and would not if they could. The Yellow World is disarmed. And so the White World, with loud praises of disarmament on its lips, promptly proceeds to eat it up. Not very encouraging this for the war against war and the crusade against armaments. For a couple of years past the bubonic plague has been raging in Bombay. It is said that the virus of the pestilence was conveyed to the Indian seaport by a cargo of rice carried in the hold of a vessel which had previously been loaded with dead Chinamen. It is a gruesome illustration of how contagion spreads from land to land. But the prospect before us in China far exceeds in horror the results which followed the inoculation of Bombay with the virus of the bu- bonic plague. For what we are apparently now about to witness is a horrible and hideous inoculation of the whole Yellow Race with the deadly virus of that very militarism from which the Tsar has just exhorted us all to try to escape. The Yellow World, being on the whole healthy and sane, has hitherto contrived to live and thrive without subjecting itself to the ruinous burden of modern armaments or the blood-tax of uni- versal military service. Not even the attempt, per- sisted in for thirty years, to inoculate the Chinese with military passion by providing them with ironclads and THE IDEAS OF PRINCE OUCHTOMSKY 333 field-guns succeeded in infecting the character of the population. It remains inveterately peaceful, with no warlike ambitions which could not find ample satis- faction in the painting of a dragon's head upon a paste- board shield. So now, finding all other means to fail, the European Powers are beginning to lay violent hands upon the pacific Yellow Man, and by sheer force are about to compel him to become a soldier in spite of himself. The Germans will drill and discipline into fighting men the peaceful peasants of Shantung. The English in Wei-IJai-Wei, if ever they do anything in that un- fortunate station, will also drill and discipline and teach the Yellow Men to love war and eschew peace — even as do the Christian White Men who are taking them in hand. So also in their turn will the Russians pass the Manchurians through the military mill. And thus it will come to pass that the most pacific race on earth will be trained like fighting-cocks by their White masters, in order that they may shed their blood like warriors in the cockpit of the Middle Kingdom. The partition of China means the compulsory training of hundreds of thousands of Chinamen in warfare, the grafting of a military habit upon the inveterately pacific and laborious population of the Middle King- dom. The partition of China, begun by the seizure of Kiao-Chau, under the more or less hypocritical plea that such reparation was due for the murder of two missionaries, will be followed by the arming of China. 334 THE EXITED STATES OF EUROPE The drill sergeant, who in Egypt has " made a black man white, and made a mummy fight/' will find less difficulty in China. Xor need he fear that he will not find enough work for his recruits. In China at pres- ent, indeed, from the Russian frontier on the north to the borders of Burma and Siam on the south, there reigns unbroken peace. The Government at Pekin may be corrupt. Mandarins here and there may be restless and ambitious. But the Chinese main- tain peace among one-third of the inhabitants of the world with a less effective military force than that which answers for law and order in the little island of Ireland. But once the principle of splitterang is introduced — once the unity of the Chinese Empire is shattered as it is being shattered to-day — and who can estimate the number of armed men it will be necessary to maintain along the frontiers of the Erench and German, Russian and English States? To maintain that unity, to check, or at least postpone, the tendency to artificially hew it into hostile prtectorates, is surely the supreme duty of all Christian States. In India the case is altogether different. In that great peninsula the English did not find at their advent that the land was slumbering in the peace which broods over the Yellow AVorld. The Bengalee may be as pacific as John Chinaman, but the whole land was filled with fighting men. Eierce marauders from the hills and the soldiers of standing armies abounded on every side. There was anarchy, there was war. Everywhere were armaments, public and private. By THE IDEAS OF PRINCE OUCHTOMSKY 335 our conquest Ave ended all that. We maintain an army in India of 74,000 whites and 145,000 natives — a mere police force among 200,000,000 of human beings. This is possible only because there is unity of authority. Had we not driven the French out of Hindustan the standing army of India would have had to be multiplied many times. Unity of administration, the absence of all rivals within the Empire, renders possible the reduction of our armament to a minimum. The Empire of India is therefore an Empire of Dis- armament, and its existence enormously diminishes the number of men who would otherwise spend their lives in the practice of preparation for homicide. If, however, the European Powers partition China, ex- actly the reverse will take place. Upon an Empire of Peace will be superimposed a congeries of Protector- ates of War. There will be no unity of administration. There will be constant rivalry. And the result will be that, after China has been converted from a scene of peaceful industry into a vast barracks, it will some day be a very Aceldama in which the rival passions of European nations will slake themselves in the blood of the unfortunate Chinese, whom, in the name of Christian civilization, they have manufactured into efficient fighting men. 'Now the supreme question for us all to ask is whether anything can be done to avert so appalling a catastrophe, which affords so cynical a comment upon our professions? Substitute for slavery mili- tarism, and we may quote Lowell's verse without the 336 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE alteration of a syllable as an appeal to White Men in view of the disaster which they are preparing to inflict upon their Yellow brethren: — Slavery the earth-born Cyclops, fellest of the giant brood, Sons of brutish force and darkness who have drenched the earth with blood, Famished in his self-made desert, blinded by our purer day, Gropes in yet unblasted regions for his miserable prey. Shall we guide his gory fingers where our helpless children play? Whatever else is done or left undone in China, the infliction upon the Yellow World of the burden which Ave find almost insupportable by the whites would be a superfluity of naughtiness for which there is no excuse. To avoid the perpetration of so vast a crime affect- ing, not a single state, but one-third of the human race, it is absolutely necessary to modify the policy which has hitherto been pursued in China. It is not necessary to indulge in any fantastic dreams about a regenerated China. Neither is it altogether pleasant to remember what regeneration has meant in the case of another yellow race. The Japanese have adopted European civilization, with the result that they have been already almost ruined by the immense arma- ments with which they have hastened to equip them- selves. There is no part of European civilization which is so easily assumed as that which takes the shape of Maxims and ironclads. Militarism is the alcoholism of nations, and Japan is the drunken helot of the East. She is mortgaging her resources and taxing her people TEE IDEAS OF PRINCE OUCETOMSEY 337 to the bone in order to create a gigantic fleet which, when created, will be impotent to realize her ambi- tions. But although we may not believe that if the Chinese Emperor had not been summarily put in the corner by the Dowager Empress, the Chinese Empire would suddenly have renewed its youth, there is still no necessity to assume that we shall wake up some fine morning and find that the Chinese Government has vanished into space. I have often quoted, and I will quote again, the excellent saying quoted by Mr. Nas- sau Senior as to the folly of supposing that empires which have lasted for many centuries are about to dis- appear because for the moment they seem to be in extremis. " Old empires," said the statesman to whom Mr. Senior was talking, " are like the country carts which you meet on a difficult bit of road in remote districts. Their wooden, ungreased wheels creak and groan, there is enough evidence of stress and strain and noise to make you think that the whole thing will next mo- ment go to pieces. But next day you find the same cart apparently none the worse going its rounds. So it is with these old empires. They seem to be going to pieces, but they will outlast our time." It was a word of sound wisdom. Uttered originally about the Turkish power, it applies still more forcibly to the Chinese Empire. It may seem to-day to be in articulo mortis; but we may depend upon it that long- after all of us are dead and buried there will be a Chi- nese Government of some kind or other controlling 22 338 TEE UXITED STATES OF EUROPE the affairs of the Yellow World. That is, of course, if it is not violently put hors de combat by an attack from without. Hence, however weak, however cor- rupt, however miserable the Chinese Government may be, we have got to reckon with it — to get on with it, and, in short, to make the most of it and the best of it, instead of making the worst of it. Unfortunately, for some years past the Ambassadors of the Powers at Pekin appear to have been doing their level best to make the worst of it, to weaken and destroy the pres- tige of the central power, with the result that the one agency from which any help can be obtained in over- coming the forces and prejudice of fanaticism and of savagery is at present in a fair way to be rendered utterly useless. The Government of a state, it has been well said, is like the heart in a human body. Upon its regular action depends the life of the whole community. When the heart is weak the circulation is affected, especially at the extremities. That is the case with the Chinese Government. It is weak, and its weak- ness is felt in every province. But notwithstanding its weakness it is the only element of moral strength in the whole Empire. When the railways, for construct- ing which concessions are being so eagerly sought, come to be built in reality across Chinese territory, the very men who are now abusing and denouncing the Tsung-li-Yamen will be the very first to appeal to them for assistance! Why then, in the name of common sense, should we allow our Ambassadors to bully and THE IDEAS OF PRINCE OUCHTOMSKY 339 browbeat the unfortunate mandarins as they have been doing lately? Granting everything that can be said as to the corruption, the duplicity, the general God- forsakenness of the Tsung-li-Yamen, what good has come of all the hectoring and storming of the Mac- Donalds and PavlofTs and Hey kings? It is not as if the Chinese Government, like that of the Sultan, had any strength in it. It has not, and it knows it has not. Any of the great Powers has only to ask and to have if it chooses, — no, not merely to ask, but to demand. The Tsung-li-Yamen is helpless, and it knows it. China is no longer an armed state. It is disarmed and powerless. As a British journalist remarked to me the other day, who had himself ridden across Mongolia, one thousand armed men could ride easily through the whole Empire. Nevertheless, this powerless, derided, browbeaten Tsung-li-Yamen have lost none of its pres- tige in the interior of the country. The dim myriad millions of Yellow Men know nothing of the extra- ordinary antics of the Foreign Devils at Pekin. Here and there a Viceroy of a province may have his eyes open to what is going on, and in that way civil war may arise. But the Pekin Government is still the only power with any moral authority that is felt throughout the Chinese Empire. Why should we not recognize this fact, and instead of endeavoring to revolutionize it by the aid of Kang-yu-Wei or browbeating it by Sir Claude MacDonald and his marines, — why should we not endeavor in real earnest to make friends with the Chinese, to work with them instead of working against 340 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE them, and in short to do whatever good feeling and common sense can suggest for averting the break-up and partition of the Chinese State ? The best solution of the difficulty presented by the continually increasing pressure of the outside world upon the ancient Chinese social order would be arrived at if the Dowager Empress and the Powers could agree upon appointing a trustworthy white man as the For- eign Secretary of the Chinese Empire, through whom all negotiations should proceed in all matters relating to foreigners. If, for example, Sir Robert Hart had been a younger man, what could be desired more than that he should have been transferred from the Chinese Customs to the Chinese Foreign Office, and given the full Imperial authority to hold the balance even among the crowds of rival contestants for concessions, leases, etc.? If there were a Russian Sir Robert Hart, Britain might be well content to see him in such an office. For things have reached such a pass in the Tsung-li-Yamen that there is no centre of resistance to any demand, no matter how monstrous it may be, if only it be pressed with sufficient force by any of the great Powers. And it would be better for the whites to have to deal with any man of their own skin, no matter what nationality he was, so long as he was admittedly just and honest, than to deal with a group of cowering yellow men who do not understand half that is said to them, who of necessity lie all round, and who yield like a swinging door to every thrust from the outside. Unfortunately, this suggestion of a White Foreign TEE IDEAS OF PRINCE OUCETOMSKY 341 Secretary for China, approved by all the Powers and nominated by the Dowager Empress, on condition that he managed all the affairs of the Foreign Devils and left the Chinese absolutely free to govern themselves as they pleased, is a counsel of perfection. The Pow- ers would never agree. The Dowager would never appoint. It would also be difficult, when the three thousand miles of railway begin to be laid and £28,- 000,000 of foreign capital is invested in Chinese lines, rigidly to separate foreign and domestic politics in China. This being so, some other solution must be sought. The importance of preventing the break up of China is equally obvious to Russia as to ourselves, and the problem may find a readier response at St. Peters- burg than in London. The Russians have gazetted M. PavlofT to Korea. His successor, M. de Giers, will have orders to go slow. Li Hung Chang, although nominally out of office, is still the power behind the throne. The Dowager Empress, it is evident, is no mere puppet, like the mandarins of the Tsung-li- Yamen, to be bullied with impunity. A great oppor- tunity lies open to the Power which will first and with frank sincerity proclaim itself the protector of the Chinese against further aggression. There would be no need of any formal treaty or any alliance. All that would be necessary would be for the foreign Power, whichever it may be, to declare its determina- tion to oppose all demands on China which it con- sidered unjust, and to exercise the task of adjudicating 342 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE upon the justice of such demands with impartiality and intelligence. Such a Minister at Pekin would soon acquire the ascendency of the Great Eltchi at Constantinople before the Crimean War. If, for in- stance, an Ambassador personally sympathetic with the Chinese were sent to replace Sir C. MacDonald at Pekin, and if he were to make it the avowed prin- ciple of his policy to support the Dowager Empress in opposing every demand which a competent expert, say a man like Sir Robert Hart, were to declare to be pre- judicial to the integrity and independence of the Chi- nese Empire, how long would it be before the Chinese mandarins would huddle beneath our protecting wings as chickens flock to the hen when the shadow of the hawk crosses the yard? These considerations are equally obvious to the Rus- sian Government, which may easily forestall us in their application. Russia has no eager concession- naires pounding away in newspapers and in Parlia- ment to assail her Foreign Minister if he does not use ironclads to extort concessions. Russia has already nominated her new Minister at Pekin. Li Hung Chang is by no means indisposed to welcome from Russia more sympathetic treatment than he has re- ceived from M. PavlofL And if the Tsar should de- cide upon assuming the role of friendly protector of the Chinese Government, he has in Prince Ouch- tomsky an admirable agent, who, as unofficial Euro- pean adviser to Li Hung Chang, would soon bring about the Russo-Chinese entente. THE IDEAS OF PRINCE 0UCHT0M8KY 343 When we read the following passage from Prince Ouchtomsky's book describing the Eastern tour of the present Emperor we seem to hear the voice of Mr. Blunt — with a Chinese accent: — China, so far as work and patience are concerned, is a uniquely great nation. It has produced a Confucius and numbers a thinker like Lao-tse amongst the ranks of its philosophers. It is a State which has elevated to the high- est point of perfection and simplicity both the cult of the monarchic principle and the reverence for those ancestors declared by the nation to be worthy of immortality. This country is our best neighbor, and the neighbor most like ourselves because of its conservative inclinations and qualities. Every Russian knows that a handful of soldiers from our army would suffice to reduce to subjection the whole of China. But if we did so it would perhaps result in Russia's comparative youth and energy, her ideals and creative rest- lessness, slowly withering away. But still more harmful would it be to give the Western nations absolute control over China in her for the present helpless condition. He is objected to at the Russian Foreign Office as being " too Chinese for anything." He is a personal friend of Li Hung Chang, and, as he is profoundly impressed by the perils of breaking up the Chinese Empire, he would work hand and glove with the Chi- nese Government in maintaining the status quo. However that may be, the Chinese problem remains before us, fraught with immense possibilities for evil to mankind. The one solution that seems absolutely the worst is its partition into an anarchic congeries of armed states under the guidance of rival European 344 TEE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE Powers. The one thing to be aimed at is the main- tenance of the unity which enables one-third of the human race to live and labor in peace without the aid of Maxims and ironclads. Rather than sacrifice that unity, I for my part would welcome a protectorate of China by any one European power, subject to three conditions — free trade, free religion and no arma- ments. As the status quo gives us all three, is it not worth while making an effort to prevent its destruction? CHAPTEK VII THE EMPEROR OF PEACE Nicholas II., the Tsar of Russia, who to-day is what the Americans would call the " banner-bearer in the cause of Peace/ 7 is a soldier, a Colonel in the Russian army, and the honorary Colonel of a regiment in the English army. He is the first Russian Sovereign who has received an honorary command in the British army, and his appointment was due to the direct per- sonal initiative of Her Majesty the Queen. Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman was in those days Secretary of War, when his Royal mistress intimated that her fa- vorite grandson must have an honorary command in the army of the Queen. Sir Henry Campbell-Ban- nerman is a practical man, and the canny Scot saw no end of difficulties in the way of such a departure from precedent. He pointed out to the Queen that it would be easy to make the Tsar an honorary Colonel in the army, but that would only be the beginning of trouble. All the other crowned heads would con- sider themselves slighted unless they were equally pro- moted to honorary colonelcies. Therefore, he said, it was quite impossible. The Queen listened to his ex- postulations, and said : " It may be impossible, but it 34G THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE will have to be done all the same " — and done it was. But it was the opening of the door, for the next year the Emperor of Austria received a similar distinction. The Emperor is also an officer in his own navy, and usually wears uniform. The first time I saw him he was in military uniform, and the second time in naval, for it was the day on which he was about to start for Sebastopol to review the fleet. He entered the army when he was eighteen, and made himself an efficient officer, although he never displayed any passion for soldiering. Consider- ing the way in which he was brought up by his father, it was not likely that he would develop any. Alex- ander III. had made one campaign before he came to the throne, and the impression left upon him of the miseries and brutalities which follow inevitably in the train even of a liberating war made him determined that, come what might, during his reign Russia should sleep in peace. The late Tsar was never so happy as when he was disporting himself with his children, far from the cares of state. At these times he was ever wont to impress upon the young folks his horror and detestation of war. He would tell them anecdotes of what he had seen when in Bulgaria, and always with the same object. His mind was filled with the seamy side of campaigning; the pride, pomp, and circum- stance of " glorious war " had no fascinations for him. He had seen his soldiers perish in the winter snows of the Balkans; he had witnessed all the squalid reality of the campaign in Bulgaria, and his anecdotes always THE TSARINA THE EMPEROR OF PEACE 347 pointed the same moral, viz., that war was dreadful, horrible, and inhuman. " May God keep you," he used to add with great earnestness, " from ever seeing it, or from ever drawing a sword." Nicholas II., the Emperor of Peace, is the son of Alexander III., the Peace-giver of Europe. Alex- ander III. was the son of Nicholas I., who was recog- nized for many years as the Chief Justice of the Con- tinent, and he succeeded Alexander I., a man who, although best known in this country as the head of the Continental Alliance which enabled us to triumph in the long death-struggle with Napoleon, was in his lat- ter years passionately devoted to peace. It was in order to establish European Peace upon a firm foun- dation of Christian principle that he joined with the King of Prussia and the Emperor of Austria in pro- claiming the Holy Alliance, one of the first attempts which was ever deliberately made by three great Euro- pean Sovereigns to establish the tranquillity of Europe upon the basis of the Gospel. Their method may have been mistaken, and they may have done more harm than good, but no one can doubt the sincerity of the Emperor Alexander and his passionate desire to make an end of war. He had seen his capital ablaze, and he had led his victorious troops in triumph into the capital of France; but when he left Paris after peace was made he was dominated by the same intense loath- ing of war which reappeared in Alexander III. Those who are interested in the subject will find the story of the Holy Alliance told truthfully and sympatheti- 348 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE cally in " The Life and Letters of Madame de Kru- dener." Five years later a worthy Quaker, Stephen Grellet, visited St. Petersburg, and received from Alexander a warm and sympathetic welcome. The Emperor told the good Friend how, when he was quite a boy, Prince Alexander Galitzin had given him a Bible, and recommended him to read it. He devoured it eagerly, and laid the foundation of a character to which, after many backslidings and many failures, Madame de Krudener was able to appeal with tri- umphant success in her evangelistic mission. Grellet reports that he talked long and much with the Em- peror upon religious matters; and then occurs a very remarkable passage which is well worth recalling at the present time: — We entered pretty fully into the nature of the peaceable kingdom of Christ, and to what the spirit of the dear Re- deemer, who is love, would lead all who are obedient to its dictates, on which he stated how great his soul's desire and travail had been that wars and bloodshed might cease for ever from the earth; that he had passed sleepless nights on account of it, deeply deploring the woes and misery brought on humanity by war; and that whilst his mind was bowed before the Lord in prayer the plan of all the crowned heads joining in the conclusion to submit to arbitration whatever differences might arise among them, instead of resorting to the sword, had presented itself to his mind in such a manner that he rose from bed and wrote what he then so sensibly felt — that his intentions had been misunder- stood or misrepresented by some, but that love to God and man was his only motive in the Divine sight. He was in Paris at the time he formed that plan. The writing to which the Emperor referred was un- THE EMPEROR OF PEACE 349 doubtedly the famous proclamation of the Holy Alli- ance. " The fundamental thought of the Emperor Alexander/' says " Clarence Ford," Madame de Kru- dener's biographer, " was the foundation of an inter- national law founded on Christianity, which should unite on a single broad basis all the Churches of Europe, Catholic and Orthodox, Protestant and Angli- can. This, the Tsar believed, would lay the founda- tion-stone of that era of universal peace which it had been his life-long dream to establish throughout Europe." Laharpe, his old tutor, who had little sym- pathy with the Evangelical enthusiasm of the Tsar's later years, wrote : " Although intrepid in the midst of danger, Alexander held war in abhorrence. Eully realizing the abuses which excited the discontent of nations, he hoped that in the course of the long peace European Governments, recognizing the necessity of undertaking reforms demanded by the requirements of the century, would seriously set themselves to the task. To attain this object a profound tranquillity was necessary." It is worth while recalling these facts to show that Nicholas II. is in the true line of succes- sion, and that in his latest Rescript he is but reverting to principles which were affirmed by his predecessor, Alexander I., at the very moment when the crowning victory had been achieved which gave Russia the same preeminence on the Continent that Great Britain had on the sea. The Tsar is said to have declared that he hoped he would not only be Nicholas II., but the second Mch- 350 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE olas, for the memory of the Tsar against whom our fathers warred in the Crimea and the Baltic is held in high regard by patriotic Knssians. There is, however, not much of the element that made Mcholas disliked outside Russia in his young namesake. It is probable that he takes more after his grandfather Alexander II. , whose ideas he has inherited, and to whose memory he has just unveiled the imposing monument which has been reared in the Kremlin. Alexander II. was a man who concealed a great tenacity of purpose under an appearance that did not exactly give the idea of strength. In some respects he was weak, but in rela- tion to the main purpose and the chief work of his reign — the emancipation of the serfs — his constancy could not have been greater if he had been made of iron. One who knew him well told me that she re- membered how he used to sit in the midst of cynical and critical counsellors who were bent upon thwarting his will and preventing emancipation. All the while he would sit silent, with a far-away look in his eyes, as if he saw things which others did not see, and at the end of the Council he would simply affirm his un- shaken resolution to put the thing through. And put through it was, all gainsayers to the contrary not- withstanding. So it may be with Nicholas II. He has put his hand to a still vaster task than that which tested the power of his grandfather, and it will be well if he brings to the work some of the adamantine firmness, almost stolidity, of his father. Tor when Alexander III. said a thing, that thing THE EMPEROR OF PEACE 351 was. When he put his foot down, there it stayed. It may save some of my confreres some trouble and the Imperial household a considerable nuisance if I explain simply, once for all, how it was I came to be privileged with the opportunity of discussing public questions face to face in frank and friendly conver- sation with the Ruler of Russia. It was not until 1888 that I first thought it possible I might have a good square talk with the Tsar. I was then editor of the Pall Mall Gazette, and by the vig- orous method in which I had championed the Russian cause during the Penjdeh dispute and afterwards, I had succeeded in establishing for myself a more or less recognized position as a " Russian organ." I was abused as a Russian agent, I was said to be in the pay of the Russian Embassy, and, in short, I enjoyed the distinction of being pelted by all the vituperative brickbats which came handiest to those gentlemen who did me the honor to disagree with me. I need hardly say, at this time of day, that these complimentary as- sertions were, well — about as accurate as the majority of the statements which serve as the stock-in-trade of the Russophobist. Ever since I first wielded a pen as journalist I had been the faithful and resolute advo- cate of an Anglo-Russian entente. I got my ideas on this subject originally from Richard Cobden's political writings when I was quite a boy, and I have not de- parted from them a hair's breadth ever since. Never- theless, although I have never received any communi- 352 TEE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE cation from the Russian Government, and although I had often sought in vain even the most ordinary facili- ties in the way of acquiring information, the ordinary British Philistine got it firmly fixed into his thick head that in some way or other I was the officious, if not the official and inspired organ of the Tsar. The more I reflected upon the consequences which might follow from this absurd misconception of the actual state of things, the more necessary it seemed that I should make an effort to ascertain at first hand from the Emperor himself the general drift of his policy in all matters likely to affect the relations be- tween the two Empires. The possibility of altogether misleading British opinion by putting forward my own ideas of Russian policy, and having them accepted in- stantly, despite all my disclaimers, as the authoritative expression of the views of the Russian Government, seemed to me to justify an attempt to ascertain directly from the Emperor what his policy actually was. Ma- dame Novikoff, with whom I had had the pleasure and privilege of working in this good cause for ten years or more, was good enough to obtain me a reception at Gatschina in the early summer of 1888. When I met the Tsar, I put the case frankly before Alexander III., pointing out the danger of having accorded to me a position to which I had no claim, and suggesting that as I could not, despite all my disclaimers, rid myself of the reputation of being his English organ, it would at least be safer if he could give me more or less defin- ite information as to what were his ideas upon the TEE EMPEROR OF PEACE 353 questions which were involved in the relations between England and Russia. The Emperor thought a little, and then said he considered the suggestion reasonable. What, he asked, did I want to know? " Everything/' I replied, at which he smiled and said, "Ask what questions you please, and I will answer them if I can." I availed myself of the opportunity to the full, and the Emperor was as good as his word. I asked, he an- swered, and by the time that the interview was over I had received a comprehensive and definite exposition, direct from the Emperor's own lips, of the policy he intended to pursue in relation to all the questions in which England was interested. Sir Robert Morier, our then Ambassador at St. Petersburg, speaking of this interview, said that no Russian Emperor had ever spoken so freely and fully upon all questions of foreign policy to any English- man, and he added that he could not conceive of any circumstances better calculated to secure absolute can- dor on the part of the Tsar than those in which our interview took place. A good deal that the Emperor told me was much questioned at the time. I was ridiculed for my credu- lity. One eminent statesman told me flatly that he did not believe what the Emperor had said, and he laughed me to scorn for my simplicity in accepting his word. But time passed, and the result proved that in every single item the Tsar had stated exactly the course which he actually pursued. So signal a vindication of the trustworthiness of the communications made to 23 354 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE me on that occasion was afforded by the subsequent events of his reign, that when it came to its close the same statesman who had derided me for my credulity, told me in the handsomest manner that he had been entirely wrong, and that I had been absolutely right. I must confess that I look back to that episode in my career with considerable satisfaction. There was no undertaking expressed or implied that I would support the policy of the Emperor. He asked nothing from me. I only asked from him the exact truth in order that I might avoid misleading my countrymen. He told me the exact truth, and as a result during all the rest of his reign I was able to speak with absolute cer- tainty where all the rest of my colleagues were com- pelled to rely upon inference and conjecture. I had no occasion to oppose his policy. It coincided with the policy which I have been advocating indepen- dently for years. But if I had differed from it, I never felt myself under the slightest obligation to ab- stain from opposing it to the uttermost of my ability. When I was taking my leave of the Emperor, he was good enough to say that if at any time unforeseen difficulties should arise between Russia and England, he would be glad to see me again. " See M. Giers," he said, " and arrange this before you go back to Eng- land." There was, however, no occasion for me to avail myself of this invitation. As long as Alexander III. lived there were no difficulties necessitating an- other pilgrimage to Gatschina. It was not until the dispute about the future of THE EMPEROR OF PEACE 355 China began to be acute tbat I felt that I was justified in recalling the Emperor's invitation. I did not know, of course, whether Nicholas II. would be willing to see me, but I thought it well, under the circumstances, to recall his father's promise, and to inquire whether or not he would accord me the same privilege of frank and direct communication. The answer was in the affirmative: and that was why I went to Livadia. It is obvious, therefore, that there was no question here of an ordinary or extraordinary newspaper inter- view. Equally of course there could be no question of the publication of any report of the conversation that took place. All that I can say is that Nicholas II. received me with cordiality and accorded me facilities equal to those I received from his father for ascertain- ing exactly what his ideas were upon the questions which now or at any other future time might endanger the friendly relations of our two countries. As to what he said I can of course say nothing here, except- ing to affirm in the strongest possible terms my abso- lute conviction that the Emperor is as passionately devoted to peace as was his father, and that in no point of the whole range of his policy is there any antago- nism whatever between his aims and the interests of the British Empire. And as I do not say this without having had ample opportunities of informing myself as to the aims and objects of the foreign policy of Her Majesty's Government, I have a right to feel that I have indeed brought back from Livadia glad tidings 356 TEE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE of great joy, promising peace to the world and good- will to England. The day after I arrived at Yalta in the Crimea, as I was returning to the Hotel de Eussie, a Enssian lady whom I had casually met on the steamer the previous day greeted me pleasantly. " So you are going to see the Emperor to-morrow? It is very pleasant for you. I congratulate you on your good fortune. " I was somewhat confused. I had said nothing to any living soul about my request for an audience with the Tsar. I did not even know my application had been granted. Yet here was this stranger proclaiming the fact as if it was the talk of the town. On reaching my room, I found a card making an appointment with the Emperor, and the mystery was explained. Gen- eral Hesse had called, and, not finding me in, had left the card with the proprietor of the hotel. It was the first contrast that struck me between my visit to the late Tsar at Gatschina and my reception by his son at Livadia. At St. Petersburg in 1888, for some reason or other, it was held to be necessary to preserve the most absolute silence about the fact that I had been admitted to talk face to face with the Em- peror of all the Eussias. So well was the secret kept that on the very day I was received at Gatschina, when the wife of the German Ambassador was expressing to the wife of the British Ambassador her pitying com- passion for the inevitable disappointment of my pre- sumptuous aspiration to see the Tsar, it was thought inexpedient to undeceive her. Until the day the Tsar THE EMPEROR OF PEACE 357 died, I never permitted myself to state in print that I had even so much as spoken to him. The first state- ment that was ever published that I had seen the Emperor appeared twelve months after my visit, and it did not come out through any act of mine. It was when the German Emperor paid his first visit to St. Petersburg that the story got about. It was one of the jokes of the Russian Court that I was the only man who had ever dismissed the Tsar. Alexander III. was much amused at my unwitting breach of court etiquette, and told the story to his German vis- itors, through whom it found its way into the press. I shall never forget the expression of mingled hor- ror and amusement on Sir Robert Morier's face when, on returning from Gatschina to the British Embassy, I told him how the interview had terminated. " You don't mean to say you dismissed the Emperor! " he exclaimed. " It's perfectly monstrous! " " Well," I said, " I don't know about that. But I knew the Em- press had been kept waiting for her lunch for half an hour or more. As I had got through all the questions I wished to put to the Tsar, I got up, thanked him for his patience and kindness, and said I would not detain him any longer." "You did, did you? " said Sir Robert. " Don't you know it is an unpardonable breach of etiquette even to stir from your seat till the Sovereign gives you the signal to rise?" "I knew nothing about that," I replied. " I only knew that, when I saw the Emperor smile as he got up, I had been an idiot for my considerateness. If I had only 358 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE sat still, lie might have gone on talking for another half hour; and one does not talk to an Emperor every day." I was somewhat consoled for my simplicity when in Paris the other day I was told that President Faure had committed the same mistake when he met our Queen in the South of France. Instead of waiting to be dismissed, he rose first, to the amazement and even, it is said, displeasure on the part of Royalty. M. Faure apparently heard of his faux pas, and promptly determined to make up for his mistake by himself adopting the Royal etiquette. Now at the Elysee,* no matter how great may be the personage who is received by the President, he must not dare to rise until M. Faure gives the signal. The innovation is not alto- gether regarded with favor by the more austere Repub- licans, but their number is few. So M. Faure, the quondam tanner, becomes more and more like Louis Quatorze every day. Sic itur ad astral The homely simplicity of life in Yalta and Livadia was another contrast not less striking. In 1888 the Tsar lived more or less under the shadow of assassina- tion. His father had been blown to pieces in the streets of the capital, where now a stately church is being built to commemorate the sacrifice. He him- self had narrowly escaped destruction in the catas- trophe at Borki, where also a gorgeous fane with gilded dome has been erected as a thank-offering for a great deliverance. When I went down to Gatschina * This was written in January, 1899. THE EMPEROR OF PEACE 359 in company with General Richter there was every- where the consciousness of a constantly impending invisible danger. I had to wait for an hour and more for the audience, and then I was conducted through what seemed a furlong of ante-rooms and cor- ridors and state apartments, a perfect maze of laby- rinthine perplexity, until at last I was ushered into the small workroom where Alexander III. received me. He was alone save for the presence of a huge dog, which had a most uncomfortable habit of jump- ing up every three minutes and walking backwards and forwards impatiently in front of the Tsar as if to intimate that it was time for the visitor to go. It is true that nothing could be more cordial, more simple, and more kindly than the Emperor's de- meanor. But I could not escape from a certain all- pervading sentiment of awe, which lasted all through the solitary lunch and the journey home. How different it was at Livaclia! There was no mystery, no distance, no solitude, no sense of unde- finable danger. There are few more beautiful spots in Europe than the neighborhood of Yalta. The drive to Livadia up hill and down dale, which we took at breakneck speed, between the mountains and the sea, is magnificent. The Euxine, not a Black but an azure Sea, stretches out far below, an immense expanse of sunlit water, across which flit interminable strings of birds, migrating southward from the approach of win- ter. The Mediterranean, seen from the Riviera, never looked more radiantly beautiful than did the Black 360 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE Sea on the day when I visited Livadia. On the road you come at every turn upon something quaint and strange. !Now it is a string of creaking country carts drawn by diminutive oxen, then it is the curious stage wagon of the Crimea, like a long double bench, on which the passengers sit back to back with their legs dangling in the air. Suddenly you hear a trampling of hoofs, and a gay cavalcade of ladies and gentlemen, splendidly mounted and escorted by picturesque Tar- tars, gallop by, calling up I know not by what strange association of ideas a flood of mingled memories of " The Bride of Abydos," and of the hawking parties of the Middle Ages. A gilded landmark indicates the point where the road to Livadia turns to the left from the high road. The driver removes the bells from his horse's neck, we show our laissez passer to the officer in command at the entrance, and then off we dash along a road good enough to be made in France, through the undulating vineyards in the midst of which Livadia stands. The vineyards are studded with prettily designed watch-towers from which sol- diers, standing on sentry, keep a vigilant eye upon all possible marauders or interlopers. A sailor paces backward and forward under the Russian flag which floats high above the trees. A Circassian, apparently on duty, glances at you as you drive by, but other traces of vigilance there are none, any more than in the grounds at Balmoral or in the park at Windsor. It was at the latter end of October when I was at Livadia, and the changing color of the vine leaves, OX THE ROAD FItOM LIVADIA TO SEBASTOPOL N -■ * ■j^ltBC^^ * % si ss. - siiBftSfe^'-g' ■--'** fcSir^i ,.-aper man wrote out his story of the fate of those American women — wrote it out in vivid characters, bright and clear before the eyes of the whole English- speaking race — the doom of the Ottoman Empire would be sealed. There are eighty millions of human beings in the United States, all of whom speak English, and each one of whom would feel that the imprisoned women were even as his own sisters. On the day on which the news of their incarceration and outrage reached the Christian Republic of the West, the whole of the eighty millions who inhabit the invulnerable fortress which Mature has established between the fosses of the Atlantic and the Pacific would start to their feet as one man, and from the whole continent would rise but one question and one imperative command. The question would be: "Where is Dewey? Where is Sampson? Where are our invincible ironclads, which in two battles swept the flag of Spain from the seas? Why are our great captains roosting round upon their CONSTANTINOPLE 425 battle-ships, while such horrors are inflicted upon women from America?" And after that inquiry would come quick and sharp the imperious mandate: "To the Dardanelles! To the Dardanelles! " In three weeks the commanders who shattered the Spanish fleet at Manila, and drove the ironclads of Admiral Cervera in blazing ruin upon the coast of Cuba, would appear off the Dardanelles to exact in- stant and condign punishment for the outrage inflicted upon their country-folk. JSTor would they stop at the Dardanelles. The Stars and Stripes would soon fly over the waters of the Sea of Marmora, and the thunder of the American guns would sound the funeral peal of the Ottoman dynasty. No power on earth would be able to arrest the advance of the American ships, nor, indeed, is there any Power in Europe that would even attempt to do so. The patience of Christendom has long been almost worn out, and Europe would probably maintain an expectant attitude while the death-blow was struck at the crumbling relics of the Ottoman Power. When the Sultan had fled from Stamboul, leaving his capital to the violence of the mob, the Americans, to save Constantinople from the fate of Alexandria, would be compelled to occupy the city of Constantine, and, as our experience has long shown, it is much easier to occupy than it is to evacuate. "When once " Old Glory " was hoisted over the city of Stamboul, who could say when it would be hauled down? Of course, the Americans would protest that they had no inten- 426 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE tion of remaining there, but the necessity of postpon- ing the European war, which would probably break out when the key of the Dardanelles and of the Bos- phorus came to be scrambled for, would compel them to remain at least for a time, and every day that the Stars and Stripes flew over the gates of the Euxine would tend to familiarize Europe with the idea that, of all possible solutions, the indefinite occupation of Constantinople by the Americans might be open to fewer objections than any other conceivable solution. Thus, at any moment, owing to what may be regarded as a normal incident in the methods of Ottoman mis- rule, Cobden's dream might be fulfilled, and the great Republic of the West become the agent for restoring prosperity and peace to the desolated East. The following special telegram from Washington in the New York World of August 9, 1898, is an interesting confirma- tion of the views set forth above. It is headed " We may Bombard Constantinople," and it runs thus: "Minister Angell was appointed by President McKinley with the sole object of having him force the Sultan to pay the claims of the missionaries. It was the intention of the President to even go to the extent of making a naval demonstration be- fore Constantinople to force compliance with his demands. Immediately after Minister Angell's arrival in Turkey the navy of the United States was being rendezvoused in Eastern waters for the purpose of permitting the American Minister to enforce his demands. While this movement was in progress the Cuban situation became acute, and the con- templated demonstration was postponed until a more aus- picious period. Minister Angell frankly informed the Porte that unless the claims were paid the United States would endeavor to force payment. He was also told of the con- templated demonstration and the cause of its postponement. CONSTANTINOPLE 427 The Sultan then promised to see that the claims were paid. The matter has been in this shape for months. The bulk of the property destroyed consisted of mission buildings, and there has been a powerful influence at work to secure just compensation. It is now said that unless the claims are paid by Turkey a naval demonstration will be made against the Ottoman Empire just as soon as the exigencies of the pres- ent war will permit. Admiral Sampson, who will be in com- mand of the European squadron, which is to be formed after the beginning of peace negotiations, will be sent to Con- stantinople to intimidate the Turks." CHAPTEK III FROM THE CAPITAL OP THE OLD WORLD The King of Italy opened the Italian Parliament on November 17th. Inside the Chamber, originally bnilt for the Curia Innocenziana, or Papal Tribunal, but which for twenty-eight years has been the Cham- ber of Deputies of United Italy, the scene was much the same as that which is witnessed at the opening of all Parliaments. It was much more picturesque out- side. Italy may be reducing its finances to bank- ruptcy by playing too boldly the beggar-my-neighbor policy of all modern states, but not even bankruptcy can dim the glorious blue of the Italian sky. We are here, in mid-Xovember, with the delightful climate of an English June at its best. Such skies lend them- selves naturally to outdoor pageants. Although the ceremony was of the simplest, it had a brightness and a splendor which we never can hope to rival under our English clouds. The balcony of my hotel looked out over the sanded square within which, from as early as nine o'clock, deputies and diplomatists began to alight from their carriages. A double row of mounted men guarded the approach, the bright red roll of their overcoats //. k Lieure, Bonn MARQUIS DI RUDINI Italian Premier in 1898 Giacomo Btogi, Florence KING HUMBERT T. OF ITALY SIGN OR SONNIKO (See page 17) GENERAL W. F. DRAPER U. S. Ambassador at Rome FROM THE CAPITAL OF THE OLD WORLD 429 folded behind their saddles forming a double ribbon of color across the street above the heads of the small crowd, many members of which crouched down on the pavement to watch the arrivals through the horses' legs. The square was lined by troops with different uniforms. At one corner a military band played lively music, which from time to time was drowned by the harsh clangor of the great bell, whose peal from the belfry overhead added more to the tumult than the harmony of the occasion. After a time the state car- riages began to arrive, the state coaches of the Senate leading the way, followed after an interval by the gorgeous carriages of the Court. The liveries were splendid, the costumes of the Court ladies not less so, and when the carriage of the King drove up with its six horses and a single postillion, nothing could have been better from a scenic point of view. The King looked hale and robust, although his hair is whitening, nor was there any lack of vigor in his step. But to an English observer whose last experience of a Royal ceremonial was the great Jubilee of our Queen, there was a very painful absence of any demonstrations of public enthusiasm. What a contrast to the league- long roar of cheering which rolled from Buckingham Palace to St. Paul's, and from St. Paul's through Southwark to the Palace, in the sombre silence of the small crowd which gazed with curiosity at the passing pageant! Not an Evviva did I hear. Only a few raised their hats. If I had been the King I would willingly have exchanged even the marvellous Italian 430 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE sky for one right good hearty English cheer. But there are some things which even monarchs cannot command. The Speech from the Throne was portentously long, and except for one or two passages, not particularly interesting. The reference to the Peace Conference was studiously curt, and it w T as much more than coun- terbalanced by the emphatic declarations that the Gov- ernment, which has a General as Prime Minister and an Admiral at the Foreign Office, intends to continue to spend more money, and ever more money, upon the fleet to keep pace with the preparations of its neighbors. The Power nearest bankruptcy in Europe is perhaps bound to keep up the game of bluff to the end. But it is sufficiently evident that at the Quirinal there is no very hearty support of the peaceful initiative of the Tsar. The Pope, on the other hand, is most en- thusiastic. Everything that the Holy See can do to help the Tsar to make the Conference a success will be done. That, perhaps, is sufficient to account for the coldness of the Quirinal. Eor in this unhappy city whatever the Blacks approve is damned by the Whites and vice versa,. Perhaps the most interesting sight in yesterday's spectacle was the march of the Bersaglieri through the streets. Those who have never seen the Bersagli- eri tripping along — there is no other word for it but the word that describes the pace which is a cross be- tween a trot and a canter — have no idea of the extra- ordinary effect which can be produced by the mere 1 F''' ! iin 1 IfcT 1 D THE PALAIS DE JUSTICE, BRUSSELS THE HOUSES OF PARLIAMENT, ROME : THE KING LEAVING AFTER DELIV- ERING HIS SPEECH FROM THE THRONE FROM THE CAPITAL OF THE OLD WORLD 431 movement of soldiers on march. The swing, the abandon, the speed, the swagger, the immense " go " and elan of the men with the cocktail plumes is the very poetry of motion. If Sir Howard Vincent or any other capable and enterprising Volunteer officer would raise a regiment of Bersaglieri in London, and train them to march as these fellows hustled along yesterday to the wild, weird music of their bands, he would find that he had created the most popular force in the Empire. But even if they existed in London they would lack the marvellous contrast which made their dark green uniforms so effective yesterday. We have no bands of scarlet-robed German students to march solemnly down the soldier-guarded streets. Neither have we white-robed friars or the brown Capuchins to add to the kaleidoscope of color, any more than we have the column of Marcus Aurelius or the Obelisk of Augustus, which both looked down solemnly upon the ephemera who chattered over the deep buried ruins of the Amphitheatre of Statilius Taurus. The averted looks of the silent friars, the sidelong glances of the processional students, the sombre figures of the passing priests recalled continu- ally the deadly feud which rages unappeased, and ap- parently unappeasable, between the Vatican and the Quirinal. This feud it is which casts its shadow absurdly enough over the forthcoming Conference. It is by this time well understood by all rational men that there will be no question raised at the Con- ference except that for the consideration of which it 432 THE IX IT ED STATES OF EUROPE was summoned. But men in the death-grapple are not reasonable, neither are the occupants of the hostile camps which are intermixed and superimposed one upon the other, and who agree in nothing except in believing each other capable of anything. Hence, however preposterous and incredible it may appear in England, there are actually those in Rome who im- agine that the delegates of the Pope will attempt, all conditions notwithstanding, to force a discussion of the restoration of the Temporal Power upon the Con- ference of Peace. Of course they will do no such thing. Equally, of course, if they were demented enough to attempt any such folly, they would be promptly called to order and told to hold their tongues. But the King's party are far too much taken up by suspicion, distrust, and rancor to accept so simple and so obvious an answer to their forebodings. They must needs, so it is said, be prepared to protest against such a contingency. If the Pope's men were to attempt to speak on such a question, then the King's men must be instructed to put on their hats and walk out. And then, they say, the Conference would be at an end. As a matter of fact, it would go on just the same as before. The question of the Temporal Power would be ruled out as peremptorily as if it were the question of Poland, or of Ireland, or of Cuba; the Conference would proceed with its regular business. The King's men could, of course, stay outside if they chose. But in all probability they would take off their hats and come in again. A great international enterprise, such FROM THE CAPITAL OF THE OLD WORLD 433 as this which the Tsar has set on foot, is not to be ruined merely because some of its members elect to sulk. But the Government of King Humbert is much too sensible to sulk. More than any other Power in Europe it would benefit by a slackening of the deadly pressure which drives all modern states along the road to ruin. As I passed along the Yia de Quirinale a small crowd was gathered opposite one of the entrances to the King's Palace. They were waiting for some of the Royal Family to come out. I looked up. Over the gate was the inscription, " Clement II., Pontif. Max." A little further on was a large crowd on the Piazza, from whence, in the interior of the Quirinal, the Royal carriages could be seen standing. Over the main entrance I read, " Paulus V., Pontif. Max. ." High overhead on the lofty belfry was inscribed the name of another Pope. Everywhere and at every turn the Kings from the North are con- fronted with the evidence that on everything they hold in Rome, even the very Palace in which they sleep, " the Pope, his mark," is cut broad and deep. It is not thirty years since the Popes made the Quirinal their summer residence. What wonder if the black- coated gentry who swarm in every street feel that they can see everywhere their title-deeds uneffaced on the buildings of Rome, and dream and dream and dream of the day when the Pope-King will once more reign in the City of the Csesars ! It is these dreams of theirs which are the nightmare of Italy, and prevent her 28 434 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE from throwing herself as heartily as she might into the promotion of the Conference of Peace. When I was at the Vatican, I had the opportunity of discussing it with the Cardinal Secretary of State, Cardinal Rampolla, whose observations, I take it, may he regarded as expressing the views of the Holy See. If so, then the hope of Leo XIII. is that his lengthened Pontificate may not close until the nations of the world have constituted an International Court or Peace Board with an international mandate to mediate be- tween any Powers whose disputes have become insolu- ble by the ordinary processes of diplomacy. Nothing short of a permanent International Court, emanating from the conference of the Governments, speaking in the name and with the authority of all the Powers, will satisfy the Pope. Mediation proffered even by the Holy See, which had no international mandate behind it, has been unceremoniously ignored by angry nations even in this very year. But if the Governments in conference assembled were jointly and severally to bind themselves to admit the mediation of an inter- national representative Board of Peace before they proceeded to actual hostilities, war might often be averted. The Board would not have authority to arbitrate. But it would have the right to mediate. Nor should any declaration of war take place until the mediating international authority had full opportunity to ascertain whether any honorable solution of the difficulty could be suggested to the disputants. In case they were willing to arbitrate, the Peace Board CARDINAL JACOBINI CARDINAL PAROCCIII CARDINAL STEINHUBER CARDINAL R AMPULLA Secretary of State to the Vatican FOUR OF THE NOTABLE CARDINALS Photographs by F. de Fredericis, Borne FROM THE CAPITAL OF THE OLD WORLD 435 would supply the ready-made machinery for such a mode of adjudicating the dispute. It would also, in time of peace, devote its time to the codification of international law, a task to which the Pope thinks modern States might profitably devote some portion of their energies. This idea of the Pope's is substantially the same as M. Witte's, who would call the international tribunal by the modest title of an Institute of Mediation. But its functions would be virtually the same, although the idea of authority and the mandate would be less pro- nounced. To both these proposals strong exception is taken by some Russian statesmen, who believe that no inter- national body can be created, even although its author- ity is strictly limited to that of mediation, without limiting the absolute sovereignty of the individual state. No doubt, they say, we could fight after the mediation had taken place. But on vital questions we ought not to expose ourselves to the increased diffi- culty of having to fight against the advice of a tribunal nominally impartial and possessing an international mandate which might nevertheless be packed by rivals or foes. What is wanted is to secure the advantages of gaining time and of permitting the mediation of neutral Powers without exposing us to the danger of an adverse judgment from an international court which everybody knows would be certain to sacrifice the interest of any disputant rather than endanger the general peace. 436 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE There was, however, much more lively interest taken in Rome in the probable result of the American con- quest of the Philippines than in the possibilities of the Peace Conference. The answer to the question: What does the Old World think of the New World? has never been made with greater emphasis than in the Eternal City. The oldest old world regards the newest new world with feelings of anger, disgust and alarm almost too great for words. The sentiment of indignation differs in intensity. But it is universal. There is no sympathy for the United States, either among Whites or Blacks. In fact, dislike of the American seizure of the Philippines and a conviction that the humane enthusiasm which made the war pos- sible was a mere mask of cant assumed in order to facilitate conquest — these are almost the only senti- ments shared in common by the rival camps of the Quirinal and of the Vatican. With the King's men the sentiment is comparatively mild. They do not believe in the least in the dis- interestedness of the American war of liberation. The American declarations are almost universally derided as hideous examples of a worse than English hypocrisy. Uncle Sam, they say, determined in all things to sur- pass John Bull and outdo him, even in Phariseeism and cant. The friends of America wring their hands in unaffected grief over the fall of the United States under the temptation of the lust for territorial expan- sion. Its enemies shoot out the lip and shriek in deri- sion over what they regard as the unmistakable demon- FROM THE CAPITAL OF THE OLD WORLD 437 stration which the demand for the Philippines affords of American cupidity, American bad faith and Amer- ican ambition. " We told you so! " they exclaim. " That is what the unctuous rectitude of the Anglo-Saxon always ends in. He always begins by calling heaven to wit- ness his unselfish desire to help his neighbors, but he always ends by stealing their spoons." It is unpleasant for the Anglo-Saxon to hear this on every side, but since the peace negotiations have devel- oped a demand for the complete cession of the Philip- pines, Americans will do well to recognize that some such statement as the above represents the current opinion of almost everyone in Europe who pays cur- sory attention to what is going on abroad. The im- mense majority of Europeans are, of course, absolutely ignorant of what has happened. Intent on their daily toil, they neither know nor care what occurs in other hemispheres. But the Europeans who read news- papers and who form what may be described as the public opinion of the Old World, are practically of one mind on the matter. Outside of England I have met no non- American who did not dislike the expan- sion of America, nor do I think in the whole of Europe I have met one European who did not receive my pro- testations as to the genuine sincerity with which the American people entered the war, with more or less mocking incredulity. " It is all very well," they say in effect, " to dis- semble your love, but why did you kick me downstairs? 438 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE It was all very well to proclaim your disinterestedness, but why did you seize the Philippines? " " Mere national brigandage, nakedly odious Pha- riseeism," is a phrase which roughly represents the judgment of the Old World on the recent develop- ments of the New. From which may be learned once more the old truth, that in a man's judgment of his neighbor's motives we see the mirror of his own character. For the most part they express no sur- prise. They expected nothing better from these Eng- lish of the New World. They are true to their an- cestry. But there is in every country a minority of thoughtful men who, having for all their lives been the staunchest friends of the American common- wealth, are now confounded and utterly put to shame at what is universally regarded as the apostasy of the United States, the abandonment of their national policy and the adoption of the world policy of con- quest. When I listened, as I have been listening for months past, to the alternate taunts and lamentations of the foes and friends of America, the babel of voices seemed at last to merge into one scornful chorus of welcome to Uncle Sam! " Hell from beneath is moved from thee to meet thee at thy coming; it stirreth up the dead for thee, even all the chief ones of the earth; it hath raised up from their thrones all the kings of the nations. All they shall speak and say unto thee, ' Art thou also be- come as weak as we? Art thou become like unto us? FROM THE CAPITAL OF THE OLD WORLD 439 How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! ' " Americans may argue, protest, and rage as they please, the Old World has made up its mind upon the subject, and nothing that can he said or done in the United States will alter its judgment. The American Government has come out of its retirement. It has thrown its hat into the arena of the world. It is launched on a career of conquest which will he all the more predatory because it is masked by humanitarian- ism. The commonwealth, they hold, has succumbed to the malady which has so long plagued the Old World. A bright hope for the human race was ex- tinguished when the one non-military Power, which eschewed all schemes of aggression and annexation, enrolled itself among the common herd of conquering states. So men talk everywhere in Europe. Whether they regard the old American ideal with sympathy or with contempt, they all agree in believing that it has been abandoned, and that for ever. The annexation of the Philippine Islands may seem but a small thing, but it is decisive. When Eve ate the apple it was but the act of a moment. But it barred against her for ever the gates of Paradise. What the Old World says is that the New World has now eaten of the forbidden fruit, and the flaming sword which turned every way will prevent a return to the peaceful traditions of the fathers of the republic. In the course of my tour I am now compelled to admit that I found proof existent of a disposition on 440 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE the part of the Powers to intervene on behalf of Spain, which might have been very serious had it not been checked in the bud by the knowledge that England would have nothing to do with it. When I was in Paris I was positively told that no proposal had ever been made to intervene, and that therefore England had never had the occasion or opportunity to put her foot down on the anti- American coalition. That, no doubt was true so far as overt action on the part of the Government was concerned. But it is no less true that immediately after the war broke out a diplomatic representative of the Powers communicated to an American Minister at a European Court in plain and unmistakable terms the displeasure of the Powers and their desire to express that displeasure publicly and forcibly. This communication was sufficiently serious for the contingency of the use of the allied forces of the European nations for the coercion of the United States to be frankly discussed between the two diplomatists. The result of that discussion was to put a summary stop to all notion of European intervention. " If you intervene/' said the American Minister, " it means war." " Yes," rejoined his visitor, " and the forces of the great European Powers acting in alliance would over- whelm any opposition which America could offer." " No doubt," said the American; " but you have to bring your forces across the Atlantic to the other hemisphere and keep them there for the rest of your natural life. For the New World is not going to ST. PETERS AND THE VATICAN, HOME THE CAPITOL, HOME FROM THE CAPITAL OF THE OLD WORLD 441 submit to the Old World any more. No, sir, not any more than it submitted a century since, when the odds were far worse. And remember that when you were bringing your armies and your navies across three thousand miles of sea to fight America you would have to count with England, who is certainly not friendly to your enterprise." This put an extinguisher on the proposal. Nothing more was heard of the contemplated intervention. It never got so far as to be submitted to England. The whole design was checked at the very outset by the calm audacity with which the representative of Amer- ica played his cards, including the trump card of the Anglo-American entente, which henceforth will play a leading part in all the dealings of the English-speak- ing people with their jealous and suspicious neighbors. I am very glad to be able to set forth the actual facts as they actually happened. They were told me at first hand by the person most immediately con- cerned, so that we can absolutely rely upon the accuracy of the story. If the Old World regards the American growth and expansion with unconcealed alarm, the British Em- pire, which is seated both on the Old World and the New, contemplates the new departure with unaffected sympathy. The relations between the Embassies of Britain and America at Constantinople and at Rome could hardly be closer and more cordial if there had been a hard- and-fast, cut-and-dried, signed, sealed and delivered 442 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE treaty of alliance, offensive and defensive, between the two Powers. If things go on as they are going now, every Eng- lish-speaking man will feel as I have felt throughout this war — that he has not one Ambassador, but two, in every capital in Europe, and that wherever he goes he is shielded by the might, not of one Empire, but of two, a combination beneath whose shadow the whole world may yet learn to rest in peace. CHAPTER IV WHAT WILL THE OUTCOME BE ? I have visited the capital of every great Power in Europe, and also several which are of secondary rank. I have been in Constantinople, Sofia, Belgrade, Buda Pesth, Berne, and Brussels. Everywhere I have made it my duty to ascertain the views of those responsible for public affairs on the subject of the Peace Con- ference, and after spending nearly three months in constant discussion and investigation, I have come home full of high hope, and confident that we are on the eve of a forward step in the progress of human society, from the savagery of lawless war to the reign of peace. Everything, however, depends upon ourselves. These high hopes may be quenched in the blackness of despair. But if England do but to herself prove true, then, as a famous American remarked the other day in Paris, " the iridescent dreams of our boyhood will be realized at last." I will briefly and succinctly sum up the reasons for my belief. In the first place, I know now, as a matter of absolute certainty, no longer to be disputed even by the most cynical and sceptical, that the Peace Rescript 444 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE summoning the Governments to the Parliament of Peace is no mere flash in the pan, no sudden outburst of an enthusiastic youth. Neither is it the mask cover- ing any deep-laid Macchiavellian design. It is the carefully weighed and long considered expression of a reasoned conviction on the part of the ruler of the greatest military Empire in the world, a conviction which is held and expressed by the Tsar with intense, almost passionate, earnestness, but which is shared to the full by his most experienced and powerful Min- isters. That conviction may be briefly stated as the belief that considerations alike of humanity and of statesmanship imperatively demand a cessation of the present breakneck competition in naval and military armaments, which, proceeding at an ever-accelerating rate, must, if unchecked, land civilization in the abyss. Armaments have already reached such colossal dimen- sions that they cannot be used without involving the disorganization of society by their mobilization, while the increased deadliness of weapons and enormous havoc of modern war renders it probable that even victory would only be the prelude of the triumph of revolutionary Anarchism. War every year becomes more and more synonymous with suicide. But the armed peace is only one degree less costly than war. The international game of beggar-my-neighbor can only end in bankruptcy. But no one Power can cry off. Only by a general agreement can the ruinous game be checked. Therefore the Peace Conference has been summoned, and if ever a case was proved WHAT WILL THE OUTCOME BE? 445 beyond all gainsaying, by facts beyond dispute and calculations mathematically verified, it is that which the Tsar will submit to the representatives of the Gov- ernments of the world. Every Power to which the Tsar's appeal has been addressed has admitted the truth of the stern indict- ment. Not one Government in the whole world has denied the absolute accuracy of the Imperial diagnosis of the galloping malady which is devouring the mod- ern State. The army and navy estimates for 1897-8 amounted in Great Britain to £40,000,000, not in- cluding the cost of the Indian army, which amounts to £14,500,000 more. If this sum were not increased for ten years it would amount to a sum of £400,000,- 000, or £77,000,000 more than the whole sum added to our national debt between the Peace of Amiens in 1802 and the Peace of Paris in 1815, when, for thir- teen years, England was locked in death-grapple with Napoleon. But this sum, colossal as it is, will not suf- fice. This year the total army and navy estimates show an increase — not including the supplementary naval expenditure, which brings the total up to £43,- 000,000 — of £3,000,000 in a single year. To this must be added the extra supplementary shipbuilding programme, which entails a further expense of £2,- 250,000 per annum for three years. And unless the Peace Conference intervenes, this vast snowball will grow larger still. It is to abate this monstrous plague, which threatens the destruction of civilization, that the Russian Gov- 446 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE ernment has summoned the Conference. The fact that a successful icsue of its deliberations would be an enormous relief to the Russian Treasury, so far from justifying the sneers of the cynic, supplies a material justification for the confidence of the optimist. When the obvious and admitted interests of mankind har- monize with the notorious necessities of the Russian Exchequer, there is no sense in cavilling about mo- tives. It is more important to ascertain what can be done to give practical effect to the aspirations of the Tsar. In the second place there is no longer any doubt as to the intelligence, the determination, and the strength of the young Emperor of Russia. Four years of hard labor under the tremendous pressure of his Imperial responsibilities have ripened the Prince who was re- garded as a charming and amiable boy at his accession into one of the most serious and courageous of Euro- pean Sovereigns. The atmosphere of the Court has not destroyed the simplicity of his character, nor have the cares of Empire impaired the delightful elan of his youth. But Nicholas II. has thought deeply and re- flected much. He has gone through his apprentice- ship, and he has learned to handle his tools. His Ministers all know that they have now to do with a man keenly alive to his responsibilities, with clear and definite views as to his policy, who is inspired and borne up by an overmastering sense of his duty to his people. Responsibility is a great schoolmaster. And in Nicholas II. it has done its work right well. Behind WHAT WILL THE OUTCOME BE? 447 all the modesty and simplicity of the man there is now visible the Tsar, the autocrat, whose first duty is to see that he is obeyed. In the third place, the true significance of the Tsar's proposal as to a stay or arrest of armaments is at last beginning to make itself perceptible even to the dullest of Britons. Emphasized as it is by the intention to give an earnest of his sincerity by abandoning the as yet unexecuted portion of its own vast programme of shipbuilding, it is equivalent to a proposal that for a term of five or of ten years the naval supremacy of England should be recognized as a fundamental prin- ciple of the world's balance of power. If the stereo- typing of the status quo be accepted by the conference of the nations, the naval supremacy of England would be virtually consecrated by an international pact. Our present position as sovereign of the seas would be de- clared unassailable by general consent — an outcome of Russian machinations with which even the Navy League might rest content. Fourthly, the Peace Conference promises not merely to secure a stay of the increase of armaments and the proclamation by an international Parliament of a modern equivalent of the mediaeval Truce of God for five or ten years; it will also boldly raise the vital question of mediation and arbitration. If there is one thing upon which all responsible rulers are agreed, it is that the increased violence and the extended influ- ence of the press render it absolutely necessary in the interests of civilization to create some additional safe- 448 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE guard or bulwark against the at present unrestricted sweep of national passion. What that safeguard should be is one of the most important matters to be discussed at the Conference. But that something should be done, no sane man can doubt. I had the opportunity of hearing one of the ablest and most experienced of Russian diplomatists expound to me his notion of what could be attempted with every hope of success. As, after making the round of Eu- rope and hearing every imaginable solution discussed from every point of view, no idea seems to me on the whole so practical and so simple, I will reproduce, not his actual words, but the drift of his argument: — " It was well said by M. Lessar that the Conference would achieve the maximum if it attempted the mini- mum, and that conversely it would achieve the mini- mum if it attempted the maximum. What we have to seek is the minimum, the first step, and not to at- tempt to reach the top of the ladder at one stride. At present the ethics of international war are precisely those which prevail among the rowdies in a mining camp. There the right of private war exists in its aboriginal savagery. Two men quarrel, and the only question is which shall soonest grab his revolver and shoot his opponent. As civilization progresses, society does not at once forbid private war. It imposes re- strictions, it confines the right within narrower and ever narrower limits, until at last, in the most advanced nations, the right itself disappears. The analogy will help us in attempting to make the first step to imposing WHAT WILL THE OUTCOME BE? 449 a check upon the at present unrestricted license of international war. If we accept this guide, we shall see that the first step is not to insist that the disputants shall leave their quarrel to be adjudicated upon by a tribunal, impartial it may be, but cold, indifferent, and governed by general considerations which override the interest or the honor of the individual. No. The thin end of the wedge of neutral intervention is very different. What is done is to insist that before meet- ing in combat, the disputants shall each be compelled to entrust the management of the affair to a second whom he can implicitly trust to act upon his instruc- tions and to defend his honor as if it were his own. Instead of shooting at sight, the moment a mortal af- front is given, the principals are never allowed to come into personal dispute. Everything is in the hands of the seconds. They must decide first whether the quar- rel is such as to justify a duel, and then they must consider whether they ought to suggest any honorable way of escape from a hostile meeting. If they cannot agree upon any such compromise, they can take the opinion of a third party, and press his suggestions upon their principals. But the ultimate decision rests in the hands of the principals. The utmost that a second can do is to refuse to act if the principal refuses to follow his advice. In that case he must find a more obliging second. If, however, the seconds agree that there is nothing to be done but to let them fight, then they fight. But if they fight before these preliminaries are gone through, and death ensues, then the victor is 29 450 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE treated not as a duellist, but as a murderer. That is what could be done in the case of international war. If, for instance, England and France had carried their quarrel about Fashoda to the point of war, the recall of their Ambassadors would have been immediately followed by actual war. If, however, there had been such an agreement as I am supposing might be arrived at in the Conference, when the Ambassadors were withdrawn, before a shot was fired, France and Eng- land would be required to place the whole question in the hands of their friends, who would, I suppose, in this case have been Russia and America. They would have been bound to inquire in the first case whether the issue was grave enough to involve the nations in war; and in the second case, supposing this to be so, whether there was any way of escape from so dread a disaster which they could suggest and which England and France could honorably accept. If they could not find one themselves, they might refer it to a third Power, say the President of the Swiss Confederation, and agree to press his opinion upon the disputants. "No one who knows anything of the true facts of the Fashoda case can doubt for a moment that Russia and America would have experienced no difficulty in de- vising an honorable way of escape for France from the unfortunate and untenable position in which she found herself. But if, after all, England and France re- jected their counsels, they could then fight with all the clearer conscience because the friendly mediation of their seconds had failed. Such a solution would WHAT WILL THE OUTCOME BE? 451 not avert all wars. But I think it would, by gaining time, and by affording an opportunity for the friendly intervention of a trusty mediator nominated ad hoc, prevent at least half the war which would otherwise take place. And that, surely, is good enough for a beginning." I should not in the least be surprised if the views of this eminent diplomatist were embodied in the Russian programme. "Always mediate before you fight;" never draw the sword till your seconds have cleared the field. These are practical proposals which, if adopted, will be a conspicuous landmark in the evolu- tion of human society for many generations to come. It is possible that in England many would go fur- ther. Some years ago I published a pamphlet entitled " Always Arbitrate before you Fight." "When it is proposed that we should always arbitrate before we fight, we are asking for nothing extravagant or Uto- pian. It would be not merely extravagant but pre- posterous to propose that we should be ready to arbi- trate on everything, binding ourselves beforehand to accept the award of the arbitrator, whatever it might be; but no such proposition has emanated from any responsible body. All that is asked is that, before we go to war with each other, we should submit the casus belli to a representative tribunal, whose verdict should be obtained before a single shot is fired. This is but a latter day resurrection, with improvements, of one of the oldest institutions in the world. It is a melan- choly satire upon that civilized heathenism which is 452 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE called Modern Christianity that there is not in Chris- tendom any institution for restraining the hot fever of war as efficient as that which existed in pagan Rome — in Rome, which we call heathen, but which was never- theless, in its earliest days, more dominated by the religious spirit than any of the nations which have risen on the ruins of the Roman Empire. Before war was declared in ancient Rome, alike under the mon- archy and in the republic, the cause of war was sub- mitted to a solemn court which, although far short of a Board of Arbitration, representing both parties, nevertheless was distinctly in advance of any peace- keeping appliance now existing in the world. A spe- cial college, or court, or board, of high officials existed, dating from legendary times, to whom every dispute was submitted, and until they had given their decision, and a stipulated time had elapsed, no war could be begun. Plutarch, in his Lives of " Kuma -" and of " Camillus," thus describes this ancient institution by which the old Romans endeavored to guard against hasty and unjust war: — Numa instituted several other sacred orders; two of which I shall mention, the Salii and Feciales, which afford particu- lar proofs of his piety. The Feciales, who were like the Irenophytakes, or guardians of the peace, among the Greeks, had, I believe, a name expressive of their office; for they were to act and mediate between the two parties, to decide their differences by reason, and not suffer them to go to war until all hopes of justice were lost. The Greeks call such a peace Irene, as puts an end to strife, not by mutual violence, but in a rational way. In like manner the Feciales, or heralds, were often dispatched to such nations as had in- WHAT WILL THE OUTCOME BE? 453 jured the Romans, to persuade them to entertain more equitable sentiments; if they rejected their application, they called the gods to witness, with imprecations against themselves and their country, if their cause was not just; and so they declared war. But if the Feciales refused their sanction, it was not lawful for any Roman soldier, nor even for the king himself, to begin hostilities. War was to com- mence with their approbation, as the proper judges whether it was just, and then the supreme magistrate was to delib- erate concerning the proper means of carrying it on. The great misfortunes which befell the city from the Gauls are said to have proceeded from the violation of these sacred rites. What we are seeking to do to-day is little more than to reestablish the Feciales on a wider footing, so as to include representatives of the other side; but the Romans were not the only ancients who recognized this principle. " So well was this practice settled in Greece that when Sparta and Argos made a treaty of alliance they sought to avoid the possibilities of armed collision in the future by providing, ' In case a differ- ence arises between the two contracting nations, the parties shall have recourse to the arbitration of a neutral city, according to the custom of their ances- tors ! ' Such language would be worthy a place upon the statute-books of the most civilized nation of our day. So well satisfied was the moral sense of the ancients that war should be avoided and peace pro- moted that Thucydides declares it to be a crime to treat as an enemy one who is willing to arbitrate." • Arbitration is not put forward as a substitute for war. We only claim that, before we appeal to the 454 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE last dread tribunal, we shall exhaust the resources of civilization by referring the question in dispute to the arbitrament of a Court of Peace. It is not the fact that any nation which submits its case to arbitration thereby binds itself to accept, with its eyes shut and its mouth open, any award that may issue from the Arbitral Court. If such a rule were insisted upon, it would of necessity exclude from arbi- tration all the questions upon which popular passion rages most fiercely — that is to say, all the questions which are most likely to lead to war; whereas nothing is more certain than that if all questions, no matter what, that imperil peace were to be referred to a Court of Arbitration, with full liberty reserved by both dis- putants to appeal from the award to the arbitrament of war, in nine cases out of ten, probably in ninety- nine out of one hundred, the reference to the Court would settle the question. In the first place it would give both parties time to cool down ; secondly, it would compel both nations to examine critically the full statement of their opponents' case and the evidence on which it was supported ; thirdly, it would clear the air, for the judicial verdict of an impartial tribunal must, even if mistaken, kill out many of the misconceptions and misstatements which inflame international contro- versies; and fourthly, and most important of all, it would so heavily handicap the nation that drew the sword against the award as to enormously increase the securities which civilization now possesses against a resort to war. WHAT WILL THE OUTCOME BE? 455 Professor Max Miiller, in a letter written three years ago, touched this question with his accustomed sagacity and precision. He writes : — It was at the time of the war between Germany and France that I had to write a number of letters about an Interna- tional Tribunal of Arbitration. Nothing came of it, and the chief objection, I remember, was that there are certain ques- tions on which no nation with any self-respect would sub- mit to arbitration. This is the prejudice that has to be eradicated. If the case is so very clear, arbitration can do no harm. Besides, it was never meant that in case arbi- tration went against a country that country could not de- clare its readiness for war and go to war. That is another point to be kept in view. The right of self-defence will remain with nations as with individuals, but of course a nation that disregards such a verdict would have terrible moral forces arrayed against itself. Shall we live to see the principle of arbitration recognized by the great nations of the world? I believe every member of every Parliament in Europe and America would approve of the principle, but in spite of this nothing can be done. And the vast armies go on sucking the very blood out of the people. Nothing seems so difficult to carry as a measure against which no argument can be produced. Of course there are many worthy people who will exclaim against the infamy of the mere suggestion that an appeal should lie to arms from the award of a Court of Arbitration. But these persons should re- member that we cannot do everything at once, and that there is no more certain method of being left without bread than that of insisting upon having the whole loaf. Further, the reserved right to fight — taking the consequences and paying the price — cannot 456 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE be taken away, no matter what treaties are signed or laws are passed. The right of private war exists in every man of us intact to this day, if we care to pay the price which society exacts and which is paid under the gallows. In time, the nation that appealed from the award of the Arbitration Court to the sword would fare as ill as the private citizen who sets the law courts at defiance, but Ave have not reached that point yet. Safely and slow; they stumble who run fast. What is proposed at present is simply to interpose before an appeal to the sword — if that appeal must come — an appeal to the deliberate and judicial verdict of an im- partial Court, not selected ad hoc, but existing as a permanent part of the apparatus provided by the nations for adjusting any differences which may arise between them. An American writer, Mr. N. S. Shaler, writing in the North American Review in December, 1895, sug- gested the summoning of a Peace Conference in Wash- ington in 1897, for the purpose of devising safeguards against war. Some of his suggestions are well worth consideration to-day. He wrote: — It seems not unreasonable to suggest that the Conference might advise the institution of a Permanent International Peace Commission, composed of delegates from the several national authorities, which should hold annual sessions and which could be called together whenever it became evi- dent that there was danger of a warlike contest between any of the contracting parties, this Permanent Commission to have no actual powers except those of mediation preced- ing or during a conflict, and of suggestions concerning limi- WHAT WILL THE OUTCOME BEt 457 tations or the reduction of standing armies and navies. The arrangement for the use of the influence of the Commission might well be as follows: The several States might agree that, in a case of impending warlike outbreak between any two members of the association, the Commission might send a delegate or delegates from its members whose efforts at mediation should be heard before the declaration of war. This commission might furthermore agree to consider the recommendations for progressive disarmament at some definite and proportional rate, or for the replacement of standing armies by an organized militia, say of the Swiss type. The considerations may extend to the point of sub- mitting the propositions to the legislature or other bodies which have charge of the budgets of the several States, there being no guarantee given that the Government concerned shall approve of the propositions as submitted by the Com- mission. It might be well to charge the Commission with the task of bettering the statement of the body of customs which is termed international law; it is possible that in course of time something like effective codification of these usages might be brought about. The Codification of the Law of Nations is one of the subjects the Pope is strongly of opinion should be undertaken by the forthcoming Conference. I cannot conclude this chapter more appropriately than by quoting the earnest and eloquent appeal issued in 1896 by the American, Irish and English Cardinals in favor of the establishment of a permanent Court of Arbitration as a substitute for war. They say : — We are well aware that such a project is beset with prac- tical difficulties. We believe that they will not prove to be insuperable if the desire to overcome them be genuine and general. Such a Court existed for centuries, when the nations of Christendom were united in one Faith. And 458 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE have we not seen nations appeal to that same Court for its judgment in our own day? The establishment of a permanent tribunal, composed, may be, of trusted representatives of each Sovereign nation, with power to nominate judges and umpires according to the nature of the differences that arise, and a common accept- ance of general principles denning and limiting the juris- diction and subject-matter of such tribunal, would create new guarantees for peace that could not fail to influence the whole of Christendom. Such an International Court of Arbitration would form a second line of defence, to be called into requisition only after the ordinary resources of diplo- macy had been exhausted. It would at least postpone the outbreak of hostilities until reason and common sense had formally pronounced their last word. This is a matter of which the constitution and procedure must be settled by Governments. But as Governments are becoming more identified with the aspirations, and moulded by the desires of the people, an appeal in the first instance must be addressed to the people. Yea, verily, and it is the People who will decide! CHAPTER V A PILGRIMAGE OF PEACE The year having for the most part been given up by the English-speaking peoples to making two wars and threatening to make a third, it is surely about time that they did something for peace. The fact that they alone among the civilized races have this year felt the smart and borne the burden of campaigns on land and sea, is in itself a reason why they should now take action for the avoidance of war in the future. Fortunately the moment is propitious on both sides of the Atlantic. The peace with Spain, which for some time seemed in danger, is now at last definitely secured, and there is no longer any peril to civilization either from barbarism triumphant in the Soudan or from the unfriendly acts of other Powers in the Mle Valley. If only as a thank-offering for these crown- ing mercies vouchsafed to our arms, we owe it to our- selves and our neighbors to do what in us lies to render avoidable and unnecessary the appeals to arms, and to diminish so far as is practicable the cruel pressure of the cost of armaments for war. Hitherto for the most part the advocates of peace have been compelled perforce to confine themselves to 460 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE the enunciation of general principles, with here and there a practical application. But this year the un- expected and courageous initiative of the Russian Emperor has suddenly rendered feasible the practical realization of ideals, all hope for the attainment of which has been regarded as the vainest of the pious aspirations of mankind. After many years of talk, the time has come for action. Words must now give place to deeds, and instead of mere dissertations on the abstract virtues of peace, there can be substituted the giving of direct practical support to the first great international effort that has been made to reduce arma- ments and provide some kind of international safe- guard against the passions which hurry nations into needless wars. This year, on the eighteenth of May, a Conference of all the Governments of the civilized world will meet at The Hague to return a definite answer to the appeal addressed to the reason and conscience of mankind by the Emperor of Russia. However we may differ concerning the motives or the ultimate aims of the author of the Peace Rescript — and those who know him best are the most confident as to his sincerity and earnestness for peace — the appeal to the Conference constitutes a solemn challenge to the moral sense of each one of us. The appalling evils of the present system are ad- mitted by all. ISTot a single Government has denied the accuracy of the terrible indictment brought against it in the Tsar's circular. The obligation to find, if A PILGRIMAGE OF PEACE 461 possible, a remedy is imperative. That obligation rests upon every nation. Eo one can throw the sole responsibility for the solution of the problem upon the Ruler who had the courage to tackle the question. It is our duty as much as his. What are we doing to help him to solve it ? It is fortunate that the problem, although absolutely insoluble if one element be wanting, is comparatively simple if that element be supplied. And it is not less fortunate that this now indispensable element is one the supplying of which lies within the capacity of each one of us, and that if all of us but act together, no prac- tical difficulty will be experienced in devising meas- ures to arrest the growth of armaments, and to provide an international barrier against future wars. The Conference and the Governments will furnish all the machinery that is necessary. But it is for the people themselves to get up steam. The Conference will be foredoomed to impotence, if there is no motive power at the back of it in the shape of an imperious and irre- sistible demand from the nations who suffer and from the peoples who groan under the intolerable burden of the armed peace. To evoke that demand, to render articulate, audible and imperative the longing of the masses of the people — that is the duty of all who love their fellow-men, between this day and the meeting of the Conference. The question of how it is to be done is one which each individual must decide according to the wisdom which he possesses, and the opportunities of influencing 462 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE his fellows which he can command. To use a homely phrase, if each one keeps the kettle boiling in his own circle there will be no lack of steam when the Con- ference meets. But as individual efforts are apt to lose much of their force if they lack cohesion, coopera- tion, and unity of direction, it is proposed to make the attempt to stimulate local effort and harmonize it on an international scale by the immediate organization of a great Pilgrimage of Peace through all nations, be- ginning at San Francisco and ending at St. Peters- burg. In proclaiming a Holy War against War and in summoning all the Governments to a Conference upon the perils with which modern armaments threaten the modern State, the Emperor of Russia has embarked upon an enterprise which, however glo- rious it may be, is inevitably doomed to immediate failure unless the crusade is preached among the peo- ples, and a response, hearty and universal from below, hails the appeal from above. To give such a propaganda of peace a practical ob- jective, and to provide the simplest and most effective method of combining into one visible and organic whole all the forces making for peace and for an abate- ment of armaments, it is proposed to arrange for a Pilgrimage of Peace. As the original initiative of the Conference was taken by the Autocrat of the East, it is obviously the right thing that the initiative of the national response should come from the free democra- cies of the West. The English-speaking folk, whether they live in the United Kingdom or the United States, A PILGRIMAGE OF PEACE 463 are as a unit on this question. The Americans must of course readjust their armaments to their new re- sponsibilities. They are doing this to-day, but, like the elder branch of the race, they have not the least intention of abandoning the secular protest which the English-speaking race has always made against the scourge of universal compulsory military service and the burdens of the armed peace. It is hoped that in every centre of population in Britain and America the people will have been gath- ered together under their local leaders to express in formal resolution their determination that the Peace Conference shall be made a success, and to appoint a local committee for the furtherance of the objects of the Conference. From each of these local committees so appointed one delegate might be chosen to serve on the joint national committee of the two English-speak- ing nations; for in this good work, for the first time, the Empire and the Republic could act as if they were indeed but component parts of the great Common- wealth of the English-speaking folk. The Anglo- American National Committees thus constituted, it is proposed, should appoint a joint deputation to wait upon the Tsar. The object of this deputation of the English-speak- ing folk would be, first, to convey to the Tsar before the Conference opens the welcome assurance that he has behind him in his beneficent enterprise the im- mense force of the English-speaking race; and, sec- ondly, while on their way to St. Petersburg, to make 464 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE a Pilgrimage of Peace throughout Europe summoning all the other nations to bestir themselves, and to unite with them in this great manifestation of popular en- thusiasm in the cause of peace. The Pilgrimage would serve as the international rallying point of the new Crusade. In every land it would proclaim in clear and unmistakable fashion the passionate prayer of the overburdened peoples, — Give us peace in our time, good Lord! The proposal has been received with the utmost en- thusiasm wherever it has been mooted. Even despite the fever of Fashoda and the absence of any attempt to mobilize the forces of peace, there has been a very considerable expression of public opinion. The recent dispute with France, which at one time threatened the success of the demonstration, will now be its most valuable object-lesson. Nothing could more clearly bring before the mind of the British peoples — first, the peril that sudden gusts of passion may hurry neighbor- ing nations into war; secondly, the urgent need for some international bulwark against such a peril; and thirdly, the reality of the supremacy of the British fleet, which, if the Tsar's proposal is accepted, will re- ceive international recognition as one of the funda- mental elements of the status quo. The American Representatives would be welcomed as the most " outward and visible sign " known and read of all men, that in the good work of peace the English-speaking world is not two, but one, and that at last, in the fulness of time, the English-speaking folk A PILGRIMAGE OF PEACE 465 are able to act together as a unit in the best interests of mankind. The first to join the pilgrimage, after its initiation by the English-speaking folk, would be the representa- tives of the seven smaller free States — Switzerland, Belgium, Holland, Denmark, Sweden, Norway and Portugal. It might possibly be arranged that one representative from each of these States should be present at the Albert Hall send-off, so that the English- speaking deputation would make its debut on the Con- tinent supported by the representatives of seven small States which contain 27,000,000 of the most intelli- gent and most pacific of the population of Europe. When the great International Deputation made its debut in Paris, there is no question as to the immense effect which its mere arrival would have upon the public mind of Europe. That effect would be deep- ened and strengthened by every succeeding day. There would be receptions at the British and Amer- ican Embassies, public conferences for both men and women, public demonstrations in the great towns, and then, finally, when the French members had been added to the Deputation, they would all wait upon the President and his Ministers, urging upon them the supreme importance of backing up at the Con- ference the proposals of the present ally of France. From Paris the great International Pilgrimage would go to Berlin, where the experiences of Paris would be repeated. Arrangements would have to be made for demonstrations in all the great cities in the 30 466 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE Empire. There is little doubt that the Deputation would receive a hearty welcome from the Kaiser, with whose Godspeed the great Pilgrimage would roll on to Vienna and Pesth, where, by-the-by, its reception would be most enthusiastic, and then having been swollen by German and Austro-Hungarian mem- bers, it would go to Rome. When the Italian con- tingent was added to the number, the Deputation would go to St. Petersburg, where it would be received by the Tsar, who would learn from the lips of the international pilgrims how passionately the peoples desire peace, how enthusiastically they have responded to his initiative, and how emphatically they bid him stand firm in the name of " God and the people " and achieve this great good for humanity. There is no need to elaborate details. This brief outline is enough to indicate the magnitude of the scale upon which the response of the nations might be made to the initiative of the Tsar. Neither is it neces- sary to insist too much on the particular programme of reform which may find favor with the Tsar and his advisers. The Conference will be an open one, and it is as much our responsibility as his to devise practical measures for coping with the evil that confronts us. But it is understood that the practical proposals which will come before the Conference will include : — (1) A " Truce of God " for ixve or ten years. (2) A halt or arrest of armaments for a similar period. (3) An international agreement by all the Powers A PILGRIMAGE OF PEACE 467 that, in case of disputes arising during the Truce of God, the future disputants bind themselves not to declare war until they have invoked the mediation of friendly Powers who should in all cases have a full opportunity of intervening in the interests of peace before the last appeal is made to the sword. If this proposal be accepted we shall always gain time, and always provide the Power that does not want to fight with an honorable way of escape before the sword is unsheathed. The recognition of this prin- ciple is the next great onward step to be taken in the evolution of humanity. Be this as it may, the immediate question is not, What shall the Conference decide; but whether the peoples will at once set about getting up steam with sufficient pressure to overcome the vis inertice of diplomacy and the cynical scepticism of the Govern- ments. Already there is ample evidence that the Inter- national Pilgrimage of Peace would be hailed by the millions as a new harbinger of hope among the nations. It would affirm the unity of the English-speaking race and it would base that unity on the promotion of peace. It would array all the smaller nations in support of the English-speaking initiative, and it would, for the first time in the history of our race, bring the represen- tatives of the English-speaking world as a unit to ap- peal for common action to the people of the at present sadly dis-United States of Europe. 468 THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE It would give an immense stimulus to peace propa- ganda everywhere. If it succeeded it would stave off a threatened increase of naval expenditure of many millions a year, and even if it failed it would have profoundly affected for good the future of the rela- tions between the Slavonic and the Anglo-American races. All this is admitted, for it is indeed indisputable. The only question is whether it is to be done. 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