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TOWARDS A LAST- 
 ING SETTLEMENT 
 
TOWARDS A LASTING 
 SETTLEMENT 
 
 BY 
 
 G. LOWES DICKINSON, CHARLES RODEN BUXTON, 
 
 H. SIDEBOTHAM, J. A. HOBSON, IRENE COOPER 
 
 WILLIS, A. MAUDE ROYDEN, H. N. BRAILSFORD, 
 
 PHILIP SNOWDEN, M.P., and VERNON LEE 
 
 Edited by 
 
 CHARLES RODEN BUXTON 
 
 Lavenir est a qui le fait 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 
 1916 
 
-3 //* 
 
 'O 
 
 (All rights reserved) 
 
 ;io 
 
PREFACE 
 
 The writers of this book are united in one pre- 
 dominant aim : that of securing that a world- 
 catastrophe such as the present shall never recur. 
 We discuss neither the responsibility for the war 
 nor the conduct of it. Our main concern is with 
 the broad problems which will inevitably arise 
 for discussion both at the settlement of the war 
 and for long afterwards. These are the problems 
 of nationality and territorial rearrangement, of the 
 revision of maritime law, of economic opportunities 
 in the colonial world, and, above all, of a real 
 guarantee against war, based on general inter- 
 national co-operation. 
 
 While offering no final solution, we believe that 
 there exists, however little it may as yet be defined, 
 a common European policy which would be accept- 
 able to reasonable men in all countries, if only 
 the present atmosphere of panic and prejudice 
 could be dissipated. Already the outline of such a 
 policy is discernible behind the thick veil of half 
 a dozen censorships, each striving to suppress every 
 sign of reason and moderation among the people 
 it controls. Our book will help, we believe, to 
 make the outline clearer. 
 
6 PREFACE 
 
 We deal, further, with the reasons why the new 
 international system, if it is to provide security 
 for the peace and progress of the world, must be 
 founded upon the consent, not merely of the 
 governments but of the peoples. We touch upon 
 some deeper questions which it is impossible to 
 ignore in considering the foundations of permanent 
 peace — the relation of war, for example, to self- 
 government and to the interests of womanhood. 
 
 We do not profess to treat all these vast 
 problems exhaustively. Our aim is rather to set 
 people thinking upon them, and so to assist in 
 building up a public opinion capable of appre- 
 ciating and solving them. 
 
 It is natural that there should be many diver- 
 gences of opinion among the writers of a book 
 covering so wide a range of subjects. We have 
 made no attempt to impress upon our book an 
 artificial uniformity. Each contributor is respon- 
 sible only for the opinions which he or she 
 expresses. 
 
 C. R. B. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 The Basis of Permanent Peace 
 By G. Lowes Dickinson 
 
 Nationality 
 
 By Charles Roden Buxton 
 
 The Freedom of the Seas 
 By H. Sidebotham 
 
 The Open Door 
 
 By J. A. Hobson 
 
 The Parallel of the Great French War 
 By Irene Cooper Willis 
 
 War and the Woman's Movement . 
 By A. Maude Royden 
 
 The Organization of Peace 
 By H. N. Brailsford 
 
 PAGE 
 
 9 
 
 37 
 
 61 
 
 85 
 
 in 
 
 131 
 
 147 
 
 Democracy and Publicity in Foreign Affairs . i 7 7 
 By Philip Snowden, M.P. 
 
 The Democratic Principle and International^ 
 Relations . 
 By Vernon Lee 
 
THE 
 
 BASIS OF 
 PERMANENT 
 PEACE 
 
THE BASIS OF PERMANENT PEACE 
 
 By G. LOWES DICKINSON 
 
 WHEN the war burst upon the world, the effect 
 upon ordinary people who had not followed the 
 course of foreign affairs was first, a shock ot 
 incredulity, then a feeling " Never again ! This 
 must be the war to end war." As the war has 
 proceeded this feeling has become submerged I he 
 men are fighting, the women are nursing all are 
 preoccupied with the actual events of the cam 
 paigns, the hope of victory or the fear of defeat 
 In fhe course of the waging of the war the purpose 
 of it is in danger of being forgotten. But that 
 purpose, nevertheless, lies deep in the hearts ot 
 the peoples and animates some, at least, and the 
 best, of their rulers. The nations are fighting to 
 secure a durable peace. Those at the front have 
 not the opportunity to consider the conditions of 
 such a peace. All the more, then, is it the business 
 of those" at home to do so. If they neglect it, they 
 are betraying the men who are risking and giving 
 
 their lives. . , • ■ 
 
 Now, though much has been written and said 
 about the war and the peace, very little of it is 
 helpful to this main purpose. In all nations the 
 object has been to throw the blame for the war 
 
12 THE BASIS OF PERMANENT PEACE 
 
 upon the enemy, and to conclude that all that 
 is necessary is to defeat or to crush him. On 
 this line of approach there is no hope of securing 
 a durable peace. The causes of war lie deeper than 
 the immediate occasions of this war. And a 
 peace which should merely register the defeat of 
 one or other of the groups of Powers, while leaving 
 unchanged the system, the passions, and the ideas 
 that govern international politics, would be merely, 
 as every previous peace has been, a truce before 
 the next war. I propose, then, in this chapter, 
 to discuss, not the ten days of diplomacy that 
 immediately preceded this war, but the general 
 state of things that makes war continually imminent. 
 For it is that state of things that we must change, 
 if we can, to ensure a durable peace. 
 
 For centuries past the States of Europe have 
 been armed against one another, and commonly 
 grouped in hostile alliances. Imputed aggression 
 on the one side, fear and suspicion on the other, 
 have been the motives of international politics ; 
 and they have worked inevitably for war. In such 
 a state of affairs, beliefs and suspicions may be 
 more important than real intentions. For inten- 
 tions can never be certainly known, since it is the 
 tradition of diplomacy to conceal them ; and though 
 every nation asserts the honesty of its own repre- 
 sentatives, none credits that of the representatives 
 of its rivals. The fear of war may thus produce 
 war, even though there be no other cause. That 
 is the first point upon which I wish to dwell. 
 
 I will illustrate it from the position in Europe 
 during the ten years preceding this war. During 
 that period the States were grouped in two hostile 
 
THE BASIS OF PERMANENT PEACE 13 
 
 combinations : the Triple Alliance of Germany, 
 Austria, and Italy on the one hand ; the Triple 
 Entente of England, France, and Russia on the 
 other. Between these groups was the tension of 
 suspicion and fear. Genuine attempts were made 
 from time to time to relax it. They failed, because 
 of the mutual mistrust. That the Powers of the 
 Triple Entente were suspicious of Germany does 
 not need demonstration to Englishmen. But 
 equally the German Powers were suspicious of 
 the Triple Entente. The English reader may be 
 inclined to dispute this. He is of opinion, not only 
 that the Entente had nothing but defence in view, 
 but that the Germans knew and believed this. 
 On this latter point I believe he is mistaken. 
 The Germans, there is every reason to suppose, 
 believed that the Entente was a hostile and aggres- 
 sive combination directed against them. The fact 
 that they say so will probably not weigh with 
 the English reader. But perhaps he may be willing 
 to listen to the considered opinions of the repre- 
 sentatives of the Power that has suffered most 
 cruelly at the hands of the Germans. There have 
 been published recently l a series of dispatches 
 from the Belgian representatives at Berlin, Paris, 
 and London during the years 1907-14. In these 
 dispatches the view I have attributed to the 
 Germans constantly occurs — that the Entente is 
 an aggressive combination directed against Ger- 
 many and that it is breaking up the peace of 
 the world. Thus, for example, Baron Greindl, 
 Belgian representative at Berlin, writes on May 30, 
 1908 : — 
 
 1 In the Korddeutsche Allgemeine Zeiiung. 
 
14 THE BASIS OF PERMANENT PEACE 
 
 " Call it an Alliance, Entente, or what you will, 
 the grouping of the Powers arranged by the 
 personal intervention of the King of England exists, 
 and if it is not a direct and immediate threat of war 
 against Germany (it would be too much to say that 
 it was that) it constitutes, none the less, a diminution 
 of her security. The necessary pacifist declarations, 
 which no doubt will be repeated at Reval, signify 
 very little, emanating as they do from three Powers 
 which, like Russia and England, have just carried 
 through with success, without any motive except 
 the desire for aggrandizement, and without even 
 a plausible pretext, wars of conquest in Manchuria 
 and the Transvaal, or which, like France, are 
 proceeding at this moment to the conquest of 
 Morocco, in contempt of solemn promises, and 
 without any title except the cession of British rights 
 which never existed. The Triple Alliance has 
 guaranteed for thirty years the peace of the world, 
 because it was directed by Germany, who was 
 satisfied with the political division of Europe. The 
 new grouping menaces the peace, because it is com- 
 posed of Powers who aspire to a revision of the 
 status quo, to such a degree that, to realize this 
 desire, they have silenced secular hatreds." 
 
 Baron Greindl, it may be said, had been impreg- 
 nated with the German view. Very likely. But 
 that view is constantly recurring in the dispatches, 
 not only of his successor at Berlin, but of his 
 colleagues at London and Paris. Now England, 
 now France, now Russia, is represented as the 
 danger to peace ; never Germany. The Belgian 
 ministers, it will be urged, were mistaken. They 
 
THE BASIS OF PERMANENT PEACE 15 
 
 may have been. But that is not my present point. 
 I do not cite the dispatches as evidence of fact. I 
 cite them as evidence of opinion. And I argue 
 that, if the Triple Entente could be, and in fact was, 
 thus regarded by neutral outsiders, it must a fortiori 
 have been so regarded by Germans. We may take 
 it, then, to be established that the grouping of 
 the Powers produced, on both sides, a state of 
 suspicion and fear. Whether on one side or on 
 the other, or it may be on both, there were, at 
 one time or another, actual aggressive intentions, 
 I do not here discuss. I do not believe that we 
 definitely know, though of course we may conjec- 
 ture and infer. « But even though there never had 
 been such intentions on either side, the belief in 
 them was enough to produce a situation pregnant 
 with war. The war may have been a war of 
 nothing but mutual fear. And this possibility is 
 not ruled out because, at the last moment, it was 
 Germany that made war inevitable. For it may 
 have been, and, as I believe, was, precisely the 
 conviction of Germany that war was in any case 
 inevitable that finally determined her to plunge into 
 it. I offer no excuse for her action. But I think it 
 has been too much dwelt upon, to the exclusion of 
 all that lies behind it. When there is such tension 
 as we have described in the European situation, 
 some Power or other will always be tempted to 
 precipitate the catastrophe, and some Power or 
 other will always succumb to the temptation. I 
 1 To avoid unnecessary misconception I will say that it is 
 not my belief that British policy has been aggressive during 
 the period under consideration. 
 
16 THE BASIS OF PERMANENT PEACE 
 
 ask the reader most earnestly to consider whether 
 this is not true ; and for the purpose, to concen- 
 trate his mind, not upon the ten days of nego- 
 tiation, but upon the whole situation out of which 
 that confused and agonized correspondence pro- 
 ceeded. So only can he get a true perspective from 
 which to view the possibilities of future peace. 
 ^ And observe, further, the situation made a mutual 
 understanding, I will not say impossible, but very 
 difficult. For there can be no understanding where 
 there is no confidence. And it is precisely con- 
 fidence that is lacking among the representatives 
 of the States of Europe. They always believe, one 
 might say it is their duty to believe, that the others 
 are trying to overreach them. Let me illustrate 
 this from the efforts made in 191 2 towards a 
 rapprochement between Germany and England. 
 We have now two accounts of these negotiations, 
 the German and the English ; and though these 
 accounts do not altogether agree, the main facts 
 are plain. The Chancellor (this is the German 
 account), believing that Germany was threatened 
 by aggression from France and Russia, was 
 anxious to secure the neutrality of England 
 in case of such an attack. He proposed, 
 therefore, that England should pledge herself 
 first to absolute neutrality ; then, when this 
 was rejected, to neutrality if war were " forced 
 upon " Germany. Sir Edward Grey did, in fact, in- 
 tend to remain neutral in such a contingency. But, 
 as he stated, he objected to the pledge required ; 
 first, on the ground that it would be misunderstood 
 by France and Russia ; but secondly, because of 
 
THE BASIS OF PERMANENT PEACE 17 
 
 the impossibility of determining, if war should break 
 out, who was the aggressor. Germany might push 
 Austria into war with Russia, then come in her- 
 self, under her agreement with her ally, and yet 
 maintain that the war had been " forced upon " 
 her, and that England was bound to neutrality. 
 On these grounds Sir Edward rejected the German 
 proposal. But he made a counter one. He was 
 ready to pledge England " neither to make nor 
 to join in any unprovoked attack " upon Germany. 
 But now it was the Chancellor's turn to be sus- 
 picious. How was it to be known whether an 
 attack were "provoked" or "unprovoked"? 
 Russia, let us suppose, makes war upon Austria, 
 but in such a way that Austria can be plausibly 
 represented as the aggressor. Germany and France 
 are drawn in. And what is the worth of the 
 British guarantee? England will say that the 
 German Powers were the aggressors, and side 
 with her allies. Some such thoughts, we may be 
 sure, passed through the mind of the Chancellor. 
 German suspicions were the counterpart of British, 
 and appeared to Germans as much justified by 
 the situation. And once more, the point is, 
 not whether either Power, or which, was plotting 
 duplicity. The point is, that duplicity was 
 bound to be suspected on both sides. If 
 the relations between the States of Europe were 
 open, honest, and frank, such situations could 
 not occur. As things are, they must occur, and 
 they will continue to occur so long as Europe 
 continues to be organized as it is. The nations are 
 bled to death because they or their statesmen cannot 
 
 2 
 
18 THE BASIS OF PERMANENT PEACE 
 
 trust one another. There is the bottom fact. And 
 it is more important to recognize this fact than 
 to spend our time in looking for the criminal 
 nation. Such inquiries can seldom be impartial, 
 and they divert our attention from the main point. 
 Wars proceed from the armed peace. No one 
 may want war, and yet war may come. So long 
 as there is a system of States, armed one 
 against the other, so long as the relations 
 of these States are governed by suspicion 
 and fear, so long as there is no machinery, 
 recognized and generally used, for dealing with 
 disputes otherwise than by war, so long will war 
 break out, even though neither statesmen nor people 
 desire or choose it. 
 
 My first point, then, is that the system of armed 
 States which I have described is enough of 
 itself to produce war, even though there were no 
 other cause than their mutual fear and suspicion. 
 And if this be true, if there be only some measure 
 of truth in it, then one of the conditions of a 
 durable peace is the reorganization of Europe on 
 a new principle. How that reorganization might 
 be achieved is discussed in a later chapter, and 
 to that I refer the reader. 
 
 But it will, of course, be alleged, and with 
 truth, that there are other and deeper causes of 
 war. Let us, then, consider some of these. 
 
 It is often said 1 of wars, and it is sometimes 
 true, that they are wars for freedom against op- 
 pression. What does this mean? It means that 
 one of those groups which we call nations 
 desires to conduct its own affairs without 
 
THE BASIS OF PERMANENT PEACE 19 
 
 interference, and that some other group desires 
 to coerce it. This fact of belonging to such a 
 group, with the counter fact of not belonging, and 
 not wishing to belong, to another such group, is a 
 bottom fact of the contemporary world. Let us 
 try to understand its character and limitations. 
 
 In time of peace, in most countries, the con- 
 sciousness of the nation, or State, is latent. Ger- 
 mans, it is true, have been carefully trained to 
 regard all their activities from the point of view 
 of the State. They are told to study for the State, 
 to invent for the State, to manufacture for the 
 State, to trade for the State. Whether really 
 they do so or no I do not presume to judge. 
 But elsewhere, the life of men passes without 
 much direct reference to the , State. What- 
 ever objects men pursue, be they low or 
 high, they pursue for the sake of those 
 objects. If they are merchants or manufacturers, 
 they want to maintain and develop their business. 
 If they are men of science, they want to discover 
 and to apply their discoveries. If they are artists, 
 they want to create. If they are teachers, they 
 want to teach. If they are preachers, they want 
 to improve morals and religion. If they are phil- 
 anthropists or social reformers, they want to make 
 life better, juster, and happier. In all these 
 activities, patriotism is seldom a direct motive, nor 
 are they at all necessarily confined to the people of 
 one's own State. Trade, by its nature, is cos- 
 mopolitan, whatever barriers States may throw 
 across its paths. So is science. So, above all, 
 is religion, if it be true religion. No Christian, at 
 
20 THE BASIS OF PERMANENT PEACE 
 
 least, in time of peace, would maintain that God is 
 the God of the Englishman or the German but not 
 of any other nationality. Thus, in the normal course 
 of life, the idea of the State is not, for the ordinary 
 man, a motive of action. But let his State be 
 threatened, or seem to be threatened, by another ; 
 let it be, as he thinks, insulted ; let any kind of 
 aggression be suggested upon its independence or 
 its honour, and suddenly there flames up in him a 
 passion which, perhaps, he never before knew was 
 there. This passion is the basis of patriotism. 
 According to the whole character, training, and ex- 
 perience of a man, it may assume any form, high or 
 low. It may find vent in the basest jingoism, or in 
 the noblest devotion. Good or evil, or mingled of 
 both, it is a tremendous fact. And it is one of 
 the facts that lie behind and make possible war 
 in the modern world. 
 
 But does it produce war? Do men go to war 
 because they are patriotic? Or does patriotism 
 flame up because they are threatened by war? To 
 judge by the declarations of men, the former never 
 occurs, the latter always. Every war is a war of 
 defence in the eyes of the nation waging it. It 
 may not be so in the eyes of statesmen. Statesmen 
 may utilize patriotism to carry out aggression ; 
 so, at least, every nation is ready to believe of 
 the statesmen of other nations, and even, on occa- 
 sion, of its own. But few are ready to admit that 
 patriotism of itself would prompt a war of 
 aggression or conquest. We must, however, probe 
 more deeply behind what we say or consciously 
 think, to what our passions really urge. The 
 
THE BASIS OF PERMANENT PEACE 21 
 
 lowest form of patriotism, and its commonest 
 form, is but a larger egotism. Men who are 
 insignificant as individuals acquire a sense of 
 extended life by belonging to a powerful nation. 
 They feel a pride in thinking of the number of the 
 population of their nation, the number of square 
 miles of their Empire, the number of " black " 
 men they vicariously govern. They do enjoy, 
 in that gross way, the sense of power. And 
 though they might not avow their support of a 
 war aimed at domination, they will secretly or 
 openly enjoy the fruits of it. If the reader js 
 inclined to question this, I would ask him to 
 consider what his real feelings were when he heard 
 of the conquest of South-West Africa, and what 
 he believes to have been the feelings of most of 
 his fellow-countrymen. The English insist in 
 this war, and genuinely believe, that they are 
 fighting against German, not for English domina- 
 tion. But how do they feel when, as a matter of 
 fact, they acquire territory? They did not go to 
 war for it. No ! But they are very glad to 
 have it ! 
 
 There is, then, a side of patriotism, as it is 
 felt by modern nations, which supports, if it 
 does not prompt, wars of aggression. But 
 such wars are the necessary presupposition of 
 wars of freedom. Both kinds of war spring from 
 the same root, the feeling of belonging to a group. 
 As a feeling for our own group it prompts wars 
 of defence. As a feeling against other groups 
 it winks at wars of aggression. Yet, in either 
 case, though it be a condition, it is not the maker 
 
22 THE BASIS OF PERMANENT PEACE 
 
 of wars. For it does not act unless it is evoked. 
 And what evokes it are particular situations, 
 the handling of them by diplomacy, and the 
 appeals made by statesmen, journalists, and 
 publicists. There is, indeed, one region in 
 modern Europe where a long course of oppres- 
 sion has driven the whole mass of the people 
 into wars they themselves originate and wage. 
 But the conditions of the Balkan peninsula are 
 altogether exceptional. And though it was trouble 
 there that unchained the present war, the war was 
 not, in its origin, for the other States concerned, 
 a war of peoples. It was a war of diplomatists, 
 soldiers, journalists. But behind these there rallied, 
 at the outbreak of the war, the passion of patriotism. 
 We must, then, admit that passion to be a con- 
 dition of war ; but we cannot admit it to be a 
 necessary cause. For, we may urge, let the peoples 
 be enlightened, let them be led instead of misled, 
 let them be taught the causes and the conse- 
 quences of wars, and they would never consent 
 to make wars of aggression, and therefore would 
 not need to wage wars of defence. The instruction 
 of public opinion and, as a consequence of that 
 instruction, its growing control over international 
 politics, would seem to be the remedy here. And 
 that point, too, it is the object of this book to 
 discuss and urge. 
 
 But it is not only in tolerating wars of aggression 
 that the baser forms of patriotism threaten the 
 peace. It is in the refusal to entertain the 
 idea of give and take, of reasonable arrange- 
 ments, and peaceable settlements between nations. 
 
THE BASIS OF PERMANENT PEACE 23 
 
 To the Jingo the bare idea of a concession 
 to another nation is apt to present itself im- 
 mediately as a humiliation. Between himself 
 and the individual members of another State 
 he can recognize all sorts of relations, moral, 
 intellectual, and spiritual. But between his nation, 
 acting as a whole, and that other he recognizes 
 no relation but that of force. 
 
 A recent illustration will make this plain. Some 
 months ago the head-master of Eton, discussing 
 international relations, observed that, if these are 
 ever to be improved, it must be by the road of 
 mutual concessions. Taking as an example a point 
 that is sometimes mooted, the internationalization 
 of certain waterways, he argued that if we desired 
 that regime to be extended elsewhere, say to the 
 Kiel Canal, we must be prepared to extend it, 
 say, to the Straits of Gibraltar. The advisability 
 or the practicability of such a policy is no more part 
 of my present argument than it was, if I under- 
 stood him rightly, of Dr. Lyttelton's. But observe 
 the effect ! From all the press there went up 
 a universal cry : " What ! Give up something ! 
 We give up something ! WE ! " Journals once 
 pacifist rivalled their Jingo contemporaries in 
 astonishment, indignation, and contempt. And The 
 Times, dismissing the head-master with a vale- 
 dictory article of reproof and forgiveness, warned 
 him that, though it may be appropriate for the 
 head of a great public school to talk " in the 
 abstract " of peace, comity, and justice, he must 
 never venture to apply any of these conceptions to 
 the concrete facts of the British Empire. Now, this 
 
24 THE BASIS OF PERMANENT PEACE 
 
 spirit is simply a manifestation of corporate 
 egotism. It is the brute, unreasoning reaction 
 of one Being against another, and! has no moral 
 quality at all, still less a good one. It is mere 
 instinctive feeling, as independent even of intelli- 
 gent calculation of self-interest as it is of any 
 higher sentiments. And so long as that feeling is 
 the main motive of those who instruct us in politics, 
 and while these can count upon an instant and un- 
 reflective response in public opinion, there can 
 be little hope of any change for the better in 
 the relations of States. It is not enough, even if it 
 be true, that we have abandoned wars for domin- 
 ation. We have to go farther. We have to enter 
 with other States into permanent agreements for 
 the purpose of guaranteeing peace. And, to do 
 so, we have to make, not merely to take, con- 
 cessions. The point in which this will come home 
 to us is the point of the " freedom of the seas." 
 I do not here attempt to elucidate that ambiguous 
 phrase, nor to discuss the difficult and vital ques- 
 tions which it covers up. But I do urge upon 
 the reader that the question is one for discussion 
 and negotiation, not for indignant and peremptory 
 reprobation. And, in saying this, I have behind me 
 the authority of Sir Edward Grey. In his letter 
 published in the press on August 26th, while re- 
 jecting, as of course, a certain German view of 
 what would constitute the " freedom of the seas," 
 he adds : — 
 
 " Freedom of the seas may be a very reasonable 
 subject for discussion, definition, and agreement 
 between nations after this war ; but not by itself 
 
THE BASIS OF PERMANENT PEACE 25 
 
 alone, not while there is no freedom and no security 
 against war and German methods of war on land. 
 If there are to be guarantees against future war, 
 let them be equal, comprehensive, and effective 
 guarantees, that bind Germany as well as other 
 nations, including ourselves." 
 
 These remarks of Sir Edward Grey are of the 
 utmost importance. They show, what is evident 
 from other sources, to any one who knows and 
 reflects, that the question of the " freedom of the 
 seas " will be a vital one at the peace settlement. 
 What is going to be the British attitude? Is it 
 to be corporate egotism, self-sufficiency, and pride? 
 Or is it to be a reasoned consideration at once of 
 our own vital interests, and of the equally vital 
 needs of that society of the nations in which we, 
 too, are included? 
 
 I have taken a concrete example to bring home 
 my point. But the example must not be allowed 
 to divert the reader from the point itself. What 
 I am urging is that the possibility of war 
 depends at bottom on the existence in individual 
 men and women of the habit of conceiving and 
 feeling their State as independent of legal, moral, 
 and cultural obligations to other States ; of re- 
 senting, therefore, all attempts to develop suoh 
 obligations ; and thus regarding it as natural, 
 inevitable, and right that disputes between States 
 should be settled by war. Now, this attitude of 
 ordinary men and women is the greatest obstacle 
 to peace. For every attempt to guarantee peace 
 implies a willingness on the part of the 
 
26 THE BASIS OF PERMANENT PEACE 
 
 nations to submit their national causes, first, to 
 the rules of a common and recognized morality 
 and law ; secondly, to formal institutions for the 
 application and enforcement of those rules. This 
 is true of every conceivable scheme, from the 
 loosest and freest league to a complete system of 
 international government. There need be, and 
 should be, nothing in any such schemes incompat- 
 ible with the true interests of nationality, nor with 
 the genuine and desirable autonomy of States. 
 Internationalism does not attack the feeling " We 
 belong to ourselves." It attacks only its perversion, 
 " We do not belong to you." And this point goes 
 very deep. The future of civilization after this war 
 will depend upon the decision of the question 
 whether it is their independence or their inter- 
 dependence that the nations will stress. The 
 former course leads to a series of wars, the latter 
 to peace. The issue is even now joined. In the 
 passion of war there are those who urge, and 
 apparently with conviction, that national excellence 
 and security lie in the completest possible isola- 
 tion ; in excluding foreigners and foreign trade ; 
 in exaggerating and perpetuating national differ- 
 ences and national antagonisms ; in fostering, as 
 the chief good, national egotism. That way lies 
 the ruin of Western civilization. For everything 
 that makes for civilization is international. The 
 nations of the West are far more alike than they 
 are unlike, and their points of likeness are much 
 more important than their points of unlikeness. 
 Not only materially but spiritually every nation 
 is poorer by breach of contact with any other. The 
 
THE BASIS OF PERMANENT PEACE 27 
 
 sole point in which the nations are independent 
 is that of government. That they should retain 
 their political autonomy is desirable, so long as 
 they wish to retain it. And to attempt to bring 
 one of them by force under the government of 
 another is a crime, as well as a folly. But for 
 the growing life of nations, what they need is 
 contacts. Nor is it possible to avoid them. The 
 ideal of independence, spiritual, moral, intellectual, 
 or economic, is as impracticable as it is undesirable. 
 But even a partial movement in that direction 
 may do much harm. For it must increase mis- 
 understandings and points of friction, and so lead 
 to further wars. The cause of peace is the cause 
 of internationalism ; the cause of internationalism 
 is the cause of civilization ; and the enemy of 
 all these is " corporate egotism." 
 
 I will not further labour this point. My readers 
 may agree or disagree ; I can only state the 
 issue. But some, even of those who agree that 
 internationalism and peace go together, and that 
 both are conditions of civilization, and most of 
 those who disagree, may meet me with another 
 line of argument. Peace, they may say, may be 
 desirable, but it is impossible j for the issue of 
 peace or war does not depend upon the will and 
 intelligence of man. The course of history is 
 determined by " laws," and these are not under 
 the control of human volition. States are like 
 living organisms. They grow and expand. And 
 since there is not room for them all to expand 
 indefinitely, they necessarily come into antagonism 
 and war. This kind of fatalism is the stock-in- 
 
28 THE BASIS OF PERMANENT PEACE 
 
 trade of the champion of war. Here is a char- 
 acteristic example from Germany : — 
 
 " So long as England exists as a World Power, 
 she will and must see in a strong Germany her 
 foe to the death. . . . The war between her and 
 us is not confined to such narrow geographical 
 limits as the war between France and Germany. 
 It turns upon the mastery of the seas, and the 
 priceless values bound up with that, and a 
 coexistence of the two States, of which many 
 Utopians dream, is ruled out as definitely as was 
 the coexistence of Rome and Carthage. The 
 antagonism between England and Germany will 
 therefore remain until one of them is finally 
 brought to the ground." l 
 
 Now, the plea of necessity here advanced is 
 merely a rhetorical form. It is the passion of 
 the writer for the destruction of England and the 
 aggrandizement of Germany that suggests the 
 necessity of a struggle to the death. Men of 
 this type — and they are to be found in all countries 
 — think in terms of world-conflicts, because they 
 have no other interest in life. It is that way 
 that their imagination leads them. And as they 
 are often men of powerful will, of high position, 
 and of fervid eloquence, they are, and will always 
 be, dangerous opponents. Nothing can meet and 
 conquer them but conviction equally strong on the 
 other side. But this elemental passion is buttressed 
 up by theories that are demonstrably false. Pro- 
 fessors and journalists and pseudo-scientists cater 
 
 1 Quoted from a Pan-German organ by the Forum of July 
 1915, p. 164. 
 
THE BASIS OF PERMANENT PEACE 29 
 
 like jackals for these lions. And the doctrine of 
 a necessary expansion of States leading necessarily 
 to war becomes transformed from a formula of 
 ambition to a pretended law of history. To fully 
 expose these fallacies would require more space 
 than is here at my command. But the chief points 
 may be briefly indicated. 
 
 What is meant by the expansion of a State? 
 Presumably, increase either of population, or of 
 territory, or of trade. Are these things " in- 
 evitable "? And, if they be, do they lead 
 " inevitably " to war? 
 
 Let us take, first, population. In the past, 
 the growth of population has gone on without 
 the control of will, and may in that sense be 
 called " natural " and " inevitable." It has also 
 led to war ; because, in early stages of society, 
 increase of population necessitates migration in 
 mass, and the attempt to settle where other people 
 are already settled, and to encroach upon their 
 scanty food supply. But in the modern world 
 all that is changed. The development and organi- 
 zation of industry has made it possible to feed 
 an increasing population on a limited area. And, 
 if migration takes place, it does not involve war. 
 It means merely that producers leave one country 
 to add to the productive forces of another. Nor 
 is that all. The growth of population is now under 
 human control. The birth statistics of all civilized 
 countries show it. Population need not increase, 
 and, in fact, it tends, in the more civilized countries, 
 to be stationary. Whether this is a good or a bad 
 thing, or under what conditions it is good or bad, I 
 
30 THE BASIS OF PERMANENT PEACE 
 
 do not here discuss. It is enough to have reminded 
 the reader that, in the modern world, neither is 
 increase of population an inevitable fact, nor is 
 it, when it occurs, an inevitable cause of war. That 
 kind of " expansion," therefore, may be dismissed 
 as irrelevant to the argument. 
 
 Let us turn now to territory. The appro- 
 priation of territory can, as a rule, only be 
 accomplished by war, and usually involves further 
 wars to hold it. And this, of course, is peculiarly 
 true of appropriations of territory in Europe. It 
 may be said, indeed, With substantial truth, that in 
 Europe, for centuries past, a principal cause of 
 war has been the desire to acquire or recover 
 territory. But in all this there has been nothing 
 11 inevitable." Annexation is an act of policy, 
 amenable to criticism and reason, and for this 
 policy there are various motives. Leaving out 
 of account the wars that have been waged by 
 nations to recover the control of a territory that 
 has been filched from them, and confining our- 
 selves to aggressive annexation, we may group 
 the motives under the headings of power, defence, 
 and trade. 
 
 Of these, the most common has been the 
 love of power, on the part not of peoples but 
 of their rulers. And that motive still persists 
 among the Jingoes of all nations. The present 
 war, for instance, is believed by many people to 
 have been caused solely by the ambition of 
 Germany to annex territory. However that 
 may be, there have been put forward recently 
 by influential circles in Germany demands 
 
THE BASIS OF PERMANENT PEACE 31 
 
 for the annexation in east and west of an area 
 of 80,000 square miles and a population of sixteen 
 millions of recalcitrant non-Germans. Is there 
 anything " inevitable " about such demands or 
 about the interminable conflicts that must ensue 
 from the attempts to make them good? Clearly 
 not. No " vital interest " of Germany dictates 
 them. On the contrary, Germans themselves are 
 the first to point out the disastrous consequences 
 of such a policy, not only to the peace of the 
 world but to the German Empire. The whole 
 movement for annexation is based on a false con- 
 ception of national interest. And the same may be 
 said of any scheme to annex to any nation civilized 
 populations that have not themselves expressed the 
 desire for incorporation. Much of our trouble in 
 Europe has its root in such annexations in the past. 
 There is no intelligent and well-informed man who 
 does not know and admit it ; and who does not, 
 further, know and admit that the well-being, not of 
 Europe only but of every nation in Europe, depends 
 upon the grant of a reasonable autonomy to such 
 alien populations as may continue to be included in 
 any State. 
 
 Such annexations, nevertheless, it may be 
 urged, are rendered necessary by considerations of 
 defence ; to " round off " a frontier, to acquire 
 strategic points, to secure the command of home 
 waters. Observe the circular nature of such argu- 
 ments. You postulate the " inevitability " of a 
 future war ; and, in order to secure yourself, you 
 take the very measures that provoke it. Thus 
 the Germans annexed Alsace-Lorraine, largely for 
 
32 THE BASIS OF PERMANENT PEACE 
 
 strategic reasons, with the result that they had a 
 permanent menace on their western frontier. Thus 
 the Italians, we have reason to suspect, in order 
 to secure the command of the Adriatic, propose 
 to annex a population of recalcitrant Slavs, and 
 thus to precipitate a war which otherwise need 
 never have occurred. On such lines has the 
 human mind worked hitherto in international 
 affairs. Is it not time that the plain man 
 gave some attention to the matter, and began 
 to inquire for himself into the principles and 
 practice of the " experts " on whose judgment 
 he has hitherto been content so passively to 
 rely? 
 
 But I shall be told I am omitting the one 
 important consideration. It is not mere lust for 
 conquest that drives modern nations to annex terri- 
 tory, nor is it necessities of defence ; it is the 
 " vital interest " of markets and trade. Germany, 
 for instance (let us take that case), desires to in- 
 corporate Belgium and Holland for the sake of 
 outlets for her trade. What ! But already German 
 trade passes freely up the Scheldt and the Rhine ! 
 It is not necessary to " own " a country in order 
 to send trade through it. "No ! But if the 
 country be not your own it may always inter- 
 fere with your trade ! " It may ! As Austria- 
 Hungary, for example, has done with Servian trade, 
 as Italy, in possession of Trieste, might do with 
 German trade. The fear is legitimate. But on 
 what is it based? On no " natural necessity," 
 but on human policy. These situations arise 
 because nations believe that they can benefit them- 
 
THE BASIS OF PERMANENT PEACE 33 
 
 selves by hampering other people's trade, and that 
 it is right to do so. But they are mistaken in 
 thinking that they so benefit themselves ; and, if 
 they were not mistaken, they would still be wrong 
 so to act ; wrong, in the first place, because it is 
 mean and base to try to make other people poor 
 in order that you yourself may be rich ; wrong 
 because, even if that be not admitted, the policy 
 in question is an underlying cause of war ; and 
 no supposed economic advantage could balance the 
 material and spiritual evils of war. Wherever it 
 is claimed that economic necessity compels annexa- 
 tion, the answer is, " free trade " or " free 
 transit." That is the alternative to annexation 
 and consequent war. Who would not really choose 
 it, once the issue were fairly and squarely put? 
 
 The same argument applies to the competition 
 of nations for markets and concessions in unde- 
 veloped countries. Such competition is one of the 
 root causes of the friction that leads to war. The 
 Morocco crisis illustrates the point. Twice Europe 
 was on the verge of war because France was de- 
 termined to annex Morocco, and because Germany 
 feared (not without good reason) that she would 
 pursue there her traditional policy of excluding all 
 other nations from the trade and resources of the 
 country. And the Morocco crisis was one element 
 in the complex situation out of which the present 
 war developed. But in that crisis there was 
 nothing " inevitable." So far as the economic 
 factor was concerned, it was French policy that 
 caused the danger, not international competition. 
 Let the nations in all such cases not only formally 
 
 3 
 
34 THE BASIS OF PERMANENT PEACE 
 
 adopt but loyally carry out the principle of the 
 " open door " ; let them determine to co-operate 
 or to compete openly and honourably in all 
 such areas ; and the danger of war from 
 that cause is conjured. Human policy, not 
 natural necessity, governs the whole issue. 
 There may indeed be trade wars in the 
 future, as there have been in the past. But it 
 will not be because of a historical law. It will 
 be because of the ignorance, the stupidity, or the 
 short-sightedness of corporate interests, peoples, or 
 governments . 
 
 I have said enough, I hope, to indicate to the 
 reader how baseless is the assumption that the 
 rivalry of nations " inevitably " brings them into 
 war. It will so bring them if it is wrongly handled, 
 if wrong feelings and false ideas continue to prevail 
 in the future as they have prevailed in the past. 
 But there is no fatality in the matter. It will be 
 as the nations choose and will it to be. Behind 
 wars is not a blind necessity, but causes, definite, 
 ascertainable, and removable. I have tried here 
 to indicate some of the principal of these. They 
 and their remedies are discussed more in detail in 
 later chapters. Meantime, let me sum up the con- 
 tentions of this one. The first and most obvious 
 cause of wars is the armed peace itself ; and I 
 have suggested to the reader that this cause alone 
 would be sufficient. If we could get rid of arma- 
 ments and of fear, we might get rid of war. 
 The attempt is sometimes made to attack this 
 problem from the side of armaments. But in fact 
 it seems idle to hope that nations will discard 
 
THE BASIS OF PERMANENT PEACE 35 
 
 armaments until they feel security. For that 
 reason in this book the problem of armaments is 
 not separately and prominently attacked. The 
 attempt rather is made to show how security might 
 be attained. Given that, disarmament would 
 follow. 
 
 Security, however, can only be attained by in- 
 ternational agreement ; and international agree- 
 ment requires the international mind. For that 
 reason I have dwelt upon that aspect of nationalism 
 which makes it the enemy of internationalism and 
 that form of patriotism which expresses itself 
 in antagonism to other nations. That there is a 
 truer nationalism and a finer patriotism I not only 
 admit, I maintain and insist. But that kind not 
 only is not opposed to, it demands, international 
 organization. For it demands peace and good- 
 will ; and these things cannot otherwise be 
 attained. I ask the reader, therefore, to 
 correct in himself that habit into which we 
 have all fallen of regarding the absolute inde- 
 pendence of States as essential to their well-being, 
 and to modify the feeling which is at the root 
 of that habit. So only can he be prepared for 
 those concessions to international comity which are 
 essential if Western civilization is to be preserved. 
 Further, I have urged that just as a true and 
 desirable nationalism is not incompatible with an 
 organized internationalism, so is the reasonable 
 pursuit of national aims and interests not 
 antagonistic to the pursuit of similar aims by 
 other nations. Nations must compete as indi- 
 viduals must ; but they are no more bound there- 
 
36 THE BASIS OF PERMANENT PEACE 
 
 fore to make war than individuals are to fight 
 duels. The aims of nations, so far as they are 
 legitimate, are not mutually incompatible. And 
 so far as they are illegitimate they ought to be 
 abandoned. Political and economic aggression — 
 that is, the policy of conquest and of " Protec- 
 tion " — is what brings nations into war. These 
 policies are mistaken, as much from the point 
 of view of the welfare of the individual nations 
 as from that of international comity. That the 
 growing democracy now coming into control of 
 affairs should understand this from the beginning ; 
 that it should not be misled by false doctrines ; that 
 it should come with a fresh and free mind to the 
 consideration of these great issues ; and that it 
 should develop an international control of diplo- 
 macy, based upon national control in each country 
 — that is the condition of a durable peace. The 
 aim is neither chimerical nor Utopian. But it is 
 opposed by very powerful forces. Some of these 
 are traditions and impulses strong in us all ; some 
 are false opinions and false ideals ; some are the 
 machinations of interested cliques desiring to per- 
 petuate strife that they may fish in the troubled 
 waters. All these make for war. What makes 
 for peace? Not religion, not science, not learn- 
 ing J , not education. All these serve war as much 
 as they serve peace. There is one only that works 
 for peace, that human reason which is also human 
 charity. With that white sword alone can we 
 prevail. Will the peoples seize and wield it as 
 it drops from the hands of those who should have 
 been their leaders? Upon the answer to that 
 question depends the fate of the world. 
 
NATIONALITY 
 
NATIONALITY 
 
 By CHARLES RODEN BUXTON 
 
 The idea of nationality is best examined, not by- 
 trying to frame a definition which will fit all the 
 facts, but by looking at the facts themselves. The 
 definition will emerge later. What lies imme- 
 diately before us is a number of peoples who have 
 an intense desire to express, in some distinct form 
 of government, what they conceive to be their 
 nationality. Some, like the Croats, Bohemians, 
 Poles, and Finns, have had such a government 
 in quite modern times. Others have never had it, 
 or had it only in the shape of some transient 
 Empire in the dim past. Some want full inde- 
 pendence ; some would be satisfied with autonomy 
 within a larger unit. Some, like the Italians, 
 Roumanians, and Serbs of Austria-Hungary, desire 
 union with an existing free State. Others desire the 
 creation of a new political entity. With some the 
 common bond is identity of language or religion ; 
 with others, the belief that they spring from the 
 same stock and have shared from time immemorial 
 in the same sufferings and achievements. Two 
 things are common to them all. They are all 
 
40 NATIONALITY 
 
 baulked of their hopes, and they are all prepared 
 to make untold sacrifices to realize them. 
 
 The nationality principle is merely another form 
 of the democratic principle. To the thorough- 
 going democrat this should be enough. Here are 
 peoples of which the overwhelming majority desire 
 a certain political object. Let them have it, he 
 will say, provided it does not clash with the 
 desire of some larger section which has a right 
 to be heard in the matter. And in point of fact it 
 does not, as a rule, clash with the desires of any 
 such section, but only with the imperialist and 
 militarist ambitions of the ruling classes of some 
 strong State founded on conquest. 
 
 And democracy, rightly understood, should carry 
 us a stage farther. For, whether the claims of 
 nationality are reasonable or not, their satisfaction 
 is one of the prime conditions of peace, and without 
 peace democracy is for ever insecure. If sores 
 are left open which cannot be healed without 
 further war, then European democracy, however 
 brilliant its triumphs, will be founded upon a vol- 
 canic crust which may at any time collapse 
 into the molten lava. The principal reason why 
 democracy has hitherto made so little progress is 
 that its march has been so constantly interrupted 
 by war. In almost every peace treaty of the nine- 
 teenth century the claims of nationality have been 
 flouted, and recurring war has been the result. 
 
 But are we to ignore the question whether these 
 claims are or are not reasonable? Are we simply 
 to accept them as a primary fact like the law of 
 gravitation? Not altogether, though to those who 
 
NATIONALITY 41 
 
 have felt by personal contact the intensity of the 
 national sense in peoples deprived of their free- 
 dom and unity, and the way in which these great 
 words seem to blind them to almost every other 
 thought, there seems to be nothing absurd in the 
 notion. It is not likely that anything we can do 
 or say will make a Bohemian of Prague or a 
 Bulgarian of Southern Macedonia reconsider the 
 rooted instinct which tells him that his spiritual 
 home is a free Bohemia or a free Bulgaria. Yet 
 democracy itself must be founded upon the solid 
 basis of reason and forethought. If the peoples 
 are to work out their own salvation, and co-operate 
 with each other in working out the salvation of 
 all, they must think. They must take into account, 
 not one great fact but all great facts. They 
 must not be led by mere sympathy to throw them- 
 selves whole-heartedly into the support of a claim, 
 however strong, which conflicts with the conditions 
 of the modern world. Does the claim of nationality, 
 pure and unmixed, conflict with these conditions? 
 Will it fit into the new environment, the new world 
 which we hope to create for all the peoples after 
 the war is over? What does it really stand for in 
 human life? What can it give to the world? 
 With what dangers, if any, does it threaten the 
 world? 
 
 At this point, at which we come to closer quarters 
 with our problem, we need to ask ourselves a little 
 more exactly what it is. A German newspaper 
 writer remarks that Germany would readily give 
 up Alsace-Lorraine, Posen, and Schleswig if Russia 
 would give up Finland, Poland, Samarcand, 
 
42 NATIONALITY 
 
 Bokhara, and other places, and England would 
 give up India, Egypt, Cyprus, Malta, and Gibraltar. 
 Viewed in this light, we are tempted to say of 
 nationality what Hazlitt said of the opera, " It 
 is a very fine thing ; the only question is whether 
 it is not too fine." Evidently no Great Power 
 will be prepared to 'accept so wide a definition of 
 nationality as that of our sarcastic German. One 
 might waste a great deal of time in arguing about 
 the border-line of the subject. Let me say, to 
 simplify matters, that I rule out, for the purposes 
 of the present chapter, the peoples of India, Egypt, 
 and Persia. The nationalist movements of these 
 countries make a strong appeal to our sympathies. 
 There are many Englishmen who are prepared to 
 help them forward. But to place them with those 
 of the European nationalities would be to misrepre- 
 sent the significance, and belittle the force, of the 
 latter. I am speaking, then, in the main, of certain 
 specific peoples — Alsatians and Lorrainers. Italians, 
 Finns, Poles, Bohemians, Ruthenes, Roumanians, 
 Serbo-Croats, Bulgarians, Greeks, and Armenians. 
 I omit the Irish, on the assumption that some form 
 of national self-expression is now assured to them. 
 
 II 
 
 It will be as well to recognize at the outset 
 that there are several difficulties in the way of a 
 full application of our principle. Roughly, they 
 may be divided into two classes — those which make 
 the observance of strictly national frontiers incon- 
 venient on economic and strategic grounds, and 
 
NATIONALITY 43 
 
 those which are inherent weaknesses in the principle 
 of nationality itself. Let us take these in order. 
 
 Nature, migration, and conquest have disposed 
 the population of the world without any regard 
 to the best economic units or the most defensible 
 boundary lines. The most obvious examples of 
 the economic difficulty are the Poles, Bohemians, 
 and Hungarians, who do not occupy any point on 
 the sea-coast, and who do not possess within their 
 own borders a sufficient variety of raw material. 
 Tariff walls, again, often run counter to the 
 national principle. The producers and business 
 men of Alsace-Lorraine have for years past made 
 all their arrangements on the basis of the tariffs, 
 the markets, the railway, the banking and credit 
 systems, and the business connections of Germany. 
 The same may be said, in a lesser degree, of the 
 economic position of Poland in relation to Russia. 
 Some of these difficulties could only be completely 
 surmounted by freeing such ports as Fiume, Trieste, 
 and Danzig, and the navigation of rivers like the 
 Danube, Vistula, Elbe, Scheldt, and Rhine, from 
 all restrictions, others by commercial treaties or 
 free exchange. 
 
 With regard to strategic questions, there are 
 obvious reasons why, in a world dominated by 
 the fear of war, the desires of a people for a 
 national government should have to give way to 
 the exigencies of fleets or armies. Frontiers have 
 been settled again and again with a view, not to 
 the desire of the inhabitants but to military or 
 naval needs. If we are to escape from this 
 necessity, we must ask ourselves the question, mu.st 
 
44 NATIONALITY 
 
 the world be always dominated by the fear of 
 war? 
 
 These are difficulties which might conceivably 
 be surmounted in time ; but is there not, it may 
 be urged, something in the nature of nationality 
 itself which is fundamentally opposed to the kind 
 of progress we are aiming at? We sympathize 
 with an oppressed nation, but when we have set 
 it on its feet, does it not become in its turn an 
 oppressor, using the arts of its own former tyrants 
 with an ingenuity born of long experience? Does 
 not " nationality militant," to borrow a term from 
 the ecclesiastical world, pass over into something 
 odious and repulsive when it becomes " nationality 
 triumphant "? In nations that have acquired and 
 established their freedom, in France, in Germany, 
 and in Italy, is not the very word " Nationalist " 
 applied, and naturally applied, to the Imperialist 
 parties, which aim at extending the sway of the 
 nation over other nations? Is not the desire of 
 a successful nation to spread its particular type 
 of civilization essentially the same desire as that 
 which inspires a subject race to defend its culture 
 against that of its rulers? Is not the claim to 
 national self-expression invariably followed by the 
 claim to world-power? In a word, is not the 
 intense desire for national independence, with all 
 that it entails, the direct enemy of internationalism, 
 that wider conception which must inspire the next 
 great step in the progress of the world? 
 
 I cannot answer these questions in a manner 
 wholly favourable to the cause of nationality. 
 Nor do I wish to strike a balance between the 
 
NATIONALITY 45 
 
 merits and the demerits of that cause, for the 
 factors are very numerous and perhaps in part 
 incommensurable, and to think out the problem 
 for oneself, unaided and unguided by some one 
 else's personal opinion, is perhaps the most useful 
 process from the point of view of building up 
 an enlightened public opinion. I will content 
 myself with pointing out some practical con- 
 siderations which have a bearing on the problem. 
 
 When nationalities are mixed in fairly equal 
 proportions, as are the Hungarians, Germans, 
 Roumanians, and Serbo-Croats of Southern 
 Hungary, it is true that the principle of nationality 
 is an inadequate guide. But such districts are 
 not common, and we are far from having reduced 
 our problem to these narrow limits. The ordinary 
 case is that of a preponderant nationality with an 
 " Ulster " enclosed in it or mixed up with it. This 
 case can be met, partially at least, by distinct 
 and recognized provisions for the linguistic and 
 ecclesiastical rights of the minority in connection 
 with local government bodies, churches, schools, 
 and other institutions. There is always, no doubt, 
 a difficulty in making these provisions effective ; 
 in the long run this can only be done by assuaging 
 inter-racial hatreds and diminishing the danger 
 of war. 
 
 Many of the difficulties which attend the realiza- 
 tion of nationality would be avoided if autonomy, 
 rather than complete national sovereignty, were 
 the object aimed at. There is undoubtedly 
 something crude and primitive in the latter claim, 
 in spite of the almost axiomatic character with 
 
46 NATIONALITY 
 
 which long usage has invested it. In point of 
 fact, the farther West we go, the more we find 
 that autonomy, or a freedom restricted by the 
 requirements of some larger political unit, is 
 proving a sufficient answer to the national claim. 
 Irish history during the past century provides a 
 good example of the change from the one idea to 
 the other. The farther East we go, on the other 
 hand, the more we have to admit the dangers 
 and difficulties which spring from the demand for 
 unfettered sovereignty. Cruder tyrannies have 
 produced a cruder reaction. We cannot blame the 
 Balkan peoples for this. It is unreasonable to 
 expect them to skip over a stage which has 
 hitherto seemed indispensable in political develop- 
 ment. But it is probable that even in the East 
 nationalist ideas will become increasingly tinged 
 by the conception of autonomy. 
 
 Ill 
 
 And now, having faced the admitted difficulty 
 of applying our principle without considerable 
 exceptions and reservations, we may turn to the 
 positive contribution which nationality makes to 
 the progress of the world. The matter must be 
 looked at from the point of view both of each 
 nation and of civilization as a whole. 
 
 To nations in an early stage of development, 
 particularly those formerly subject to Turkey, 
 nationality stands for many things that we in the 
 West have ceased to associate with the term, and 
 now value under other names. It means the attain- 
 
NATIONALITY 47 
 
 ment for the first time of culture, of refinement, 
 of education for their children, of the right to 
 worship as they think fit. To most subject 
 peoples the realization of nationality means the 
 realization also of democratic government. The 
 two aims are largely inspired by the same feelings. 
 In 1848 the French and German struggles were 
 mainly directed to the latter, while the Italian 
 and Hungarian were mainly directed to the former, 
 but neither struggle was exclusively democratic or 
 exclusively national. 
 
 So inextricably does the aim of nationality 
 become bound up with other aims, that there is 
 a tendency to think that none of them can be 
 realized until national self-expression has been 
 secured, and to neglect the steps which might be 
 taken, even under present conditions, to realize 
 them. This is especially noticeable in the Balkans. 
 The whole energy of the nation, both in thought 
 and action, is too often turned into the one channel. 
 Nothing else counts. Education, social reform, 
 honesty in public life, economic development — all 
 lag behind, because all are subordinated to the 
 overmastering passion of nationality. 
 
 When it becomes a question, not so much of 
 securing self-government and culture but of 
 securing a particular type of these things as 
 opposed to another type, we are dealing with some- 
 thing a little less tangible, the need for which 
 is sometimes disputed by political thinkers. The 
 members of races subject to Austria and Germany, 
 for example, do not as a rule suffer very seriously 
 if they are content to live a quiet life apart from 
 
48 NATIONALITY 
 
 all public interests, to shut themselves up within 
 the circle of their family and friends, to follow 
 their daily business, and not to take any part 
 whatsoever in " movements," whether political or 
 otherwise. If they do, then it is a matter of 
 police spies, perpetual interference, the suppression 
 of newspapers, the imprisonment of editors and 
 thinkers and political leaders, the extinguishing 
 of every manifestation, however slight it may be, 
 of anything distinctively national — flags, meetings, 
 exhibitions, processions, pamphlets, songs, and 
 books. It means the creation, in a word, of an 
 atmosphere intolerably depressing and irritating to 
 men with a belief in progress and in human fellow- 
 ship. Some will say that the question whether 
 a certain type of thought and of public life and 
 social habits shall or shall not prevail 1 , whether 
 the type shall be French or German, Polish or 
 Russian, is not a point worth fighting about. Few 
 would say this, however, if they had experienced 
 what it means to a people to be denied all political 
 and " cultural " self-expression. To Englishmen 
 that experience is so remote that they find it 
 difficult to comprehend. It is for this reason, 
 coupled perhaps with a certain contempt for 
 teachers and artists, that we have actually no 
 equivalent for the word " cultural," without which 
 the Polish or Bohemian nationalist would hardly 
 know how to express himself. 
 
 Nationality stands, then, in the mind of a people 
 struggling to be free, not indeed for the whole, 
 but for a large part, of what we feel to be good 
 and desirable in human life. It stands for self- 
 
NATIONALITY 49 
 
 development and self-expression, in so far as these 
 ends require for their realization a wider sphere 
 than that of individual or family life — the sphere of 
 combination and association, above all of govern- 
 ment. It stands for the cultivation of those national 
 habits of life and thought which are dearer to us 
 than others because they are in a fuller sense 
 " our own " — just as family customs and family 
 words have a peculiar savour for us, creating as 
 they do a whole atmosphere, and calling up, 
 without any need of explanatory speech, a hundred 
 common memories and familiar ties. This self- 
 expression, this cultivation of things so dearly 
 prized, is the object upon which a nation's hopes 
 are concentrated in the days of its servitude. 
 
 Does the experience of liberated nations justify 
 such hopes? Some think not. They point to tyranny 
 in Hungary and corruption in Italy. They say 
 that the dreams of 1848 and i860 have faded 
 into something tame and grey, sordid and dis- 
 appointing. Perhaps the disappointment is only 
 the fruit of an exaggerated expectation. In South - 
 Eastern Europe, where liberation has meant a 
 change from disorder to order, and the reclaiming 
 for civilization of a desert, no one could possibly 
 question the reality of the progress made. But 
 even where the change has been less complete 
 and striking, there has been a gain. Life is wider 
 and fuller for a nation in which the people accept 
 the form of the government and co-operate in 
 working it. Such a nation is a higher political 
 organism than an empire, however vast its extent 
 or however overwhelming its power, in which the 
 
 4 
 
50 NATIONALITY 
 
 citizen is denied the free exercise of his political 
 and associative faculties, except in the heated and 
 morbid atmosphere of resentment and intrigue. 
 There is a gain of inward satisfaction, the removal 
 of a sense of wrong. True, a people no sooner 
 gains its freedom than it begins to crave and 
 strive for something further. Whitman has told 
 us that " from any fruition of success shall come 
 forth something to make a greater struggle 
 necessary." But at least a step on the road has 
 been taken, and we in the West, who conceive 
 all life as a road, feel instinctively that that means 
 an advance to something better. 
 
 IV 
 
 But it is when we take the point of view of 
 civilization as a whole, not that of individual 
 nations, that we appreciate most fully the value 
 of the national spirit. When our grandfathers 
 and great-grandfathers were fired with enthusiasm 
 for Greece and Italy and Hungary, they conceived 
 themselves to be maintaining, not merely the rights 
 of Greeks, Italians, and Hungarians, but some 
 common and fundamental interest of mankind. It 
 is, in fact, to the interest of mankind that there 
 should exist the greatest possible variety of types 
 of thought and action. The world progresses most 
 when it is able to choose between a wide range 
 of different courses. Those which are inherently 
 good will tend to survive. Those Which are trivial 
 or useless will be ignored. No one can judge 
 which should be encouraged and which suppressed 
 
NATIONALITY 51 
 
 —least of all a single imperial Power or a group 
 of such Powers. The best chance is to let all 
 the varieties bloom and flourish, and to trust to 
 the free choice of humanity to take or leave them. 
 This, the essential doctrine of Liberalism, is not 
 a bloodless abstraction as applied to the matter 
 now in hand. What a treasure-house of civilization 
 is revealed to us in the national life of our fellow- 
 peoples, whether those which have won their 
 freedom already, or those whose dreams and hopes 
 derive more brilliant colour and deeper emotional 
 meaning from the very fact that they are still 
 unsatisfied. Just as England contributes her sense 
 for political liberty, France her intellectual honesty 
 and lucidity, Germany her industry and discipline, 
 Italy her aesthetic aptitude, so Finland has her 
 advanced democracy, Poland her music and art, 
 Bohemia religious independence, the Serbs their 
 warm poetic temperament, the Greeks their subtlety 
 and their passion for the past, the Bulgarians their 
 plodding endurance and taciturn energy, the 
 Armenians their passion for education and pro- 
 gress. And each of these characteristics is merely 
 a faint indication of what is distinctive in the 
 people concerned. Peoples are not, in fact, to be 
 distinguished from one another by a single mark, 
 detaching itself from a background of pure 
 similarity. It is the total combination of qualities, 
 of historical events, of natural surroundings, which 
 makes them what they are— conglomerations of 
 various and conflicting personalities and parties, 
 touched nevertheless with some unifying character 
 which makes even their very divisions distinctive. 
 
52 NATIONALITY 
 
 National culture may some day give place to 
 cosmopolitan culture, but meantime it is a richer 
 and intenser thing. The poetry of a nation, for 
 instance, gains more from the deep roots of 
 national memory and tradition than it loses from 
 the political boundaries which fence it from 
 the air and sun that might come to it across 
 neighbouring gardens. The whole gains by the 
 fuller development of every one of its parts. 
 
 It will be noted that the question hitherto dis- 
 cussed is that of nationality, rather than that of 
 11 small nationalities." The difference in size has 
 far-reaching consequences. A large nation may 
 be content to rely upon its strong arm' ; but if we 
 are to have any hope at all of placing the smaller 
 nationalities, in Mr. Asquith's words, " on an un- 
 assailable foundation," we must work out some 
 system of international relations which will secure 
 the right of the weaker State against the aggression 
 of the stronger. ,We must, in other words, sub- 
 stitute law for brigandage and private defence. 
 We must do in the international sphere what the 
 woman's movement demands that we shall do in 
 the national sphere — recognize that inferiority in 
 physical strength shall be no reason for any kind 
 of disability. Just as inter-individual war, or the 
 possibility of it, precludes the equality of women 
 with men, so international war, or the fear of it, 
 precludes the equality of small nations with large. 
 This shows at a glance the absurdity of supposing 
 
NATIONALITY 53 
 
 that war in itself— the victory of one group of 
 armies and fleets over another — can possibly place 
 the rights of the smaller nationalities on an un- 
 assailable foundation. It might for the moment 
 protect Belgium, or Serbia, or Poland ; but it 
 would leave these and all other small peoples in 
 the same position as before, so far as security for 
 the future is concerned. War, and the fear of 
 war, inevitably puts a premium upon large 
 centralized States, because large centralized States 
 are the best means of wielding force. If a few 
 small peoples refuse to yield to this general 
 tendency, they do so at their peril. An inter- 
 national agreement to prevent war would place 
 small nations in a position of security, and nothing 
 else would do it. The ideal of the nationalist, 
 11 the independent existence and free development " 
 of all the peoples, would thus be attained. 
 
 VI 
 
 It is now time to turn to the Great War, and 
 to ask what is its relation to the nationality 
 problem. Each side claims that it is fighting for 
 certain oppressed nationalities. How far can 
 these claims be justified? It is as well to look 
 first at the belligerent Powers and see how far 
 they themselves conform to the principle of 
 nationality. We see at once that, from this point 
 of view, Austria-Hungary and Turkey stand on 
 quite a different level from the rest. It is a 
 misuse of language even to describe them by the 
 same term as countries like England or France, 
 
54 NATIONALITY 
 
 Germany or Russia. I include the last two 
 Powers because, so far as subject white nationali- 
 ties are concerned, they are only offenders to the 
 extent of about one-seventh of their population. 
 Broadly speaking 4 , they are nations, with a national 
 soul and character, while the Dual Monarchy and 
 the Ottoman Empire are not nations at all, but 
 composite structures formed by the conquest of 
 many nations. There is a strange topsy-turvey- 
 dom in our popular conception of the war. We 
 entered into it, we believe, for the sake of small 
 nationalities, yet there is actually a strong current 
 of pro-Austrianism and pro-Turkism among us, 
 as is shown by the fact that the savageries of 
 Austria in north-west Serbia and of Turkey in 
 Armenia are usually thrown into the back- 
 ground by our press. Historically, of course, this 
 current is caused by the sympathy of one ruling 
 race for other ruling races, and by the now dis- 
 carded anti-Russian policy of the Victorian era. 
 It is none the less dangerous from the point of 
 view of the interests of nationality. 
 
 The nature and composition of the belligerent 
 Powers, then, suggests that in this matter of 
 nationality the balance inclines strongly in favour 
 of the Quadruple Entente. Nor is this the only 
 sense in which we are " fighting for nationality." 
 We English may fairly say that we went to war 
 for it, in the sense that it was the wrongs of 
 Belgium which produced the popular enthusiasm 
 for the war. We may fairly add that our ideas 
 of self-government, as illustrated in recent times 
 by our South African policy and our Home Rule 
 
NATIONALITY 55 
 
 movement, are far in advance of those of other 
 Empires, and that as a people we earnestly desire 
 that national claims should receive their due weight 
 in the settlement. And this is not all. The 
 Quadruple Entente as a whole may be said to 
 be fighting for nationality in another sense — the 
 sense, namely, that its victory could be made to 
 contribute to the liberation of subject peoples in 
 a far higher degree than the victory of its enemies. 
 In order to illustrate the point let us take certain 
 extreme examples. Let us suppose that either the 
 Entente or the Alliance were in a position to dictate 
 terms. The examples are artificial, but they help to 
 clear our minds. Note, first, that there are certain 
 nationalities whose position would quite probably 
 be much the same in either case — the Poles, who 
 would probably gain autonomy, and the Finns, the 
 Ruthenes, and the Jews, whose national interests 
 would probably not be affected. There remain 
 the Bohemians, the Alsatians and Lorrainers, the 
 Danes of Schleswig, the Italians of Southern 
 Austria, the Serbo-Croats and Slovenes, the 
 Roumanians, the Bulgarians, the Greeks, and the 
 Armenians . 
 
 Now, a victory for the Entente would 
 (assuming that the settlement were inspired by 
 nationalist conceptions) satisfy the claims of the 
 majority of these peoples, numbering in round 
 figures 30,000,000. A victory for Germany, 
 Austria, and Turkey, on the other hand, would 
 make it almost impossible to satisfy any of them, 
 with two exceptions — the Bulgarians of Central 
 Macedonia and the Roumanians of Bessarabia, 
 
56 NATIONALITY 
 
 whose liberation would be more than outweighed 
 by the continued subjection of their brethren 
 in Hungary. No one supposes that the choice 
 is in fact between the freedom or subjection 
 of the whole of these 30,000,000. The actual 
 choice lies, of course, between much narrower 
 limits, because no dictatorship is possible on either 
 side. A partial victory would open the way to 
 correspondingly partial results. But the broad 
 black and white outlines do provide a true picture 
 of the issue which was raised upon the tragic stage 
 of Europe when the Austrian armies crossed the 
 Drina in the summer of 19 14. One might almost 
 say that this is the greatest issue of the war, 
 if one interprets the word " issue " as meaning 
 a point which could really be settled by the war, 
 and in all human probability could not be settled 
 without it. This is the real sense in which we 
 are, if we choose — but only if we choose — " fight- 
 ing for nationality." 
 
 How far we are likely to choose this course, 
 how far indeed we shall be in a position to choose 
 it, even if we desire to do so, is another question. 
 In the welter of conflicting interests many things 
 that we should have liked to do will be found to 
 be out of our reach. The fact is that to engage 
 in a European war, and at the same time to be 
 punctilious about nationality, is impossible. Such 
 a war may begin as a struggle of nationalism 
 against imperialism, but it cannot remain so. It 
 must inevitably develop into a conflict between rival 
 imperialisms. In Central Macedonia our diplomacy 
 has led us into the position of supporting Serbian 
 
NATIONALITY 57 
 
 imperialism as against Bulgarian nationalism ; 
 while in Dalmatia, if the universal belief is true, 
 we are endeavouring to substitute Italian for 
 Austro- Hungarian imperialism, as against the 
 national claims of the Serbo-Croat population. No 
 good can possibly come of shutting our eyes to 
 these incidental results of war. They do not alter 
 the fact that there are a great number of cases 
 in which we shall still be free from commitments. 
 There will be many doubtful issues at the settle- 
 ment in which the influence of this country will 
 very probably be decisive, and we must make the 
 best of these opportunities for helping forward the 
 cause of nationality. 
 
 There remains a final point. We are not likely 
 to make much of these opportunities if we leave 
 the whole matter in the hands of the diplomatists. 
 The tradition of the Foreign Offices of Europe 
 is wholly indifferent to nationality. It moves in 
 an atmosphere altogether alien to such ideas. 
 Diplomacy is much more concerned with the tem- 
 porary interests of governments than with the per- 
 manent interests of peoples. Every peace made 
 by diplomatists — at Vienna, Paris, Frankfurt, 
 Berlin, Bukharest — has borne testimony to this. 
 We cannot take for granted that the statesmen of 
 the Quadruple Entente — among whom those of our 
 own country will be in the minority — will go out 
 of their way to help forward the principle of 
 nationality except upon one condition. That condi- 
 tion is that there shall be a public opinion, definite, 
 alive, not to be denied, which shall insist that the 
 principle be applied. Democratic influence in the 
 
58 NATIONALITY 
 
 settlement of the war offers the only security that 
 the interests of nationality will be seriously con- 
 sidered. By this it is not meant that every English 
 citizen can be expected to pronounce upon the 
 exact frontiers of Poland, the rights to be accorded 
 to the Hungarian minority in Transylvania, or the 
 methods, whether of plebiscite or of impartial 
 inquiry, whereby the wishes of any given popula- 
 tion should be ascertained. There will be different 
 degrees of knowledge, some greater and some less. 
 But we ought not to admit the too commonly 
 accepted idea that the sister nations of Europe 
 can never be more than a name to the English 
 democracy — that the aspirations and the main 
 characteristics, for example, of a noble race such 
 as the Bohemians, with a population one-third of 
 that of England, is a mere detail with which 
 Englishmen cannot be expected to concern them- 
 selves. That would be to admit too narrow a 
 range for international sympathy. There is more 
 likelihood to-day than ever before that the sym- 
 pathy of one democracy for another will be able 
 to break through the age-long conventions of diplo- 
 matic intercourse. Let us not be tempted to 
 despair by the cynic who cites to us, from the past 
 conduct of all the governments concerned, painful 
 proofs that they have not cared much for nation- 
 ality, and that some of them have not even paid 
 it the shadowy compliment of lip service. There 
 is no practical use in seizing upon this obvious 
 opening for scepticism. Let us rather take the 
 declarations of statesmen at their face value, recog- 
 nizing that the declarations themselves create a 
 
NATIONALITY 59 
 
 new condition of things, that they oblige the Powers 
 which have made them to take steps to realize 
 them, and that there are among the statesmen not 
 a few who are anxious to have behind them a 
 popular demand which will enable them to take 
 these steps. It is the duty of the peoples to see 
 to it that the declarations of their governments 
 are not forgotten. 
 
THE 
 
 FREEDOM 
 
 OF 
 
 THE SEAS 
 
THE FREEDOM OF THE SEAS 
 
 By H. SIDEBOTHAM 
 
 One of the promises of victory is that Great 
 Britain will be able to review her whole naval 
 policy in the light of the experience gained in 
 the war. Sir Edward Grey has himself indicated 
 that such a review may be appropriate in the 
 negotiations for peace after victory has been won, 
 and the object of this chapter is to consider certain 
 issues which, though they are usually evaded now, 
 may then be in the forefront of political discussion. 
 It is known that the United States of America 
 are particularly concerned in this discussion, and 
 German diplomacy in America has omitted no 
 opportunity of presenting its view of the issues. 
 Direct defence of German policy in Europe Count 
 BernstorfT has hardly attempted ; his whole object 
 has been to distract American attention from the 
 sins and crimes of German militarism by making 
 a more formidable bogy of British sea power. 
 That Germany, who in her submarine campaign has 
 been guilty of the most atrocious acts of naval 
 tyranny in history, should still have been able to 
 represent herself as the champion of the "freedom 
 
 of the seas " without being laughed or hissed out 
 
 63 
 
64 THE FREEDOM OF THE SEAS 
 
 of court in the United States is a paradox which 
 needs much explanation. To leave it unexplained, 
 and to persist in ignoring! the existence of a very 
 grave problem of policy, is dangerous to the interests 
 of this country, of which the maintenance of rela- 
 tions of cordial friendship with the United States is 
 not by any means the least important. 
 
 The ideal of the " freedom of the seas " is too 
 fine to leave in the hands of the Germans. The 
 meaning of the phrase has greatly changed since 
 Grotius more than three hundred years ago wrote 
 his " Mare Liberum," to vindicate the right of the 
 Dutch to trade with the Indies, and to combat the 
 pretensions of the Portuguese to a monopoly of the 
 seas that they had been the first of Europeans to 
 traverse. The sea captains of Elizabeth had com- 
 bated the similar pretensions of the Spanish. The 
 sea policy of the Stuarts, however, asserted a definite 
 British sovereignty over ( the Narrow Seas against the 
 Dutch, and in 1618 John Selden wrote his " Mare 
 Clausum," in which he argued against Grotius that 
 there could and should be a national sovereignty of 
 the open seas precisely similar to sovereignty of 
 land. That controversy ended in the triumph of the 
 view of Grotius, and, indeed, if he had not 
 triumphed British maritime supremacy, which neces- 
 sarily by its ubiquity transcends the ideas of 
 territorial sovereignty, could never have come into 
 being. The seas are now free, economically and 
 politically, in peace time, and the chief survival 
 of Selden's contentions is the doctrine of terri- 
 toriality within three miles from low- water mark. 
 In securing this freedom of the seas England has 
 
THE FREEDOM OF THE SEAS 65 
 
 taken a leading part, and any attempt to shackle 
 their freedom with the doctrine of territorial 
 sovereignty would find England at the head of 
 a coalition prepared to go any lengths in resistance. 
 But the freeiom now in question is the freedom, 
 not in peace but in war. It is a war problem 
 pure and simple, and the conditions that pre- 
 vail in peace-time have no sort 05 relevancy. 
 England, for example, which admittedly is the pro- 
 tagonist of its freedom in peace time, is, in the 
 opinion of her critics, its most powerful opponent 
 in war. The " Mare Clausum " of Selden's day has 
 waited nearly three centuries to reappear in British 
 naval practice in the Proclamation closing the 
 North Sea to shipping which was issued as an 
 answer to the indiscriminate sowing of mines by 
 Germany on the high seas. 
 
 The outbreak of the war found our Navy in 
 overwhelming material strength and in a high 
 state of technical efficiency. But it also revealed 
 hesitancy and uncertainty in certain departments 
 of controlling policy. No navy was ever readier 
 to fight a fleet action, and (a few accidents apart) 
 it had carefully worked out the problems of de- 
 fending our shores from invasion and raid and 
 of securing our sea-communications. Its attack, 
 however, against an enemy who persisted in 
 declining a fleet engagement was only an equivocal 
 success. In particular, its blockade of the enemy's 
 coasts and the strangulation of his commerce were 
 for long enough very partial and hesitating. This 
 hesitancy contrasted markedly with our maritime 
 policy in the war with Napoleon. Then we had 
 
 5 
 
66 THE FREEDOM OF THE SEAS 
 
 no doubts whatever ; we asserted the right to 
 confiscate all enemy's property at sea, whatever 
 the flag under which it was being carried. The 
 d'ctrSe that a neutral flag might protect enemy s 
 property which was then put forward by the 
 Armed Neutrality was indignantly repudiated. 
 "Shall we" asked Pitt in 1801, referring to the 
 docSe of the Armed Neutrality, "give up our 
 Maritime consequence and expose ourselves to .scorn 
 to derision, and contempt? No .man en deplore 
 more than 1 do the loss of human blood the 
 calamities and distresses of war ; but will you 
 Uently stand by and, acknowledgmg these ^ mon- 
 strous and unheard-of principles of neutrality, 
 nTure your enemy against the effects of your 
 hostility ! Four nations have leagued to produce 
 a new code of maritime law which they endeavour 
 arbitrarily to force on Europe ; what is this but 
 tne same Jacobin principle which proclaimed the 
 Rights of Man, which produced the French Revo- 
 En which generated the wildest anarchy and 
 spread terror & and devastation through that un- 
 hapov country? Whatever shape it assumes, it 
 ?s P a rioTation of the rights of England, and 
 imperiously calls upon Englishmen to resist it even 
 to the last shilling and the last drop of blood, 
 rather than tamely submit to degrading conse- 
 quences or weakly yield the rights of this country 
 rshameful usurpation." The passage illustrates 
 he law of history that the more violent the asser- 
 tion of a principle is in the one generation the 
 more ikely is its repudiation in the next. Fifty 
 yeTrs later by the Declaration of Paris we accepted 
 
THE FREEDOM OF THE SEAS 67 
 
 the principle which Pitt was prepared to shed the 
 last drop of English blood to resist. The Declara- 
 tion was a great weakening of belligerent powers for 
 the sake of neutral right, a sacrifice of the offence 
 to the defence. The effect of that Declaration was 
 that though the belligerent's flag might be chased 
 from the seas, his trade could not be so long 
 as there was a neutral ship in which it could be 
 carried. 
 
 That was not all. More than fifty years after 
 the Declaration of Paris the Declaration of London 
 entrenched neutral rights still more strongly. It 
 drew up a " free list " of articles which a belli- 
 gerent could (so long as there was no blockade) 
 import through his own ports in neutral ships and 
 through neutral ports, if his own ports were 
 blockaded. In this list were many articles of use 
 in war, such as cotton. Further, there was a list of 
 articles of conditional contraband, which could not 
 be stopped except on evidence that they were in- 
 tended for the use of the belligerent Government. 
 If there was evidence that they were so intended, 
 importation through a belligerent port, even under 
 a neutral flag, might be stopped, but not importa- 
 tion through a neutral port. It followed from 
 these two rules, to take concrete examples, that 
 cotton in war-time could be imported in a neutral 
 ship into Hamburg or Bremen just as though 
 there were no war, and that foodstuffs might be 
 imported through a Dutch port even though there 
 was proof that they were intended for the supply of 
 the German army. These were very grave restric- 
 tions of belligerent power at sea as we had 
 
68 THE FREEDOM OF THE SEAS 
 
 exercised it in the Napoleonic Wars. And the 
 railway communications of Europe created since 
 those wars have greatly increased the effect of these 
 restrictions. A hundred years ago, when there 
 were no railways and the roads were bad, to 
 blockade the ports of a country was to prohibit 
 it from supplies over sea. Now the closing of 
 German ports meant no more than the diversion 
 of her traffic to neutral ports, which could not be 
 blockaded. In all the changes of the law made 
 throughout the century two principles are seen 
 to be at work : the principle that belligerent 
 power must yield to neutral rights, and the 
 further principle that war is a relation between 
 Governments, and must not be allowed to interfere 
 with the peaceful activities of trade. " I believe," 
 said Lord Salisbury in 1871, "that since the 
 Declaration of Paris the fleet, valuable as it is 
 for preventing an invasion of these shores, is almost 
 valueless for any other purpose." He forgot its 
 value in assisting our own oversea operations and 
 in protecting the oversea communications of our 
 commerce, but, subject to these qualifications, his 
 judgment was, broadly, sound. Some of those who 
 agreed with him were for denouncing the Declara- 
 tion of Paris, and for going back to the old rules 
 of the Napoleonic Wars ; others agreed that as 
 the powers of our fleet over the enemy's commerce 
 had been so reduced, the right course was to give 
 up rights of capture, which were worthless used 
 against a continental enemy, and might be 
 dangerous used against an island Power like our- 
 selves. The one section said : " You cannot afford, 
 
THE FREEDOM OF THE SEAS 69 
 
 as a naval Power, to respect this encroachment of 
 neutral privilege on belligerent rights." The other 
 said : "You cannot go back to Napoleonic practice ; 
 it is dangerous to stand still ; the best course is 
 to make a virtue of necessity, and to proclaim the 
 freedom of the seas by abolishing the right of 
 capture of all enemy property except contraband." 
 The outbreak of the war found the Government 
 halting dubiously between these two voices. 
 
 The Declaration of London, not having been 
 ratified by Parliament, was not binding in this 
 country, and we were therefore free to repudiate it. 
 There were, however, difficulties in doing so, 
 because, though not ratified, it had been signed, 
 and it was, after all, only by a mere technicality 
 of constitutional law, because the International 
 Prize Courts proposed to be set up would supersede 
 the authority of English Prize Courts, that the 
 consent of Parliament was necessary to its validity. 
 The Treaty guaranteeing the neutrality of Belgium 
 had not been ratified by Parliament either. 
 Having made this Treaty the main ground of our 
 intervention, and denounced the Chancellor for 
 describing it as a " scrap of paper," it was not 
 easy to proceed to treat the Declaration of 
 London as a " scrap of paper." Neither, having 
 entered on the wa,r for the defence of neutral 
 rights, was it easy to begin by withdrawing the 
 rights guaranteed to neutrals and non-combatants 
 by the Declaration of London. The Allies, there- 
 fore, decided to observe the provisions of the 
 Declaration subject to one modification : that the 
 enemy was not to be free to import through neutral 
 
70 THE FREEDOM OF THE SEAS 
 
 ports articles of conditional contraband destined 
 for belligerent use. This modification, however, 
 did not materially strengthen our belligerent 
 power. We drove the enemy's fleet off the seas, 
 not, however, without suffering losses which were 
 at any rate commensurate with the enemy's losses 
 through the laying up of his ships in port. There 
 was some restriction in the enemy's supplies, not 
 through our blockade — for as a blockade of Ger- 
 many was useless without a blockade of Holland, 
 which was impossible, we had not troubled to deciare 
 one — but through the scarcity of shipping. But the 
 economic strangulation of Germany, so far from 
 tightening, was hardly beginning. 
 
 Nor could it have begun if Germany had kept 
 as legally within the law as the Allies had done. 
 With a folly that has rarely been equalled in 
 the conduct of war, she proceeded to supply us 
 with cumulative justification for a strangulation 
 that would otherwise have been impossible. She 
 sowed mines indiscriminately in the high seas, 
 and the narrow escape off the north of Ireland of a 
 great liner was followed as a measure of retaliation 
 by the closing of the North Sea except for a 
 channel in the Straits. Germany in turn retaliated 
 by the proclamation of her submarine blockade, 
 which we answered by placing a complete embargo 
 on all German commerce, inward and outward, 
 through her own or through neutral ports. The 
 policy of the Tirpitz faction — a policy which there is 
 reason to believe was resisted, though in vain, by 
 the Chancellor and the Moderates — thus gave us 
 what nothing else could have given, the opportunity 
 
THE FREEDOM OF THE SEAS 71 
 
 of establishing a complete blockade of German over- 
 sea trade, whether through her own or neutral ports. 
 If Germany had observed the rules of war her ports 
 would have been open for the importation of all 
 the articles on the free list, including cotton. Even 
 conditional contraband would have been imported 
 through her own and neutral ports unless it could 
 be proved that it was for belligerents and not for 
 purely commercial use. And had we attempted 
 to extend our rights farther, we could only have 
 done so by imitating at sea that gross invasion 
 of treaty rights which Germany had committed 
 on land by forcing her passage through Belgium. 
 Those advantages German policy deliberately threw 
 away. 
 
 Meanwhile, German diplomacy had been busy 
 in the United States. It is a fixed belief with 
 nearly all Englishmen that British naval power 
 is an instrument of liberty ; the phrase " maritime 
 tyranny " is, to their minds, a patent self-contra- 
 diction. That, however, is not a universal view, nor 
 is it the view generally held in the United States. 
 Ever since Benjamin Franklin's days it has been 
 the policy of the American Government to press 
 for the abolition of the right of capture at sea. 
 It holds that this right is as offensive to public 
 morality as the taking of booty in land operations. 
 Throughout her chief opponent in securing this 
 reform has been Great Britain. Nor was America's 
 advocacy of this reform an example merely of 
 devotion to principle. Before the Civil War her 
 merchant marine was second only to ours, and to 
 build up another great merchant fleet has long 
 
72 THE FREEDOM OF THE SEAS 
 
 been one of the objects of the Democratic party. 
 But the law of capture, it was believed in America, 
 made it impossible for a nation to retain its 
 merchant marine in war-time unless it had also 
 an overwhelming naval, supremacy over its 
 opponent ; and her politicians resented rules of 
 war which exposed an inferior naval Power to 
 this penalty. Moreover, there was a long history 
 of quarrel between England and the United States 
 on our exercise of belligerent rights against 
 neutrals at sea. Nor did the United States take 
 the British view of the political uses to which our 
 naval power has been put in the past. The atti- 
 tude of the average friendly American to British 
 naval power was and is very much like that of the 
 advanced English Liberal in the middle of the 
 nineteenth century. Take, for example, the follow- 
 ing passage from Professor Beesly's essay on 
 " England and the Sea," and we shall not be far 
 from the attitude of mind of the average American 
 now. It does not invalidate the argument that 
 when Professor Beesly wrote France was still the 
 traditional enemy, and that his essay was a plea 
 for better relations between this country and the 
 great nation that is now its ally : — 
 
 Suppose Napoleon I had left France a greal naval Power, 
 in possession of Portland, the Isle of Man, and the Aland Isles ; 
 suppose one Fleet permanently cruised off the mouth of the 
 Mersey and another in the Baltic ; does any one imagine that 
 England and the Northern Powers would ever be brought to 
 look on such a state of things as natural or tolerable ? If it 
 dated from Louis XIV, would a century and a half have 
 reconciled us to it ? Would a dozen treaties and peaces have 
 
THE FREEDOM OF THE SEAS 73 
 
 made it sacred in our eyes ? Should we excuse it on the ground 
 of an extensive commerce, numerous colonies, or the police of 
 the seas? Englishmen, I think, would then understand very 
 well the meaning of the phrase "maritime tyranny," which they 
 now profess themselves unable to comprehend. 
 
 The average American, in fact, was at the 
 beginning of this war prepared to think of 
 British naval power much as the Englishman thinks 
 of German military power. Take each of the 
 charges brought against German militarism, and 
 it does not require much ingenuity to find a parallel 
 in the history of British " navalism." The German 
 military theory is to wage war in the enemy's terri- 
 tory. It is the British naval theory too. German 
 military power has set at naught the rights of 
 neutral Powers. British naval power has done 
 the same in past history. The bombardment of 
 Copenhagen by Nelson is a rough parallel (though 
 not one to be pressed) to the invasion of Belgium. 
 German militarism is cruel to non-combatants. But 
 does a naval blockade, in its intention at any 
 rate, restrict to combatants the suffering that it 
 causes? Is not starvation by cutting off supplies 
 an equally efficient and more economical way of 
 killing babies than by bombarding them with 
 1 2-in. naval guns or dropping incendiary bombs 
 from Zeppelins? Is there much difference, so far 
 as the victim is concerned, between the lawless 
 looting of German officers on land and the con- 
 fiscation of private property at sea by British 
 officers in accordance with processes of law which 
 the British Government has persistently refused 
 to amend? Such sentiments, though they appear 
 
74 THE FREEDOM OF THE SEAS 
 
 shocking' and perverse to the average English- 
 man, occur quite naturally to the average 
 American. That it should be so postulates a 
 state of mind that is a permanent danger to 
 relations of active and cordial friendship between 
 this country and the United States. And how 
 great that danger is may be inferred from the 
 fact that not all the inhumanity of German sub- 
 marine policy, the murder of American citizens 
 on the high seas, the repeated flouting of American 
 dignity, were able to obliterate in the mind of the 
 average American the idea that there was no essen- 
 tial difference between German militarism and 
 British navalism, that the one was tyranny on land 
 and the other tyranny at sea. To Englishmen, 
 Germany's claim that she was contending for 
 the freedom of the seas seems merely impudent 
 and perverse, especially when it is put forward in 
 a dispatch replying to American protests against 
 the killing of American citizens travelling by the 
 Lusitania. Yet President Wilson took it quite 
 seriously. In his third Lusitania dispatch he 
 wrote : — 
 
 " The Government of the United States and the 
 Imperial German Government, contending for the 
 same great object, long stood together in urging 
 the very principles on which the Government of 
 the United States now insists. They are both con- 
 tending for the freedom of the seas. The Govern- 
 ment of the United States will continue to contend 
 for that freedom without compromise and at any 
 cost. It invites the practical co-operation of the 
 Imperial German Government at this time, when 
 
THE FREEDOM OF THE SEAS 75 
 
 co-operation may accomplish much and this great 
 common object can be most strikingly and effec- 
 tively achieved. The Imperial German Govern- 
 ment express the hope that this object may be 
 accomplished even before the present war ends. 
 It can be. The Government of the United States 
 not only feels obliged to insist upon it, by whom- 
 soever it is violated or ignored, in the protection 
 of its own citizens, but it is also deeply interested 
 in seeing it made practicable between the 
 belligerents themselves. It holds itself ready at 
 any time to act as a common friend who may 
 be privileged to suggest a way." 
 
 In spite of the outrage of sinking the Lasitania, 
 President Wilson is still ready to give Germany 
 credit for desiring the freedom of the seas and 
 still remembers the early treaty with Prussian 
 Frederic, guaranteeing exemption of the private 
 property of Americans and Prussians from the 
 operations of war between their countries. 
 Germany, in spite of her terrible works, was 
 saved from utter disgrace in American eyes by 
 that old faith in the freedom of the seas which 
 she still professed. England's works might be 
 less heinous and even relatively good ; but the 
 faith was not in her. And so in spite of the great 
 consideration shown by this country for the interests 
 of the United States and the woeful lack of respect 
 for the United States and for ordinary humanity 
 shown by Germany, the two countries are treated 
 by the United States as equally at fault. And 
 in pari delicto potior est conditio defendentis. 
 From which it may be inferred how dangerous 
 
76 THE FREEDOM OF THE SEAS 
 
 would have been the relations between this country 
 and the United States if Germany had not, with 
 a stupidity cloaked but not concealed by her in- 
 humanity, deliberately put herself in the wrong 
 by sowing* mines broadcast and by torpedoing 
 merchantmen on the high seas for no offence 
 known to international law or morality. 
 
 No doubt the difficulties of our position were 
 exaggerated by the somewhat unfortunate methods 
 of retaliation adopted by this country. We could 
 have secured precisely the same results by de- 
 claring a blockade of German ports, by extending 
 the doctrine of continuous voyage so as to cover 
 imports of contraband and quasi-contraband 
 through neutral ports by Germany, and, lastly, if 
 these steps were insufficient, by extending our list 
 of contraband. Mr. Asquith's announced inten- 
 tion not to allow our embargo to be embarrassed 
 by " juridical niceties " hardly became a nation 
 which was defending the idea of law in inter- 
 national affairs. The law cannot be distinguished 
 from the forms which he proposed quite unneces- 
 sarily to set aside. But whatever our Govern- 
 ment had done, there would have been great diffi- 
 culty in extending our belligerent rights so as to 
 deal Germany a really serious blow. The broad 
 fact is that but for Germany's violations of the 
 law she might have escaped all serious injury to 
 her economic life from the operations of our fleet, 
 except such as was inseparable from the scarcity 
 of shipping and from the cessation of the earnings 
 of her great shipping companies. Every outrage 
 committed by Germany at sea was the occasion of 
 
THE FREEDOM OF THE SEAS 77 
 
 a fresh accession of power to the British fleet 
 which it would not otherwise have acquired. But 
 even so, when Von Tirpitz had done the best for 
 the British Navy and the worst for his own country 
 by his blunders, it may be doubted whether the 
 British Navy by its war on German commerce 
 appreciably shortened the war or indeed inflicted 
 much more injury on Germany than our own 
 shipping received. "If we look at the example 
 of former periods," said Lord Palmerston in a 
 speech explaining" the Declaration of Paris to the 
 Liverpool Chamber of Commerce, " we shall not 
 find that any powerful country was ever vanquished 
 through the losses of individuals. It is the con- 
 flict of armies by land and of fleets by sea that 
 decides the great contests of nations." 
 
 To sum up, the conclusions so far reached are 
 these : First, if no injury had been done to the 
 trade of neutrals, the British Navy would have 
 been powerless to inflict more than inconvenience 
 on the economic life of Germany— an inconvenience 
 trifling by comparison with that caused by the 
 mobilization of the Army. Secondly, even after 
 Germany's violation of the laws of war and of the 
 rights of neutrals had led to the retaliatory 
 embargo on all German trade, it is doubtful 
 whether the war of our fleet on private commerce 
 has had any appreciable effect on the duration of 
 the war. Thirdly, whatever conclusions may be 
 drawn from this war must hold with redoubled 
 force of any other conceivable war. The Germanic 
 Allies in this war are islanded in European con- 
 flict. Of all the countries of Europe which have 
 
78 THE FREEDOM OF THE SEAS 
 
 a seaboard and interior communications with 
 Germany only five — Roumania, Norway and 
 Sweden, Denmark and Holland — are neutral. In 
 no other possible war could the proportion of 
 neutral coastline to the area affected by the war 
 be so small. It is obvious that a war on German 
 commerce with France as a neutral or on France 
 with Germany as a neutral would be impracticable. 
 We could not blockade a great and powerful 
 neutral country ; yet without such blockade our 
 Navy could hardly touch the enemy's oversea com- 
 merce. The damage to the enemy's commerce 
 by our naval operations is therefore greater in 
 this than it could be in any other conceivable 
 war, and if it is small in this war, it would 
 be quite negligible in any other. On the other 
 hand, if the injury of a commercial blockade 
 against a continental country is to amount to 
 anything, it can only do so at the cost of 
 injury to neutrals and to the prejudice of our 
 politics in regard to them. In a sentence, the seas 
 are too free for the exercise of really effectual 
 naval war on commerce, not free enough to 
 satisfy neutrals or to establish the British Navy 
 as the acknowledged champion of international law 
 and equity at sea. As Englishmen of all shades 
 of political opinion have agreed, from Cobden to 
 Mr. Gibson Bowles, from Bright to Mr. F. E. 
 Smith, we must go forward or backward. The 
 law cannot remain suspended between the ancient 
 and the modern worlds as it was when this war 
 broke out. 
 
 Although the blunders of Von Tirpitz had 
 
THE FREEDOM OF THE SEAS 79 
 
 enabled this country to go back a century in its 
 practice and to wage this war on rules even stricter 
 than those of the Napoleonic days, a permanent 
 practice cannot be founded on the abnormal and 
 transient justification of German excesses. The 
 alternative policy of going forward merits a 
 closer examination. What are we to understand 
 by the phrase " the freedom of the seas "? It 
 will not do to say that it means freedom for 
 Germany to do as she pleases, for as the quotation 
 already made from President Wilson's dispatches 
 shows, it is possible to approve of the idea even 
 while protesting against Germany's right to do 
 as she pleases. Moreover, Sir Edward Grey has 
 himself declared that the idea may well form the 
 subject of negotiation when the war is over. 
 
 By the freedom of the seas is meant the 
 exemption of commerce from the operations of 
 war so long as it does not take part in them. 
 This exemption is to apply to the commerce of 
 belligerent as well as of neutral countries ; and 
 the proviso that the exemption is forfeited if com- 
 merce takes a part in military operations con- 
 templates as a necessary corollary an exacter and 
 probably a wider definition of contraband by 
 international agreement. There is no freedom so 
 long as enemy's private property is liable to capture 
 at sea under its own flag ; and the phrase there- 
 fore at the least implies the acceptance of the 
 reform which the United States have persistently 
 advocated since Franklin's day. But the principle 
 may imply more. It may be found on examina- 
 tion to involve the abolition of commercial as 
 
80 THE FREEDOM OF THE SEAS 
 
 distinguished from naval blockade. This dis- 
 tinction would need very careful working out in 
 detail, but two tests have been suggested: " First, 
 if a port is a naval arsenal or is sheltering the 
 ships of the enemy, its blockade is a naval 
 operation and is permissible. Secondly, if a port, 
 though not an arsenal or a place of arms, is 
 being used as a basis for 5 the operations of the 
 hostile fleet, or if it is invested by land by an 
 armed force and the blockade may be held to 
 be a completion by sea of the siege lines, in such 
 case again the blockade is permissible. Non- 
 combatants may suffer from such blockade, but 
 their suffering is incidental to the scheme of 
 military operations and not its whole or main 
 object, as in commercial blockade proper." " 
 This, then, is the complete conception of the free- 
 dom of commerce on the seas, as understood by 
 Cobden ; but inability to accept the whole would 
 not preclude this country, if it saw fit, from 
 accepting a part. The United States would 
 certainly be willing to accept a part. 
 
 The principles underlying such proposals for 
 securing the freedom of the seas are broad and 
 simple, and correspond somewhat closely with the 
 heads of our quarrel with German militarism. 
 German militarism is accused, and justly, of violat- 
 ing the rights of neutrals. But we have seen 
 that any naval war on commerce, if it is to be 
 effective, must necessarily interfere with neutral 
 
 1 " The Freedom of Commerce in War." By Mancunian. A 
 pre-war pamphlet issued by the National Reform Union. 
 
THE FREEDOM OF THE SEAS 81 
 
 rights of trade. It takes two to make a bargain- 
 that is to say, to trade ; and any interference with 
 the trade of one party is necessarily an interference 
 with the trade of the other, and this other (trade 
 between belligerents being suspended by war) 
 is always a neutral. It would seem, there- 
 fore, to follow that our advocacy of the rights of 
 neutrals in land warfare requires as its com- 
 plement the advocacy of their rights on the sea. 
 Secondly, German militarism is accused of neglect- 
 ing the distinction between combatant and non- 
 combatant subjects of the enemy belligerent. To 
 some extent, the confiscation of enemy property at 
 sea does the same. Looting on land is forbidden by 
 law ; on sea it is sanctioned by law, but ought, if 
 this principle of distinguishing between com- 
 batants and non-combatants is to be enforced, to 
 be prohibited. Again, the abolition of the right 
 of capture would in effect internationalize three- 
 quarters of the surface of the globe and place 
 it under the rule of law. Ego terrce dominus lex 
 maris, in Justinian's phrase. There is some in- 
 compatibility between our denunciation of Ger- 
 many's preponderant military strength as a menace 
 to Europe and our assertion of our right to 
 form a Navy double the strength of any other. 
 Lastly, what is the radical vice of 'German 
 militarism which we are combating but its denial 
 of all individual and private rights where these 
 conflict with the will of the State? It insists on 
 war being a relation, not between State and State, 
 but between the individuals composing the States. 
 Articles 33-6 of the Declaration of London, in 
 
 6 
 
82 THE FREEDOM OF THE SEAS 
 
 laying down the rules of conditional contraband, 
 draw a distinction between civilian and State uses 
 of an article of import. How can that distinction 
 be kept up in dealing with a State which when 
 it is at war claims the life and services of every- 
 one without distinction? Even in England it has 
 become a commonplace that every one is a com- 
 batant, if not in the firing line then in the munitions 
 workshop, and if not in the workshop then 
 at his private work, increasing the taxable wealth 
 of the country. The system which the necessities 
 of the war has forced upon England is part of the 
 permanent organization of the State in Germany, 
 and this is what we understand by " continental 
 militarism." It is not reasonable that Germany, 
 who maintains this system on land, and forces 
 her neighbours to adopt it, too, should claim to 
 enforce the rival system on the other element. 
 As against Germany, we are fully justified in 
 maintaining the full vigour of " navalism " as a 
 counterpoise to her militarism. But such a 
 counterpoise of evils is neither in our own nor 
 in the general interest. There is a clear distinction 
 between the end and the means that we take to 
 the end. The end, as set up by Mr. Asquith, is 
 the destruction of militarism. The attainment of 
 that end necessarily implies, if we are sincere, 
 the abandonment of " navalism " — that is to say, 
 the complete immunity, so far as rules of war 
 can secure it, of neutrals and of non-com- 
 batants from the operations of naval war. And 
 if this immunity would help us to secure the 
 overthrow of German militarism, we should not 
 
THE FREEDOM OF THE SEAS 83 
 
 wait till the end of the war to concede it or to 
 promise to concede it. 
 
 The same conclusions may be reached by other 
 directions of thought. If it be true that this war 
 has made relations of closer friendship with the 
 United States one of the first of our political 
 necessities, the story of the negotiations between 
 the United States and Germany has revealed 
 the freedom of the seas as an indispensable con- 
 dition of that closer friendship. It may be, too, 
 that just as the war on land has shown the excesses 
 of German militarism to be not only crimes but 
 blunders, so, too, the full history of the war will 
 show that our attempts to wage war on German 
 commerce have not materially influenced its pro- 
 gress, but have caused us as much loss as we 
 have inflicted. These arguments, however, may 
 be developed with more certainty when the com- 
 plete story of the war is before us. But though 
 they may, and probably will, confirm conclusions 
 reached by the argument based on political 
 principle and international justice, they cannot in 
 any case invalidate them. 
 
THE 
 
 OPEN 
 
 DOOR 
 
THE OPEN DOOR 
 
 By J. A. HOBSON 
 
 There can be no security of durable peace unless 
 the chief economic causes of discord among nations 
 are removed. For though the conscious motives 
 which incite nations to prepare for war and to 
 engage in it may be self-defence, the claims of 
 nationality, the sentiments of liberty and of 
 humanity, the maintenance of public law, behind 
 these motives always lies the pressure of powerful 
 economic needs and interests. It is idle to seek to 
 determine the relative strength and importance of 
 these economic and non-economic factors. We 
 need not accept the cynical maxim that " all 
 modern wars are for markets " in order to realize 
 the part which commerce and finance play in 
 fomenting international disputes. But history 
 makes it manifest that at all times the contacts 
 and conflicts between different nations are chiefly 
 due to the attempts of members of one nation, 
 or tribe, or other group, to seek its livelihood 
 or gain beyond the confines of its own country. 
 Migrations or plundering raids, conducted under 
 the pressure of congested population and scarcity 
 of food, impulsive overflows from thickly peopled 
 into sparsely peopled areas, were chief causes pf 
 
88 THE OPEN DOOR 
 
 strife among primitive peoples, and must still be 
 regarded as the deepest underlying sources of 
 disturbance in many parts of the world. The large 
 highly organized commerce of modern times, taken 
 in conjunction with extractive and manufacturing 
 arts that enable vastly increased yields of foods 
 and other material requisites of life to be got 
 from restricted areas of land, greatly abates the 
 force of these violent overflows. But this com- 
 mercial intercourse between nations makes the 
 inhabitants of every country far more dependent 
 upon persons and events outside the area of 
 their own country than was formerly the case. 
 This divergence between political and economic 
 areas of interest and control is of the 
 first significance in understanding our problem. 
 It enables us to perceive a certain unreality or 
 inadequacy in the stress laid upon " nationality " 
 or " political autonomy " as the basis of a satis- 
 factory settlement. No measure of political 
 independence, however complete, could secure for 
 any moderately progressive people the freedom 
 which they require. For every people needs 
 access to the produce and the markets of other 
 peoples, the right to buy and sell abroad on reason- 
 able terms. The idea of an economically self-con- 
 tained State has long been obsolescent. Though 
 militarist States have sometimes grasped and even 
 realized the possibility of reverting; to a self- 
 sufficing economic basis during a period of war, 
 the normal life of every modern nation rests upon 
 a basis of large and expanding opportunities out- 
 side its political area. 
 
THE OPEN DOOR 89 
 
 Every modern industrial nation, with a large 
 and growing population, demands that its Govern- 
 ment shall assist it in securing and maintaining 
 ample liberties and opportunities of access to the 
 economic resources of other countries. It seeks 
 three economic liberties. First comes liberty of 
 trade, the right of access for its traders and manu- 
 facturers to buy and sell in foreign markets without 
 excessive or oppressive barriers in the shape of 
 tariffs, tolls, fines, or other obstacles or prohibi- 
 tions. As a country becomes more thickly peopled, 
 and so tends to specialize more closely upon certain 
 productive occupations especially adapted to its 
 natural resources, its working population, and its 
 situation, it becomes more and more dependent for 
 some of its essentials of livelihood upon external 
 supplies. So far as foreign trade is conducted 
 between the members of civilized nations, the 
 mutual advantages of such exchange afford a strong, 
 though not always a sufficiently strong, basis for 
 free intercourse. Cobden was not wrong when he 
 insisted that the reciprocal gains of free interchange 
 of goods formed a genuine guarantee of peace. 
 How, then, does it come to pass that most civilized 
 nations have since sought to place irksome restric- 
 tions upon this intercourse, and that a diagnosis 
 of most modern wars shows that the chief 
 directing motive is a pressure for markets? No 
 adequate answer to this question is possible, until 
 account is taken of the growing importance of the 
 economic relations of civilized with uncivilized or 
 undeveloped countries. For it is in their dealings 
 with these backward countries that trade invites 
 
90 THE OPEN DOOR 
 
 economic and political interference, and evokes 
 international antagonism. Though political con- 
 siderations, missionary enterprise, and other activi- 
 ties of an adventurous people, appreciably affect 
 these dealings, colonization and imperial expansion 
 are essentially economic processes. They originate 
 from simple trade. 
 
 For the successful conduct of trade, casual 
 visitations of merchant vessels needed to be 
 supplemented by permanent settlements, with a 
 view to the orderly collection of goods and the 
 application of the stimuli, inducements, or pres- 
 sures needed to get natives to perform the 
 necessary work and to acquire the habits of 
 consuming the articles of foreign barter. So the 
 foreign land and labour fall more and more under 
 white men's control, and the cultivation of sugar, 
 coffee, tobacco, and other crops supplements the 
 earlier rude processes of barter and collection. 
 Roads, harbours, and other large permanent works 
 must be undertaken, and permanent government, 
 half economic, half political, set on foot. Exploita- 
 tion of the mineral and other natural resources 
 leads to organized arrangement for their profitable 
 working. Large capital is invested in mines and 
 railways, and in cities suited to the requirements 
 of white officials and business men. 
 
 Two important changes have now come to pass. 
 Simple trade between the peoples of the two 
 countries is no longer the chief consideration. The 
 backward country has become an area of profitable 
 exploitation and investment. Development and in- 
 vestment companies supplement and direct the 
 
THE OPEN DOOR 91 
 
 trading interests, and financial schemes for opera- 
 ting gold mines, rubber and tea plantations, and 
 for building railroads, are hatched by little groups 
 of financiers in London, Paris, or Berlin. The 
 country is now primarily an area for investment, 
 not a mere outlet for the sale of goods. The two 
 processes, of course, are intimately related, for in- 
 vested capital goes out chiefly in the form of 
 goods, the engines, rails, mining plant, and other 
 stores which the developing process requires. But 
 financiers are henceforth in chief control, and 
 monetary operations control the fate of the country 
 thus " penetrated." This economic change affects 
 political relations. White traders and manufac- 
 turers have always utilized the services of their 
 Governments to procure access to foreign markets, 
 sometimes by force of arms, as in the case of the 
 Opium War with China. But as soon as a back- 
 ward country has become an area of investment, 
 political interference is apt to be more exigent. 
 The processes of economic development involve 
 the presence of white managers, engineers, and 
 other " outlanders," as well as the control of 
 native labour and various interferences with native 
 habits. Native unrest discloses a government in- 
 competent to the protection of life and property. 
 The white man's government must intervene, and 
 a " sphere of interest " passes into a protectorate, 
 whose political control is apt to become tighter 
 in accordance with the needs of the economic 
 situation, as interpreted by financiers at home and 
 "men upon the spot." Though other political 
 and genuinely humanitarian tendencies commingle 
 
92 THE OPEN DOOR 
 
 with the economic drive of events, the latter, being 
 consciously exercised by business men with a clear 
 view of what they want, is the determinant factor. 
 The recent history of colonial and imperial develop- 
 ment on the part of European Powers everywhere 
 furnishes a convincing demonstration of the 
 powerful secret, or occasionally open, direction of 
 foreign policy by financial and commercial interests 
 working in sympathy with political aspirations. 
 Egypt, the Transvaal, Morocco, Tripoli, Persia, 
 Mexico, China afford recent illustrations of this 
 direction of foreign policy by capitalist interests. 
 The process finds, of course, its most refined 
 expression in the struggles of rival banking groups 
 within the several capitalistic countries to finance 
 the Governments of Russia, Persia, or China and 
 to use their respective Foreign Offices to push their 
 profitable projects. 
 
 From the standpoint of the developed economic 
 nation with great reserves available for foreign 
 trade and investment, and with growing dependence 
 upon foreign sources of supply, the political- 
 economic process here described appears under the 
 guise of economic liberty. This will be evident 
 from our British outlook, for we have gone so 
 much farther along this road than any other nation. 
 Our effective " freedom," the opportunity to satisfy 
 our needs and tastes, to supply ourselves with 
 the requisite variety of foods and other articles for 
 our progressive standards of life, to procure the 
 goods necessary to sustain our industries and to 
 promote our material prosperity, rests upon free, 
 large, regular, and growing access to the resources 
 
THE OPEN DOOR 93 
 
 of other lands and upon full opportunities to assist 
 in their discovery and development. In this we 
 need " freedom of the sea/' or safe conduct for 
 our merchant ships over the waters of the world, 
 the right of entry into foreign ports, " freedom 
 of trade " in the sense of the secure use of trade 
 routes and markets upon equal terms with other 
 foreigners, and " freedom of investment," or the 
 equal right to assist in the profitable development 
 of countries which are in need of capital. In pro- 
 portion as we are restricted in any of these oppor- 
 tunities we suffer a loss of economic liberty, which 
 in the last resort might mean a loss of life itself. 
 What holds of Great Britain holds in different 
 degrees of all other developed or developing 
 peoples. Their effective freedom requires free out- 
 lets and equal opportunities beyond the confines 
 of their own political area. 
 
 Associated with the claims for equal opportuni- 
 ties for commerce and investment is the claim 
 for freedom of migration. If capital is properly 
 to play its part in developing sparsely peopled 
 countries, labour should be free to enter them. 
 Laissez-aller is demanded alike in the interests 
 of capital and of labour. Every restriction upon 
 the free flow of labour from thickly into thinly 
 populated lands, from lower-waged into higher- 
 waged areas, is prima facie an interference with" 
 the liberty of workers to improve their conditions 
 and with the best development of the world's re- 
 sources. As knowledge of economic opportunities 
 and facilities of transport are enlarged, this liberty 
 of migration is more highly valued, and its 
 
94 THE OPEN DOOR 
 
 denial or restriction is a more frequent and graver 
 source of international friction. 
 
 These economic liberties of trade, investment, 
 and migration, which are so essential to the pros- 
 perity or even the existence of certain industrially 
 advanced or over-populated countries, are unfor- 
 tunately found to conflict with the " rights " of 
 the rulers or inhabitants of other countries whom 
 these liberties affect. By tariffs, bounties, or pro- 
 hibitions, goods are refused free admittance to 
 profitable markets ; trade routes by land or sea are 
 barred ; legal restrictions are put upon the acquisi- 
 tion or use of land or the control of industries 
 by foreign capital and management ; monopolies 
 or privileges are assigned by favour, corruption, or 
 political " pull " ; alien laws preclude the intro- 
 duction of the necessary supplies of labour. 
 Everywhere " liberties " of economic expansion 
 claimed by some nations are confronted by 
 " liberties " of exclusion claimed by others. 
 
 These conflicts of " liberty " underlie the armed 
 preparations and the wars of the modern world. 
 In order to give point to what otherwise may seem a 
 vague generality, I will cite an interesting analysis 
 of the deeper causes of the present war as they 
 present themselves to thoughtful business men in 
 a neutral country l : — 
 
 Consider the situation of the present belligerents : — 
 
 Serbia wants a window on the sea, and is shut out by Austrian 
 influence. 
 
 1 Memorandum of the Reform Club of New York. 
 
THE OPEN DOOR 95 
 
 Austria wants an outlet in the East, Constantinople or 
 Salonika. 
 
 Russia wants ice-free ports in the Baltic and Pacific, Con- 
 stantinople, and a free outlet from the Black Sea into the 
 Mediterranean. 
 
 Germany claims to be hemmed in by a ring of steel, and 
 needs the facilities of Antwerp and Rotterdam for the Rhine 
 Valley commerce, security against being shut out from the East 
 by commercial restrictions in the overland route, and freedom 
 of the seas for her foreign commerce. 
 
 England must receive uninterrupted supplies of food and raw 
 materials, and her oversea communications must be maintained. 
 
 This is also true of France, Germany, Belgium, and other 
 European countries. 
 
 Japan, like Germany, must have opportunity for her expanding 
 population, industries, and commerce. 
 
 The foreign policies of the nations still at peace are also 
 determined by trade relations. Our own country desires the 
 open door in the East. 
 
 South and North American States and Scandinavia are already 
 protesting against the war's interference with their ocean trade. 
 
 All nations that are not in possession of satisfactory harbours 
 on the sea demand outlets, and cannot and ought not to be 
 contented till they get them. 
 
 Nations desiring to extend their colonial enterprises entertain 
 these ambitions for commercial reasons, either to possess 
 markets from which they cannot be excluded, or to develop 
 such markets for themselves, and be able to exclude others from 
 them when they so determine. 
 
 If any reasonably safe basis of settlement is 
 to be found, some reconciliation of these opposing 
 " liberties " must be discovered. To some thinkers, 
 reared in the older school of economic harmonies, 
 
96 THE OPEN DOOR 
 
 salvation lies in the removal of all political and 
 legal restrictions, and a reversion of the Foreign 
 Offices of all countries to a policy of non-inter- 
 vention. It is with them a plain and simple 
 application of the principles of individual liberty. 
 It should, they hold, be possible to convince the 
 "peoples and Governments of every country that 
 their advantage lies in admitting on terms of 
 absolute equality the trade, the capital, the labour- 
 power of other countries, and in giving foreigners 
 every facility for assisting in the development of 
 the national resources. In this utmost extension of 
 economic internationalism the greatest prosperity 
 of the world and of each constituent nation will 
 be found. Though traders and investors are 
 primarily "out for private gain, and not for any 
 increase of the wealth of their nation or of the 
 world, their enterprise will incidentally but neces- 
 sarily secure the wider economic welfare. It must, 
 however, be objected that the principles and prac- 
 tices of most; highly developed States are so 
 strongly committed to fiscal Protection and to other 
 uses of political power for the furtherance of 
 foreign trade, as to render any early hope of an 
 acceptance of complete economic liberty chimerical. 
 The financial position of every belligerent country 
 after this war must render any lowering of tariffs, 
 involving sacrifice of revenue, impracticable, to say 
 nothing of the strong disposition to seek present 
 security, at the expense of opulence, in closer 
 national self-sufficiency. It will, I think, be recog- 
 nized that the war will have checked for the time 
 being the movement towards Free Trade among the 
 
THE OPEN DOOR 97 
 
 developed nations which was discernible in recent 
 years, and that its renewal will depend upon the 
 necessarily slow process of establishing general 
 confidence in arrangements for a pacific future. 
 
 If, then, liberty and equality of economic oppor- 
 tunities form an essential of any lasting settlement, 
 the early application of the policy must lie in agree- 
 ments for the commercial and financial development 
 of extra-European countries and markets. Suppos- 
 ing that the eight Great Powers, together with the 
 smaller developed European countries, could come 
 to an agreement for the equal admission of their 
 trade and capital to all colonial possessions, pro- 
 tectorates, or spheres of influence, present or pros- 
 pective, not merely would the gravest causes of 
 future antagonism be removed, but substantial new 
 bonds of community of international interest would 
 be provided. 
 
 14 World-power," " place in the sun," " freedom 
 of the seas " — the three phrases which inspire the 
 aggressive policy of Germany — derive most of the 
 potency of their appeal from the sense of constric- 
 tion which German industrial and commercial men 
 experienced as they sought new outlets in the world 
 for their produce, their capital, and their enter- 
 prises. Prussian militarism, the doctrines of 
 Treitzschke and Bernhardi, the expansive claims of 
 German " Kultur," would have been ineffective had 
 they not been supported by the feeling of restricted 
 enterprise and thwarted ambition which led large 
 numbers of the business men to support the Flotten 
 Verein and the pushful foreign policy it indicated. 
 Though the language of Welt-politik, of course, 
 
 7 
 
98 THE OPEN DOOR 
 
 had its appeal to the sentimental patriot in terms of 
 territory and of political aggrandizement, expand- 
 ing markets and profits were the leit-motif in Ger- 
 man as in other imperialism. This war is for 
 Germany in its essence a great economic project, 
 designed to break down the barriers which impeded 
 what her business classes deemed the legitimate 
 expansion of their enterprise. Late in achieving 
 industrial development on modern lines, Germany 
 found herself forestalled in all part9 of the New 
 World suitable for genuine colonization, and in 
 most of the tropical or sub -tropical lands with 
 known rich resources and available supplies of 
 native labour. As her industries came to yield 
 larger surpluses for export trade, and her needs 
 of foreign supplies of foods and materials became 
 more urgent, this lack of the preferential markets, 
 with which other competing industrial nations had 
 provided themselves in their colonies and protec- 
 torates, and the fears lest the growing intensity of 
 competition should close to them the open markets 
 of the British Empire, served to whet her resent- 
 ment against the existing arrangements, and 
 were a formidable weapon in the hands of aggres- 
 sive militarism. 
 
 It will no doubt be said that such an interpreta- 
 tion of their situation was a foolish one. Germany 
 was, in fact, advancing in industrial development 
 and in wealth faster than any other nation ; Her 
 foreign trade, based on cheapness, on quality, and 
 on skilful marketing, was rapidly expanding, and 
 she had no serious grounds for fearing any check 
 upon her prosperity. No people ought to have 
 
THE OPEN DOOR 99 
 
 been able to realize more fully the truth of the 
 saying that you do not need to own a country 
 in order to trade profitably with it. Are Germans, 
 then, the victims of a mere illusion, to the effect 
 that imperialism is a commercially profitable career 
 for a nation? If they are, it is an illusion shared 
 by all the other nations which have embarked upon 
 the policy of territorial aggrandizement. Great 
 Britain is sated with empire, mainly the result of 
 pushful trading ; France, Italy, Holland believe 
 themselves to derive great commercial advantages 
 from their colonies ; economic exploitation has 
 underlain the recent experiments of Japan and the 
 United States in the acquisition of oversea 
 territory. 
 
 To dispel an illusion so widely prevalent and 
 so firmly held will not prove an easy enterprise. 
 The first step towards doing so is to recognize 
 in what sense it is and in what sense it is not an 
 illusion. When a powerful civilized State annexes 
 or assumes political control over an undeveloped 
 country in Africa, or a group of Pacific islands, 
 securing internal order and enabling white traders 
 and planters to live there safely and conduct their 
 business, it is generally true that this enlargement 
 of economic opportunities brings an increase of 
 wealth for the world at large. It is also usually 
 the case that the lion's share of these economic 
 gains, whether in the shape of trade or of lucra- 
 tive investment, falls to members of the nation 
 which has taken on the work of "Empire." For, 
 though the doctrine that " trade follows the flag " 
 has been stated in an exaggerated form, it con- 
 
ioo THE OPEN DOOR 
 
 tains a considerable element of truth even in cases 
 where political control is not avowedly used to 
 secure an exclusive or a preferential market. 
 Though Free Trade prevails throughout the British 
 Empire (with the exception of the self-governing 
 dominions), political dominion and prestige are 
 undoubtedly favourable to British trade and British 
 capital in the work of development which is carried 
 on. Imperialism everywhere proceeds by the 
 mutual support of politics and commerce. But 
 the recognition of the commercial utility of the flag 
 by no means implies that Imperialism is neces- 
 sarily or normally a profitable economic policy for 
 the nation that pursues it. For the gains that 
 accrue to the nation as a whole, including the 
 advantages its trade enjoys over those enjoyed by 
 other trading nations, are usually more than 
 balanced by the expenses of government, including 
 the costs and risks, direct and indirect, of the 
 policy of Imperial aggrandizement. Even our 
 Empire, prima facie the most prosperous the world 
 has known, would almost certainly be found, by 
 any complete statement of the credit and debit 
 account, not to be a profitable business proposi- 
 tion. Certainly the expansion of the last genera- 
 tion, inclusive of the costs of acquiring, maintaining, 
 and defending the new territories, would be found 
 to have cost enormously more than any present or 
 prospective addition it brings to the wealth of 
 our nation. Regarded from the standpoint of a 
 nation, the whole policy of territorial expansion 
 and the forceful foreign policy which it involves 
 are bad business. But from the standpoint of 
 
THE OPEN DOOR 101 
 
 certain financial, commercial, and manufacturing 
 interests within the nation it is good business. For 
 the political and military risks and costs of this 
 colonial and foreign policy fall upon the nation as 
 a whole, while the advantages accrue to favoured 
 individuals . So long, therefore, as groups of business 
 men within each nation are permitted to use the 
 diplomacy and the armed forces of their State to 
 push their trade with foreign countries, to secure 
 for them concessions, spheres of exploitation, and 
 other business privileges, and to protect and im- 
 prove the trade and investments which they may 
 have established by their private enterprise for 
 their private profit, these perilous conflicts of 
 foreign policy are likely to be a fatal obstacle to 
 any scheme of international settlement. The roots 
 of this disease of imperial expansion, which has 
 been poisoning' the foreign policy of all the Great 
 Powers, lie in the excessive political and economic 
 power of modern capitalism. The only radical 
 cure is the progress of democratic control within 
 each nation. A genuinely self-governing nation 
 would not permit its foreign relations to be deter- 
 mined by the pressure of a group of bankers, or 
 of financiers and contractors, of shipowners and 
 merchants, conspiring with ambitious, jealous, or 
 suspicious statesmen and diplomatists to embark 
 upon new, perilous, and expensive projects in 
 countries which do not belong to them. The de- 
 terminant acts of the foreign policy of every civi- 
 lized State are secretly influenced, and usually 
 governed, by the strong will and clear-sighted 
 purpose of business men, who wish to make money 
 
102 THE OPEN DOOR 
 
 for themselves by persuading other people into 
 putting their money into projects for making rail- 
 ways, developing minerals, oil, rubber, nitrates, 
 etc., in countries which are backward and desti- 
 tute of capital. The powerful pressure of financial 
 and commercial interests along these lines of 
 foreign and colonial policy is, however, largely 
 an economic necessity due to a distribution of 
 wealth as between the various classes of the 
 advanced nations which, by restricting the quan- 
 tity of capital that can find profitable investment 
 at home, drives too large a surplus to seek over- 
 sea investment. A distribution of wealth or 
 income more favourable to the labouring popula- 
 tion of each country would, by raising the national 
 standard of consumption in the body of the people, 
 afford employment to a larger capital in the staple 
 industries at home, while at the same time it re- 
 duced the proportion of that surplus wealth in the 
 shape of rents and profits which is automatically 
 saved and accumulated in the hands of the 
 capitalist class. The improved efficiency of the 
 industrial classes, resulting from a better distribu- 
 tion of wealth, might indeed produce so large an 
 increase of wealth as to maintain the aggregate 
 of savings as large as before, but the increased 
 demand for commodities exercised by the workers 
 would keep a larger share of the new capital at 
 home, and would so proportionately relieve the 
 pressure of that competition for foreign areas of 
 investment which we see to be the economic root 
 of international discord. 
 
 Peace in the future cannot be secured without 
 
THE OPEN DOOR 103 
 
 some such advance in the arts of political and 
 economic democracy as shall release the foreign 
 policy of the several nations from the control of 
 private interests engaged in pushing for profit- 
 able markets, concessions, and spheres of business 
 interests, and in lending money to or providing 
 armaments for foreign Governments. 
 
 But, it will be said, this progress in fully 
 enlightened popular government within each State 
 must be a slow process. Meantime what lines of 
 safety can be laid down for the present abatement 
 of economic conflicts? 
 
 The proposal that Governments shall agree to 
 a simple policy of " Hands off," leaving their 
 " nationals " free to undertake any foreign trade 
 or investments and work of development they 
 choose entirely at their own discretion and their 
 own risk, is quite impracticable. 
 
 An agreement of the Powers to proceed no 
 farther with the policy of political absorption of 
 backward countries, and with the political assist- 
 ance hitherto given to private businesses for 
 purposes of trade and finance, could furnish no 
 possible basis for a pacific future. For, since 
 most of the desirable areas of profitable exploita- 
 tion have already been appropriated, and are in 
 actual process of economic absorption, no equality 
 of opportunity could be provided by an arrange- 
 ment that would divide the Powers into two 
 groups, one satisfied, the other unsatisfied, and 
 would preclude the latter for ever from obtaining 
 satisfaction. Great Britain, and, perhaps, France, 
 already gorged with Empire, might be willing to 
 
104 THE OPEN DOOR 
 
 assent to such a compact, but could Germany be 
 expected to do so? Could Russia or Japan? 
 
 No less impracticable would the proposal be 
 as applied to the unabsorbed portion of the earth. 
 The notion that the Governments of the civilized 
 States could safely or advantageously leave the 
 further processes of economic development to the 
 free play of private profiteering enterprise among 
 their trading and financial classes must be rejected 
 as soon as its meaning is realized. Such a policy 
 of naked laissez-faire is quite inadmissible. A 
 deliberate acceptance of the theory that bands of 
 armed buccaneers calling themselves traders are 
 free to rob defenceless savages, to poison them 
 with alcohol or opium, to seize their lands, impose 
 forced labour, and establish a slave trade is incon- 
 ceivable. Such laissez-faire would soon convert 
 any rich, unabsorbed corner of the world into a 
 Congo, a San Thome, or a Putumayo, tempered 
 only by the fears of native risings and massacres. 
 The mere abstinence from political intervention on 
 the part of civilized States would plunge every un- 
 appropriated country into sheer anarchy. But, even 
 if the Governments or peoples of certain unde- 
 veloped countries were able successfully to resist 
 the entrance of foreign trade and capital, and to 
 refuse all access to strangers, this is not a policy 
 in which other peoples, or their Governments, can 
 or ought to acquiesce. No reasonable interpreta- 
 tion of rights of nationality or independence can 
 justify the inhabitants of a country in refusing both 
 themselves to develop the resources of the country 
 and to permit others to do so. Such absolute jus 
 
THE OPEN DOOR 105 
 
 atendi et abutendi is no more defensible as a right 
 of national property than it is of individual. The 
 wandering tribes of hunters or herdsmen who may 
 form the sparse population of fertile lands, capable 
 of sustaining large settled communities and con- 
 tributing richly to the wealth and welfare of 
 surrounding nations, cannot be permitted to 
 practise a policy of permanent exclusion. The 
 deposits of nitrates, rubber, copper, or other world- 
 wealth which they contain the world has a right 
 to insist shall not remain unutilized. 
 
 The problem is twofold : first, how to secure 
 the reasonable rights of the inhabitants of such 
 undeveloped countries against a policy of plunder, 
 extinction of life, or servitude imposed by the 
 people of a powerful aggressive State ; secondly, 
 how to secure equal opportunities to the members 
 of various advanced nations to participate in the 
 work of developing the natural resources and the 
 trade of these backward countries. 
 
 History shows that the former issue, primarily 
 one of justice and humanity, is intimately bound 
 up with the latter, the more distinctively economic, 
 issue. The peace of the world is dependent upon 
 both. The most ruthless acts of annexation and 
 the most wasteful practices of exploitation have 
 been due to the policy of exclusive possession and 
 protection imposed by the Government of a 
 colonizing nation in the short-sighted interest of 
 particular groups of traders or syndicates of capi- 
 talists. If the Governments of all civilized nations 
 would consent to give equal rights of commerce 
 and equal facilities of investment and develop- 
 
106 THE OPEN DOOR 
 
 mental work in their colonies and protectorates 
 to members of all nations, this single agreement 
 would go farther to secure a peaceful future for 
 the world than any other measure, such as reduc- 
 tion of armaments, general arbitration, or 
 guarantees of national integrity. For not only 
 would it greatly diminish the resentment and envy 
 with which the older colonizing Powers are regarded 
 by rising Powers, such as Germany and Japan, but 
 it would greatly modify all competition for further 
 acquisition of territory. If business interests, 
 nationally grouped, could no longer hope to gain 
 by pressing through their Foreign and Colonial 
 Offices for annexation, charters, and concessions, 
 and exclusive or preferential trading terms, the 
 chief grounds for suspicion and hostility between 
 the Governments of the Great Powers would be 
 removed. It might then be a comparatively easy 
 matter for friendly Governments to agree among 
 themselves what policy to adopt with regard to 
 still unappropriated countries, where dangerous dis- 
 order might prevail, or where the joint interests of 
 all civilized peoples justified some interference or 
 control. One method would be the establishment 
 of a joint international protectorate, exercised by 
 a Commission appointed by the permanent Inter- 
 national Council, or whatever body was entrusted 
 with the execution of the Treaty of International 
 Relations. Another would be the delegation of this 
 duty of protection by this international authority 
 to the Government of some single nation, where 
 propinquity or other special circumstances rendered 
 this course advisable. The prestige of such " im- 
 
THE OPEN DOOR 107 
 
 perialism " would not arouse much jealousy if the 
 nationals of the Power exercising it enjoyed no 
 commercial or other advantages save such incidental 
 ones as were unavoidably associated with the flag. 
 Moreover, such incidental gains could be fairly 
 apportioned by an international policy which dis- 
 tributed this work of protection and control fairly 
 among the Governments of the civilized nations. 
 Such are the general principles for the realization 
 of the Open Door. If the civilized nations 
 could be brought to assent to the early extension 
 of complete Free Trade and other free economic 
 opportunities in all their home and colonial pos- 
 sessions, this achievement of full economic inter- 
 nationalism would afford a complete security for 
 peace among the great States. But granting, as 
 we must, that the financial situation of all European 
 nations after this war, to say nothing of the political 
 antagonisms and the impulses towards national 
 economic self-sufficiency, will render any early 
 movement towards such Free Trade impossible, 
 can we not aim and hope to secure such a measure 
 of the Open Door as we have here indicated? 
 As regards equality of opportunity in existing 
 colonies and protectorates, there are two practical 
 obstacles to be overcome. One is the preferential 
 tariffs of our self-governing dominions, the other 
 those of the French colonies and protectorates. 
 Is either obstacle insuperable? Though fiscal 
 arrangements lie completely within the rights of 
 self-government enjoyed by our dominions, the 
 closer imperial relations likely to result from this 
 war ought to make it an easy matter to secure a 
 
io8 THE OPEN DOOR 
 
 withdrawal of preferences primarily conceived 
 as favours to the Mother Country, especially 
 when such withdrawal would open to them, as 
 to us, certain liberties of trade with the possessions 
 of other Powers at present withheld. 
 
 The colonial system of France is so deeply 
 rooted in Protection as to present graver difficulties. 
 But even they should not be insuperable in view of 
 the great commercial compensations and financial 
 economies which the establishment of an Open 
 Door would secure to her. Her colonial markets 
 form a small proportion of her oversea trade ; 
 most of this she would probably retain under free 
 competition by motives of affection, habit, and 
 prestige. By assenting to what might appear some 
 present sacrifice, she would secure herself against 
 the positive loss of the equal right of entrance 
 she has hitherto enjoyed into the colonies of Great 
 Britain, Germany, and Holland, and she would 
 avoid the expensive and perilous pressures towards 
 a pushful colonial policy which her financiers and 
 commercial classes have constantly exercised upon 
 her Government. 
 
 The size and value of trade preferences in exist- 
 ing colonies and protectorates ought not to be 
 able to bar acceptance of the Open Door if the 
 essential ' importance of this policy is made 
 apparent. Nor should the more definitely con- 
 structive application of the doctrine to the political 
 control and the economic exploitation of backward 
 countries not yet absorbed prove impracticable. 
 For, if economic monopolies and preferences are 
 once extracted, political imperialism becomes an 
 
THE OPEN DOOR 109 
 
 empty shell, an illusion of quantitative power con- 
 ceived in idle terms of area and population. Even 
 if we suppose that some of the distinctively political 
 and sentimental supports of colonialism and im- 
 perialism survive, they will be greatly weakened 
 in their hold of foreign policy, and, lacking the 
 pushful direction of the business man, will be un- 
 likely to engender dangerous disputes. Once 
 convert the Open Door into a genuinely constructive 
 policy of international co-operation, for the peaceful 
 development of the undeveloped resources of the 
 world, administered by impartial internationally 
 minded men in the interests of the society of nations 
 and with proper regard to the claims of the inhabi- 
 tants of backward countries, a political support 
 will have been found for that great and complex 
 but hitherto " ungoverned " system of economic 
 internationalism which has come into being during 
 recent generations. The dangerous collisions 
 between the forces of political nationalism and of 
 economic internationalism would thus be obviated, 
 not by denial of the claims of the former but by 
 the political control of the latter. 
 
THE 
 
 PARALLEL 
 OF THE 
 GREAT 
 FRENCH WAR 
 
THE PARALLEL OF THE GREAT 
 FRENCH WAR 
 
 By IRENE COOPER WILLIS 
 
 We are in a war of a peculiar nature. ... It is with an 
 armed doctrine that we are at war. . . . This new system . . . 
 in France cannot be rendered safe by any art . . . it must be 
 destroyed or — it will destroy all Europe. 
 
 Burke's " Letters on a Regicide Peace," 1796. 
 
 Over a distance of a hundred and twenty years 
 Burke's thundering phrases travel, in striking 
 accord with the denunciations of the militarism of 
 the enemy of the moment. The circumstances of 
 the two great wars — the war with revolutionary 
 France and the present war with Germany — have 
 been regarded by many people, the Prime 
 Minister l among them, as similar in their legal 
 and moral aspects. Then, as now, it has been said, 
 the war arose out of an attack upon Belgium, and 
 the challenge was accepted by the reluctant and 
 peace-loving Pitt exactly as it was accepted by 
 Mr. Asquith and Sir Edward Grey in August 
 1 91 4.2 We are told that we fought France then 
 
 1 Mr. Asquith's speech at Edinburgh, September 19, 1914. 
 
 2 The Times' Literary Supplement review of " The War 
 Speeches of William Pitt," May 27, 1915. 
 
 8 1I3 
 
ii4 THE PARALLEL OF 
 
 for the rights of small nations and for honour just 
 as now we are fighting their latest assailant, Ger- 
 many. Now, as then, it is said, European liberties 
 are being threatened by a Power aiming at world- 
 dominion and arrogating to herself the right to 
 destroy treaties. Now again, it is declared, almost 
 in Burke's language, there can be no peace 
 until the militarism of the enemy is utterly 
 destroyed. 
 
 The purpose of this chapter is not, however, 
 to show the likeness in rhetorical onslaught upon 
 the enemy between the war which we entered upon 
 in 1793 and that which we are engaged in to-day. 
 Such evidence would be more useful to a psycho- 
 logical survey of the literature of all wars, for 
 which survey English newspapers and pamphlets 
 belonging to the three European wars in which 
 England has taken part in modern times provide 
 ample material. In passing, it may be said that 
 not one of the philippics by which English 
 statesmen and English men of letters are now 
 marshalling their countrymen against Germany has 
 not done equally good service on previous occa- 
 sions. Only in 1793 it was France under whose 
 foot European liberties were being crushed, it 
 was France against whose treason, blasphemy, and 
 murder a holy war was being waged ; and 
 in the Crimean War we were fighting Russia 
 for the sake of civilization and Turkey, in 
 espousing whose quarrel it was said that we were 
 backing the cause of freedom and progress against 
 tyranny and despotism. 
 
 But the object of these pages is to represent 
 
THE GREAT FRENCH WAR 115 
 
 the situation of that far-distant war with revolu- 
 tionary France as much as possible in the light of 
 its opening circumstances and as it was viewed 
 by men who, on this question, differed from 
 Burke. 
 
 To accept Burke's opinion, without reference 
 to other contemporary opinions, is a real return 
 to his attitude but not a real return to his times. 
 If it is desirable to go back to previous wars in 
 order to fortify our conviction of England's con- 
 stant intervention on the side of righteousness, 
 it is better to go back as completely as the records 
 of history permit us to go. 
 
 The average reference to the war with France 
 in 1793 is apt to neglect the various stages of 
 its long-drawn-out fury. Its first justification is 
 considered as identical with that which at last 
 really sustained it, namely the necessity of de- 
 fending England and of delivering Europe from 
 the ambitions of an insatiable despot. It is for- 
 gotten what share the war itself had in promoting 
 that despotism, and to what extent the European 
 Powers were responsible for its alliance with the 
 principles of 1789. 
 
 Historians of all political tempers agree in the 
 conclusion that war with the revolutionary govern- 
 ment of France, as undertaken by Austria and 
 Prussia in 1792, far from weakening the influence 
 of the Jacobins, on the contrary, did everything to 
 establish their savage rule by enabling them to 
 identify their authority with the defence of the 
 country against invasion. Whether or not the worst 
 revolutionary horrors were inspired by the panic of 
 
n6 THE PARALLEL OF 
 
 invasion and under the menace of the Duke of 
 Brunswick's manifesto and his subsequent march 
 upon Paris, it is certain that the national peril 
 alone united the warring civil factions and brought 
 about that Jacobin supremacy which so hideously 
 perverted the original revolutionary principles. 
 Napoleon himself hated the Jacobins, and the 
 majority of Frenchmen, who were not Terrorists, 
 bent beneath the Terror's abominable yoke for 
 the same reason that the majority of the people in 
 any country, so insulted, so surrounded by ad- 
 vancing armies, as France was, abandon internal 
 differences, however vital, and, with a united 
 front, face the enemy. 
 
 Most historians also agree that the violation of 
 the neutrality of the Scheldt was not the cause but 
 merely the occasion of England's entry into the 
 war. Neither in its actual nature nor in its influence 
 upon governmental and popular opinion can it 
 be compared to Germany's recent violation of 
 Belgium. It was a misdemeanour, not a crime. 
 
 If it was a crime, then we ourselves had been 
 criminally guilty a few years previously, for in 
 1784 we had been quite willing that Austria should 
 commit the same breach of treaty rights respecting 
 the navigation of the Scheldt upon conditions that 
 did not include any reference to Holland's wishes 
 in the matter. Holland in 1793 did not appeal 
 for our assistance, though it was reported that 
 prayers were offered in some of her churches that 
 she might be spared from being plunged into war. 
 The letters from Lord Grenville to the British 
 Minister at The Hague, in December 1792 and 
 
THE GREAT FRENCH WAR 117 
 
 January 1793, 1 show his anxiety lest the Dutch 
 should not interpret the French decree opening; the 
 Scheldt as an act of aggression, and his recog- 
 nition that, until they so interpreted it, he was 
 in an uncomfortable position. 
 
 Still more, if it was a crime, the Napoleonic wars 
 perpetuated it, for one of their indisputable results, 
 paraded by England with every show of gratifica- 
 tion, was the freeing of the navigation of all the 
 great rivers of Europe. 
 
 That it was considered a misdemeanour of slight 
 importance compared to the other grounds we had 
 for wishing to take part in the war is shown by 
 the fact that the French Ambassador's, M. 
 Chauvelin's, written offer to Lord Grenville to 
 negotiate concerning the Scheldt and to give an 
 immediate pledge to be bound by the Belgians' 
 wishes in the matter after the close of the war 
 with Austria was ignored by the English Foreign 
 Minister as irrelevant. 
 
 Refusal to negotiate, refusal to state clearly what 
 were the causes of complaint and the satisfaction 
 demanded, before assuming that the case of strict 
 necessity for war had arrived, were, as Fox and 
 the Opposition of that day so often urged, the 
 strongest proof that the true cause of the war was 
 not the specific aggressions (the opening of the 
 Scheldt, the decree of November 19, 1792), but 
 the necessity, already proclaimed by the conti- 
 nental Powers in such violent language, of inter- 
 fering with the internal government of France and 
 of restoring the Bourbon monarchy. 
 
 1 Auckland MSS., vol. xxxv, 383, 469. 
 
n8 THE PARALLEL OF 
 
 The French had no desire for war. That much 
 is evident from the correspondence between Lord 
 Grenville and M. Chauvelin, whose pacific inten- 
 tions, though diplomatically tactless actions, led 
 him to submit to innumerable slights from the 
 Foreign Office rather than relinquish his endeavours 
 to maintain peace, and is further evidenced by 
 Robespierre's angry attack upon Brissot for not 
 having avoided war. 
 
 Negotiations might, indeed, have proved a 
 failure in the furious state of the times, amid the 
 indignation and hatred naturally produced in 
 England by the September massacres, and, above 
 all, by the execution of Louis in January 1793, 
 and, too, with that discordant Convention which 
 in Paris, amid the uproar of a Revolution, 
 was issuing inflated decrees and strutting with 
 pride at the triumph of its armies over the 
 invader. 
 
 But to have shown a disposition to negotiate 
 would have exonerated England from the charge 
 of being the aggressor, and, moreover, a definite 
 statement of her case would have dissociated her 
 from the purpose of the allied kings and would 
 have cleared her from the suspicion that she was 
 acting 1 in any degree on their principles. 
 
 Those purposes, however, England cannot dis- 
 avow, nor can she clear herself from that suspicion. 
 The reason does not lie only in the fact that when 
 the war had begun her ministers openly availed 
 themselves of the arguments with which the party 
 which Burke inspired had, since the outbreak of 
 the Revolution, been inflaming people's minds 
 
THE GREAT FRENCH WAR 119 
 
 against France as the centre of a deadly and 
 infectious anarchy, but in the explicit official 
 declarations of the Government. There is an 
 admission from Pitt himself (December 9, 1795) 
 that the war was undertaken to prevent the pro- 
 gress of French principles and to re-establish the 
 hereditary monarchy : "I certainly said that the 
 war was not, like others, occasioned by particular 
 insult, or the unjust seizure of territory, or the 
 like, but undertaken to repel usurpation, connected 
 with principles calculated to subvert all govern- 
 ment." And this was the note of our declaration 
 after taking Toulon in November 1793 ; no other 
 object of the war other than the restitution of the 
 French monarchy was then mentioned. 
 
 What moved Pitt from his apparently inflexible 
 determination to preserve England's neutrality in 
 the war between France and the Allied Powers 
 cannot be referred to any single specific cause. 
 His own hatred of the Revolution had, it is true, 
 been openly expressed, but, in his ministerial 
 capacity, he, at first, saw little to fear and much 
 to gain from France's collapse as a Great Power, 
 and this conviction was for a time proof against 
 all the appeals on behalf of the safety of Louis, 
 the danger to the Austrian Netherlands, and the 
 moral considerations which Burke had for long 
 urged as an overwhelming case for war. Nor 
 was our alliance with Prussia ever mentioned either 
 by Prussia or ourselves as a reason for our inter- 
 vention, a fact which is in itself evidence that 
 Austria and Prussia knew very well that they were 
 the aggressors in 1792, since, by the terms of 
 
120 THE PARALLEL OF 
 
 that alliance, England was bound to give help to 
 Prussia if the latter were attacked. 
 
 England's case against France was essentially 
 a cumulative one, and a careful survey of all the 
 circumstances admits of very little doubt that some, 
 and not unimportant, determinants of Pitt's change 
 of attitude must be sought in the state of political 
 affairs in England, and in his desire to divide the 
 Whigs and, above all, to break the power of his 
 great rival, Charles James Fox. Pitt was one 
 of the most consummate opportunists that ever 
 dominated English politics. He played in 1792 
 and 1793 a stupendous game and, for his 
 purposes, he enlisted the fear of the French Revo- 
 lution which Burke was brandishing. Whether 
 Pitt cared for power for its own sake or for 
 the sake of his country's advancement, it is diffi- 
 cult to deny that in 1792 he was more concerned 
 to compass the downfall of the Whigs and to 
 strengthen himself in office than to avoid what he 
 then considered an inevitable war with the French. 
 The Court, aristocracy, and clergy were for war, 
 the country was worked up to the pitch of accept- 
 ing it, if necessary, and Pitt's personal preference 
 for peace stood against the interests of his own 
 party and his own position. War presented an 
 opportunity of consolidating 4 the latter and, at the 
 same time, of creating a division among the 
 Whigs whereby Fox's power would be permanently 
 crippled, and Pitt seized the opportunity. His 
 optimism concerning the probable short duration 
 of the war no doubt made the venture seem less 
 tremendous than we, looking back over those 
 
THE GREAT FRENCH WAR 121 
 
 twenty-two years of almost incessant warfare, can 
 pronounce it to be, and to his patriotic motives 
 the following extract from The Times l of Feb- 
 ruary 8, 1793, the day before the French 
 declaration of war reached England, supplies a 
 hint :— 
 
 " France is the only Power whose maritime 
 force has hitherto been a balance to that of Great 
 Britain and whose commerce has rivalled ours in 
 the two worlds, whose intrigues have fomented 
 and kept alive ruinous wars in India. Could 
 England succeed in destroying the naval strength 
 of her rival, could she turn the tide of that rich 
 commerce which has so often excited her jealousy 
 in favour of her own country, could she connect 
 herself with the French establishments in either 
 India, the degree of commercial prosperity to which 
 these kingdoms would then be elevated would 
 exceed all calculations. It would not be the work 
 of a few years only but would require ages for 
 France to recover to the political balance of Europe 
 that preponderance which she enjoyed previous to 
 the Revolution. Such is the point of view under 
 which Governments ought to consider the com- 
 mercial interests. The indispensable necessity of 
 extinguishing the wide-spreading fire whose devour- 
 ing flames will sooner or later extend over all 
 Europe and the well-grounded confidence of dis- 
 embarrassing the commerce of Great Britain from 
 the impediments which have so often clogged its 
 wheels — these reasons, added to the prospect of 
 
 1 The Times then, as in 1914, supported the war policy of the 
 Ministry. 
 
122 
 
 THE PARALLEL OF 
 
 annihilating the French marine, ought to deter- 
 mine us to immediate war." 
 
 Burke, whatever the grounds of his fanatical 
 devotion to aristocracy, was whole-hearted in his 
 hatred of the Revolution and in his indignation 
 at its excesses. Only his real conviction that the 
 English Constitution was in danger from a Jacobin 
 party in England, bent upon the same hideous 
 drama as was being enacted in Paris, made him 
 break with a party and a friend with whom he 
 had worked for years in close agreement and to 
 associate himself with Pitt, whose political measures 
 it had been that party's constant aim to combat 
 His grounds for believing in the existence of 
 revolutionary conspiracy' were no sounder than 
 those upon which in the " Reflections upon the 
 French Revolution" he arraigned the principles 
 of 1789 The prophecy of that amazing pamphlet 
 was indeed to a great extent fulfilled, but the 
 temper which it and its author encouraged, in 
 England and on the Continent, had not a little to 
 do with the fulfilment. 
 
 . The value which ministers attached to this argument and, 
 at the same time, the difficulty of getting enough evidence to 
 Istantiate it, is shown in the following extract from Lord 
 GrenviUe's letter to Lord Auckland in January 1793 • We have 
 some idea of laying before a secret committee of the 5 two 
 Houses (very small in number) some particulars of the designs 
 which have'been in agitation here, enough to enable them 
 without reporting particular facts, and still less names or papers 
 Tn mes, indeed, they need not know), to say that they are ^satisfied 
 hat such plans have been in agitation. Could J°» suppty £ 
 with anything that might tend to the same object I ""»«"?* 
 very useful in the view of embarking the nation heart.iy n the 
 lupport of a war if unavoidable" (Auckland MSS. xxxv. 381). 
 
THE GREAT FRENCH WAR 123 
 
 The "Reflections," it should be remembered, 
 were published in the autumn of 1790, in the 
 halcyon days of the Revolution, while the doings 
 of the French Constituent Assembly were still a 
 matter for rejoicing on the part of the majority 
 of enlightened people in England, while France, 
 busy with domestic reform, desired above all peace 
 with her neighbours and freedom from inter- 
 ference. « In those days and continuously from 
 then, Burke preached his crusade against France, 
 in constant communication with the continental 
 Powers who plotted to crush her liberties. 
 11 Diffuse terror ! " Burke wrote to the emigrant 
 princes, and he had the satisfaction of seeing; his 
 injunctions obeyed. Abroad, he conspired ; at 
 home, he incited. He was the never-failing in- 
 spiration of British Tories in their denunciation 
 of the Revolution ; in and out of Parliament, in 
 and out of season, he persisted in his magnificent 
 abuse, and in his determination to assist a war 
 with F ranee, " to keep the French infection from 
 this country, their principles from our minds, and 
 
 1 The first National Assembly of France had an early oppor- 
 tunity of proving its pacific foreign policy in the Nootka Sound 
 crisis between England and Spain in the autumn of 1790. Spain, 
 under the terms of her alliance with France, claimed the latter's 
 help in the event of war with England, which seemed possible. 
 The French Assembly unhesitatingly contradicted the views of the 
 Kino's ministers on this point, and issued a declaration that no 
 war & could be entered upon without its assent, at the same time 
 repudiating all wars of conquest or aggression, and, as an earnest 
 of its pacific intentions, it ordered the chained figures of con- 
 quered nations which ornamented the statue of Louis XIV to be 
 removed. 
 
124 THE PARALLEL OF 
 
 their daggers from our hearts." "It is with an 
 armed doctrine that we are at war," he wrote in 
 1796. He had himself helped to arm it, and it 
 was the weight of his armour which prolonged 
 the war. 
 
 Peace might have been secured in 1793. The 
 professed objects of the war were then attained. 
 Dumourier had been driven out of Holland, the 
 Austrian Netherlands were secure. The French 
 made offers of peace, but we rejected them as 
 providing " no indemnity for the past or security 
 for the future." Obligations to Austria for her 
 assistance, in saving Holland were mentioned as 
 one reason for continuing the war, and England 
 was then pledged, by the repeated statements of 
 her ministers and by the complexity of her 
 continental engagements, to a war for the exter- 
 mination of Jacobin principles, the likelihood of 
 the success of which seemed as far off as the 
 stars. Again it was said, as it had been said so 
 often during the American War, that if the cause 
 of the enemy were to be successful, there would 
 be an end of all civilized government, and the 
 monarchy of England would be trodden in the 
 dust. In vain Fox pointed out the hopelessness 
 of such an undertaking, and its inconsistency with 
 the war's professed aims. " A war to exterminate 
 principles," he declared, " will mean a war to 
 all eternity." " The human mind is roused by 
 oppression." " Impotent are the men who think 
 that opinions can be so encountered. There are 
 some things which are more successfully van- 
 quished by neglect." He reminded Pitt of Lord 
 
THE GREAT FRENCH WAR 125 
 
 Chatham's oath, that he would die in the last 
 breach before he granted the independence of 
 America, and that one of the first of his own 
 political acts had been to sign the independence 
 which his father had so abhorred. 
 
 In the autumn of 1795 tne King's Speech to 
 Parliament indicated for the first time, though 
 vaguely, a willingness to consider the possibility 
 of peace. The idea, until then declared so 
 ignominious, improper, and degrading, of con- 
 sidering the Government of France as one with 
 which any peaceful relations could possibly be 
 maintained, was giving way, under the pressure 
 of social distress, financial difficulties, unrest in 
 Ireland, and recognition of the unreliability of our 
 allies, to a longing throughout the country to have 
 done with war. Curious inconsistencies even then 
 marked the position and the language of ministers. 
 Though Robespierre had fallen, there was very 
 little reason in Pitt's main argument that the exist- 
 ing Government of France was more capable than 
 any of its predecessors had been of maintaining 
 foreign relations. At least, its predecessors had 
 not been less capable. Prussia's example might 
 have reassured us on this point. Prussia, who 
 during 1794 had only been induced to keep her 
 army in the field by the subsidy we gave her, 
 and even then had done her best to avoid any 
 fighting, had concluded peace with France six 
 months previously, and was at that moment reap- 
 ing 1 the fruits of her faith in France's stability of 
 government in being able to devote her attention 
 entirely to Poland. From the beginning, France 
 
126 THE PARALLEL OF 
 
 had been capable of maintaining foreign relations ; 
 there had been no complaints from neutrals that 
 the Brissot Government, or even Robespierre him- 
 self, had failed in their contracted engagements. 1 
 
 Moreover, the reason from which ministers 
 appeared to derive such comfort, that France 
 was then in the greatest possible distress, and 
 her Government possibly on the point of collapsing 
 altogether, seemed hardly the best encouragement 
 that security in respect to treaties could at last 
 be counted upon. 
 
 Finally, we had let slip the opportunity of 
 making peace to Holland's advantage and security, 
 and had chosen to wait until she was again lost, 
 though we had her colonies in our safe keeping, 2 
 and the aggrandizement of France was certainly 
 less defeated than it had ever been. 3 
 
 1 We ourselves were not particularly scrupulous towards 
 neutrals. We threatened Switzerland, Genoa, and Tuscany, 
 because they had not abandoned a neutrality which we con- 
 sidered criminal. This was our behaviour to small States who 
 had not been aggressed upon, nor were inclined to be aggressive, 
 in a war which we had entered upon in order to protect the small 
 and weak, and towards which we had declared that we should 
 have remained neutral if it had not been for specific aggressions. 
 
 2 Including the Cape of Good Hope and Ceylon, which were 
 described in the confidential sketch of the proposed terms framed 
 by the Ministry for submission to the King as " the most valuable 
 of our conquests " (Dropmore Papers, iii. 239-42). We gave 
 back the Cape to Holland in the Peace of 1802, but kept Ceylon. 
 
 3 In neither of these respects — i.e. the freedom of Holland and 
 the check to French aggrandizement — were the circumstances of 
 the Peace of 1802 any better. By the Peace of Amiens France 
 retained possession of Holland, Belgium, the left bank of the 
 Rhine, Italy, and Switzerland. From the commercial point of 
 
THE GREAT FRENCH WAR 127 
 
 Such were the circumstances which called forth 
 Burke's " Letters on a Regicide Peace," the last 
 furious outpouring of his unquenchable hatred of 
 the Revolution, which had already done so much 
 to multiply its consequences. 
 
 " What, you would treat with regicides and 
 assassins ! " cried Burke, flinging his dying 
 strength into passionate denouncement of his 
 countrymen's disposition to relax hostility against 
 an enemy he himself would have defied to eternity. 
 " This false reptile prudence," " these oglings and 
 glances of tenderness," he said, ill became a 
 proud nation. " We are not at the end of the 
 struggle, nor near it. Let us not deceive ourselves, 
 we are at the beginnings of great troubles." 
 
 It is very magnificent, almost Promethean, this 
 inexorable determination of Burke's to be on no 
 terms whatever with those of whose incurable 
 iniquity he was persuaded, and to delude no one 
 that he minimized the dangers and the length of 
 the struggle, a determination growing stronger and 
 more embittered with the increasing evidence of 
 the insuperableness of the undertaking. 
 
 Burke's influence at this period, however, could 
 not prevent negotiations, which took place be- 
 latedly, and failed. The failure arose out of a 
 specific question, the restoration of the Austrian 
 Netherlands, concerning which we were pledged 
 to Austria, and does not add to, or detract from, the 
 
 view as well, the terms of 1802 were most unfavourable to us, as 
 they left the prohibitive tariff which France had imposed against 
 us on the Continent still in force. England's actual indemnities 
 were Ceylon and Trinidad. 
 
128 THE PARALLEL OF 
 
 arguments advanced by Burke. These reach 
 beyond particular circumstances, beyond the imme- 
 diate context of the war with revolutionary France, 
 as also do the answers which Charles James Fox 
 repeatedly made to them. 
 
 " Shall we treat with regicides and assassins? " 
 said Fox, investing the question with all the scorn 
 and horror of Burke's gestures. " What ! Treat 
 with men whose hands are yet reeking with the 
 blood of their sovereign ! Yes, assuredly we should 
 treat with them. With them, be whom they may, 
 we ought and ultimately must treat who have the 
 Government in their hands." "Where the power 
 essentially resides, thither we ought to go for 
 peace." " If the contrary were true, if we treat with 
 France only when she has a Government of which 
 we approve, good God ! " said Fox, " we shall 
 fight eternally." Were we, he asked, to stake 
 the wealth, the commerce, and the Constitution of 
 Great Britain on the probability of compelling the 
 French to renounce certain opinions for which it 
 had already been seen they were prepared to con- 
 tend to the last extremity? France should suffer 
 the penalty of her own injustice. Why were the 
 people of England to suffer because the people 
 of France were unjust? " We would never treat 
 with the present Government of France " ! Was 
 it likely that the French Government would ever 
 negotiate for its own destruction? Or was evi- 
 dence of a more peaceful demeanour to be obtained 
 in war? Could it be said to the enemy, " Until 
 you shall in war behave in a peaceable manner, we 
 will not treat with you "? " That two nations 
 
THE GREAT FRENCH WAR 129 
 
 should be set on to beat one another into friend- 
 ship is too abominable/' said Fox, " even for the 
 fiction of romance, but for a statesman to lay it 
 down as a system upon which he means to act 
 is monstrous." " It is in the nature of war to 
 widen, not to approximate." 
 
 " What ! you would treat with tyrants? Why 
 not? " answered Fox. " Do we not daily treat 
 with tyrants? I would have treated with Robes- 
 pierre, not because I did not think his Govern- 
 ment the most detestable tyranny that ever existed 
 but because England has nothing to do with his 
 tyranny." The question was, he said, not what 
 degree of abhorrence ought to be felt of French 
 cruelty but what line of conduct ought to be pur- 
 sued consistent with British policy, which had 
 hitherto accepted the theory that every independent 
 nation had a right to regulate its own government. 
 To deny this, Fox said, was to act upon a set of 
 most unprincipled delicacies, to which no heed at 
 all was paid when committing the national honour 
 and safety into the hands of allies. From minis- 
 terial indifference to the conduct of the allies 
 towards Poland, Fox said that he could only infer 
 this maxim : " Make peace with no man of whose 
 good conduct you are not satisfied, but make an 
 alliance with any man no matter how profligate 
 or faithless he may be." 
 
 " Whatever our detestation of the guilt of foreign 
 nations may be, we are not called upon to play 
 the part of avengers." " Hatred of vice is no 
 just cause of war between nations," he argued. 
 44 If it were, good God ! with which of those 
 
 9 
 
130 PARALLEL OF GREAT FRENCH WAR 
 
 Powers with whom we are now combined should 
 we be at peace? Security? Are we never to have 
 peace because that peace may be insecure? A 
 state of peace immediately after a war of such vio- 
 lence must in some respect be a state of insecurity. 
 We must be satisfied with the best security we 
 can get : it will, at any rate, be not less secure 
 than a state of war. To go on fighting 1 as ja 
 speculation, that perchance we may gain a better 
 peace some time hence — what can this do but add 
 to the sum of human horrors? Is war a state 
 of probation? Is peace a rash system? Is it 
 dangerous for nations to live in amity? " 
 
 These extracts from, and abridgments of, Fox's 
 speeches r show the other side of the war against 
 the " armed doctrine " to that to which politicians 
 and writers of to-day think fit to call attention. 
 They show it as no " other side " has ever again 
 been shown, for these " bones of a giant," as 
 Lord Erskine called the speeches, edited as they 
 were from rough notes, communicate the wisdom 
 and much of the brilliancy of expression of one 
 of the greatest of English orators and most honest 
 of English statesmen. 
 
 Burke and Fox were once companions. The 
 French war parted them. It is due to their 
 memory, as well as to the memory of their times, 
 that, when the spirit of the one is recalled, that 
 of the other should not be forgotten. 
 
 1 "Speeches of C. J. Fox." Edited by Wright. With a 
 Preface by Lord Erskine. 1815. 
 
WAR 
 
 AND THE 
 WOMAN'S 
 MOVEMENT 
 
WAR AND THE WOMAN'S MOVEMENT 
 
 By A. MAUDE ROYDEN 
 
 Among the influences making for international 
 understanding, the Woman's Movement has been 
 reckoned by its supporters to be one of the 
 strongest. This was before the war. The latest 
 International Congress held by the Suffrage 
 Alliance, in Budapest, 191 3, bad not only impressed 
 all who followed its deliberations by its numbers, 
 enthusiasm, and unanimity, but also by the intensity 
 of feeling with which many of the most brilliant 
 speakers sought to enlist the women of the world 
 in la guerre contre la guerre. 
 
 It is true that the passion for peace — the horror 
 of war— was expressed by continental and rarely 
 by British or American delegates. This fact only 
 served to remind the latter of the grim reality 
 of the war problem in countries like Germany and 
 France, and perhaps to create the feeling that our 
 own interest in it might not always be so academic 
 as to most of us it persisted in seeming. Cer- 
 tainly one of the inspiring motives of the Congress 
 was the hope that a movement, international, like 
 that represented by the Suffrage Alliance, which 
 
 brought together in a common hope the women 
 
 133 
 
134 WAR AND THE WOMAN'S MOVEMENT 
 
 of America, Asia, 1 and Europe, must tend to create 
 the good feeling which in its turn makes for peace. 
 Delegates were reminded that women know the 
 suffering of war without its glory ; that its horror 
 and its sacrifices come to them shorn of the 
 glamour with which men have surrounded it ; that 
 it destroys all they hold dear and all they have 
 created ; that they have nothing to gain by it and 
 everything to lose. A speech made in this sense 
 by the most eloquent woman there — Mme Marie 
 Verone — brought her audience to its feet in a frenzy 
 of enthusiasm, clapping, waving, and cheering, 
 while those fortunate enough to be on the plat- 
 form precipitated themselves upon the orator with 
 cries of enthusiasm, and kissed her on both cheeks 
 with an abandon somewhat surprising to the more 
 stolid British delegates. It was evident that there 
 was no doubt in the minds of these enthusiasts as 
 to the attitude of the Woman's Movement towards 
 war. 
 
 Conviction was deepened by the great chapter 
 on " Women and War " appearing in Olive 
 Schreiner's "Woman and Labour." Expressing 
 with a noble idealism the right attitude of women 
 towards war, Olive Schreiner gave to an emotion 
 its philosophy. Women, she said, were not only 
 the worst sufferers from war: they were by nature 
 the guardians of life. Conservers of the race, 
 mothers of its children, war must be to them 
 
 1 No Asiatic delegates were actually present at Budapest, but 
 a Chinese Suffrage Society applied for affiliation, and was 
 admitted. The Chinese women sent a banner to the Congress 
 inscribed, " All of one mind, helping each other." 
 
WAR AND THE WOMAN'S MOVEMENT 135 
 
 the worst of all catastrophes. As a sculptor would 
 cast into the breach any stone rather than that 
 which he had wrought into a statue, so women, 
 when the gulf opens between the nations, would 
 cast in anything rather than the men they have 
 made. " No woman who is a woman," writes 
 Mrs. Schreiner, " says of a human body, ' It is 
 nothing.' " This phrase, like the whole chapter 
 in which it appears, became a classic of the 
 Woman's Movement. It was believed to express 
 the true, the inevitable attitude of women as a 
 sex, whether in or outside the progressive ranks. 
 It was assumed to be so " natural " to them, 
 that to put power into their hands was to forge 
 a weapon against war. It was not denied that 
 they might feel that war might in some cases 
 still be a national duty ; but it was believed with 
 conviction that women, from their very nature, 
 would approach the question with an unspeakable 
 reluctance, that war would appear to them in all 
 its naked horror, shorn of glory, that they would 
 be free from the " war fever " to which men so 
 easily fall victims. 
 
 In support of this view, it is to be borne in 
 mind that women's internationalism has on the 
 whole broken down less conspicuously than men's, 
 two international congresses having been held since 
 the war began, and both representing women. It 
 is probably also true that among working people 
 the desire for peace is still stronger among the 
 women than the men. On the other hand, the 
 belief that women are innately more pacific than 
 men has been severely shaken, if not altogether 
 
136 WAR AND THE WOMAN'S MOVEMENT 
 
 destroyed. It is now very evident that they can 
 be as virulently militarist, as blindly partisan, not 
 as the soldier, for in him such qualities are 
 generally absent, but as the male non-combatant, 
 for whom the same cannot always be said. Among 
 women, as among men, there are extremists for 
 war and for peace ; pacifists and militarists ; 
 women who are as passionately convinced as 
 Bernhardi that war is a good thing, women who 
 accept it as a terrible necessity, women who 
 repudiate it altogether. All these views they 
 share with men. There appears to be no 
 cleavage of opinion along sex lines. Nor 
 perhaps should we have expected it. History 
 shows no war averted by the influence of 
 women ; none against which women, as women, 
 have worked, or organized, or offered more than 
 here and there a sporadic protest. Queens have 
 been no more reluctant than kings to look on the 
 dead bodies of men and say, " It is nothing." 
 The fact that war brings to women personally 
 no glory, but only suffering, is empty of signi- 
 ficance ; they are well accustomed to vicarious 
 glory and well accustomed to suffering. The 
 appeal to their loyalty comes with irresistible force. 
 " We cannot fight," they say ; "let us at least 
 be willing to suffer." 
 
 Not what is noble only, but what is ignoble 
 in women, is enlisted easily in the service of war. 
 The importance of fear as a factor in war-making 
 cannot be overlooked, and can hardly be over- 
 estimated. Any politician can play on panic when 
 he wishes to stampede a people into war. The 
 
WAR AND THE WOMAN'S MOVEMENT 137 
 
 fear of being attacked enables him to blind them, 
 and makes them an easy tool for a war which is 
 really one of aggression. And in the creation 
 of panic a sex trained to timidity is hardly likely 
 to play a restraining part. Personal courage is 
 the one quality held indispensable in a man : it 
 has not been extraordinarily admired in women, 
 and since fear is the mother of cruelty, it should 
 not surprise any of us if those who have never 
 been expected to be brave should sometimes outdo 
 the men in vindictiveness. That so many women 
 remain untainted by fear should rather give us 
 hope. Nevertheless, it is reasonable to remember 
 that so long as fear plays a part in the making 
 of wars, women are hardly likely as a sex to 
 be more uncompromising in their desire for peace 
 than men. 
 
 It should, therefore, have surprised no one 
 (though, in fact, it surprised many of us) that 
 women throughout Europe have accepted war as 
 an inevitable evil, or even, in the earnestness of 
 their loyalty, as a spiritual good. Nor does their 
 attitude towards war in general, or this war in 
 particular, prove those wrong who have believed 
 that the Woman's Movement is one of the great 
 influences making for peace. It is true that its 
 effect will not be so direct or so obvious as had 
 been supposed. The mistake has been rather about 
 the nature of its influence than about its ultimate 
 effect. Women may, when they have the power, 
 no more " vote against war " than men ; it remains 
 a fact that every woman who is working for the 
 advance of the Woman's Movement is, however 
 
138 WAR AND THE WOMAN'S MOVEMENT 
 
 martial she is herself, however profoundly she may 
 mistake the meaning and the foundation of her 
 work, working against militarism. She is for ever 
 asserting a principle of which war is a perpetual 
 denial. One principle must, in the end, destroy 
 the other. 
 
 The Woman's Movement in all its aspects, but 
 especially, of course, in its political one, is an 
 assertion of moral force as the supreme govern- 
 ing force in the world. If its adherents are wrong, 
 and it is physical force which is " the ultimate 
 appeal," then the militarist is right, and the 
 physically weaker sex, like the little and weak 
 nation, has no claim that may not be set aside. 
 The weak have no rights in a world governed 
 by brute force ; they have only privileges, which 
 may be granted, revoked, or withheld. It has 
 been the fundamental principle of the Woman's 
 Movement that it claims rights and duties, but 
 never privileges. By what right, however, do those 
 who are inferior in physical force ask to share, 
 equally with their superiors, in government, if 
 government rests on physical force? Such a claim 
 could not be entertained. And women, recogniz- 
 ing this, have rightly based their demand on the 
 great principle that government rests upon consent, 
 and that the use of physical force is not " the 
 ultimate appeal," but a confession of failure. 
 
 Argument has raged round this vital question, 
 and in consequence the women's position— and that 
 of the opposition to it — has been again and again 
 defined. The " physical force argument " has been 
 put forward with gireat effect and with an 'enthu- 
 
WAR AND THE WOMAN'S MOVEMENT 139 
 
 siasm no Bernhardi could exceed by notable Anti- 
 Suffragists. 1 In their writings and speeches the 
 conviction that women could have no right to self- 
 government while they lacked physical strength to 
 enforce it has been expounded in terms which 
 almost grotesquely resemble the expositions of 
 " Prussianism " and the treatment of " little 
 nations " which have burned themselves with 
 such horror into our memories to-day. " The 
 State is Power," says Treitschke ; "there is 
 something laughable in the idea of a small State." 
 What power? Certainly not moral power, for 
 there may be a greater moral power in a little 
 State than a big one. But physical power, in 
 which the big State must be superior. " There is 
 something laughable " in the idea that a little State, 
 a people wanting in sheer force of numbers and 
 arms, should dream of independence, of freedom, 
 of developing along its own lines its own civiliza- 
 tion. " Something laughable " ! There is also 
 something obscene in such laughter— something 
 unimaginably brutal. The same brutality (though 
 we had not learned to call it " Prussianism ") found 
 something laughable in the idea that women, who 
 are inferior to men in muscle, should claim as 
 11 rights " what could (if allowed at all) never be 
 more than privileges in a world ruled by brute 
 force. Certainly if the world is so ruled the claim 
 does become laughable. Herein lay the weakness 
 of the militant movement, which appealed to a 
 principle which the whole Woman's Movement was 
 
 1 See especially " The Physical Force Argument against 
 Woman's Suffrage," by A. McCallum Scott. 
 
140 WAR AND THE WOMAN'S MOVEMENT 
 
 concerned to deny. But even here, regardless of 
 logic — or perhaps conscious of a deeper logic than 
 their policy suggested — the women who resorted 
 to violence frequently argued that they did so only 
 to prove the utter failure of violence used against 
 themselves. Nor can any misunderstanding on 
 the part of Suffragists of their own position destroy 
 the fact that it rests upon a principle which 
 militarism denies. The strife between the two is 
 internecine. Militarism and the Woman's Move- 
 ment cannot exist together. Take a militarist 
 religion like that of Islam, and you see women 
 reduced to the lowest level of degradation ; a 
 militarist legal code like the Code Napoleon, and 
 you have women without human rights and only 
 sex functions — breeders of potential soldiers 
 merely ; a militarist civilization like that of 
 Prussia, and again women without rights, almost 
 without privileges, women lagging behind their 
 sisters in other civilizations otherwise near akin 
 to them. " You do not know what it is like to 
 be a woman," said a prominent German Suffragist, 
 "in a country which has built its whole existence 
 on a successful war." 
 
 As militarism waxes or wanes so, in inverse 
 ratio, does the Woman's Movement. In Russia 
 —a race essentially pacific, whatever criticisms may 
 be brought against its Government — women hold 
 a much higher position than in Germany. In 
 France, a country once " militarist " to the core, 
 but now no longer so, the Code Napoleon remains, 
 the legacy of the arch-militarist, Napoleon ; but 
 the higher level of civilization reached to-day 
 
WAR AND THE WOMAN'S MOVEMENT 141 
 
 reflects itself in the improved actual (as distinct 
 from the legal) position of French women. In 
 Norway and Sweden, countries so earnest in their 
 desire for peace that their division into two king- 
 doms under separate sovereigns was actually 
 effected (though with some soreness and jealousy) 
 without a war, women have in one case actually 
 achieved political freedom and in the other are 
 upon the verge of it. In America women hold 
 a high position, and are constantly improving it. 
 In Great Britain both the friends and the foes of 
 their movement illustrate the same truth. 
 
 There has been— perhaps still is — a section of 
 public opinion in this country which believes that 
 the British Empire is held together by the sword. 
 It has even been stated that India is " held at the 
 point of the bayonet." The fact that for a long time 
 our mighty Empire was seldom without its " little 
 wars " somewhere along its vast frontiers gave 
 colour to a belief which otherwise seems actually 
 grotesque. And it is significant that the opponents 
 of Women's Suffrage were largely drawn from 
 the ranks of this school of imperialist thought. 
 Their argument was developed along two lines : 
 one, that women could take no part in the business 
 of holding the Empire by the sword, the other 
 that they could not " think imperially." The 
 latter argument was frequently put forward by 
 women so obviously capable of performing the 
 duty whose possibility (to other women?) they 
 earnestly denied, as to remove its sting and its 
 effect. The former was the real line of defence, 
 and as long as this Jingo school of imperialism 
 
142 WAR AND THE WOMAN'S MOVEMENT 
 
 remains so long inevitably must there be an irre- 
 concilable party of opposition to the Woman's 
 Movement in this country. Its wane and the rising 
 of a nobler conception of Empire has coincided 
 with the gathering strength and power of that 
 movement. Both spring from the same root — the 
 belief that government, whether of a nation or 
 an Empire, must rest upon consent, or confess its 
 failure ; that moral force is not nobler only but 
 stronger than coercion ; that an Empire " held at 
 the point of the bayonet " must fall to pieces at 
 the first shock of danger, while one in which there 
 is freedom for the least as well as the greatest 
 of its members stands " whole as the marble, 
 founded as the rock." We do not imagine to- 
 day that New Zealand, with its population of two 
 or three millions, has less right to the free der- 
 velopment of its own type of civilization than we 
 with our fifty millions. We do not call that right 
 a " privilege," or find " something laughable in 
 the idea of a small State." We do not assume 
 that there are no rights where there is not power 
 to enforce them. On the contrary, we know that 
 such rights can never be violated except at fearful 
 cost to the violator. Not only does the act of 
 injustice brutalize his conscience, but it vindicates 
 again the principle which must at last react against 
 him. Nations have assumed the rigtit to act solely 
 in their own immediate interests so far as they 
 have the power to do so ; but no nation can always 
 be the strongest, and the time will come when 
 another stronger arises, or many strong ones find 
 their common interest against the violator, and 
 
WAR AND THE WOMAN'S MOVEMENT 143 
 
 then the old insistence that might is right destroys 
 what it had set up. 
 
 In a deeper sense also the strong stand to lose 
 by a violation of the rights of the weak. Mr. 
 Lloyd George, in one of the noblest passages of 
 a great speech at the beginning of the war, spoke 
 of the debt owed by humanity to the little nations, 
 who brought to its lips some of the " choicest 
 wines." And we would add that even those little 
 nations who have no specially glorious history, no 
 radiant names, have yet enriched the civilization 
 of the world by their difference and variety of 
 type. To crush out all those who have the right 
 to exist but not the power to enforce that right 
 is to commend to one's own lips, not the " choice 
 wine " of humanity but 
 
 the bitter dregs of woe 
 Which ever from the oppressed to the oppressor flow. 
 
 The spirit which disregards this danger and 
 despises this loss to civilization is " militarism " ; 
 and those who assert that rights remain rights 
 even when they cannot be enforced, and that the 
 moral law violated by physical violence vindicates 
 itself in the end by the destruction of the destroyer, 
 are fighting against militarism, whether they desire 
 it or not. The Woman's Movement is based on 
 belief in the moral law. It is concerned to assert 
 the supremacy of moral force, and it can show that 
 wherever the rights of the weak are set aside there 
 enters into the State an element of bitterness and 
 hostility on the one side, of brutality and moral 
 
144 WAR AND THE WOMAN'S MOVEMENT 
 
 stupidity on the other, which lowers its standard 
 of strength and effectiveness as well as of moral 
 nobility. 
 
 It is true that although the principles of 
 militarism and feminism are fundamentally 
 opposed many people do not know it, ' and— 
 since we are not a peculiarly logical race — many 
 Englishmen and women who are genuinely shocked 
 at Prussianism as expounded by Bernhardi and 
 applied to Belgium, have themselves expatiated 
 eloquently in the same vein when the question was 
 of classes or sexes instead of nations. There are 
 militarists who believe themselves feminist, and 
 feminists who are undoubtedly militarist. And, 
 after all, since we are most of us perfectly aware 
 that " logic is not a science but a dodge," we 
 must beware of dismissing a paradox merely 
 because it involves an apparent contradiction. 
 When, however, the contradiction is real — when 
 the opposition between two principles is funda- 
 mental — the human mind cannot for ever hold them 
 both. One must drive out and destroy the other. 
 Those feminists who had most closely thought 
 out their position had already grasped the issue. 
 When war broke out, and ordinary political activi- 
 ties were necessarily suspended, it seemed to them 
 as inevitable that they should take up the task of 
 combating the real enemy of women (and of civi- 
 lization) — militarism — as it was that they should 
 take their share in the relief of the physical 
 miseries and material burdens of war. There was 
 no question of opposition to the war itself within 
 the great Suffrage organizations, since the vast 
 
WAR AND THE WOMAN'S MOVEMENT 145 
 
 majority of their members believed that war had 
 been forced upon us and was, on our part, a battle 
 against a militarist ideal. But there was a deep 
 consciousness that the spirit of militarism is very 
 hardly separated from the fact of war, and that 
 this spirit is immovably opposed to the feminism 
 which rests its whole claim on the supremacy of 
 spiritual force. War, indeed, has its spiritual 
 passion ; but the fact that this must find its ex- 
 pression in the crudest forms of violence tends to 
 exalt the latter at the expense of the former. 
 Women can do no greater service to the world 
 than to increase the healthy scepticism of violence 
 as a method of imposing ideals which the history 
 of religious persecution has already created. 
 
 War may claim for itself the power to destroy 
 and to clear the ground. It can never construct 
 or create. It is not the means by which ideals 
 are imposed. There is ultimately no way of com- 
 bating a wrong idea but the setting forth of a 
 right one. Whether they are right who believe 
 that moral force is " the ultimate appeal " against 
 which coercion is vain and violence merely a 
 counsel of despair, or they who see in physical 
 force the real basis of government, let time show. 
 One thing at least is certain— that as the Woman's 
 Movement embodies the one creed and " mili- 
 tarism " the other, so these two must be in eternal 
 opposition. The victory of one is the defeat of 
 the other. Women, whatever other claim may be 
 made for them, are not equal to men in their 
 capacity to use force or their willingness to believe 
 in it. For them, therefore, to ask for equal rights 
 
 10 
 
146 WAR AND THE WOMAN'S MOVEMENT 
 
 with men in a world governed by such force is 
 frivolous. Their claim would not be granted, and 
 if granted would not be valid. Like the negro 
 vote in America, it would be a cheat and a delu- 
 sion. But if moral power be the true basis of 
 human relationship, then the Woman's Movement 
 is on a sure foundation and moves to its inevitable 
 triumph. Its victory will be an element in the 
 making of permanent peace, not because women 
 are less liable to " war fever " than men, or more 
 reluctant to pay the great price of war, but because 
 their claim and its fulfilment involves the assertion 
 of that which war perpetually denies. 
 
THE 
 
 ORGANIZATION 
 OF PEACE 
 
THE ORGANIZATION OF PEACE 
 
 By H. N. BRAILSFORD 
 
 Two hundred years ago the Abbe de Saint-Pierre 
 was completing the publication of his " Plan of 
 Perpetual Peace." With cynical punctuality the 
 European Powers have celebrated each centenary 
 of its appearance with a universal war. Not all 
 our humiliation before this spectacle can blind us to 
 the fact that these centuries have brought with 
 them some developments favourable to an enduring 
 peace. The rise of national States has set limits 
 to the arbitrary extension of kingdoms by conquest, 
 marriage, or inheritance. The growth of self- 
 government has introduced the factor of the popular 
 will as a barrier against artificial wars of intrigue. 
 The development of political morals has reached 
 a point at which none of the greater civilized 
 peoples will to-day avow that it is engaged, or 
 ever could engage, in a wantonly aggressive war. 
 This last safeguard seems of little practical worth, 
 as we listen to the arguments which even Socialists 
 in opposite camps have put forward to prove that 
 their motive in supporting this war was purely 
 defensive. Yet to doubt the sincerity of the con- 
 viction which has animated every European army 
 
ISO THE ORGANIZATION OF PEACE 
 
 in this war, that it is fighting for national security, 
 would be to despair of the future of mankind. 
 Fallible and liable to sophistication as this general 
 instinct against aggression is, it is the only foun- 
 dation on which the reformer can build. On the 
 last Sunday of peace we saw the German Socialists 
 crowding to mass meetings to protest against the 
 thought of war. A week later the same men in 
 uniform were marching dutifully towards the 
 Belgian frontier. They had in the interval acquired 
 the conviction that the Fatherland was threatened. 
 No scheme, no treaty, no mechanism, if peoples 
 desired war, would ever prevent it. But mechanism 
 may have a function, if it can so illuminate the 
 attitude of parties to a dispute that peoples will not 
 again err so tragically in judging the question 
 whether their rulers are embarking on aggression. 
 Our difficulty to-day is not merely to prevent 
 aggression : it is first of all to detect it. 
 
 If our problem be to utilize this general condem- 
 nation of aggression in the abstract, our first step 
 must be to discover some test by which aggression 
 can be distinguished from defence. The crude test 
 " Which side first declared Avar? " is not decisive. 
 Few neutrals held that the Boers were the aggres- 
 sors in 1899, though Mr. Kruger, for strategic 
 reasons, was the first to declare war. The alter- 
 native test, on which German public opinion laid 
 stress in this war, " Which side first ordered a 
 general mobilization? " is not more conclusive. 
 The belligerent who seems the more correct in 
 the last stages of a crisis may none the less 
 have been on the whole the more exacting in 
 
THE ORGANIZATION OF PEACE 151 
 
 his diplomacy, and may have manoeuvred his oppo- 
 nent into mobilization or a declaration of war. 
 More puzzling still is the discrepancy between 
 the legal and moral conceptions of aggression. 
 The legal standpoint regards that Power as the 
 aggressor who attempts by force to make a change 
 in the status quo. The status quo may, none the 
 less, be morally indefensible. The Balkan States 
 were legally the aggressors in their attack on 
 Turkey in 1 9 1 2, but the Turkish oppression of 
 their kinsmen was itself a prior aggression. In 
 its efforts to conserve peace, diplomacy has always 
 tended, more or less consciously, to set before 
 itself as its objective the maintenance of the status 
 quo. The presumption was always against the 
 Power which attempted to disturb the existing 
 order. The existing order might have come about 
 as the result of successful aggression in the past ; 
 it might consecrate countless wrongs in the present ; 
 but a certain sanctity none the less belonged 
 to it, because it was embodied in treaties and 
 recognized by Governments. The conception is 
 not wholly without value, and it has been, like all 
 conservative institutions, the salutary check to rash 
 ambitions and reckless disturbance. It breaks 
 down whenever a nation, oppressed by some 
 genuine grievance, or inspired by some proper 
 ambition, feels that it has at last the means of 
 making its claim good by force. Its prime error 
 is that it allows no place in the common life of 
 nations for radical changes and large reconstruc- 
 tions. A satisfied Power, which sees all its kinsmen 
 free within its own frontiers, which enjoys full 
 
152 THE ORGANIZATION OF PEACE 
 
 liberty to trade, and has in a vast Empire all the 
 scope for economic expansion and emigration which 
 it can fairly desire, is always apt to conceive 
 of peace in this conservative sense. Desiring no 
 great changes in its own interest, it regards nations 
 which do experience some imperative need of 
 change as disturbers of the world's peace. The 
 consequence of a timid diplomatic tradition, rein- 
 forced by the conservative interests of the satisfied 
 Powers, is that peace has always seemed to be 
 a condition of passivity and rest. The structure 
 of Europe has been, with rare exceptions, so 
 inelastic, so dangerously rigid, that no consider- 
 able change could take place without war or the 
 imminent risk of war. Through decades or genera- 
 tions of peace nations grow, their trade expands, 
 their problems multiply ; grievances accumulate, 
 and unsatisfied ambitions develop an explosive 
 violence. With the outbreak of war frontiers 
 become fluid, and there is no change which vic- 
 torious force cannot propose to itself. A whole 
 library of books and pamphlets written since this 
 war began outlines the vast series of changes 
 which public opinion in the belligerent countries 
 desires, and in vain desired before the war. If 
 we were to eliminate from these programmes 
 all that is extravagant and egoistic, there would 
 remain salutary changes enough to transform the 
 map of Europe and rewrite its public law. After 
 fear, it is the pressure of this need of changes, un- 
 realizable during peace, which forces war. Leibnitz 
 said of the Abbe de Saint- Pierre's scheme, based as 
 it was on an eternal status quo, that " perpetual 
 
THE ORGANIZATION OF PEACE 153 
 
 peace " is a motto appropriate only to a graveyard. 
 The fundamental vice in the structure of Europe has 
 been that it has never known how to provide 
 for large changes without war. We must beware, 
 then, of seeking our criterion of aggression in a 
 disposition to disturb the established order or 
 upset the status quo. If large organic changes 
 must always be postponed till " the next war," there 
 can be no enduring peace. If we dwell too simply 
 on the single purpose of preventing war, we may 
 drift insensibly into a conservative organization 
 which would stereotype abuses, delay salutary 
 changes, and repress the most vital political and 
 economic movements of our time. Our problem 
 must be, not merely to prevent war, but to secure 
 such an organization of Europe that large inter- 
 national changes may be compassed without war. 
 We have seen that there exists at present no 
 ready-made standard which a democracy, informed 
 by goodwill and possessed of some measure of 
 power, can apply to distinguish an aggressive from 
 a defensive war. Where, then, shall we find our 
 criterion? It must lie in some appeal from the 
 interested judgment of each people in its own cause 
 to the verdict of some calmer corporate conscience, 
 which will reach its conclusions under the guidance 
 of a view of the common good. What its organ 
 in each case should be — a tribunal, a mediator, 
 or a common council of Europe — we need not at 
 once discuss. The principle is not new^, but it 
 is far from having secured general assent. No 
 nation or Government entirely disavows it, but 
 few have yet given it their firm adherence. It 
 
154 THE ORGANIZATION OF PEACE 
 
 underlies the eagerness, as marked on the German 
 as on the Allied side in this war, to secure a favour- 
 able verdict from neutrals on their policy. Every 
 nation, including Germany, has in the past sub- 
 mitted grave disputes of a justiciable kind to 
 the arbitration of an international court, and an 
 advance by which all Governments would bind 
 themselves to submit all disputes of this limited 
 class to arbitration is not only conceivable but 
 probable. It is not such disputes, however, which 
 commonly lead to war, and if they should do so, 
 it would only be because they were seized upon 
 as a pretext which concealed a much larger issue. 
 No civilized State can afford to make war over 
 the interpretation of the wording of a treaty, over 
 a boundary dispute, or over questions of financial 
 compensation arising out of wrongs done to their 
 citizens abroad. It is when a dispute transcends 
 the scope of any question which can be submitted 
 to a merely legal settlement that the risk of war 
 arises, and a reluctance to accept or even to invite 
 the formal opinion of some neutral body makes 
 itself felt. Recent experience is not encouraging. 
 France submitted her claim to a privileged position 
 in Morocco to a conference of all the Powers, but 
 it cannot be said that she was scrupulous in 
 observing its decisions. Austria, with German 
 backing, refused a conference to sanction her 
 annexation of Bosnia. Sir Edward Grey's proposal 
 to submit the dispute between Austria and Serbia 
 to the mediation of the four disinterested Powers 
 was decisively rejected by the German Chancellor, 
 and his rejection was conveyed in a trenchant form 
 
THE ORGANIZATION OF PEACE 155 
 
 which seemed to imply a dislike of the principle 
 underlying any such procedure. He would hear 
 nothing of an " Areopagus " ; he would not 
 summon his ally before a " court " ; he seemed 
 to imply that it was beneath the dignity of a 
 Great Power to allow the interference of others, 
 even in its external affairs. This attitude is no 
 new pose in diplomacy. It has been the common 
 form of conservative statesmen, and we may find 
 an echo of it in Canning's motto : " Every nation 
 for itself, and God for us all." There was some- 
 thing to be said for this attitude in Canning's 
 day. Europe remained through the greater part 
 of the nineteenth century a collection of isolated 
 sovereign States. Alliances were never permanent, 
 and were rarely contracted save for some limited 
 purpose or for a single war. Our own generation 
 has witnessed the growth of the permanent alli- 
 ance, a combination formed not merely for war but 
 for the normal conduct of diplomacy, and for trade 
 and finance as well as for war. " Each for him- 
 self " is a motto which no longer answers to the 
 facts. /Europe consists no longer of six Great 
 Powers^ and some minor States, but of two great 
 groups which tend to draw the minor States within 
 their orbit. These groups persist in peace no less 
 than in war, and it is easier to conceive of their 
 amalgamation into a single loosely knit league 
 than to imagine, their dissolution into their 
 elements. In the old days it was possible for 
 two Governments engaged in a dispute to reject 
 the meddling of other Governments as an imperti- 
 nence. At the worst they would fight out their 
 
156 THE ORGANIZATION OF PEACE 
 
 quarrel between themselves ; the conflagration 
 could be " localized," and with reasonable prudence 
 no one else need fear that his house would blaze. 
 To-day the links are so close that almost any war 
 involving a Great Power must be a universal war. 
 The affectation which resents the interference in 
 a dispute of Powers which must presently be forced 
 by their engagements to take part in it, is an 
 unreasoning arrogance. The alternative to 
 Areopagus is Armageddon, and the Powers which 
 will not meet in council are only too likely to 
 meet upon the battlefield. 
 
 The new organization of the impartial conscience, 
 whatever it is, must be permanent. It is possible 
 that the attempt to secure the reference of the 
 Bosnian and Serbian questions to a conference 
 failed precisely because the machinery of such 
 a conference had to be improvised. It was possible 
 for a conservative Austrian or German statesman 
 to argue that some loss of prestige might be in- 
 volved in going before a conference, because this 
 procedure is still exceptional, and because if he 
 yielded on this occasion, he had no security that 
 other Powers would do so when his own interests 
 might require this method of settlement. There 
 may be wide differences of opinion as to what 
 form the standing council should take, and with 
 what powers it should be invested. It is probably 
 hopeless to expect at first an agreement in advance 
 from all the Powers to abide by its decisions. 
 The tradition of the sovereign State, bound by no 
 laws but its own supreme self-interest, will die 
 hard. The minimum at which we must aim, and 
 
THE ORGANIZATION OF PEACE 157 
 
 without which nothing appreciable will have been 
 won, is an agreement that every Power will consent 
 to submit every threatening dispute to the study 
 of a standing council, and to refrain from war 
 until its recommendations have been issued. If 
 to this were added the much less controversial 
 agreement to refer the narrower category of 
 justiciable disputes to the arbitration of an inter- 
 national legal tribunal, we should have gained the 
 objective criterion which we are seeking. The 
 Power which broke its agreement to have recourse 
 to the standing council, or declared war before its 
 recommendations had been issued, would stand 
 condemned before its own people, its allies, and the 
 world of neutrals. By a single test which would 
 admit of no sophistication or special pleading, it 
 would be convicted of wanton and lawless aggres- 
 sion. If it should happen that the council issued 
 recommendations which one party to the dispute 
 refused to accept, the case would be only a little 
 less clear. The party which rejected its recom- 
 mendations would be guilty of flagrant aggression 
 if it then went to war to enforce its own point of 
 view. The other party, if it went to war to give 
 effect to demands which had the sanction of the 
 council, would be entitled to the sympathy, if not 
 to the. active support, of the rest of the world. 
 No one could say that it was in the wrong in press- 
 ing its demands ; whether it did right to press a 
 just demand to the point of war, would depend on 
 the gravity and urgency of its grievance, and the 
 extent of the risk which its action might involve 
 to other peoples. 
 
158 THE ORGANIZATION OF PEACE 
 
 The Europe in which we live is no longer a 
 collection of isolated States ; it is a community 
 knit by permanent alliances. A scheme of this 
 kind must adapt itself to the existing structure 
 of the Continent. On the eve of this war, Sir 
 Edward Grey put forward what he described as 
 a ''utopian" proposal (White Paper No. 101). 
 It was that each of the two allied groups should 
 guarantee the other against the aggression of any 
 or all of its members. A verbal disavowal of 
 aggressive intentions would add little to the real 
 guarantees of peace, even if it were enshrined in 
 such a formula as was proposed in Lord Haldane's 
 negotiations of 191 2. This scheme for arbitration 
 or conciliation gives us for the first time an 
 objective test of aggression, and enables us by 
 means of it to limit the scope of alliances to an 
 honestly defensive purpose. Nearly all alliances 
 are in form defensive only, but the vagueness 
 of the distinction between aggression and defence 
 renders this restriction of small value in practice. 
 If this scheme were honestly adopted, it would 
 involve the insertion in all treaties of alliance 
 (if the system of alliances survives) of a clause 
 which would free the contracting parties from 
 any obligation to give aid to a partner who 
 had refused to submit his case to arbitration or to 
 the Council of Conciliation, or gone to war before 
 the period of delay expired. To this condition 
 it seems to me indispensable to add a clause can- 
 celling the obligations of the alliance if either 
 ally should become involved in hostilities by reason 
 of his own refusal to accept the recommendations 
 
THE ORGANIZATION OF PEACE 159 
 
 of the Council. The advantages gained by this 
 plan are, therefore, (1) the gain of a period 
 of delay in which public opinion, if it be 
 pacific, can act ; (2) the registry in each 
 dispute of an impartial recommendation for its 
 settlement ; (3) the setting up of a clear 
 objective standard, by which the citizens of a 
 would-be belligerent Power might judge whether 
 its Government were acting aggressively ; (4) the 
 isolation of an aggressor, through the abandonment 
 of his cause by his habitual allies. This last 
 provision, as Europe is constituted to-day, would 
 generally be decisive. It would mean that the 
 aggressor would fight alone, while his victim could 
 invoke the aid of allies. The agreement for delay, 
 arbitration, and conciliation would be still more 
 impressive if it further required all the signatory 
 Powers to concert military and other measures 
 I against any Power which broke it. 1 It is not, 
 j however, proposed in this minimum scheme that 
 any Power should bind itself in advance to accept 
 or enforce the recommendations of the Council 
 of Conciliation, or that it should sign away its 
 abstract right to go to war if the process of 
 conciliation has failed to bring about a settlement 
 which it can accept. 
 
 The real pivot of this moderate plan for the 
 prevention of war is the period of delay, usually 
 defined as one year from the date of the submission 
 
 1 In describing the moderate minimum I have followed broadly 
 a scheme of which a persuasive account will be found in Mr. 
 Lowes Dickinson's "After the War" (Fifield, 6d). 
 
160 THE ORGANIZATION OF PEACE 
 
 of a dispute to the council. No proposal which 
 promises so much can be free from difficulties. 
 The first obvious difficulty, for which provision 
 must be made, is that some disputes arise from 
 continuous injuries, so serious that they must be 
 suspended while they are examined by a Court 
 of Arbitration or a Council of Conciliation. No 
 Power will wait a year for justice, if the offender 
 continues to repeat his aggression or completes 
 a wrong whose beginning was already an offence. 
 The Court or Council must be always in being 
 to issue a preliminary injunction, in urgent cases, 
 before the question of principle is debated. 
 
 Another difficulty turns on the change which 
 might take place in the relative military prepared- 
 ness of the disputants during the year of delay. 
 An aggressive Power is commonly a well-armed 
 Power. If it meditates a brutal use of force, 
 it will usually have accumulated armaments and 
 provided itself with allies. To ask it to wait for 
 a year is in effect to deprive it of a great part 
 of this advantage. Let us cherish no illusions about 
 the easy realization of a scheme which to men of 
 good will seems so eminently reasonable. The 
 year of delay would frustrate the calculations by 
 which militarist cliques and general staffs time 
 the outbreak of disputes for the moment when 
 their own strength is at its maximum and that 
 of their adversary at its minimum. This handi- 
 cap on military preparedness will be accepted only 
 when every Power has consciously resolved to debar 
 itself for the future from the speculative use of 
 such advantages. Moderate as the scheme is, it 
 
THE ORGANIZATION OF PEACE 161 
 
 exacts a complete breach with the tradition of 
 militarism. The proposal originated in the 
 Anglo-American Treaty, and it would work 
 smoothly across the Atlantic between two cousinly 
 Powers which have full confidence in each other. 
 In a European dispute, we must prepare for some 
 embarrassing possibilities. A year would enable 
 us to improvise an army, while our opponent would 
 increase his fleet. The unready Power would set 
 to work to accumulate munitions and to build 
 strategic railways. If it went still further, and 
 started mobilization, the strain would become 
 intense. American advocates of the scheme have 
 laid stress on the psychological advantages of 
 delay. Nerves would be calmed ; the press would 
 grow weary of a protracted excitement, and war- 
 like passions would be extinguished in boredom. 
 \ iWould that happen on the Continent? Each day 
 might bring its tale of the enemy's new gun, his 
 giant airship, his invincible submarine, his hastily 
 | laid railways, his intrigues to gain a Balkan ally, 
 | and finally his stealthy mobilization. If, more- 
 over, a legal state of war were declared (or in 
 J our country the Defence of the Realm Act put 
 in force), there would be an end of free discussion 
 and a stifling of public opinion. It is clear that 
 ] the amount and kind of preparation which is allow- 
 I able must be carefully defined in advance. To 
 allow preparation would indirectly discourage heavy 
 armaments in time of peace, and give an advantage 
 to the unready, which is often, but not always, 
 the more innocent and pacific Power. It would, 
 however, place a heavy strain on the forbearance 
 
 ii 
 
1 62 THE ORGANIZATION OF PEACE 
 
 of the better prepared Power, usually the Power 
 which is the more likely to defy the scheme, or 
 even to reject it in advance. I confess that I 
 do not myself clearly see the solution of this 
 dilemma. The wiser course would be, I think, 
 to forbid any new preparations in excess of those 
 already publicly sanctioned by the Budgets of the 
 Powers involved, and to forbid either mobilization 
 or the declaration of a state of war. These 
 prohibitions, if they did not extend to the whole 
 year, might at least cover nine months of it. In 
 calling attention to this difficulty, I am far from 
 suggesting that it should deter us. We start from 
 the belief that until war actually breaks out the 
 party of good will is normally the stronger. It 
 fails partly because it never has time, partly 
 because it rarely knows the facts, and partly 
 because it becomes unpopular by attempting to 
 argue that the enemy is not wholly in the wrong. 
 Give it a simple case to urge, with " Keep your 
 Treaty and wait a year " for its single watchword, 
 and it must carry the day, unless the conscience 
 of its country be wholly perverted or crushed. 
 To attempt a full discussion of the composition 
 and procedure of the Council of Conciliation lies 
 beyond the scope of this essay. These questions 
 have been studied in minute detail by the Fabian 
 Society, and its draft treaty for the establishment 
 of a Council is full of good suggestions. 1 It is 
 important to decide whether we aim at a European 
 League or at a world-organization. There is 
 1 See the Supplements to the New Statesman of July 10 and 17, 
 I9I5- 
 
THE ORGANIZATION OF PEACE 163 
 
 much to be said for the former ideal. Europe 
 makes some approach to a common level of cul- 
 ture and political development. It is a unity which 
 has a meaning for the imagination and the 
 emotions. To go far beyond the real ties of 
 fraternity would be to make the League a formal 
 and mechanical organization. No political unity will 
 ever be real which is not felt. On the other hand, 
 in spite of the Monroe doctrine, we should all wish 
 to include the United States, and Japan is already 
 within our political system. Most of the Great 
 Powers are, moreover, World- Powers, and the 
 friction between them arises often from extra- 
 European questions. The Fabian Society's solution 
 of a World-Council, which might on certain ques- 
 tions divide into European and American chambers, 
 sitting separately, is ingenious and promising. 
 With it we may agree that the ancient fiction of 
 the equality of sovereign States must be abandoned. 
 The Council must be free to reach its decisions by a 
 majority vote, and the voting power of each State 
 must bear some relation to its real importance 
 in the world. This detail leads us rapidly to a 
 thorny question of principle. Is our Council to 
 be a diplomatic congress, composed of delegates 
 instructed by their Governments? 
 
 On our answer to this question depends our 
 ability to move away in this advance from 
 the traditional methods of diplomacy. Those 
 methods were well adapted to their end, the 
 furtherance of the restricted interests of the 
 national State. The success of our Council 
 would depend, however, on its ability to face each 
 

 164 THE ORGANIZATION OF PEACE 
 
 question on its merits, and to keep in view the 
 general good of the European Commonweal. If 
 a dispute arises, say between Serbia and Bulgaria, 
 we shall get no objective decision on its merits 
 if the Russian and Austrian members of the Council 
 view it primarily from the standpoint of Russian 
 and Austrian interests, while the British, French, 
 and German members feel bound to adopt the 
 standpoint of their Allies. We desire the nearest 
 approach to abstract justice, consistent with the 
 general interests of the whole European com- 
 munity. The diplomatic tradition starts from the 
 maxim, Do lit des. A Council composed of 
 diplomatists would hardly differ from such gather- 
 ings as the Congress of Berlin, where everything 
 went by barter. There would be no voting on 
 merits, but rather an elaborate traffic in votes. 
 Incorruptible himself, the typical diplomatist has 
 been trained to think primarily of his own country's 
 interest. In the end, before " justice " could be 
 done to Serbia and Bulgaria, their patrons and 
 friends would be offering " compensations " all 
 round to secure support, and the question at stake 
 would turn on the solution of a dozen outstanding 
 issues unconnected with the Balkans. It is 
 because statesmen know so well by what methods 
 congresses are " worked " that they are reluctant 
 to submit to their decisions. A Council of diplo- 
 matists would fall at once into fixed groups, and 
 a solution would be reached by the process of 
 seducing some representative of a group from 
 his habitual allegiance by the offer of considera- 
 tions valuable to his country. An austere and 
 
THE ORGANIZATION OF PEACE 165 
 
 high-principled Foreign Minister might set his face 
 against such methods and impress his views upon 
 his delegate, but if it were suspected that even 
 one or two votes in a close contest had been 
 turned by these practices, the recommendations 
 of the Council would have lost all moral value. 
 We may fairly invite a Power to submit its case 
 to an impartial Council, capable of deciding a 
 question on its merits. But no Power would 
 submit to be outvoted if it knew that the majority 
 against it had been composed of rival Powers, 
 1 each of which voted with its eyes fixed on its 
 own irrelevant ends. 
 
 The middle course of nominating men of in- 
 dividual distinction for a fixed term, who would 
 not be expected to take their instructions from 
 j their respective Foreign Ministers, meets this 
 ' difficulty in some measure. Everything would turn 
 ! on the character of individuals. Some would be 
 firm, impartial, and independent, and would resist 
 improper pressure. Others would be weak and 
 pliable. Some Governments would send the ideal 
 man, and trust him. Others would instinctively 
 choose a man on whom they could rely to obey 
 instructions, and the process of barter would go 
 on behind his back. A Council so comprised would 
 be a mixed body, but the average result of its 
 work might be good. These nominees, however, 
 would occupy a delicate position, and it could 
 J never be certainly said that their decision repre- 
 sented either the official view of Governments or 
 the free view of peoples. It would be at the best 
 the verdict of a very distinguished and venerable 
 
 1 
 
166 THE ORGANIZATION OF PEACE 
 
 
 body of typical individuals. That might serve our 
 purpose admirably, if we aim chiefly at a com- 
 mittee of conciliation for disputes. It would not 
 serve so well if we wish our Council to act also as 
 a legislative body. A Legislature must represent 
 either governments or peoples. 
 
 There is another possible solution, bolder and 
 more difficult than either of the others. It is 
 that we should attempt to create a Council which 
 will represent, not the Governments but the 
 peoples of Europe — an assembly which would be, 
 in fact, a European Parliament. It might be 
 elected on a basis of population, by the popular 
 chamber of each national Parliament, on a system 
 of proportional representation. If the British 
 representation were fixed, for example, at ten 
 members, these ten would reflect the divisions of 
 opinion prevailing in the House of Commons. It 
 would consist always of some Liberals, some Con- 
 servatives, and at least one Socialist and one Irish 
 Nationalist. On some questions it might be 
 unanimous, but it would not always speak or vote 
 as a united national delegation. In a Council 
 so composed, natural groupings, based on opinion, 
 would be formed across the lines of racial and 
 national cleavage. The Council would not 
 inevitably fall into a German-Austrian group 
 struggling against a Franco-Russo-British group 
 for the balancing votes of the smaller States. 
 While a section, perhaps the majority, of each 
 national group might follow on most questions 
 a purely national policy, there would be, as time 
 went on, some formation of true international 
 
THE ORGANIZATION OF PEACE 167 
 
 parties. The Socialists would be the first to come 
 together. A Progressive party would inevitably 
 be formed for the extension and development of 
 the federal idea. A Conservative party would be 
 created as naturally to uphold the sovereign rights 
 of the national State. Another natural line of 
 division would be that of the Free Trade and Open 
 Door tendency against the Protectionist and mono- 
 polist tendency. Even if we suppose that the 
 powers of the Council would at first be very 
 limited, that its work would be watched with 
 intense jealousy by the official custodians of 
 national sovereignty, and that it could do little 
 more than draft proposals and recommendations, 
 which the sovereign national Governments would 
 sometimes consider and often ignore, there would 
 grow from the public debates of such a Council 
 a real sense that Europe is a united society with 
 problems, interests, and opinions which bind us 
 all across our frontiers. The true solution of 
 international strife is not to kill it by the boredom 
 of a dull and secret procedure. It is, on the con- 
 trary, to elevate it to an open, honourable, and 
 profoundly interesting discussion of opinions. 
 Instead of dreading international " disputes " as 
 mere curses and dangers, we must learn to regard 
 them as we think of our differences in domestic 
 politics, as the very springs of movement and 
 change, the proof that we are alive and are 
 adapting ourselves to our environment. 
 
 An elected Council would offer the natural 
 solution of the main difficulty which confronts any 
 advance towards international organization. So 
 
168 THE ORGANIZATION OF PEACE 
 
 long as congresses and 1 councils represent only 
 so many solid, impenetrable, isolated national 
 States, so long as they reach' their decisions by 
 bargain and barter behind the scenes, no Power 
 will bow naturally or easily to their decisions, and 
 certainly no Power will bind itself in advance to 
 accept them. We must go behind " Powers " — 
 the very word suggests nothing but parks of 
 artillery, squadrons of battleships, and massed 
 legions — to the populations which are capable of 
 thought on other than nationalist lines. If a vote 
 against Great Britain meant merely that Germany 
 and Austria had " squared " the Scandinavian dele- 
 gates and " compensated " the Balkan members, 
 so as to create a factitious coalition against us, 
 we might refuse to obey it, and rightly so. But if 
 it meant that our advanced policy had been for 
 the moment negatived by the caution of a mixed 
 majority — a French Conservative voting with a 
 German Clerical and a Russian Slavophil — should 
 we feel the same sense of humiliation and injustice? 
 If it meant that our conservatism on some issue 
 had been overborne by the united Socialist vote, 
 backed by French Radicals and the advanced parties 
 of Norway and Holland, would we bow to the 
 majority much more reluctantly than our Conserva- 
 tives do when a Liberal majority is returned at 
 home ? 
 
 Another consideration tends to favour the 
 creation of an elected Council. It is that problems 
 of peace and war tend to hinge ever less on 
 " disputes " between isolated Powers, and ever 
 more on larger questions of world policy — colonial 
 
THE ORGANIZATION OF PEACE 169 
 
 trade, the Open Door, the free use of straits and 
 ports, the " freedom of the seas," and the immense 
 issue whether backward but potentially wealthy 
 regions are to be developed economically by the 
 system of partition, monopoly, and concessions, 
 or by a regulated international partnership, or by 
 free competition. These are matters which call 
 rather for a decision of principle than for the 
 process of conciliation appropriate to narrower 
 "disputes." We want for these purposes a 
 standing Legislature, which can amend its own work 
 from time to time, deal with details as they arise, 
 and appoint its standing commissions to act 
 administratively. The chief of its standing com- 
 missions would be the Council of Conciliation, 
 which might sit in private, to handle the delicate 
 business of adjusting disputes between single 
 Powers. Others might take over each department 
 of legislation and administration as it became ripe 
 for international control, until as the decades and 
 generations passed, a loosely knit consultative 
 Council might evolve into a federal Parliament. 
 If this proposal be too bold a starting-point, we 
 might urge that while Governments set up some 
 Council of delegates or nominees more in keeping 
 with the present tradition of inter-State intercourse, 
 to serve as the responsible and authoritative organ 
 of a nascent European Commonweal, there should 
 also be formed, beside it, and even below it, an 
 elected consultative chamber, free to debate in 
 public, to suggest new policies and urgent changes, 
 and to send up its recommendations to the supreme 
 Council and the national Governments. It is not 
 
170 THE ORGANIZATION OF PEACE 
 
 probable that Diplomatists will ever so far depart 
 from the traditions of their craft as to propose 
 the creation of an elected Council. It will come 
 into being when Parliaments themselves take the 
 initiative. No mechanism will ever give us per- 
 petual peace. We shall have peace when Europe 
 has developed an international mind. The prime 
 value of an elected Council would be that it would 
 give to this mind a corporate personality and an 
 articulate voice. 
 
 We must in all candour inquire, before we close 
 this brief study, how far the moderate minimum 
 of a Council of Conciliation, fortified only by an 
 agreement to allow a year's delay before the out- 
 break of war, would answer the requirement we have 
 laid down. Would it give such a presumption that 
 great and necessary changes may be effected with- 
 out war, that Governments would refrain from the 
 competitive armaments and the partisan alliances 
 which are to-day the means of moulding the world 
 to the will of the strong? Formally it offers no 
 such security, for it is not proposed that Govern- 
 ments should bind themselves in advance to accept 
 the recommendations of the Council, nor that 
 neutrals should constitute themselves its executive 
 arm. The consequences of these limitations would 
 be serious. In the first place, the temptation to 
 arm, though it might be weakened, would not be 
 removed. Secondly, it would be difficult to argue 
 that alliances had lost their purpose, and there 
 would still tend to be an inevitable grouping of 
 Powers with a grievance or an ambition against 
 those which opposed its redress or satisfaction. 
 
THE ORGANIZATION OF PEACE 171 
 
 The understanding that alliances became invalid if 
 the agreement for a delay to allow of arbitration 
 or conciliation were broken would, indeed, tend to 
 make them less absolute and less menacing. But 
 in some degree we should still live in the atmo- 
 sphere of the armed peace and the balance of 
 power. In the third place, the Council, moving 
 warily amid these dangers, and conscious that it 
 possessed no means of overcoming the self-will 
 of the disputants, would be chary of making recom- 
 mendations which might be disregarded. Its 
 recommendations would at first be timid ; they 
 would bear an undesirable relation to the balance 
 of military power, and would fall far below the 
 requirements of ideal justice. Would it dare to 
 touch the really dangerous grievances, the wrongs 
 which at a perceptible rate accumulate the explo- 
 sives of war? It could not, for example, safely 
 propose for many years after this war to upset 
 any of the arrangements of the final settlement 
 favourable to the victors, however inequitable they 
 might be. It would probably shrink from recom- 
 mending a Great Power to carry out any difficult 
 act of reparation or surrender, though it would 
 be bound for its own credit to suggest some solu- 
 tion which would ease the tension. If it dared not, 
 for example, propose a surrender of territory, it 
 might at least suggest the concession of autonomy 
 to its inhabitants. These limitations are not an 
 objection to the scheme, but they are a warning 
 to us that the power of any mechanism to bring 
 us within reach of objective justice, and to prepare 
 large changes without recourse to arms, will grow 
 
172 THE ORGANIZATION OF PEACE 
 
 only as we develop the international mind and 
 equip it with the organs of an international 
 Government. 1 
 
 By what means can this evolution be hastened? 
 It will, no doubt, be proposed that some League 
 of Peace be formed with a definite military basis, 
 which may back the claims of justice by an ever- 
 ready force. Just in so far as such a league is 
 partial, it must fail in its purpose. The Powers 
 which do not enter it will combine against it, 
 and they will have the sympathy and support of 
 such minor States as dread the power of its 
 members. A partial league which proposed to use 
 force to back its ideals would soon reproduce 
 the old divisions of Europe in a new form, and 
 when it talked of enforcing peace and justice it 
 would seem to those outside it that a facade of 
 hypocrisy had been erected to mask the old fortress 
 of the balance of power. The proverbial ques- 
 tion would arise, Quis custodiet ipsos custodies? 
 A, B, C, and D form such a coalition, while E and 
 F remain outside it. The day comes — for all of us 
 may err — when D contemplates or perpetrates a 
 wrong against some weaker State. Will A, B, and 
 C then proceed to coerce D? D, in such an emer- 
 gency, would instantly ally himself with E and F, 
 and the choice for A, B, and C would either be 
 to renew the general war, or to abandon the moral 
 
 1 The general case for an advance to a federal organization 
 and for a scheme of conciliation, stiffened by an authority 
 which can impose decisions, is stated with compelling force in 
 Mr. J. A. Hobson's " Towards International Government " 
 (George Allen & Unwin, 2s. 6d.). 
 
THE ORGANIZATION OF PEACE 173 
 
 basis of their league. It would be wiser to leave 
 our rudimentary organ of justice without organized 
 military support than to create behind it a league 
 which involved the exclusion of any of the greater 
 European Powers. 
 
 The true answer to these foreboding riddles 
 is that every fresh advance in international 
 organization, and especially the creation of 
 economic ties, will help to make good the inevitable 
 defects in any rudimentary mechanism of concilia- 
 tion. The scheme of conciliation must not be 
 allowed to stand for long as the sole link between 
 rival and isolated Powers. If the league which 
 has accepted this principle could be evolved into 
 a commonwealth, which conferred great and evident 
 benefits upon its members, a new motive would 
 be forged which might be used to secure obedi- 
 ence for its decisions. By force we shall never 
 constitute a true league, and any voluntary associa- 
 tion of nations must admit the right to secede. 
 If membership conferred certain measurable 
 advantages, secession from it would be difficult, 
 and the league, as it grew strong, would be able 
 to lay down the principle that any failure to 
 observe the decisions of its council involved seces- 
 sion and the forfeiture of its privileges. 1 What 
 these privileges might be, it is easy to suggest 
 in outline. The ideal arrangement would be a 
 league which translated its political unity into a 
 system of Free Trade confined to its own members, 
 
 1 I have attempted a sketch of a league with such an economic 
 basis in the new chapters of the third edition of "The War 
 of Steel and Gold " (Bell, 2s.). 
 
174 THE ORGANIZATION OF PEACE 
 
 while it maintained an appreciable but not neces- 
 sarily prohibitive tariff against the imports of 
 outsiders. If any disloyalty to its political con- 
 stitution automatically entailed secession, and 
 exposed the seceder to the higher tariff, its 
 decisions would have a powerful sanction behind 
 them. This ideal may be remote, but some ap- 
 proach to it may be possible. If the league 
 could not at first construct a true Customs 
 Union, insuring to its members full Free 
 Trade within all its territories, we might begin 
 with an agreement to accord to all its members the 
 benefit of a " most-favoured-nation " clause ; this 
 at least would put an end to tariff wars within 
 it. We might go on to arrange for the abolition 
 of differential tariffs in non-self-governing colonies ; 
 a reform which would go far to remove any motive 
 to the forcible acquisition of colonies, for if I 
 may freely trade with my neighbour's colony, I 
 shall not desire to conquer it. We might next 
 arrange that members of the league should 
 accord to each other such freedom of access to 
 their money markets as allies commonly concede 
 to each other, and perhaps a guaranteed propor- 
 tional share for the capital of members in big inter- 
 national undertakings in Africa, Turkey, and China. 
 Only by some arrangement of this kind shall 
 we be able to turn the flank of the capitalistic 
 Imperialism which fosters Militarism for its own 
 economic ends. 
 
 It has often been proposed that a trade boycott 
 or complete non-intercourse should take the place 
 of war as a means of putting pressure on an 
 
 
THE ORGANIZATION OF PEACE 175 
 
 aggressive Power. Such methods, effective in 
 themselves, could with difficulty be organized or 
 enforced by States which in normal times were 
 bound by no close economic ties. To apply them 
 would require an effort so violent, and would seem 
 to the offender an outrage so extreme, that they 
 might rather provoke war than prevent it. A 
 league accustomed in times of peace to differentiate 
 in its tariffs between members and non-members, 
 and to make economic advantage the token of 
 its political unity, might use this method smoothly 
 yet with deadly effect. It is an axiom that the 
 closer our international organization becomes, the 
 more firmly and the more boldly will it venture to 
 use its authority. 1 
 
 It would be idle to attempt to sketch a detailed 
 programme for the future, or to speculate on the 
 pace of our advance. We do not know in what 
 mood Europe will look around it and face its 
 
 I problems when the havoc of this war is ended. 
 It may be so wearied, so anaemic, so riven by 
 
 : hatreds, so robbed of hope or energy, that any 
 forward step, however timid, will demand our 
 
 J utmost efforts, and our strength will be spent rather 
 
 1 These proposals must be carefully distinguished from the 
 
 suggestion which is now being put forward in all the allied 
 
 1 countries, that the Allies should, after this war, combine to 
 
 1 exclude or penalize German trade. That suggestion is merely 
 
 I punitive and vindictive, or else it is a sentimental disguise for a 
 
 crude trading egoism. Apart from economic objections, no 
 
 plan would so surely perpetuate hate. The suggestion in these 
 
 ! pages is that the economic weapon should be used impartially, 
 
 not to satisfy resentment for the past, but to ensure peace for 
 
 the future. 
 
176 THE ORGANIZATION OF PEACE 
 
 in resisting a desperate recoil into barbarism and 
 reaction. It is also conceivable that our experi- 
 ences may beget a revolutionary temper, which will 
 first in certain countries break down the internal 
 obstacles to change, and then sweep forward with 
 a new impetus towards a bold international recon- 
 struction and a sharp breach with the intolerable 
 past. At the worst we shall have before us at least 
 a ten years' truce of exhaustion in which to raise 
 our barrier against the next outbreak of folly. 
 The first test of the resolve of a new Europe for 
 enduring peace will be the ability of its peoples 
 to impose on their Governments a preliminary 
 agreement to accord a year's delay for conciliation 
 before they fight. The Government which concedes 
 so much will have turned its back upon the past 
 and broken the spell of centuries dominated by 
 force. Without this indispensable foundation we 
 shall build in vain. On it a new Europe, inspired 
 by so great an act of faith, might with confidence 
 erect by gradual stages and logical extensions the 
 firm structure of a federal league. 
 
DEMOCRACY 
 AND 
 
 PUBLICITY IN 
 FOREIGN AFFAIRS 
 
 12 m 
 
DEMOCRACY AND PUBLICITY IN 
 FOREIGN AFFAIRS 
 
 By PHILIP SNOWDEN, M.P. 
 
 The Great War will have been fought in vain if 
 it has not taught the working classes of Europe 
 the paramount necessity of publicity in foreign 
 affairs. When the multi-coloured books contain- 
 ing such notes and dispatches as it has suited the 
 several Governments to give to the world have 
 been exhausted in the effort to apportion the re- 
 sponsibility for the war, the conviction must be 
 s 'left upon the mind of every impartial person that 
 a system of diplomacy carried on in secret is an 
 anachronism in an age when democratic govern- 
 ment is, in every country in Europe, acknowledged, 
 more or less, to be a sound principle for the control 
 of domestic politics. 
 
 Unless it can be shown that there is something 
 in the nature of foreign affairs which distinguishes 
 them so radically from domestic politics that the 
 accepted principles of national government are 
 quite inapplicable to the control of foreign policy, 
 then the present system of conducting foreign 
 affairs stands condemned. But an examination 
 of the arguments advanced against the popular 
 
 179 
 
180 DEMOCRACY AND PUBLICITY 
 
 control of foreign policy reveals the fact that they 
 are precisely the same as those which have been 
 invariably employed against every demand for the 
 extension of political liberty and the enfranchise- 
 ment of the people. 
 
 The case for the popular control of domestic 
 policy can be stated in a simple but sufficient 
 phrase. It is that every citizen of a State has a 
 right to a voice in determining the extent of and 
 the form in which the State shall interfere with 
 his personal liberty. In these days the formula of 
 democracy cannot be fully expressed in the old 
 phrase, " Taxation without representation is 
 tyranny." Every year the State interferes more 
 and more with the life of the individual. It 
 regulates his conditions of work, his business, his 
 wages, his housing, his education, and disposes of 
 an ever-increasingi proportion of his personal 
 property. Nobody publicly suggests nowadays that 
 we should revert to the old political system under 
 which the disposal and direction of the lives and 
 liberties of the people was in the hands of a king 1 
 or aristocracy. Because the acts of Government 
 and Parliament affect the condition of the people 
 it is an uncontroverted doctrine that the people 
 should control the political affairs of the nation. 
 
 With the object-lesson of this war before the 
 eyes of the nation the concern of the people in 
 foreign affairs needs neither emphasis nor expo- 
 sition. We see the lives of the people sacrificed 
 by hundreds of thousands ; taxation is being im- 
 posed upon all classes to an extent which seems 
 likely to be a heavy, if not intolerable, burden 
 
IN FOREIGN AFFAIRS 181 
 
 upon them ; we see, perhaps for our lifetime, the 
 high hopes we had entertained of a great social 
 reconstruction dissipated ; we see the wealth and 
 energy which should have been devoted to dealing 
 with the problems of child life, of education, of 
 public health, of unemployment, of housing, and 
 with all those industrial and social evils in our 
 land, devoted to the destruction of life and treasure 
 on a scale so vast that the imagination reels before 
 the spectacle. This surely is the concern of the 
 masses of the people. 
 
 The war is the outcome of foreign policy. We 
 are not concerned here to apportion the blame or 
 the responsibility. The war is the failure of 
 diplomacy. It may be the fault of German, 
 or French, or Russian, or Austrian, or British 
 diplomacy, or of all in some measure. The system 
 of secret diplomacy, the divorcement of democracy 
 from the control of foreign affairs, is common to 
 all European countries. The war is indisputable 
 proof that this system of diplomacy has failed to 
 maintain peace. It may, of course, be argued 
 that any system of diplomacy or of the conduct of 
 foreign affairs would not prevent war. But the 
 first answer to that assertion is that this system 
 has failed, and that the result of that failure is 
 a calamity so colossal that no other system of 
 diplomacy could be more disastrous. 
 
 Two conclusions, therefore, must be accepted — 
 namely, that the results of foreign policy are of the 
 most serious concern to the people of every country, 
 and that whether it be possible or not to devise 
 some system of foreign policy and of the conduct 
 
182 DEMOCRACY AND PUBLICITY 
 
 of foreign affairs which will prevent or lessen the 
 disastrous results of international policy with which 
 we are now painfully familiar, the present method 
 is a failure. The failure of the present system 
 of diplomacy justifies us in not only considering", 
 but in demanding, some change in the control of 
 foreign affairs. 
 
 The conduct of foreign affairs, in all European 
 countries, has, up to the present, been in the hands 
 of a small body of diplomatists, rulers, and 
 ministers. Neither Parliament nor the people 
 know what is going on in the secret chambers of 
 diplomacy. The nations are committed to the 
 most serious obligations without their knowledge. 
 The whole history of foreign affairs consists of 
 policies adopted, treaties arranged, and wars 
 undertaken without the previous knowledge of the 
 people so vitally concerned. In 1 9 1 1 we were 
 on the brink of war with Germany over the 
 Morocco question. If war had actually broken 
 out, there were not at that time a hundred people 
 in England who would have known what it was 
 about. That crisis was due to the intrigues of 
 a number of European Governments, pressed on 
 by financial interests, to get free hands for the 
 exploitation of certain parts of Northern Africa. 
 Treaties were concluded, the terms of which were 
 published ; but now we know that secret treaties 
 were in existence which committed some of the 
 signatories to an aggressive policy directly opposed 
 to that to which they had openly pledged their 
 word. 
 
 In 191 2 the most important negotiations were 
 
IN FOREIGN AFFAIRS 183 
 
 going on between this country and Germany, with 
 the object of improving the relations between the 
 two countries. Of these negotiations the British 
 Parliament and the British nation were kept in 
 ignorance, and only bit by bit, under the strongest 
 pressure, have the people been partially informed, 
 three years later, of what took place. When, in 
 March 191 5, the Prime Minister was asked in the 
 House of Commons to put the country in posses- 
 sion of the full facts, he replied that " no public 
 advantage would be served by the publication of 
 the notes and dispatches " bearing on these vital 
 matters. 
 
 Such a method of conducting the foreign affairs 
 of a country is pure autocracy. It places the 
 destinies of a nation, the lives of the people, the 
 hopes and welfare of the democracy entirely at 
 the mercy of a small handful of persons. These 
 persons have the power to thwart all the aims of 
 the democracy in the sphere of domestic reform. 
 So long as such a power is in the hands of a few 
 persons democratic government is a mockery, and 
 the working classes are the playthings of rulers 
 and diplomatists. It is a monstrous thing that a 
 score of European diplomatists and rulers should 
 have the power to involve practically the whole 
 of Europe in a devastating war. By such a 
 system the nations of Europe are committed in 
 secret to tremendous responsibilities, and when this 
 system of diplomacy has brought the nations to 
 the verge of war, the people are induced to support 
 a war they have never wanted, and which they 
 have not expected, by appeals to their fear, their 
 
1 84 DEMOCRACY AND PUBLICITY 
 
 party loyalty, and their national patriotism. Demo- 
 cratic government to be a reality must give to. the 
 people control over such matters as treaty obliga- 
 tions with foreign countries, and Parliament must 
 be trusted with the final decision on such matters 
 and with the supreme question of peace or war. 
 
 The objections which are brought against the 
 demand for publicity in foreign affairs are pre- 
 cisely those which have done duty in every past 
 campaign against the extension of the political 
 franchise. It is said that the people do not under- 
 stand foreign affairs ; that it is essential that such 
 matters must be conducted by men of special 
 knowledge and training. But experience of demo- 
 cratic control of home affairs has falsified all the 
 arguments and fears of the opponents of a popular 
 franchise. It is not, of course, maintained that 
 the democracy has risen to the full height of its 
 responsibilities and opportunities. It has made 
 many mistakes. It has often disappointed the 
 hopes of ardent reformers. But with all its fail- 
 ings and weaknesses democratic control of home 
 affairs has been a vast improvement, from the 
 point of view of national welfare, on the former 
 system of aristocratic government. The people 
 are slowly learning to understand and to use their 
 power, and every decade shows an advance in 
 the intelligence of the democratic vote. 
 
 We are justified in feeling a very considerable 
 amount of confidence that the system of demo- 
 cratic control which has for two generations been 
 the method for conducting our national affairs 
 would, if applied to the control of foreign affairs, 
 
IN FOREIGN AFFAIRS 185 
 
 be equally satisfactory. If the extension of the 
 franchise has not altogether changed the character 
 of parliamentary representation, it has changed 
 the atmosphere and outlook of Parliament. In 
 regard to home affairs the rights and wrongs of 
 democracy have become the main subject-matter 
 of political contention and of legislative effort. 
 The point of view of the working classes receives 
 a consideration in Parliament now which was not 
 possible when the landed aristocracy shared with 
 the plutocracy the control of national affairs. 
 
 But as the control of foreign affairs is still in 
 the hands of the same class which formerly 
 monopolized all political 1 power, the conduct of 
 foreign affairs and the personnel of the Diplo- 
 matic Service have remained unchanged, and are 
 still the preserve of the landed and privileged 
 classes. The natural result of that system is that 
 these affairs have not been conducted in the 
 democratic interests, but in the interests of the 
 same class whose evil control of home affairs gave 
 rise to the great popular demands for the demo- 
 cratic control of domestic politics. The popular 
 control of home affairs has brought the democratic 
 outlook and sympathy into legislation ; and, in 
 like manner, the popular control of foreign affairs 
 would change the character of diplomacy. It 
 would be recognized that the people were the con- 
 trolling authority, and the administrators would 
 naturally try to represent the people's point of 
 view, instead of that of the financial and com- 
 mercial interests. If it were known by our states- 
 men and diplomatists that the results of their diplo- 
 
1 86 DEMOCRACY AND PUBLICITY 
 
 matic efforts were dependent for confirmation upon 
 the approval of the popular representatives, they 
 would strive to achieve such results as would be 
 likely to secure that approval. In other words, 
 diplomacy, knowing that democracy was its master, 
 would endeavour to serve the interests of 
 democracy. 
 
 The question now arises for consideration 
 whether democratic control of foreign affairs would 
 insist upon a change, and whether it would 
 earnestly pursue a policy for the establishment 
 and maintenance of peaceful relations between 
 nations. It would not be wise to dogmatize on 
 this topic, but it is permissible to submit evidence 
 which appears to give very strong support to the 
 belief that democratic control of foreign affairs 
 would tend towards the abolition of war. The 
 breakdown of international socialism on the declara- 
 tion of war was a grievous disappointment to those 
 who had built high hopes on the growing soli- 
 darity of the workers of the world. But a calm 
 and fair consideration of all the circumstances 
 leaves one with little reason to feel despondent, 
 or to lose faith in internationalism. Great move- 
 ments grow slowly. National prejudices are hard 
 to kill. No great project ever succeeds at first. 
 It is only after many failures that triumph comes. 
 The international working-class movement was sub- 
 jected to the greatest possible strain before it 
 had grown strong enough to bear the test. But 
 the true facts are now becoming known, and one 
 may almost say that the matter which should cause 
 surprise is not the failure of international socialism 
 
IN FOREIGN AFFAIRS 18; 
 
 to prevent the war, but that in all the circumstances 
 so much of the international spirit survived the 
 terrible ordeal. 
 
 The workers in all countries hate war. That 
 they support wars is no disproof of that statement. 
 The amazing absence of anything of the nature 
 of jingoism among the people of this country 
 during this war, the universal desire to see an end 
 of the war on such conditions as will ensure a per- 
 manent peace, show that the spirit of the democracy 
 is not military but pacific. The democracy never 
 support a war except for one or both of two 
 reasons, namely, through fear, or to remove or 
 avenge some real or alleged injustice. Since 
 September 28, 1864, when the first International 
 was formed in London, one of the primary objects 
 of every international association of working men 
 has been the promotion of international peace. 
 The workers may be trusted to use their power 
 and influence to prevent war because they know 
 something of the terrible cost of war. They know 
 they gain nothing by war. They realize that the 
 common interests of the workers can be served 
 only in the ways of peace. They know well that 
 war and militarism are the instruments of capi- 
 talism and exploitation. They know that war is the 
 greatest enemy of social progress, for it divides 
 the working classes of the different countries and 
 distracts their attention from the prosecution of 
 what the continental workers call the " class 
 struggle " — that is, the battle for the economic 
 emancipation of the wage-workers. 
 
 The working classes object to war for other 
 
188 DEMOCRACY AND PUBLICITY 
 
 reasons. They know from experience that a time 
 of war is a period when the liberties they have 
 won in times of peace are easily filched away. 
 They know that the cost of war, wherever the 
 taxes may be directly laid, falls with the heaviest 
 weight upon them. They know that bad trade 
 and hard times follow war, and that though indi- 
 viduals may gain from war, they as a class, and 
 the nation as a whole, are always the losers by it. 
 The working classes, by instinct and by knowledge, 
 are peaceful and opposed to war, and there is 
 every reason to believe that their influence on 
 foreign policy, so far as they might be able to 
 exercise it, would be all in the direction of pro- 
 moting peace and the establishment of good rela- 
 tions between all nations. 
 
 Though the instincts of the people are towards 
 peace, it does not necessarily follow that, if there 
 were publicity in the conduct of foreign affairs, 
 there would be a greater likelihood of averting 
 wars. But there are grounds for a reasonable 
 supposition that such a result would ensue. Let 
 us bear in mind the fact that secrecy in diplomacy 
 has not prevented war. On the contrary, the 
 policies which the rulers and diplomatists have 
 pursued in recent years have brought about the 
 Great War. If we agree with the popular view 
 in this country that the Prussian militarists have 
 for years been preparing for this war, it is cer- 
 tain that the great Social-Democratic party in 
 Germany were ignorant of that movement. On 
 the other hand, if the people of Great Britain had 
 been aware of the secret missions to foreign Courts 
 
IN FOREIGN AFFAIRS 189 
 
 for the purpose of furthering a policy for the 
 isolation of Germany, it is probable that public 
 opinion in this country would not have approved 
 such a policy. That this diplomatic policy was 
 being pursued behind the backs of Parliament and 
 the people was well known in the inner circles 
 of the European Courts. After the mischief has 
 been done, these truths have been permitted to 
 come to the light. For instance, the Belgian 
 Minister in London (Count de Lalaing), in a dis- 
 patch to his Government dated May 24, 1907, 
 said : " It is plain that official England is quietly 
 pursuing a policy opposed to Germany and aimed 
 at her isolation, and that King Edward has not 
 hesitated to use his personal influence in the ser- 
 vice of this scheme." 
 
 Such a policy as that was bound to eventuate in 
 war. If these facts had been known to Parlia- 
 ment five years ago this war would never have taken 
 place, for the danger of the policy of attempting 
 to isolate Germany would have been realized, and 
 before matters had developed to the point of hos- 
 tilities the public opinion of Great Britain and 
 Germany would have interfered. Similarly the 
 secret mission of Lord Haldane to Berlin in 191 2 
 failed because of its secrecy. The disclosures made 
 by the German Chancellor and by Sir Edward 
 Grey show that the margin of difference between 
 the proposals of the two Governments was so small 
 that if there had been an earnest desire on both 
 sides to come to an agreement the difference could 
 easily have been bridged. The secret knowledge 
 and the suspicion in the minds of both parties — the 
 
igo DEMOCRACY AND PUBLICITY 
 
 knowledge of the German Chancellor of the secret 
 intrigues which for years had been going on 
 between England, France, Russia, and Spain for 
 the isolation of Germany, and the knowledge in 
 Sir Edward Grey's mind of the secret understand- 
 ing between this country and France — made it 
 impossible for a satisfactory agreement to be 
 reached. But if the final differences could have 
 been submitted to the respective Parliaments, if 
 the peoples of Germany and England, both anxious 
 for friendly relations, could have been consulted, if 
 in an atmosphere of peace these matters could 
 have been discussed with full knowledge, it is 
 as certain as day follows night that some basis 
 would have been found for a friendly settle- 
 ment. 
 
 But even if that had not happened, the advan- 
 tage of publicity would have been immense. If 
 the negotiations had failed, plainly because Ger- 
 many was determined to accept no agreement which 
 would not give her a free hand against France 
 and Russia, then the public in all European coun- 
 tries would have known the real facts. If war 
 was seen to be inevitable, our Government would 
 have been in a far stronger position. Because 
 they alone have been in possession of knowledge 
 which they believed pointed to the possibility of 
 war, they have been hampered in making the 
 preparations for war. If it were the fact that 
 the German fleet was being built to challenge 
 the position of Great Britain and to attack this 
 country, then the great increases in the Navy Vote 
 of Great Britain during the last eight years might 
 
IN FOREIGN AFFAIRS 191 
 
 have been justified. But because of the secrecy 
 of foreign policies the Government were unable 
 to justify their policy by a full statement of the 
 facts. Secret diplomacy makes the conditions for 
 war ; but where the control of finance is in the 
 hands of Parliament, it prevents the Government 
 from making the adequate preparations to sup- 
 port the commitments of that secret policy. 
 
 There is nothing in the nature of foreign affairs 
 which renders the public discussion of them un- 
 intelligible to the ordinary mind. If that were so, 
 why have the various Governments of the belli- 
 gerent States taken such trouble to provide the 
 public with the notes and dispatches bearing ofci 
 the war? The different Governments have based 
 their case on the evidence of these books. They 
 have appealed to the public to act as the jury 
 on this evidence. The people, it appears, are con- 
 sidered fit to form correct judgments after the 
 mischief is done, but unfit to be consulted before. 
 The matters with which foreign politics is con- 
 cerned are no more difficult or subtle than many 
 questions of domestic policy. The Unionist Party 
 were at one time anxious that the electors of this 
 country should vote directly on the question of 
 Tariff Reform. That is one of the most abstruse 
 and difficult social, economic, and political ques- 
 tions, and the people who were to be asked by 
 their votes to decide this issue are the same people 
 who are not considered sufficiently enlightened to 
 decide whether British foreign policy shall be used 
 for, say, assisting to divide Europe into two rival 
 and hostile combinations, or for establishing a 
 
192 DEMOCRACY AND PUBLICITY 
 
 concert of nations acknowledging a code of inter- 
 national law. 
 
 A great advantage which would come from 
 publicity in foreign affairs would be in the parlia- 
 mentary and public discussion which would arise. 
 This public discussion would have a three times 
 blessed result. It would have a restraining influ- 
 ence upon ministers and diplomats in the pre- 
 liminary negotiations. The aloofness of foreign 
 policy from parliamentary control and public dis- 
 cussion must have the effect of making foreign 
 ministers and diplomatists rather contemptuous of 
 Parliament and people. It must subject them to a 
 constant temptation to do things which they would 
 not do if they knew that their action would come 
 before a committee of Parliament and be subjected 
 to criticism. It would put an end to the secret 
 intrigues of financiers and armament interests to 
 direct foreign policy. The second great benefit 
 which publicity would confer would be that the 
 discussion of questions of foreign relations would 
 help to clear away mutual misunderstandings 
 between nations, which are so often due to the 
 suspicion which secrecy always encourages. This 
 discussion would bring the peoples of the different 
 nations more closely together, because no such 
 discussion of international relations could take 
 place without making plain the common interests 
 of the workers. The third great benefit which 
 would result would be the gradual education of 
 the democracy in foreign politics, the expansion 
 of their horizon, and the development of the inter- 
 national spirit and outlook. iWhen the democracies 
 
IN FOREIGN AFFAIRS 193 
 
 have the international spirit there will be no more 
 wars. 
 
 We come now to the practical proposals for 
 giving effect to our demand for publicity in foreign 
 affairs. Reform will have to be carried out in three 
 quarters. Some form of parliamentary control 
 over foreign affairs will have to be established ; 
 the staffs of the Foreign Office and the Diplomatic 
 Corps will have to be changed, and the relation of 
 the Foreign Secretary to Parliament will have to 
 be altered. The control of Parliament over foreign 
 policy is now merely nominal. It is true that an 
 opportunity is provided by means of questions in 
 the House of Commons for obtaining information. 
 But the Foreign Secretary withholds information 
 altogether, or gives just as much as he thinks 
 desirable. Members of Parliament are restricted 
 in their access to sources of information about 
 foreign affairs, owing to the secrecy with which 
 diplomacy is conducted. In the matter of ques- 
 tions dealing with home affairs the Member of 
 Parliament is able, as a rule, to find out the actual 
 facts for himself, and he then is in a position, by 
 means of questions and supplementary questions, 
 to meet the minister on fairly equal terms. But it 
 is not so in regard to foreign affairs. A reference 
 to the incident of the Japanese demands upon 
 China in the spring of 1 9 1 5 will illustrate the 
 difficulty of a Member of Parliament eliciting the 
 facts by means of questions in the House of 
 Commons. That was a matter in which the honour 
 and the interests of Great Britain were seriously 
 involved. But questions to the Foreign Secretary 
 
 13 
 
194 DEMOCRACY AND PUBLICITY 
 
 failed to elicit any information as to the nature 
 of the Japanese demands, or the progress of the 
 negotiations, or of the attitude which our Foreign 
 Office had taken up. The Foreign Secretary 
 pleaded that a copy of the Japanese Note to China 
 had been given to him by Japan in confidence, and 
 the terms could not be divulged. What that meant 
 was that, though Great Britain was by treaty bound 
 to maintain the integrity of China, Parliament was 
 not entitled to know anything about the action 
 which our ally was taking to destroy that in- 
 tegrity. 
 
 In addition to the opportunity afforded by ques- 
 tions there is usually one day each session set 
 apart for the discussion of foreign affairs. It is 
 obviously impossible to adequately discuss such im- 
 portant and varied subjects in one sitting of the 
 House of Commons. In normal times the House 
 of Commons is so fully occupied with domestic 
 legislation that it might be difficult to afford time 
 for frequent discussions on foreign affairs. But 
 there would be no difficulty in allotting at least as 
 much time for that purpose as is given to the 
 discussion of the Navy and Army Votes. It would 
 be useless, however, to give more time unless 
 Parliament were kept constantly more closely in 
 touch with what was being done by the Foreign 
 Office. To provide that closer acquaintance with 
 foreign policy, the establishment of a Committee 
 of Foreign Affairs is desirable. This committee 
 should be composed of members drawn from all 
 the political parties in the House of Commons. 
 In time, service on this committee would provide 
 
IN FOREIGN AFFAIRS 195 
 
 a fair proportion of members who had acquired 
 knowledge of this department, and who would be 
 able to discuss these questions intelligently in the 
 public debates in the House. Such a committee 
 would not assume the responsibility which is now 
 vested in the Foreign Secretary and the Cabinet. 
 Its function would be to learn the facts and to 
 act in an advisory capacity. 
 
 But no extension of parliamentary control over 
 foreign affairs would be effective if the character of 
 the Diplomatic Service and the constitution of the 
 Foreign Office remained unchanged. The staffs 
 of both the Diplomatic Corps and the Foreign 
 Office are recruited in the most undemocratic way, 
 and the personnel are quite out of touch with 
 present-day movements. The nomination for the 
 examination for a Foreign Office clerkship and for 
 a post in the Diplomatic Service rests with the 
 Foreign Secretary. The candidates are drawn 
 wholly from one social rank. Candidates for the 
 Diplomatic Service must give an assurance that 
 they are provided with a private income of not 
 less than £400 a year. If appointed, they must 
 serve abroad for two years without salary. This 
 condition ensures that the men shall belong to 
 the well-to-do class, and, as a matter of fact, the 
 utmost care is taken that only young men of high 
 social rank are selected. Of twenty recent appoint- 
 ments one-half were peers or the sons of peers, and 
 the remainder belonged to a social class scarcely 
 less exalted. The Royal Commission on the Diplo- 
 matic Service which reported in 19 14 said : 'The 
 effect of this condition [the required minimum 
 
196 DEMOCRACY AND PUBLICITY 
 
 private income of £400 a year] is to limit candida- 
 ture to a narrow circle of society. We have been 
 furnished by the Civil Service Commissioners with 
 the educational antecedents of the successful com- 
 petitors for attacheships in the years 1908-13 
 inclusive. No fewer than twenty-five out of thirty- 
 seven came from Eton, while all but a very small 
 fraction had been educated at one or other of 
 the expensive public schools. In only one case 
 was any University other than Oxford or 
 Cambridge represented. No further evidence is 
 required to show the limiting effect of the present 
 regulations upon the class of candidates from which 
 the Diplomatic Corps is recruited." 
 
 The two necessary qualifications for the Diplo- 
 matic Service are social rank and the qualities 
 which will make a diplomat acceptable in the 
 society of the Court to which he is accredited. 
 Men of this sort can have no knowledge of the 
 great democratic movements which are rising in 
 all countries, and which are forcing" on the attention 
 of all Governments great social and economic 
 questions. These men have been reared in a world 
 apart from the actualities of the present day. They 
 know nothing of the democratic or international 
 spirit. It was quite consistent to have such people 
 to conduct foreign affairs when Parliament was 
 controlled by the same class. But to-day the 
 Diplomatic Service and Foreign Office are ana- 
 chronisms. The reform needed is to throw open 
 these Services to young men of all classes qualified 
 by education and character. Just as it is possible 
 for the son of a poor man by the system of open 
 
IN FOREIGN AFFAIRS 197 
 
 competition, with the help of public scholarships, to 
 obtain an important post in the home Civil Service, 
 so it must be made possible for such to enter the 
 Diplomatic Service and the Foreign Office, and to 
 bring the democratic outlook and sympathy into 
 the conduct of international affairs. 
 
 One oft-repeated objection to publicity in foreign 
 affairs requires a word of comment. It is said 
 that this reform is impossible unless all nations 
 in diplomatic association simultaneously adopt the 
 system, or that if this country alone did so it 
 would be placed at a disadvantage in diplomacy. 
 This is a reform which one country can adopt 
 without waiting for a general agreement among 
 the nations to do so. There can be no such secrecy 
 as we desire to abolish unless all the parties 
 conspire to preserve silence. The adoption of 
 publicity in foreign affairs by England would bring 
 to the light the dealings of other nations. The 
 abolition of secrecy would no doubt place those at 
 a disadvantage who desire to work in the dark 
 because they fear the light and public opinion. 
 If the aims of a nation's diplomacy are honest 
 there is no reason why it should desire its move- 
 ments to be covered by darkness. 
 
 But this objection appears to arise from a mis- 
 understanding of what is meant by publicity in 
 foreign affairs. There is no proposal that all 
 the negotiations between the nations shall be con- 
 ducted openly, and that every note and dispatch 
 shall be made known to the world. That is 
 obviously neither possible nor desirable. What is 
 meant is that there shall be established some form 
 
198 DEMOCRACY AND PUBLICITY 
 
 of parliamentary control over foreign policy, that 
 its general lines shall be directed by Parliament, 
 and that no minister or Cabinet clique shall have 
 the power to commit the word of honour of this 
 country to any policy which has not been approved 
 by Parliament, and which is not in accord with 
 the general principles approved by the nation at 
 a general election, and that the country shall 
 know clearly how it stands in relation to other 
 nations and what its obligations are. In other 
 words, the abolition of secrecy in foreign affairs 
 means that Parliament, which has now nominally 
 the responsibility for foreign policy and war, shall 
 be able to decide such matters with full know- 
 ledge, instead of, as in the past, being called upon 
 to make a hurried decision on a momentous 
 question, like the voting of supplies for war, in 
 ignorance of the causes which have led to such 
 a situation, or when the country has been irre- 
 vocably committed to war by the pledged word 
 of its ministers. 
 
 The powers vested in the Senate of the United 
 States, under the American Constitution, for the 
 control of foreign policy afford an example of 
 a method of securing some measure of publicity 
 and democratic control. The sanction of the 
 Senate is required for the ratification of a Treaty, 
 and as Lord Bryce writes in his " American Com- 
 monwealth " (vol. i. p. 109): "Yet different as 
 the circumstances of England are, the day may 
 come when in England the question of limiting 
 the present wide discretion of the executive in 
 foreign affairs will have to be dealt with. The 
 
IN FOREIGN AFFAIRS 199 
 
 example of the American Senate may then be 
 cited, but there is this important difference between 
 the two countries, that in England Parliament 
 may dismiss ministers who have concluded a treaty 
 which it disapproves, whereas in the United States 
 a President, not being similarly removable by Con- 
 gress, would be exempt from any control were 
 the Senate not associated with him in the making 
 of a treaty." 
 
 The qualification which Lord Bryce adds to his 
 statement that the example of America may be 
 cited in support of a change in the method of 
 conducting foreign relations by England has very 
 little force in the face of recent experience. Par- 
 liament may dismiss ministers who have been 
 carrying out a foreign policy it disapproves, but 
 the mischief cannot be undone, and the fact 
 that Parliament is only permitted to know what 
 ministers choose to tell makes it difficult or im- 
 possible for it to arrive at a firm conclusion, 
 and its uncertainty constitutes the security of the 
 ministers. The example of the American method 
 disposes of most of the theoretic objections to 
 more publicity in foreign affairs, such as that 
 foreign Powers will refuse to negotiate with a 
 country except through ministers who have plenary 
 powers, and that the country which has to submit 
 draft treaties to a parliamentary body will be 
 at a disadvantage in negotiation. The American 
 method would not be applicable to this country 
 in its precise form. Such a Second Chamber 
 as we have in England, or such as we are likely 
 to have, would not be a suitable body to exercise 
 
200 DEMOCRACY IN FOREIGN AFFAIRS 
 
 control over foreign affairs. A Joint Committee 
 of the two Chambers to consult and advise the 
 minister, without relieving him of responsibility, 
 would probably be a more useful body. To this 
 body consideration of treaties might be referred, 
 as they are to the American Senate, but the final 
 confirmation of the treaty should rest with 
 Parliament. The demand for publicity in foreign 
 affairs is one phase of the age-long struggle for 
 democratic liberty. It is a demand for the 
 extension to the sphere of internationalism of the 
 principle of popular government, which, whatever 
 its weaknesses may be, is manifestly the only form 
 of government possible with the advance of educa- 
 tion and modern economic and social developments. 
 The destinies of nations have been trusted to kings, 
 nobles, and plutocrats, and they have each and 
 all failed. We must now trust the people. 
 
THE 
 
 DEMOCRATIC 
 
 PRINCIPLE 
 
 AND 
 
 INTERNATIONAL 
 
 RELATIONS 
 

 THE DEMOCRATIC PRINCIPLE AND 
 INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS 
 
 By VERNON LEE 
 
 It is not from any great belief in what is called 
 " constructive policy " that I want our reader to 
 think out some of the principles which should con- 
 trol the international relations of democratic 
 peoples. We do not know enough about the 
 materials and the forces which will make up the 
 Future for our ground plans and elevations to 
 have much importance, except in so far as our 
 wishes and efforts are themselves part of the stuff 
 that Future is made of. But in some measure, at 
 least, we know the Past, and even that prolonga- 
 tion of the Past called the Present ; and our 
 attitude to these, our desire to seek and avoid, 
 are themselves one of the unknown and incal- 
 culable Future's materials. What might we wish 
 if we stood in the Future, felt as the Future, in 
 short, were part of it? That is a useless ques- 
 tion. But being ourselves part of the Future's 
 seed, it is not unimportant what we think about 
 our own Present, and especially our own Past. 
 This Present tends, or we wish it to tend, 
 
 towards a more and more democratic character. 
 
 203 
 
204 THE DEMOCRATIC PRINCIPLE 
 
 Whatever rriay have been the line of least resist- 
 ance towards the greater good for the greater 
 number in ages past, that of our own day is 
 evidently the democratic one. We have come to 
 realize that in our more evolved societies such 
 increase of present prosperity as will not hamper, 
 but further the increase thereof in the future, is, 
 or tends at least to be, more and more along 
 the lines of individuals and collectivities being 
 responsible for their own welfare, instead of being, 
 as in the days of Divine Right and Church 
 Authority, subjected to the responsibility of others. 
 To believe in democracy means to believe that 
 however great the drawbacks of freedom to think 
 and choose, however many the delusions attendant 
 thereon, yet such freedom is educative, and its 
 very failures and pitfalls make those failures and 
 pitfalls less frequent ; whereas even the most 
 successful regimes of authority place the people 
 who benefit thereby at the mercy of accidents 
 themselves have not been educated to control. This 
 being the case, we may, I think, start from the 
 premiss that in asking ourselves, What are the 
 principles by which the relations of Nations and 
 States are best guided? we may ask, What are 
 the principles of international relations which are 
 most consonant with the general principles of 
 democracy? 
 
 Foremost among these principles of democracy 
 is hostility towards artificial privilege and 
 monopoly. Our aversion to them is summed up 
 under a sense of justice. We are offended, and 
 more and more offended as we grow more ethically 
 
AND INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS 205 
 
 sensitive, by the sight of all avoidable inequality 
 of chances. But besides this instinctive, and one 
 might almost say this aesthetic, sense of fair play, 
 there is beginning to accumulate in many of us 
 a residue of experience telling us that artificial 
 privileges and monopolies create confusion and 
 deadlock ; bring about all manner of wasteful 
 deviation and violent readjustment ; and jeopardize 
 the power of human affairs to right themselves 
 by mankind's instinctive shifting towards satis- 
 faction and away from its reverse. The belief 
 in freedom of thought, and the belief in freedom 
 of trade, are not merely reasoned-out propositions 
 which we can defend by argument ; they are also, 
 to a considerable degree, accumulated residues of 
 experience, habits of preference and action due 
 to repeated, uncounted, and unnoticed experiences 
 of analogous kind. We moderns believe in 
 freedom in great measure intuitively, because we 
 have adjusted ourselves to larger and larger doses 
 thereof ; freedom, like justice, has become, apart 
 from all analytic justification, something towards 
 which we turn by what might be called our intel- 
 lectual and emotional vital exchanges, as plants 
 turn through their chemical and mechanical 
 functions towards light and moisture. 
 
 Considering therefore democracy, not as a con- 
 | dition of affairs already existing, still less one 
 1 having already existed, among men, but as a 
 ! principle deducible from certain tendencies realiz- 
 t ing themselves partially at various times, and more 
 and more dominant in our own, we have to ask 
 in what manner such democratic tendencies are 
 
206 THE DEMOCRATIC PRINCIPLE 
 
 affecting, and likely to affect, the relations of a 
 Nation to other Nations, in other words, in what 
 way democratic ideals make for Peace. 
 
 The democratic principle, a principle de- 
 duced from increasing practice and increas- 
 ing that practice by its regulative application 
 to it, may be roughly defined as that of consent 
 as against compulsion ; agreement (with its 
 correlate disagreement) as against obligatory 
 authority ; and self -direction as against direction 
 by others ; equality of judicial and civic rights 
 being among the necessary guarantees of this 
 threefold first principle. 
 
 In other words, we may say that the democratic 
 attitude is one of greater and greater respect for 
 freedom of choice, a greater and greater belief 
 in the tendency of variety to produce by mutual 
 selection and adjustment an ever richer and more 
 supple social harmony. Let us see the application 
 of this principle to politics. Within the bounds 
 of one nation it goes against every kind of 
 artificial privilege and monopoly, since these 
 diminish freedom of choice and substitute com- 
 pulsion for choice. In foreign relations it is 
 evident that our democratic preference for consent 
 as against compulsion diminishes and abolishes all 
 supposed rights by conquest. Once recognize that 
 only the consent of a people can decide their 
 nationality and government, and you put an end 
 to the possibility of countries or provinces being 
 kept against their will, as Trent is being 
 kept by Austria, for reasons having no present 
 sanction in the inhabitants' wishes, and still more 
 
AND INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS 207 
 
 so of those countries or provinces being transferred, 
 except from their free will, from one nation or 
 regime to another. The imposition of a Russian 
 regime on Finland, although Finland is not a 
 Russian conquest, is against the democratic 
 principle as much as the annexation of Alsace- 
 Lorraine by Germany. The secession of Norway 
 from Sweden is perhaps the most hopeful practical 
 recognition of this principle. In short, the 
 democratic principle of consent versus compulsion, 
 ipso facto, makes a country or province a portion 
 of whatever country itself prefers. 
 
 To say, as Bismarck did to the dissident Alsatian 
 
 deputies, that Alsace-Lorraine had not been 
 
 annexed for its own convenience and safety, but 
 
 for the convenience and safety of Germany, was 
 
 to treat Alsace-Lorraine in an undemocratic spirit : 
 
 as a chattel, a material possession existing only 
 
 for its possessor ; and it was the way, of course, 
 
 to place that possessor himself in the light of a 
 
 mere material obstacle which those he thus treated 
 
 as chattels would shake off whenever feasible. On 
 
 j the other hand, to say, as I have heard quite 
 
 liberal-minded French people say of late, that 
 
 J Alsace-Lorraine should be reunited to France 
 
 without a plebiscite or other consultation of its 
 
 h inhabitants' choice, because it is stolen goods and 
 
 j stolen goods can be taken back without more ado 
 
 liby their former proprietor, is to speak just as 
 
 [jundemocratically as Bismarck spoke. It is, 
 
 [a comically enough, to repeat verbatim the very 
 
 [Jexcuse which Germany put forward in 187 1 for 
 
 that annexation. The very essence of the demo- 
 
208 THE DEMOCRATIC PRINCIPLE 
 
 cratic principle is to consider men and women 
 as wills and not as chattels ; and the progress 
 of democracy, as it implies a constant diminution 
 of all possibility of exploiting individual men and 
 women against their choice, implies also that in- 
 habitants do not belong to territory but territory 
 to inhabitants. To transfer a province is therefore 
 as undemocratic as to sell a slave. Thus, as 
 believers in the democratic principle, we are bound 
 to give our sympathy to the people of the province 
 of Trent when they declare their wish to be united 
 to the kingdom of Italy. But we cannot respect 
 the plea of the Italian Government, or even of 
 the Italian nation, that the annexation of Trent 
 is requisite for the military safety of their country 
 or even for that equally self-regarding collective 
 advantage which is called the satisfaction of their 
 ideal aspirations. Neither is there much to be 
 said, from the democratic point of view, in favour 
 of the motives for which we British have held 
 Ireland in a past which has not quite come to 
 an end, and shall continue to hold sundry other 
 places in the probable near future. But since 
 hypocrisy is a tribute to the virtue (and one might 
 add, to the wisdom, the self-command, and clear- 
 sightedness) which the hypocrite has not got, so 
 also the progress of democratic morality and policy 
 is shown by the more and more frequent assump- 
 tion either that a conquered country has called in 
 its conqueror (this was a frequent fiction in 
 Napoleon's time and also of the Holy Alliance 
 which conquered him), or that a country so 
 annexed is " protected " for its own good, is a 
 
AND INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS 209 
 
 ward of its master, and will, once grown out of 
 childhood, understand and bless the restrictions 
 and the chastisements which may have chafed its 
 foolish immature will. 
 
 I think it is clear from all the foregoing that 
 the democratic principle absolutely rejects the 
 notion of a military victory having " fruits." 
 Such fruits of victory it calls by their real name 
 of loot. No matter what sacrifices the victorious 
 nation may have made or what risks it may have 
 run, the democratic principle denies the right 
 (which would sanction highway robbery and 
 burglary) that the sacrifices and risks of Tom 
 can be compensated by imposing sacrifices on 
 Harry. 
 
 If human beings are to be treated as human 
 beings with wills like our own (and this, like all 
 morality, is wisdom, and like all wisdom, is 
 morality), and not, as was avowedly the case 
 throughout Antiquity and the Middle Ages, as 
 chattels, slaves, or creatures you could keep or kill 
 at convenience, then wars are absurd, useless, ille- 
 gitimate, unless undertaken either in self-defence 
 (including self -liberation) or in defence of some 
 weaker party. And indeed the theoretic accept- 
 ance of this principle is shown in the present 
 war, which each of the several belligerent Govern- 
 ments proclaims, and each of the belligerent 
 peoples sincerely accepts, as a war either of self- 
 defence (Austria defending herself against the 
 vicarious encroachments of Russia in the Balkans, 
 Germany against the threat of Russia and Russia's 
 allies, France defending herself against Germany) 
 
 H 
 
210 THE DEMOCRATIC PRINCIPLE 
 
 or of defence of some smaller State, as Russia de- 
 fending Serbia, and England, Belgium. That they 
 can all be right in their assertions and beliefs is 
 impossible, and may lead some sceptics to guess 
 that they may all be mistaken in various or equal 
 degrees. But the universal certainty of each bel- 
 ligerent about being a peaceful victim or chivalrous 
 champion and his opponent an aggressive criminal, 
 shows that though we are very far from acting 
 upon democratic principles, as we are very far 
 from practising Christianity, yet we have all of 
 us explicitly or implicitly accepted those demo- 
 cratic principles as the only ones consonant with 
 a good opinion of ourselves and a respectful 
 attitude on the part of our neighbours. 
 
 In discussing these matters it is necessary to bear 
 in mind that, as I set out with saying, we are 
 at present dealing with democracy, not as any 
 existing set of institutions but rather as a 
 TENDENCY ; and a tendency which is the 
 only one in political and social relations at all 
 likely to increase and become more universal and 
 organized, despite all obstacles and set-backs. For 
 the very essence of democracy being the admission 
 of greater and greater numbers to self-government, 
 and consequently the better and better equipment 
 (by education, institutions, and also by habit) for 
 self-government, it is evident that methods of con- 
 ciliation and co-operation must be perpetually on 
 the increase, and methods of compulsion and one- 
 sided exploitation on the decline. 
 
 This democratic tendency towards adjustments 
 more and more favourable to mutual advantage 
 
 
AND INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS 211 
 
 brings with! it the greater and greater equivalence 
 of what, looked at from two opposite sides, we are 
 accustomed to oppose to one another under the 
 names of Expediency and Justice. For in a regime 
 of increasing self-government and increasing 
 equality of chances and of the training these bring 
 with them, it becomes more and more expedient 
 for one individual or group to behave towards 
 other individuals or groups in such a manner that 
 these will feel that they are justly treated — i.e. 
 treated with such reciprocity that they could obtain 
 greater individual or group advantage only by 
 unjust treatment of other individuals or groups, 
 that is to say by methods which, given a regime of 
 increasing equality, would jeopardize the safety 
 of the aggressors and become, therefore, inex- 
 pedient to themselves. 
 
 In fact, democratic progress may be defined as 
 that which gives to the moral precept " Do unto 
 others as you would be done to " a constantly 
 increasing sanction of expediency, and thereby an 
 automatic application. 
 
 That such development must be slow and ex- 
 posed to frequent set-backs (like that of this 
 war) is merely another way of saying that in the 
 present and future we have to pay the debts, and 
 struggle with the difficulties, left by the Past, both 
 in the way of habits of mind and of institutions. 
 But although such progressive application of the 
 democratic principle is slow and arduous (but con- 
 stantly less slow and less arduous through the effect 
 of its inherent tendency to conciliation and co- 
 operative adjustment), yet such progressive ap plica- 
 
212 THE DEMOCRATIC PRINCIPLE 
 
 tion of the democratic principle is not in the least 
 chimerical ; since, it is, on the contrary, based 1 less 
 and less upon self-sacrifice and more and more 
 upon the self- regarding wisdom of consulting the 
 wishes of others to whom self-government and 
 equality give the power of impeding the accomplish- 
 ment of one's own. 
 
 Such higher expediency is, indeed, but an out- 
 come of the practice of barter which is implicit 
 in all democratic conceptions, that is to say, of 
 voluntary giving what either party wants less for 
 what either party wants more ; as opposed to 
 extortion or rapine, by which one party obtains 
 what it wants, but at the expense of the ill will 
 of the other and a consequent loss to itself due 
 to the necessity for coercion of the unwilling or 
 vindictive loser. 
 
 Perhaps what I have called the Democratic Prin- 
 ciple (which we are now considering because it 
 is opposed to the militaristic principle and is a 
 main factor of Peace)— perhaps what I have called 
 the Democratic Principle is no other than the prin- 
 ciple of progress in the political and social sphere. 
 Or, rather, perhaps we might say that what justifies 
 democratic tendencies in our eyes is the belief that, 
 in our times at least, they make for an increasing 
 betterment of human conditions. And mark ! not 
 merely a betterment of the present at the expense 
 of the future, or a betterment of the future at the 
 expense of the present (both of those are alter- 
 nately promised us by militarism and all kinds of 
 tyranny), but a ratio between the two, by which, 
 neither being unduly sacrificed to the other, the 
 
AND INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS 213 
 
 betterment of the future is, on the contrary, one 
 of the results of a betterment of the present. 
 Such a ratio between proximate and ultimate 
 advantage implies economy of resources. A great 
 deal of the world's progress in the Past has auto- 
 matically compassed itself by the survival of 
 especially gifted and resistant minorities, but at 
 the cost of destroying, not only the present welfare 
 (and often the bare existence !) of less gifted 
 majorities, but depriving the world of whatever 
 could have been got by the co-operation of those 
 majorities for whatever they were worth. Indeed, 
 progress such as we see it in the Past may be 
 compared to the Past's imperfect methods of ex- 
 tracting the precious metals, by which a certain 
 amount of them was of course secured in easily 
 accessible grains or nuggets, but with the waste 
 of enormous quantities of ore which required finer 
 methods for its utilization. This is perhaps the 
 reason why the history of Antiquity— and how much 
 more the unrecorded history of primeval mankind 
 as we guess it to have been ! — strikes us as a 
 series of wreckages, civilization after civilization 
 rising out of a process of devastation and isolation, 
 to be itself overwhelmed (layer on layer of burned 
 towns and broken potsherds as excavations are 
 showing us !) by the barbarism it had repressed 
 or excluded or ignored ; wreckage out of which 
 only a minimum of human acquisitions was saved 
 and handed on by the wreckers. Those ancient 
 civilizations, submerged one after another with such 
 colossal waste of acquisitions and possibilities, were, 
 we should bear in mind, carried on mainly on the 
 
214 THE ^DEMOCRATIC PRINCIPLE 
 
 principle of conquest, compulsion, and ruthless ex- 
 ploitation of the adversary ; the vanquished being 
 either exterminated, driven into worse territories, 
 or made to toil for the victor either in actual 
 slavery or by means of tribute depriving them of 
 all but the barest subsistence, methods which 
 can be studied in more recent times in our dealings 
 with backward races. By these methods, as has 
 been pointed out by various social philosophers, 
 especially by J. M. Robertson, the potential pro- 
 ductivity of the world was enormously diminished ; 
 the victors often became, like the Romans, econo- 
 mically parasitic on the vanquished, who, on the 
 other hand, became less and less productive as 
 a result of their tyrannical exploitation. 
 
 Thus, adopting the phraseology of a recent 
 Austrian biological sociologist, Rudolf Goldscheid, 
 in his noble and suggestive " Menschen-Okonomie 
 und Hoherentwicklung," one might say that the 
 waste of Human Capital under the slave-holding 
 and tribute-levying regimes of the Antique World 
 is parallel to the waste, the destruction of natural 
 resources, by the primitive husbandry which takes 
 everything out of the soil and puts nothing in, 
 which cuts down forests and never replants them, 
 and thus reduces countries, as so many of the 
 Mediterranean and Western Asiatic countries have 
 really been reduced, to barren rock and malarious 
 seaboard. 
 
 The manufacturing and trading communities of 
 the Middle Ages defrauded civilization to only a 
 lesser degree by envious legislation, which trans- 
 ferred the markets and industries of the vanquished 
 
AND INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS 215 
 
 to the victors, and surrounded, for instance, 
 medieval Siena and Florence with what had once 
 been prosperous townships, and now became 
 decaying, sometimes fever- stricken villages like 
 Tiutinnano d'Arbia and Sovana, or even mere 
 barely identifiable sites, as in the case of Semifonti, 
 which the Florentines razed to the ground, scatter- 
 ing or absorbing its inhabitants. It was on the 
 same plan of capturing alien trade that England 
 ruined Ireland in much more recent times ; it is 
 in the same spirit, and with the same amount 
 of wisdom, that some of our contemporaries, even 
 of those believing themselves to be democrats and 
 reformers, are urging England to ruin, so far 
 as is possible, whatever may remain of German in- 
 dustry and commerce at the end of this war. 
 
 I have given these instances lest the existence of 
 certain forms of popular government should mislead 
 us into imagining that the Democratic Principle 
 of choice versus compulsion has been really recog- 
 nized, let alone acted on, in the historic past. 
 Democracy, in the most important sense we can 
 attach to the word, is not a set of institutions. 
 It is, I should again like to repeat, a tendency 
 towards a particular mode of judging and acting, 
 a tendency much more recent than we usually think, 
 though of even vaster and more rapid growth. 
 But the recognition of this comparative newness 
 of such a democratic tendency, while obliging us 
 to patience with its present imperfect realization, 
 encourages us to wish and to strive for, as well 
 as to expect, its less and less imperfect realization 
 in times to come. And we thus obtain, not only 
 
216 THE DEMOCRATIC PRINCIPLE 
 
 an aim for the future but, what I venture to con- 
 sider as more important still, a criterion for the 
 present ; since, in proportion as mankind slips 
 out of its old notions of submission and dogma, it 
 becomes more obedient to the notion of consistency 
 and responsibility. The Democratic Principle that 
 men ,and women are not things but wilts, and 
 the democratic regime of reciprocal concession and 
 mutual advantage, will therefore tend to realiza- 
 tion no longer merely by such aggregate and 
 automatic action as we sum up under the name of 
 economic and historic forces, but also, and more 
 and more, by the conscious and deliberate choice 
 of every individual taken singly. Self-determina- 
 tion is one of the aspects of the Democratic 
 Principle. And self-determination will itself imply 
 that the Democratic Principle must supersede the 
 principle — if you can call it a principle ! — of which 
 we see the crassest and most antiquated embodi- 
 ment in the present attempt of each and every 
 nation to establish security by violence and to 
 vindicate liberty by brute compulsion ; in other 
 words, to obtain the economic and moral bless- 
 ings of peace by means of the economic ruin and 
 the moral devastation of war. 
 
 UNWIN BROTHERS, LIMITED. THE URESHAM PRESS, WOKING AND LONDON 
 
 R D - 7 *• 
 
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