THE INFLUENCE OF
KING EDWARD
AND OTHER ESSAYS

THE INFLUENCE OF KING EDWARD
AND ESSAYS ON OTHER SUBJECTS

THE INFLUENCE OF
KING EDWARD
AND ESSAYS ON OTHER SUBJECTS
BY THE VISCOUNT ESHER, G.C.B., G.C.V.O.

LONDON
JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET W.
1915

3yfc7.5l

NOTE
1 WISH to acknowledge gratefully the
kindness of the editors of the Times, the
Westminster Gazette, the New Statesman,
and the National and Quarterly Reviews,
who have permitted the reprinting of the
essays contained in this volume. E.
June 23, 1914.

CONTENTS
PAOE
The Character of King Edward VII. - 1
King Edward VII. and Foreign Affairs - 49
The House of Lords - - - - 61
Reflections suggested by Lord Morley's Political
Notes - - - - - - 97
The Voluntary Principle - - - - 114
The Committee of Imperial Defence : its Functions
AND Potentialities .... 125
Naval and Military Situation - - 149
Modern War and Peace - - - - 211
La Guerre et la Paix .... 229

THE CHARACTER OF KING
EDWARD VII.
" Never was British Prince baptized under happier
circumstances than Edward, Prince of Wales, the
son of Queen Victoria. At a peribd of all but
imiversal peace throughout the world, such as can
scarcely be paralleled since the great epoch from
which our religion takes its date, a peace cemented
not merely by mutual interests and the bonds of a
common civilization, but by the growing recogni
tion of deeper principles of duty — at this period our
new Edward takes upon him the vows of a soldier
in what is pre-eminently the kingdom of peace.
Our hopes of the era which will be known to
posterity by his name may rise, in this respect, to a
far higher flight than the half-inspired prophecy of
the Roman poet, who wrote that, in the golden
age of his PoUio,
" ' Erunt etiam altera bella,
Atque iteruin ad Trojam magnus mittetur Achilles.'
"Our First Edward ravaged Scotland and
Wales ; our Third Edward, and his son, the gallant
Black Prince, carried desolation into France. But
Scotland and Wales belong to this Edward, and he
to Scotland and Wales ; and France is the nearest
and most honoured ally of his Mother's Crown.
May it be his office to consolidate good-will and
unity throughout the world, and may war never be
heard of in his time."

2 CHARACTER OF KING EDWARD VII.
This passage appeared in the leading article of
the Times on January 24, 1842, the moming after
the day when King Edward was received into the
Church of Christ within the walls of the Garter
Chapel of St. George, where on May 20, sixty-
eight years later, he was solemnly laid to rest amid
the lamentations of his people.
The newspaper paragraph was cut from the
Times and pasted into her journal by Queen
Victoria. Above it is written :
" Bells were ringing and guns firing. I oflfered
up again an anxious prayer that the Almighty
would grant a blessing to the ceremony, and we
prayed that our little boy might become a true and
virtuous Christian in every respect, and / pray that
he may become the image of his beloved father."
The prophetic insight of the anonymous writer
and the prayers of the young mother have had a
curious and wonderful fulfilment. In those days
to haye thought of the boy Prince as King by
other than his father's name was a forecast suffi
ciently remarkable, without a further anticipation,
almost in words, of the noble panegyric of the
parliamentary leaders which closed the reign of
King Edward. When Queen Victoria prayed for
her little boy to grow up in the likeness of Prince
Albert, she little dreamed that the son would live
to appeal to the hearts of the British people at
home and scattered over an Empire then unimagined
in a fashion and degree quite beyond the range of
his illustrious father.

DUE TO QUEEN VICTORIA 3
It has been noticed that Whig writers sixty
years ago used to say that when the memories of
the nineteenth century began to see the light,
people in this country would realize what a debt of
gratitude they owed to Queen Victoria and Prince
Albert. These writers had in mind the indefati
gable zeal shown by the Queen in transacting the
business of State, her impartiality in dealing with
contending factions, the sleepless watch which she
kept over the actions of her Ministers, and her
single-minded regard for the interests of her people
abroad and at home.
There was, however, another and unforeseen debt
of gratitude which we owe to the Queen and the
Prince. It is the character and kingly equipment
of King Edward.
Who can determine the precise influence, upon
any man, of inheritance and environment ?
Less than three months before Queen Victoria's
eldest son was born. Lord Melbourne — then about
to bid farewell as Prime Minister to her whom he
had served so faithfully — said, speaking of the
Prince : " You told me when you were going to be
married that he was perfection, which I thought a
little exaggerated then, but reaUy I think now that
it is in some degree reahzed."
King Edward was the child of a love marriage,
but the passionate ties which bound his parents
together were tempered by serious views of life and
its higher duties, rare in people so young and so
high-placed.

4 CHARACTER OF KING EDWARD VII.
On the day of his birth the Queen enters in her
journal that at twelve minutes to eleven a fine
large boy was born. " Oh, how happy, how grate
ful did I feel to that Almighty Providence who has
really blessed me so peculiarly 1"
On his christening morn, in that room, which
was King Edward's own in after years, his young
parents went down on their knees and prayed for
the child who some day was to be King in the words
already quoted, and thence they passed, arrayed in
their robes of the Garter, into St. George's Chapel.
The child's official governess, Sarah Lady Lyttel-
ton, describes the scene :
"Just out of the very agitating, magnificent,
impressive business of the day. Such floods of
sunshine, through the painted windows, on the
fierce, stout features of the royal baby ; and such
a burst of the Hallelujah chorus, as soon as the
service closed ! All was overpowering."
"Ah, que Dieu bdnisse I'enfant," the King of
Prussia said, with glistening eyes and much feeling.
" When the Duchess of Buccleuch set off to do
her arduous part, taking the Prince of Wales and
giving him up to, and then taking him from, the
Archbishop, she made a little room, and I forced
my way into it, so as to see the child perfectly, and
also how well she did it, and also how neatly she
picked H.R.H., mantle, lace, and all, out of the
voluminous folds of the Primate's lawn sleeves, and
the dangers of his wig, which it was feared the
Prince might have laid hold of, and brought awry
at least, on quitting his arms. I did not even see.

THE BABY PRINCE 5
what I heard admired, the Queen's very devout and
affecting manner of kneeling quite down, in spite of
her cumbrous robes of the Garter, on first entering
the Chapel."
It was on this very spot, where Queen Victoria
knelt then, and amid a like pageantry, that a few
weeks since* another Queen was kneeling, while
another Primate of All England pronounced the
final blessing over the open grave of the King
whose reign had more than fulfilled the hopes and
answered the prayers of those who knelt there on
his christening day.
Here are glimpses of the httle Prince before he
was a year old :
"The Prince of Wales, to judge by his noble
countenance and calm manner, will be a fine
creature. He is very intelligent, and looks
through his large, clear blue eyes full at one with
a frequent very sweet smile."
And some months later :
" The Prince of Wales is turning out passionate
and determined enough for an autocrat. But he
has still his lovely mildness of expression and calm
temper in the intervals."
These words were written in October, 1842, and
how vividly they recall the King who was ours, and
among us only a short while ago 1
When he was three and a half years old. Lady
Lyttelton speaks of him thus :
* From the Quarterly Review, June, 1910.

6 CHARACTER OF KING EDWARD VII.
" The Prince of Wales talks much more Enghsh
than he did, though he is not articulate hke his
sister, but rather babyish in accent. He under
stands a httle French and says a few words, but is
altogether backward in language, very intelligent,
and generous, and good-tempered, with a few
passions and stampings occasionally. Most exemp
lary in politeness and manner, bows and offers his
hand beautifully, besides saluting a la militaire, all
unbidden." As for the Prince's " backwardness," he may well
have appeared so to his governess, used as she was
to a httle Princess, who, when she was only six
years old, and when in the glowing pages of " Little
Arthur's History " an ancient poet, Wace by name,
was mentioned, a poet whose name was utterly
unremembered by her embarrassed teacher, re
torted :
" Oh yes, I dare say you did know all about him,
only you have forgotten it. Refiechissez. Go back
to your youngness, and you will soon remember."
No wonder her governess adds :
" I certainly never remember in all my youngness
such a young lady as she is, at her age."
And here is a final touch of the King's child
hood. It was October 11, 1847, and he was six
years old. "Windsor Castle,
"October 13, 1847.
" I suppose you will see something in the news
papers of the great escape for which we all, begin
ning at the top of the tree, have to thank God.

A MERCIFUL ESCAPE 7
The day before yesterday it was, that the elder
children being just setting out on their pony-ride,
the odious little Japanese pony. Dwarf, frightened
the others ; and all set off, being most unluckily,
but by no fault of anyone, at the actual moment
not held by bridles. The Princess Royal was
gently thrown, after a few yards of canter, by her
very quiet pony, and not at all hurt : the Prince of
Wales was run away with, at the fleetest gallop his
pony could go at, all round the lawns. He was
strapped into his Spanish seat saddle. But, had
the pony gone against a tree, under a bough, or
down the slopes, had the groom not, just before,
girthed the saddle on, which was found loose, or
had the dear child not been so brave as to keep
hold of as tight a rein as he could pull, and neither
to cry out nor move, we should be now thinking of
him in happiness such as — I trust in mercy he may
live to inherit some more distant day ! The danger
was so great, and the sight of his progress so awful,
that poor Miss Hildyard, so calm and unnervous,
shrieked and ran about distracted ; the groom says
he never shall forget her cry : ' Oh, for God's sake
save the child I' I am thaiJdul that I did not see
the horrid sight. The Prince of Wales did not cry,
and showed no signs of fear, after one loud call for
help at first. Princess Royal was like herself : not
frightened, and said nothing on falling off herself ;
but looking round and seeing her brother, she
screamed out : ' Oh ! can't they stop him ? Dear
Bertie !' and burst into tears.
" Oh ! it was an awful thing.
" Princey's pony is called Arthur, and is often
thought slow.
"Yesterday on the Prince taking his writing
lesson. Miss Hildyard said : ' Hold your thumb in
the right place. Prince of Wales — so — you can do
it right if you try, I'm sure.' ' Oh yes 1' he an
swered with a sly smile at her, ' I can. Arthur can

8 CHARACTER OF KING EDWARD VII.
gallop, we know now !' It was the only allusion
he made to it — rather a clever one."
Was not the child father of the man ? " A noble
countenance," " a calm manner," " the large blue
eyes looking full at one, a frequent very sweet
smile," " a temper which could be passionate and
determined, with stampings occasionally, but habi
tually was calm and generous," " most exemplary
in politeness and manner." And finally a brave
strong heart knowing no fear, and a sly humour to
crown all !
How vain appear the attempts of man to shape
character, and how inscrutable are the w^ays of
God! The King was born in that eventful year when
Sir Robert Peel succeeded Lord Melbourne as
Prime Minister ; and during that period when the
child's governess was recording her impressions of
his baby character, amid the wildest political con
flicts, the influence of the Crown, silently and
unnoticed, began to assume a shape which altered
drastically the relation between the Monarchy and
the people, and which culminated in the position
occupied by King Edward in the hearts of his
subjects and in the counsels of the Empire. It
was a combative and critical epoch, in which the
Throne itself and those nearest it were not spared.
" Every imaginable calumny " (wrote the Prince
Consort) " is heaped upon us, especially upon me ;
and although a pure nature, conscious of its own

CALUMNY AND PATIENCE 9
high purposes, is, and ought to be, lifted above
attacks, still it is painful to be misrepresented by
people of whom one believed better things."
Patience and self-restraint under attack are the
only weapons which can with dignity be used by
the occupant of a throne. The Queen never
thought of, nor would she have tolerated, any
vindication or reply. The bitterness and folly of
his calumniators served to draw closer together the
Prince's friends. Their numbers grew, and as the
circle widened, not only did calumny die down,
but the high merit of the Prince, his assiduity, his
disinterestedness, and his devotion to the country
of his adoption, began to be understood and ap
preciated by every section of the people. It came
to be realized after the Exhibition of 1851, when
the Prince of Wales was ten years old, that the
husband of the Queen was something more than a
Royal Consort, that he was a statesman of steady
vision and high principle, whose outlook upon hfe
and its duties was bravely faced from a bastion
flanked by the deepest sense of religious belief and
the keenest conception of the moral responsibilities
of the Sovereign.
This was the atmosphere in which King Edward's
boyhood passed. His father's German blood and
upbringing lent to his character and activities a
thoroughness which in most Englishmen is lacking.
This thoroughness was never more manifest than
in his watchful care over the education of the
Prince of Wales. It is almost painful to look back

10 CHARACTER OF KING EDWARD VII.
upon the days and nights of worry and anxiety
spent by the Queen and the Prince over the
minutest details of the physical, intellectual and
moral training of their children, and especially of
their eldest son. Nothing — not the smallest thing
— was left to chance. The Prince of Wales was
not only a part, but in some respects the most
significant part of that great trust which had been
committed to these two young Sovereigns by the
Almighty. Some day he would be the King. It
was a terrible, a haunting thought, and it was
never through long years absent from the minds of
his father and mother. Not a week, not a day, not
an hour of the time of this precious youth could
safely or properly be wasted. Other lads might
occasionally run loose in the springtime, and for
other boys it might be legitimate to plunge into
the region of romance. But for this boy the pages
even of Sir Walter Scott were closed, and he must
concentrate, ever concentrate upon "modern lan
guages," upon " history," upon " the sciences " — in
short, upon laying solidly the intellectual and
moral foundations which, in the eyes of his con
scientious and high-minded father, alone could
safely bear the mighty superstructure of the
Throne. Daily, almost hourly, the Queen and the
Prince kept watch and ward over those entrusted
with the care of their son. Within the walls of
Buckingham Palace or Windsor Castle letters
and notes constantly passed, and were carefully
and elaborately preserved. They recorded the

STEPS TO INDEPENDENCE 11
Queen's anxious solicitude that no boyish longing
for excitement should interfere with the Prince's
" adherence to and perseverance in the plan both of
studies and life " laid down by his father, and the
untiring efforts of his tutors to maintain the strict
regimen imposed upon them and their charge.
When the Prince of Wales was fifteen he was
given a moderate allowance — a sum which would
probably be thought mean by many an Eton boy
in these plutocratic days — out of which he found
his own hats and ties and the small trifles indispen
sable to a boy's toilet, and for which he accounted
to the Queen. It was the first step along the road
to independence. The next step was the " privi
lege " to choose his own dress (but not to pay for
it), a freedom accorded by the Queen with some
misgiving. " Dress " (she writes) " is a trifling matter which
ought not to be raised to too much importance in
our own eyes. But it gives also the one outward
sign from which people in general can and often do
judge upon the internal state of mind and feeling
of a person, for this they all see, whilst the other
they cannot see, On that account it is of some
importance, particularly in persons of high rank.
I must now say that we do not wish to control
your own taste and fancies, which, on the contrary,
we wish you to indulge and develop, but we do
expect that you will never wear anything extrava
gant or slang, not because we don't like it, but
because it would prove a want of self-respect and
be an offence against decency, leading — as it has
often done before in others — to an indifference to
what is morally wrong. It would do you much

12 CHARACTER OF KING EDWARD VII.
harm by giving the impression to others that you
belonged to the foolish and worthless persons who
are distinguished and known by such dresses.
Don't believe that I say this because we do not
trust your doing what is right in this respect, but
to show you at the outset where the right and
wrong lies, in order that you may clearly see it and
never be in doubt about your choice.
"We have such confidence in your good and
right and dutiful feehngs that we feel certain that
you wiU never abuse the confidence which we place
in you by giving you this power — and that you wiU
ever understand that, to receive and seek the advice
of those one loves and respects in no way lessens
one's independence."
At no time in his life did King Edward in reality
require this excellent counsel. His instincts were
always true. As a child he disliked brilhant
colours, and detested a certain " poplin " frock in
which he was painted by Winterhalter.
Those who knew him in later years were always
conscious of his strong liking for neatness and
order. These qualities were in his view kingly
attributes as essential as punctuality. His rooms
were a model of tidiness. If anything was out of
place he put it straight, and neither books, papers,
nor any things of his were ever left in disorder.
Nothing was more noticeable in him, and some
times the fact has been lightly spoken of, than his
careful and quick eye for irregularity in dress.
Superficial and priggish minds have thought it a
faihng, indicative of a narrow intelligence, which it
sometimes accompanies, although no detail ever

ATTENTION TO DETAIL 13
escaped the eyes of Napoleon or Frederick the
Great. In point of fact, the King's own dress
throughout his life was a pattern of neatness, and
he exacted similar care from others. Subcon
sciously he carried out the precepts of the Queen
and the Prince, and though he can hardly have
remembered his father's definite and well-reasoned
ideas upon this, as upon all matters which concerned
the character and demeanour of his ch^dren, yet
they bore fruit in later years, and no one lived up
to or demanded from others a higher standard of
decorum than King Edward. To him it was the
external token denoting the inner man, orderliness
of mind, observation and carefulness, without
vulgarity and without display.
On his birthday in 1858, among the gifts which
the Prince of Wales received was the following
memorandum signed by the Queen and by the
Prince. He was just seventeen, he had been
appointed a Colonel in the Army, and the Order of
the Garter had been bestowed on him by his mother
and Sovereign. Memorandum.
(The Queen and Prince, for the Prince of Wales.)
" The period at which you have arrived will
make an important change in your position.
Mr. Gibbs, who has watched your childhood, will
leave you ; you receive rank in that most honour
able profession, the British Army; enter into
the confraternity of the selected few who wear
St. George's Cross on their shoulder as members
of the Order of the Garter in token ' of the

14 CHARACTER OF KING EDWARD VII.
Christian fight which they mean to sustain with
the temptations and difficulties of this transient
life'; and you are placed under the supervision
and guidance of a Governor selected from among
the members of the aristocracy and the superior
officers of the Army.
" What has been asked hitherto from you to be
done for your education by the tutor to whom
you were responsible wiU be demanded henceforth
as a duty, for the due performance of which you
will be answerable to yourself and to your parents,
whose express wishes will be indicated and inter
preted to you by the Governor.
" Life is composed of duties, and in the due,
punctual, and cheerful performance of them the
true Christian, true soldier, and true gentleman is
recognized. " You will in future have rooms allotted to your
sole use, in order to give you an opportunity of
learning how to occupy yourself unaided by others,
and to utilize your time in the best manner — viz.,
such time as may not be otherwise occupied by
lessons, by the different tasks which will be given
to you by your director of studies, or reserved for
exercise and recreation. A new sphere of life will
open for you, in which you will have to be taught
what to do and what not to do, a subject requiring
study more important than any in which you have
hitherto been engaged. For it is a subject of
study, and the most difficult one of your life, how
to become a good man and a thorough gentleman.
" The Equerries will take and receive their
orders from the Governor. You will never leave
the house without reporting yourself to him, and
he will settle who is to accompany you, and will
give general directions as to the disposition of the
day. " Your personal allowance will be increased ; but

THE ROYAL MEMORANDUM 15
it is expected that you wiU carefully order your
expenditure so as to remain strictly within the
bounds of the sum allowed to you, which will be
amply sufficient for your general requirements.
" To the servants and those below you you will
always be courteous and kind, remembering that
by having engaged to serve you in return for
certain money payments, they have not sur
rendered their dignity which belongs to them as
brother men and brother Christians. You will try
to emancipate yourself as much as possible from
the thraldom of abject dependence for your daily
wants of life on your servants. The more you can
do for youfself and the less you need their help,
the greater will be your independence and real
comfort. " The Church Catechism has enumerated the
duties which you owe to God and your neighbour.
Let your rule of conduct be always in strict con
formity with these precepts, and remember that
the first and principal one of all, given us by our
Lord and Saviour Himself, is this, ' that you should
love your neighbour as yourself, and do unto men
as you would they should do unto you.'
" (Signed) V. R.
" (Signed) A.
"Windsor Castle,
" November 9, 1858."
Care for their son's guidance at this critical
period of his life was not confined by his parents to
personal direction. His companions were selected
after endless trouble and consultation with men in
the higher spheres of* education and of social life.
The Prime Minister was not excluded from these
deliberations, and indeed there was no important
occasion during the Prince of Wales's minority

16 CHARACTER OF KING EDWARD VII.
when the most capable of her Ministers was not
consulted by the Queen before any decision was
finally taken affecting the career of the future
King. This was the ever-present idea, the haunting
refrain, the dominant consideration, in everything
relating to the Prince of Wales. He was not
primarily in their view only the eldest son of the
Queen. He was the eldest of the Children of
England — les enfants d! Angleterre — as their old
governess called them; and consequently his
education was no private matter. It was a State
question of first-rate importance, and merited grave
consideration, in the gravest style, by grave states
men. If boy companions were to be selected for
the holidays or for a tour in the Highlands, emis
saries were sent to the public schools, and head
masters were taken into counsel. If " gentlemen "
were to be appointed to wait on the Heir to the
Crown, endless trouble was taken to see that the
best possible choice was made, and that the persons
chosen were adequately seized of their responsi
bility and duties. It is worth while to quote at
length one of these " papers of instruction " in order
to show once more the care bestowed upon this
precious charge. Memorandum.
(Confidential : for the guidance of the gentlemen appointed to
attend on the Prince of Wales.)
"It appears to be desirable upon the first ap
pointment of the gentlemen to attend upon the

INSTRUCTIONS TO ATTENDANTS 17
Prince of Wales, that their attention should be
called to certain points, in which the sphere of
their usefulness may be extended beyond the usual
limits of an Equerry's duties, and her Majesty the
Queen has therefore authorized the communication
to them, in confidence, of this memorandum, not
as a code of instructions as to the services they will
have to perform, but with a view to establish cer
tain principles by which their own conduct and
demeanour may be regulated, and which it is
thought may conduce to the benefit of the Prince
of Wales.
" The Prince of Wales has arrived at that period
in his life when the state of transition commences
from the habits, the dependence, and the subjection
to control of a boy to the manners and the conduct
and ultimately to the self-reliance and responsibility
of a man. The most critical, the most important,
and the most difficult period of a life-time ; that
which all parents watch with the greatest anxiety.
" The usual and the most efficient means adopted
for ensuring a happy result to this state of transi
tion is to take care that upon entering into contact
with the world, the young may be placed in what
is commonly called ' a good set.'
" If he falls into such a one at College, is placed
in a Regiment distinguished for the gentleman-like
conduct of its officers, or enters a public office most
in request from the tone of the young men em
ployed in it, the result of such association is usually
to be traced in the character of the young man, and
in the estimation in which he is generally held.
"The Prince, however, has no opportunity of
mixing upon the same terms with young people of
his own age, and of obtaining the same advantages
of association, and yet more is expected from him
than perhaps from any other young man.
" In selecting, therefore, the gentlemen to attend
upon the Prince of Wales, the Royal Parents have

18 CHARACTER OF KING EDWARD VIL
chosen them, with great care, with a view to their
supplying, in some degree, this want, and becoming
themselves the representatives, as it were, of that
' good set,' by association with whom the Prince of
Wales may acquire such a tone, and learn such
manners and conduct, as may make him socially
what his parents wish, and what the country will
expect. " The Prince of Wales must not only be a gentle
man, but his rank and position point him out as the
first gentleman in the country; he can hold no
intermediate position ; if not the first gentleman in
England, he sinks at once to a level incompatible
with his title of Prince of Wales.
" It is not intended in this memorandum to enter
into the question of the higher attributes of mind
and feeling of a gentleman, but merely to speak of
the outward social deportment and manners.
" The qualities which distinguish a gentleman in
society are :
" 1st. His appearance, his deportment and dress.
" 2nd. The character of his relations with, and
treatment of others.
" 3rd. His desire and power to acquit himself
creditably in conversation or whatever is
the occupation of the society with which
he mixes.
"1st. Appearance, deportment and dress.
"The appearance, deportment and dress of a
gentleman consist perhaps more in the absence of
certain offences against good taste, and in a careful
avoidance of vulgarities and exaggerations of any
kind, however generally they may be the fashion of
the day, than in the adherence to any rules which
can be exactly laid down. A gentlernan does not
indulge in careless, self-indulgent, lounging ways,
such as lolling in armchairs, or on sofas, slouching

DEPORTMENT AND DRESS 19
in his gait, or placing himself in unbecoming atti
tudes, with his hands in his pockets, or in any
position in which he appears to consult more the
idle ease of the moment than the maintenance of
the decorum which is characteristic of a polished
gentleman. In dress, with scrupulous attention to
neatness, and good taste, he will never give in to
the unfortunately loose and slang style which pre
dominates at the present day. He will borrow
nothing from the fashions of the groom or the
game-keeper, and whilst avoiding the frivolity and
foolish vanity of dandyism, will take care that his
clothes are of the best quality, well made, and
suitable to his rank and position.
"The gentlemen will see how much of the
examples upon which the young Prince wiU found
his views of carrying out these principles, will
naturally depend upon what he daily sees in them ;
and the Queen will hope that they will pay con
stant attention to what may appear trifles, but the
aggregate of which go far to mark the outward
characteristics of a gentleman.
"To all these particulars the Prince of Wales
must necessarily pay more attention than any one
else. His deportment will be more watched, his
dress more criticized.
" There are many habits and practices and much
in dress which might be quite natural and un
objectionable for these gentlemen at their own
homes and in their ordinary life, which would form
dangerous examples for the Prince of Wales to
copy, and her Majesty and his Royal Highness
would wish them in all their habits to have regard
to these consequences, and without any formality,
or stiffness of manner, to remember both in deport
ment and in dress that they are in attendance on
the eldest son of the Queen.
" 2nd. Manners and conduct towards others.
" The manners and conduct of a gentleman to-

20 CHARACTER OF KING EDWARD VII.
wards others are founded on the basis of kindness,
consideration, and the absence of selfishness. There
can be no good manners when any one of these
principles is sacrificed.
" A prince, particularly, should treat all around
him with the most scrupulous good manners,
civility and attention.
" He should return every mark of respect, not
only with the most punctilious exactitude, but with
an appearance of goodwill and cordiality. A salute
returned with the air of its being a bore is rather
an affront than a civility.
"A prince should never say a harsh or a rude
word to anybody, nor indulge in satirical or banter
ing expressions, by which the person to whom it is
addressed may be lowered. As soon as the con
versation of a prince makes his companion feel
uncomfortable he is sure to have offended against
some of the laws of good breeding.
" Punctuality is another of the duties of a well-
bred gentleman ; no person should ever be kept
waiting, but should circumstances render this un
avoidable, an apology should always be made, and
regret expressed at any inconvenience that may
have been incurred.
" The gentlemen will hardly require to have it
pointed out to them how much of these habits, so
important to the Prince of Wales, may be incul
cated and strengthened by association.
"Not only is it desirable that they should be
most courteous and kind to all around, but they
should quietly, yet steadily, mark in their manner
any approach to want of civility or rudeness to
wards themselves ; with every readiness to oblige
the young Prince in what is for his benefit, they
should always let him see that they maintain their
self-respect, can be firm, and do not approve of any
liberty being attempted with them. They should
be themselves very exact in punctuality. They

CONVERSATION AND OCCUPATION 21
should never encourage, or themselves indulge in,
ridicule of personal pecuharities or natural defects,
children being very prone to laugh at others, and
even supposing that they thereby estabhsh for
themselves a certain superiority.
"There are many habits and folhes that may
weU be subjected to satire and even quizzing, but
these should be as much as possible remarked upon,
apart from individuals of whom nothing should be
said hurtful or degrading. The fact becoming
known that the Prince of Wales had laughed at
this or that person would give great offence, and
create for him many enemies.
"These remarks apply, of course, in a still
stronger degree to anything approaching to a
practical joke,, which should never be permitted.
" 3rd. The power to acquit himself creditably in
conversation or whatever may be the occupation of
society. " A gentleman having gained the prestige in
society of good dress and appearance, and courteous
manners, must maintain the good opinion of his
companions by showing intelligence in his con
versation, and some knowledge of those studies and
pursuits which adorn society and make it interest
ing. Mere games of cards and billiards, and idle
gossiping talk, will never teach this ; and to a
Prince, who has usually to take the lead in con
versation, the habit of finding something to say
beyond mere questions as to health and remarks
upon the weather is most desirable.
" Although, therefore, the Prince of Wales is to
have all relaxation and recreation which is desirable
(and which, indeed, is quite necessary), the gentle
men in attendance may be of great use if they can
succeed by persevering example in inducing the
Prince to devote some of his leisure time to music,
to the fine arts, either drawing, or looking over
drawings, engravings, etc., to hearing poetry,

22 CHARACTER OF KING EDWARD VII.
amusing books, or good plays read aloud ; in short,
to anything that whilst it amuses may gently
exercise the mind. They must give this up if the
Prince seems at first disinclined to such pursuits.
It wiU not be within their province to direct what
his Royal Highness is to do ; but by persevering in
such employments themselves, and encouraging
and assisting the Prince when he shows the disposi
tion to join them, they may do much to lead him
to what is at present so desirable, and will through
life conduce so much to his happiness.
" In detailing all these minute points to be
attended to, the Royal Parents wish that these
gentlemen should be made aware that her Majesty
and his Royal Highness have entrusted to them a
charge involving something beyond the mere atten
dance of an Equerry and the making themselves
agreeable to his Royal Highness. If they will
duly appreciate the responsibility of their position,
and taking the points above laid down as the out
line, will exercise their own good sense in acting
upon all occasions upon these principles, thinking
no point of detail too minute to be important, but
maintaining one steady, consistent line of conduct,
they may render essential service to the young
Prince and justify the flattering selection made by
the Royal Parents."
It must not be supposed that less care was
bestowed upon the intellectual training of the
Prince of Wales than upon his manners and de
portment. The Prince Consort would indeed have
been faithless to his own traditions, and to King
Leopold and Baron Stockmar, those watchful
advisers who so jealously guarded his youth, had he
failed to lay down in precise detail the daily tasks
of his son.

LIFE AT HIGH PRESSURE 23
It is no exaggeration to say that every hour of
the Prince of Wales's time, from his earliest boy
hood until the death of his father, was mapped out
by his governors and preceptors, and submitted for
approval. It is no mere phrase, but a sober fact, to
say that every day of the boy's life a report of his
progress was sent up to his parents. And this was
no perfunctory service on the part of his teachers,
for hardly a week passed without some criticism of
their methods, some word of commendation, or
some expression of regret at their failure to come
up to the lofty standard which was always before the
mind of the Prince Consort.
It would be profitless to go at length into the
daily routine of the young Prince's studies. The
elaborately prepared tabular statements of his work
show no marked originality on the part of his pro
fessors, but a somewhat soaring ambition.
Without the stimulus of competition, surrounded
by the disturbing influences of regal state, deprived
of the free companionship of boys of his own age,
it is not surprising that the Prince of Wales,
although he never rebelled, passively resisted the
high pressure of his father's system of education.
It was undoubtedly the case, and King Edward, in
referring to those days, regretted the decision
which isolated him during the crucial years of his
later boyhood from contact with his equals in age
and intellectual attainments.
It would not have been surprising if he had
acquired no taste for books, because, as he often

24 CHARACTER OF KING EDWARD VII.
himself complained, he was nevfir given any liberty
of choice, and every book came before him as a
task. History, for instance, as he in later life
explained, was presented to him in its driest and
most tabulated form. But, notwithstanding these
drawbacks. King Edward thoroughly enjoyed bio
graphy, and his memory, so largely dependent upon
visual keenness, was prodigious, but he often said
that of the groundwork of history he had been
deprived by reaction from the insistent boredom of
his historical teaching in boyhood.
The tutor to whom the Prince of Wales was
most warmly attached realized quite early the truth.
He saw that the method of high tension was failing
to produce the results hoped for by the boy's anxious
parents, and that his pupil's too-alert intelhgence,
his exuberant sense of life, his moral restlessness
under restraint, and his budding manhood, were
deadly influences entirely subversive of the scholas
tic ideas of the Prince Consort.
To some not unfrequent expressions of dis
appointment from the Prince at his son's want of
studious reflection this teacher replied :
" At any rate, he is storing up materials for future
thought, and is learning almost unconsciously from
objective teaching much which, I think, could never
have been taught him subjectively."
This accurate and discerning analysis of his
capacity was true of King Edward then and
throughout his life, and the faihng or quality,
whichever it may be held to be, was one of the

UNIVERSITY LIFE 25
causes which largely contributed to his successful
management of public affairs during his reign. A
great reader the King never was, but he was a
great observer.
From his German University he brought away
no smattering of German metaphysics, but a com
plete mastery of German speech. His experience
of Edinburgh student life, although he found time
at Holyrood hang rather heavily, Avas of permanent
value to him. He often spoke in later years with
sly amusement of the rather solemn dinners in the
old Palace, where the companions of this lad of
eighteen were men so distinguished, but so un-
joyous, as the Lord Advocate, Lord Melville, the
Provost, the Sheriff, and Lord Playfair. But he
never altogether forgot Lord Playfair's lectures,
which he regularly attended, on the composition
and working of iron ore. They imparted to him a
certain liking for practical science and its votaries
which he never wholly lost. His literary relaxation
at this time was confined to an abridgement of
Gibbon and Schmitz's "History of the Middle
Ages." The King often used to say that his University
life at Oxford and Cambridge had been a mistake.
He imputed no blame to the Prince Consort for
deciding that for the Prince of Wales to live the life
of an ordinary undergraduate was impossible. He
realized perfectly the immense difficulties of the
problem which confronted his parents of wishing to
give him the benefit of that higher education — in
5

»i6 CHARACTER OF KING EDWARD VII.
its widest sense — which a University opens to her
worthier sons, and at the same time to protect the
Heir to the Throne from the familiarities — with
their inevitable consequences — of undergraduate
life. The view of the Prince Consort cannot be better
expressed than in his own words.
The Prince to the Dean of Christ Church.
"Private and Confidential.
" My dear Dean of Christ Church,
" Sir Charles Phipps has sent me on your
letter. Before settling in my mind whether we
could properly send the Prince of Wales to Oxford
or Cambridge, it became necessary to know that he
could be so placed there as to remain entirely
master (or for his governor to remain so for him) of
the choice of society which he might encounter or
the young men he might wish or ought to associate
with. "In college this appeared to me almost im
possible, and it was upon your suggesting that he
need not live in coUege, and perhaps ought not to
do so, and your pointing out the precedent of the
Prince of Orange, that 1 thought the whole plan of
a visit to the Univerities feasible.
" I should be very sorry if plans were now pro
posed which would endanger the foundation upon
which I built, and the more I think of it, the more
I see the difficulties of the Prince of Wales being
thrown together with the other young men, and
having to make his selection of acquaintances when
so thrown together with them ; an entirely separate
establishment would alone enable him to do so with
safety. " (Signed) Albert.
" October 21, 1858."

THE BURDEN OF RESPONSIBILITY 27
King Edward, however, clearly as he realized the
difficulty, used to say in later years that the real
choice lay between a regular collegiate life and not
going to the University at all. His preference
would have been for the former alternative. One
may, perhaps, be pardoned for adding that this
opinion was delivered from a station so exalted,
and a position so secure, that the dangers and risks
which possibly were magnified by the Prince were
possibly minimized by the King.
The anxieties of the Queen and Prince were
very poignant, and their sense of the gravity of the
moral and intellectual training of him who was to
be King was so overwhelming that it undoubtedly
added a heavy burden to the cares of State, which
their correspondence and diaries reveal.
The following letter was written to Colonel
Bruce — then acting as Governor to the Prince of
Wales — by the Prince Consort after his first visit
to his son at Oxford :
The Prince to Colonel Bruce.
"My dear Colonel Bruce,
" I was much pleased with my visit yester
day, and glad to find the Prince so assiduous in
his work, and giving his willing and best attention
to Mr. Fisher.
"I must not conceal my disappointment, how
ever, to find that, whilst we had hoped that the
Prince would be able thoroughly to study the Law
and Constitution with Mr. Fisher, and attend two
lectures, one in History, the other in Chemistry,
merely to enable him to follow a part of the public
instruction of Oxford besides, the time and work

28 CHARACTER OF KING EDWARD VIL
required to make these two lectures understood
and profitable should swallow up the whole of the
Prince's time. I do not blame him, for he is doing
his best, and deserves praise for that ; but it makes
me terribly anxious for the future, and anxious
that not a moment be lost of the few precious
weeks which the Prince has for his studies.
" We cannot afford to lose whole days out of the
week for amusements, or to trench upon the hours
of study by social calls, which have always had,
and naturally will always have hereafter, the
greatest share of the Prince's attention and time.
The only use of Oxford is that it is a place for
study, a refuge from the world and its claims. It
does not require, I am sure, my setting this forth
particularly either to you or the Prince himself;
but I have thought it my duty to refer once more
to this topic, as you will have to make your
decisions with regard to various invitations and
expectations as to what social amusements the
Prince might join in.
" The Prince will have to see his sister one day
when she comes ; will have his birthday, and after
wards hers, to celebrate with us. Here are already
four or five days broken into, and three quite lost.
" With regard to the Prince's choice of society,
you will have to use the greatest circumspection.
You are aware of the principles which we have
laid down after anxious reflection and much com
munication with the different Ministers of the day,
who look, as we do, upon the Prince's life as a
public matter not unconnected with the present
and prospective welfare of the nation and the State.
In whatever decisions you may communicate to
the Prince he will recognize, therefore, the result
of these determinations, and he will easily com
prehend that his position and life must be different
from that of the other undergraduates ; that his
belonging to a particular college even, which could

RESPONSIBILITY OF POSITION 29
not be avoided, has another significance from what
it bears in other young men's lives. He belongs
to the whole University, and not to Christ Church
in particular, as the Prince of Wales will always
belong to the whole nation, and not to the Peer
age, the Army, etc., etc., although he may form
part of them ; that he can, and ought never, to
belong to party, or faction, or coterie, or closed
society, etc.
" Private individuals have a right to form asso
ciations, and cast in their lot with them, as a mode
of gaining a position in life. The Prince of Wales
has his position ready made for him by the nation
and the Constitution, and the nation has a clear
and indisputable right to demand of him that he
will make that use of this position for which it was
given him — viz., for the general good and welfare
of the whole. I think it not superfluous to mark
this strongly, as it requires reflection beyond the
Prince's years to apprehend the difference in the
claims upon him and upon others.
" I trust you will give the Prince an opportunity
of becoming acquainted with the distinguished men
of the place, and give them in return the means
of seeing the Prince. Your convivial meetings at
dinner will give the best means for this. Mixing
them with some of the young students will give
variety and interest to the conversation, and do a
favour to the young men, who have otherwise no
means of meeting familiarly those from whom they
expect to derive the benefit of education, and be
tween whom and themselves habit and circum
stances have placed unnecessary and hurtful
barriers. " I was very poorly yesterday evening after my
return here, but am better this evening.
" This letter is for the Prince as well as for
yourself, for he is now old enough to enter into the
spirit and reasons for his guidance and not to

30 CHARACTER OF KING EDWARD VII.
remain satisfied merely with conforming to the
wishes of his parents. " (Signed) Albert.
"Windsor Castle, 27/10/59."
King Edward was at a difficult age — the age
when in men, as in young nations, the spirit of
rebellion is hard to check, and when the hand of
the parent in the one case, or the statesman in the
other, requires to be both firm and light.
The boy of seventeen was passing through a
phase quite unlike what the King afterwards be
came. Looking over some old letters, quite re
cently, from one of his tutors, the King found
himself accused, when in his eighteenth year, of a
" want of enthusiasm and imagination, and the
absence or torpor of the poetical element," which
he, not altogether justly, believed to have been
always a correct diagnosis of his temperament.
There was, however, a further passage in which
complaint is made of his
" want of generosity, not simply generosity in
giving, but generosity of sentiment and judgment,
a want of toleration of difference of opinion and of
imputation of honourable motives, a want of un-
suspicion of mean ones, and of a readiness to give
rather than to take advantage, his position enabling
him to do the former with grace and dignity whilst
he may yet do the latter with impunity."
The King said of this passage, quite gravely, that
it was perfectly true.
We have seen in the letters of his old governess

GENEROSITY OF DISPOSITION 31
curious traits of the boy Prince which were very
characteristic of King Edward, but nothing could
resemble less the most generous-hearted and gener
ous-minded of Monarchs than this description of
his pupil by the King's favourite tutor. Every
one of these traits upon which the writer put his
finger in 1858 was not only corrected in the King,
half a century later, but replaced by its entire
opposite. No man was ever less prone to attribute mean
motives, no man ever showed less resentment or
rancune. Not only did he give his confidence to
those whom he thus honoured, with singular un-
suspicion, but he forgave neglect and even an
injury almost too readily — if forgiveness can be too
generously granted. Bitterness he never felt, and
anger which he did feel was never long sustained.
The King's placability was wonderful, and nothing
endeared him more to those about him than that
sweet-blooded nature which made him ready at all
times, when free from momentary anger, to give
those of whom he disapproved the benefit of a right
motive and of the best intention. In the truest
sense of the phrase he was a most Christian
King. Upon the King's religious and domestic hfe it
would be impertinent even to touch lightly.
The atmosphere in which his youth was passed is
well known. From the simple faith of those who
prayed together on the day of his christening King
Edward never swerved.

32 CHARACTER OF KING EDWARD VII.
A letter from the Prince to the Prince of Wales,
written on July 14, 1858, has been preserved.
The Prince to the Prince of Wales.
" My dear Bertie,
"Mr. Gibbs has reported to me your wish
to take the Sacrament next Sunday at Mortlake at
an early service, together with Major Lindsay and
Mr. Tarver, who appear to have the intention of
doing so on their own account. Whilst that wish,
if it springs from the deep feelings of the heart to
draw nearer to the Lord and to seek support in the
struggle with the weak human nature, and not from
a mere love of imitating what other people may do
— does you the greatest honour, it may be right for
me to tell you upon what the practice is based,
which your father and mother have established for
themselves, and followed after mature reflection,
upon a subject of great difficulty and importance
for the Christian.
" There are two extremes of opinion, the one
that the Sacrament is a means of grace working by
its mere acceptance, and which ought not to be
refused whenever it is offered, such a refusal being,
in a stronger sense, not unlike the incivility to
decline an invitation in ordinary life. It is termed
ingratitude to God, and a casting off of His helping
hand. People holding to this opinion take the
Sacrament every Sunday when it is given.
" The other extreme bases its refusal to take the
Sacrament except in rare instances, upon the
dangers resulting from unworthy participation,
which are strongly pointed out by St. Paul. Whilst
the first run the risk of profaning and rendering
unimpressive one of the great means to strengthen
good resolutions, confessing sins, and starting
afresh in life, the second run the risk of never finding
that moment of fit preparation for which they are

TAKING THE SACRAMENT 33
waiting, and losing altogether the blessing of the
Sacrament. " We have agreed upon taking it twice a year,
and have selected as fixed periods, times at which
the history of the Gospel and the Church festivals
prepare us, and induce us to additional sanctity,
and at which we are sure not to be broken in upon
by the gaieties of society, or demands of business
— Christmas and Easter, as during these festivals
everybody is at home with his family.
" We have chosen to take it, away from and un
disturbed by the multitude who would stop for the
show, if we were to remain in a public church after
the service, and we have chosen the early morning
as a time when the mind is still fresh, and not
fatigued, nor the attention diminished by the
lengthy previous service ; we remain the previous
day, and the day itself, as quiet as possible.
"Now, as our son, you would do well to keep to the
example and practice of your parents, first because
they have had more time and means to arrive at a
just conclusion of what is best to be done in so
important a matter, and secondly, because a different
practice followed by the son implies a disagreement
in feeling between them, if not a declaration on the
part of the latter that he thought the former
wrong. "Any division in the Royal Family gives the
whole of the pubhc the right to criticize, to take
part for the one side and the other side, and so
injure both.
" I return to the present case. If you feel a real
yearning of the heart, go by aU means, as the place
is a retired one ; the service will, I believe, be at
eight o'clock in the morning, when there will be
very few people present, and your life at the Lodge
has been so private a one as not to have disturbed
you. " If the subject is indifferent to you, and your

34 CHARACTER OF KING EDWARD VII.
wish has been only a light one, do not unnecessarily
break through our rule, knowing now the reasons
upon which this rule depends.
" Show this letter to Mr. Gibbs. " Ever,
" (Signed) Albert.
"Osborne, 1858."
Did any father write to his seventeen-year-old
son a letter upon such a subject more full of simple
piety, and more imbued with the spirit of the
Protestant faith ?
Among the influences of his youth upon his
maturer age it is impossible to overlook the journeys
at home and oversea upon which so much thought
ful care was expended. His first trip, to the
English lakes and to Scotland, with a few boy
friends, was recorded by the Prince of Wales in his
journal, as were others which followed. These
journals were a source of some trouble to their
author. His father thought them meagre. In
point of fact they are boyish and simple records of
the day's doings. "The first Prince of Wales
visiting the Pope " suggested to the analytical mind
of the Prince Consort, who so described it, thoughts
and ideas which he desired to see reflected, however
dimly, in that of his son. He was disappointed.
Description is there, but in the cant of the schools,
no subjectivity. On the other hand, there exists a
letter written by Sir Henry Bulwer, then the repre
sentative of the Queen at Constantinople, to Lord
John Russell, giving an account of a visit paid by

SIR H. BULWER'S LETTER 35
the Prince of Wales in the month of January
immediately after the death of the Prince Consort,
which would have been read by that Prince of high
ideals and lofty standards with unmixed satis
faction. The following is an extract :
Received January 22, 1862.
" But what pleased and struck me more than all,
I must say, was our Prince's own manner. He is
always remarkably easy and knows perfectly how
to make those little speeches which princes are
called upon to have so frequently upon their lips.
But this was not all ; before arriving at the break
fast, I just gave his Royal Highness a little insight
into the Sultan's character, and the things to say
that would please him. The manner in which he
took advantage of those hints surprised me. The
oldest diplomatists could not have succeeded better,
or in my belief as well. Every point was touched
so lightly, so naturally, and this produced on me
the gi-eater impression ; since a man cannot have
tact merely in one thing. If it is developed by
circumstances one day, it is likely to be equally
developed by circumstances in action another day.
I should say, in short, that the Prince of Wales
kept for two or three years in good hands and
managed with skill (it requires perhaps some skill),
her Majesty will be proud of, and happy in him.
I do not think he will study much or learn much
from books, but he will attain all that is practically
necessary for him to know by observation and use
it with address.
" I saw several instances of a kind heart and of
good sense ; but there are two extremes, I should
say, to be avoided with him — severity, which would
tend to bring out obstinacy; and flattery, which

36 CHARACTER OF KING EDWARD VII.
would naturally tend to encourage presumption or
over self-confidence.
" But I believe that praise well bestowed when
it is really merited would tend very much to form
the Prince's character, and fix it steadily in a
proper course.
" I have observed also that the wisest way with
him is never to maintain any argument at the
time about this thing or that thing being the best
to do, but simply to state an opinion, and if that
opinion is the right one, I have seen him always
end after a little in coming round to it.
" All these observations are formed on trifles,
but, still, the subject is so interesting a one that I
thought you would like to hear from me con
fidentially upon it, and as the happiness of our
nation, and also of our afflicted Queen, depends so
much on what her eldest son may turn out, this
gives an additional importance to the question.
" My opinion, 1 confess, is, on the whole, a very
favourable one. If H.R.H. is cleverly dealt with
now, I do not think he will cause either her
Majesty or the nation any anxiety. If he is not,
he may for a time do so ; but even then I feel
certain he would soon right himself, for there is a
great fund of good about him. The danger is
that through his easy manners (though they are
quite dignified enough when necessary) and the
desire to be amused, so natural to youth in general,
he might get into the hands of some agreeable
person who would not have the character and good
sense to guide him, and might have a pride and
vanity in leading him astray."
The diplomatist and experienced man of the
world had not only gauged truly the character of
the young Prince, echoing, as he does, the words
of the tutor written with fuller knowledge, but he

FACILITY OF SPEECH 37
foreshadows with singular and prophetic accuracy
some of those high qualities which enabled King
Edward to render the greatest service to his
country, and have placed his fame upon an
enduring foundation.
Sir Henry Bulwer had no means of foreshadow
ing, as others had, a gift which was remarkable in
the King throughout the years of his mature man
hood. Those who were about the Prince's person
at Oxford noticed early the consummate ease with
which he was able to put into striking and well-
balanced phrase the matter of a public speech. He
used often to say that he found elaborate prepara
tion impossible, and that whenever he attempted
to learn a speech by heart, he failed to deliver it.
His speeches were, save for their general ideas,
delivered impromptu. The right words and
phrases, whether in the English, French, or
German languages, came naturally to his lips, and
no one ever excelled him in the power of putting
in musical cadence and perfectly chosen words
sentiments of courteous welcome or graceful
acknowledgment. Those who heard King Edward
speak on august occasions can never forget the
telling quality of his voice or the emotional dignity
of his expression and manner.
The long years which intervened between his
coming of age and his accession, years occupied
with social duties but deprived of political activi
ties, full of enforced amusement rather than of
practical business, were possibly the real source of

88 CHARACTER OF KING EDWARD VII.
his influence and one of the secrets of his success.
It is a serious difficulty in a constitutional
monarchy such as ours that no adequate place
is provided for the Heir Apparent to the Throne.
Of social engagements and ceremonial oppor
tunities, it is true that many were found to occupy
the time of the Prince of Wales, and he never
shrank from the performance of these duties, how
ever dolorous and heavy.
The prolonged seclusion of the Queen after the
death of the Prince Consort increased in number
and importance the popular functions which were
thrown upon the shoulders of the Prince of Wales.
He bore the burden lightly, and in very debonair
fashion. His real love of humanity, his unbored
nature, his delight in movement, and his easy
grace of manner and speech, rendered facile to him
obligations from which so many public men and
Sovereigns are known to shrink. He thoroughly
enjoyed society, whether in the great houses in
which he and the Princess were received as more
than welcome guests, or at pubhc entertainments,
where his genial manners and hearty love of fellow
ship captivated men of all shades of politics, and
of every religious or social persuasion.
No one was ever less of an eclectic than King
Edward. All through his life he accepted men
and women for what they were, and although he
showed preferences, and inclined more to some
forms of social entertainment than to others, he never
encouraged social cliques or ostracized any man

THE PRINCE'S POSITION 39
from the circles in which he moved because of
opinions or because of his tastes. Like Queen
Victoria, he disliked backbiters and scandal
mongers, and never accepted rumour as a decisive
factor in estimating the character of others, but
first required proof.
But the King liked a good story, and could tell
one with admirable gusto and without the slightest
loss of dignity.
Cut off by the experiences of his position from
active political interests, he never lowered himself
by lending his countenance to political intrigue.
Queen Victoria, standing aloof as she did from
the bustling world, absorbed by her profound sense
of the semi-divine duties imposed upon her by
Providence, rejecting the idea that she was entitled
to share her higher responsibilities even with her
eldest son, and encouraged to hold this view by the
experiences of the House of Hanover and by the
advice of her Ministers, who had no wish to widen
the area of counsel, undoubtedly isolated the Prince
of Wales from public affairs, and threw him, not
always uncriticized and unblamed, upon amuse
ments and resources which were held by grave men
to be unworthy of his abihties and of his high
position. The Turf, the Theatre, and " Society "
in the narrower sense of this term claimed, many
thought, an undue share of his time and attention.
Serious men were often in doubt whether the
Prince of Wales would ever fill even with con
ventional decorum that high place in the regard of

40 CHARACTER OF KING EDWARD VII.
British subjects all over the face of the world which
was occupied by the venerated Queen, who had so
long sat most regally upon the throne. When the
Queen died, if any of those in closer contact with
King Edward nourished misgivings, they were dis
solved in twenty-four hours.
Not only were the Privy Councillors and citizens
of London, who were present in the Banqueting-
Hall of St. James's Palace on January 23, 1902,
moved to admiration by the noble words — written
by the King's own unguided hand — in which he
announced his determination, so long as there was
breath in his body, to work for the good and
amelioration of his people, but those who stood
nearer to him still, and were for the succeeding
days in close touch with the labours of State as
they accumulated hour by hour at Marlborough
House, realized immediately that in Edward VII.
the country had come into possession of a great
monarch. So far from his previous life, with its want
of concentrated energy, with its so-called frivolities,
and with what men always prejudiced and some
times insincere call its ceremonial inanities, proving
an obstacle to kingship, the sheer humanity of it
had left him unscathed of soul, and most extra
ordinarily well equipped for dealing with the gravest
problem with which a Sovereign has to deal, that
is to say, the eternal problem of making good use
of the average man. Few have equalled and cer
tainly no one has ever surpassed King Edward in
handling, not dexterously, because the word implies

THE KING'S INFLUENCE 41
overconsciousness, but with grace past understand
ing, his fellow-man.
Whether it was a Radical politician or a foreign
statesman, a man embittered by neglect or one of
Fortune's favourites, an honest man or a villain, no
one ever left the King's presence without a sense
of his own increased importance in the worldly
scale of things. It was this power of raising a man
in his own estimation, which was the mainspring
of the King's influence. His varied intercourse
with men of all sorts and conditions, his preference
for objective rather than for subjective teaching, as
his old tutor said of him in boyhood, and his frank
interest in the affairs of others had taught him the
most profound and the oftenest ignored of all plati
tudes, that the vast majority of men are good, and
that no man is wholly evil.
Where the simpler forms of monarchy prevail
and where power is vested in the ruler by organic
laws, and is exercised by the brutal " sic volo sic
jubeo " methods of a cruder civilization, its exercise
is a comparatively simple thing. Anyone can
govern in a state of siege. The Constitution of our
Empire, with its dehcate checks and balances, held
together by tradition and sentiment rather than by
immutable laws, demands from its Head qualities
which King Edward possessed in the highest
degree. Our Constitution withholds power from
the Sovereign, but it clothes him with an influence
which in the hand of King Edward was highly
potent, and, altogether exercised in quite a different 7

42 CHARACTER OF KING EDWARD VII.
fashion, was as powerful as that which was exercised
throughout her long and glorious reign by Queen
Victoria. It was in the exercise of this influence that the
King's love and knowledge of his fellow-men, his
genial temper, consummate tact, and complete free
dom from rancour or sustained resentment, clothed
him with an undisputed authority greater, because
far more subtle, than autocratic power would have
given him. The pre-eminent men, politicians, re
ligious and social leaders, foreign statesmen, and
the most distinguished of his Colonial subjects,
who came into contact with him, never left his pre
sence without a desire, in so far as in them lay, to
meet his wishes.
Queen Victoria's influence was, during the latter
half of her reign, based upon her profound experience
and recognized freedom from personal aims, her
firm grasp of the constitutional principle which
governs a limited monarchy and her wonderful
instinct for gauging the feelings of the serious
middle class which was predominant in political
England throughout her reign. Her personal con
tact with her subjects was so rare that it was
practically non-existent.
Very few out of the millions of her people, not
withstanding the Jubilees of 1887 and 1897, had
ever seen the Queen, and her interviews with her
most prominent and most powerful servants were
of rare occurrence. Nearly the whole of the State
business, with which she was so largely identified,

CONTRAST IN PROCEDURE 43
was carried on by correspondence. The advice
given to her, when a girl Queen, by the King of
the Belgians, to have every request for a decision in
writing, and to take time to consider, was followed
by the Queen to the day of her death. The system
had enormous advantages, but it also had its draw
backs. While it undoubtedly led, on many grave
occasions, to wise reconsiderations of hasty minis
terial action, it often harassed hard -worked
Ministers, and sometimes led to unfortunate delays.
King Edward's methods were in direct contrast
to these. He was always accessible to his Ministers,
and far more than half of the business transacted by
the King was transacted orally, by personal inter
view. He enjoyed putting questions to his Minis
ters, and he liked to state his own views, not in a
formal document, but face to face with those whom
the matter concerned. It is true that he fortified
himself for these interviews by frequently instruct
ing his private secretaries to make enquiries, or to
remonstrate against public acts or speeches of
which he disapproved. But, in the long-run, the
King himself had his say, and, unlike Queen
Victoria, he had his say verbally. It is certain
that in saving time and in minimizing "friction"
these methods were superior to those of the previous
reign. At the same time, if, in view of the brilliant
success achieved by King Edward, a criticism is not
out of place, it is, perhaps, pardonable to doubt
whether, on such an occasion, if such had arisen, as

44 CHARACTER OF KING EDWARD VII.
that of the " Trent affair," when the Prince Con
sort's direct amendment of a Foreign Office despatch
composed a most dangerous difference between
Great Britain and the United States, the more
methodical plan of obtaining from Ministers
reasoned statements on paper of their policy would
not have proved to be an extra security for the
maintenance of peace, which was always King
Edward's chief concern.
To attempt anything approaching to biography,
or even to try to examine critically the reign of
King Edward, is impossible here. Even analysis
of the influence of the King upon Society and
public affairs, if it goes beyond the obvious, is
treading upon ground hedged in by the sanctity of
recent loss. All that has been attempted in these
pages is to place in harmonious contrast the boy
Prince and the King as all his people knew him.
Lord Rosebery has called King Edward Le Roi
Charmeur. All the civilized world has called him
the " Peacemaker." His people have grasped his
ideal, and Lord Rosebery has indicated his method.
A nobler epitaph no Sovereign could desire.
Personal charm is indefinable. It is also a most
potent weapon, and a dangerous one in the hands
of the unscrupulous. King Edward's charm was
invincible. The individual man succumbed to it,
and the multitude went down before it. When the
King walked into a room everyone felt the glow
of a personal greeting. When he smiled upon a
vast assemblage everyone responded unconsciously.

THE KING'S PERSONALITY 45
On the Derby day, when the King raised his hat
to the immense concourse of his people, his saluta
tion reached the heart of every man and woman.
This gift was priceless to him. The fact is that,
just as their hearts went out to him, his heart went
out to them, and they knew it. There was not an
atom of pose about the King. If he visited the
most mighty potentate, if he called upon a humble
subject, if he went into a cottage garden, he was —
and this may seem exaggerated, although it is the
simple truth — equally interested and pleased. His
joyous sense of life, his broad sympathies, and his
complete freedom from ennui, made him genuinely
pleased with the lives and homes of others. He
was interested. It was no perfunctory sense of
politeness, it was no conscious desire to please,
which made him note details and suggest improve
ments or alterations in a strange house or garden.
He would say to his host, " You should cut or plant
a tree here," or he would say to a cottager, " Don't
you think that flower-bed would look better so, or
that fence would be better in such and such a
position ?" and he would add, " I shall see whether
you have done so when next I come," and the
effect upon the mind of his hearer was that he
really cared. And he did really care. That was
the wonderful thing, and it was also the irresistible
charm. This personal magnetism, which won the hearts
of everyone with whom he came into contact and
of millions who never saw him, was a national 8

46 CHARACTER OF KING EDWARD VIL
asset worth more to us in our King than the
military genius of a Napoleon or the diplomatic
gifts of a Metternich, because of its more abiding
quality and more permanent results.
King Edward, like his mother before him, has
exalted the standard of monarchical government,
and shown to all the world the enormous value of
the personal factor of the Head of the State under
political institutions which leave the people free to
make their own laws and to administer them.
The pomp and pageantry of kingship, sometimes
decried, were in his hands always used for the State
service, and never for personal display. The King
lived more simply than many of his wealthy sub
jects. He liked comfort and even luxury, but he
disliked waste. So marked was his repugnance
that those about his person often noted it with
surprise, but the reason was the sense of his king
ship and of the poverty of millions of his subjects
surging up within him.
It was another illustration of his personal charm,
instinctive and unthought out, but singularly
potent. No one ever possessed a keener sense of propor
tion. The examples of this almost supreme gift in
one so highly placed are too numberless to mention,
and, besides, in order to make the point most effec
tive, it would be necessary to describe actions and
analyze motives quite beyond the scope of these
pages. The King's retentive and well-ordered memory,

THE KING'S CHARACTER 47
not only of names and faces — for that has often been
the subject of remark — but of the obscure ramifica
tions of world-wide events, and not least his
mastery of anecdote, made him one of the best
conversationalists in Europe. It is also one of the
main causes of his influential judgment upon
political affairs. In his presence much of the
ordinary kind of knowledge, mere information, was
apt to drop into unimportance. The things he
knew seemed majestic and significant, and common
learning appeared a mere accomplishment. Lord
Beaconsfield had noticed much the same quality in
the talk of Queen Victoria.
No attempt has been made in these pages to give
a dispassionate and detailed survey of the character
of King Edward, and still less of his reign. Our
loss is too recent, and our perspective too obscured.
Like other mortals, our King had his failings, but
what benefit has ever accrued to mankind by
taking note of the failings of great men ? And
King Edward was beyond all question in the
category of the great. Character, strong, firm,
and brave in quality, is the true test of greatness.
These gifts were inherited by the King from both
his parents, and his upbringing tended to enhance
their virtue. To throw some light upon the value
to Great Britain and her dominions oversea of
a monarchy thrice blessed in a Sovereign thus bred
and trained, was the main intention of these pages.
If the nation owes a debt of gratitude to Queen
Victoria and the Prince Consort for having given

48 CHARACTER OF KING EDWARD VIL
us King Edward, in like manner, as years roU on,
it will be seen that the King has given us in his son,
to whom he was tenderly devoted and of whose
virtue, modesty, and high abilities he was so justly
proud, a successor not less worthy of admiration
and respect.

KING EDWARD VII. AND FOREIGN
AFFAIRS.*
In the course of the eloquent panegyric pronounced
by Mr. Balfour in the House of Commons upon
King Edward, he said that the King was not a
dexterous diplomatist, he was a great Monarch.
If by a dexterous diplomatist Mr. Balfour meant
the man who attaches subtle meaning to the
wording of a Protocol, or who employs finesse to
achieve his legitimate ends, the King was certainly
no diplomatist. That he was a great Monarch, no
one will now or ever dispute. But if by diplomacy
is meant a rapid grasp of large international issues,
the subordination of the lesser to the greater
factors of imperial questions, and the art of win
ning assent to the material point at issue, then
the King was a great diplomatist. In affairs of
European or world-wide moment, as in all else,
he had a marked sense of proportion. It was diffi^
cult to interest him in the petty questions over
which chancelleries squabble, and which form the
staple of ordinary diplomatic pourparlers. His
attention, however, was consistently given to the
balance of naval and military power, and especially
* Appeared in the Deutsche Revue, 1910, and is translated from
the German. 49

50 THE KING AND FOREIGN AFFAIRS
to the commercial struggles which of late years
have so largely eclipsed the older forms of national
rivalry. The popular idea, outside the British Isles, that
King Edward moulded the Foreign policy of his
country is of course pure illusion.
Once or twice in a century, the policy of a great
nation is determined by the theories or by the
action of a statesman. Such men were Cavour
and Bismarck. But as a rule the force that drives
one nation towards unity, another towards revolu
tion, and another towards expansion, comes from
the necessities of a people influenced by the con
ditions under which it is striving for existence.
This has been called the force of destiny. Napoleon
pretended to believe himself to be in a high degree
a man of destiny, but King Edward was too sane,
and his role as a constitutional Sovereign too
plainly set before him, for any such fantasy to take
possession of his mind. He always recognized
that to initiate the policy of Great Britain was the
business of ISIinisters for the time being, and his
function was to criticize or approve it, and finally
to support it with all his powers. This he per
formed with such clearness of vision and supreme
tact as to command not only the gratitude of his
own people, but the admiration of competent
judges all over the civilized world.
The leaders of both political parties in the State
found in him not only a powerful ally, but an
indefatigable and quite invincible protagonist of

QUEEN VICTORIA'S INFLUENCE 51
their pohcy abroad. The Foreign policy of the
Ministry of the day was in his eyes — as under a
Constitutional Government it must be assumed to
be — the policy of the nation, and therefore the
settled policy of the Sovereign. It never occurred
to him to waver or look back. His mental atti
tude bore a strong resemblance to that of his
august mother, /if ever the complete correspon
dence of Lord Beaconsfield is made public, it will
be seen that during the eventful years 1876 to
1878, the consistency of Great Britain's attitude in
the Eastern question was largely due to the in
fluence and pertinacity of Queen Victoria, quite as
much as to the inflexibility of her Prime Minister,
harassed as he was by a vacillating Cabinet.
Queen Victoria had nothing to do with the choice
of the policy pursued towards Russia during those
years. In fact, when that policy was initiated the
Queen was more than doubtful of its soundness
from the point of view of morality and of the
national interests of her country. When, however,
the nation, and she herself, by the action of her
Ministers, had been committed to it, she could not
comprehend the minds of those who had accepted
it in principle, and subsequently shrank from its
practical application. She supported over and
over again the drooping right arm of her Prime
Minister. If the Prince of Wales, as King Edward
was in those days, had been permitted to take part
in great political affairs, he would have followed
suit, for when it became a question of national con-

52 THE KING AND FOREIGN AFFAIRS
sistency, or of carrying through a policy upon
which the nation had embarked, the King's views
were the views of Queen Victoria. Moral and
physical courage have always been characteristic of
his House, and both qualities loomed large in him.
It has been whispered in corners of the Press
that the domestic political crisis of last autumn*
hastened the death of the King. If this belief is
genuinely held, the men who hold it little knew
King Edward. It would have taken something
more than an opportunist Radical Government to
kill the King. Much the same foolish gossip
gained currency when Queen Victoria died. It
was said that she had succumbed to the anxieties
of the "Black Week" in the winter of 1899-
1900. The Queen, although she may have had
anxious moments, never wavered in her firm con
viction that the South African War would end
victoriously for her army, and King Edward on his
part never doubted that he could adequately and
successfully cope with the domestic crisis which
his Ministers threatened to create for him. He
may have been annoyed, but he was never cowed,
and he felt perfect rehance upon his capacity to
gauge the sentiments of the majority of his people,
quite irrespective of casual majorities in the House
of Commons.
In home affairs and in foreign pohtics the key
note of King Edward's temperament was courage.
It would be a grave error, however, to suppose
* 1909.

A PATRIOT AND A KING 53
that there were strong combative elements in his
nature. He was not only a Peace-maker, but a
Peace-lover. Just as he disliked scenes and
quarrels in private life, he hated animosities be
tween political parties, and deplored the armed
rivalry of nations. But he was before everything
else a patriot and a King ; and in both these
capacities he was, in duty bound, constrained to
look to the honour and safety of the nation over
which he ruled.
He was, therefore, at one with the majority of
his people in his desire to see the naval forces of
Great Britain maintained at the highest point con
sistent with their use for defensive purposes and
for securing the inviolability of British soil. No
further thought, no sinister design, was ever har
boured in his mind. Least of all did the King
look with any feeling of jealousy, resentment or
alarm upon the growing strength of the great
German Empire. In this matter he represented,
not the nervous apprehension of a few fanatics,
but the sane conviction of the vast majority
of Britons, that within the four corners of the
world there is ample room for Great Britain and
Germany. King Edward had been reared in the belief that
Europe and the world at large would be all the
better, and none the worse, for the unification of
Germany under Prussian leadership. This idea
always haunted his father, one of whose ablest
State Papers, written in 1847, is devoted to the

54 THE KING AND FOREIGN AFFAIRS
consideration of the problem of how to combine
the establishment of popular forms of government
in German States with a United Germany.
Lord Palmerston, to whom the memorandum in
question was shown, wrote in reply: "England
and Germany have naturally a direct interest in
assisting each other to become rich, united and
strong, and there ought not to be, in the mind of
any enlightened man of either country, any feehng
of jealousy as to the progress made by the other
country in civilization and prosperity."
< " A strong and united Germany under the leader
ship of Prussia had been the lifelong dream of
Baron Stockmar, and thanks to his influence
Queen Victoria and Prince Albert had placed this
fundamental idea in the forefront of their concep
tion of that new Europe which was about to arise
out of the ashes of the European fires lighted in
1848. Among these influences, and subjected to
the unconscious perusal of these conceptions. King
Edward's boyhood was passed. They never wholly
left him. The absurd Press campaigns in Great
Britain and in Germany, carried on by men with
honest and patriotic intentions, but ignorant and
misguided, saddened and annoyed him. He dis
liked exaggeration, and detested mischief-making.
His mind was singularly free from insular pre
judice. He never yielded for a moment to the
feeling of panic, and was unmoved by the loud-
toned declamation of those who read nothing but
sinister menace in the legitimate strengthening of
their armaments by the great Powers of the world.

ENGLAND AND GERMANY 55
On the other hand, no one was more determined
than he that no stone should be left unturned to
render the defensive forces of his own country power
ful and efficient, for he was aware that the immunity
of the British Empire from attack is the greatest
safeguard of that European Peace which was the
main preoccupation of his later years.
King Edward was far too shrewd, his knowledge
of the world was too profound, and his apprecia
tion of the conditions of European commercial
rivalry too keen, not to realize fully the true mean
ing of the efforts of the German Kaiser and the
German people to strengthen the German fleet,
and to broadep the scope of German colonial enter
prise. He was acquainted with eminent business
men of all nationalities, and he was intimately
conscious of the novel conditions of that inter
national commercial struggle for the open markets
of the world which was slowly but surely taking
the place of the somewhat aimless national rivalries
of the years immediately following the making of
the German Empire and the kingdom of Italy.
When his attention was drawn to a remarkable
little book, " Europe's Optical Illusion," which
created some stir in England, and which was
brought to the notice of the German Emperor
and of the Crown Prince by Enghsh friends, the
King seemed perfectly familar with its main thesis,
that is to say the midsummer madness, from the
point of view of either nation, of a war between
Germany and Great Britain. Victory to either
nation would spell disaster for both. The idea to

56 THE KING AND FOREIGN AFFAIRS
him was almost a commonplace. At the same
time, he thought disarmament, or limitation of
armaments, under existing conditions, purely
visionary, and never could understand how any
reasonable human being could beheve that he had
proposed either course to the German Emperor.
The legend seems to have lingered in certain ill-
balanced minds to this day, in spite of its inherent
impossibility and notwithstanding the plainest
denials. No one could be long' in the vicinity of
King Edward without discovering that he liked
Germany and the German people. No one could
have watched the King and the Kaiser together,
without noticing that the two men, in spite of
difference in temperament, and divergence of ideals,
bore a curious likeness to each other, that blood is
thicker than water, and that not only mutual
respect, but real admiration underlay their inter
course. There are some who recall that in January, 1910,
the King mentioned with grave emotion that he
had written warmly to the Emperor on his birth
day, expressing a strong wish that Germany and
England should always work together in the
interests of European Peace, which acting together
they can always ensure. Perhaps the Emperor,
when only a few weeks later he stood side by side
with King George in the Hall of William Rufus,
where the Great Dead lay in state, remembered
that friendly letter and the noble aspiration it
contained. In former days fleets and armies were a menace.

STRENGTH AND RESPONSIBILITY 57
In these days powerful fleets and well-trained
armies are the best guarantees of peace. Is there
any German of candid soul and perspicuous mind
who, if he were an Englishman, would not spend
every hour of his working day in pressing for the
maintenance of that naval supremacy upon which
the safety of the British Empire so largely depends ?
Is there any German who, if he were an English
man, would not desire to see two British keels
laid down to every one of the next strongest
European Power ?
Is there any German who, if he were an English
man, would not feel that Great Britain with her
vast responsibilities to humanity in half-civilized
lands, her immense seaboard, her population depen
dent upon foreign imports, and without a national
army, floats on the navy, and that her navy must
therefore be supreme ?
And is there any Englishman who, if he were a
German, would not ardently desire to see the
German Fleet so strong that the full force of
German opinion should have its proper weight and
value in the counsels of Europe and in the polity of
the world, and that at sea as on land German
honour should be safe ?
These are not conditions of petty rivalry, but of
mutual honour and respect. They are the views of
all rational Englishmen and Germans, and they
were the views of King Edward.
There must, however, be no mistake. It is
ridiculous to suppose, as some do, that the
King initiated or planned the Entente between 9

58 THE KING AND FOREIGN AFFAIRS
Great Britain and France. He was too keenly
alive to the proper functions of a constitutional
Sovereign. But he cordially accepted and enthusi
astically supported the pohcy of two successive
Secretaries of State on different sides in politics
(Lord Lansdowne and Sir Edward Grey), and three
Prime Ministers (Mr. Balfour, Sir Henry Campbell-
Bannerman and Mr. Asquith) who have consis
tently advocated the Entente, with France, and
have obtained for their policy the approval of Eng
lishmen of all classes. And why ? Not out of
hostility to Germany, or to any other Great Power.
But because France is to-day, as she has ever been,
the keynote of European Peace. You have to go
back beyond the reign of Charlemagne to find any
really great and vital European struggle in which
France was not engaged. There have been wars,
of course, from which France stood aloof, but they
have not been great wars. Because of her geo
graphical position, because of her inexhaustible
wealth, and because of the martial spirit of her
people, France always struck, and strikes still, the
most vibrant note in the Concert of Europe.
King Edward not only felt a real and deep
affection for France and for the French people, but
he was in cordial agreement with his own people
all over the Empire in their strong sense of the
inestimable value to Europe and the world of the
Entente between Great Britain and France. There
is, however, not an English patriot worthy of the
name who does not look forward anxiously to
the day when this friendly league, based upon the

THE GREAT POWERS 59
peaceful aspirations of vast masses of the common
people, may include the mighty German Empire.
The status quo of Northern and Central Europe
guaranteed by the Great Powers ! Think what
this would mean I It is surely not an unthinkable
proposition. The present grouping of the Powers
renders such a dream more easy and not more
difficult of fulfilment. If three Powers can be
grouped, why not combine for one purpose, and in
the common interest, two groups of three each?
That is the simple and not very daring proposition,
and it certainly is not beyond the limits of reason
able expectation to assume that the common sense
of civilized nations under august and imaginative
leadership will one day bring about this consumma
tion so devoutly to be wished.
Ten years ago the idea of an Anglo-French
Entente was an almost unthinkable proposition.
At the time of the " Dogger Bank incident," what
Englishman or Russian could contemplate as a
near probability a friendly understanding between
Great Britain and Russia? Yet this unthinkable
combination and improbable amity have been
achieved by careful statesmanship, unswayed by
the wild talk of post-prandial politicians.
If the psychological moment can be seized, and
if impulsive sentimental minds can put aside
traditional enmities and face the actualities of the
world to-day, its burdens on rich and poor alike,
and the dangers to civilization from brutal forces
long dormant but symptomatically awakening, the
hope of accommodation between France and Ger-

60 THE KING AND FOREIGN AFFAIRS
many and Great Britain, based on their common
interests, need not be far from fulfilment.
The unity of States speaking the same language
and of the same race was the Imperial idea which
prompted great statesmen in the nineteenth cen
tury to supreme effort. It bore fruit in three
great struggles, followed by long periods of peace,
which almost seem to justify the bloodshed and
the misery out of which peace sprang. With this
idea is linked for ever the memorable names of the
Emperor William and those of that galaxy of
warrior-statesmen who were gathered round him ;
also of Abraham Lincoln in the United States of
America, and of Victor Emmanuel and Cavour in
Italy. The equally glorious but wholly pacific idea of
the early days of the twentieth century is the
grouping of great Powers for the purpose of main
taining what is called the status quo, and of
mutually guaranteeing to each other and to the
smaller States of Europe their territorial integrity.
This idea, germinating years ago in the Triple
Alliance, fructifying in the Anglo- Japanese Treaty,
and once more in the Triple Entente, is ripe for
further development.
With this pohcy, liberal, progressive, and yet
eminently conservative, and noble because of its
pacific tendencies, its unselfish aspects, and- its
aspirations for the future of mankind, must ever
be connected the name of King Edward VII. of
Great Britain and Ireland, who presided, if not over
its inception, over its partjial triumph.

THE HOUSE OF LORDS.*
I.
I READ once a very brilliant book on the con
dition of England by Mr. C. F. G. Masterman.
He is a member of Mr. Asquith's Government.
The book is brilliant and satisfactory, inasmuch as
it reveals the noteworthy fact that among " rising
politicians " there is one whose trend of mind and
intellectual equipment are in the old and grand
manner, not common in these days.
A chapter in which Mr. Masterman lays bare
the virtues and foibles of a class whom he calls the
" Conquerors " contains the following passage :
" The rather ignoble rdle played by the House
of Lords during the past decade reveals its weak
nesses. It will allow changes which it profoundly
dislikes when compelled by fear. It wiU resist
changes in action when that fear is controlled. It
will altogether abandon the effort to initiate changes
where change is essential. It can do little but
modify, check, or destroy other men's handiwork.
It has no single constructive suggestion of its own
to offer to a people confronting difficult problems
and harassed by the obligations of necessary re
organizations. It can neither breed leaders nor
ideas."
* These letters appeared in the Times, during a period ex
tending from December, 1909, to April, 1910.
61 10

62 THE HOUSE OF LORDS
I can imagine that every Radical politician read
ing this passage would give to it unqualified assent.
It is intended as a condemnation of the House of
Lords ; and yet, if we admit the description to be
true, what more could the most exacting reformer
demand from a Second Chamber ?
The House of Lords yields, says the writer,
when " compelled by fear." What fear ? The
honourable fear that it may be running counter to
the will of the nation. There is nothing else of
which the House of Lords has reason to be
afraid. It " resists changes when that fear is controlled,"
or, in other words, if it suspects, as in the case of
Home Rule, that the nation is unsympathetic or
hostile, it resists the proposed change. Is not
that the principal function of a Second Chamber ?
It "abandons the effort to initiate," which
implies that, like the House of Commons, in these
days it leaves initiative in legislation to the
Executive Government.
" It can do httle but modify, check, or destroy
other men's handiwork." Are not these precisely
the functions which every constitutional writer
assigns to a Second Chamber, and aU framers of
Constitutions have specificaUy assigned to it ?
" It has no constructive suggestion " to offer.
No more, in these days, has the House of Com
mons, if by that is meant large constructive
measures of legislation. These are invariably the
work of Government departments or of an indi-

NO CONSTRUCTIVE SUGGESTION 63
vidual Minister, who may or may not be a member
of the House of Lords.
The Budget of 1909 undoubtedly was the con
structive effort of a member of the House of
Commons. But to what Minister is due the chief
credit for the Constitution for South Africa?
With the latter the House of Commons had nothing
whatever to do. With the former it had un
doubtedly much, but all in the direction of
" modification, check, and destruction " of the Bill
in its original form. Yet no blame appears to
attach to the Opposition for amending Mr. Lloyd
George's Bill.
As to the incapacity of the House of Lords to
"breed leaders" or "ideas," that is largely a matter
of opinion. The test of leadership, however, is not
loud-sounding brass, or a waving sword, but the art
of getting men to follow.
The leadership of the Peers is attested not only
in the higher regions of statesmanship for the last
hundred years, but in every domain of statesman
ship, and in every county council, in every county
association, and (when they have chosen) in many
of the borough councils of the United Kingdom.
The test of ideas is not their originality but their
weight. Novel ideas, like cleverness, are becoming
a drug in the market. The ideas of the late Duke
of Devonshire — and they were often quite dull —
were more acceptable to his countrymen than those
of the most brilliant of his contemporaries.
What Mr. Masterman calls the " weaknesses " of

64 THE HOUSE OF LORDS
the House of Lords are the real sources of its
strength, and of its hold upon the nation.
It represents, far more accurately than any great
Liberal majority of the House of Commons, the
fundamental conservatism of the English people,
their wariness, their love of tradition, their adhesive
ness to precedent, their denseness to " ideas," their
habitual preference for the evils they understand
and to which they are accustomed, their shrewd
belief that the man who has something to keep is a
safer guide than the man who has something to
gain. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred the average
Englishman will pay more heed to an inarticulate
Peer than to the greatest demagogue that ever trod
a platform. No cheap sarcasm will account for
this curious and, to some politicians, this unpalat
able fact. It is an instinctive heritage of the Briton
all over the world, and has its origin deep down in
the history of our country.
If the conflict upon which the House of Lords
has entered leads to its dissolution, history will say
of it, that man for man it was more than the equal
of the House of Commons, and that it responded
as a rule more surely to the changing temper of
the nation than the elected representatives of the
people. It would be absurd to contend that the House
of Lords has never made mistakes. The rejection
of the Budget was a mistake. But this and all
previous errors of judgment have been amply

LORDS V. COMMONS 65
redeemed by the services which it has rendered by
rejecting thoroughly vicious measures, and by
altering and revising ill-considered ones.
The pretension of the House of Commons
appears to be that because it is a popular Assembly
it is infallible. No more grotesque caricature of
pohtical illusion can well be imagined. Its gravity
lies in this, that the repeated assertion of this
absurd dogma may catch the fleeting fancy of the
people. It is true that the right of the House of Lords
to reject Money Bills has, like the veto of the
Sovereign, long fallen into abeyance. To justify
the acts of the Lords in reviving their dormant
claim, it is necessary to show that we have arrived
at a point in our history when the checks and
balances of the Constitution require revision.
No one who has watched the vagaries of the
House of Commons since the rise of the Irish party
twenty-nine years ago, and has grasped the full
import of the severance of the old Whigs from the
Liberal party in the House of Lords twenty-three
years ago, can doubt that the relations between the
two Houses want readjusting.
To accept, however, the Liberal or the Unionist
party view would be to misread the situation.
It may be a fact that the present composition of
the House of Lords unfits it to fulfil adequately
the functions of a Second Chamber. But it is far
more true that the constitution of the House of
Commons, its unwieldy size, its misrepresentative

66 THE HOUSE OF LORDS
character, its ludicrous over-representation of
Ireland, its dangerous under-representation of the
great centres of population, including London, its
antiquated and unsystematic grouping, its fantastic
rules of procedure, and its unbusinesslike habits,
especially in dealing with estimates and expenditure,
render a thorough examination and reform of the
House of Commons an imperative condition of any
constitutional change or of any readjustment of
the joint powers or several privileges of the two
Houses. If we are to substitute a written for an un
written Constitution, the draft cannot be prepared
by the caucus of any political party, or amid the
dust of a general election.
If the relations between the two Houses of
Parliament, and possibly the prerogative of the
Crown, are to be regulated by statute, the sanction
and approval not only of one party will be re
quired, not only of the majority of a House of
Commons elected under a limited franchise, and a
system of distributed voting power which is a
mockery of true representation, but the acquiescence
and agreement of all classes in the United Kingdom,
whose interests have hitherto been safeguarded by
the habit of compromise and the practice of reason
able give and take which have characterized the
nation and have been the envy of statesmen all
over the civilized world. I do not believe that we
can escape from the present political deadlock
without a political revolution. It will not be the

THE ALTERNATIVES 67
first in our history. Hitherto the British people
have almost without exception conducted their
revolutions according to the form of law, and by
adhering to precedent. There need be no depar
ture from this ancient practice if we look to the
history of our own people, and to the expedients of
our ancestors when confronted by similar difficulties.
II.
Precedent, like analogy, is rarely conclusive. If
history is searched for an exact counterpart of the
quarrel between the two Houses of Parliament,
which came to a head with the rejection of the
Budget of 1909, none will be found.
The quarrel apparently must end in one of
two ways. Either the House of Lords will be
strengthened by internal reform and an admittance
to it of life peers, or its veto will become suspensory
and its functions hmited to criticism and suggestion.
If the partisans of the House of Lords are a
majority of the nation, the constitutional question
can be solved without revolutionary action, and
the centre of political power — that is to say, the
Government-making authority — will be transferred
hereafter without much friction by gradual but
inevitable process from the Commons to the Lords.
If, on the other hand, the majority of the nation
support the Commons, a deadlock between the two
Houses appears almost inevitable.
It is unlikely that the House of Lords will with
out a struggle abandon their rights ; and no Bill

68 THE HOUSE OF LORDS
hmiting their powers can become law without their
assent. There are only two ways of obtaining the assent
of the House of Lords to a Bill they dislike. One
is by persuading them to yield, and the other is by
unconstitutional means — in other words by force.
The former method may tax all the resources of
statesmanship, and may prove beyond the capacity
of even the most adroit parliamentarian.
It is worth while, therefore, to consider the latter
alternative. The most obvious way of using force without
proceeding to physical extremes is to stretch the
Royal prerogative and to create enough peers to
overthrow the existing majority of the House of
Lords. In the long history of our country this course has
only once been followed.
In the winter of 1711, owing to circumstances
which are not material, a sharp conflict arose
between the House of Lords and the House of
Commons. It was the eve of the Peace of Utrecht.
An amendment to the Address had been moved
in both Houses to the effect that " no peace could
be safe or honourable to Great Britain or Europe
if Spain and the West Indies were allotted to any
branch of the House of Bourbon." Parties were
arrayed for and against the Duke of Marlborough.
When it came to the vote the House of Commons
rejected the amendment by 232 against 106, or a
majority of 126 for Harley and his Government.

A PRECEDENT OF 1711 69
In the House of Lords the amendment was carried
against the Government by a majority of eight.
No one appeared to doubt that the fate of
the Ministers was sealed. Oxford and St. John
abandoned all hope of remaining in office against
the wiU of the House of Lords.
To Oxford and Bolingbroke, to Swift and Somers
it never seemed to have occurred as a possible
contingency that a Ministry could retain power,
unless upon questions of capital importance it could
count on the support of both Houses of Parliament.
What was to be done?
The Tory Minister soon discovered that Queen
Anne had no objection to what a Tory historian
calls " the most violent stretch of her prerogative."
On this knowledge the Ministers acted.
Lord Stanhope's description of the event is in the
following words :
" Their first step was to strike down Marlborough.
... So bold a stroke required another still bolder
to sustain it. The same Gazette of December 31,
1711, which announced that the Queen had dis
missed the Duke of Marlborough from all his
employments, made known also the creation of
twelve peers. By this coup d'Etat it was intended
to overrule, or rather to invert, the majority of the
Upper Chamber.
" It is the only time in our annals that a stretch
of the prerogative in this direction has been actually
effected, though not the only time that it has been
threatened and intended."
Lord Stanhope was writing after the lapse of 160
years, and his view of the unconstitutional action

70 THE HOUSE OF LORDS
of Harley was not very different from that of
Harley 's contemporaries.
It is said by Bohngbroke's biographers that
although the creation of twelve peers for the
express purpose of swamping the Whig majority in
the House of Lords suited his daring and impetuous
nature, he was well aware that such a step, unpre
cedented in the constitutional history of England,
could not be justified.
Afterwards, when in exile, St. John, in a letter
to Sir W. Windham, spoke of the measure "as
unprecedented and invidious, to be excused by
nothing but the necessity, and hardly by that."
Swift, who had given up all hope of the Govern
ment retaining office, wrote rapturously to Stella
on the evening upon which the Gazette was issued ;
but Bishop Burnet spoke soberly and sadly of the
"indignity" which was put upon the House of
Ijords " since the Court did by this openly declare
that they were to be kept in absolute submission
and obedience."
Lord Dartmouth described what he called " so
odious a course " in the following words :
" I was never so much surprised as when the
Queen drew a list of twelve lords out of her pocket,
and ordered me to bring warrants for them ; there
not having been the least intimation before it was
to be put in execution. I asked her if she designed
to have them all made at once. She asked me if I
had any exceptions to the legality of it. I said,
' No ' ; but doubted very much of the expediency,
for I feared it would have a very ill effect in the

CREATION OF PEERS 71
House of Lords and no good one in the kingdom.
She said she had made fewer lords than any of her
predecessors, and I saw the Duke of Marlborough
and the Whigs were resolved to distress her as
much as they could, and she must do what she
could to help herself I told her I wished it proved
a remedy to what she so justly complained of, but
I thought it my duty to tell her my apprehensions,
as well as execute her commands."
It was said at the time, and the opinion has been
often endorsed, that the course taken by the Queen
and Harley was justly condemned not only by the
party which it overthrew, but by all intelligent
friends of the Constitution.
St. John himself, in a dissertation on parties,
speaking of the right of creating peers resident in
the Crown, admits that this right would be "an
intolerable one indeed, if the Crown should exercise
it often as it hath been exercised sometimes with
universal and most just disapprobation " ; and he
goes on to point out that if the Crown could
" unmake as well as rnake peers, it would be a jest
to talk of three estates, since there would be
virtually and in effect but two."
It is a curious reflection on recent events to find
Bolingbroke refusing to subscribe to these two
sayings of Bacon —
" That England can never be undone unless by
Parliaments ; and there is nothing a Parliament
cannot do — "
because, he continues,
" Great Britain, according to our present Consti
tution, cannot be undone by Parliaments, for there

72 THE HOUSE OF LORDS
is something which a Parliament cannot do. A
Parliament cannot annul the Constitution."
This is, however, precisely what a parliament
does if it brings by the action of its leaders the two
Houses into so bitter a conflict that force, in some
shape or other, has to be used.
If the Royal prerogative was unduly stretched,
and if the Constitution of our country was violated
by Queen Anne's creation of twelve peers, what
would be said of a proposal to create five hundred ?
The decent conduct of public affairs, consideration
for the noble traditions of our parliamentary history,
respect for the good opinion of the King's dominions
oversea, and regard for the high position which
the British Parliament has always occupied in the
eyes of foreign nations, appear to forbid recourse to
so undignified an expedient. The solution of this
difficult problem surely lies elsewhere.
In 1832 the threat of the Whig Lord Grey to
follow the precedent of his Tory predecessors was
not carried into effect, and the House of Lords
yielded to the majority of the House of Commons.
In the readjustment of powers between the two
Houses, which appears to be inevitable, the good
sense of the nation, and the moderation of party
leaders, as a rule so characteristic of Englishmen,
when they have done talking and come to action,
should find some way out of the impending dead
lock other than that adopted by the revolutionary
Administration of which Bolingbroke was the
moving spirit.

SUBMISSION OF THE LORDS 73
III.
The deadlock between the two Houses of Parlia
ment in 1832 was relieved by the submission of the
House of Lords. What Bagehot called a catas
trophic creation of peers for the purpose of swamp
ing the House of Lords was only approached and
never consummated.
It is frequently forgotten that, although
William IV. gave an uncertain and lukewarm
promise to Lord Grey that he would consent to
the creation of a reasonable number of peers to
pass the second reading of the Reform BiU, it
became unnecessary to test the willingness of the
King, as the second reading was passed by a
majority of nine.
When subsequently the Bill was threatened by
Lord Lyndhurst's amendment, the King refused
leave to create peers, and a crisis followed, which
almost led to a revolution.
Dates are important, in order to understand
clearly what happened.
On May 8 the Government of Lord Grey re
signed. On the 10th the House of Commons
voted an Address to the King by a majority of
eighty, praying him to call to his councils only
such persons as would carry unimpaired the Reform
Bill. The Duke of Welhngton and Lord Lyndhurst
were trying meanwhile to form an Administration,
but their efforts proved fruitless owing to the
refusal of Sir Robert Peel to accept office. 11

74 THE HOUSE OF LORDS
This was the moment selected by Mr. Croker for
stating his conviction that " Reform had no hold
upon the public mind." This blindness of partisan
ship to the trend of events is further illustrated by
the debate which took place on May 14 in the
House of Commons on the presentation of a petition
from the City of London, praying the House to
withhold supplies till the Reform Bill should have
passed. It was towards the end of the debate that Mr.
Baring, after, as it was supposed, consulting the
leaders of the Tory party in the House of Lords,
suggested that the breach between the King and
his Ministers might not be irreparable, and that
they might withdraw their advice to create a large
number of peers if an assurance were given them,
or there were a reasonable probability, that the
House of Lords did really intend to pass Schedule A
of the Bill. This was understood to imply an offer
on the part of the Opposition to allow the BiU to
pass provided peers were not created.
The King immediately wrote to Lord Grey,
drawing this inference, and on May 16 a Cabinet
minute was forwarded to the King :
" By the failure of the Duke of Welhngton's en
deavour to form a new Administration, and by the
reference made by your Majesty to your present
servants, they find themselves in a situation in
many repects similar to that in which they were
placed after the vote on Lord Lyndhurst's motion
in the Committee of the House of Lords on
Monday, the 7th inst.

THE ALTERNATIVES 75
^' Your Majesty has been pleased to concur in the
opinion submitted to your Majesty in Lord Grey's
letter of yesterday, that it is necessary to pass the
Reform BiU with as httle delay as possible, unim
paired in aU its principles and essential provisions,
and as nearly as possible in its present form, in order
to put an end to the agitation which now prevails ;
and also that your Majesty's servants cannot con
tinue in their present situations without a sufficient
security that they will have power to insure this
result. " The first question, therefore, to be considered is,
how this security is to be obtained ?
" In this view two modes only present themselves
to your Majesty's servants — the one, a cessation, on
the part of the adversaries of the Bill, of the opposi
tion which has hitherto obstructed its progress ; the
other, such a creation of peers as should give your
Majesty's servants sufficient power to overcome
that opposition.
" The former of these alternatives appears to your
Majesty's servants to be one on which it is impos
sible to come to any previous understanding or
arrangement ; to the other, your Majesty's servants
are unwilling now, as they ever have been, to urge
your Majesty to resort whilst the hope exists of
finding any other means by which the Reform Bill
may be carried unimpaired.
" Your Majesty's servants, therefore, humbly beg
your Majesty's permission to defer till Friday any
final answer to the letter which Earl Grey had
yesterday the honour of receiving from your
Majesty." On the morning of May 17 the King sent the
foUowing circular letter to the Duke of Wellington
and to many other peers :

76 THE HOUSE OF LORDS
Sir H. Taylor to the Duke of Wellington.
"St. James's Palace,
"May 17, 1832.
" My dear Lord Duke,
" I have received the King's commands to
acquaint your Grace that all difficulties and
obstacles to the arrangement in progress will be
removed by a declaration in the House of Lords
this day, from a sufficient number of peers, that, in
consequence of the present state of things, they
have come to the resolution of dropping their fur
ther opposition to the Reform BiU, so that it may
pass, as nearly as possible, in its present form.
" Should your Grace agree to this, as he hopes
you wiU, his Majesty requests you will communicate
on the subject with Lord Lyndhurst, Lord Ellen-
borough, and any other peers who may be disposed
to concur with you. " I have, &c.,
" H. Taylor."
A copy was sent to Lord Grey, with a covering
letter to the effect that the King was prepared to
take steps to obtain from the peers a declaration
that they would absent themselves from the House
of Lords and allow the Bill to pass.
On the afternoon of the same day. May 17, the
King saw the Duke of Wellington, and in the
evening received from him the following assurance :
The Duke of Wellington to Sir H. Taylor.
" London, "May 17, 1832.
" My dear General,
" I have received your letter of this day's
date. I told the King that, as an individual peer,

THE CRISIS ENDED 77
I would not attend the further discussion of the
Reform Bill. Lord Lyndhurst did the same. We
both propose to act accordingly.
" But I confess that I don't think that I can
declare in the House of Lords what my course will
be, as a condition that the Minister should refrain
from his recommendation that peers should be
created to carry the Bill, without making myself a
party to his proceeding. " Ever, &c.,
" Wellington."
From that moment the crisis was ended.
It is true that during the evening, after writing
to the King, the Duke made a violent speech in
the House of Lords, and was followed in a similar
strain by other Lords, who had given their adhesion
to the policy of surrender.
It was the usual Parliamentary method of cover
ing a retreat. But it was not so understood by
Lord Grey, who pressed the King on the following
day for " guarantees " in the shape of a promise to
create peers.
The King, however, was satisfied. He had the
Duke of Welhngton's letter in his pocket, and he
knew the Duke well enough to feel assured of his
word. On receiving a fresh Cabinet minute, re
questing an assurance that peers would be created,
the King immediately replied that "he was pre
pared to afford them the security they required ";
and with this view authorizes Lord Grey, "if any
obstacle should arise during the further progress of
the BUI," to submit to him a creation of peers
sufficient to pass the measure. 12

78 THE HOUSE OF LORDS
But the King was well aware, when he gave this
conditional promise, that no further obstacle would
arise, and that the Tory leader had decided to
allow the Bill to pass.
In point of fact, the decision had been taken
so long before as May 14, the day upon which
Mr. Baring delivered his speech in the House of
Commons. That night (May 14) the House rose at 11.30,
and at midnight the Speaker took Sir R. Peel
in his coach to a meeting at Apsley House. The
Duke had heard from Baring what had taken place
during the debate, and after much discussion the
following resolution was moved by Sir R. Peel and
carried :
That the Duke should tell the King it was im
possible to hope to form a Tory Administration on
the basis of passing the Reform BiU, and that,
therefore. His Majesty must take his own course.
The Duke was to add that in order to save His
Majesty's personal honour as to the creation of
peers, he himself would, so far as depended upon
him, remove all pretence for such a creation by
withdrawing his opposition.
After examining the proceedings of the Ministers
and the Opposition in 1832, it is not difficult to
understand the scepticism of Lord Brougham, who
in his "Political PhUosophy" asks the question
whether or not, if no secession had taken place, and
the peers had persisted in really opposing the most
important provision of the BiU, recourse would
have been had to the perilous creation.

LORD BROUGHAM'S OPINION 79
In his reply he says :
" I cannot with any confidence answer it in the
affirmative. I had a strong feeling of the necessity
of the case in the very peculiar circumstances we
were placed in. But such was my deep sense of
the dreadful consequences of the act, that I much
question whether I should not have preferred
running the risk of confusion that attended the loss
of the Bill as it then stood ; and I have a strong
impression on my mind that my iUustrious friend
(Lord Grey) would have more than met me half
way in the determination to face that risk (and of
course to face the clamours of the people, which
would have cost us little), rather than expose the
Constitution to so imminent a hazard of sub
version." Whatever may be thought of Lord Brougham,
it must not be forgotten that he was the Lord
Chancellor, and present at the Cabinet of May 16,
when the minute was drawn up, which was subse
quently submitted by Lord Grey to the King.
Lord Campbell did not believe Lord Brougham's
statement. He did not doubt that if Lord Lynd
hurst had not quailed fifty peers would have been
created. But he rejoices that what he called a
serious blow to the Constitution had been warded
off, and of the King's refusal which led to the
resignation of Lord Grey, he writes :
" The King cannot be blamed for refusing, as such
a step could be considered only a coup d'Etat, and
he had been told by persons about him that there
was no necessity for it, as the peers were now ready
to yield a large measure of reform, although they
would not agree to the ruin of their order."

80 THE HOUSE OF LORDS
The conclusion seems obvious enough.
The "catastrophic creation of peers" was ap
proached, but there is insufficient evidence to assert
with certainty that it would have been consum
mated. Therefore Queen Anne's creation in 1711, stands
alone as the solitary precedent for what apparently
both statesmen and historians have considered to
be an unconstitutional use of the Royal prerogative.
IV.
An unwritten Constitution rests upon precedent
and reasonableness. I did not set out to enquire
where unreasonableness lies, or which of the great
parties in the State has departed from precedent.
It is sufficient to note that our unwritten Constitu
tion, which has served us well, is apparently out of
date. For its smooth working in the past trained
statesmen and hereditary politicians were largely
responsible. Since the revolution of 1688 the equipoise of the
three estates of the realm has only once been dis
turbed by an act of violence — when Queen Anne,
in 1711, at the instance of Oxford, swamped the
House of Lords. Those were early days of Cabinet
government, and, in spite of considerable strain and
much provocation, good sense and a reasonable
spirit of compromise have maintained hitherto the
balance of the Constitution. This was eminently
the case in 1832, when the Reform Bill, which is
now generally admitted to have been a measure

A NEW BILL OF RIGHTS 81
both moderate and necessary, was passed into law
with the tacit consent of its opponents after the
will of the country had been expressed in the
clearest manner.
It is incredible that anyone who cares for the
historical traditions of our country, who takes a
pride in the achievements of a long line of British
statesmen, and who was brought up to admire
institutions, "broadening down from precedent to
precedent," should not feel regret at the first serious
attempt to define by statute the relations between
the three estates of the realm.
I am, of course, aware that, just as Bills of Rights
in their origin have proved to be bonds between
Sovereigns and their people, defining prerogative
and confirming privilege, so a new Bill of Rights
might advantageously define the relations which
should exist in future between the two Houses of
Parliament. If a measure, presently to be intro
duced, assumed this form, it would possess fewer
objectionable features in the eyes of the " historical "
politician. It appears to be generally conceded that, whether
the country returns a Liberal or a Unionist majority
to the House of Commons, some attempt to sub
stitute a statutory for our unwritten Constitution
is likely to be made. Extremists say that, if the
new House of Commons is Conservative, the centre
of political gravity wiU be transferred to a recon
stituted House of Lords, containing novel elements,
but mainly hereditary and Conservative. On the

82 THE HOUSE OF LORDS
other hand, if a Liberal majority is returned to the
House of Commons, the Second Chamber will be
first swamped and then abolished.
Where does the truth he ? Either project would
be a revolution, since the Constitution as we have
known it, and as our fathers knew it, will have
passed away.
I am not, however, so much concerned with
results as with methods and procedure. Our
history shows that, when Ministers speak of
"guarantees" and "assurances" which are to
enable them to overcome the possible resistance
of one of the Houses of Parliament averse from
a great constitutional change, there are no "guar
antees " or " assurances " they can ask for which
could be interpreted otherwise than as an uncon
stitutional use of brute force.
It is true that Lord Grey, in a famous passage,
speaking of the prerogative of the Crown to create
peers, said :
" I ask what would be the consequences if we
were to suppose that such a prerogative did not
exist, or could not be constitutionally exercised.
The Commons have a control over the power of
the Crown by the privilege in extreme cases of
refusing supplies ; and the Crown has, by means
of its power to dissolve the House of Commons, a
control upon any violent and rash proceedings on
the part of the Commons ; but if a majority of this
House (the Lords) is to have the power whenever
they please of opposing the declared and decided
wishes both of the Crown and the people, without
any means of modifying that power, then this

LORD GREYS OPINION 83
country is placed entirely under the influence of
an uncontrollable oligarchy."
The superficial view could not be more neatly
put. But Lord Grey overlooked the real facts,
which were obvious to Mr. Burke forty years
before, when in his letter to the Duke of Portland,
speaking of the House of Lords as in itself the
feeblest part of the Constitution, supported only by
its connection with the Crown and the House of
Commons, he said that without these connections
it could not exist a single year, and added : " All
these parts of our Constitution, whilst they are
balanced as opposing interests, are also connected
as friends ; otherwise nothing but confusion could
be the result." Lord Grey, enveloped in the dust
of battle, could see no issue from the political con
flict except by bringing up the " reserve forces " of
the Constitution. For him there was no clearness of
vision. The truth was, and is, that without com
promise, without a display of reasonableness, there
could and can not be victory within the hmits of
constitutional action.
There was no essential difference and no moral
distinction between swamping the majority of one
of the Houses of Parliament by men in black
coats or by men in red. Force was the essence of
both. Ask any dispassionate student of history, a
Frenchman or a Japanese, how it came about that
the Reform Bill of 1832 was passed into law, and why
the House of Lords yielded. His answer would not

84 THE HOUSE OF LORDS
be that it was because of a threat to create peers.
He would say : " On October 3, 1831, there was a
meeting of 150,000 men at Birmingham who de
clared by acclamation that if the Reform BiU did
not pass they would refuse the payment of taxes, as
John Hampden had refused to pay ship money,
except by a levy on their goods."
And " On May 14, 1832, a petition was presented
to the House of Commons from the City of
London, praying the House to withhold supplies
till the Reform Bill should have passed." It was
not indolence or timidity or "flaccid latitudin-
arianism," as Lord Morley used to say, which
induced the House of Lords to give way, but
robust political sense, which told them that their
good fight was fought out, and that not a pohtical
or factious majority, but the great mass of their
fellow-countrymen of all classes, whether in the
Midlands or the City of London, desired the
Reform Bill to become law.
If to-day, the growth of our political organism
requires a change in the relations between the
two Houses of Parliament, certain conditions must
be fulfilled before any Bill fundamentally altering
the Constitution should be passed.
First, the issue must be made perfectly clear,
and be understood of the people.
Secondly, the change should receive the emphatic
or tacit consent of all reasonable men.
If ever there was a case for compromise, it is to
be found to-day. In this country political habits

CAUSES OF REVOLUTION 85
of thought and of government are too far advanced
to make it expedient that one half plus a small
fraction of the community should impose its will
upon what practically amounts to the other half.
For any Minister by an act of high prerogative to
attempt such a course of action would be altogether
to misinterpret the meaning of government by
majorities. It would be the action of an arbitrary
and unreflecting political temper ; and, unless the
whole character of Englishmen has changed, would
be met by very stern reprisals. On the other
hand, resistance to the popular will, when it has
been clearly expressed and maintained beyond the
limits of momentary effervescence, leads surely to
what has been finely called " sinister government " ;
and any honest Minister, taking stock of modern
powers of combination and uprising, should be loth
to put them to the test.
To assume, as is sometimes done, that revolu
tions spring from social causes is to misread history.
Mankind revolts against curable, not incurable
evils. Since the advent of parliamentary govern
ment we, in England, have been immune from
revolution. This is due, mainly, to the political
flexibility of the English temperament, to the
abhorrence of our people for obstinate fanaticism
in their public men, and to their passion for
moderation and common sense.
Bluster is natural enough before and during a
general election. But when an election is over,
that weapon must be laid in its scabbard, and woe

86 THE HOUSE OF LORDS
betide the political leader or leaders of either party,
if in the long-run they faU to respond to the desire
of the nation that this constitutional strife shall
cease, and that by a reasonable compromise the
relations between the two Houses shaU be put
upon such a footing that the business of the
country, whether it be social reform, or adequate
measures for national defence, shall proceed un
hindered. V.
In the discussions concerning the composition of
the House of Lords the most pregnant remark was
made by Lord Morley when he suggested that re
formers must make up their minds whether they
want the Upper House made stronger or weaker.
Twenty years ago the teacher to whom many
looked for guidance upon ethical and political
questions was the late Mr. Henry Sidgwick. He
was justly revered as an ardent lover of truth and
as a man of singularly sane and unbiassed judgment.
Everyone was aware that he had devoted much
time and thought to problems of government ; and
he has mentioned that his conclusions were fortified
by discussion with Mr. F. W. Maitland and Mr.
A. V. Dicey, Mr. James Bryce and Mr. Arthur
Balfour. It would be impossible within the limits of this
letter to give an adequate idea of his careful analysis
of the functions of two Houses of Parliament. His
book should be read ; but the chapter on " Elements

HENRY SIDGWICK'S VIEW 87
of Pohtics," in which he deals with the question,
has been summarized by him as follows :
" 1. A Second Chamber, though not necessary, is
useful in checking hasty legislation, impeding com
binations of sinister interests, and supplementing
the deficiencies of the primary representative
Assembly. " 2. To give the two Chambers co-ordinate powers
is the simplest plan ; but it creates a difficulty as
regards financial control, and is generally unsuited
to Parliamentary government ; it is more suitable
where the Supreme Executive holds office for life
or for a fixed period.
" 3. A Senate designed to be co-ordinate in power
with the House of Representatives should be
elected, directly or indirectly, by the citizens at
large ; if its power is more limited, other modes of
appointment are suitable."
The question which at this moment is agitating
Parliament could not be more neatly posed.
When Lord Morley asks whether the House of
Lords in future is to be co-ordinate with the House
of Commons, or whether its powers are to be more
limited, and points out that upon the answer to
this question the composition of the House of
Lords should depend, the conclusions of Mr. Henry
Sidgwick cannot fail to assist greatly those who are
anxious to find a rational and practical solution of
the problem.
If his view is accepted, then the plan attributed,
perhaps erroneously, to Sir . Edward Grey, of a
House of Lords on an elective basis, but subordinate
to the House of Commons, would prove to be un-

88 THE HOUSE OF LORDS
workable ; while the plan attributed to Lord Rose
bery, of a House of Lords with co-ordinate powers,
but containing a strong elective element, would be
unsuited to parliamentary government.
If what is required is a parliamentary machine
which will work easily and without friction, and not
a political assertion of the superiority of the elective
principle under all circumstances and conditions,
then the House of Lords should not be based, like
the House of Commons, upon popular election.
Putting aside violent counsels, what is the re
lation between the two Houses which reasonable
people wished to see established ?
1. They want the will of the people as repre
sented by the House of Commons ultimately to
prevail. 2. They wish for a House of Lords composed of
men efficient, by reason of their public experience,
to act as critics and revisers of measures passed by
the House of Commons.
3. They desire to see a House of Lords strong
enough to refer to the decision of the electorate
measures of far-reaching import which have not
received the approval of the nation ; but not strong
enough to destroy such measures when the will of
the country has been declared.
4. They are anxious, while endeavouring to meet
the progressive requirements of a modern State, to
maintain the ancient customs of Parliament, and to
leave unbroken the historic traditions which bind the
monarchy of to-day to the monarchy of Elizabeth.

" COMPARATIVE POLITICS ' 89
Problems far more intricate confronted the
statesmen of 1688 and 1832, and they did not prove
to be insoluble.
A slight readjustment of relations between the
two Houses of Parliament, and a moderate change
in the composition of the House of Lords, would
not have appeared very formidable tasks to the
men who altered the succession to the Throne, and
finally established the Protestant religion, or an in
superable difficulty to those who reformed the old
House of Commons.
In both cases, however, the assent of the nation,
as a whole, had to be obtained ; and the Constitution
of Great Britain never has been, and never can be,
drastically modified by a bare majority of votes.
Behind Lord Rosebery's scheme of reform lurks
a social danger upon which some consideration
should be bestowed.
Freeman, in his book on " Comparative Politics,"
which deserves attention at this juncture, observes
that the peerage of England is not a nobility in the
sense in which nobihty is understood in foreign
lands, and he gives an explanation, worthy of some
attention, why we have been saved from a noblesse
in the foreign sense :
" Why did not a nobility of the foreign type grow
up among the Norman conquerors themselves ? That
great law of WiUiam which made every man in the
land the man of the King, had much to do with it,
but paradoxical as it may sound, I conceive that
the very power and dignity of the peerage has had
a good deal to do with it also. Elsewhere nobUity
13

90 THE HOUSE OF LORDS
was primarily a matter of rank and privUege, with
which political power might or might not be con
nected. " But m an Enghsh peerage the primary idea is
political power ; rank and privUege are a mere
adjunct. " The peer does not hold a mere rank which he
can share with his descendants ; he holds an office,
which passes to his next heir when he dies, but
which he cannot share with any man while he lives,
" The peer then, not a mere noble, but a legislator,
a counsellor, and a judge holds a distinct place in
the State which his children can no more share with
«him than anyone else. Hence in England we
have but two classes, peers and commoners, those
who hold office and those who do not.
" The chUdren of a peer come under this last head
as much as other men ; they are therefore com
moners. The very existence of the peerage itself
hinders the existence of a nobility in the true sense
of the word."
Those, therefore, who favour the extinction of a
peer's office as such should pause for a moment on
the threshold of action to enquire whether it would
be prudent to retain the prerogative of the Crown
that enables any hereditary title to be conferred,
or, if retained, it should not be subject to severe
limitations in favour of those who have rendered
conspicuous and rare service to the State. There
is undoubtedly a social danger in adding to great
wealth or great landed possessions the prestige of
social rank unchecked by the responsibility which
parliamentary office imposes upon every member
of the peerage.

LIFE PEERAGES 91
Life peerages would not be open to this objection.
Although Lord Hugh Cecil's accuracy in historical
detaU has been questioned, his inherited historical
instinct served him well when he was led to
suggest that not by election or by selection, but by
withholding or issuing a writ of summons by the
Crown, in short, by a carefuUy guarded system of
life peerages, a House of Lords might be obtained
without any undue strain of the constitutional
practice under which for centuries the Lords of
Parliament have been summoned to assist in the
work of government.
In that direction lies, very possibly, a solution
of at least one-half of the difficulties which face
statesmen of both parties. VI.
I said four months ago that it did not seem
possible to escape from the political deadlock
without a political revolution. The Government
appear to have come to a similar conclusion, for
their policy is not to-day one of reform, but of
revolution. They speak of using a reserve power
in the Constitution, but what they mean is the use
of exceptional force, without precedent, to override
one of the Estates of the Realm. To swamp one
House of Parhament by the incursion of 500
newly created peers is a proceeding which does
not differ much, in spirit and method, from that of
a certain Colonel Thomas Pride when he seized 47
and excluded from Westminster 96 members of

92 THE HOUSE OF LORDS
the other House. If there is a doubtful precedent
for the creation of peers to coerce the House of
Lords, there is an undoubted precedent for the
employment of force to coerce the House of
Commons. I am not arguing that this so-called dormant
prerogative should not be exercised. I am stating
facts, and endeavouring to show that to use such a
power is an act of revolution. There is, however,
another aspect in which the Government policy is
the pohcy of revolution. It appears to have been
grasped by Sir H. Dalziel and a few members of
the House of Commons. The Veto Bill apparently
is not intended to be a permanent amendment of
the law. It is a transitory or temporary expedient,
designed to bring about some undisclosed, or only
partially disclosed, constitutional change at a later
stage. The preamble of the Bill, we are told,
explains this novel act of statecraft. The Veto
Bill is wanted, not to define permanently a
statutory relation between two Houses of Parlia
ment, but to enable a new law to be passed
radically altering the basis and composition of one
of them, upon a vague plan of which the nation is
not to be seized until a later stage. Parenthetically,
there is apparently nothing to prevent the use of
this exceptional power for changing the Consti
tution in other ways, for altering the Acts of
Union, for abolishing the Established Churches of
Great Britain, or possibly for modifying the Act of
Settlement, the 12th and 13th of WiUiam III.

POLITICAL COMMON SENSE 93
The desire to vest such exceptional powers in a
Single Chamber by the use of a prerogative, which,
as I have endeavoured to show in these letters, was
never intended to be used for any purpose of the
kind, can only be designated as a policy of revolu
tion. I am not setting up a bogey. Revolution
has been found to be necessary before now, and
may be necessary again ; but politicians who em
bark on revolutionary courses must always remem
ber that behind revolution lurk insurrection and
civil war. The function of statesmanship is to
harness political passion to the fixed star of political
common sense, to check precipitate resolves, and to
make aU violent change a matter of compromise.
No unprejudiced mind can deny that the diffi
culties of government have been increased by the
action of the House of Lords in throwing out the
Budget of 1909. But it does not foUow from this
that the obvious remedy is to subvert the Constitu
tion under which we have lived and under which
great reforms, from the emancipation of the Catho
lics down to the practical passing of Mr. Lloyd
George's Budget, have been carried into law. Is
no weight to attach to the views of the most
eminent statesmen and of the greatest lawyers and
publicists of bygone days, to whichever party they
belonged ? Whether it is Sir Henry Maine or Mr.
Sidgwick, whether itis Lord Brougham or Edmund
Burke, whether it is Mr. Pitt or Mr. Gladstone,
you can find in their utterances no reasoned judg
ment on the checks and balances of our Constitu- 14

94 THE HOUSE OF LORDS
tion which justifies the action contemplated by the
Government. A House of Lords acting merely as
" another stage through which Bills must pass in
the Commons as now constituted, would be but
little security for revision and reflection," said Lord
Brougham when he was discussing, not a House of
Lords deprived of its power to reject a Bill, but a
House of Lords based upon a purely elective prin
ciple. " The great security would have been
whoUy wanting," he continues, " which results and
can only result from the nature, structure, origin,
and interests of two bodies being entirely different,
and which depends on the full discussion only to be
obtained from such reaUy confhcting bodies. " There
has never been so far a Liberal of eminence who has
maintained the contrary. Are opinions so weighty
from statesmen so experienced to be thrust aside
because of a party quarrel which far-seeing and
temperate statesmanship should be able to com
pose ?
Burke — a noble mixture of Liberal ideas and
Conservative leanings — never disputed, as no one
disputes to-day, the abstract competence of the
" people " to subject permanent reason to occasional
wiU, but he questioned the moral right of any of
those who exercise authority in the State to do so.
He questioned the moral competence of the House
of Lords to dissolve itself, or to abdicate, if it
would, its position in the Legislature of the
kingdom. "Though a King may abdicate for his own
person, he cannot abdicate for the Monarchy."

BURKE'S VIEWS 95
He realized, as apparently few do now, that the
engagement or pact which generally goes by the
name of the Constitution forbids both invasion and
surrender. " The constituent parts of a State," he
says, " are obliged to hold their public faith with
each other, and with all those who derive any
serious interest under their engagements, as much
as the whole State is bound to keep its faith with
separate communities. Otherwise, competence and
power would soon be confounded, and no law left
but the will of a prevailing force." For wisdom of
this kind we are now asked to substitute declama
tory phrases about the will of the people. It recalls
the bitterness of the Book of Job, "No doubt
they are the people, and wisdom shall die with
them." Neither this country, however, nor any
country that I ever heard of, has aUowed its Con
stitution to be fundamentally altered by a bare
majority of votes.
The recent action of the House of Lords upon
Lord Rosebery's resolutions is a proof that a general
feeling prevails throughout the nation that the
Liberal party has a sound grievance, and that some
reform is wanted. The House of Lords reflects
this general feeling. But this does not justify the
proposed remedy. If by the policy of the Govern
ment a crises arises shortly, what, as at present
determined, would be the issue submitted to the
country at a general election ? What would each
party lose if the issue is decided against it ? A
Government majority means to the Unionist party
a Single Chamber absolutely uncontrolled. Is not

96 THE HOUSE OF LORDS
this, from a Conservative point of view, too vast a
risk ? A Unionist majority means to the Liberal
party the transfer of political power from the
House of Commons to the House of Lords. Is
not this, for a Liberal, a gambler's throw ? In
either case the balance of the Constitution, as we
know it to-day, will have been destroyed. Why
should peaceful people who are not partisans submit
to so violent a transformation, to so complete a
leap into the dark ?
When politicians speak of a " reserve force " in
the Constitution they appear to mean the use of
the Royal prerogative, or some method more suit
able to the Stuart Kings than to a " Democratic "
Ministry in the twentieth century. The only
rational reserve force in the Constitution is the
common sense of the nation, which, at certain
moments, insists upon accommodation and com
promise between party leaders. We have had
many proofs of it, from the religious compromises
of the seventeenth down to the political com
promises of the nineteenth century. If the story
of what happened in 1884 is examined, it will be
found that the Tory party claimed to accompany a
great reform of political machinery with certain
definite safeguards. They carried their point
because the English and Scots people, however
much they may declaim, are Whigs at heart and
ultimately choose the middle way. Mr. Gladstone
did not object to the word " accommodation " and
disliked the word " compromise." So be it.

REFLECTIONS
SUGGESTED BY LORD MORLEY'S
POLITICAL NOTES.*
I.
If it be true that democracy, in the discussions of
the day, means government working directly
through public opinion, does it necessarily follow
that democratic government need work through a
parliament, or, indeed, through any representative
body at all ?
This question is of some interest at the present
juncture of political affairs, when obvious as weU as
unexplored changes are taking place in the Consti
tution of our country. Scattered through the
history of the English people there are dazzling
moments of spasmodic change when political
progress seems to give a sudden leap forward.
Such a moment was the passage of the Reform
Bill in 1832. Another was the culminating Edu
cation policy of the Liberal party in 1870. Some
times the path of a political measure to its goal is
obscure and devious, as when Free Trade was said
to have travelled across an Ireland devastated by
potato famine before finding final expression in Sir
* Published in the New Statesman, in January and February,
1914. 97

98 LORD MORLEY
Robert Peel's famous Act. No need to labour the
point. Supremely interesting to us is the specula
tive meaning of the ferment going on in Ulster
to-day, among the Trade Unions in England and
Scotland, and especially in the pohtical party
calhng itself Unionist and Conservative. Is it
democracy seeking new means of expression ? Is
it popular desire for some form of government
working more directly through pubhc opinion than
is compatible with a representative assembly ?
Does it foreshadow the fall of our ancient parlia
mentary system? Is England, the Mother of
Parliaments, about to give birth to some new
method of expressing the popular will in matters
of government? Such a problem, suggested by
Lord Morley 's recent book, seems worthy of medi
tation and discussion.
Parliament and the House of Commons are
terms meaning very different things at different
periods of our national story. When Mr. Balfour
speaks of himself, as he loves to do, as a " House
of Commons man," what precisely is in his mind ?
Is he thinking of the House of Commons in which
sat Pym and Hampden ; or Walpole's house of
placemen ; or the House led by the elder Pitt
and by his son, or by Peel, or Disraeli, or by
Gladstone and himself? In point of fact. Peel's
House of Commons in 1845 was as different from
Pitt's as is Mr. Asquith's from Disraeli's. It is
true that Mr. Balfour, remembering the Fourth
party in 1880, may see resemblances to the Cobham

ARISTOCRATIC v. PLEBEIAN 99
Cubs of a hundred and fifty years before ; but these
sporadic manifestations of youthful spirit and talent
are common to all assemblies of men.
Look, however, down the Ministerial Front
Bench to-day, and what could be less like a row
of Palmerston's coUeagues or the Gladstonian
Ministers of 1880 ? Instead of a row of hereditary
politicians picked from "governing families" in
huge preponderance, with here and there a shame
faced and uneasy plebeian, we have the Colonial
Secretary sitting alone for the old tradition. In
stead of a Lower House nominally inferior, but
proudly cognizant of its real power, we have the
vulgar predominance of a boastful House of Com
mons, based not upon sure recognition of its
representative character and of the people's wUl,
but upon an ill-drawn, half-hearted statute. The
Parliament of Pitt and Canning has gone into the
limbo of Old Sarum and the rest. The Parha
ment of Disraeli and Gladstone has followed after.
If, then, democracy to-day means government
working directly through public opinion, what wUl
presently happen to the Parliament of Mr. Asquith ?
It is clear to every watcher that the executive
and legislative machinery is undergoing profound
alteration, but what is not so clear is the change in
political ideas and political aspirations. " C'est
toujours le beau monde qui Gouverne le monde "
can no longer be well and truly said. Certainly it
has ceased to be true of this country. No great
matter perhaps, for the real question seems to be

100 LORD MORLEY
not so much who governs as to whether the word
" Government " still possesses its old and well-worn
meaning. Observe the strange tendencies in every
area of executive authority and in every field of
legislative enterprise. The old shibboleths of our
ancestors are forgotten and their political methods
transformed. " I will maintain the Liberties of
England and the Protestant Religion" was the
motto of the House of Orange, a colour only
suggesting to-day to the heirs of the " Revolution
families" an infuriated and implacable Ulster.
" No taxation without representation " has become
a meaningless phrase to politicians begging with
veiled threats naval contributions, in money or
kind, from the great Dominions and Crown
Colonies. " Civis Romanus " must ring tunelessly
enough in the ears of a dark-skinned subject,
honourably loyal to King George, who finds him
self an alien from the Commonwealth and a stranger
from the covenants of promise, having no hope;
while " peace, retrenchment and reform " is a
phrase that not even the biographer of Cobden can
venture to whisper at Cabinets engaged in approv
ing the highest naval and military and civil estimates
ever presented to any Parliament in any land.
Although they are still half-hidden, the changes
in our political institutions brought about by the
rejection of the Budget in 1 909 and by the passage
into law of the Parliament Bill of 1911 are deep-
seated and transforming. Nothing so drastic has
been done since 1832. Nomination boroughs,

THE REVOLT OF THE NATION 101
limited rights of representation, the sale of seats,
and the preposterous cost of elections, were swept
away by the Reform BiU of Lord Grey. Thirty-
six years, from 1832 to 1868, passed before the fuU
effect of Lord Grey's measure was realized. Mr.
Asquith's Parliament Act has had results more
drastic, for it has threatened the existence of
Parliament itself, and has rendered possible the
effective revolt of the people against Representative
Government. Monarchical attempts in former
times to destroy the balance of the Constitution led
to the rebellion of Parliament and to a limited
Monarchy. The House of Commons, destroying
in 1911 the balance of our parliamentary system,
has, in so doing, precipitated the revolt of the
nation, and rendered inevitable a limited Parliament.
A limited monarchy, said Sir George Cornewall
Lewis, is a hereditary king associated with a
parliamentary body. His successor at the Ex
chequer may shortly be defining a limited Parlia
ment as a House of Commons associated with a
poll of the people.
Who was it who said in reference to constitu
tional changes that an ignorant man, who is not
fool enough to meddle with his clock, is, however,
sufficiently confident to think that he can safely
take to pieces and put together a moral machine
of quite another guise ? Well, we have eminent
politicians engaged just now in trying to screw
together the pieces of a Constitution, admired and
widely copied, which was not the work of a Sieyes,

102 LORD MORLEY
or even of an Alexander Hamilton, but " came to
fruition as the result of many minds, in many ages."
" We want no foreign examples to rekindle in
us the flame of liberty," Burke once wrote. So
let the framers of Senates and Second Chambers,
in spite of or in accordance with preambles and
pledges, beware of rousing the insular spirit and
just vanity of our people. England has never
failed to strike out new lines of her own. To the
intricacies of feudalism, of Tudor monarchism, of
Whig oligarchy, our institutions adapted themselves,
borrowing nothing from other nations, but respon
sive to the needs of the hour. Modern democracy,
or "Government working directly through public
opinion," is seeking free methods of expression.
Very new is the wine now in the making, and the
old double-necked parhamentary bottle is peril
ously out of date, and dangerously unsuitable.
"Public opinion," easily aroused in a people
inteUigent, literate, and conscious of power, desires
more "direct" means of expression than repre
sentative government affords. The rumblings of
popular resentment against "delegation" are
ominously loud, whether among trade unionists
who defy their " leaders " or the great Conservative
party in politics that clamours for recurrent appeals
to the constituencies. The life of Parhament has
been shortened by law from seven years to five.
Popular opinion, judging from its expression in the
Press and on the platform, desires still further to
shorten the term in practice. The House of

POPULAR REPRESENTATION 103
Commons is no longer composed of free and in
dependent representatives, elected to " redress
grievances " and to legislate for the people, but of
paid delegates. We may still claim for the House
of Commons that it virtually selects the Prime
Minister of the day and registers his executive
decrees. For short and ever-shortening periods
this plan still works. Executive authority is dele
gated to a chosen statesman not unwillingly for five
years. Then, at latest, the people desire a fresh
voice in the matter. Presently the term will be
still further shortened to four years or three. The
rapidly recurring general elections indicate it, and
" democracy " notoriously tires easily of its leaders
— even of Aristides.
Popular representation — the delegation of legis
lative power — had for its basis the illiteracy of a
people. Newspapers and the capacity of the con
stituent masses to read them have sapped the
foundations of representative government, as it has
been understood in England, and " public opinion "
seems about to require more "direct working"
than the parhamentary system has hitherto afforded,
or is likely to afford. II.
If the most marked of aU the agitations of the
nineteenth century was the pohtical movement for
national autonomy, how fares the sentiment of
nationality to-day ? Is it still transformed into a
vivid political idea, and is it stiU a dominating

104 LORD MORLEY
force? Does the modern Enghsh demos— the
mass of the Enghsh people— does democratic
government, "working directly through pubhc
opinion," attach more or less value to the idea of
nationahty ?
This sentiment, which inflamed visionaries, then
grew potent with multitudes, says Lord Morley,
"and from instinct became idea; from idea abs
tract principle; then fervid prepossession; ending
where it is to-day, in dogma, whether accepted or
evaded," is it to-day repudiated? Here, it may
weU be, is a new factor, the breeze of indifference
or the blast of negative, the chUl breath of a new
estranging era !
If nationality became the deepest and most
powerful of revolutionary secrets during the pro
gress of the nineteenth century, it may happen that
its negative may prove to be the revolutionary
password of the age in which we live.
Our language, and the mental habits of the
English people, do not lend themselves to the
definition of terms in common use. Where a
Frenchman finds a word exactly quahfied to
express his meaning, we take the first that comes
to hand. Nationality, State or nation, conveys
sufficiently the idea of a common bond, originating
in race, dominion, or the land of our birth. If
there is no decisive test, we all know what is meant
by such terms as the English nation or the British
Empire. Lord Morley contends that nationality has been

EFFACEMENT OF NATIONALITY 105
a commandmg impulse for the century that is just
over, but he whispers a warning that science,
working against the spirit of nationality, and
making for cosmopolitanism, may in the coming
years act as a powerful disintegrating force. He
suggests that in congresses in every capital of the
world nationality is effaced. But is this efface-
ment of nationality in congresses, whether sum
moned in the name of Peace at The Hague, or of
Therapeutics in London, so noticeable a phenome
non ? Ehrlich appeared as distinctly German as
was Huxley a truly aggressive Briton, and
Metchnikoff could never disperse that characteris
tic atmosphere of the Slav that clings about his
person and his speech any more than Pasteur
could in a laboratory in Pekin have passed for
anything but a Frenchman.
Extended knowledge, too, so frequently mis
called education, permeating the masses of the
people, may well produce towards the sentiment of
nationality the sort of reaction that I have sug
gested is at work against the conventional idea of
"representative government."
A few weeks ago in the United Service Institu
tion, before a number of distinguished soldiers, a
working man was bold enough to say that it mat
tered httle to him and his fellows if the country
were governed by the Emperor William or by
King George. What lies at the root of such a
confession except the awakening of the people to a
sense of their physical misery ? This man's words
15

106 LORD MORLEY
are not new to those who have moved among the
workers in the Midlands or in the West Riding of
Yorkshire. Patriotism in the eyes of these people
is a luxurious habit of mind of the well-to-do.
Their absorption is " Round about a Pound a
Week." It may well happen, unless this symptom
is carefully watched and treated, that the twentieth
century may produce a rude revulsion against the
dominating sentiment, as Lord Morley describes it,
of the nineteenth.
It is fascinating to generalize as Lord Morley
does about the colour of the centuries and the
texture of national impulse. Great is the tempta
tion to follow such a lead ; but as we reflect upon
the growth of nations and empires, in Italy, for
example, and North Germany, we cannot overlook
the wholesale destruction by Englishmen of nations
and States in other latitudes, and the forceful up
building of the British Empire, in Victorian times,
upon a foundation of crushed nationalities.
If Tyrol, Moscow, Leipzig are names for
immortal chapters in the story of national up
risings — Sobraon, Delhi, and Tel-el-Kebir, if not
the surrender at Appomattox, are fatal inscriptions
upon the tablets of people " rightly struggling to
be free." Lord Morley would note the phrase,
and perhaps find some difficulty in reconciling its
soaring aim with the tradition of the great office
in Whitehall over which he so brilliantly presided,
or the policy of the nation he has for so long
helped to direct. That is the worst of history.
You never can be secure in a generalization, or

IMPERIALISM 107
a deduction, whether you take " your meals in the
kitchen," as Lord Acton said, or in the best par
lour. Yet how satisfying is the outlook over the
broad landscape of the past, and how tempting to
note the mountain ranges and forget the valleys
beyond ; to follow the course of rolling rivers,
and ignore the tiny burns that swell their tide I
Equally, perhaps more alluring, is the Weltan
schauung to-day, the attempt to summarize the
spiritual and material tendencies of the age in
which we live. The soul of Mazzini, the splendid
tenacity of Cavour, the iron wiU of Bismarck, and
the pungent virility of Lincoln, may have spent
their force before the present century closes ; who
can be sure? The "two nations," according to
Disraeli — and this was years ago — were the rich
and the poor. There is a curious phrase which has
slowly gripped the minds of younger men in quite
recent days : " The Empire is my country, England
is my home." These words are conspicuously in
scribed in arresting letters before the eyes of thou
sands of children in day-schools, and they are to
be seen upon the walls of institutes and every
manner of building dedicated to the amusement
or enlightenment of the young. If they imply
merely some form of megalomania, called Im
perialism, some vulgar aspiration to be members
of an Imperial State of larger extent and greater
wealth than Germany or the United States, they
bode ill for the future ; for, as the greatest of our
philosoper- statesmen said long ago, there is so
essential a difference between the scale of miles

108 LORD MORLEY
and the scale of forces. But if they imply a wider
outlook, a nobler sense of nationality, a broader
humanitarian sympathy, an aspiration towards the
brotherhood of the workers, a step towards the
collective effort of men of the same race and
language all over the world, they are full of hope.
Just as it is possible to combine civic and national
emotion, so the words I have quoted suggest the
interlacing of a national and imperial sentiment.
If men begin to realize, and women too, the mani
fold and intertwining bonds that link nations
together — faith, literature, art, wealth, commerce,
and, above all, as Lord Morley suggests, the
enmeshing strands of science, this new century
may come to understand such a phrase as "Europe
our country, and Great Britain our home." Why
analyze or disperse the vision ? It is only fools
who see no visions, and men born old who dream
no dreams.
Nelson, when captain of the Agamemnon, used
to race to the mizzentop with his midshipmen, and
then tell them " to hate a Frenchman as they
would the devil." It was a useful working maxim
in those days of stress. But if such a sentiment
could be transformed into the nationality of a
Mazzini or a Cavour, so it may well happen that
the spirit of racial and historic pride which was
theirs may merge not dishonourably in triple
alliances and triple ententes, and, broadening down
into further combinations, may in the course of
this century— already in labour with effulgent

IS THE TRACK UPWARD ? 109
moral and physical change — give to the words of
nationahty and patriotism, if not a very different
meaning, a very different quahty.
III.
" Is the track all upward?" Lord Morley asks,
and then goes on to warn that a universal law, for
all times, all States, all societies. Progress is not.
He is careful, however, to note that the word
Progress may be variously defined, and he would
perhaps repudiate the increasing happiness of the
greatest number as its potential meaning. If, how
ever, that definition is accepted, and a sufficiently
long view be taken, is the track not all upward ?
It may require a mind young and sanguine to
answer the question cordially in the affirmative.
" The new world of machines and mobs and vul
garity," a brilliant writer, fortunate in the posses
sion of hereditary gifts, reminds us, seemed to
Carlyle and Tennyson "just a bad mistake and
nothing more, a driving of the car of humanity
into the ditch." These accessories of our modern
life may be unpicturesque, but they cannot be
described seriously as signs of national decay. It
is not to mobs and machines that a nation growing
old renounces its wiU, its faith, and the whole
essence of its being, but rather, as the preachers
have often warned us, in favour of the giver of
pleasure. I would prefer to believe that machines
and mobs and vulgarity — in the sense of that word
as Carlyle used it^are the counterpoise to the
16

no LORD MORLEY
more insidious allurements noted by Gibbon in the
lauded age of Domitian, when, according to his
judgment, the human race was at the zenith of
happiness and prosperity.
But then "slavery was the horrid base," says
Lord Morley, appreciating the progress of mankind
in, at any rate, one sphere of ethical habit. If the
blackness has since been lightened, we cannot
afford to ignore those grey vistas of poverty —
slavery too, though of another fashion — especially
in the great cities of the world, which are the
"horrid base" of our civilization now. Mill
doubted whether all mechanical inventions have
lightened human toil, or freed from drudgery and
imprisonment the marginal worker — that basic
factor of modern society. I^ord Morley rightly
holds that the " drudgery and imprisonment " is
not what it was ; that child labour has been
abolished, that the labour of women is guarded,
and the hours of men are reduced. Within cir
cumscribed areas this is doubtless true, and the
reflection brings with it a glimmer of hope for the
future. StiU, when we look over the earth's surface, and
count our own unhappy millions, and set them
against the lesser thousands of the Roman world,
Mommsen's balance of total happiness struck in
favour of the age of the Antonines does not appear
so fantastic. But it is not to the generalizations
and inferences of historians, however profound ;
or to the cynicism of Voltaire, who said that we
shall leave the world just as stupid and bad as we

THE SECRET OF PROGRESS 111
found it ; or to the gloom of Schopenhauer's con
clusion that wise men of all times have always said
the same, and fools — that is, the universal majority
— have always done the same ; or to Treitschke,
"the German Machiavel of the nineteenth cen
tury," that we must look for the answer to Lord
Morley 's question : " Is the track all upward ?"
For ages men have vainly sought for Progress
in the human heart and understanding ; for Pro
gress is not to be found in the storm of conflicting
passions or in the lightning flash of intellect. The
still small voice of scientific research, the unrolling
of the scroll of experience, and the magic augmen
tation of our everyday knowledge of material truth
are the accompaniment of advance. The secret of
Progress has always been and stiU lies there. Minds
" innocent and quiet " have been uncaged and find
freedom everywhere ; and I am not here concerned
with these deeper things. Progress, the gradual
increasing happiness of the masses, the upward
track, is marked by finger-posts emblazoned with
such names as Jenner, Pasteur, Lister, Kelvin,
Curie, Ehrlich, names standing for that patient
search into the recesses of Nature inseparably con
nected with the story of the nineteenth century
and the days in which we are living. The allevia
tion of pain, the succour of men and women
wounded in the struggle for life, the smoothing of
the way down into the vaUey of death, are achieve
ments which Leonardo or Bacon or Goethe would
have acclaimed to be sure signs of an upward track.
We may aU agree that progress is no " auto-

112 LORD MORLEY
maton spontaneous and self-^^propeUing," and that
it depends upon the play of forces within our com
munity and external to it. It depends, says Lord
Morley, in a characteristic passage, " on the room
left by the State for the enterprise, energy and
initiative of the individual." Here, with a flash of
the gladiatorial blade. Lord Morley recalls to
memory that long roll of fighters immortalized by
Comte, and appeals to the individualism that in
wilder days, and under simpler conditions, has
played its part well. Meanwhile the net of the
retiarius— the web of collective energy and of com
bined enterprise — is swinging about his feet.
Is it not an error to assume that the world is
not wide enough for " individualism " and for
" socialism, syndicalism, anarchism," or whatever
barbarous name you please to affix to the revolt
of man, freed by the spread of knowledge and by
the wand of Science, from old limitations, not of
thought but of action ? To insist upon the neces
sary and inevitable conflict between individual and
collective " initiative and enterprise " is a confusion
of which Lord Morley 's spirit, " free from mists
and sane and clear," is not likely to be guilty. In
the quiet sphere of reflection, in the cloistered
domain of research, in the unexplored lands of
imagination, there is room, and plenty, for the
" enterprise, energy and initiative of the individual."
Never can man be deprived of or asked to share his
own soul. But in spheres of action the case is
wholly different. Herein it may well happen that

KEYNOTE OF THE FUTURE 113
the new century is opening upon an unbeaten track
that, I should be loth to believe, is not trending
upward. Scan the horizon. No Napoleon or
Bismarck towers. Even they, to borrow the great
figure of Lucretius, are pygmies when seen from
the neighbouring hilltop. Is the great world any
the worse off because the average stature of men
is more even, and because men and women are
less anxious to follow a lead and more keen to
march abreast ?
I have indicated in these papers doubts — sug
gested by Lord Morley 's inspiring notes — whether
the outlook, especially so far as our own country
concerns us, does not indicate a new ordering of
ideas very different from those that historical artists
will paint upon the tapestries of the nineteenth
century. Parliamentary Government, Nationality,
Individualism, are the orthodox master- words of the
publicist writing hard for his life of the immediate
past or the immediate present. I have ventured
to suggest that they are unlikely to prove the key
words of the immediate future. Goethe's advice
to aU as they grow old was to " act as if life had
just begun." May we not as a people speaking
one language and with a glorious history, but as a
community grown old, endeavour to think as if
life had just begun ? Then, perhaps, with all our
racial genius for practical action, we may find our
social habits transformed, and our political institu
tions remoulded, in tune with the dreams of men
young enough to believe that the track is aU upward.

THE VOLUNTARY PRINCIPLE.*
There is so fine a flavour about voluntary effort,
so exhilarating an atmosphere about the men and
women who sacrifice time and wealth, and some
times life itself, in the voluntary service of others,
that it seems sacrilegious to think of substituting
for it the flat and commonplace rule of compulsion.
Charity has been so highly esteemed that it has
served as a cloak for most of the sins of the world ;
but charity in that sense — not the virtue which
induces most men who are not politicians to think
fairly well of their neighbours — is dying a slow
death as the shadow of compulsion creeps over our
national life. No imaginative politician, no prac
tical citizen, no one, in fact, but a dry theorist,
would dream of substituting compulsion for
voluntary effort so long as the latter could be
relied upon to produce average results, whether in
education, sanitation, or military service. When,
however, as education spreads, common men
awaken to their duties and responsibilities, and
when national risks, military and commercial,
appear to them as risks which not only the rich
and great but they themselves have to run,
security, whether in the shape of sound teaching,
* Published in the National Review, September, 1910.
114

COMPULSION IN THE STATE 115
hygiene in its protective forms, or armed force,
appears to them to be a matter of vital concern,
and not of casual inclination. Forty years ago
voluntary schooling was abandoned as an educa
tional principle, and parents were obliged by law
to send their children to school. These children
are now grown men, and they look with different
eyes upon the various forms of compulsion which
have crept into our political system, and which
culminated in the compulsory grant of an old-age
pension and in compulsory insurance against illness
and unemployment. The voluntary principle and
the compulsory principle are both quite common
in our mixed institutions, and it must be difficult
for a foreigner to differentiate precisely where they
overlap. Justice is administered half by volunteer
judges and half by paid professionals. Lunatic
asylums are maintained by compulsory taxation ;
hospitals by voluntary contribution. From some
diseases men and women must be protected by
force, whether they like it or not ; other, and no
less terrible, diseases they are free to spread with
that full degree of liberty which is the proud boast
of the British race.
These somewhat trite reflections are necessary,
because it may be too readily assumed that to
express a doubt of the complete success of the
voluntary principle as applied to military pre
paredness for war, or for national defence, neces
sarily implies that one is in favour of conscription.
Logic is a weakness which has nothing to do with

116 THE VOLUNTARY PRINCIPLE
the matter in hand. If question there be of alter
natives, it is not one of choice, but of necessity.
Someone said in a moment of trifling that force
is no remedy, and the phrase has been quoted as
dogma ever since, although everybody knows that
nme times out of ten force is the only possible
remedy. Two of the many problems awaiting
solution by Britons all over the world is where and
when the voluntary principle has failed, and
whether " voluntaryism " is compatible with
" democracy " in the functional activities of a
modern State.
When Englishmen were ruled and did not
govern themselves, it seemed quite in accordance
with the settled order of things that a select few
should do the work of the many. The oligarchic
methods of the Whig Party triumphant in 1688
were only destroyed, as Lord Beaconsfield pointed
out, by Mr. Gladstone two centuries later. The
interval was the age of voluntary effort. The
British Empire, as we know it, is the outcome of
the voluntary principle. It found high exponents
in men of the type of Clive and Cecil Rhodes.
With volunteer armies, and by volunteer finance,
these men and their likes acquired India, huge
portions of Africa, and countless islands — in short,
the British Empire of to-day.
There was a moment, in the course of the great
struggle with Napoleon, when Mr. Pitt — who did
not happen to be a Whig — faltered, and when,
amidst a huge agglomeration of mercenary troops

VOLUNTARY WORK 117
and volunteer commandos, we obtain a glimpse of
" compulsion " both in pressing men into the navy,
and balloting for soldiers for the military defence
of our shores. This was a mere spasm, born of
fright, and England soon afterwards sank wearily
and not uncontentedly back into the arms of her
Whig statesmen. In point of fact, we have lived
splendidly and comfortably under an oligarchy and
under a voluntary system. The Houses of Parlia
ment, filled with men giving up their time gratis
to the nation, the magistracy of the counties and
boroughs, the vast number of citizens acting as
jurors, the men and women devoted to the care of
educating village children, or supervising hospitals,
the enormous sums spent in almsgiving in manifold
shapes — all these were manifestations of the volun
tary principle in its most wholesome form.
Great Britain thrived under this dispensation.
She stood for liberty at home, and freedom in
Europe, and her wealth and power increased with
the spread of Empire, until she became, as Burke
said, the arbitress of Europe, and, as Burke did not
live to say, the greatest world-power, except Rorne,
that the world has ever seen. No man in his
senses could desire, in order to square with some
theory of government or live up to some political
dogma, to change a system so rooted in our habits,
and so beneficial to the nation in its results ; but
forces were at work, even in the most halcyon of
these oligarchic days, which changed the old order,
and brought about the inception of the new.

118 THE VOLUNTARY PRINCIPLE
There came the Reform BiU of 1832. Is there
any one simple enough to suppose that the Whigs
who carried that Bill enjoyed the task ? Is there
anyone who believes that Mr. Disraeli hked the
Reform BiU of 1866 any better than Lord Salisbury
liked it ? In those years the 'system of govern
ment had broken down, and these statesmen were
forced by stress of circumstances to alter the in
stitutions of the country, just as in 1846 Sir Robert
Peel was constrained, by the failure of "Protec
tion," to meet the difficulties of the transformation
of an agricultural into an industrial population, and
to adopt the theories of the Manchester school, and
to swallow Free Trade. Yet who can truthfully
say that he enjoyed the operation, or did more than
bow to the inevitable result of causes which were
beyond his control ? As the franchise was lowered,
and political power became more disseminated, the
principle of compulsion became more extended,
and voluntary effort more restricted. Upon the
Reform BUI of 1866 there followed the Education
Act of 1870. When the franchise is again lowered,
then upon manhood suffrage will follow, in all
probability, compulsory mUitary service.
The unpopularity of free military service, as
weU as gratuitous service of any kind to the
State, becomes more marked with the advance of
" democracy." No one is more suspicious than the
plebeian. He believes that he has been exploited
for centuries by the wealthier classes, and he
attributes the most sinister motives to the man

UNSALARIED WORKERS 119
who is not in his direct pay or employ. Any man
who works without emolument for the good of the
public he associates with lay preachers of the
Established Church, or with its female votaries,
performing acts of charity on behalf of the Prim
rose League. I speak from experience, for, owing
to circumstances, I have nearly all my life, with
one pleasant interlude, held the disagreeable posi
tion of an unsalaried worker. I remember well,
when I was very young, lecturing upon history on
behalf of my University in a London slum, and
having been guilty of some rather didactic observa
tions on patriotism, a man in the audience rose and
asked how much I was paid for my lecture. On
my admission that I was not considered worthy of
an emolument, he retorted, " Then ye are only
a preacher," and left the room. It was the
revolt of the honest democrat against a species
of blackleg.
I have noticed the same kind of attack lately
made by members of the House of Commons,
and by a certain type of journalist, upon un
salaried and so-called irresponsible servants of
the State. They are quite within their right, for
it is obvious that, under a democratic form of
government, the only hold upon a man, the only
security you have for his honourable performance
of duty, is a salary and the power to dock it. Dis
interestedness, patriotism, even self-respect, are
mere words of archaic meaning. There was a
growing demand in some quarters for the payment

120 THE VOLUNTARY PRINCIPLE
of members of Parliament. This demand has been
conceded. Objection to unsalaried, and therefore
irresponsible, magistrates will presently lead to
the universal stipendiary. The County Councils,
the County Associations, their chairmen and
financial committees, will sooner or later be the
subject of attack on the ground that the " people "
have no proper hold over them. And thus,
gradually, voluntary service in civil walks of life
will disappear. How, then, can the principle be
maintained in regard to military service ? No doubt
the circumstances differ materiaUy in some respects.
For the mass of those engaged in it military service
does not, and never can, provide a career. To be
efficient it must always remain a phase of youth.
In this respect it resembles what is called educa
tion. In order to fight well a man must be hardy
and strong, and, above all, he must be young.
Under our present system we purchase annually,
for the Regular Army, in peace, the bones and
muscles and youth of about 30,000 of our country
men. We keep them a few years, in case war
should come, and we throw them away, and take
in a fresh supply. In war we purchase their blood.
In addition to the Regular or oversea Army, we
succeed in getting, by persuasion, the unpaid
voluntary service of the Territorial Force. If the
piece of organization conceived and brought into
existence by Lord Haldane, worked as it was
intended to work, we should require about 60,000
of these Territorial recruits every year. His

THE TERRITORIAL FORCE 121
scheme provided that after about four years' ser
vice Territorial soldiers should pass into a Terri
torial Reserve, and this building up of a reserve
of trained men was the essence of the plan. It is
the only method of what is called mobilizing the
force — that is, of enabling it to take the field in
full strength, and the only method of making good,
in the event of war, losses from sickness or from
battle. For this plan to work well it is essential
that about one-fifth of a total of 315,000 men
should pass into the reserve every year. For this
reason about 60,000 recruits are annually required.
In order, therefore, to provide a fighting machine
of the size we nominally possess to-day, including
Regulars and Territorials— that is to say, in order
that on the summons of war about 600,000 men
should stand armed all over the Empire, men born
and bred in Great Britain, and not Colonial or
Indian troops, something under 100,000 recruits
are annually required.
That Lord Haldane should have gone so near
achieving such a result is a remarkable feat, and
when it is remembered that he has brought into
being the machinery, the framework, and the
motive power in the shape of what is caUed a
" General Staff," to enable such a force to be used
in war, he has done for England eminent service.
The country, by the voice of Parliament, sanctioned
this organization, and Parliament and the Press
lauded it very properly, and appeared satisfied that
a force, so organized, and of the strength proposed, 17

122 THE VOLUNTARY PRINCIPLE
with a " reserve " behind it, which, in a few years,
would mount up to a miUion of men trained to
arms, would suffice for the needs of the Empire.
If that is so, all that the ordinary citizen is con
cerned with is to see that the men are forthcoming
in the numbers required.
The training and efficiency of such a force are
matters for experts, and with the training and
efficiency of this force military experts appear from
their public statements to be satisfied. The ordinary
citizen knows very little of the subject. But the
question of numbers any one can understand.
Lord Haldane has always recognized, and every
body must agree with him, that the numerical test
is the real test of the voluntary system ; and it has
been admitted over and over again that if the
present scheme fails from want of men, no tinker
ing, no new scheme of Army Reform, no pohtician
or soldier, however eloquent or distinguished, is
going to alter or amend it with success. Lord
Haldane's plan was always considered, and
unquestionably is, the final test of the system of
maintaining an adequate armed force by means of
paid and unpaid volunteers.
The facts are now before the world. There is
no secret about them. All the returns of figures
are available, and anyone can draw the inference.
We are not obtaining the annual supply of young
men that we require to make the plan work in its
completeness. There have been times when it was
exceedingly difficult to get the 30,000 recruits

SUPPLY OF RECRUITS 123
wanted for the Regular Army. Sometimes those
responsible were almost in despair. On the whole,
however, the supply has been fairly obtained. But
at present there is no sign that the 60,000 required
annuaUy for the Territorial Force will be forth
coming. All the portents are adverse. There is
no steady increase, no advance. There is in many
cases retrogression.
I am not going to discuss the manifold causes
and excuses which are suggested to account for
this main and incontrovertible fact. Nor am I
going to discuss remedies. According to some,
they resolve themselves into hard cash. By adding
so many millions to the cost of the Territorial
Force, some competent judges believe that the
supply of men could be obtained. It may be so.
It may be that the youth and muscle, and possibly
the blood of so many of our fellow-citizens can be
bought for three and a half millions of pounds
sterling, and that a greater quantity can be bought
for five or six millions of pounds sterling. It looks
plausible. But it is by no means certain. There
may be deeper causes at work. It may be that
the higher standard of skill and training required
from the modern soldier, if he is to be of any use,
the greater and unavoidable physical strain placed
upon him in peace exercises, and the fiercer com
mercial competition between his employers, act
adversely upon the instinct, for it cannot be given
any other name, which induces the young civilian
worker to practise the profession of arms. Or,

124 THE VOLUNTARY PRINCIPLE
again, it may be the sirocco of democracy withering
in our people the spirit of sacrifice.
There are many of us who have laboured hard to
brmg success to Lord Haldane's imaginative and
practical organization of the Territorial Forces of
our country. There are many of us who will relax
no effort to recruit and administer these forces ; but
it would be cowardice and an act of treachery to
the nation, ill-informed and lethargic as it is, if
those engaged in this task were to shrink from
speaking what they believe to be true, or from
expressing candid opinions, however unpalatable.
No one can contend that this is a case when the
truth, if truth it be, is best unspoken. Of course,
the pessimistic view may prove to be an error of
judgment, but in that case what harm is done, for
it is childish to maintain that so insignificant a
thing as the expression of an erroneous opinion
could check the growth of the Territorial Force, if
the youth of the country were seriously bent upon
serving in its ranks. If that were so, the basis
upon which the Home Army rests would be frail
indeed. On the other hand, the view that we
have reached the limit of the nation's yield for the
Territorial Force may be true, and if so, what
graver decision lies before the people than to
choose between leaving the forces of the country
below the minimum admitted by everyone to be
necessary and imposing by law upon our children
the duty to bear arms in its defence.

THE COMMITTEE OF IMPERIAL
DEFENCE *
ITS FUNCTIONS AND POTENTIALITIES
Our national institutions are the outcome of slow
processes of national and Imperial requirements as
they arise, and have never emanated from the brain
of the theorist. Government by Cabinet is an
illustration of this. The origin and evolution of
the Committee of Imperial Defence is another.
The rise of a great Sea Power in competition
with the British Navy — that force upon which,
hitherto, the security of Great Britain and of the
British Empire has rested — has rendered imperative
the consideration of Imperial Defence as a problem
which cannot be solved by Great Britain alone.
Statesmanship has before it the choice between
Foreign aUiances, and a practical federation of the
Empire for purposes of common defence. The
matter is urgent and a decision cannot be post
poned. National safety and national dignity indicate the
right path. Mr. Borden has said that Canada can
not and wiU not be a mere adjunct of Great Britain.
* A lecture delivered at the United Service Institution on
March 20, 1912, with the Chief of the General Staff, General
Sir John French, G.C.B., in the chair.
125 18

126 IMPERIAL DEFENCE
The other Dominions would re-echo this statement.
It is a condition of the problem that this country
has to solve. It means that mutual help between
the component parts of the Empire demands mutual
confidence and a common responsibility for Foreign
Affairs. If the functions and potentialities of the Com
mittee of Imperial Defence are clearly grasped the
problem is not insoluble.
Two conditions are essential : first, that there
should be no concealment of policy or intentions
between the Prime Minister of this country and the
Prime Ministers of the Dominions.
The second, that no new departure in Foreign
Policy, involving Imperial interests, should be taken
without the approval of the Dominions.
In order to achieve these results some modifica
tion of practice in the government of this country
and of the Dominions would be necessary. Some
concessions would have to be made ; some sacrifice
of old-fashioned pride on the one hand, and some
abandonment of exaggerated independence on the
other. British Ministers should realize that they cannot
be free and untrammelled in future to choose a
Foreign Policy which may land the Empire in
war, and expect material help from Canada ; whUe
Canadians should understand that, if they desire to
fly the Union Jack, they must face the fact that
Great Britain is a European Power, and be ready
to shoulder a share of the European burden.

IMPERIAL COMMUNICATION 127
Although the shrinkage of the world increases
rapidly, I do not believe that time and distance
would, at present, permit of constant and adequate
representation of the Dominions upon the Com
mittee of Imperial Defence, if by that is meant the
attendance of Dominion representatives at every
important meeting of the Committee.
The only adequate representation of a Great
Dominion is its Prime Minister.
For this reason I suggest, as the first step, com
plete confidence and free communication between
the British and Canadian Prime Ministers upon all
first-class questions of Foreign Policy. Annual
visits, or biennial visits, to London in July, to be
followed by a series of meetings of the Committee
of Imperial Defence, in order to ventilate and deal
with technical questions, would be an admirable
development and sufficient for our present needs.
It would test the strength of our Imperial bonds.
There is, however, a condition precedent, and a
necessary step antecedent to this. It is to establish
confidence and communication between our Prime
Minister, as Chairman of the Imperial Defence
Committee, and Mr. Borden, as Chairman of the
Canadian Defence Committee.
Mr. Asquith possesses in the Secretariat of the
Committee of Imperial Defence a special Bureau,
well qualified for this purpose. The Secretariat of
the Committee is the private and public Bureau of
the Prime Minister.
Indian Administrators are aware of the impor-

128 IMPERIAL DEFENCE
tance of the weekly "Private and Confidential"
letters that pass between the Viceroy and the
Secretary of State for India. Although Members
of the Indian Councils may be reluctant to admit
the fact, it nevertheless remains that the vital and
crucial business of the Indian Empire is discussed
and settled by this " Private and Confidential " cor
respondence. That is the model and precedent which might be
adopted and followed by the Prime Ministers of
Great Britain and Canada, as a first step towards
closer union.
Cabinet Ministers may not like the suggestion.
It is another illustration of the unpalatable thesis
with which 1 have attempted to deal in this Lecture,
that the status of a Cabinet Minister, relative to the
Prime Minister, has changed and is changing.
We cannot revert to the practice of Lord Liver
pool. The Prime Minister to-day must inevitably
become more and more an Imperial ChanceUor.
He will be forced to devolve the conduct of busi
ness in Parliament more and more upon his col
leagues. He will be forced to trench more and
more upon the functions of the Foreign Secretary,
the Colonial and Indian Secretaries of State, and
the First Lord of the Admiralty.
The day cannot now be far distant when the
affairs of the Colonial Office should be relieved of
the affairs of the Dominions.
The Colonial Office, in that sphere, is an ana
chronism. Every consideration points to the

REASONS FOR FEDERATION 129
Bureau of the Prime Minister, to the Secretariat of
the Committee of Imperial Defence, as the suitable
machinery for keeping Great Britain and the
Dominions in touch, and as a means of establishing
more intimate, more confidential, and more binding
relations between the Mother Country and the
Dominions, which very shortly will surpass her in
population and wealth as they do already in area
and extent.
In order to federate more or less independent
groups of men of the same race and speech, some
menace is required to their pride and independence.
The Chauvinism of the Napoleonic tradition, and
the French spirit of Revanche, federated and have
kept together the German Empire.
Bismarck, far-seeing, of esprit positif, found in
Alsace-Lorraine the instrument he required to hold
together the South and North German peoples.
His successors have provided us with a weapon
equally potent for our purposes. No British states
man could have federated the British Empire.
That object may, however, be accomplished by the
menace of the German Fleet.
I have been interested all my life in the study of
naval and military matters, and I have been deeply
concerned, during the past sixteen or seventeen
years, in the organization of the military forces of
the Crown ; but I wish to preface what I have to
say by the general statement that no man who has
regard for the individual or collective happiness and
prosperity of his fellow-countrymen can look upon

130 IMPERIAL DEFENCE
war otherwise than as the greatest of all curses,
and naval and military preparation for war other
wise than as the most odious of all necessities.
It is a deep-rooted fallacy in the minds of men
that a study of the past throws clear light upon the
conduct of pubhc affairs, whether the question be
naval, military, or civil, or whether the time be the
present or the immediate future. In reality, the
light thus thrown is dim and uncertain. Although
human nature may be unchanging and unchange
able — and even this is doubtful — what is called the
advance of science and the ever-widening scope of
human knowledge render the lessons of the past
only partially applicable to present needs and con
ditions. It is only a half-truth to say that the invention
of gunpowder influenced tactics, but did not
materially influence strategy in war. It is alto
gether fallacious to suppose that the shrinkage of
the world brought about by scientific invention and
the interlacing of commercial relations between all
civUized peoples have not profoundly influenced
both the course and the results of war itself After
aU, what is war ? It is the final struggle for supre
macy, for the supremacy of one man or body of
men, or a nation, over others. In former times the
struggle was limited to those whom victory speciaUy
concerned, and it did not concern every inhabitant
of a town or every native of a country.
There are portions of our own Empire to-day
where defeat and conquest would only mean, to the

EUROPEAN WAR 131
common people, the substitution of one set of
masters for another. War nowadays, between
great European States, means a struggle not only
between bands of armed men, upon which the
masses of the people can look, comparatively speak
ing, immune and unaffected, but it means a contest
in which every individual member of a nation is
unavoidably concerned, and in which his material
welfare is jeopardized.
I am not referring only to conflict between
nations in arms, and I have not in mind only con
script forces. If Great Britain were at war to
morrow with a first-class European Power the
welfare of every individual Englishman would be
quite as much at stake, although Great Britain is
not a nation in arms, as would be the welfare of
every individual member of a country which had
the conscript law.
In a prolonged struggle, or even in a struggle of
short duration, between two great Empires, many
other forces come into play other than those imme
diately within the orbit of the clash of arms ; and
these forces have a trenchant bearing upon the
issue. What, for example, were the underlying causes
that brought about the cessation of the war between
Russia and Japan ? The ostensible causes were the
victories of the Japanese fleet at Tsushima and of
the Japanese armies at Mukden. But was Russia
in reality a defeated nation, and was there any real
danger to the solidarity of the Russian Empire from

132 IMPERIAL DEFENCE
local defeat in a theatre of war so distant as Man
churia from Moscow and from St. Petersburg ?
Were the armies of Russia crushed and destroyed
as were those of Prussia after Jena ? Speaking
purely from the strategical point of view, was the
victory of Togo at Tsushima more complete than
the victory of Nelson at Trafalgar, and was Russia
more crippled by naval defeat in 1903 than was
France in 1 805 ? Were the Russian armies more
broken after Mukden than were their predecessors
just one hundred years ago when Napoleon entered
Moscow ?
We know that France was not driven to make
peace with Great Britain after Trafalgar; and, in
spite of Napoleon's victorious advance, Russia did
not make peace in 1812. What then, as I have
asked, were the underlying causes which brought
about the Peace of Portsmouth ?
I do not propose to explore them, but I refer to
them for the purpose of suggesting to you that war
to-day between two great nations, hampered for
mihtary purposes by their civilization, cannot be
fought under the confined conditions of a century
ago, nor is it likely that ever again a great European
war wiU be fought out to a finish. If I am right,
and if this hypothesis is true as regards a war
carried on in a theatre so distant from the main
arteries of Russian and Japanese life as was Man
churia, how infinitely more true it must be of any
great war of which the theatre is Central Europe,
or the narrow European seas which are the com-

RULE OF IMAGINATION 133
mercial highway of the civilized world ! These
speculations, with all their infinite suggestion of
commercial disaster, of financial ruin, and of in
dividual suffering, appear so pregnant with restrain
ing influences that I confess it seems to me almost
unthinkable that Great Britain, or Germany, or
France should ever again in cold blood let loose
upon each other the forces of war.
It would be folly, however, and criminal folly,
to ignore the element of passion. Men are not,
unfortunately, governed by reason alone. Napo
leon said that imagination rules the world, and
imagination often runs riot, and is frequently mis
directed. Even though the odds are heavy against a war
between any two or more of the great nations of
Europe, there is always left in reserve the odd
chance. I remember, many years ago, at a dinner-party,
hearing Mr. Gladstone declaim, with all the force
of his immense vocabulary, and with great array of
statistical facts, against the foUy of those citizens of
London who were in the habit of insuring their
houses against fire. He showed by figures that
were incontestable both as regards the number of
conflagrations, the rapidity with which incipient fire
was extinguished by the admirable activity of the
Metropolitan Fire Brigade, and he proved by the
comparatively few cases of damage to the property
of the ordinary householder, that a man who was
content under these circumstanceis to pay annual

134 IMPERIAL DEFENCE
premiums which amounted during an average life
to a considerable sum was a man deficient in moral
courage and a thoroughly bad economist. Yet
that very night there was probably a fire in London,
and it would have been a poor consolation to the
unhappy householder, standing amid the ruins of
his property, to feel that, in spite of his catastrophic
losses, he had vindicated the principles of economy
and of moral courage.
This is an attempt to iUustrate the first point
which I desire to make.
We are sometimes told that vast preparation for
war, expansive and burdensome, crushing down the
full expansive commercial activities of a nation,
inflicting hardship upon every individual man or
woman and child composing a nation, is unnecessary,
and is economicaUy unsound, because the economic
results of defeat to the individual are not so heavy
as the economic weight of preparation.
This 1 honestly believe to be true, and, if men
were governed by economic considerations alone,
would furnish an unanswerable reason for abandon
ing preparations for war.
Men, and nations of men, however, are the slaves
of passion and of unreason, and the great drama of
war often moves within a sphere from which man's
imagination excludes aU considerations of prudence.
There is always the odd chance in reserve, and there
is always the haunting possibility of the ancestral
house and home in ruins.
Given, then, that preparation for war is a high

CO-ORDINATION OF FORCES 135
premium which every nation governed by wisdom
and forethought is bound to pay for insurance
against possibly tragic disaster, it surely follows
that preparation, which is bound to be expensive in
any case, should be as complete as it can be made,
so that the co-ordinated forces of a nation can be
concentrated at the critical moment upon the enemy.
This brings me to my second point.
What are the forces which an adequate scheme
of preparation should co-ordinate, and what is
the best and surest method of co-ordinating
them? I wish to say, at this juncture, that we cannot
avoid taking, for the purposes of discussion, the
constitution of our country as we find it, and also
the British Empire under the conditions in which
we know it to-day. Analogies between our own
system of government and methods which can
satisfactorily be applied under other systems of
government, whether in the past or on the Con
tinent of Europe, can only be misleading, and I
ask you to disregard them.
Our country and our Empire are not ruled in a
vacuum, but under conditions which some of us
may deplore, but which in the main we are obliged
to accept. These conditions impose upon states
men, upon eminent civil servants, upon the Lords
of the Admiralty, and upon the General Staff of
the Army, limitations which many would be glad
to be free from, and which all would desire in some
respects to modify. These limitations, however.

136 IMPERIAL DEFENCE
are for the present so firmly fixed that it would be
foolish to ignore them, and hopeless to contend
against them.
The limitations I refer to are —
First, that our system of government is based
upon the representation of the People's will, and
carries with it, by tradition, the custom of explain
ing fully, and in public, the reasons justifying
expenditure of money, and the necessity of obtain
ing thereto the assent of Parliament. Second, that
the great Dominions oversea are not, except so far
as sentiment is concerned, integral portions of the
British Empire, but are in reality self-governing
States, in alliance with Great Britain.
It follows, therefore, when we come to consider
the most effective method of preparing for war, and
for campaigns, whether by sea or land, that we are
constrained to frame plans in accordance with our
Parliamentary institutions, and with our hetero
geneous Imperial system. If any drastic change is
contemplated, involving the rearragement of our
State Departments, the first question a reformer
has to ask himself is whether the approval of the
House of Commons is likely to be obtained.
And hkewise, if any strategic plan is formulated
by those whose duty it is to make preparation for
war involving united Imperial effort, the first
question they have to ask themselves is whether
such a plan is likely to commend itself to the self-
governing Dominions.
These are the conditions and limitations which

MINISTRY OF DEFENCE 137
have to be borne in mind, and from the trammels
of which we cannot at present escape.
When, therefore, we come to consider the means
for co-ordinating the fighting and defensive forces
of the Empire, it will be seen that a plan, Napo
leonic in scope and design, and resting upon a
centralized basis, would not at present be practically
feasible. We shaU, so far as we can see, for many years
to come have to be content with a scheme of
co-ordination that leaves financial control in peace
time, subject to Ministerial responsibility, as devised
under our parliamentary system of Government,
and leaves to the Dominions a degree of freedom
from naval and mihtary control that is unquestion
ably incompatible with the highest naval and
military efficiency.
I wUl try to illustrate what I mean by two
examples. It has been often suggested that the naval and
mUitary forces of the Crown could be wielded more
effectively in war if they were organized in peace
under a sole Minister responsible for both services.
The Dominions have carried this idea into practice.
They most of them possess a Minister of Defence,
controlling their armaments, and parcelling out
such sums as may be voted by their Parliaments
between their maritime and land forces.
A strong and capable Minister, suspended mid
way between the Admiralty and the War Office,
responsible for the total expenditure of both
19

138 IMPERIAL DEFENCE
services, able to gather together the Chiefs of the
Naval War Staff and of the Mihtary General Staff
whenever he wished round a common table, planning
secretly and surely the joint action of sea and land
power, for purposes of offence and defence, is a
captivating idea. To an audience like this I need
hardly dwell upon its advantages. Not the least of
these would be the disappearance of that rivalry for
the favour of the Exchequer between two Cabinet
Ministers which has so often led to economical
results highly unsatisfactory to the taxpayer, putting
a premium, so to speak, upon lavish expenditure
without any effective increase of aggregate naval
and military strength.
Whatever the advantages, however, might be of
concentrating upon one Minister the duty of pro
viding those naval and military forces adequate to
the needs of the country, it is hardly improbable
that any Prime Minister could be found willing to
propose to the House of Commons a reform so
alien to the trend of our most recent methods of
government. Decentralization rather than the converse, spread
ing of responsibility, especiaUy financial responsi
bility, rather than its concentration, have in modern
times been the main characteristics of change in our
institutions. As the wealth, the Imperial responsibilities, the
commercial activities of the country, have increased,
coupled with the growth of education and the
widening of the franchise, it has been found necessary

EVOLUTION OF THE PREMIER 139
to lighten the burden of Ministers and of the
departments of State by increasing both. Parlia
ment found that it was losing control over Ministers
and Civil Servants, the complexity and mass of
whose work hindered them from giving minute
attention to detail.
The result has been a gradual increase in the
number of public offices and public bodies.
To attempt to concentrate upon the head of
a single Minister responsibility for the Admir
alty and the War Office, however desirable for
reasons of strategy in war, would be to reverse
the natural process that has been in operation
for more than seventy years — I mean since the
first Reform BiU of 1832.
Another consideration, impossible to disregard,
is the evolution of the office of Prime Minister.
The status of the Prime Minister in the hierarchy
of government has changed. Cabinets, in the old
days, were composed of a comparatively small
number of statesmen, bound together by pohtical
ties, and were presided over by one of their body,
called sometimes the First Lord of the Treasury,
and sometimes the First Minister of the Crown.
Cabinet Ministers in those days were jealous of their
individual authority, and highly sensitive on the sub
ject of their constitutional equality. Any Cabinet
Minister could, for example, call a Cabinet Meet
ing, and frequently did so, often to the annoyance
of his nominal chief. This privilege is now practi
cally obsolete. With the increased size of Cabinets,

140 IMPERIAL DEFENCE
and the immense growth of Departmental business,
accentuated by the heavier work of the House of
Commons and by public curiosity stimulated by
the Press, the old-time system has passed away,
leaving the Prime Minister in a position resembling
rather what on the Continent is called an Imperial
Chancellor than a First Lord of the Treasury of
the early Victorian type.
It was curiously symptomatic of the change that
had taken place in the status of the Prime Minister
when, as you will recollect, only a few years ago a
special and high social precedence was granted by
the Sovereign to that office. It is hardly conceiv
able that any Prime Minister trained in the political
atmosphere of to-day, accustomed to his command
ing position in the Councils of the Sovereign and of
the nation, imbued clearly with a sense of his full
Imperial responsibUity for the security of the State,
would abrogate one of his chief functions and place
it in the hands of a colleague.
I say this because I think it is obvious that every
modern Prime Minister must perceive that he, and
he alone, is the Minister whose function it is to
co-ordinate and to prepare all the forces of the
Empire in time of peace and to launch them at the
enemy in time of war.
The method by which the Prime Minister to-day
has co-ordinated these forces I will revert to when
I have touched for a few moments upon what I said,
a short while ago, that we must abandon to the
Dominions a certain freedom of attitude and action,

IMPERIAL TIES 141
both in peace and in war, although at the expense
of the highest naval and military efficiency.
No one who has read the reports of what oc
curred at the Imperial Conferences, summoned
from time to time in London, and has watched
the attitude of the Dominion Parliaments, can
be under any illusion about the nature of the
ties between the Mother Country and the self-
governing communities that form part of the
British Empire.
These ties are in the main sentimental, and,
although there have been indications that the
Dominions are not unwilling to take part in defend
ing the Empire against attack, any attempt to
formulate strategic plans, based on common action,
would be premature, and might not impossibly prove
to be disastrous.
There is no immediate prospect of the British
Executive Government being able to impose its
ideas of naval or military strategy upon the Defence
Ministers of the Dominions, and still less of the
British Parliament being able to control or even to
influence the action of the Dominion Parliaments.
For purposes of Irnperial Defence the Empire is
not a federation, but an alliance between greater
and lesser States upon terms not so clearly defined
as those which subsist between some of the States
of Europe.
For the present these conditions have to be
accepted by those responsible for the government
of this country, and the war-plans of the naval and
20

142 IMPERIAL DEFENCE
mihtary staffs are obliged to be framed in accord
ance with them.
It is by no means a satisfactory state of things,
but there is no help for it, until the Dominions
reahze more fully that their security from attack,
during the long period which is bound to elapse
before they attain to maturity in population and
wealth, is inextricably bound up with the security
of Great Britain. __^
This truth is only at present half understood.
The Dominions are very much inclined to hold
language which, if it means anything, implies that
they reserve to themselves the power to declare
ad hoc, on the outbreak of war, whether they will
take their full share of responsibility as beUigerents.
That any of the Dominions would, in the event
of a great war, leave the Mother Country in the
lurch is highly improbable ; but they are not pre
pared at the present time to bind themselves to any
specific joint plan of action under circumstances
over which they have no control, in spite of the
obvious Imperial difficulty and danger of leaving
the principles of common action to be determined
at the last moment, on the eve of war.
This is the second example I desire to give of
the kind of difficulties which a statesman has to
face who is anxious to perfect a system of war-
preparation in a country like ours, governed under
a constitution which places individual liberty, and
its full expression, before all other considerations,
and in an Empire like ours, of which the com-

MR. BALFOUR AND DEFENCE 143
ponent parts are bound together by ties of senti
ment and not by material guarantees.
And now I must ask you to consider, for a few
moments, the methods by which Prime Ministers,
and especially the present Prime Minister,* have
recently tried to co-ordinate those national and
Imperial forces which would have to be brought
into operation if the Empire is to put out its full
strength in the event of a great war.
It is not sufficiently realized yet that, during the
last decade, the attitude of the official mind in this
country towards questions of national defence has
undergone a revolutionary change. Students of
our parliamentary history are well aware that
these matters only engage the attention of Parlia
ment and of the country by fits and starts. Up to
the year 1904 even statesmen shrank from applying
their minds consistently to problems of defence.
A distinct change for the better then occurred.
Mr. Balfour's Administration must always be
memorable in the history of national defence for
two reforms pregnant of far-reaching results. Mr.
Balfour created a General Staff for the Army, and
he gave body and substance to the Committee of
Imperial Defence.
What is the Committee of Imperial Defence ?
It is often referred to, sometimes with a kind of
awe, sometimes with malice not untinged with
contempt. It had its origin many years ago in the
mind of Lord Salisbury, when, in a well-remem-
* The Right Hon. H. H. Asquith.

144 IMPERIAL DEFENCE
bered phrase, he suggested to his feUow-country-
men that they should study large maps before
discussing questions of Imperial Strategy. Much
later in life he crystallized this notion and drew
together representatives of the Admiralty and the
War Office in a small committee, under the
presidency of the late Duke of Devonshire, for
the purpose of studying large maps and strategical
questions. This committee was accustomed to
meet at the Foreign Office, and the services of a
Foreign Office clerk were placed at its disposal.
There "w^ere no regular meetings, and no records
were kept of its deliberations or decisions. Its
existence was shadowy, but it contained the germs
of the present Committee of Imperial Defence.
After the War Office Reconstitution Committee
had finally reported to Mr. Balfour, that Minister
immediately gave effect to one of its most vital
recommendations, and a permanent secretariat was
instituted for the Committee of Imperial Defence.
It was the first step in the evolution of that body.
Mr. Balfour's object was to establish a permanent
advisory committee on defence questions, and, by
giving it a secretariat, to ensure that its dehbera-
tions and decisions should be carefuUy preserved,
and a continuity of practice maintained. The
theory enunciated by Mr. Balfour — and his theory
coincided with his practice^was that the Com
mittee should only meet when summoned by the
Prime Minister, who was its only permanent mem
ber. He summoned the Committee when he

SUB-COMMITTEES 145
chose, and he summoned to it whomsoever he
pleased. This theory is still in vogue, and has
been endorsed on several occasions by the present
Prime Minister. In point of fact, Mr. Balfour
himself destroyed his own conception of the Com
mittee when he appointed to serve upon it two
permanent members who were habitually sum
moned to attend its meetings.
Accidentally this new departure led to invaluable
developments, and further important changes were
made by Sir Henry Campbell- Bannerman, and
quite notably by Mr. Asquith.
The late Prime Minister initiated a plan of
appointing sub-committees to enquire into and
report upon strategic and technical questions, with
authority to call witnesses and to take shorthand
notes of evidence. This changed at once the
status of the Committee, and widened its scope of
operative labours.
The discussions of the full Committee were pre
luded by what may be called scientific inquiry.
Mr. Asquith went a step further. He noted, after
a very short experience, that in preparation for war
every department of State was concerned.
He proceeded, therefore, to summon the heads
or representatives of many of the great public
Departments to attend these sub-committees, and
more recently he established a Standing Sub-Com
mittee, to be presided over alternately by the First
Lord of the Admiralty and the Secretary of State
for War, and composed of representatives of the

146 IMPERIAL DEFENCE
Admiralty and War Office, the Foreign Office,
the Board of Trade, the Customs, and indeed all
the great Departments, for the purpose of co
ordinating in war the Naval, Military, and Civil
Forces of the State. This Standing Sub-Com
mittee was instructed to constantly review and
revise its own recommendations.
I am permitted, in order to give you some idea
of the subjects with which this Committee deals
beyond the scope of the more obvious naval and
military problems, to mention that its enquiries
have ranged over such matters as Aerial Naviga
tion, the strategical aspects of the Forth and Clyde
Canal, oversea transport of reinforcements in time
of war, the treatment of aliens in time of war,
press censorship in war, postal censorship in war,
trading with the enemy, wireless stations through
out the Empire, local transportation and distribu
tion of food supplies in time of war, etc.
To unravel the complicated meshes of matters
such as these is a work of peculiar difficulty.
It requires experienced handling, and no single
Minister with the usual official staff would be equal
to the task.
This is my final point. I mean that the co
ordination of the material forces of the country for
war is not the sole concern of the Admiralty and
the War Office, but includes in its active sphere
almost every branch of civil administration ; and
further, that the conditions under which all the
forces of the Empire can be co-ordinated are con
stantly changing.

THE COMMITTEE'S FUNCTIONS 147
It follows that, whether for purposes of war-
preparation in time of peace, or whether for the
purpose of taking those initial steps in war which
decide its theatre and objectives, the supreme co
ordinating authority can only be the Prime Minister
and his Cabinet, who are responsible to Parliament.
The Prime Minister cannot abdicate this function,
perhaps the most important one of his high office,
and for this purpose the Defence Committee acts
as his bureau or department.
It must never be forgotten that the duties of the
Committee of Imperial Defence are purely advisory.
That Committee has no executive authority, and
under our present institutions it never could possess
any. It exists for the purpose of enquiry and
advice, with the object of examining into every
branch of Imperial Defence under ever-changing
conditions, and for the purpose of placing conclu
sions and evidence in support of them at the dis
posal of the Prime Minister and his Cabinet.
Under our constitutional forms of government,
and with our well-established parliamentary tradi
tions, it is certainly the best and most effective
method for focussing in war national and Imperial
effort which can at present be devised.
To sum up :
1. War between European nations, because of
their interdependence and because of the interlacing
of national life, becomes every day more difficult
and improbable.

148 IMPERIAL DEFENCE
2. Just as wars on the Continent of Europe, last
ing Thirty or even Seven years, have become impos
sible, so war of any kind in the same sphere tends
to become more difficult and unlikely.
3. For many years yet, however, the chances of
supreme acts of folly, due to sentiment and passion,
remain a constant factor of national existence, so
that it would be criminal to be unprepared for war.
4. Whether for conscript peoples or for Great
Britain, success in war depends upon the prudent
co-ordination in peace of all the material forces of
the nation.
5. These forces are not only naval and military,
but involve, for their full exercise, careful prepara
tion and forethought by the great civUian branches
of Administration and Government.
6. Bound as we are by parliamentary tradition,
and owing to the looseness of our Imperial ties, the
most effective method yet found for co-ordinating
these forces is the Committee of Imperial Defence,
acting, not as an executive body, but as a Standing
Board of Advisers, at the disposal of the Prime
Minister and of his Cabinet.
7. FinaUy, if I may be allowed to renew an
aspiration which I expressed many years ago (I
think it was in 1904 or 1905) : it is that we may
live to see the great Dominions sending annually
their representatives to sit upon the Committee of
Imperial Defence, and that thus a long step may
be taken towards that federation of the Empire
which has been the dream of patriots here and
oversea.

NAVAL AND MILITARY SITUATION
I.
That the Mediterranean might have to be aban
doned by Great Britain in view of the calls upon
the Navy elsewhere is a new idea to the British
people. Mr. Churchill's attempt to redistribute the
Fleet, and his speech, in 1912, in reference to it,
were both worth making, if only because they have
brought home to the average Englishman, all over
the Empire, more vividly than could have been
done in any other manner, the effect upon our
fortunes of the rise of German sea power. It would
be an utter mistake to suppose that this question is
one of nerves. It is, on the contrary, in the first
place one of high naval strategy, and in the second
place one of national prestige. A concentration of
naval power in home waters is forced upon us by
what is called the menace across the North Sea.
The suddenness with which a war may break out in
these days, and the difficulty of making stragetical
movements of armed force during a period of
tension, for fear of precipitating conflict, are factors
which cannot be ignored. The initial naval action
taken by Japan against Russia was not a surprise in
the more usual sense of the term, but it was suffici
ently sudden to induce those responsible for our
149

150 NAVAL AJJD military SITUATION
national safety carefully to consider what might
happen in the event of a war between Great Britain
and Germany. For Great Britain situated as she
is — an insular Power dependent largely upon sea
borne trade — to be able to strike an overwhelming
blow at sea at the earliest possible moment in self-
defence is almost a condition of national independ
ence. It is for this reason that Mr. Churchill's
strategy of drawing together the main British Fleet
in home waters in such strength that the German
Fleet would practically have no chance of victory,
cannot be questioned.
Owing, however, to circumstances of high policy,
and to the fact that, so far as the Mediterranean
is concerned, we have given hostages to fortune by
possessing ourselves of the waterways to the East
through the Canal of Suez, by undertaking the ad
ministration of Egypt, and by holding on to Malta,
Gibraltar, and Cyprus, it had become impossible,
without making too large a sacrifice, to lower the
British flag in what is called the Middle Sea. It is
indisputable that it would be convenient from the
point of view of naval administration and from the
point of view of finance, if we were able to with
draw in peace our ships and their crews from the
Mediterranean for the purpose of rendering more
rapid and more overwhelming the blow which we
might unhappily be forced to dehver in home
waters. The considerations, however, which render
such a course unwise are too weighty. Putting
aside the interests and feelings of the Dominions, we

MEDITERRANEAN PROBLEMS 151
cannot afford to ignore the effect which evacuation
of the Mediterranean would produce upon our great
dependencies and upon the Crown Colonies. What
are called the subject races are mainly kept in sub
jection by faith in, and fear of, the British Raj.
Shake that belief, and the edifice begins to crumble.
The pivot of our military prestige throughout the
East is the isthmus of Suez. The symbol of
British power throughout the darker continents is
the British flag as flown in the Mediterranean,
whether upon fixed defences in Malta or Gibraltar
or upon the Admiral's flagship at any point that
this sea officer chooses between Malta and the
Dardanelles. The man who has stood hitherto as
the representative of British power outside these
Islands, let us say between London and Calcutta,
is the Commander-in-Chief of the Mediterranean.
You cannot safely ignore imagination in man, even
though it may be weakness.
The presence of Napoleon in the field, the pre
sence of Nelson with the Fleet, the presence of
Lord Roberts in South Africa at the beginning of
1900, added incalculable moral strength to the
material forces under their command. In peace, it
is difficult to measure the diminution of the moral
effect of Great Britain's diplomatic action all over
those portions of the earth which have an interest
for us if you minimize the authority and destroy
the prestige of the British Commander-in-Chief in
the Mediterranean.
Diplomatic influence in the Near East is not a

152 NAVAL AND MILITARY SITUATION
capricious thing, it is a constant factor in the every
day hfe of the British nation, and has to be exercised
consistently, if the highest interests, commercial and
pohtical, of the people are to be safeguarded. Diplo
matic influence, in order to be effective, must have
behind it the potentiality of immediate action. The
examples of this are numerous and well known. It
is quite unnecessary to refer to demonstrations of
naval force in the Middle Sea and of the seizure of
an island or the movement of a fleet. They are the
commonplaces of diplomatic history. W^hen Mr.
Churchill referred in his speech to the possibility of
a'British squadron, based on Gibraltar, moving to
the north or to the east, as occasion might require,
there were persons who believed that an adequate
solution of the necessities of home defence, and the
possible demands of diplomatic action in the Medi
terranean, would be met by this expedient. When,
however, the dilemma is pushed home, it will be
found that if the services of a fleet based on Gibral
tar are required for the purpose of rendering abso
lutely safe the naval position in home waters, it
would be impossible to count upon that force for
supporting British diplomacy, or for safeguarding
British interests in the Mediterranean. You cannot
earmark the Home Fleet for the double purpose.
Hitherto public men on the platform and in the
Press have talked glibly of sea command, and have
claimed for Great Britain overwhelming sea power
as the main condition of her existence. They have
failed, however, to define in clear and unmistakable

THE GOVERNING CONDITION 153
terms what sea command really means, and they
have altogether failed to estimate the financial cost
of maintaining it. We are at last coming to grips
with this question, and the average Englishman all
over the Empire has got clearly to understand that
if the British Empire is to float on the British Navy,
that Navy has got to be of immense size, concen
trated in particular for the purpose of ensuring
overwhelming superiority at the crucial point, and
at the crucial moment, but distributed also over
certain minor theatres of possible conflict.
This is the governing condition of a defensive
policy that relies upon naval power alone for national
security and independence. If this condition is
ignored, or if the principle underlying it is tampered
with, it would become necessary to reconsider the
basic facts of our whole system of national defence.
Great Britain possesses no army in the modern
sense. That is to say, she is not a Nation in Arms.
If the Mediterranean were to be evacuated, we
should be driven to readapt our military system to
new conditions. II.
Great Britain possesses no army in the modern
European sense. Some civilian authorities hold the
contrary opinion, but they have never succeeded in
convincing any soldier of the correctness of their
view. An army, in a modern sense, means a military
force sufficiently large to cope, upon something like
equal terms, with any probable opponent. It means
a military organization that, in peace, is complete in
21

154 NAVAL AND MILITARY SITUATION
the material required for entering upon a great war,
and is in possession of a framework capable of being
filled up on the outbreak of war with trained men
and officers to its full war establishment. It means,
in addition to this, reserves of men who have been
accustomed to arms, and are physically fit to stand
again in the ranks in order to make good what is
called the wastage of war. A modern army of this
kind, although it cannot be utilized outside its terri
torial boundaries in time of peace, must be able to
be launched in war at the enemy at any point that
national strategy may require. The armies of the
Great Powers of Europe, and the armies of practically
aU the lesser Powers, fulfil these conditions. Switzer
land and Great Britain are the only exceptions.
Whatever may have been the case up to 1906, it
cannot be contended for a moment that since that
date mUitary organization in this country has not
received careful consideration by highly competent
minds. Whatever their view of these conclusions
may be. Lord Haldane's countrymen cannot com
plain of his method of trying to solve our military pro
blems. He has given the whole of his mind to their
consideration, his assiduity has been wonderful, his
tenacity unrelaxed, and he has taken into consultation
the most competent men he could find, both soldiers
and civilians. He has not stinted time or trouble.
His ultimate conclusions, upon which the organ
ization of the army at the present time is based,
have been explained over and over again. Although
he claims to have created an army, he has always

SUPREMACY AT SEA 155
stated that the foundations of his military system
are laid upon the supremacy of the British Fleet at
sea. Cut this foundation away, and the whole
edifice crumbles. Supremacy at sea means two
things. First, that the shores of these islands are
secure from invasion ; and, second, that our trade
routes across the Atlantic, and eastward through
the Suez Canal, cannot be interrupted. Subject to
these safeguards, the British Army organization, as
it is, with its present establishments and its present
reserves, with the Territorial Force in this country,
with its auxiliary forces of native troops all over the
Empire, and assisted by the militia forces of the
great Dominions, is adequate to our needs. That
is the conclusion arrived at by Lord Haldane and his
advisers as well as by the committee of experts which
goes by the name of the Defence Committee, and
it is a conclusion which has been accepted by the
nation. If we stop there, and do not ask more from
our land forces, not much fault can be found with
their numbers or organization. It is true that the
great authority of Lord Roberts may be quoted on
the other side. There are many who are in agree
ment with him, but so far the sense of the nation has
been with Lord Haldane and his military advisers.
The moment, however, that the attitude of the
Admiralty changes, and the moment that our safety
from invasion becomes an open question. Or the
security of our trade routes cannot be guaranteed,
the problem of the British Army becomes a
different one. There are many excellent and

156 NAVAL AND MILITARY SITUATION
patriotic people, holders of Liberal opinions, who
seem unable to reahze that a nation cannot enjoy
simultaneously the wider atmosphere of being a
first-class Power and the narrower comforts of
being a second-class Power. If a nation happens
to be situated in Europe, and is surrounded by other
nations, all of which are armed to the teeth, and
whose effectiveness in the discussion of European
or World problems is dependent upon the dynamic
force of the sword, it cannot expect to exercise at
one moment the authority of a great Power like
Germany or France, and at the same time possess
that comparative immunity from attack which is
the privilege of a protected Power like Belgium.
Since October 21, 1805, Great Britain has been a
first-class world Power. She has exercised authority
in the councils of Europe, and she has swayed the
East. These objects have been achieved, primarily,
because she possessed a Fleet the power of which
was unquestioned, and a small but efficient Army
capable of being used in conjunction with her Navy
in such a manner as to render her total armed force
of equal potency with that of any other great Power.
It is this delicate adjustment between the forces
of the Navy and of the Army which has in recent
years been the problem for Lord Haldane and
mUitary reformers. The fashion in which it has
been solved is too well known to need description.
We have now a fixed organization which provides
these Islands with an expeditionary force composed
of professional soldiers raised and trained for the

THE EXPEDITIONARY FORCE 157
purpose of serving oversea in peace and war. The
idea is that this force shall always be as efficient as
it can be made by careful training and warlike
material. It is highly trained and highly mobile.
Should necessity require, it can be despatched at
short notice to India or any part of the British
Empire that is threatened. It is the adjunct of our
sea power, and intended to strike the final blow
which full effectiveness of sea power demands, and
it is further intended to carry out the duties of
police wherever necessity arises and wherever the
central Government of Great Britain is responsible
for the maintenance of order. These are the pur
poses for which it is intended and which it is
adequate to fulfil. There are two uses to which our
expeditionary force cannot safely be put. First,
its size and strength do not permit its use in the
field of battle against a Nation in Arms ; and,
second, it is too small to be safely employed in two
theatres of war at the same time.
Lord Haldane has named what formerly was
called the Regular Army an Expeditionary Force.
Enough attention has not been given to this change
of nomenclature. It is of first-rate importance that
the people of this country should realize that they
do not possess a " British Army " in the sense of
1815, or of the middle years of the last century.
The British Army of the days of Welhngton, and
even of the Duke of Cambridge, has ceased to exist.
This is not due to the acts or shortcomings of any
British Government. It is due to causes wholly
22

158 NAVAL AND MILITARY SITUATION
external, and to the growth of forces over which no
British Government has any control. That is to
say, it is the outcome of the lesson given by Napo
leon to the Prussians at Jena, which led, after a
germinating period extending over sixty years, to
the rout of the French at Sedan, and to the rise of
Nations in Arms all over Europe. Great Britain
possesses no Army in the modern sense of the word.
She possesses an Expeditionary Force, and it would
clarify the ideas and reasoning of politicians and
journalists throughout the Empire if this fact was
constantly borne in mind. It would perhaps assist
our people to understand their own limitations if at
public banquets the toast of the "Expeditionary
Force" could be substituted for the toast of " The
Army." The instinct was a valuable one that induced
our forefathers to resist the organization of a standing
Army. Their reasons, no doubt, were very different
from ours. They feared a standing army on account
of the use which might be made of it by autocracy
or oligarchy to curtail or destroy their liberties. The
reason to-day is different, but the instinct is there
as of yore. Its basis is an ineradicable belief in the
sea, and in sea power, as the only weapon that Great
Britain can safely and effectively employ for the
purposes of defence.
Why is it that the intentions of the Board of
Admiralty in regard to the Mediterranean and the
naval conferences between Mr. Churchill and Mr.
Borden were so absorbingly interesting? It is
because our countrymen throughout the Empire

THE STRENGTH OF THE FLEET 159
instinctively realized the moment of peril which it
is to be hoped they have escaped. It is that they
appreciated the fact that their rulers momentarily
halted between two policies — one the traditional
policy of depending vipon sea power, with its neces
sary military adjuncts, as the means of securing
national and Imperial safety, the other of attempt
ing to lessen our armed strength in reliance upon the
diplomatic efforts of Ententes with foreign Powers.
Diplomats very naturally believe in diplomacy,
sailors in fleets, and soldiers in armies. It would
be a great misfortune if this were to be otherwise.
In principle, however, at any rate, the choice has
been made ; the Fleet is to be rendered so strong
that Great Britain may be assured of victory in the
main theatre of possible war, and at the same time
keep open her communications with her great
Eastern dependency, through the medium of the
Mediterranean. That is the only interpretation
which can be put upon the attitude of the Board of
Admiralty. The provision of adequate means to
achieve these results must be left to them. The
responsibility is theirs. They have practicaUy got
their orders from the common sense of the nation.
The feeling is universal that we have escaped a
danger, and that we have chosen the better way.
If our own people experience a sense of relief, we
may rest assured that it is shared by French states
men and by the French people, who must have
looked with alarm upon possibilities which, by
reducing our effectiveness at sea during the years

160 NAVAL AND MILITARY SITUATION
immediately to come, could not fail to weaken the
spirit of the Entente between the two countries and
its combined strength for defence. No one will
recognize the full importance of the national decision
more thoroughly than the statesman and soldiers
who are so brilliantly and so successfully guiding the
destinies of our great rival across the North Sea.
III.
Those great lines of strategy which run along
immutable grooves are fixed by geographical con
ditions. Their modification is not in question.
There are, however, subsidiary strategical con
clusions where the orbits of strategy and tactics
overlap, that always have and always must demand
examination from time to time, under the com
pelling impulse of change in the engines and
materiel of war.
The danger of the historical treatment of war by
writers even as eminent as Admiral Mahan and
Mr. Vincent Corbett is that it generally and almost
inevitably ignores the impress of scientific discovery
and modern appliances upon the art of destruction.
Under the asgis of historical method, aphorisms
and maxims, highly important and of unquestion
able force at the time they were phrased, are treated
with that respect usually reserved for religious
dogma. " Numbers only can annihilate," is a good
case in point. " Our defence is close to the
enemy's ports " is another. A reader of Admiral
Mahan might suppose — and his supposition would

NELSON'S WORDS 161
receive support from almost every text-book^ — that
Nelson's words were intended for all time, and
under all circumstances, to guide the naval
strategist, whereas they really were the dicta of a
great sea officer brought face to face with the sea
problems that confronted Great Britain in the
Napoleonic wars between the years 1800 and 1805.
Lord Nelson was constantly contending for rein
forcements and for concentration of command. It
was natural, therefore, that he should lay stress
upon numerical superiority as the main factor of
successful battle, although no one knew better than
he that both on sea and land victory and the
destruction of the enemy, disastrous and complete,
had over and over again been effected by a force
inferior in numbers, but superior in the high com
mand, in fortune, in disposition, or in valour. That
" our first defence is close to the enemy's ports "
was true enough when these words were used by
Nelson. He had in view the invasion of these
shores by the French flotillas. He had in view the
lie of the French coasts. He had in view the fleets
with masts and sails that he commanded with such
amazing splendour. Who, however, can say that
Nelson's genius would have led him to a precisely
similar conclusion had he been confronted with an
analogous problem under modern conditions, of
ships independent of wind and tide, and of water
ways obstructed and defended by the floating
mine, by the torpedo and by the submarine. These
reflections lead to a conclusion which it is high

162 NAVAL AND MILITARY SITUATION
time for the naval expert to examine with a mind
free from prejudice and from the trammels of pre
conceived ideas.
Is the next naval war certain to be determined
by fleet action between the battleships of the
respective nations engaged ? Is it certain that the
measure of the naval strength of a nation can be
taken in capital ships ?
Is it sure that the super-Dreadnought is the
capital ship of to-day, if by capital ship is meant
that type of vessel in which resides the power of
settling the question of victory or defeat? Is it
certain that in a war between Great Britain and
Germany victory will remain with the side that is
able to concentrate the largest naval force at the
crucial point at the crucial moment? Is it sure
that the highest interests, strategical and tactical,
of Great Britain require the British Admiral to
bring the German Fleet to action at the earliest
possible moment ?
Is it certain that our "first defence" should in
these days be " close to the enemy's ports," if by
that is meant that our great battleships are to lie
(Germany being assumed to be the enemy) in
anchorage protected by fixed defences along the
east coast of Scotland ready to pounce upon the
German Fleet at the earliest possible moment ?
It is possible that all these questions should be
answered in the affirmative, but it is both absolutely
certain and sure that not one of them has been
examined with due care by the minds of men free
from historical prejudice.

NEW DEVELOPMENTS 163
Perhaps the most important ofall these problems
arises in the doubt that assails every man who
ponders over them, as to whether the value and
importance attached to ships of the Dreadnought
class are not greatly exaggerated.
It is possible that scientific progress may compel
the building of a new fleet of a totally novel type.
It may be that in a few years' time* Great Britain
will be engaged in building battleships without
coal-engines and without funnels, and that we shall
be sinking milhons of money in the construction of
tanks for the storage of oil, which, inasmuch as we
do not produce it, will have to be collected and
stored in unimaginable quantities. While a great
deal of thought is sure to be bestowed upon the
question of substituting oil for coal, it is more than
doubtful whether any consideration will be given
at all to the question whether under the most
modern conditions — conditions that include the
hydroplane, the submarine, and oil-driven engines —
the Dreadnought and super-Dreadnought are the
most effective types of sea monsters for destroying
the enemy at sea. Upon such a question as this
the opinions of men over forty years of age are not
worth much. There is, however, here a great
opportunity for the young gunners and torpedo
lieutenants, and for the young engineer officers of
the Navy. It would be interesting to obtain a
symposium of youthful minds upon the tactical
value of twelve light, swift, unarmoured vessels,
* Written and published in 1912.

164 NAVAL AND MILITARY SITUATION
with oil-engines, each carrying a 14-inch gun,
employed against a super-Dreadnought carrying
twelve 14-inch guns. It would be interesting if a
tactical exercise on these lines could be carried
much further, deep down, for example, into the
speculative advantages of concentrated torpedo
attack, by shoals of submarines, covered by clouds
of hydroplanes, upon a capital ship. It is perfectly
conceivable that, manipulated by a commander of
genius, vast flotillas of submarine vessels, supported
by a new type of destroyer carrying a gun of high
calibre, might not only render the shores of Britain
absolutely immune from attack, but might also,
owing to the wide range of the modern submarine
vessel, justify once more Nelson's aphorism that
" our first defence is close to the enemy's ports."
Mr. Churchill is young. His inteUectual equip
ment is far above the average. He is by nature a
keen fighter, a man who loves the offensive, and of
much daring. He is, however, by the exigencies
of his position, largely at the mercy of experts. As
a rule, experts are the most fatuous people in the
world. An expert believes in his own specific. If
he did not he would not be an expert. These
people are especially mischievous when they are
engaged in crushing originality in a soaring mind.
It was by the advice of experts that millions of
money were spent by Lord Palmerston in fixed
defences. It was by the advice of experts that
Trincomalee was fortified, and before the fortifica
tions were completed was abandoned. It was by the

EXPERTS AND ADVICE 165
advice of experts that the breakwater at Singapore
was begun, and again by their advice left unfinished.
It is by the advice of experts that millions are being
sunk at Rosyth, and before long it wUl be by the
advice of experts that Rosyth is declared to be an
unsafe anchorage for the British fleet. By the advice
of experts fresh anchorage along the East Coast
wiU be erected, and more millions spent on fixed
defences which wiU in their turn prove to be useless.
On September 7, 1631, a battle was fought at
Leipsic byGustavus,aged thirty-seven, which proved
to be the death-day of the old dense formations in
land warfare, and, in spite of the traditional expert,
determined the triumph of mobility over weight.
Mr. Churchill is now thirty-seven years old. He
has a great opportunity.
Between 1912 and 1913 some great sea battles may
possibly be fought which will prove once more that,
in war, the mobUity of genius counts far more than
the dense weight of traditions and of expert advice.
IV.
Although the substitution of oil for coal as a
propelling power for ships is a question which can
properly be submitted to a Royal Commission,
that is not the case when we come to enquire into
the tactical expediency of fighting a super-Dread
nought with vessels of a type differing from herself.
Such a problem as this can only with propriety
be discussed and settled by the Board of Admiralty.
In the first place, strategical problems of first-

166 NAVAL AND MILITARY SITUATION
rate importance are inseparable from the tactical
problem, and tactics are an Admiralty matter.
Secondly, there is the question of the expenditure
that necessarily would be involved, not only by
the creation of new types of vessels, but by the
consequential changes on sea and on land ; and
correct calculations could only be made by
Admiralty experts.
The secrets of the naval manoeuvres of 1912
have been fairly well preserved. No corres
pondents were allowed with the fleet, and such
information as the Press has obtained is of a very
partial character. Two broad inferences may
surely, however, be drawn from what is known to
have occurred during the mimic war between the
fleets commanded by Prince Louis of Battenberg
and Sir George CaUaghan. These inferences convey
a striking lesson, and they raise a doubt. The
lesson is that an enemy's fleet smaUer than our
own, conveying an expeditionary force, can pass
undetected and with safety through the lines of
our cruisers and destroyers, in spite of the most
careful patrolling, and in spite of wireless tele
graphy ; that an enemy's fleet can totally disappear
from the eyes of the watchers for at least forty-
eight hours, and can land a certain number of
hostile troops on British shores. A subsidiary but
important lesson is that the submarine, in the
hands of a daring enemy, can enter a British port
crowded with vessels of war, and effect very serious
destruction. That these results were attainable by

OPINIONS ON DEFENCE 167
an enemy inferior in strength and in numbers very
naturally raises doubts as to the completeness of
our system of naval defence. It would be inter
esting to know whether the Admiralty view upon
the best defensive tactics against invasion to-day
is the same as it was before the manoeuvres took
place. For example, does the Board of Admiralty
consider that, in the event of war, it would be
desirable or indeed possible for the British Fleet,
or any large proportion of it, to use the new
harbour of Rosyth, or indeed any harbour on the
north-east coast of these islands ? If the enemy's
submarines got into what was thought to be a
safe anchorage during manoeuvres — and it is
rumoured that they did so — is it sure that they
would not get in during war, and should such a
risk be properly taken? If the issue of a naval
campaign is to be based upon the victory or
destruction of a fleet of large and immensely costly
battleships, is it not the height of imprudence to
subject them to any risk until the crucial moment
of battle arrives ? Common sense seems to indicate
that they should not be located in any position in
which they are open to attack by smaller vessels
of war. At the root of the whole matter, however,
lies the question whether the naval supremacy of
any country can be left to the arbitrament of battle
between monster ships. War is not a tournament,
and yet the whole idea underlying the question of
sea command is that naval supremacy is to be the
guerdon of super-Dreadnoughts tilting at each

168 NAVAL AND MILITARY SITUATION
other. There is probably not a man outside the
Admiralty, and possibly not a man within it, who
has formed clear ideas upon what type of vessel
could be built, at the lowest cost, able to carry
into action a 14-inch gun. Is it, for instance, pos
sible to construct any sort of unarmoured vessel,
of the Destroyer type, that is capable of carrying
a 14-inch gun and attaining a speed of thirty- five
knots, and, if so, what would be her cost complete
and ready for sea ?
Furthermore, assuming that such a vessel could
be built, fitted with oil engines, would her radius
of action be sufficient to make her of service any
where but within the confines of the Channel and
the North Sea ? Pushing this hne of argument to
its extreme conclusion, surely it is worth while to
consider whether, for the purposes of our Empire
— for the purposes of protecting these islands on the
one hand, and of protecting our lines of commerce
on the other — two distinct groups of war-vessels
are not required, and whether it is necessary
to include the Dreadnought or the super-Dread
nought in either. Is it not worth whUe to con
sider whether the defence of these Islands could
not with safety be left to large flotillas of sub
marines, and of some new type of destroyer, pro
vided with great speed, carrying a gun of heavy
cahbre, and not very costly to buUd ? And is it
not worth while to consider further whether the
defence of our seaborne commerce could not be
left to squadrons of battle cruisers of great speed.

REFLECTIONS AND PROBLEMS 169
of powerful armament, and with a coal or oil-
carrying capacity that would enable them to cover
large areas of the ocean ?
Let us put the case in the following form :
Suppose that Great Britain possessed to-day three
or four squadrons of battle cruisers of the Indomit
able type, and supposing that, in addition to these
ships, she possessed the equivalent of the cost of
the whole of her existing battleships in submarines
and destroyers, even of the present types, is there
anyone who can assert and prove to the satisfaction
of unprejudiced men that she would be less formid
able at sea, and less powerful relatively to other
Powers, than she is to-day ?
These reflections are the outcome of some thought
given to the supposed occurrences during recent
manoeuvres. They are not put forward didactically ;
they are merely suggestions. The problem broadly
stated is this : Is it certain that the enquiry set on
foot by Mr. Churchill, and entrusted to Lord
Fisher, as to the advisability of substituting oil for
coal, is the only naval enquiry of first-rate import
ance to the country that should be taken in hand
at the present time ? Ought not this enquiry to
be supplemented by another — first, as to whether,
strategically and tactically, our fleets to-day are
composed of the ships best suited to our Imperial
requirements ; and, second, whether modern con
ditions of fighting at sea, influenced as they are
bound to be by recent scientific development, do
not demand the substitution of new types of war-
23

170 NAVAL AND MILITARY SITUATION
vessels for the conventional types with which we
are famUiar ?
The gravity of these questions can hardly be ex
aggerated. They are interwoven with our national
security, with our Imperial position, and with the
individual freedom of every British citizen. What
ever may be the outcome of the abstract discussions
which are now occupying the attention of thought
ful students of political problems, here and abroad,
as to the possibility of putting an end to internecine
conflict between great European States, dependent
as they are upon each other for the necessities of
life, it cannot be doubted that under present cir
cumstances men of different nationalities in Europe
might at any moment take to cutting each other's
throats without much more provocation than some
absurd point of honour or etiquette in Morocco or
elsewhere. For such an emergency affecting our
selves we are bound to be prepared.
We cannot afford to run any serious risks. The
prosperity and happiness of our people depend
upon our being able to assert our political inde
pendence as a nation and our financial independence
as a commercial people. These are the conditions
of our Imperial freedom and of our individual well-
being. Owing to the insular position of Great Britain
and Ireland, we have been able hitherto to dispense
with an Army on modern lines. The British
people are not a Nation in Arms. They have
shrunk from bearing the burden of military pre-

BURDEN OF NAVALISM 171
paration and efficiency which is forced upon
Continental Powers by the existence of their land
frontiers. The British people are, however, com
pelled to bear a heavy financial strain occasioned
by the necessity for maintaining their supremacy
at sea. They escape the personal burden that is
imposed by the necessities of militarism. They
have got to bear, however, the financial burden of
navalism. These barbarous expressions are not
abstract propositions, but concrete facts. It is
maddening that in the high phase of civilization
which we, in common with all European nations,
have attained in the twentieth century, the British
people should have this dilemma forced upon them.
Some of the best brains, some of the most acute
minds, some of the most energetic administrators
at home and in the Dominions are for ever con
centrating upon problems, the solution of which,
whether in peace or war, spells waste and des
truction. Nothing could be more disheartening,
and nothing could be more certain, than the utter
futility of attempting under the present conditions
of the world to escape the task. From week to
week, from month to month, from year to year,
we have got to keep the questions of national
defence, of commercial security, of Imperial co
operation steadUy in mind and conspicuously before
the eyes of the elector. The aspects of the naval
and mihtary situation are constantly changing, and
have constantly to be reconsidered. We have
attempted before touching upon the military situa-

172 NAVAL AND MILITARY SITUATION
tion to attempt to describe the naval situation as it
stands to-day.
To sum up what has been said in this and
previous papers on the subject, it is essential to
remember that as Great Britain possesses no Army,
but only a small Expeditionary Force, for the
purpose of the police work of the Empire, and
inasmuch as our people are not organized or trained
in sufficient numbers to enable our country to be
defended with any hope of success if sea command
were wrested from us, we are forced by circum
stances, over which no statesman, however able
or however powerful, can exercise control, to
depend upon our fleets and upon naval warfare.
The governing condition of our defensive policy
is that the fight for freedom, if it comes at all, must
inevitably take place at sea.
It follows from this (1) that the British Empire
floats on the British Navy ; (2) that the British
Fleet has got to be of sufficient power to be over
whelmingly superior at the crucial point and at the
crucial moment ; (3) that it has got to be of
sufficient size to enable some portion of it to be
distributed over minor theatres of political conflict
and of commercial competition ; (4) that it is worth
while to consider whether undue importance has
not hitherto been attached to the arbitrament of
the battle between Dreadnoughts and super-
Dreadnoughts ; (5) that it should be considered
whether the development of science does not render
it possible, and not improbable, that naval superiority

IMPERIAL CONSIDERATIONS 173
in home waters might be achieved by small un
armoured ships of great speed, carrying guns of
heavy calibre, when combined with the action of
submarine vessels ; (6) that some decision should
be arrived at whether the defence of these Islands
in any case could not with great advantage be
committed to flotillas of submarines and destroyers,
leaving to the Battle Fleet greater freedom of
manoeuvre ; (7) that such inquiry should be at
once undertaken with a view to ascertaining
whether, if monster ships are to be maintained as
part of our equipment for naval war, they should
under any circumstances, in peace or in war,
be located in harbours on the East Coast ;
(8) finally, that the enquiry should be extended to
the question whether the commercial freedom of
our people all over the Empire could not best be
secured by battle cruisers of a novel type, acting
in consort with vessels of the same type locally
provided by the Dominions, V.
Thus, no statesman of wide outlook can afford
to neglect the rapid growth of Canada and of the
other great Dominions, and their inevitable influ
ence upon the future of British pohcy, if the
Empire is to hold together. StiU less can he afford
to overlook the recent changes taking place in
what has been hitherto called the unchanging East.
In spite of the enormous wealth aggregated
within these Islands, and a population of over forty
24

174 NAVAL AND MILITARY SITUATION
millions of people, in spite of the steadfastness of
British character, and the still warlike temperament
of the race, insular power is not so predominant as
it was a century ago, and the centre of our Imperial
gravity is not so stable.
The growth of other navies, and the conquest of
the air, are new factors which cannot be neglected
when we take stock of our relative armed strength
and our powers of offence and defence. Hence the
natural and laudable anxiety of those who, like
Lord Roberts, spend arduous days in trying to
awaken their countrymen to a sense of danger.
In politics, in commerce, and in war, there are no
eternal truths but one, and that is that every
shibboleth is a danger-point. In the sphere of
national competition, the methods of the eighteenth
cannot be safely applied to the exigencies of the
twentieth century. No great nation has yet
proved quietist in thought or action. So far,
growth has synchronized always with the use pf
armed force. It would be hazardous to assume
that the world, or even Europe, has yet arrived at
a stage when any nation can look to its neighbours,
to alliances and Ententes, for safety, rather than to
itself. A people, however, can circumscribe their sphere
of activities and limit their ambitions. The
moment seems to have come when the British
people should wake to the full measure of their
responsibilities, gauge their capacity for interfer
ence in the affairs of the world, and endeavour to

THE ALTERNATIVES 175
place their armed strength, naval and military, in
some sort of relation to the policy they intend to
pursue. All naval and military preparation for war must
depend upon a clear appreciation of the purposes
for which the forces of a nation are intended to be
used. The nations of the earth are roughly grouped
into what are called Powers of the first and second
class. There is no accepted definition of a first-
class Power, but it is generaUy conceded that
the designation applies to those nations that
intend to have something to say to the affairs
of their neighbours as well as to their own.
Great Britain is, without question, one of these
Powers. No people on earth have so far shown
themselves less inclined to forgo the privi
lege of taking a hand in every game of policy
wherever and whenever played. Yet no people
realizes less its own limitations at the present
time. The first question, therefore, that the British
people have got to answer is whether they desire
their Navy or their Army, or both, to be used by
their Foreign Minister for the purpose of giving
effect to their policy, should the necessity arise.
If the answer is in the affirmative, it follows that
our fleets and our land forces should be equal to
the task imposed upon them. It is with these
ideas in his mind, and deeply impressed with the
warlike impulses of his countrymen, that Lord

176 NAVAL AND MILITARY SITUATION
Roberts, with miraculous freshness and vigour,
never ceases to urge them to change the system
under which, so far, the armed forces of the nation
have been raised and organized. Given the pre
mise from which he starts, who can deny the
wisdom and patriotism of his advice ?
If, on the other hand, the British people desire
to limit their range of diplomatic activity, if they
will be content to forgo diplomatic initiative, eschew
isolated action, and resolve to support rather than
take a lead, and if they force their statesmen to
make clear the point that Great Britain is a sea
Power, and in no sense a land Power, the problem
becomes a totally different one. We shall then
have to fall back upon the power of our fleets and
their adjuncts. The necessity to us of predomin
ant sea power has never been questioned. Our
insular position and our scattered Empire, together
with the teaching of experience, demand that the
superiority of Great Britain upon the ocean should
be placed beyond aU doubt. This admitted and
achieved, the precise method of maintaining invio
late our sea command, wherever threatened, to
gether with the desirabihty of keeping our shores
free from attack, is one demanding continual re
consideration as the circumstances of European
politics, of commercial rivalry, and of scientific
discovery alter.
To summarize :
1. If policy governs armaments, and if our policy
is to take a part on equal terms with the greatest

SUMMARY 177
naval and military Powers in the affairs of Europe,
we should recast our military system, because,
although naval power will enable us to exercise
great influence in the affairs of Europe, it will not,
except in alliance with other military Powers, make
us the predominant partners, or place Great Britain
on an equality with Germany or France.
2. If our policy is confined to safeguarding the
Empire and our Imperial interests in India and
elsewhere, and if we may confidently rely upon the
support of the Dominions, our present naval and
military systems may be adequate to our needs, but
Great Britain will cease to be a first-class Power in
the ordinary acceptance of the term.
3. Owing, however, to the changes introduced by
science in recent years, the strategic and tactical
plans of our naval and military staffs require recon
sideration. The offensive-defensive, so effective in
land campaigns, is not necessarily suited to our
naval requirements, and it becomes a question
whether a thoroughly organized system of sub
mersible flotiUas, coupled with aerial watching,
might not free the battle-fleets of the Empire from
concerning themselves with coastal defence.
4. Similarly, the tactical maxims of Continental
war between nations with land frontiers are not
necessarily applicable to an insular people, so that
irregular and half-trained forces operating within
their own territory upon an enemy cut off from its
base may well produce results altogether at variance
with experience acquired under totally different

178 NAVAL AND MILITARY SITUATION
circumstances and under wholly divergent con
ditions. 5. Whether, however, the British people elect to
have an Army based upon the system now applied
within these Islands, or upon the system common
to the Continent of Europe, sea command is for us
a necessity of national existence and not merely
an instrument of national ambition. It is hardly
worth while to labour this point, although it pos
sesses a direct and obvious bearing upon the military
situation. 6. And, finaUy, no situation can be more danger
ous for our country than that we should halt
between two policies, and thus possibly fail to
adapt our naval and military forces to the policy we
intend to pursue. VI.
The naval situation in its broadest sense can never
be adequately discussed unless due regard is had
to the fact that command of the sea means more to
Great Britain than the security of these Islands
from attack. However important, however vital,
may appear to any Englishman resident in Great
Britain the possible invasion of our shores by an
enemy, the perspective is entirely different when
the question of naval superiority is looked at from
other points within the Empire. To the Canadian
or to the Australian the phrase " British Sea Com
mand " means something quite different from the
interpretation it bears in the eyes of a resident in
Fleet Street. To the sailor patrolling the Mediter-

CANADIAN CONSIDERATION 179
ranean Sea, or to the merchant of Shanghai, the
phrase again has a different meaning. These con
siderations affect the statesman, and he is bound to
take the broadest and most comprehensive view of
the meaning and cost of sea power. If, then, sea
command is an Imperial and not a purely national
concern, the attitude of Canada towards Great
Britain in relation to naval matters is of deep
interest and of supreme importance.
Canada, outside the British Islands, is the pivot
of the British Empire. Canada is potentially the
largest, the wealthiest, and the most thickly
peopled of that portion of the earth's surface which
in the future appears hkely to be the heritage of
the Anglo-Saxon. Within a measurable space of
time Canada will contain a population in excess
of Great Britain, and when finaUy the centre of the
world's gravity has shifted from Europe Westward,
Canada, with her vast resources, and her central
position midway between Europe and the Far
East, is bound to be a most serious competitor
against the United States for the financial and
commercial supremacy of mankind. There appears
to be no obstacle to this reahzation of the Canadian
dream, unless it should happen that the Western
races fail to maintain their moral and inteUectual
superiority over the races of the East.
Mr. Borden has said — and he voices undoubtedly
the ideas and aspirations of the Canadian people —
that Canada cannot remain a mere adjunct of
Great Britain. It may be early yet for this notion

180 NAVAL AND MILITARY SITUATION
to take root in the minds of business men in the
city of London naturally conscious of the impor
tant role played by Great Britain in the business
sphere of the world. StUl less is it likely to pene
trate at present into the bureaucratic recesses of
the Colonial Office. Until quite lately even the
Admiralty did not possess a glimmering perception
of its force. When last the Imperial Conference
met at Westminster, the attitude of the Admiralty
towards the idea of naval co-operation between the
Dominions and the Mother Country was said by
one of the most prominent of the Dominion repre
sentatives to be patronizing and arrogant. It was
patronizing because our sailors could not be got to
understand that any solid advantage could possibly
accrue to the navy from the independent effort of
any one of the Dominions. Their demeanour was
this : " By all means do what you can to provide
ships and sailors. They may come in useful, and
at any rate wiU do the British Navy no harm."
Therefore they somewhat arrogantly declared that
the only substantial assistance which could be ren
dered by the Dominions to the British Navy was
by paying for British-built Dreadnoughts, manned
and commanded by professional seamen trained in
this country. It was impossible at that time to
get the Board of Admiralty to grasp the point of
view of Canadian statesmen who did not see their
way to adopting a co-operative policy.
Yet Sir Wilfrid Laurier had made his position
perfectly clear. Personally, he was not favourable

MR. BORDEN'S VIEWS 181
to Canada making any contribution at all to the
naval resources of the Empire. He conceded,
however, this much — that any contribution given
by Canada in the form of warships must remain
under Canadian control, stationed in Canadian
waters in peace, and only placed at the service of
the British Admiralty in time of war by the
specific act of the Canadian Government. The
reply of the British Admiralty, to which, however,
public utterance was not given, was " thank you
for nothing."*
It has been assumed that Mr. Borden was pre
pared to go farther than his predecessor. Time
will show. No one who listened to Mr. Borden
can have much doubt as to what his recommenda
tion to the Dominion is likely to be. He has
clearly in mind the vitalizing principle, so far as
Canada is concerned, that a Dominion can give
nothing in the way of ships and men towards the
common defence of the Empire unless she is con
ceded a voice in the direction of Imperial policy
and affairs. If this condition were granted, Mr.
Borden's mind is obviously open to the considera
tion of any proposal as to how Canada could best
co-operate for the purposes of Imperial Defence.
The naval situation, therefore, as regards the
Empire, hinges at this moment — first, upon the
discovery of some practical method of giving
Canada a share in the direction of our Imperial
concerns ; and, secondly, upon a right solution of
* This section was printed in the Westminster Gazette, on
September 11, 1912.

182 NAVAL AND MILITARY SITUATION
the strategical problems involved in the whole
question of the naval defence of these islands, of
the territorial integrity of the Dominions, and of
the commercial interests of the Empire.
The first and major problem is oiie of high
statesmanship, involving manifold and complex
considerations with which it is not proposed to
deal at this moment. The strategical question of
Imperial defence, however, is urgent, because of
the ever-recurrent risk that large sums of money
will be throw^n away upon useless fixed defences,
or upon a type of ship that is very shortly found
to be obsolete or superfluous. The British Ad
miralty have always, since this question was flrst
mooted, aimed at a Federal Imperial Fleet. Their
reasons are sound enough. Higher efficiency can
no doubt be obtained if sea officers and crews are
trained under one system and under one supreme
command. A Federal Fleet renders possible inter-
changeability between officers and men, and also
solves difficulties of seniority and promotion. An
isolated Dreadnought or two, trained as a distinct
unit in Canadian or Australian waters, and com
manded by elderly and inexperienced officers, could
never attain that high standard of efficiency re
quired to satisfy a British Admiral. If battleships
are to be provided by the Dominions, they should
undoubtedly be handed over as part and parcel of
the British Fleet in peace, if they are to be worth
in war the money that they cost. The attitude
taken up by Sir Wilfrid Laurier and Mr. Borden

FUNCTIONS OF NAVAL DEFENCE 183
renders such an eventuality highly improbable for
many years to come. If, then, the contention is
correct that battleships, in order to be efficient and
worth buUding, must be manned and trained as
part of the British Fleet in peace, and if this ob
ject is unattainable owing to the attitude of the
Dominions, what is to be gained by luring the
Dominions to build this type of ship ? It is surely
most unreasonable for the Admiralty to adopt the
line of " Dreadnought or nothing."
It has been the aim of the writer to show that
the functions of naval defence are twofold, and
that it is not sound naval strategy to concentrate
the whole naval effort of a maritime Power upon
defeating the battle-fleet of the enemy at sea ; that
there are two cognate functions which an Imperial
Navy will have to perform : one to safeguard har
bours and coast-line from direct attack by means
of submarine flotillas ; and, secondly, to defend our
own commerce, and harass that of the eneir^y by
means of a novel type of warship. It would, then,
seem that the effort of the Dominions should be to
fulfil, each of its own initiative and by means of its
own vessels, these latter functions. Canada could
well concentrate her naval energies upon the con
struction of submarines and upon providing a
typical ship that would fulfil the double purpose of
providing defence for her water-ways and a guard
for the great liners running between the St.
Lawrence and European ports. A similiar ob
jective may be kept in view by the other Domin-

184 NAVAL AND MILITARY SITUATION
ions. Even if the sea officers and crews for these
vessels were below the standard of the British
Navy, they could, without doubt, be made efficient
enough for the purposes required. The political
difficulty, now a harassing and obstructive factor,
would not arise because these vessels could be kept
in time of peace in Dominion waters and under the
undisputed authority of the Dominion Govern
ments. When, hereafter, the way has been found
to render the cohesion of the British Empire more
real than it is now ; when some machinery has
been agreed upon that will enable Dominion
statesmen to have a share in shaping the foreign
pohcy of the Empire, and when a great Imperial
War Staff has been established that will control
the training of an Imperial fleet in peace and direct
its activities in war, then will be the time for the
Dominions to consider the provision of large
capital ships, if vessels of that type are then con
sidered necessary instruments of naval warfare.
VII.
The military situation of Great Britain is, and
always must be, the outcome of her foreign policy.
The strategic position of a great Continental
Power creates a mUitary situation that is inde
pendent of the policy of the moment. For
Germany, the presence of France on one frontier
and Russia on the other creates a crisis that is
constant and unchanging. Great Britain, on the
other hand, is so geographically placed that, were

"IMPERIAL OFFENCE" 185
it not for her Imperial commitments oversea, an
army in the ordinary sense of the term would not
be required at all. In order, therefore, to estimate
what kind of military force this country requires,
its size, its composition, and its organization, the
foreign pohcy — that is to say, the position which
the British people desire to take up in relation to
the affairs of other nations — must be weighed and
determined. The term " Imperial Defence," as applied to the
British Empire, is, if the facts were recognized, a
misnomer. "Imperial Offence" would be nearer
the mark. Up to the present, the history of our
country shows that the people of Great Britain, at
home and oversea, are not a peaceful race, and, so
far as naval and mUitary matters are concerned,
have not contemplated solely operations of defence.
The British people are warlike and aggressive.
They have for centuries been constantly fighting,
and, indeed, until quite recently, it has been
difficult to find any single year in which the British
Empire has not been at war in some part of the
world. When the great struggle with Napoleon
was over, and when the wars against France, which
had been in progress almost without interruption
for 500 years, had come to an end, there arose in
the first half of the nineteenth century a party of
men with commercial interests, who were strong
enough and articulate enough to convert consider
able numbers of their feUow-countrymen to the
view that Great Britain would in future best be
25

186 NAVAL AND MILITARY SITUATION
served by cultivating the arts of peace. Their
advocacy of this new departure found expression in
the great Exhibition of 1851. It was the first of
its kind, but, in spite of prophetic acclamation to
the contrary, it did not herald a pacific era over
the British Empire. Britons aU over the world
went on fighting as before, and the Empire went
on expanding, while the British Minister, Lord
Palmerston, went on interfering in the affairs of
neighbouring States with greater pertinacity than
any of his predecessors. Then and onwards we
continued to grab every available piece of un
civilized territory that was not already in the hands
of Europeans, whenever it was thought that com
mercial or political advantages might accrue to the
possessors. The undeveloped resources of every
continent were, in the view of the ordinary Briton,
his heritage. If he could not make use of them at
the moment, it was sufficient for any foreign Power
to cast an eye upon them for the British Govern
ment to interfere, and to place obstacles in the way
of anyone not a Briton who desired to possess
himself of them. The British leopard has not
changed his spots.
It is true that since 1854 — that is to say, since
the war in the Crimea — Great Britain has not been
engaged in hostihties with any European Power.
There is an obvious reason for this. During the
last sixty years the conflicts in Europe have not
been dynastic or political ; they have been racial.
Not revolution, but evolution, has been the key-

NATIONS IN ARMS 187
note of the Continental struggles which have led to
the regrouping, within the boundaries of Europe,
of men speaking the same language and inheriting
the same racial characteristics. In this process
Great Britain has had very little concern ; hence
her aloofness. During late years another cause has
undoubtedly contributed towards the maintenance
of peace between her and her European neighbours.
The States contiguous to her in Europe have in
the last fifty years entirely recast their military
systems. They are no longer composed of peaceful
citizens relying for their security upon mercenary
armies enlisted from among their own people or
from foreign adventurers. These States are them
selves what are caUed "Nations in Arms." Their
manhood is trained to arms, and every individual
of capable age is under penalty to risk his life in
battle for the State of which he is a member. The
armies thus raised and trained are of great size and
potency, so that Great Britain, which alone of aU
European States remains stiU constant to the
military organization of the eighteenth century, is
physically unable to compete with them in land
warfare on European soil. Since 1870, when the
facts were recognized, and when the results of the
Franco-German War opened the eyes of statesmen,
British Governments have realized that this country
is unable single-handed to fight, on the Continent
of Europe, any great Power with a reasonable
chance of victory. The British people themselves,
however, have never understood the full import of

188 NAVAL AND MILITARY SITUATION
the change in the relative strength of Great
Britain and her Continental neighbours, and the
average Briton still thinks of himself as the military
arbiter of Europe. It is true that there exists in
the country a strong party clamorous for peace
almost at any price, but the keenest propagandists of
peace are constantly desirous of interfering by force
of arms in the free use of their activities by a
foreign people when some moral divergence of
view has arisen between them. It is unnecessary
to analyze the inconsistency. It is sufficient to
state it, in order that the point may be made clear,
that under modern conditions, governing the relative
armed forces of European nations, the British
people either should stand aside from the quarrels
of their neighbours, and deny themselves the satis
faction of interference in their concerns, or they
should submit to the sacrifices which other nations
make when their manhood is trained and forced to
carry arms.
The Empire has reached a stage of development
when those responsible for its destinies are morally
bound to explain to the people the plain unvarnished
truth, and to point out the choice which in the
interests of individual freedom has to be made
between contending schools of thought and between
conflicting material interests.
A static policy of defence, a determination to
keep what we possess, but to shoulder no new
responsibUities, to keep clean our own hands, but
not to force others to wash theirs, to maintain our

EUROPEAN POLITICS 189
own freedom, but leave to others the guardianship
of their liberties, is a policy thought by some to be
ignoble but by others the quintessence of prudence
and common sense. Such a policy requires arma
ments on sea and land of a specific kind, and
demands certain sacrifices, far from light, which so
far the people of these Islands have shown them
selves willing to bear.
The contrary policy is of dynamic kind, and its
consequences are far-reaching, and difficult to
forecast. This much, however, is certain, that
Great Britain wiU be imprudent beyond measure,
and liable to inconceivable disaster, if she continues
to pursue a policy of world-wide activity, of philan
thropic self-indulgence, and of commercial arro
gance, unless she is at the same time prepared to
recast her military system, and to submit to the
sacrifice, financial and personal, which such a
change involves.
During the past six years, and more than ever
to-day, under a Liberal Government, whose creed
and protestations are on the side of limited com
mitments in foreign affairs. Great Britain has taken
a hand in the European game of politics. De
liberately the practice of " splendid isolation " has
been abandoned, and whether the form has been an
Alliance or an Entente, a documentary bond or an
honourable understanding. Great Britain may
easily find herself obliged to take up arms in
quarrels which may not be her own.
These indisputable facts and this manifestation 26

190 NAVAL AND MILITARY SITUATION
of an active policy (whether justifiable or dangerous,
is not here in question) undoubtedly create a
difficult military situation. For the first time since
the final overthrow of Napoleon in 1815, Great
Britain appears to stand committed to military
adventure oversea under circumstances not of her
own choosing, and in a cause that may have no
immediate or direct bearing upon purely British
interests. For the moment she has ceased to be a
free agent, and has parted with the guardianship of
her o^vTi soul. Her honour is pledged to France
and Russia, although there may be no written
parchment or attested treaty.
Foreign policy, whether wise or imprudent,
whether sound or faulty, dictates the military
situation of the Empire, and it is from the point of
view of our written and unwritten obligations to
others, and not from the point of view of a State
retaining complete freedom of action, that the
military situation should be examined.
VIII.
If the policy of Great Britain leads to direct inter
ference by armed force in the affairs of the European
Continent, whether in order to maintain the balance
of power or for any philanthropic or commercial
end, then it is difficult to resist the contention that
the British Army, in order to be effective, should
be based upon the system, and trained according to
the methods of the great Continental Powers.
If Great Britain is to send an army to fight in

OUR NATIONAL POLICY 191
the cock-pit of Europe, the ideas of the eighteenth
and nineteenth centuries should forthwith be
abandoned, and a compulsory substituted for a
voluntary military system. How is it possible for
any sane mind to resist this conclusion ?
If, on the other hand, the policy of this country
is to eschew Continental entanglements, to limit
our military requirements to the defence of these
shores against raids, and to maintain an adequate
army for reinforcement at any danger point along
the frontier of the Empire, the problem to be
solved is wholly different.
In point of fact, our national pohcy halts between
the two, and hence flow the difficulties confronting
military administrators and military reformers.
That position of splendid isolation dear to the
Palmerstonian generation was abandoned by Lord
Lansdowne, and is repudiated by Sir Edward
Grey. We are in aUiance with Japan in the Far
East, and our honour is pledged to France and
Russia in Europe and Asia.
That this country reaps advantages in the China
Seas and on the far frontier of India from our
alliances and Ententes, cannot be denied. The
security and prosperity of India are worth a price,
and that price is paid in the North Sea, and in the
turmoil caused by the advocates of compulsory
service at home.
Frankness and fair dealing towards our friends
abroad and our people at home require plain
speaking from our statesmen. Many controversies

192 NAVAL AND MILITARY SITUATION
would be set at rest, and much future misunder
standing averted, if our limitations were admitted,
and if our position as a strictly naval Power were
to be more clearly defined.
It might be very bad diplomacy, but it would
be high and honest statesmanship, if the Prime
Minister of this country were to explain in terms
admitting of no doubt that our expeditionary force
is a reinforcement, an armed reserve, maintained
for the purpose of relieving and strengthening our
forces scattered along the frontiers of the Empire,
and that it is not organized or equipped for service
on European battlefields.
Some politicians and publicists contend that the
grouping of the great Powers places upon Great
Britain the burden of supporting France and
Russia with a field army. No responsible British
statesman has, however, up to the present time,
made the admission, and no French statesman has
pubhcly asserted that any engagement or under
standing exists between the two countries whereby
we are pledged to send an expeditionary force to
the Continent of Europe. The danger lies not in
an understanding, but in misconception. Why
should not the point be made clear ? Why should
not British statesmanship make plain to the people
of these islands and to their friends abroad that
Great Britain fights at sea and not on shore ; that
her fleets, and not her armies, are her contribution
to any combined effort, and that, in short, she is a
sea power, and not a land power.

WANT OF CO-ORDINATION 193
Why not base the policy of Great Britain upon
fact, instead of upon aspiration ? Such a policy
would speU aUiance instead of Entente, and would
necessarily be followed by a naval and military
convention. If the Empire's interests are imperilled by lack
of adequate military preparation for war, the reason
is that the end in view is not clear to those whose
function it is to adapt the means to the end.
To German statesmen, to the German staff,
naval or military, their strategical position is plain
as daylight. There is no difference of opinion as to
where their danger lies, or how it is to be provided
against. Here, at home, in spite of the Committee
of Imperial Defence, in spite of the General Staff
organized since 1905, and of the Naval War Staff
recently created, there is no real and sound co
ordination of ideas between politicians, sailors, and
soldiers upon the dangers with which the Empire
may be faced, and the means to be employed to
meet them. The politician will not commit him
self The sailor ignores the soldier, and the soldier
thinks of battleships in terms of transports. The
sailor's horizon is bounded by the estuary of the
Elbe. The soldier's dream is the line of the Meuse.
The sailor thinks of the army as a stepmother thinks
of a tiresome and fretful charge. The regular
soldier thinks of the Territorial Force as an athlete
thinks of a lame brother. " Let me alone and all
will be well," is the battle-signal of the Admiralty,
and is the device of the Imperial General Staff.

194 NAVAL AND MILITARY SITUATION
The British nation, however, is essentially the
most democratic in the world, and the least in-
chned, historically and practically, to allow itself to
be led by professional sailors and soldiers. It is
the politician that always has governed and always
will govern the nation's armaments. Hence the
vital importance of obtaining a clear and definite
view of the objects of our governing statesmen,
before it is possible to estimate the military forces
that are an Imperial necessity.
Putting aside temporary entanglements into
which we may haye been drawn by political care
lessness, or by professional keenness, the main
objectives of our military policy have hitherto been
defined to be :
1. The reinforcement of British garrisons at
danger-points along the frontier of the Empire.
2. The maintenance inviolate and uninvaded of
the shores of Britain.
The Regular Army, composed of six Infantry
Divisions and one Cavalry Division, with Reserves,
is the force which soldiers and statesmen have con
sidered sufficient to fulfil the requirements of this
reinforcement. No responsible politician, no re
sponsible soldier, has come forward, so far, to tell
the people of this country that this force is inade
quate, although its readiness for war has been
criticized and questioned. The justification for the
smallness of such a force undoubtely lies in its
supreme readiness, in its perfect training, and
absolute mobility.
If these conditions are wanting, the capacity of

THE ARMY COUNCIL 195
the Army Council is a sham, and the nation would
have a right to think itself betrayed.
The individual responsibility of members of the
Army Council is perfectly clear. They cannot be
called to account for the policy of the country, for
the insistence upon voluntary forms of enlistment,
or for the total numbers or composition of the
Forces of the Crown. The responsibility for these
things lies upon Ministers and upon Parliament.
For the efficiency of the Army, within these
limitations, for its training and equipment, and for
its mobility, every individual member of the Army
Council may, however, properly be held respon
sible, and any soldier who, by remaining at his
post, covers the deficiency of the Regular Army in
supreme readiness for war is a traitor to his
country. May it not, therefore, be assumed that
the soldiers at present constituting the Army
Council are satisfied that, subject to the limitations
imposed by Parliament, the Regular Army is the
most perfect machine of the size in the world.
If policy, therefore, governs armaments, and if
the policy of the British people is to support their
friends abroad by sea power, and not by land
forces, but to keep within these Islands a land
force, adequate in point of numbers, and perfect in
every detail of training and equipment, instantly
ready for war, the Regular Army must be assumed
to be sufficient for the purpose.
The requisite strength to maintain inviolate these
shores from attack raises other questions.

196 NAVAL AND MILITARY SITUATION
IX.
The Regular Army cannot rightly be counted
among the forces earmarked for the defence of
these shores. The Special Reserve must be placed
in the same category as the Regular Army, of
which, since the Act enabling the men of the
Special Reserve to be sent abroad in war, it forms
part. At the present time, therefore, the defence of
these Islands rests, broadly speaking, upon 250,000
Territorial troops. This is the total amount of our
land forces which can be considered available for
this purpose. The contrary has often been stated.
Ministers and military authorities have declared
over and over again that, in addition to the Terri
torial Force, Great Britain possesses for purposes
of home defence a certain number of Regular
troops, and a certain number of men of the Militia
class, now caUed the Special Reserve. These state
ments are illusory, and although they are not made
with that intention, are wholly deceptive, as will
be seen the moment that we come to consider the
circumstances of a war within the Empire, such as
that which occurred in South Africa, and which
might recur any day either in India or on the
frontiers of any portion of the Empire oversea. In
such circumstances it is beyond question that these
Islands would, within a very short period, be
denuded of all Regular troops, and of the whole of
the Special Reserve. No one who has profited by

OUR REGULAR ARMY 197
the lessons of modern war can be in doubt upon
the point. The Regular Army maintained at
home is very small. Every available regular soldier
now abroad is earmarked for duty oversea, and is
practically immobile at the point where he stands
sentry along the extended frontiers of the Empire.
This figure exemplifies the meaning of soldiers
when they state, with perfect accuracy, that six
divisions of infantry and a cavalry division is the
maximum mobile fighting force that Great Britain
can put into the field. With regard to this force
two things must be said : first, that in order to
raise it to war strength and to keep it at war
strength for the first few months of a war, every
man of which it is composed on a peace establish
ment, together with the whole of the Ordinary
Reserve and the Special Reserve, will, without
doubt, be required. Any statement to the con
trary is misleading. It should be an axiom for
statesmen that any serious war in which Great
Britain becomes involved, and which necessitates
the reinforcement of her troops abroad, is bound to
denude Great Britain of the Regular Army. It is
well known, for recent experience shows it, that the
ravages of modern war are of such magnitude, and
the strategy of modern war is so swift in operation,
that losses, if they are to be reparable, require
drafts of men and officers in proportion of three
men to every one placed in the line of battle.
Drafts, therefore, must be instantly ready to
take the field, fully armed, equipped, and trained.

198 NAVAL AND MILITARY SITUATION
at the outbreak of hostilities, and any calculation
based upon the hypothesis that a Reserve can be
used both for drafts and for separate action as
fighting units is erroneous and deceptive. If an
adequate Reserve for purposes of drafts is not
available no modern army can hope to survive the
first shock of modern war.
The dry facts of the mUitary situation as regards
our insular defence, if they are truthfully examined,
lead to the conclusion that, should the maritime
guard of our shores be pierced by an invading or a
raiding force, at a time when Great Britain is
engaged in fighting for Imperial interests abroad,
we possess for the purposes of purely home defence
about 250,000 Territorial troops, and such acces
sories in the shape of Irregular Forces as might
be organized or utilized ad hoc.
It is essential, if the problem is to be fairly con
sidered, to put on one side the Regular Army and
its Reserves, and then to see whether the Terri
torial Force is the best that can be designed under
existing circumstances for the defence of these
Islands, and whether, in connection with the Navy,
it is sufficient in numbers, adequately trained, and
scientifically organized for the purpose.
The difficulty about the Territorial soldier is that
in his heart of hearts he desires to emulate in ap
pearance and smartness of movement the Regular
trained soldier, and is unwilling to bear the obvious
mark of the irregular levy and to be used as such.
Yet he approximates under our present system of

THE TERRITORIAL FORCE 199
training more nearly to the Irregular than to the
Regular soldier. The Regular Army is the out
come of discipline and technical skill, resulting
from continual practice. It is a trade like any
other. Upon the Territorial soldier and officer, in
spite of uniform and nomenclature, is branded the
unmistakable mark of the amateur. Every com
petent and sincere soldier would say that if Terri
torial troops are to be utilized to the fullest
advantage they should be handled in war very
much as General Botha handled his Boers, and
their organization should be based on the assump
tion that they are to be so handled. If this
doctrine, however, were to be pressed, we should
inevitably be faced with an insuperable difficulty in
raising any Territorial Force at all, because men
and officers, like the old Volunteers, desire to be
treated more or less like Regular troops. Young
men engaged in business, in shops and in clerical
work, who enlist in the Territorial F'orce, desire to
be thought real soldiers. They have always wished
and stiU wish to be organized in battalions, in bri
gades, and in divisions, because that is the organiza
tion and mark of the Regular Army. The business
man who takes up in his leisure hours Territorial
work takes himself very seriously. He aspires to
pass military examinations, and to become pro
ficient at war-games, and to dream that he is
competent to effect in war combinations of troops
of aU arms. He desires to comprehend the prin
ciples of strategy, and he likes to think of himself

200 NAVAL AND MILITARY SITUATION
as a critic of military tactics. The pathos of the
situation is that these men are the salt of the
Territorial Army, the very best men it contains,
and the foundation upon which the whole super
structure rests. If you take the heart out of these
men, if you lead them to think that the idea of the
Territorial Force fighting European soldiers in line
of battle, attempting to cope with European troops
in the technical formations in which trained men
can be handled, is an idea at variance with the
possibilities of real war, the Territorial Force is
bound very speedily to crumble away. In order to
recruit this force, men and officers must be allowed
to keep their illusions. Herein lies an element of
tragedy, because no competent soldier of the front
rank for a moment contemplates without serious
alarm, the prospect of commanding a Territorial
army in pitched battle against Continental troops.
For the purpose of recruiting and maintaining
the Territorial Force a military organization is a
necessity. For the purpose of pitting Territorial
troops against an enemy composed of Regulars,
military formations are a snare. This was Lord
Haldane's dilemma. He desired to have at the
back of the Regular Army a military force. He
had clear evidence before him that the old Volun
teers were slowly melting away, owing to their
inadequate recognition as a mUitary force. He
desired to enhst under a voluntary system all avail
able young men for the defence of these Islands
who were not prepared to enter the Regular Forces

LORD HALDANE'S PLAl«f 201
of the Crown. He formed the Territorial Associa
tions and he gave military organization to the
Territorial Force. His methods were the best that
could have been adopted under the circumstances.
From the point of view of Lord Haldane, the
Army Act, for which he is responsible, was excel
lently drawn up, and has proved highly successful.
From the point of view of many w^ho hoped here
after to substitute compulsory for voluntary service.
Lord Haldane's organization had much to com
mend it. It must, however, be admitted that
doubts and misgivings have always haunted the
minds of soldiers, proficient in the art of war, highly
tested by practical experience in the field of battle,
who realized that the Territorial Force, composed
as it is, and trained as it is, cannot be made to
respond to the demands of a commander in the
field who was expected to use it according to the
conventional methods of modern warfare, against a
European foe landed upon these shores.
The views of these men may be summed up as
foUows : Trained European troops can be fought
with chances of success by troops as highly trained
as themselves. This is a truism of war. They can
be hampered with chances of success by gueriUa
troops defending their own territory under the
eyes of a friendly population, and in localities with
every detail of which they are familiar. History is
fuU of examples of struggles of this kind long
before the days of Boer exploits in South Africa.
A trained army, however, cannot be fought with
27

202 NAVAL AND MILITARY SITUATION
any chance of success by an untrained army or
ganized upon similar lines, and manoeuvred accord
ing to the theories of Clausewitz or Von der Goltz.
This proposition can be proved by the whole course
of mUitary history. What, then, is the inference
to be drawn from these propositions by a statesman
responsible for the defence of Great Britain and
for the expenditure involved in maintaining the
Territorial Force ?
He is bound to ask himself whether, in the first
instance, there is any probability of an enemy
effecting a landing upon the British Isles, and, in
the second place, whether, if such a probabihty
exists, the defending force should not be organized
and trained in the manner best calculated to cope
with an invasion or with a raid, whichever designa
tion is thought to be appropriate to the landing of
an armed enemy upon these shores. Conscription-
ists would, of course, say that the obvious course is
to substitute for the Territorial Force a Nation in
Arms, to give every man a thorough training for
the minimum period considered necessary by the
military authorities. We should then possess a
force fit to cope with an invading enemy, and an
additional advantage of this method would be that
Great Britain would have acquired the power,
which she at present lacks, of expanding her
Regular Army in any conflict into which she
might be drawn on the Continent of Europe or in
any sphere of mUitary operations oversea.
It cannot be denied that there are two great

CONSCRIPTION DIFFICULTIES 203
difficulties in the way of adopting such a policy as
this, apparently for the present quite insuperable.
The first is that the British people have given no
indication of willingness to undertake the burden
of conscription or to face the responsibilities that
every Continental nation is forced to bear, but
from which they, thanks to their insular position,
have hitherto been exempt. The second is that no
protagonist of conscription in this country has yet
discovered a practical method of combining com
pulsion for a portion of the Army with the volun
tary raising of another portion for use oversea in
time of peace. It is because of the necessities
imposed upon us by our oversea Empire in peace
that the conditions of Great Britain differ from
those of other States. No one can seriously sup
pose that there would be any difficulty in using a
conscript army oversea in time of war. But in
peace-time the circumstances are very different,
and the pohce force, the military reinforcement,
call it what you will, that Great Britain is obliged
to maintain abroad and at home in time of peace
for Imperial purposes cannot be raised by any
means other than that at present employed — that
is to say, by the assent of the individuals of whom
it is composed. What, then, is the alternative if
the element of compulsion should be ruled out ?
Without the element of compulsion it is impossible
to maintain within these islands a highly trained
force on the Continental or new model. A half-
trained force organized on conventional lines is ex

204 NAVAL AND MILITARY SITUATION
hypothesi useless when confronted by Continental
troops. Are we, then, driven by the inexorable
logic of experience and the facts of war to seek for
safety in an Army of Irregulars, not semi-trained
after the fashion of Regulars, but instructed in the
main essentials of all Irregular troops — that is to
say, to shoot straight and to use their knowledge
of the manoeuvring area in order to utilize to the
fullest extent the rifle in concealed positions ?
Would a plan of defensive war, based upon the
levee en masse of a population taught in boyhood to
bear arms, supplemented by a body of half-trained
Territorial troops placed in prepared positions for
coastal defence, stand the test of modern fighting
under our island conditions ?
This seems to be the problem requiring analysis
and solution. X.
In the course of these papers it has been
suggested that the strategy and tactics of naval
warfare require re-examination ; that modern naval
science, taking full advantage of submarine naviga
tion and aircraft, may before long discard the
battleship ; and that sea command may not neces
sarily be found dependent upon the result of a fleet
action such as Trafalgar or Tsushima.
The development of the submersible boat and of
the airship may prove to the monster battleship
what the invention of the rifle was to the man-at-
arms ; and a Dreadnought may shortly be as obso
lete as coat-armour.

RULES OF WAR 205
For purposes of coast defence and of combined
attack, submarines and airships with a range of
thousands of miles, armed and practicaUy invisible,
costing less than the twentieth of a Dreadnought,
and thus producible in large numbers, may turn out
in the immediate future to be the determining
factor in the struggle for sea power.
The days of the naval tournament are wellnigh
over, and the set rules of naval warfare wiU have to
give place to tactics as full of surprise as were the
tactics of the Black Prince and his archers to the
French chivalry at Crecy, or those of Cronj^ and
De Wet to our gallant Aldershot commanders in
the early stages of the South African War.
Men who set out to fight on sea or land, guided
by fixed rules of strategy and tactics, almost invari
ably come to grief. The uses of military know
ledge, of the science of war, and of historical military
study, are confined to the single preparatory func
tion of enabling a commander in battle to cope with
an unexpected emergency. No two campaigns, no
two battles, are ever alike. The great and success
ful commander is the man who, like Gustavus
Adolphus or the Napoleon of 1796-1809, can discard
shibboleths, recognize changed conditions, and con
front the enemy with a novel situation embarrassing
and possibly overwhelming.
Just as the conventional army inherited from the
great Frederick (so potent in Silesia) was swept
away by the conscript avalanche of the French at
Jena, just as Napoleon's grand army was baffled and
28

206 NAVAL AND MILITARY SITUATION
ultimately destroyed by the " Fabian tactics " of
Kutuzoff's Cossack hordes, and just as De Wet's
and Botha's little groups of Boers, by an unexpected
method of warfare, held long in check, and, under
slightly more favourable conditions, might altogether
have worn out the immense forces of Great Britain,
so should the commander, equipped by imagination
with foresight, utilize the innumerable and powerful
resources of Great Britain to the destruction of an
invader. No foreign foe setting foot on these shores
ought ever to quit them. That axiom should be
engraved over every British hearth.
In calculating the value and forecasting the uses
of the Territorial Force, it is essential to assume
that political exigencies have led to the absorption
of the Regular Army, its Reserves, and accessories,
by the call of war oversea. It is inconceivable that
such a state of things should obtain in the earlier
stages of any war in which this Empire is likely to
be engaged ; but as a war progresses, demands upon
the armed resources of the country are certain to
create a situation in which we shall have to rely for
insular defence upon our maritime guard, and upon
such home forces as we possess under our present
organization. It has been often explained that the Navy, so
long as sea command has not been finally wrested
from Great Britain, can protect her shores from
invasion on a large scale. The amount of naval
transport, and the consequent size of armed convoy,
are so enormous for the passage oversea of an army

DANGER OF INVASION 207
powerful enough to conquer 40 millions of people,
and overawe them into accepting conquest, that the
operation becomes impossible so long as a great and
effective fleet keeps the sea. What is possible and
conceivable is an attack, too strong to be called a
mere raid, and too weak to be rightly called in
vasion, undertaken by a new enemy for the purpose
of stultifying some prodigious effort which this
country is making elsewhere for the maintenance of
her Imperial security. Against such an attack we
should be prepared.
If the naval scheme of defence is based upon the
principles suggested in a former series of papers,
and fleet action against the enemy is entirely separ
ated from flotilla coast guardianship, attack by
an enemy in large numbers should be rendered so
difficult and dangerous that it would only be at
tempted in the spirit of forlorn hope. Suppose,
however, that the maritime guard is pierced, and an
enemy about 70,000 strong (this was the figure
stated by Lord Roberts) were to effect a landing
upon our shores, what are the forces with which
such an enemy might have to contend ? Although
the maritiriie guard would have been evaded, it is
certain that, once the alarm was given, the coastal
flotiUas (even if the fleet were elsewhere) would
soon have cut all communication between the
enemy's forces and their base. The attacking army
would be en Fair in a hostile country, dependent
for all its supplies upon itself and the invaded terri
tory. Under any soundly planned scheme of home

208 NAVAL AND MILITARY SITUATION
defence, the country in front of an advancing enemy
would be rapidly denuded of every source of supply
and of every means of tran,sport. Of what use are
County Associations, recruited from the most
capable and influential local sources, if they cannot
organize territorial denudation of a thorough kind
in the face of an advancing foe ? They have under
their hand the National Reserve, composed
of men inured to discipline, and trained to arms
with, it may be assumed, complete knowledge of
local topography. Such a force, properly armed,
supplied with ammunition, and adequately com
manded and led as Irregulars, would be quite as
efficient as Kutuzoff's Cossacks in 1812. Our own
South African experience indicates the enormous
difficulties likely to be experienced by an invader
faced by determined and desperate bands of armed
men, familiar with the use of the rifle, if they are
properly disposed and skilfully led.
There are now 200,000 of these men registered
for home service. There should be twice or thrice
that number, and they could be obtained if it was
known that arms were available for them at the
outbreak of war, and if in peace they were under
the tuition and guidance of an officer with the
attributes of a Garibaldi or a Gordon, who would
secure their confidence, give them some idea of
their duties and functions, and who would handle
them well should the occasion arise.
Against such a body of men, adopting tactics
harassing and unwearied, an enemy would advance

TERRITORIAL DEFENCE 209
slowly, subject to daily and nightly attrition, to
all the pangs of disappointment, and to the gradual
loss of morale. Even though a town was seized
here, or even an arsenal destroyed there, the fate
of an enemy, cut off from his base amidst a popula
tion so determined in character as our people,
cannot be in doubt.
The backbone of our defence against an attack
of the kind postulated, is, however, the Territorial
Force. It is organized as an army — half- trained
and indifferently officered, it is true — ^and is suffi
cient in numbers and well enough endowed with
military ardour to infhct heavy losses upon such
an enemy, even though it were unable to secure
victory or even were to suffer defeat. And behind
both these armed bodies of men, drawn together
for the defence of their hearths and homes, numeri
cally amounting to about half a million, handled
(let us make this assumption) by a leader with
one-half the capacity of Robert Lee or Stonewall
Jackson, we have the balance of the male popula
tion of the country, every man, by that time ready
to undertake, what at present he will not face, the
defence of his native land.
What is the balance of chances in favour of an
invasion ? It is true — indeed, it is fairly certain —
that a sustained invasion, supported from its base,
might dispose of a defence grounded upon so
irregular a plan and so faulty a principle, judged
by Continental standards.
That Great Britain is an island and her people

210 NAVAL AND MILITARY SITUATION
islanders is the assumption upon which all specu
lative schemes of defence have hitherto been based.
In order to defend an island, sea power and sea
command are essential and vital. Maintain them,
and, although a damaging attack by an enemy is
a possibility against which armed mihtary force is
desirable and necessary, successful invasion is
impossible. Lose them, and for reasons insepar
able from the conditions that govern an insular
people, fed and provided by oversea commerce, the
most numerous and best equipped army in the
world cannot save a nation from disaster and pos
sibly from destruction.
Behind Great Britain, however, stands Greater
Britain, and no statesmen can ignore the land
frontier of the Empire.

MODERN WAR AND PEACE.*
I WANT to read to you a passage from the work
of a living writer with whom you all should be,
and probably are, well acquainted.
I must ask you to put yourselves for a moment
in the position of men nearing home, after a long
sea voyage, and running up- channel before a
strong south-westerly gale. This is the passage
I wish to quote :
" At night the headlands retreated, the bays
advanced into one unbroken line of gloom. The
lights of the earth mingled with the lights of
heaven ; and above the tossing lanterns of a trawl
ing fleet a great lighthouse shone steadily, such as
an enormous riding light burning above a vessel of
fabiUous dimensions. Below its steady glow, the
coast, stretching away straight and black, resem
bled the high side of an indestructible craft riding
motionless upon the immortal and unresting sea.
The dark land lay alone in the midst of the waters,
like a mighty ship bestarred with vigUant lights —
a ship carrjdng the burden of millions of lives — a
ship freighted with dross and with jewels, with
gold and with steel. She towered up immense
and strong, guarding priceless traditions and
untold suffering, sheltering glorious memories and
base forgetfulness, ignoble virtues and splendid
* A lecture delivered at Cambridge University, 1912, and at
Glasgow, 1913. 211

212 MODERN WAR AND PEACE
transgressions. A great ship ! For ages had the
ocean battered in vain her enduring sides ; she was
there when the world was vaster and darker, when
the sea was great and mysterious, and ready to
surrender the prize of fame to audacious men. A
ship mother of fleets and nations ! The great
flagship of the race ; stronger than the storms, and
anchored in the open sea."
I hope you wiU agree that these eloquent words
describe a love of country, a form of patriotism of
which no one has cause to be ashamed, not blatant
or vulgar, but respectable, sincere and true.
If I thought that Norman Angell's teaching
sapped the foundations of patriotism such as this,
or tended to destroy the love of individual or
national liberty, or weakened the desire of young
men to learn the art of fighting for the purpose
of protecting their homes and the homes of their
kindred oversea from attack or conquest, I should
not be here to-night.
If I thought that in the world's present state of
martial unrest, his teaching would induce ourv
people to abandon building those great fleets that
preserve these Islands from attack and keep the
ocean-way free for British commerce, I should
look upon Norman Angell as an enemy of our
race and country.
For more years than I care to count I have been
engaged in helping to perfect the machinery of
war, and to sharpen the weapons with which men
on the sea and land go out to maim and kill one
another. May I then put it thus, that 1 am here

NORMAN ANGELL'S THESIS 213
because in the big affairs of mankind logic holds
a subordinate place, and because inconsistency
happens to be the rule of active and healthy life.
No sane mind can fail to be aware that we are
not living in an ideal world, but in a world of hard
and brutal facts ; and the hardest and most brutal of
all these facts is, that after 2,000 years of philosophy
and of Christ's teaching, men are still governed
mainly by passion and only occasionally by reason.
Fortunately there is no cause to despair. The mill
grinds slowly, but the wheel keeps moving.
I am not proposing to discuss with you the
phUosophy of Norman Angell's thesis, but rather
its practical bearing upon the relation of European
States under normal conditions, as we find them
to-day, and especially upon the circumstances of
Great Britain and her immediate neighbours on
the Continent of Europe.
Napoleon called war a drama. He used that
phrase when thinking of the great European con
flicts of which he himself was the moving spirit
and protagonist. We should rather say that
modern war between civilized peoples, enlightened
as they are in these days, and interdependent as
they are upon each other, is not a Drama but
a Tragedy only comparable to some immortal
Trilogy in which men, from no fault of their own,
but owing to a deep inherited tendency, find them
selves enmeshed in the web of Fate.
Are we not justified in taking this view when
we consider that to-day in Europe no Potentate or
Statesman desires war, that the masses of the

214 MODERN WAR AND PEACE
people in every powerful State dislike War and
fear it, and that nevertheless we constantly find
ourselves shivering on its brink ? Some glimmering
of reason warns us that War, and as Norman
Angell explains, even victorious war, spells dis
aster, and yet we speak of it always as inevit
able and sometimes with expectancy. If George
Meredith is justified in saying that " when men's
brains are insufficient to meet the exigencies of
affairs, they fight," you can well understand that
given the casual methods of politicians and the
clouded atmosphere of political strife, the failure
of reason to withstand the assault of prejudice and
passion is not so strange or unaccountable.
Norman Angell is engaged in the difficult task
of strengthening, of putting a higher degree of
vitality into the rational consideration of the pro
blems of War and Peace. When considering and
analyzing his brilliant and often dazzling argument,
we must not permit ourselves to forget that in
private life the measure, the balance of loss and
gain, although telling in the long run, does not by
any means always dominate men's actions. If this
were not the case, how explain the spendthrift and
the gambler ?
Similarly, economic forces, in spite of their pre
dominant results, over long spaces of time, do not
from day to day and from hour to hour govern the
pohcy of nations, or nullify the effects of senti
ment, of passion, or of resentment. These are the
lions in the path of Peace.

THE PACIFIST STATESMAN 215
If, therefore, we are calmly and with profit to
discuss the " Great Illusion," as Mr. Norman
Angell has called his essay upon the economic
results to both vanquished and victor in a war
between highly civilized European States, we
should, I suggest to you, keep steadily in our own
minds the realities of life, and make it clear to
ourselves that we are not living in a philosophic
vacuum. Men write and speak of disarmament. The most
ardent advocate of peace, if to-morrow he were
called to the helm of State, and were to find himself
made answerable for the security of these Islands,
and faced with their vast population, and their
historic past, with the pledges given by their states
men to subject races, and the potentialities of their
future, could not in the present condition of Europe
and of the world, venture to disarm.
Further, if he were conscientious, prudent, and
frank, he would explain to his countrymen the
dangers they are bound to provide against and the
risks they periodically run, owing to their inveterate
love of minding other people's business, coupled
with their own complacent faith in luck and in their
capacity to puU through any emergency; and
having done this, he would set about perfecting our
National Defences. This has always been the hard
fate of the pacifist statesman, who was not a mere
theorist, when brought up short by the actualities
of the world.
I am well aware that another view may be taken
of the duty of a protagonist in the cause of peace.

216 MODERN WAR AND PEACE
It may be said that a statesman worthy of the
name, and caring above all causes for that of peace,
should not fear to put his faith to the touch. A
firmer belief in the verity of his cause, a loftier con
ception of the power of ideas over men's actions,
a deeper insight into the results of confidence on a
grand scale, would lead him to the conclusion that
to disarm was not to run any desperate risk, and
that even if that were the case, he should be ready
to take it. See, such a man would argue, the effect
in other but analogous spheres of a sublime trust in
the higher motives and instincts of mankind, and
observe the recent examples in the history of our
race and land. He might admit that analogy is
generally a trap for the unwary, but he would
emphasize the history of the past few decades, and
show that trust in the people, that great political
discovery of the nineteenth century, has never mis
carried. For instance, although it is generally
admitted that political pOwer, to be weU and safely
used, should only be entrusted to an educated
people, who is unaware that our statesmen enfran
chize first and educate afterwards ? Yet it would be
difficult to prove that as a nation we should have
made better progress if the Educational Acts of
1870 had preceded the Reform BiU of 1832.
In recent years there has been even a more
glaring case of the noble chance that high states
manship permits itself occasionally to take. It
required a mighty act of faith to grant a free
constitution to South Africa, and to entrust un-

DISARMAMENT 217
fettered political powers to the people we had just
fought and defeated. Yet there are not many
men who would now propose to go back upon that
courageous and disinterested pohcy.
This would be the argument of our ideahst, and
he would refer, with great force, to these examples
of a political faith that has been able successfully
to move mountains of political prejudice.
We can, perhaps, none of us imagine any policy
finer and more noble in conception than tbe
reasoned determination of a great people, convinced
of the folly of war, to disarm, for the sake of
example, in the face of the armed nations of the
European Continent. It is a sad but inevitable
anti-climax to have to conclude that the adoption
by any responsible statesman of such a policy would
be not only one of madness and of grave self-
indulgence, but of national betrayal. I fear that the
pages of our own history, the bitter teaching of
experience, and a clear conception of that world of
actuality of which the British nation forms part,
can only lead us to the conclusion, that however
ardently we desire the Norman Angell propaganda
to force its way into the minds of men, we cannot
during the years of inevitable transition afford to
cast away the sword.
The risk is one from which the most courageous
idealist would rightly shrink. After all, if the ex
periment in South Africa had failed, its failure
might have plunged this country into serious diffi
culties, but the problem of British rule would still
29

218 MODERN WAR AND PEACE
have been soluble, and no irremediable harm would
have been done.
On the other hand, to disarm, by way of political
experiment, and to find your experiment fail would
be to inflict such complete disaster and such irre
coverable losses upon our country that no Enghsh-
man can bear to contemplate them, and no states
man would dare to face them.
There is some analogy, good enough for our pur
pose, between the conditions of Europe to-day and
the condition of England in the Middle Ages,
cursed with the internecine conflicts of the Baronage.
What feudal lord would then have dared, within
the disturbed area of these Islands, to level his
defences, in reliance upon the generous appreciation
or upon the pacific instincts of his neighbours ? It
was not by that path that peace was sought and
ensued. In order to bring to a conclusion the state
of normal warfare then prevailing, and in order to
substitute the procedure of a higher civilization for
methods of barbarism, it required external pressure
from our Tudor Sovereigns, drastic in method and
consistent in application.
In order to pacificate Europe, in order to hold in
check the militant ardour of diplomatic chancelleries
and the recklessness of a combative Press, to what
quarter can we then look to provide a substitute for
the commercial instincts of a Tudor King, backed
by the energies of a growing middle class and of a
long-suffering peasantry ? To what powerful in
fluences can we turn, with hope and expectancy

EDUCATION AND DISCUSSION 219
that they will put an end to those armed and pro
vocative relations between the great Powers in
Europe that to-day reflect sadly upon our common
civihzation ?
This brings me, by a process which I hope has
not been too tiresome, to the objects and aims of
the Society which I have the honour to address.
If, as I indicated a few moments ago, the strongest
influence at the present time upon the actions of
civilized nations is educated public opinion, and if,
as come contend, ideas have never exercised a more
potent sway over events than now, it is to this irre
sistible force of public opinion that we must look for
an equivalent to the power that crushed feudalism,
with all its combativeness and unrest.
It is the main object of your Society to create
and to educate public opinion. It is not, as I under
stand, your sole object. There is a preliminary
task to be performed by your members before you
let loose the spirit of your propaganda. That
preliminary task is, I gather from your literature,
to test Norman Angell's theories by the means of
discussion and examination, and especially to
enquire into the truth of his contention that what
were axioms of statesmanship in the eighteenth
century have become absurdities in the twentieth.
The most distinguished of the living sons of this
University put the case to me thus : " The
doctrine which, as I understand it, Norman
Angell desires to impress upon the civilized nations
of the world is that aggressive warfare, undertaken

220 MODERN WAR AND PEACE
for the purpose of making the aggressor happier,
wealthier and more prosperous, is not only wrong
but silly."
That is the doctrine which your Society has been
formed to examine, and if you are satisfied that it
is true, to testify before the world.
I am not concerned with and I am anxious to
refrain from discussing the various aspects of the
" Great lUusion." I have only mentioned its main
thesis in order to make clear that the primary
work of this Society is to examine the practical
effect of the economic aspects of that work and to
carry forward to a further stage such truths as may
be found in Norman Angell's economics which can
be of service to this country and to mankind.
When I was an undergraduate of this College
no one was ever invited to examine an economic
theory. In those days we were taught that
political economy was an exact science, and it
would never have occurred to any but the most
cynical to question the main propositions of its
votaries. You live, fortunately for yourselves, in
an atmosphere of more enlightened criticism. It
is desirable, indeed it is essential, that every point
made by Norman Angell should be subjected to
careful scrutiny if his doctrine is ever to be trans
lated into the language of practical statesmanship.
When, for instance, he makes such a statement as
this — "that the wealth of conquered territory
always remains in the hands of the inhabitants " ;
and when he proceeds to draw the inference that

MISUNDERSTANDINGS 221
no territory is therefore worth annexing, I suggest
to you that considerable qualification must be
made before such a doctrine will be accepted by
those responsible for the direction of State affairs
in this 'or any other country. It is unhkely, it is
scarcely possible for a man to write with such
enthusiasm and with such fulness as Norman
Angell without occasionaUy creating a false im
pression of his real meaning, but among your
Society's functions is the invaluable one of winnow
ing the wheat from the chaff.
May I suggest to you a specially dangerous
misunderstanding to which Norman Angell's argu
ment may also lead. He lays much stress upon
the effects of war upon the individual as distinct
fi'om the nation. He draws attention over and
over again to the condition of the individual citizen
of a victorious or conquered State. Would this
man be richer or poorer ? Would that man profit
or lose by victory or defeat ? are questions which
he is continually posing. They are indeed worth
examination, and there is perhaps no surer method
of guiding the discussions of your Society along a
path consistent with our national safety than for
you to consider how far a nation, which undoubtedly
is composed of individuals, is a corporate reality,
and to what extent as a corporate reality it is able
to suffer or to triumph.
Norman Angell would, I am sure, be the last to
claim that he has exhausted his own subject.
What he has done is to write a remarkable and
30

222 MODERN WAR AND PEACE
stimulating book that cannot fail to produce prac
tical results in the hands of men, of younger men,
who come after him.
Years ago Professor Seeley in his " Expansion of
England" produced a work that in the hands of
Cecil Rhodes, as Rhodes himself often admitted,
led directly to the addition of Rhodesia to the
Empire and indirectly to the unity of South Africa
under the British flag. The "Expansion of
England" focussed the eyes of our people on the
work they had been unconsciously performing.
The British Empire had grown and was growing
fast, but its growth was, pictoriaUy speaking, silent
and unperceived. Professor Seeley 's book illumined
the process, and among its many effects produced
that to which I have already alluded. In that
case the voice was Seeley 's, but the hands were
those of Cecil Rhodes. It may be that among
those present here to-night there may be one who,
stimulated by the discussions of your Society and
assisted by its propaganda, will do for the cause of
European peace what Cecil Rhodes did for the
further expansion of our Empire. In that case the
voice wiU have been Norman Angell's, but the
hands we must leave to the future to determine.
Of one thing I am convinced, and it is that the
moment is not unripe, and that the minds of men
at home and all over the Continent are in a state of
singular receptivity for this economic aspect of the
doctrine of Peace.
1 have had an opportunity of listening to very

"THE GREAT ILLUSION" 223
confidential enquiries into, and discussions of, the
economic effects upon our trade, commerce, and
finance on the outbreak of a European war in
which we ourselves might be engaged. This
enquiry extended over many months, and many of
the wealthiest and most influential men of business
from the cities of the United Kingdom were called
to give evidence before those whose duty it was to
conclude and report.
I am sure that very few, if any, of those eminent
witnesses had read his book, but by some mysterious
process the virus of Norman Angell was working in
their minds, for one after the other these magnates
of commerce and of finance corroborated by their
fears and anticipations the doctrine of the " Great
Illusion." If this is the mental atmosphere of the cities of
London and Glasgow at the prospect of war, is it
not reasonable to assume that the moment is pro
pitious, and that there is a tremendous chance for
young and ardent spirits, just of your age, to reap
a splendid harvest ?
And if we look abroad, across, let us say, the
North Sea, the conditions are equally favourable.
It is well known that in August, 191 1, this country
was on the brink of war. What is not so well
known is, that the most powerful and restraining
force exercised in Germany in the interests of
peace was the influence of the great commercial
and financial houses that have done business with
our people, that have competed with our people.

224 MODERN WAR AND PEACE
over the surface of the globe, and who are in the
habit of looking to London as their clearing-house,
and to English financial houses as their bankers
and correspondents.
Germany, I am confident, will prove just now as
receptive as Great Britain to the doctrine of Norman
Angell. A few moments ago I mentioned a certain
enquiry into the various aspects and effects of
modern war, at which persons of distinction were
present, some of them holding offices of great
responsibility, but who up to the present had not
been specially concerned with these questions or
speciaUy obliged to consider them.
It was interesting to see how little at first they
grasped the realities of modern war. They were
under the impression, quite a vague impression,
that war was a business in which soldiers and
sailors were deeply concerned, but which left
ordinary civilians free to pursue their avocations
under more or less normal conditions. They
remembered the South African War, and recoUected
how even in the last weeks of 1899 and the first
weeks of the present century, when our armies in
South Africa were in some jeopardy, business and
even pleasure went on very much as usual. They
were also aware that in the Crimean and Napoleonic
wars, when British armies were fighting on the
Continent of Europe, some ripple of the hardships
then endured reached these shores, but the civilian
population left the fighting to the professional

WHAT WAR MEANS 225
soldier and beyond paying the biU felt very little
the worse for the conflict.
Modern war, however, seemed now to be an
altogether different proposition. It was quite a
novel idea that war with a nation in arms like
modern Germany, under modern conditions of
trade and finance, might mean, even under favour
able circumstances, complete stoppage of our Con
tinental and of our Imperial trade, the temporary
ruin of tens of thousands of operatives in the mid
land and northern counties, and the closing of the
Thames to British shipping, with incalculable
results to the provision of supplies for London and
the home counties, and in fact complete confusion
in the domestic economy of the State. StiU more
startling was the vision of a possible transfer, per
haps permanently, from London to New York of
that enormous mass of financial business which, on
behalf of the whole mercantile and commercial
world, we at present transact in the metropolis of
our Empire.
As I have said, it was a surprise to these men of
eminence and experience in the govemment of the
country that modern war on a large scale, even if
successfully waged, might demand such enormous
sacrifices from the civilian population. They had
always hitherto believed that all the pains and
penalties of war could be imposed upon a pro
fessional class that was paid and trained to bear
them. This delusion is unfortunately shared by
millions of our feUow-countrymen, and it should be

226 MODERN WAR AND PEACE
one of the functions of your Society to destroy it.
The economic effects, in minute detail, likely to
be immediately experienced in Great Britain, in
Canada, and in Australia, on the outbreak of a
war between Great Britain and Germany are well
worth your attention and some study at the hands
of Norman Angell himself. In short, the more the
circumstances attending the outbreak of modern
war between highly civilized communities are
inquired into and studied the better are the chances
of the maintenance of peace. These considera
tions all help to create an atmosphere for your
propaganda. Even the grouping of the six most powerful
States in Europe into two apparently hostile camps
is, on the whole, some guarantee of peace. There
is always, as I have said, a chance of some act of
madness precipitating a war. But on the whole
the Triple Alliance and the Triple Entente have
their origin in a desire to avoid war. From one
point of view these well-known expressions indicate
two great armed camps, but from another they
imply two groupings of nations anxious to keep the
peace. In this very grouping of the Powers there is
good augury for the future. If you could imagine
Europe to consist at this moment of only Great
Britain, France, and Russia, all of them haunted
by some external menace from the Far East or
West, there would be no overwhelming difficulty
in obtaining agreement to a plan of internal dis-

ATTRACTIONS OF WAR 227
armament that would reduce the fear of conflict
within the area of Europe to a negligible quantity
while leaving the combined Powers practically
secure from attack oversea.
If Europe consisted to-day only of Germany,
Austria and Italy it might perhaps be even less
difficult for these Powers to arrive at a similar
understanding. Is it too extravagant a suggestion
that an agreement based on partial disarriiament
which appears not wholly impracticable within the
orbit of the Triple Alliance on the one hand, or
that of the Triple Entente on the other, might
still be practical and possible if the two groups
could be drawn together by the centrifugal force of
some great explanatory and Uluminating doctrine ?
I am making no attempt to argue or elaborate, but
merely to throw out this suggestion for examina
tion and discussion by your Society.
Finally, I cannot refrain from touching upon the
panopy of war, and its allurements. This is a point
I believe ignored by Norman Angell, but which
demands some consideration from you. No one
can be blind to those martial qualities of valour
and self-sacrifice that war demands of her victims,
but it too frequently happens that men enamoured
of peaceful avocations, and zealous in the cause of
peace, are apt to under-estimate, among antagon
istic forces, the strength of the poetic and romantic
aspects of the clash of arms. One cannot avoid
the suspicion that to ignore, and even to minimize
these attributes of a martial phase in the world's

228 MODERN WAR AND PEACE
progress and in the evolution of mankind, is to
display an enfeebled spirit and an impoverished
imagination. There is very little to be said for a
man who can look unmoved upon a shrine raised
by infinite pains and with immeasurable labour, to
a dying faith.
1 am reminded* of a passage in a lecture delivered
many years ago (it shows how sometimes a phase
sticks in a boy's mind) by a famous master in the
old round school at Eton, a room that no one pre
sent here to-night probably remembers except
myself. He was speaking of the landing of WiUiam
of Orange in Torbay, and the phrase was this : "All
the poetry, all the romance, all the beauty, was on
the side of the Stuarts " ; then the lecturer paused,
and added : " All the common sense was on the
other side." There is no need for me to point the
moral. The title of your Society appears to me to cover
a duty and an aspiration — the duty of every young
man sound in heart and mind to submit himself to
be trained to bear arms for his home and country
against unprovoked attack; an aspiration that he
may personally help to allay the provocative spirit
in men of his own race, and live to utilize every
ounce of inteUectual and moral strength in the cause
of Peace.
* By a friend with a better memory than mine.

LA GUERRE ET LA PAIX*
QUELQUES FACTEURS NOUVEAUX DE LA
POLITIQUE INTERNATIONALE
AvANT d'entamer mon sujet, Mesdames et Mes
sieurs, permettez-moi de reclamer votre indulgence.
Je suis Stranger, et anglais. Le point de vue de
nos deux pays est si different, et cela s'explique par
leurs dissemblances respectives en ce qui concerne
le temperament, I'education, les conditions clima-
teriques, voire m§me peut-§tre, les conditions
physiologiques. Ce n'est pas chose facile que d'amener, dans le
cours d'une conference de moins d'une heure, nos
deux points de vue a possdder une identite parfaite ;
et c'est pourquoi je vous prierai de me pardonner
lorsque, pour votre esprit national si net et si clair,
ce que j'aurai a dire pourra sembler quelque peu
embrouille ou obscur.
Ce qui me manquera, veuillez le mettre sur le
compte des brouillards d'outre-Manche, et ne pas
I'attribuer a un defaut de sympathie, ou a un manque
d'apprdciation des int^rgts communs qui lient nos
deux nations d'une fa9on si dtroite.
Mon sujet sera la guerre et la paix. Ce sont la
* Diseours prononce par Viscount Esher, G.C.B., G.C.V.O., a
la Sorbonne. Vendredi, 27 Mars, 1914.
229

230 LA GUERRE ET LA PAIX
deux mots redoubtables ; Us dvoquent les terreurs du
passe. Us font naitre des craintes pour le present,
mais Us inspirent aussi les plus grandes esperances
pour I'avenir.
Mon but d'aujourd'hui est de faire appel aux
etudiants, a la jeunesse fra9aise. Je veux demander
a celle-ci d'examiner certains facteurs ^conomiques
recemment intervenus dans la situation Inter
nationale, et qui, s'ils sont reels, doivent provoquer
un bouleversement complet dans la politique des
etats telle qu'elle a et6 con9ue et comprise jusqu'ici.
Afin de preparer mon terrain et pour eviter tout
malentendu, disons immediatement que si I'examen
de ces faits nouveaux prouve clairement I'inanite
des guerres d'agression entre nations civihsees, il ne
justifie, en aucune fa9on, ni une diminution, ni une
restriction quelconque dans les armements. II ne
resulte pas davantage de cet examen qu'il faille
desserrer le lien des alliances ou des ententes, ou
qu'il faille rdduire d'un seul homme les effectifs de
la defense nationale, soit chez vous, soit chez nous.
Je ne viens pas ici prgcher la paix k outrance ; je
ne viens pas rabaisser ce patriotisme vraiment noble
qui exalte les vertus civiques, qui se fait une gloire
des grandes oeuvres nationales accomplies dans la
sphere des sciences, dans celle de I'art ou de la
philosophic, qui enfin se glorifie de cet accroissement
de bonheur pour I'humanite, que Ton designe sous
le nom de progr^s.
II existe un vaste champ d'action reserve a I'indi-
vidualisme national (je ne trouve pas de meilleur
mot), dans le domaine de I'imagination et des idees.

MR. BALFOUR'S WORDS 231
bien que les exigences actuelles de la democratic et
les besoin de la civilisation moderne puissent donner
naissance a Taction collective, but qu'aper9oivent
deja bien des esprits sup^rieurs et virils.
La doctrine que je vais vous prier d'examiner, est
contenue dans les paroles du plus eminent de nos
hommes d'etat vivants, celui qui a ete, pendent de
nombreuses annees, a la tete du parti conservateur
en Angleterre.
Voici ce qu'il dit :
La guerre d'agression entreprise entre nations
civihsees dans le but d'augmenter le bonheur, la
richesse et la prosperite de Tagresseur, est a la fois
inutUe et stupide.
Sans dogmatiser, continue-t-il sur Teffet que la
guerre a produit dans le developpement de Thomme
— un sujet plein d'interet — il n'y a pas a douter que
dans les conditions actuelles de I'industrie et de la
finance, les nations civihsees, ne soient si etroite-
ment liees ensemble par la communaute de certains
inter§ts, que toute rupture violente dans les rapports
d'amitie doit necessairement provoquer des desastres
chez tons les interesses ; desastres que ni les
indemnites, ni les accroissements de territoire, ni les
arcs de triomphe, ne pourront jamais compenser.
Si nous exposons la these ainsi, vous en sentez
la nouveaute. II faut un esprit jeune et souple
pour saisir tons les attraits qu'eUe possede, toutes
les esperances qu'eUe fait naitre. Mais je vous
demande de Texaminer avec impartialite et de
n'accepter a priori comme incontestables ni les faits
anciens ni les faits nouveaux.

232 LA GUERRE ET LA PAIX
Treitschke — ce Machiavel moderne — a dit que :
" Dans un age de fer, se proposer la paix comme
but supreme n'est pas simplement caresser une
chim^re, mais bien resistor en aveugle a la loi de la
vie, loi fatale qui condamne le faible a etre ecrase
par le fort.
" II continue : La guerre est la meilleure ecole
du devoir ; et il n'est pas seulement insense, il est
immoral de precher contre elle. II ajoute: Frederic
le Grand a raison lorsqu'U dit que la guerre produit
le champ le plus fertile, ouvert a toutes le vertues :
a la Constance, a la compassion, a Televation des
sentiments, a la noblesse du coeur, a la charite."
Voila le dogme tragique contenu dans la " Real
Politik." Pour beaucoup d'esprits modernes, ces sentiments
ont cependant une valeur reeUe et ne sont point
de simples phrases. C'est la Timportance qu'ils
possedent. Toutefois le sophisme du Grand Fre
deric pourrait egalement justifier Tesclavage, ou
s'appliquer aux combats nefastes du Colisee.
"La guerre et Tesprit de bravoure," a dit un
autre ecrivain moderne, — le General von Bernhardi,
" ont accompli plus de grandes choses que I'amour
du prochain."
N'est-ce pas Ik, en plein vingtieme siecle, une
etrange invocation a Tesprit du moyen age ? Com-
bien alors conservent encore de leur valeur, les
pensees et les ecrits de Bayle, de Rousseau et de
Montesquieu ? Mais le bon sens doit Temporter a
la longue, et ces illustres ecrivains fran9ais, pro-
ducteurs d'oeuvres puissantes, ont pressenti la these
que je vous presente autourd'hui.

POLITICAL INSTINCT 233
lis ont signale cet epuisement immodere
qu'engendre la guerre avec ses longs et incessants
preparatifs. lis ont insiste sur les maux qui sont les fruits
de la guerre et dont souffrent les masses chez les
peuples belligerants. lis se sont surtout efforces
de d^montrer que, lorsque la guerre est terminee,
apres avoir detruit et devaste a Tinfini, apres avoir
6puise Tor et Tenergie, alors survient la paix ; cette
m^me paix que la simple raison aurait pu suggerer
des le commencement.
Certains pretendent cependant qu'aux heures de
crises nationales, ce n'est pas la sagesse des raisonne-
ments qui fait pencher la balance : ce sont plutot
les passions, les interets, les evenements exterieurs,
et ce quelque chose de vague, de non defini,
d'etrange, de presque mysterieux que parmi les
peuples on nomme instinct politique.
Mais U ne faut pas se laisser tromper par les
phrases. Essayez done, je voue prie, de bien
determiner, si cela est possible, ce que signifie
Tinstinct politique. Demandez-vous si Ton ne
pourrait pas, comme pour Tinstinct rehgieux, par
exemple, le cultiver, le moderer, le changer.
Voyez le monde qui nous entoure, celui, oii nous
vivons: voyez ses transformations rapides, son
developpement stupefiant. A peine puis-je parfois
evoquer a mes yeux le Paris de ma jeunesse. Quelle
est done la valeur veritable, precise que possede un
appel a Texperience acquise ? Qu'est ce que valent
les precedents historiques, ou Tetude de la diplomatic 31

234 LA GUERRE ET LA PAIX
de nos anc§tres, au sein d'une societe qui se trans-
forme tellement, que ce qui s'apphquait a hier ne
convient deja plus a aujourd'hui ?
De nouvelles decouvertes scientifiques, ceUes que
Ton a faites en pathologic et en chimie ont complete-
ment change les habitudes du monde civihse.
" Decouverte," — ce mot ne suppose-t-U pas, lui-
m^me, certains secrets demeures, de tout temps,
caches dans les replis du manteau de la Nature ?
De meme dans la physiologic des races, dans
notre fa9on habitueUe d'envisager le monde, dans
les rapports internationaux, nous nous trouvons en
presence d'autres phenomenes encore qui n'ont pu
gtre decouverts par un Lord Lister ou par une
Madame Curie, car Us sont nes d'hier, enfantes par
Tevolution creatrice.
Au sein de tant de variations, parmi tant de
changements radicaux, ne va-t-on pas trop loin en
pretendant que ce mysterieux instinct pohtique,
coupable d'avoir jusqu' k present pousse les nations
aux conflits, ne pourrait pas, grace a des conditions
toutes nouvelles, decider ces memes peuples a signer
un accord, a accepter un compromis ?
A vrai dire, pouvons-nous affirmer aujourd'hui
que Tinstinct politique de la democratic, qui vient
d'ouvrir les yeux k la vie apres quelque trente ans
consacres a son education, ne differe pas absolument
de Tinstinct politique prone par le General von Bern
hardi ?
La France a toujours ete au premier rang pour
la revision de Tideal. Les theories fondamentales

"PAYS, PATRIE" 235
des penseurs fran9ais du dix-huitieme siecle servent
en realite de lieux communs au monde moderne.
II semble done que le moment soit venu de con-
siderer a nouveau, de rajuster nos idees sur ce que
valent respectivement la guerre et la paix, le patrio
tisme et la gloire militaire, et aussi la voie a prendre
par cette marche ascendante que nous nommons le
progr^s. Qui songerait, par exemple, k denigrer le patrio
tisme ; si ce mot signifie respect pour Thistoire de
la France, amour de son Sol National, loyaute
envers son ideal, et fierte envers son avenir. Mais
le coeur et I'S-me animes du plus noble des patrio-
tismes ne demeurent pas clos a d'autres sympathies.
Vous vous souvenez de cette page admirable de
" 93 " dans laquelle Victor Hugo, analyse les luttes
de la Vendee.
"Pays, Patrie, — ces deux mots resument toute
la guerre de Vendee ; quereUe " de Tidee locale
contre Tidee universelle ; paysans contre patriotes."
L'illustre maitre n'entend pas par Ik depreder
Tamour du pays natal, ou le caract^re du paysan ;
mais il veut nous pr^munir contre toute etroitesse
de sympathie et d'ame. II est possible d'etre en
meme temps paysan et patriote.
Dirons-nous toutefois que la gloire militaire est
indispensable au patriotisme ? Question delicate,
c'est vrai, mais question vitale pour certains esprits.
Eh bien, un homme manque surement d'ampleur
d'imagination, et pent avec justice etre accuse de
secheresse d'ame, s'il pent, sans un tresaiUement,

236 LA GUERRE ET LA PAIX
songer aux gloires de la guerre, k ses lauriers, a ses
sacrifices. Les troublantes emotions de ce genre ne
detruisent pas necessairement en nous le sentiment
de la perspective. Qui pourrait oubher cette scene
de Toeuvre epique de Tolstoy: le prince Andree,
blesse a mort, est etendu muet sur le champ de
bataille d'Austerlitz ; il voit penche vers lui. Napo
leon son incomparable h^ros, si chetif, si insignifiant,
en comparaison de ce qui se passe a ce moment
entre son ame et les profondeurs sans limites du
ciel charge d'etoiles. C'est une autre evocation de
cette image immortelle du poete Lucrece. La
bataille vue du haut de la colline n'est plus qu'une
poignee de poussiere.
II est alors bon de se demander sans cesse si la
gloire militaire est un element essentiel de la gloire
nationale. Est-il indispensable de faire revivre la politique
d'un Richelieu, la grandeur d'un Louis XIV ou les
conquetes de Napoleon, pour permettre k la France
de conserver fierement sa place parmi Teiite des
nations ? Ou bien tout cela s'est-il evanoui comme
les neiges d'antan ?
Certes il ne faut pas oublier ces compensations,
ces exploits brillants dans le domaine de I'imagina
tion, domaine oil La France ne rencontre que peu
d'egaux et point de maitres.
Et puissions-nous reconnaitre ensemble que Ta
mour de la patrie n'est pas incompatible avec cette
idee qui franchit les frontieres du pays natal Tamour
de I'humanite, Tidee universelle.

" THE GREAT ILLUSION " 237
Heureusement, on ne doit pas oublier de compter
la raison parmi les forces agissantes de la vie. Nous
ne devons pas non plus ignorer les livres.
Parmi la grande masse des oeuvres qui s'impriment,
on en rencontre quelques unes que Ton pent con-
siderer plutot comme des actes que comme des ecrits.
Le " Contrat Social" est sans contredit de ce nombre,
et si vous me le permettez, je citerai egalement un
autre livre, — " La Grande Illusion," — oeuvre d'un
de mes compatriotes, M. Norman Angell.
L'impression que cette oeuvre a produite a ete
prodigieuse. Sa publication a provoque, en Angle
terre, dans nos universites un mouvement immediat.
D'abord, ce sont les etudiants de Tuniversite de
Cambridge, qui, de concert avec quelques jeunes
professeurs, ont forme une societe dans le but
d'encourager Tetude systematique de la question ;
et Timpulsion donnee a trouve un echo dans presque
toutes les universites d' Angleterre.
Puis a Manchester, la capitale industrielle de mon
pays, une vaste organisation regionale s'est con-
stituee sous Tegide du President de la Chambre de
Commerce, et du Lord Maire. De meme k Glas
gow, la capitale commerciale de TEcosse, les repre-
sentant du haut commerce et de la finance se sont
reunis en association pour discuter Tidee fondamen-
tale de la these d'AngeU.
Aujourd'hui, il se trouve sur le territoire de la
Grande- Bretagne quarante cercles d'etudes, ou
societes, composes d'homme serieux, de professeurs
et d'etudiants d'une part, de commercants et de
32

238 LA GUERRE ET LA PAIX
financiers de Tautre, s'adonnant a Texamen de Teffet
produit sur la question de la guerre et de la paix,
par " interdependance " croissante des grandes puis
sances europeennes.
Ces cercles d'etudes sont affilies a une organisa
tion centrale cree a Londres par Sir Richard Garton,
candidat conservateur aux elections parlementaires,
et soutenue par Mr. Balfour, ancien Premier
Ministre conservateur.
Ce mouvement ayant pris naissance sous de
pareUles auspices n'a aucune tendance anti-patrio-
tique ou anti-militariste. Cette affirmation me
semble importante pour etablir le caractdre de ce
mouvement qui est tout a fait experimental et en
quelque sorte scientifique.
Quelle est done la these d'AngeU, et quelle est la
question fondamentale soulevee par La Grande
Illusion ?
Elle resulte des deductions faites par une certaine
ecole d'economie politique qui etudie tout speciale-
ment les rapports entre la puissance militaire et le
bien-6tre social ; les relations qui existent entre la
conqu§te par les armes et Tacroissement de la
prosperite commerciale et financiere ; et enfin
la question de savoir si, par suite des changements
survenus tout recemment et affectant les puissances
civihsees de TEurope et de TOrient, certains axiomes
politiques acceptes jusqu'ici par tons les gouverne-
ments ne devraient pas #tre soumis a une revision.
Quels sont done ces axiomes ?
II importe que je vous lise, m^me au risque de

NORMAN ANGELL'S VIEWS 239
vous fatiguer, le resume que nous en donne Angell
lui-meme. Le voici :
" Chaque nation, pour justifier ses propres arme
ments, invoque la necessite ou elle serait de se
defendre. Or, cette necessite implique qu'il y a
d'autres nations qui croient avoir quelque interet k
prendre Toffensive, car la defense n'a de sens que
s'il y a une attaque prealable. Quels sont les mobiles
que les nations attribuent aux voisins dont elles se
mefient ainsi ?
" On deduit ces mobiles de la presomption gener
ale que toute nation est portee a se repandre au
dehors et k employer sa force contre les autres. A
cause de Tobligation ou elle est de trouver des terri-
toires et des debouches pour une population et une
Industrie toujours croissantes ou bien encore, tout
simplement, pour procurer a sa population les con
ditions d'existence les plus favorables. C'est ainsi
que Taugmentation de la marine allemande est en-
visagee en Europe comme le signe evident du besoin
pressant qu'a une population croissante d'obtenir
une plus large place dans le monde. Ce besoin
chercherait a se satisfaire aux depens du commerce
et des possessions coloniales de la Grande-Bretagne,
si celles-ci n'etaient pas suffisamment defendues, et
Ton en deduit cette consequence que la prosperite
d'une nation est en raison directe de sa puissance
politique : que Tavantage, en dernier ressort, dans
un conffit entre nations considerees commes des
unites qui se font concurrence, appartient a celle
qui possede la superiorite, car la plus faible succom-
bera dans ce conflit, comme dans toutes les autres
formes de la lutte pour la vie."
Je vais vous citer maintenant un expose sommaire
donne par Angell, de la refutation de ces mSmes
axidmes :

240 LA GUERRE ET LA PAIX
" Le commerce et I'industrie d'un peuple ne de
pendent plus de Tetendue de ses frontieres pohtiques ;
la puissance mihtaire est desormais illusoire en
matiere economique et n'influe en rien sur la pros
perity du peuple qui Texerce ; une nation ne pent
plus s'emparer par la force de la fortune ou du
commerce d'une autre nation, ni s'enrichir en la
subjuguant ou en lui imposant sa volonte.
" La these se resume en un mot comme suit : la
guerre ne pent aujourd'hui, aider en rien les
hommes, qu'Us soient conquerants ou conquis, a
atteindre aucun des divers buts qu'ils poursuivent.
" Cette these, qui parait paradoxale, est etablie
en montrant, en ce qui concerne le probleme
economique, que la richesse des pays civilises
repose sur le credit, et sur la foi des contrats
commerciaux, qui sont eux-m§mes nes de cette
interdependance economique qu'ont produite la
division du travail toujours plus grande, et les
communications toujours plus developpes.
" Si, par une tentative de confiscation. Ton
empeche Texecution des contrats commerciaux, ou
si Ton touche tant soit peu au credit dont
depend la fortune publique, cette fortune disparait,
entrainant avec elle celle du conquerant.
"De telle sorte que, pour que la conquete ne
nuise pas au conquerant lui-m^me, il faut que
celui-ci respecte la propriete de Tennemi. Desor
mais toute conquete est une entreprise vaine au
point de vue economique, puisque la richesse d'un
pays conquis doit rester aux mains de ses habitants.
La conquete dans le monde moderne est un pro-
cede par lequel on multiplie d'abord par x pour
diviser ensuite par le m§me chiffre.
" Encore, les interets financiers internationaux
sont si intimement lies k ceux du commerce et de
I'industrie, qu'un conquerant ne pent pas d'avantage
toucher au commerce de Tennemi qu'aux pro-
prietes particuheres de celui-ci. II ressort que la

ECONOMIC WAR 241
preeminence politique et militaire ne pent rien
procurer au commerce. Les negociants et les
industriels des petites nations qui n'ont aucun
pouvoir politique soutiennent avec succes la con
currence contre ceux des grandes puissances: les
Suisses et les Beiges chassent les Anglais de leurs
propres marches coloniaux ; proportionellement a
sa population, la Norvege a une marine marchande
superieure a celle de la Grande-Bretagne ; le credit
publique des petits Etats dont le pouvoir politique
est nul, est superieur au credit public des grandes
puissances de TEurope.
" Les memes causes, qui ont rendu la puissance
militaire futUe au point de vue economique. Tout
aussi rendue illusoire en ce qui concerne les idees et
les moeurs qu'on pretendrait imposer a un peuple
conquis. Le securite dans la jouissance de la
propriete privee (a laquelle il est impossible a un
conquerant de toucher aujourd'hui), la rapidite de
la circulation des idees que nous devons a la presse
moderne et le fait que tout ce qui s'ecrit pent se
lire partout, permettent meme a de petites
communautes, completement conquises, de faire
entendre partout leur voix et de faire triompher
les idees morales et sociales qui leur sont propres.
" Du reste, une lutte pour faire triompher un
ideal ne sera plus jamais une lutte entre nations,
car les idees se sont disseminees parmi les peuples,
ont passe par-dessus les frontieres.
"II n'existe pas d'Etat moderne dont tous les
sujets soient uniquement catholiques ou protestants,
liberaux ou monarchistes, democrates ou aristo-
crates, socialistes ou individualistes ; c'est pour cela
que les luttes d'ordre moral et spiritual se livreront
desormais entre concitoyens d'un meme Etat.
" La guerre ne peut plus pretendre qu'elle assure
la survivance du plus fort; dans les conditions
modernes, elle amene au contraire la survivance
du plus faible, puisque ce sont les forts qui peris-

242 LA GUERRE ET LA PAIX
sent ; et c'est pour s'etre laisse seduire par une
fausse analogic biologique que Ton a pu croire que
la lutte entre nations faisait partie de Tevolution
humaine. " Les nations guerrieres n'heriteront pas de la
terre ; elles representent aujourd'hui la degenere-
scence, car le declin du role de la force physique,
dans toutes les spheres de Tactivite humaine, a
produit de profonds changements psychologiques.
" Toutes ces tendances nouvelles, issues des con
ditions nouvelles du monde et notamment de la
rapidite des communications, font que les pro-
blemes de la politique Internationale d'aujourd'hui
sont tout differents de ceux d'autrefois. Et
cependant nous laissons encore dominer notre
pensee par les principes, les axiomes et la phraseo-
logie meme d'une politique surannee."
Telle est Tessence d'un livre remarquable qui,
depuis sa pubhcation, constitue a lui seul une
litterature complete.
La brievete de Texpose peut faire paraitre la
these absurde en quelques points ; elle a fait
cependant Tobjet d'une discussion approfondie
parmi quelques-uns des plus eminents economistes
de mon pays. Je ne demande pas k un seul
etudiant de Taccepter sans examen, mais je vous
prie tous de ne pas la rejeter sans Tavoir examinee.
La guerre d'agression, est-eUe un conflit neces-
saire pour ameliorer le sort d'un peuple ? La
conquete est-eUe avantageuse ? Ces deux ques
tions demandent une reponse categorique. Si Ton
repond affirmativement cela veut dire que la
sagesse humaine consiste a faire appel au fer et au
sang.

WHAT COUNTS IN WAR? 243
Si le fer et le sang rgglent seuls la question, un
peuple de 40 millions d'ames, vis-a-vis de celui qui
en compte 100 ou 150 miUions, un peuple station-
naire, vis-a-vis de celui qui s'accroit, est irrevo-
cablement condamne.
Or, la question vaut au moins Texamen.
Heureusement, U y a d'autres facteurs en jeu, et
ceux-ci sont puissants et indestructibles.
L'un de ces facteurs est Tenorme influence que
possede la verite lorsque celle-ci s'est fait jour k
travers les tenebres ; et de mgme qu'a la fin du
dix-huiteme siecle, Tesprit fran9ais apportait une
nouvelle contribution aux idees de TEurope,
explosive dans sa force, de m^me aujourd'hui
encore, Tesprit fran(5ais rencontre une merveiUeuse
occasion de s'elever contre une situation aussi
ruineuse, aussi nefaste pour le bonheur des masses,
que le fut jamais celle qui etait due k Tancien
regime. Je veux parler des preparatifs de guerre
dont les frais nous ecrasent et nous appauvrissent.
Je me demande sans cesse quelle est Tidee qui
se trouve a la base de ces constantes menaces de
guerre ; et je vous demande aussi. Messieurs, ce
que vous en pensez.
Ne serait-ce pas, a franchement parler, la croy-
ance a Tefficacite de la guerre, la croyance k
quelque avantage en perspective, avantage que Ton
obtiendra en attaquant son voisin, en lui arrachant
quelque chose, en le for9ant a passer sous les
fourche caudines ?
Supposons que la these economique d'AngeU

244 LA GUERRE ET LA PAIX
soit vraie, et que par consequence la vainqueur ne
puisse obtenir du vaincu aucun avantage materiel
sans avoir a payer son propre gain d'une valeur
egale. Cet verite, une fois bien saisie, ne finirait-elle
pas par changer a la longue la croyance dont je
viens de parler ?
La these de Galilee n'etait pas plus opposee aux
idees courantes que ne Test celle d'AngeU, et
cependant la premiere a bien eu a la fin sa part de
succes. S'il est vrai que les obligations Internationales,
les engagements mutuels, le commerce du monde
et ses finances, avec leur " interdependance," for-
ment un ensemble de choses si complexe que tout
prejudice cause a une grande nation doive avoir
son contre-coup chez toutes les autres nations et
sur tous les marches, au point que toute guerre
entreprise avec succes par quelque grand peuple
civilise contre un voisin civilise egalement, doive
demeurer une operation sans profit, alors, bien
certainement, Topinion publique, sur la question
de Tefficacite de la guerre doit subir a la longue
quelque modification. Qui croit encore, a Theure
actuelle, k Tutilite de la corvee ? Elle a eu cepen
dant plus d'un champion dans son temps. Quand
les hommes comprendront qu'un ennemi conquis
est un client mine, et que client ruine signifie
perte seche pour le vainqueur, auront-ils toujours
le desir des conquetes ?
Quand Us se rendront compte que les relations

PROGRESS OF SCIENCE 245
economiques des grands peuples civUises entre eux,
et c'est Ik le point capital, ne sont veritablement
que le symbole d'autres relations affectant la vie
nationale dans toutes ses arteres, et aussi les
rapports des nationaux les uns avec les autres, les
hommes voudront-ils tolerer la guerre ?
Je ne pretends pas que ces theories soient vraies
pour toutes les nations et pour toujours ; mais je
crois qu'elles le sont pour les grandes nations de
TEurope et pour Tepoque actuelle. C'est un etat
de choses ne d'evenements modernes, voire meme
de circonstances tres recentes, car le systeme de
credit actuel, organise sur une echelle si vaste qu'il
embrasse en realite le monde entier, est chose com-
parativement nouvelle.
Nous le devons aux progres enormes que la
Science a faits depuis une trentaine d'annees,
progres a la suite desquels le monde s'est rapetisse
plus que jamais, et continue encore a se rapetisser
tellement, que les sons de la voix humaine s'enten-
dront avant peu, d'un bout de la terre a Tautre, et
que la traversee de Tocean ne durera pas plus que
les heures de sommeil d'une nuit.
On peut retrouver dans Thistoire du passe des
moments de conditions pareUles.
Un jeune etudiant de TUniversite de Cambridge
voulant concourir pour le prix Garton, a ecrit
un essai fort interessant, ou il applique la these
d'AngeU aux guerres entre les tribus de la Grece
antique, et oii il montre les effets de ces conflits au
point de vue financier et commercial, sur les divers

246 LA GUERRE ET LA PAIX
etats, sur Athdnes et sur Sparte. Ces effets, il les
evalue en se livrant a une curieuse etude compara
tive sur le commerce de la poterie. II demontre
que sur le territoire limite compris entre les fron
tieres de ce petit groupe d'etats belligerants, la
prosperite commerciale se recontra rarement apres
une victoire ou une conquete ; et il arriva enfin ce
que tout le monde salt, que ce coin de TEurope,
devint la proie du barbare et de Tenvahisseur en
grande partie a cause de ses luttes intestines.
Je n'insiste pas sur ce point qui peut tenir de la
chimere, et se montrer trompeur, comme toutes
les analogies, mais c'est une vue d'ensemble de
toute la question que je vous prie instamment
d'examiner sans prejuge.
L'histoire de la Grece antique, si briUament
exposee par le plus pittoresque des ecrivains his
toriques, un homme qui possedait une connaissance
approfondie de ses compatriotes et qui s'effor9ait
toujours de placer leurs differents points de vue
sous les yeux de ses lecteurs, nous inspire certaine
ment des reflexions qui touchent k mon sujet.
Tout en lisant les diseours aussi complets que
pleins d'animation, prononces jadis par ces orateurs
d'Athenes et de Sparte, quelqu'un d'entre vous
a-t-il jamais decouvert une cause raisonnable a ces
guerres fratricides et desastreuses ?
Ces hommes n'etaient pas des sauvages ; Us
etaient et marchands et philosophes et artistes.
Pourquoi done, etaient-ils constamment en lutte
les uns contre les autres? L'homme primitif se

NATIONAL INTERDEPENDENCE 247
battait par necessite. La mort de son voisin sig-
nifiait pour lui gibier et racines en quantite plus
abondante ; mais Thomme civihse, avec ses mille
besoins ne peut pas se permettre d'egorger ceux
qui y pourvoient. Les premiers groupes d'indi-
vidus, sauvages et independants les uns des autres,
pouvaient toujours avec profit attaquer leurs
voisins. lis pouvaient s'arracher mutueUement
leurs marchandises, leurs femmes et leurs esclaves.
II fut meme un temps ou une province fran9aise,
enfermee dans ses propres frontieres, aurait pu
gagner en devastant une province voisine, en em-
portant les richesses accumuiees par cette derniere,
son betail, son grain, son or, et en massacrant ses
habitants. Mais aujourd'hui, si une greve de cheminaux
interrompt les communications entre un departe-
ment fran9ais et le departement voisin, les forces
vitales du premier se paralysent bientot. Pour
quoi? Parce que le systeme le la repartition du
travail nous a tous, a Theure actueUe, rendus de
pendants du voisin, et dependants de la continuite
ininterrompue du travail dans le monde entier.
C'est surtout par des considerations morales, ou
encore pour des raisons economiques, que les indi-
vidus d'abord et les petits groupes ensuite, les villes
et les provinces, ont cesse de se battre, de devaster
et de faire des captures.
Permettez-moi, je vous prie, de pousser encore
plus loin cette question.
Supposons que la France apres un grand effort

248 LA GUERRE ET LA PAIX
mihtaire ait reussi a s'emparer de la Belgique, et
que les Fran9ais etant devenus les maitres de ce
pays, les Beiges de leur cote soient devenus, par
la force des choses, citoyens de la Republique
fran9aise ; y aurait-il un seul Frangais qui comme
individu possederait un centime de plus, aurait plus
de bien-etre ou serait plus prospere ?
La France elle-meme serait-elle plus riche, plus
prospere ou plus heureuse ?
C'est la une question a la fois theorique et pra
tique. Je ne pretends pas qu'une nation ne soit
pas quelque chose de plus que les individus qui la
composent. Comme Ta dit un grand homme d'etat
anglais, — " Une Nation est un §tre coUectif reel et
non point un etre fictif. CoUectivement eUe peut
triompher et souffrir."
Toutefois, ces dernieres considerations s'addres-
sent au sentiment, et k ce patriotisme d'un ordre
plus eleve dont j'ai deja parle, et n'embrassent pas
les guerres d'agression, les annexions ou les con
quetes. Si cependant nous devons faire des
progres, et continuer a accroitre le bonheur du plus
grand nombre, n'est-il pas essentiel d'etablir cette
premiere proposition, a savoir, qu'une guerre
d'agression entamee avec nos voisins, les peuples
civihsees, ne procure pas au simple citoyens le
moindre avantage materiel. Si nous pouvons y
arriver, nous aurons fait un pas enorme dans la
voie qui conduit a la paix. Qu'est-ce que le
peuple en AUemagne avec son inteUigence et ses
nombreuses qualites a retire du fait, que ses

WAR AND ECONOMICS 249
hommes d'etat aient arrache a la France TAlsace
et la Lorraine. Quel est le paysan pomeranien ou
Tartisan bavarois qui soit devenu plus heureux et
plus riche ? Si nous pouvions reculer les aiguilles
du temps, le Prince de Bismarck voudrait-il encore
annexer ces fatales provinces ?
Nous connaissons la reponse.
Ici se souleve une nouvelle question, celle de
savoir ce que le peuple allemand a retire de
Tenorme indemnite qui lui a ete payee apres le
traits de Frankfort. Je ne ferais que vous fatiguer,
si je developpais devant vous ce cote du probleme ;
mais il forme un des chapitres les plus interessants
du livre d'AngeU.
Je me contenterai de vous rappeler que le verse-
ment de Tindemnite de guerre a TAUemagne a
coincide avec une des plus terribles crises econo
miques connues dans Thistoire de ce pays.
Le Prince de Bismarck a declare au Reichstag,
avec un certain pathetique, que, peu d'annees apres
la guerre, U avait ete frappe de Tetat general de
misere croissante qu'il constatait en AUemagne, s'il
comparait celle-ci avec la France. Sa vie a ete
assombrie par des doutes qu'il n'eclaircit jamais
completement, a propos de ce qu'avaient rapporte
a TAUemagne les sommes immenses arrachees a la
France. liCS plus grands hommes d'etat sont,
apres tout, empiriques. Bismarck aurait pu se
consoler en se rappelant le fait que Colbert, qui
n'etait pas le moindre des penseurs, identifiait
la richesse d'un etat avec la quantite d'or et
33

'250 LA GUERRE ET LA PAIX
d'argent qu'il contenait ; qu'il considerait le volume
total du commerce de TEurope comme ne pouvant
s'accroitre materieUement, et qu 'enfin U ne douta
jamais du fait que ce qu'une nation gagnait, une
autre devait necessairement le perdre.
Bien des gens parmi nous conservent encore la
croyance illusoire que dix ecus que nous pouvons
voir ont plus de poids qu'un million que nous ne
pouvons manier ; et bien plus de gens encore sont
convaincus qu'une nation peut s'enrichir par la
guerre. Vous comprenez sans doute qu'U m'est totalement
impossible de discuter aujourd'hui ces theories a
fond : mais je voudrais stimuler chez- vous le doute
et la curiosite.
Ces questions ont une portee pratique formi
dable. Jetez les regards sur TEurope. Partout
Tapprehension terrifiante de la guerre. Partout
les armements gigantesques qui augmentent a prix
d'or. Pas de but defini en vue. Et ce qu'U y a
de pire, pas de prix pour sa peine. Ou bien ce
vaste gaspillage d'argent ne conduit a rien, ou bien
il conduit a la guerre. Et dans les deux cas, qui
en profite en rien ?
Sir Edward Grey disait, il y a peu de temps,
que nous redoutions tous de voir, a la longue, les
depenses enormes consacrees aux armements, con-
duire aux catastrophes, et meme faire sombrer le
vaisseau qui porte la prosperite et la civilisation de
TEurope. Mais pouvez-vous vous etonner que cette foUe

OLD INSTINCTS OF PILLAGE 251
depense soit justifee par des considerations de
prudence, quand vous entendez un ecrivain aUe-
mand eminent, aux vues saines et moderees, le
Baron von Stengel, delegu^ a la premiere con
ference de La Haye, nous declarer que, " Chaque
grande puissance doit faire tendre tous ses efforts
a exercer Tinfluence la plus etendue possible, non
seulement sur la politique de TEurope, mais sur
celle du monde entier, et cela surtout, parce que
la puissance economique depend en dernier ressort
de la puissance politique."
Tandis que Tamiral Americani, M. Mahan, assure
que " Le vieil instinct de pillage vit encore " ; et que
— " les marches commerciaux sont domines par la
puissance preponderante et celle-ci a pour expres
sion derniere la possession."
Evidemment Tamiral partage la croyance que
Tinteret d'une nation consiste k tuer I'industrie
d'une autre. C'est-la une illusion du dix-huitieme
siecle. Mais si ces gens ont raison, quelles sont nos
esperances pour I'avenir ?
Eh bien, le theoreme d'AngeU est tout Toppose.
II declare que ces dogmes acceptes jusqu'ici sont
faux. La puissance militaire assure-t-il, ne peut
pas, effectivement, ou d'une fa9on latente, dominer
les marches pour leur bien. Pourquoi ? Parce
que dans un monde oil les frontieres economiques
s'etendent et se resserrent d'annee en annee indefini-
ment et dans toutes les directions, Tentite politique
ne coincide pas avec Tentite economique, pour la
raison que les nations civilisees sont des organismes

252 LA GUERRE ET LA PAIX
non pas separes mais " interdependants," et que par
consequent, la richesse est insaisissable pour ce qui
regarde la conquete et la confiscation.
Un homme d'etat, je cite encore notre ministre
des affaires etrangeres, vient de corroborer cela dans
un diseours prononce U y a quelques semaines. II
a employe la phrase — "le maitre d'ecole de TEurope."
De qui a-t-il voulu parler? Du soldat ou phUo-
sophe ? Non ; " le maitre d'ecole de TEurope," a
dit Sir Edward Grey—" s'appelle les finances."
" Le poids des finances," ajoute-t-U, " est la chose
qui demontrera aux gens, la necessite de diminuer
les risques de guerre, et de maintenir dans les limites
voulues la concurrence en fait de depenses pour les
armements " — puis il continue a expliquer que les
nations et specialement les hommes politiques
devront se convertir a Tidee qu'il y a plus a gagner
par la paix que par la guerre, une operation de
longue haleine, et il emploie la phrase : " il vous
faut creer une atmosphere."
C'est precisement la tache que je me suis assignee
ce soir. Je desire avoir ma petite part dans la
creation d'une atmosphere appropriee a Tetude des
nouveaux facteurs economiques dans la politique
de TEurope.
Ceux-ci penetrent profondement dans les rap
ports des etats civilises entre eux, k des profondeurs
que n' avaient revees ni Aristote, ni Machiavel, ni
Clausewitz. Peut-etre cependant s'etaient-ils dejS.
loges dans un petit recoin du vaste cerveau de
Napoleon.

A NEW CHAPTER OF HISTORY 253
Je vous demande avec instance. Messieurs, d'ex
aminer les axiomes du General von Bernhardi, les
axidmes qui veulent justifier Tagression et la pre
senter comme avantageuse, a la lumiere de ces
rayons lumineux que le hvre d'AngeU vient jeter
sur Timpossibihte economique de la confiscation a
la suite d'une guerre heureuse, sur les rapports
faussement con9us entre le commerce et la puis
sance militaire, sur le caractere illusoire des indem
nites de guerre, sur la veritable signification des
possessions coloniales, et sur la lutte pour une place
au soleil.
II est impossible de resister a la conviction que
ce jeune penseur a ouvert pour nous un nouveau
chapitre dans Thistoire de notre monde moderne.
Parlous maintenant, un moment, de la guerre de
defense. Chacune des puissances de TEurope
soutient et peut-etre croit que ses armements ne
sont maintenus que par motif de defense. Cer
tainement en Angleterre nous croyons honnete-
ment que nous maintenons notre flotte pour notre
propre defense et sans la moindre pensee d'hostilite.
Les AUemands ne cessant jamais de declarer que
leur vaste marine de guerre toujours grandissante
est due a la necessite de defendre leur commerce.
Chaque puissance croit a la possibilite d'une agres
sion de la part d'une autre ; et elle croit en plus,
que vouloir affaiblir en rien ses forces navales defen
sives, serait faire une invitation immediate a Tat-
taque, et la provoquer. Les formidables armees
d'Europe sont levees et maintenue6> sous des pre-
34

254 LA GUERRE ET LA PAIX
textes semblables. Notre Ministre de la Marine,
homme briUant et intelligent Mr. ChurchiU, nous
dit que — " le moyen d'assurer la paix est d'etre si
fort que la victoire sur votre ennemi ne puisse vous
echapper." La phrase sonne bien a Toreille, mais est-ce la
une maxime pour TAngleterre seule ? Ou bien
s'applique-t-elle aussi k tout puissant adversaire de
notre pays, ou a chacune des puissances de premier
ordre. Si nous repondons — oui — comment est-eUe ap
plicable, et comment un probleme qui est une ques
tion de vie ou de mort pour deux interesses, peut-il
trouver une formule satisfaisante dans les termes
d'un seul ? La verite est, qu'une semblable formule
n'est pas un axidme de defense mais un axi6me
d'agression, non pas intentionneUe, bien loin de la
mais inconsciente, et que telle a ete la base sur
laquelle s'est appuyee toute ambition conquerante
depuis le commencement du monde. Si la paix ne
peut etre assuree sans que chaque nation soit assez
forte pour etre certaine de la victoire sur son
ennemi, nous sommes tous pris dans un cercle
vicieux d'absurdite, et notre unique perspective est
la ruine financiere et commerciale.
Le c6te grave de la question est, que toutes les
grandes puissances de TEurope agissent aujourd'hui
comme si Taxiome de Mr. Churchill etait Tessence
de la verite.
Cela prouve, une fois de plus, le peu de valeut
que possedent les faits en eux-memes ; ce qui

WHAT IS THE SOLUTION? 255
compte vraiment c'est la soi-disant foi que nous y
ajoutons. Mais ou done est la porte de sortie ? Accumuler
armements sur armements n'est pas offrir une solu
tion. Sommes-nous reduits a conclure qu'il nous
faudra, ici, au coeur meme de TEurope civilisee,
demeurer a jamais armes jusqu'aux dents, nous
attendant k Tattaque d'un voisin des que notre
vigilance se relachera, en proie parfois a la guerre
civile, et que nous devons accepter cette situation
comme etant un etat de choses normal, et une
forme definitive de la Societe ?
Ou bien, comme Ta fait Rousseau dans une autre
sphere et a une autre epoque, AngeU a-t-U ouvert
la breche pour la fuite et donne a I'humanite de
nouvelles esperances ?
Le remede k notre intolerable plaie va-t-il venir,
non des hommes politiques et des hommes d'etat,
mais d'une ecole de la pensee et du domaine des
idees, penetrant dans Tesprit du peuple lui-meme ?
Si Ton peut creer une atmosphere dans laquelle les
hommes et surtout les jeunes gens pourront com
pleter cet examen de questions telles que les finances
Internationales, les communautes d'interet et d'asso-
ciation, Tinterdependance des travailleurs des
diverses nations, les liens divers qui se multiplient
d'annee en annee ; peut-etre qu'en exposant la
faussete des theories erronees, en donnant une juste
interpretation aux rivalites nationales mal com
prises, nous pourrons, etant donne I'inanite des
actions agressives, et Tabsence de veritables

256 LA GUERRE ET LA PAIX
menaces, trouver la solution du probleme de la
defense nationale.
S'il en est ainsi, le remede supreme n'est pas a la
portee des gouvernements et des bureaucraties,
mais il se trouve dans TinteUigence des simples
citoyens et dans leur influence active.
Je crois fermement que nous traversons aujourd'
hui une periode de transition, sans nous en aperce-
voir sans doute. A ces heures-la, les difficultes
sont toujours doublees. La securite publique, loi
supreme, demande de grands sacrifices. Nous
devons tous etre prets a les accomplir tandis que la
meule de Dieu fait lentement son oeuvre.
Avant d'arriver k la reduction des armements il
nous reste encore un long chemin a faire.
Comment devons-nous proceder ? Je ne puis
indiquer que deux idees. La premiere est chose
facUe et a la portee de tous. Examinez ces nou
velles doctrines, examinez-les dans vos universites,
examinez-les dans vos colleges, examinez-les chez
vous. Organisez des cercles d'etude, des clubs
dans vos grandes villes, la ou vous avez des mar
chands et des financiers. Rappelez a ceux qui font
reposer leur foi sur Texperience et sur les vieux
dictons, comment la science elle-meme, la lente et
scrupuleuse science, a souvent, en s'appuyant sur
les methodes d'induction et sur Texperimentation
eleve des systemes qui on ete acceptes comme des
verites immortelles, jusqu'au jour oii quelque patient
chercheur, toujours au labeur a, soudainement et
dans Tespace d'un eclair, renverse les conceptions

THE TWO PROPOSITIONS 257
anciennes ; et c'est ainsi que les lois de Tevolution
ou celles de la deperdition des forces physiques
possedent pour une nouvelle generation un sens
entierement nouveau.
Ma premiere proposition done est que nous fas-
sions tous nos efforts pour comprendre et disseminer
Tidee que, comme Texprime Mr. Balfour : — " La
guerre d'agression entreprise entre nations civilisees
dans le but d'augmenter le bonheur, la richesse et
la prosperite de Tagresseur, est k la fois inutile et
stupide." Quant a ma deuxieme proposition, j'en prends
seul la responsabilite. Je ne Tai jamais discutee
avec personne d'important. Je Temets comme
venant d'un membre d'une universite anglaise, et
adressee aux etudiants de Tuniversite de Paris.
Nous avons tous eu Toccasion de voir osciUer sous
nos yeux, depuis bien des annees, les chances de
paix ou de guerre. Pour moi, je ne doute pas un
instant que le facteur le plus puissant qui ait servi
la cause de la paix, pendant les temps actuels, je
parle de la paix entre les grandes puissances cUes-
memes. n'ait ete la Triple Alliance. Je ne songe
pas, bien entendu, a rabaisser en rien le valeur de la
Triple Entente, k une epoque plus recente.
Au contraire, la portee qu'a cue cette derniere,
donne plus de poids et plus de force k ce que je
vais dire : je pretends que Tespoir de voir la paix
maintenue en Europe pendant la periode de transi
tion, pendant ces heures difficiles que nous avons k
vivre jusqu'^ ce que Tesprit du public ait per9u

258 LA GUERRE ET LA PAIX
clairement ce que voudrait dire une guerre fratricide
europeenne, au vingtieme siecle, cet espoir, dis-je
repose sur le systeme des alliances.
J'ai beaucoup moins de foi dans le systeme des
ententes comme base de la paix. Les fondements
en sont plus glissants et moins fermes. Une alli
ance dont les termes sont definis, dont les devoirs
et les responsabilites sont bien compris par tous les
interesses, dont les effets sont evidents pour tout le
monde est un roc sur lequel les parties contractantes
se maintiennent solidement et dont U n'est pas facile
de les deloger.
Tout homme qui deteste la guerre et desire la
paix devrait saluer avec joie une alliance entre mon
pays et le votre, la conversion, pour mieux dire, de
la triple entente en une seconde triple alliance.
Alors nous ne serious plus bien loin d'atteindre
un but auquel les plus jeunes d'entre vous pour
rons se voir eux-memes arriver de leur vivant,
a savoir toutes les grandes puissances formant un
concert base sur la raison et la communaute des
interets, et dont on aura fait disparaitre cet element
d'incertitude, les risques de Taction individuelle.
Essayons, comme Ta suggere Sir Edward Grey
de creer une atmosphere . Une atmosphere nouvelle
suppose imagination et ideal ; et c'est dans cette
ambiance seulement, que peut naitre une ere de
paix pour TEurope, d'une paix solide et que nul ne
puisse rompre.
Mes compatriotes, tout le monde le salt, ont une
horreur au coeur pour les alliances, pour ce qu'ils

MATERIALISM AND IDEALISM 259
appellent les liaisons embrouUlees. lis songent avec
regret a leur ancien role de splendide isolement.
lis oublient que pour vous aussi il sera dur de
renoncer aux souvenirs et aux esperances qui vous
tiennent tant au coeur ; souvenirs de gloire militaire
du passe, venerables conceptions d'honneur militaire,
espoirs non satisfaits. Au dessus de nos tetes a
tous, plane Tesprit de sacrifice, et du sacrifice seul
naitra le progres ; c'est la loi de la vie.
S'il est vrai que la tendance chez nous soit au
materialisme et chez vous k Tidealisme, il est mer-
veilleux que nous soyons si bons amis. Napoleon
disait, il y a cent ans : — " Deux puissances comme
la France et TAngleterre, en s'entendant bien pour-
raient gouverner le monde."
C'est vrai, mais nous n'avons nul desir de gou
verner le monde. Nous desirous que les peuples se
gouvernent eux-memes, et trouvent eux-memes
leur voie dans le recherche de la prosperite et du
bonheur. Quel changement d'ideal, quel changement de
point de vue, dans Tespace d'un siecle !
Pour precipiter la marche des idees qui fait^
abandonner les convictions anciennes, il n'y a qu'un
moyen: detruire ces theoremes compliques dans
lesquels le passe a enveloppe des faits simples et
manifestes. S'U n'en etait pas ainsi, on verrait
encore les gens bruler les sorcieres, et se massacrer
les uns les autres pour quelques differences dans
leurs croyances religieuses.
Considerez combien U importe de desaccoutumer

260 LA GUERRE ET LA PAIX
les esprits d'une estimation exageree de la gloire et
de la portee d'une guerre heureuse, afin de per
mettre d'evaluer sainement ce qui reste aux vain-
queurs apres tout compte fait.
Comptons d'abord ce que coute la guerre elle-
meme, puis ce qu'eUe coute a organiser. Songeons
aux richesses enormes, au devouement des plus
grandes intelligences, aux efforts inestimables
d'homme de culture sacrifies a cet art d'extermina-
tion, tout cela au sein d'une civilisation que Ton
place bien au dessus de celles de la Grece et de
Rome, et deux miUe ans apres la venue de TApotre
de la paix.
Supposez, nous dit-on, que tout cet or et toute
cette inteUigence soient consacree a organiser la
paix. Ne voyez-vous pas la un ideal digne des peuples
animes d'idees de progres et de patriotisme, et cet
ideal entre-t-il necessairement en conflit avec une
noble et supreme foi dans les destinees de la patrie ?
Je me suis efforce de faire un tableau rapide de
ces nouveUes propositions, des doutes et des aspi
rations qui ont profondement trouble quelques uns
des esprits les plus serieux parmi mes compatriotes.
J'ai peur que mon expose ne soit faible et insuffi-
sant ; mais " Tame a toujours foi dans le rayon."
Messieurs, il y une unite dans Thistoire, il y a
une continuite ordonnee dans la civilisation et dans
la Science.
Bossuet, en insistant sur " Tenchainement de
Tunivers " appuie sur la disposition secrete des

NORMAN ANGELL 261
evenements qui preparent la voie aux grands
changements. Si nous pouvions lire les secrets
du mois d'Aout d'il y a quatre ans, alors que la
guerre fut si pres d'eclater en Europe, nous pour-
rions en eprouver, c'est la ma conviction, un senti
ment de profonde consolation et de vive esperance
pour I'avenir ; nous y verrions aussi la preuve de
Tinfluence, de Tinterdependance des peuples sur les
actes des gouvernements.
Mais il est une chose dont je suis encore plus
sur, c'est que lorsque dans I'avenir on fera le compte
de tout le labeur, de toute la sagesse, de toutes les
lumieres de TinteUigence qui vont, chaque jour,
servir a construire notre edifice social, Toeuvre du
jeune ecrivain anglais, M. Norman Angell, dont
j'ai si souvent parle, oeuvre composee a Paris et
publiee d'abord en Angleterre, trouvera sa place
marquee a part.

BILLING AND SONS, LTD., PBINTEBS, GUILDFORD

OCT 19*83

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