[1] According to estimates based on studies of estates probated in Massachusetts and Wisconsin, it appears that 2 per cent. of the population owned almost 60 per cent. of the wealth while the poorest 65 per cent. of the population died in possession of only about 5 per cent. of the wealth. See King (W. I.), "The Wealth and Income of the People of the United States," New York, 1915; also cited sources.
[2] Twenty per cent. of the population receive 47.2 per cent. of national income and the remaining eighty per cent. of the population 52.8 per cent. of the national income.—King,op. cit., p. 235.
[3] From 1880 to 1910 the total wages (and salaries) paid in the United States increased from 3.8 to 14.3 thousands of millions of dollars; the average wage increased from $323 to $507; the increase in the annual wages, taking into account differences in the cost of living, was 64 per cent. For basis of these calculations see King.
[4] William James. The Moral Equivalent of War. In "Memories and Studies." New York. Longmans, Green & Co. 1912.
[5] Sumner (William Graham). "War and Other Essays," New Haven (Yale University Press), 1913, p. 29.
[6] "In 1800 Captain Bainbridge, arriving at Algiers with the usual tribute, was ordered to carry dispatches to Constantinople. 'You pay me tribute,' explained the Dey, 'by which you become my slaves, and therefore I have a right to order you as I think proper.'"—Fish. (Carl Russell.) "American Diplomacy," New York (1915), p. 141.
No nation in its foreign policy is completely disinterested, in the sense that it willingly abandons or sacrifices its larger interests. What generosity it displays is usually in smaller matters, like a rich man's gift to a beggar. England may sacrifice interests in Jamaica to uphold the principle of human freedom, while at the same time fighting China to force the admission of opium. Similarly the United States may generously return money to Japan (as in the Shimonoseki case) or to China, or relieve the sufferers of Messina or of Belgium. In really vital matters, however, nations are not self-sacrificing, but tenaciously pursue their own interests.
There are two senses, however, in which a nation may be disinterested in its foreign policy. Either it may possess no interest or its separate interest may be so small in relation to its larger interests elsewhere that it is willing to make a sacrifice. If, for example, the present war ended in a deadlock and the two groups of powers, unwilling to trust each other, were to confide Constantinople and the straits to the keeping of the United States, it would be almost unthinkable that we should be false to the trust. We should have no interest in favouring one group of nations as against the other; we should have no political axe to grind and no economic or territorial gains to make. We should be fair and disinterested because we had no interest.
Our recent attitude toward Cuba, the Philippines and Mexico has been relatively disinterested in the second sense. We might have made money by exploiting these countries. We could have held Cuba; we might have imported a million Chinese into the Philippine Islands and grown rich on their toil, while in Mexico, where we already had invested a large capital which was menaced and in part destroyed by the revolution, we could have taken what we wanted and held what we took. Certain motives of decency prevented us from following this ruthless course; our self-satisfaction was worth more to us than a few hundred million dollars. The important fact, however, was that we were not pressed for this wealth. We were not compelled by poverty or pressure of population to grab what we could. We were able to seek a larger interest, to lay the basis of a slower but surer prosperity and to gain the good will, if not of Cubans, Filipinos and Mexicans, at least of the nations generally. In the long run it was a policy that will pay, and our conditions are such that we can still afford to consider the long run.
But although we have been occasionally disinterested or have shown at least a chemical trace of disinterestedness, our foreign policy has usually pursued concrete national aims. It has been a conservative, relatively uneventful policy, consisting for the most part in a quiet, unhurried advancement of our interests, with a not excessive consideration for the opinions of other nations. We have been cautious though persistent. We have avoided forcing quarrels upon powerful nations until we had grown irresistible. Usually we obtained the large thing, but where we could obtain it only by fighting formidable opponents, we compromised. When as in 1861 we found ourselves in a dangerous position, we endured aggression by France and Spain until we were again freeto compel redress. Time worked for us, the passing years were our allies and we could afford to move slow. But we moved always in one direction—toward our perceived national interest.
The issue, therefore, is not whether we shall sacrifice our national interests, but whether in our foreign policy we shall pursue ultimate, or at least relatively permanent, interests in a large way or seek immediate, smaller gains. It is a choice similar to that which a great store makes when it sells standard goods at a fixed price instead of seeking immediate advantage by petty cheatings and interminable and multitudinous hagglings. As nations advance towards power, stability and security, they are enabled to base their programmes increasingly on long time views and, ceasing to be interested in small advantages, to seek their larger interests in a policy of tolerance and seeming magnanimity. It was to England's real interest to be scrupulously fair in peace time toward weaker naval nations; it was equally to her larger interest to open her dependencies to the trade of the world and to accord political rights to her lately conquered Dutch subjects in South Africa. A tighter and harder policy would have been short-sighted. Even had it gained immediate advantages, it might have left England in a day of adversity with the great powers ranged against her.
The choice between immediate and ultimate interest in foreign policy presents itself daily. We could, for example, simply take the Danish West Indies, instead of paying for them, and doubtless might secure ourselves against a future retaliation by the great powers. Such an adventure, however, to say nothing of its ethics, would be monstrously stupid. Or, while the European nations are looking elsewhere, we might "go" into Mexico and keepwhat we wanted. We have a better excuse than in 1846 and an equally safe opportunity. We should be richer to-morrow if we took Mexico, but would it pay in the end? Would such a conquest accord with our larger policies and our true ambitions in the world?
It is in this light that we should view the problem of our foreign policy as it shapes itself to-day. We must preserve certain national interests, material and spiritual. We must ward off certain dangers, securing ourselves as other nations secure themselves. But for better or worse, we have become a world power and a world influence, and what we do outside, as well as within, our borders, must affect the decisions and actions of other nations. If our ideal is not aggrandisement or empire but an equal fellowship with other great nations, if we desire to contribute to the progress of international development and not merely get all we can in the scramble, how shall we shape our foreign policy? On what broad general principle shall we decide the urgent questions which arise day by day in most unexpected conjunctions?
The answer to these questions is not easy; there is not even an agreement as to what our interests are. What, after all, do the hundred million Americans want beyond their borders? What are we willing to fight for rather than forego? What do we already have or claim, the retention of which would justify us in fighting?
How we shall answer this depends upon our temperament and our special interests. Certain Americans would advise us to fight all Europe, rather than recede from an action already determined upon or acknowledge that American policy is conditioned by the will of foreigners. One need not argue against such convictions. It is the current, instinctive philosophy of "My country right or wrong, wise or foolish; my country against the world." To fightall Europe, however, is not to fight at all, but merely to be assassinated. To act as though Europe had no rights which America needs respect is to adopt a principle profoundly hostile to our own welfare.
To a financier, whose interests in Mexico, Guatemala or Indo-China are attacked, war seems preferable to a neglect of those interests. He would not put the matter so crudely; he would say that he preferred defeat or even disaster to a peace dictated by fear. What would lead him to this patriotic conclusion, however, would be the conviction that to do nothing would lose him his property, whereas even a disastrous war would cost him only his share in the national loss. And the war might be gained or even avoided, if only the United States were bold enough. He would, therefore, define our national interests as including all those things to which we in our good judgment believed that we had some claim.
Those with no special interest in foreign investments are less solicitous. A default on the bonds of Mexican railways is less costly to the Iowa farmer or Boston stonemason than the contraction of debts for the purpose of pacifying Mexico. To fight England or Germany seems more costly to the average American than to forego extra opportunities for making money in China or the Argentine. Even the farmer or stonemason, however, feels that the United States has certain interests and rights abroad. Our citizens should have the right to travel freely upon the high seas and in foreign countries and to enjoy privileges and immunities granted to citizens of other nations. We should have equal access with other nations to the sources of raw materials and to world markets, subject to the reserved right of each nation, including the United States, to levy customs duties for the protection of its own industries. Finally we should enjoy the right ofinvesting our capital and conducting our businesses abroad under the equal protection of the laws of the particular country.
All this is of course vague. It does not determine what protection we should assure ourselves in a country whose government is corrupt or unstable, nor does it consider the contingency of a weak nation, granting under duress more favourable conditions to some other foreign nation than to us.
While however we cannot arrive at any final decision as to the details of our foreign policy, we can at least formulate in general terms certain principles which we may seek to apply. The most vital of these principles is equal opportunity for all nations, and no special advantage for ourselves or others.
In accepting such a principle the United States would be merely applying to a territory, over which it held a dominant influence, a policy which, if universally applied by all the Great Powers, would immensely reduce the area of international friction. To apply such a principle in good faith is the first and most obvious contribution that we can make to economic internationalism. We cannot in reason demand the open door in Asia or in Europe's colonies if in our own colonies and in other lands where we are paramount, we adopt a contrary policy. We can afford to concede this principle of equal opportunity because of our resources at home and the large share of trade and investment opportunities which will come to us without special favours. What we might get above that is not worth the risk. A policy of taking all we can get, whether other nations suffer or not, is, apart from all other considerations, injudicious.
Such a policy of aggression might be cloaked for instance under the Monroe Doctrine, a vague tenet, capableof contraction or infinite expansion. If we allow our speculators to determine its meaning, we shall in due course interpret the doctrine as the right of the United States to control South America politically and exploit it industrially. The downward path to such an interpretation is easy. To secure an inside track in Latin America we need only look askance upon concessions to Europeans and with benevolence upon concessions to Americans. We can place obstacles in the way of foreign corporations recovering damages for injuries suffered, while we aid American companies to secure redress. We can make our ministers to Latin America "business agents" of exporters and big banking concerns. Such a policy would mean economic and eventually political control, the much fearedconquista pacifica.
If we embark upon such a policy we shall earn the hatred both of Europe and of Latin America. Hitherto the Monroe Doctrine has been safe from serious attack by Europe because England with her preponderant sea-power has been commercially the chief benefactor, and the other nations believed that, for the time being at least, South America was held open for joint exploitation. Moreover, Europe had nearer problems in the disposition of Balkan territory and in the partition of Africa and sections of Asia. So long as European nations were not ready to divide up Latin America, or so long as they believed that it would remain independent and thus open to the commerce of all, the temptation to fight for a slice of the great continent, though alluring, was not sufficiently powerful to overcome the sense of the peril of such an undertaking. For Germany to seek to conquer a part of Brazil would have been to add all the American nations to her already long list of enemies. But this tolerance of the Monroe Doctrine is conditioned upon our playingthe part of a guardian and not of a conqueror. We can neither monopolise Latin America industrially nor rule it politically (which might involve the same result) without trenching upon the common patrimony of Europe. To secure the inside track means therefore either to fight all Europe, which is impossible, or to share the booty with one or two allied powers, like England and France, and thus to enter into all the complications and dangers of European politics. A Pan-Americanism of this sort would involve us in the next Balkan imbroglio or the next quarrel over the Persian Gulf, and our peace would be at the mercy of any little monarch who struck the first blow at one of our allies.
In Latin America itself such a policy of aggression by the United States is already feared and resented.[1] The people to the south of us do not take our professions of disinterestedness with the simple faith of little children, but see in us a virile, formidable, unconsciously imperialistic nation, which has already benefited by its guardianship and hopes to benefit still more. They fear the colour prejudice in the United States and a certain unreasoning contempt for Latin-American civilisation might lead us impatiently to set aside their rights if they conflicted with our own interests. The Latin Americans already speak of a "North American Peril." They remember Texas,Panama, Porto Rico. Indeed, they recognise that the United States, in despite of itself, may be forced to expand southwards. "It is more than probable," writes the Mexican sociologist, F. Bulnes, "that by 1980 the United States will hold a population of 250,000,000 inhabitants. They will then scarcely be sufficient for the needs of this population, and will no longer be able to supply the world with the vast quantity of cereals which they supply to-day. They will therefore have to choose between a recourse to the methods of intensive culture and the conquest of the extra-tropical lands of Latin America, which are fitted, by their conditions, to the easy and inexpensive production of cereals."[2]
There is a nearer danger. "Sometimes," writes Garcia Calderon, "this North American influence becomes a monopoly, and the United States takes possession of the markets of the South. They aim at making a trust of the South American republics, the supreme dream of their multi-millionaireconquistadors."[3] Thus to shut off Latin America, as Spain once did, would, however, injure the Southern republics and create an antagonism that would find its expression in armed resistance. Nor would this resistance be entirely negligible. A century ago, Latin America had a population of fifteen millions; to-day its population is eighty millions and is rapidly increasing. As an ally to European nations, opposed to aggression by the United States, a Latin-American country or group of countries might well exert a decisive influence.
Ill defined and vague, capable of being indefinitely expanded by all sorts of sudden interpretations, the MonroeDoctrine is to-day a peril to Latin America and to ourselves. It is likely to become even more dangerous if turned over to an American plutocracy for its elucidation. If on the other hand, we restrict our policy to the protection of the interests of Latin Americans, Europeans and ourselves, we shall not only be safe-guarding our own peace, but shall be removing a future coveted area from the field of international strife. To adopt such a policy, however, means that we must be better informed and more concrete. It is absurd to lump together all Latin-American countries, as though all were equally advanced in civilisation. To compare the Argentine with San Domingo is to discover differences almost as great as between Holland and Abyssinia. Mexico is far more significant to us politically, economically and in a military sense than Brazil or Chile. Into the question of Panama, Haiti and the West Indian Islands generally, elements enter that are absent from our relations with Venezuela or Ecuador. Our policy towards these countries need not be identical. We should have a Mexican policy, a separate policy for the West Indian Islands, another policy for the Caribbean States, and an individual policy for each South American state. Our interests and obligations differ in these states. We cannot pretend to the same vital interest in the internal peace of Argentina as in that of our next door neighbour. We cannot cover these diverse conditions with the blanket of one vague doctrine.
In our relations to Latin America, moreover, we should not grasp at political sovereignty, if the reasonable economic interests of the world can in any way be secured without political incorporation. We are gradually being forced into a policy of acquiring dominion over certain Caribbean countries. We have a financial guardianship in Haiti and San Domingo; we have "taken" Panama,and it probably needs only a little disorder to give us a quasi-protectorate over other small countries in the same neighbourhood. The United States, however, is on the whole still averse from such interference, wherever avoidable. We have kept faith with Cuba and there is strong opposition to acquiring Mexico, despite the agitation of financiers and instinctive border-line patriots. The problem is not easy, for a measure of peace in these neighbouring states is not only essential to us but is demanded by Europe (who will interfere if we do not) and peace may eventually require intervention. In countries like Haiti, which show at present an invincible distaste for orderly government, abstention is almost impossible.
The chief danger in our relations with certain Latin-American countries lies in this political instability and unripeness that makes property and life unsafe and the administration of justice notoriously corrupt. The result is extortion, bribery and violence clothed in legal form. Investors and creditors plead for intervention to enforce contracts, sometimes of doubtful validity, sometimes obviously dishonest. To meet the problems arising from such claims, we should have more information. Our Bureau of Foreign Commerce should ask for data concerning American investments abroad and especially in Latin America. Such information, supplied in the first instance by the corporations, should be verified by official investigations. There should be full publicity. Our consular representatives should not seek to secure special privileges or business orders, and our governmental influence should guarantee equal economic opportunities to all nations. No claim by Americans should be enforced until it has been reported upon favourably by a court of arbitration composed of representatives of nations with no interest in the controversy.
Whether the United States should seek the aid of England or of some other European power in the maintenance of the Monroe Doctrine or should endeavour to internationalise the doctrine by gaining the adhesion of all nations, or should support the doctrine with the aid of the Latin-American countries alone is a question the answer to which will depend upon the future attitude of European nations, and especially upon the relation of the United States to those nations. The difficulty of securing an international guarantee lies in the necessary vagueness of the doctrine. In the present state of mind concerning international guarantees, there is perhaps more immediate advantage in a special guardianship by the United States, the Argentine, Brazil and Chile, especially as in the case of an assault upon the doctrine by one or more European powers, the assistance of other European nations could probably be obtained. The important consideration at present is that the strength of the doctrine will be in direct proportion to the disinterestedness of the United States. The more clearly the doctrine can be made to serve the common interests of the world instead of the special interests of a single country, the more likely is it to secure the support in any crisis of a group of nations possessing a preponderance of world power.
Our relations with Canada present fewer temptations. Our policy should look towards the creation of friendly relations and a nearer economic union, but neither immediately nor ultimately towards a forced annexation. A willing political incorporation of Canada into the United States might be excellent, but an annexation against the opposition of the Canadian people would be a crime and blunder. It would mean an American Alsace-Lorraine upon an immense scale. Economically Canada and the United States are rapidly becoming one. With exports toCanada already more than twice as great as those of all other nations (including Great Britain) we can at will draw upon her immense agricultural and mineral resources by the simple expedient of letting down our tariff wall. We can invest there as safely as Britisher or Canadian, and can benefit by Canada (as Canada benefits by us) as though she were a part of the United States. A growth of the eight million Canadians to twenty or more millions will mean for us an enhanced prosperity. Despite absurd prejudices on both sides of the border the economic union grows stronger.[4]
If we do not strive for an inside track in Latin America nor for the conquest of Canada, should we be willing to fight for the "open door" in China, for equal privileges in all parts of that Empire?
The phrase the "open door" has a pleasing sound. There can be no doubt that the opening up of China's ports to commerce with all nations on equal terms would be of immediate advantage to us, and probably to China herself. Our interest in the matter, however, is frankly selfish. Though we have a kindly feeling for the Chinese, so long as they stay in China, our "open door" policy is intended in the first instance to benefit our own merchants and investors. The alternative to the open door is topermit other nations to divide up China, a proceeding in which we do not care to take part, and to exclude us from certain trade and investment opportunities.
It is doubtful whether these chances which we should lose by an unaggressive policy, are sufficiently important to justify us in entering upon a conflict with Japan or with Japan and Russia.[5] Our losses would be less than is imagined, for whoever opens up China will be compelled to admit other industrial nations upon reasonable terms. Japan cannot finance herself, to say nothing of financing China, and the nations, called upon to supply capital, would necessarily be consulted in essential political and economic arrangements. Even if Japan secured a relatively excessive share of the commerce, it would mean a diversion of other trade, which she formerly possessed, since her own factories would be busy. In the end, we could afford to permit other nations to take upon themselves the burden of policing China, in view of the fact that while ourown profits might be less our expenses also would be less.
A deeper problem, however, is involved in this question of China. Just as by the Monroe Doctrine we seek to prevent European powers from conquering, colonising and dividing up America, so in China, our interest, apart from a share of the trade and investment chances, lies in contributing to the world's peace by removing that vast territory from the field of international political competition. What we should mean by "the open door" in China is the integrity of that country and its immunity from conquest, partition and forced exploitation. The plea of an "open door," as a mere tariff policy, comes with ill grace from us, who have closed the door both in Porto Rico and at home, but China's integrity is an issue of a different character.[6] It is important to us not so much for immediate economic reasons as because it is likely to promote peace. It is a world, rather than a national, interest.
Because it is a world-interest, it should be secured by the efforts of many nations and not by the United States alone.In principle, therefore, the Six-Power Loan, which in a sense was a joint guarantee, was a step in the right direction. That its specific terms were unreasonable and that the loan was in a degree forced were perhaps sufficient reasons for our withdrawal from the arrangement. Along somewhat similar lines, however, the early development of China should proceed, and it is to our interest to promote any plan that will prevent China from being the bone of contention among the belligerent nations of Europe.[7]
Our relations to Latin America, Canada and China are perhaps the most immediate of our foreign concerns. These are the lands in which we have the greatest stake and the greatest temptation to pursue an imperialistic policy. The real power in this world, however, lies in Europe. It is Europe that decides the fate of Asia, Africa, Australia, and may in the end decide that of South America. It is from Europe that the fear of war arises, and it is in our dealings with Europe, and in the dealings of European nations with one another, that the hope of peace and of progress in international development must centre.
[1] For a view of Latin America's fear of aggression by the United States, see such books as "El Imperialismo Norte-Americano," by F. Caraballo Sotolongo, Havana, 1914, and América Latina ante el peliogro, by Salvador K. Merlos, San José (Costa Rica), 1914. Both of these books are shrill and somewhat uncritical but they fairly represent a large body of Latin-American thought. There is usually a division of opinion as to whether the United States is to attain its ends by military or by financial means. "It is notmanu militari," writes a French author, "that Brother Jonathan intends to carve out his place in the sun, but by the force of dollars."—"L'imperialisme allemand," by Maurice Lair, Paris, 1914.
[2] F. Bulnes, "L'Avenir des nations Hispano-Americaines," quoted by F. Garcia Calderon, "Latin America," p. 312.
[3] F. Garcia Calderon, "Latin America. Its Rise and Progress," p. 299.
[4] The problem of Canada's relation to European controversies and wars may in the future present difficult problems for the United States. If in the present war Germany had been able to land armies on Canadian soil, or if in the future Russia or Japan were to do so, the position of the United States might be rendered dangerous by the permanent establishment of a strong military power, let us say in British Columbia. Yet we could not demand that Canada be allowed to send troops against Russia or Japan and those nations be forbidden to attack in return. The problem of the immobilisation, and even of the neutrality, of Canada in certain future wars, in which Great Britain is engaged but we ourselves are neutrals, may become an urgent question.
[5] A guess at our possible losses through a non-aggressive policy in China is made by Mr. Thomas F. Millard in his "Our Eastern Question." "It is roughly estimated," he says, "that China's administrative, commercial, and economic development in the next twenty years will need $2,000,000,000 of foreign capital. Under a genuine application of the Hay Doctrine, America would have approximately one-fourth of this financing.... The returns from this investment would be partly interest and partly trade. Five per cent. interest on $500,000,000 is $25,000,000 income annually." In other words for the privilege of gaining twenty years from now $25,000,000 a year from an investment which if made at home or in the Argentine or in Russia would bring us in little less, Mr. Millard would have us put Japan in her place and if necessary join with England and perhaps France to fight both Japan and Russia. Even if we add the trade profits to this interest on investment, the total result is pitiably small. At our present rate of increase in wealth we may add about one hundred and fifty billions of dollars in the next twenty years. Whether or not one-half billion is invested in China is, nationally speaking, superlatively unimportant. If we intervene in China let us not do it for a few million dollars annually. (See Millard,op. cit., p. 383.)
[6] The significant question has been raised whether Manchuria should be included in the China, whose integrity is to be secured. While China is very densely populated, Manchuria prior to 1904 had only 8,500,000 people on an area of 376,800 square miles, a density of population considerably less than that of Minnesota. With immense natural resources, its development has, says Dr. James Francis Abbott in "Japanese Expansion and American Policies," p. 222, been prevented by "the existence of wandering brigands 'Hunghuntzies,' who terrorised the country." Dr. Abbott distinguishes between the Japanese occupation of Shantung, which is filled with Chinese, and of South Manchuria which "was a sparsely settled province of which China was merely the nominal owner. The Russians, and after them the Japanese, occupied it as Americans occupied California and annexed it for the same reason." Korea and Manchuria are absolutely necessary to Japan. "Japan's needs for expansion are real and obvious. Manchuria and Korea could hold the double of the Japanese population" (p. 233). In other words Dr. Abbott advises a policy of maintaining the integrity of a China, excluding however both Korea and Manchuria.
[7] If China does develop an industrial civilisation it may be quite capable before many generations of maintaining its own integrity and independence. The weaknesses under which China now suffers would tend to disappear once it became industrially organised. That this impending industrial progress of China would mean ultimate economic danger to Western Europe is probable, but this remote danger would not prevent those nations pursuing their immediate economic interests in developing China.
If at home we have a firm basis for national development, if we grow up as a Great Power beyond the range of fierce conflicts between the nations, the opportunity will be offered us to contribute in some degree to the ultimate establishment of peace, or at least to the limitation of war, in the world outside. Our influence can be cast upon the side of peace and augment the forces making for peace. Our hope lies in a national development, which will permit us while pursuing our larger national interests to work towards a great community of interest among other nations.
In such an international peace the United States has a direct and an indirect interest. It has been recently asserted that we in America might regard the present war with equanimity since it brought us huge profits. Undoubtedly there is money to be made out of the selling of provisions and munitions as well as from trade in countries from which competitors are temporarily excluded. On the other hand, the war means the impoverishment of European nations, who are our main purveyors and customers, and eventually the losses suffered by combatants must be shared to some extent by us who are non-combatants. The war brings about a dislocation of the world industry, a shrinking of capital, and in the end higher prices and a possible reduction in real wages.In the years to come we shall be forced to pay our share of the cost.
Nor is this economic motive our sole reason for desiring international peace. We are linked to the nations of Europe, and however we declaim against "hyphenates," cannot prevent our immigrants from sympathising with the land of their birth. The present straining of loyalties in this country is a sufficient reason for our desiring peace in Europe. Nor do we like bloodshed or the political reaction and the backwash of barbarism that wars entail. Finally, however neutral we remain, there is always the possibility that we may be plunged into a great European conflict, in which in the beginning at least we shall have no direct interest.
Diplomatically also, war in Europe is of no overwhelming advantage to us. In the early days of the Republic, a constant balancing of hostile forces prevented England and France from taking advantage of our weakness. The quarrels of Europe enabled us to preserve our independence by opposing a unitary strength to the enfeebling European dualism; otherwise we might not have dared to use so shrill a tone in admonishing the great powers. But even had the eagle not screeched, we might still have led a satisfactory national existence. Whatever was true in the past, however, we need no longer be so completely defenceless that we must fear that peace in Europe would mean a conquest of America. We should rather have Europe fight itself than us, but—in dollars and cents as in other values—we should prefer to see the world at peace.
We shall not secure peace, however, by merely wishing for it or by merely preaching it. In the midst of war there has always been the longing for peace, and throughout the centuries voices have been raised calling upon mankind to give up its war upon itself. The ideal of peacepervades much of all folklore; it inspires the Old Testament prophets and is everywhere expressed in the New Testament. The religious ideals of the Chinese, Hindus and Persians are suffused with the hope of peace, and Greek and Roman philosophers and poets dreamed of a peaceful commonwealth of peoples and planned the Federation of the World. The Early Church Fathers, Irenæus, Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian, Cyprian, Augustine, preached the gospel of peace, and while the Church doctrines later changed in this respect, there reappeared again and again during the Mediæval Period the conception of a World State, presided over by Emperor or Pope, and ending once for all the ceaseless strife among princes. After the Reformation religious sects grew up, like the Mennonites and the Quakers, who preached not only peace but non-resistance. Out of all this longing for peace, out of all these proposals, however, came nothing. Similarly the pacifist writings of the Abbé de St. Pierre, of Rousseau, of Leibnitz, of Montesquieu, of Voltaire, of Kant, of Jeremy Bentham and of hundreds of others did not bring the world a single step nearer to an elimination of war.[1]
Throughout this long history, pacifism failed because it was in no sense based upon the actual conditions of the world. It was a religious, sentimental, hortatory pacifism. Finding peace desirable, it pleaded with the men who ruled nations to compose their quarrels. It was an appeal not to the interest but to the sentiments of men. It discovered that war was evil and exhorted nations and rulers to refrain from evil.
With the period of enlightenment that began shortly before the French Revolution, the movement for peace wasaccelerated. The ideas that were once current only among philosophers began to spread among considerable sections of the population. Gradually also pacifism became rationalistic rather than religious or moral. War was attacked not because it was evil in the eyes of God but because, like high taxes, monopolies and tariffs, it was adverse to the economic interests of nations and peoples. The growth of the doctrine oflaissez-faireand of free trade gave a new impetus to the pacifist movement. The people of the world were looked upon as a myriad of human atoms, whose welfare did not depend upon the power of the particular State of which they chanced to form a part, but upon the free enterprise of each and the unobstructed exchange of products among all these individuals. It was held that the world would be better if there were no customs barriers, and free trade on equal terms for all the people of the world was predicted as a proximate consummation. There would then be no need for wars or fleets or armies, which cost money and prevented the progress of humanity. Wars were economically inadvisable. They did not benefit the sovereign individual, and therefore could not benefit the nation, which was merely a huge assemblage of individuals.
Like the religious and emotional pacifism which preceded it, this rationalistic pacifism broke down through its sheer inapplicability to the facts of life. While the philosophers of the French Revolution were still proclaiming the advent of peace, the greatest wars until then in all history were already preparing, and again when in 1851 at the first World's Exposition in London men began to hope that the era of peace had at last come, a long period of war was again imminent. Never was there more talk of peace or hope of peace than in the years preceding the great conflict of 1914. No wonder many advocates andprophets of war believe that peace is forever impossible. "There," wrote the late Prof. J. A. Cramb, "in its specious and glittering beauty the ideal of Pacificism remains; yet in the long march of humanity across thousands of years or thousands of centuries it remains still an ideal, lost in inaccessible distances, as when first it gleamed across the imagination."[2] "Despite this hubbub of talk down all the centuries war has continued—absolutely as if not a word had been said on one side or the other. Man's dreadful toll in blood has not yet all been paid. The human race bears still this burden. Declaimed against in the name of religion, in the name of humanity, in the name of profit-and-loss, war still goes on."[3]
But the fact that war still exists does not at all prove that it is inevitable, but merely that it has not yet been avoided. Militarists argue that war is biologically necessary, an ingrained ineradicable instinct, a necessary evil or an inescapable good, a gift of a stern god. There is a curious sentimental fatalism about our war prophets, but in the end their arguments come down to two, that we have always had wars and that we still have them. It was said many years ago that "the poor ye have always with you" and to-day poverty on an immense scale still exists in every part of the planet. Yet we do not despair of limiting or even of eradicating poverty. Tuberculosis has existed for centuries and still exists, but to-day we understand the disease and it is doomed. If war is inevitable it is so for reasons which have not yet been established. Until it is proved that war accompanies life and progress as the shadow accompanies the body, men will strive to eliminate war, however frequent and discouraging their failures.
The cause of these failures of pacifism has been itsunreality, its too confident approach to a difficult problem. Many pacifists have tended to exhort about war instead of studying it; they have looked upon it as a thing accursed and irrational, beyond the pale of serious consideration. They have likened the belief that war has accomplished good in the past to a faith in witchcraft and other superstitions. They have tilted at war, as the Mediæval Church tilted at usury, without stopping to consider what relation this war-process bore to the basic facts of social evolution. It was an error to consider war as a thing in itself instead of an effect of precedent causes. Fortunately the newer pacifists, who have been rendered cautious by many bitter disappointments, are changing their approach and seeking to cure war not directly but by removing its causes. They are striving to outflank war.
Along this line alone can progress be made. You cannot end war without changing the international polity which leads to war. The bloody conflicts between nations, being a symptom of a world maladjustment and frequently an attempt to cure that maladjustment, can be averted only by policies which provide some other cure. To destroy war one must find some alternative regulator or governor of societies.
In their failure to provide such a regulator, or even to recognise that such a regulator is necessary, lies the vital defect of many of the peace plans to-day. Pacifism may be either static or dynamic; it may seek to keep things as they are, to crystallise international society in its present forms, or on the other hand may base itself on the assumption that these forms will change. It may address itself to the problem of stopping the world as one stops a clock, of forbidding unequal growth of nations, of discountenancing change, or it may seek to find an outlet and expression for the discontent and unrest which all growthbrings. Pacifism that is static is doomed. Our only hope lies in a dynamic, evolutionary pacifism, based on a principle of the ever-changing adjustment of nations to an ever-changing environment.
At the bottom of static pacifism lies a conception somewhat as follows. The nations of the earth have an interest in maintaining peace, but are forced, tricked or lured into war by the tyranny or craft of princes and capitalists or by their own prejudices and sudden passions. Some nations are peaceful and some, by reason of an evil education, hostile; wherefore the hostile nations must be restrained by the peaceful, as the anti-social classes are restrained by the community. Honest differences of opinion among nations must be arbitrated; angry passions must be allowed to cool, and the nations must go about unarmed that there may be no indiscriminate shooting. Given these precautions we shall have peace.
But it is a peace without change, and such a peace, apart from its being impossible, is not even desirable. What the static pacifist does not perceive is that he is hopelessly conservative and stationary in a swiftly moving world. He would like to build a wall against Time and Change, to put down his stakes and bid evolution cease. It is this pathetic clinging to fixity, to a something immutable, that vitiates his proposals. Nations that hate war prefer it nevertheless to the preservation of unendurable conditions, and the best conditions, if they remain unaltered, speedily become unendurable. We should not be satisfied to-day with the best constitution of the world agreed upon a hundred years ago, before there were railroads and telegraphs, and when democracy and nationalism were weaker than to-day. If to-morrow morning our wisest and most forward-looking men were to re-constitute Society and petrify it in peace, our descendants would be far from content.The best heritage that the world can have is not a perfect constitution but a feasible principle of change.
A dynamic pacifism, on the other hand, must assume that the world is in change, and that no peace is possible or desirable which does not permit great international transformations. These transformations arise from various causes. Thus a candid consideration of the facts of international life must convince us that in the present era nationality is a potent, vital and probably a growing force, and that many of the ambitions and desires of men are mobilised nationally. The nations, however, grow unequally and are subjected to unequal pressure by their various environments. As a consequence certain nations become increasingly dissatisfied with their place in the world, and naturally, and in the present circumstances wisely, prefer the risks and costs of war to their present position. Such nations have an interest in war, if change cannot be otherwise effected. Moreover, it is clear to the dynamic pacifist that certain classes by the fact of their position in society are more bellicose than others, that classes grow at unequal rates and exert a varying influence, and that certain classes may have a direct and obvious interest in throwing their nation into war.
The neglect of any such dynamic conception of world society is revealed in all the proposals of the static pacifists. For example, the proposal to create a United States of Europe is based on a palpably false analogy with the United States of America, and ignores grossly the living principle of nationality. The states of Europe are either nations or are approaching nationhood. They lack the racial, linguistic and traditional bonds, which made the union of the American colonies not indeed easy but at least possible. These trans-Atlantic nations suffer from being jostled one against the other and their keen sense ofnational difference is accentuated by economic pressure and by a perpetual fear of foreign military aggression. To unite all these nations into one federal state, with a Senate, a House of Representatives and an impartial Supreme Court, is not only a static but a mechanical proposal. Nations grow; they are not manufactured.
Equally static is the proposal for immediate and universal disarmament. Nations will arm so long as they are afraid and so long as they want something vital that can be obtained only by warfare. Moreover, there is no principle to determine the permitted armament of each nation or to designate the country which shall control the international police that is to enforce disarmament. An unequal disarmament would be unwise because it would take from the more pacific and civilised nations the weapons necessary to restrain unorganised and retrograde peoples. The fundamental defect of the proposal, however, is that it provides no way by which one nation, injured by another, can secure redress. If there is to be neither war nor an effective international regulation, what limits can a nation set to non-military aggression by its neighbour?[4]
The belief that all wars may be averted by arbitration is equally a static conception. During the last few decades international arbitration has settled many controversies, which could not be adjusted by ordinary diplomatic means. Increasingly cases have been submitted to arbitral decision.The real questions over which nations clash, however, are not arbitrable. One cannot arbitrate whether Russia or Germany should control the Balkans, whether the United States should admit Japanese immigrants, or whether Alsace should go to France or Germany, or Trieste to Italy or Austria. Arbitration has the limitations of judicial processes. It is possible to arbitrate questions concerning the interpretation of treaties and formal agreements or the application of recognised principles of international law, but no nation will arbitrate its right to exist. Moreover, the very fact that arbitration is a judicial process, based upon precedents and the assumption of thestatus quorenders it unacceptable to the nations which are dissatisfied with present arrangements. The necessity which knows no law respects no arbitration, and no board of arbitration, however impartial, could decide that one nation should have more colonies because she needed them or because she was growing, while another nation must stand aside because feeble and unprogressive. It is probably not in the interest of the world that Portugal and Belgium should retain their colonies in Africa, but on what precedent could these nations be forced to sell? Questions of vital interest therefore are in truth non-justiciable. No powerful nation will accept a subordinate position in the world because some arbitral body decides it may not adopt a certain policy. Arbitration is not a process of adjustment of growing nations to a changing environment.
But if nations will not gladly accept arbitration where supposedly vital interests are concerned, can they not be coerced? Out of the obvious need of such coercion arises a whole series of plans to force recalcitrant nations to accept mediation, to delay hostilities and even to abide by the arbitral award. A League to Enforce Peace is a proposed union of pacific nations to prevent immediate or evenultimate recourse to war, to force combatants to arbitrate justiciable disputes and to place the sanction of force behind the decisions of the nations.
This proposal contains within it an element valuable and indeed essential to international peace. It frankly assumes the right of a group of nations to compel a refractory nation by the use of force. It is far more realistic than the conception of a world peace based upon a sudden conversion of the nations to the iniquity of war, which is at bottom an anarchistic conception. For however we deplore a use of force we cannot rely exclusively upon anything less. Force is not intrinsically immoral, and without force no morality can prevail. The compulsion which the parent exercises over a child, and organised communities over the individual citizen, must equally form the basis of an international system. One cannot base such a system upon mere moral suasion, which, though of value as a precedent and complement to force, is frequently thwarted by the public opinion of each nation, formed within its borders and protected from outside influence by pride and a blinding national interest. Outside nations could not have persuaded Germany that it was unethical to invade Belgium. She would have appealed to her own moral sense and trusted to the future to make good her right to attack. Had Germany realised, however, that an invasion of Belgium would be actively resisted by otherwise neutral nations, overwhelming in force, she might have been willing to debate the question.
The immorality of force lies merely in improper use. All through history compulsion has been exerted for evil as well as for good purposes. The future of international concord lies, therefore, not in refraining from force or potential force, not in a purelylaissez-fairepolicy, but in applying force to uphold a growing body of internationalethics, increasingly recognised by the public opinion of the world.
But a League of Peace, unless it ismorethan a league of peace, suffers from the same defect of not providing an alternative to war. If Italy is not to attack Austria, some way must be found to protect Italian interests in the Trentino and Trieste, and if Germany is not to attack England, some security must be given that German commerce will be safe and German colonial aspirations not entirely disregarded. If the nations believe, rightly or wrongly, that their vital interests are being disregarded in the peace which the League enforces, there will be defections and revolts. Such a league would then become useless or worse, since it can only exert an influence so long as it possesses an immense preponderance of power.
The same defect inheres in a League of Satisfied Powers. Such powers, preferring thestatus quoto any probable revision of the affairs of the world, are in the beginning united by a common conservative instinct. But no nation is completely satisfied; each wants a "rectification" here and a "compensation" there. The same disagreements over the spoils of the world that would be found outside such a league would also make their appearance within, and in the end one or more of the satiated nations would join the group of the unsatisfied, and the league would cease to be a guarantee of peace. It would die of the endless flux in human affairs.
Similarly static is the proposal that all nations wait, or be compelled to wait, a set term before beginning hostilities. In many cases such a compulsory postponement would be advantageous in that it would favour the mobilisation of the pacific elements in the community and thus tend to prevent wars being suddenly forced upon the nation against the national interest by a small, bellicose social class. Theunderlying theory, however, is that nations always go to war because they are hot-headed, whereas in very many cases the decision to wage war at the proper time is perfectly deliberate and cold-blooded. Moreover, a compulsory wait before declaring war would alter the balance of power between the groups of powers, and would adversely affect certain ready nations, which could therefore only be coerced into accepting the arrangement. Unless some adequate provision were made (and it would be difficult, perhaps impossible, to make it) to prevent a nation from preparing for war during the year's wait, the countries with the largest resources, such as Great Britain, the United States and Russia, would secure an enormous advantage, while nations like Germany and Japan would lose. An event in the very recent past illustrates this point. On August 1, 1914 the German Secretary of State intimated to the British Ambassador that a failure on the part of Russia to demobilise would cause Germany to declare instant war. "Russia had said that her mobilisation did not necessarily imply war, and that she could perfectly well remain mobilised for months without making war. This was not the case with Germany. She had the speed and Russia had the numbers, and the safety of the German Empire forbade that Germany should allow Russia time to bring up masses of troops from all parts of her wide dominions."[5] In other words, for Germany to give up her greater speed of mobilisation would be to destroy her advantage while assuring that of Russia. Actually, under present circumstances, such a proposal would tend to preserve thestatus quoand to aid the satisfied nations. In practice it would take from the dissatisfied nations the power to alter arrangements, which they feel are unjust.