Chapter 15

[62]It is true that the Labour Party, alone of all the parties, did take action, happily effective, against the Russian adventure—after it had gone on in intermittent form for two years. But the above paragraphs refer particularly to the period which immediately succeeded the War, and to a general temper which was unfortunately a fact despite Labour action.[63]Mr Hartley Manners, the playwright, who produced during the War a book entitledHate with a Will to Victory, writes thus:—‘And in voicing our doctrine of Hate let us not forget that the German people were, and are still, solidly behind him (the Kaiser) in everything he does.’ ...‘The German people are actively and passively with their Government to the last man and the last mark. No people receive their faith and their rules of conduct more fatuously from their rulers than do the German people. Fronting the world they stand as one with their beloved Kaiser. He who builds on a revolution in Germany as a possible ending of the war, knows not what he says. They will follow through any degradation of the body, through any torture of spirit, the tyrants they have been taught from infancy to regard as their Supreme Masters of body and soul.’ ...And here is his picture of ‘the German’:—... ‘a slave from birth, with no rights as a free man, owing allegiance to a militaristic Government to whom he looks for his very life; crushed by taxation to keep up the military machine; ill-nourished, ignorant, prone to crime in greater measure than the peasants of any other country—as the German statistics of crime show—a degraded peasant, a wretched future, and a loathesome past—these are the inheritances to which the German peasant is born. What type of nature can develop in such conditions? But one—thebrute. And the four years’ commerce of this War has shown the German from prince to peasant as offspring of the one family—thebrutefamily.’ ...[64]The following—which appeared inThe Timesof April 17, 1915—is merely a type of at least thirty or forty similar reports published by the German Army Headquarters: ‘In yesterday’s clear weather the airmen were very active. Enemy airmen bombarded places behind our positions. Freiburg was again visited, and several civilians, the majority being children, were killed and wounded.’ A few days later the ParisTemps(April 22, 1915) reproduced the German accounts of French air-raids where bombs were dropped on Kandern, Loerrach, Mulheim, Habsheim, Wiesenthal, Tüblingen, Mannheim. These raids were carried out by squads of airmen, and the bombs were thrown particularly at railway stations and factories. Previous to this, British and French airmen had been particularly active in Belgium, dropping bombs on Zeebrugge, Bruges, Middlekirke, and other towns. One German official report tells how a bomb fell on to a loaded street car, killing many women and children. Another (dated September 7, 1915) contains the following: ‘In the course of an enemy aeroplane attack on Lichtervelde, north of Roulers in Flanders, seven Belgian inhabitants were killed and two injured.’ A despatch from Zürich, dated Sept. 24, 1915, says: ‘At yesterday’s meeting of the Stuttgart City Council, the Mayor and Councillors protested vigorously against the recent French raid upon an undefended city. Burgomaster Lautenschlager asserted that an enemy that attacked harmless civilians was fighting a lost cause.’[65]March 27th, 1919.[66]In Drinkwater’s play,Abraham Lincoln, the fire-eating wife of the war-profiteer, who had been violently abusing an old Quaker lady, is thus addressed by Lincoln:—‘I don’t agree with her, but I honour her. She’s wrong, but she is noble. You’ve told me what you think. I don’t agree with you, and I’m ashamed of you and your like. You, who have sacrificed nothing babble about destroying the South while other people conquer it. I accepted this war with a sick heart, and I’ve a heart that’s near to breaking every day. I accepted it in the name of humanity, and just and merciful dealing, and the hope of love and charity on earth. And you come to me, talking of revenge and destruction, and malice, and enduring hate. These gentle people are mistaken, but they are mistaken cleanly, and in a great name. It is you that dishonour the cause for which we stand—it is you who would make it a mean and little thing....’[67]The official record of the Meeting of the Council of Ten on January 16, 1919, as furnished to the Foreign Relations Committee of the American Senate, reports Mr Lloyd George as saying:—‘The mere idea of crushing Bolshevism by military force is pure madness....‘The Russian blockade would be a “death cordon,” condemning women and children to starvation, a policy which, as humane people, those present could not consider.’[68]While attempting in this chapter to reveal the essential difference of the two methods open to us, it is hardly necessary to say that in the complexities and cross-currents of human society practical policy can rarely be guided by a single absolute principle. Reference has been made to the putting of the pooled force of the nations behind a principle or law as the alternative of each attempting to use his own for enforcing his own view. The writer does not suppose for an instant that it is possible immediately to draw up a complete Federal Code of Law for Europe, to create a well-defined European constitution and then raise a European army to defend it, or body of police to enforce it. He is probably the last person in the world likely to believe the political ideas of the European capable of such an agile adaptation.[69]Delivered at Portland, Maine, on March 28th, 1918; reported inNew York Times, March 29th.[70]Bertrand Russell:Principles of Social Reconstruction.Mr. Trotter inInstincts of the Herd in War and Peace, says:—‘We see one instinct producing manifestations directly hostile to each other—prompting to ever-advancing developments of altruism while it necessarily leads to any new product of advance being attacked. It shows, moreover ... that a gregarious species rapidly developing a complex society can be saved from inextricable confusion only by the appearance of reason and the application of it to life. (p. 46.)... ‘The conscious direction of man’s destiny is plainly indicated by Nature as the only mechanism by which the social life of so complex an animal can be guaranteed against disaster and brought to yield its full possibilities, (p. 162.)... ‘Such a directing intelligence or group of intelligences would take into account before all things the biological character of man.... It would discover when natural inclinations in man must be indulged, and would make them respectable, what inclinations in him must be controlled for the advantage of the species, and make them insignificant.’ (p. 162-3.)[71]The opening sentence of a five volumeHistory of the Peace Conference of Paris, edited by H. W. V. Temperley, and published under the auspices of the Institute of International Affairs, is as follows:—‘The war was a conflict between the principles of freedom and of autocracy, between the principles of moral influence and of material force, of government by consent and of government by compulsion.’[72]Foremost as examples stand out the claims of German Austria to federate with Germany; the German population of the Southern Tyrol with Austria; the Bohemian Germans with Austria; the Transylvanian Magyars with Hungary; the Bulgarians of Macedonia, the Bulgarians of the Dobrudja, and the Bulgarians of Western Thrace with Bulgaria; the Serbs of the Serbian Banat with Yugo-Slavia; the Lithuanians and Ukrainians for freedom from Polish dominion.[73]We know now (see the interview with M. Paderewski in theNew York World) that we compelled Poland to remain at war when she wanted to make peace. It has never been fully explained why the Prinkipo peace policy urged by Mr Lloyd George as early as December 1918 was defeated, and why instead we furnished munitions, tanks, aeroplanes, poison gas, military missions and subsidies in turn to Koltchak, Denikin, Yudenitch, Wrangel, and Poland. We prolonged the blockade—which in the early phases forbade Germany that was starving to catch fish in the Baltic, and stopped medicine and hospital supplies to the Russians—for fear, apparently, of the very thing which might have helped to save Europe, the economic co-operation of Russia and Central Europe.[74]‘We have no quarrel with the German people. We have no feeling towards them but one of sympathy and friendship. It was not upon their impulse that their government acted in entering this war.’ ... ‘We are glad ... to fight thus for the ultimate peace of the world, and for the liberation of its peoples, the German peoples included: for the rights of nations great and small ... to choose their way of life.’ (President Wilson, Address to Congress, April 2nd, 1917).[75]The Economic Consequences of the Peace, p. 211.[76]See quotations from Sir A. Conan Doyle, later in this Chapter.[77]See, e.g., the facts as to the repression of Socialism in America, Chapter V.[78]The Atlantic Monthly, November 1920.[79]Realities of War, pp. 426-7, 441.[80]Is it necessary to say that the present writer does not accept it?[81]The argument is not invalidated in the least by sporadic instances of liberal activity here—an isolated article or two. For iteration is the essence of propaganda as an opinion forming factor.[82]In an article in theNorth American Review, just before America’s entrance into the War, I attempted to indicate the danger by making one character in an imaginary symposium say: ‘One talks of “Wilson’s programme,” “Wilson’s policy.” There will be only one programme and one policy possible as soon as the first American soldier sets foot on European soil: Victory. Bottomley and Maxse will be milk and water to what we shall see America producing. We shall have a settlement so monstrous that Germany will offer any price to Russia and Japan for their future help.... America’s part in the War will absorb about all the attention and interest that busy people can give to public affairs. They will forget about these international arrangements concerning the sea, the League of Peace—the things for which the country entered the War. In fact if Wilson so much as tries to remind them of the objects of the War he will be accused of pro-Germanism, and you will have their ginger Press demanding that the “old gang” be “combed out.”’[83]‘If we take the extremist possibility, and suppose a revolution in Germany or in South Germany, and the replacement of the Hohenzollerns in all or part of Germany by a Republic, then I am convinced that for republican Germany there would be not simply forgiveness, but a warm welcome back to the comity of nations. The French, British, Belgians, and Italians, and every civilised force in Russia would tumble over one another in their eager greeting of this return to sanity.’ (What is coming?p. 198).[84]See the memoranda published inThe Secrets of Crewe House.[85]Mr Keynes is not alone in declaring that the Treaty makes of our armistice engagements a ‘scrap of paper.’The Round Table, in an article which aims at justifying the Treaty as a whole, says: ‘Opinions may differ as to the actual letter of the engagements which we made at the Armistice, but the spirit of them is undoubtedly strained in some of the detailed provisions of the peace. There is some honest ground for the feeling manifested in Germany that the terms on which she laid down her arms have not been observed in all respects.’A very unwilling witness to our obligations is Mr Leo Maxse, who writes (National Review, February, 1921):—‘Thanks to the American revelations we are in a better position to appreciate the trickery and treachery of the pre-Armistice negotiations, as well as the hideous imposture of the Paris Peace Conference, which, we now learn for the first time, was governed by the self-denying ordinance of the previous November, when, unbeknown to the countries betrayed, the Fourteen Points had been inextricably woven into the Armistice. Thus was John Bull effectively ‘dished’ of every farthing of his war costs.’As a fact, of course, the self-denying ordinance was not ‘unbeknown to the countries betrayed.’ The Fourteen Points commitment was quite open; the European Allies could have repudiated them, as, on one point, Britain did.[86]A quite considerable school, who presumably intend to be taken seriously, would have us believe that the French Revolution, the Russian Revolution, the English Trade Union Movement are all the work of a small secret Jewish Club or Junta—their work, that is, in the sense that but for them the Revolutions or Revolutionary movements would not have taken place. These arguments are usually brought by ‘intense nationalists’ who also believe that sentiments like nationalism are so deeply rooted that mere ideas or theories can never alter them.[87]An American playwright has indicated amusingly with what ingenuity we can create a ‘collectivity.’ One of the characters in the play applies for a chauffeur’s job. A few questions reveal the fact that he does not know anything about it. ‘Why does he want to be a chauffeur?’ ‘Well, I’ll tell you, boss. Last year I got knocked down by an automobile and badly hurt. And I made up my mind that when I came out of the hospital I’d get a bit of my own back. Get even by knocking over a few guys, see?’ A policy of ‘reprisals,’ in fact.[88]December 26th, 1917.[89]A thing which happens about once a week in the United States.[90]October 16th, 1917.[91]The amazing rapidity with which we can change sides and causes, and the enemy become the Ally, and the Ally the enemy, in the course of a few weeks, approaches the burlesque.At the head of the Polish armies is Marshal Pilsudski, who fought under Austro-German command, against Russia. His ally is the Ukrainian adventurer, General Petlura, who first made a separate peace at Brest-Litovsk, and contracted there to let the German armies into the Ukraine, and to deliver up to them its stores of grain. These in May 1920 were the friends of the Allies. The Polish Finance Minister at the time we were aiding Poland was Baron Bilinski, a gentleman who filled the same post in the Austrian Cabinet which let loose the world war, insisted hotly on the ultimatum to Serbia, helped to ruin the finances of the Hapsburg dominions by war, and then after the collapse repeated the same operation in Poland. On the other side the command has passed, it is said, to the dashing General Brusiloff, who again and again saved the Eastern front from Austrian and German offensives. He is now the ‘enemy’ and his opponents our ‘Allies.’ They are fighting to tear the Ukraine, which means all South Russia, away from the Russian State. The preceding year we spent millions to achieve the opposite result. The French sent their troops to Odessa, and we gave our tanks to Denikin, in order to enable him to recover this region for Imperial Russia.[92]The Russian case is less evident. But only the moral inertia following on a long war could have made our Russian record possible.[93]He complained that I had ‘publicly reproved him’ for supporting severity in warfare. He was mistaken. As he really did believe in the effectiveness of terrorism, he did a very real service by standing publicly for his conviction.[94]Here is what theTimesof December 10th, 1870, has to say about France and Germany respectively, and on the Alsace-Lorraine question:—‘We must say with all frankness that France has never shown herself so senseless, so pitiful, so worthy of contempt and reprobation, as at the present moment, when she obstinately declines to look facts in the face, and refuses to accept the misfortune her own conduct has brought upon her. A France broken up in utter anarchy, Ministers who have no recognised chief, who rise from the dust in their air balloons, and who carry with them for ballast shameful and manifest lies and proclamations of victories that exist only in their imagination, a Government which is sustained by lies and imposture, and chooses rather to continue and increase the waste of lives than to resign its own dictatorship and its wonderful Utopia of a republic; that is the spectacle which France presents to-day. It is hard to say whether any nation ever before burdened itself with such a load of shame. The quantity of lies which France officially and unofficially has been manufacturing for us in the full knowledge that they are lies, is something frightful and absolutely unprecedented. Perhaps it is not much after all in comparison with the immeasurable heaps of delusions and unconscious lies which have so long been in circulation among the French. Their men of genius who are recognised as such in all departments of literature are apparently of opinion that France outshines other nations in a superhuman wisdom, that she is the new Zion of the whole world, and that the literary productions of the French, for the last fifty years, however insipid, unhealthy, and often indeed devilish, contain a real gospel, rich in blessing for all the children of men.We believe that Bismarck will take as much of Alsace-Lorraine, too, as he chooses, and that it will be the better for him, the better for us, the better for all the world but France, and the better in the long run for France herself. Through large and quiet measures, Count von Bismarck is aiming with eminent ability at a single object; the well-being of Germany and of the world, of the large-hearted, peace-loving, enlightened, and honest people of Germany growing into one nation; and if Germany becomes mistress of the Continent in place of France, which is light-hearted, ambitious, quarrelsome, and over-excitable, it will be the most momentous event of the present day, and all the world must hope that it will soon come about.’[95]We realise without difficulty that no society could be formed by individuals each of whom had been taught to base his conduct on adages such as these: ‘Myself alone’; ‘myself before anybody else’; ‘my ego is sacred’; ‘myself over all’; ‘myself right or wrong.’ Yet those are the slogans of Patriotism the world over and are regarded as noble and inspiring, shouted with a moral and approving thrill.[96]However mischievous some of the manifestations of Nationalism may prove, the worst possible method of dealing with it is by the forcible repression of any of its claims which can be granted with due regard to the general interest. To give Nationalism full play, as far as possible, is the best means of attenuating its worst features and preventing its worst developments. This, after all, is the line of conduct which we adopt to certain religious beliefs which we may regard as dangerous superstitions. Although the belief may have dangers, the social dangers involved in forcible repression would be greater still.[97]The Great Illusion, p. 326[98]‘The Pacifists lie when they tell us that the danger of war is over.’ General Leonard Wood.[99]The Science of Power, p. 14.[100]Ibid, p. 144.[101]See quotations, Part I, Chapters I and III.[102]The validity of this assumption still holds even though we take the view that the defence of war as an inevitable struggle for bread is merely a rationalisation (using that word in the technical sense of the psychologists) of impulse or instinct, merely, that is, an attempt to find a ‘reason’ for conduct the real explanation of which is the subconscious promptings of pugnacities or hostilities, the craving of our nature for certain kinds of action. If we could not justify our behaviour in terms of self-preservation, it would stand so plainly condemned ethically and socially that discipline of instinct—as in the case of sex instinct—would obviously be called for and enforced. In either case, the road to better behaviour is by a clearer revelation of the social mischief of the predominant policy.[103]Rear-Admiral A. T. Mahan:Force in International Relations.[104]The Interest of America in International Conditions, by Rear-Admiral A. T. Mahan, pp. 47-87.[105]Government and the War, p. 62.[106]State Morality and a League of Nations, pp 83-85.[107]North American Review, March 1912.[108]Admiral Mahan himself makes precisely this appeal:—‘That extension of national authority over alien communities, which is the dominant note in the world politics of to-day, dignifies and enlarges each State and each citizen that enters its fold.... Sentiment, imagination, aspiration, the satisfaction of the rational and moral faculties in some object better than bread alone, all must find a part in a worthy motive. Like individuals, nations and empires have souls as well as bodies. Great and beneficent achievement ministers to worthier contentment than the filling of the pocket.’[109]It is not necessary to enter exhaustively into the difficult problem of ‘natural right.’ It suffices for the purpose of this argument that the claim of others to life will certainly be made and that we can only refuse it at a cost which diminishes our own chances of survival.[110]See Mr Churchill’s declaration, quoted Part I Chapter V.[111]Mr J. L. Garvin, who was among those who bitterly criticised this thesis on account of its ‘sordidness,’ now writes: ‘Armageddon might become almost as frequent as General Elections if belligerency were not restrained by sheer dread of the consequences in an age of economic interdependence when even victory has ceased to pay.’(Quoted inWestminster Gazette, Jan. 24, 1921.)[112]The introductory synopsis reads:—What are the fundamental motives that explain the present rivalry of armaments in Europe, notably the Anglo-German? Each nation pleads the need for defence; but this implies that some one is likely to attack, and has therefore a presumed interest in so doing. What are the motives which each State thus fears its neighbours may obey?They are based on the universal assumption that a nation, in order to find outlets for expanding population and increasing industry, or simply to ensure the best conditions possible for its people, is necessarily pushed to territorial expansion and the exercise of political force against others (German naval competition is assumed to be the expression of the growing need of an expanding population for a larger place in the world, a need which will find a realisation in the conquest of English Colonies or trade, unless these were defended); it is assumed, therefore, that a nation’s relative prosperity is broadly determined by its political power; that nations being competing units, advantage, in the last resort, goes to the possessor of preponderant military force, the weaker going to the wall, as in the other forms of the struggle for life.The author challenges this whole doctrine.[113]See chaptersThe Psychological Case for Peace,Unchanging Human Nature, andIs the Political Reformation Possible?‘Not the facts, but men’s opinions about the facts, is what matters. Men’s conduct is determined, not necessarily by the right conclusion from facts, but the conclusion they believe to be right.’In another pre-war book of the present writer (The Foundations of International Polity) the same view is developed, particularly in the passage which has been reproduced in Chapter VI of this book, ‘The Alternative Risks of Status and Contract.’[114]The cessation of religious war indicates the greatest outstanding fact in the history of civilised mankind during the last thousand years, which is this: that all civilised Governments have abandoned their claim to dictate the belief of their subjects. For very long that was a right tenaciously held, and it was held on grounds for which there is an immense deal to be said. It was held that as belief is an integral part of conduct, that as conduct springs from belief, and the purpose of the State is to ensure such conduct as will enable us to go about our business in safety, it was obviously the duty of the State to protect those beliefs, the abandonment of which seemed to undermine the foundations of conduct. I do not believe that this case has ever been completely answered.... Men of profound thought and profound learning to-day defend it, and personally I have found it very difficult to make a clear and simple case for the defence of the principle on which every civilised Government in the world is to-day founded. How do you account for this—that a principle which I do not believe one man in a million could defend from all objections has become the dominating rule of civilised government throughout the world?‘Well, that once universal policy has been abandoned, not because every argument, or even perhaps most of the arguments, which led to it, have been answered, but because the fundamental one has. The conception on which it rested has been shown to be, not in every detail, but in the essentials at least, an illusion, amisconception.‘The world of religious wars and of the Inquisition was a world which had a quite definite conception of the relation of authority to religious belief and to truth—as that authority was the source of truth; that truth could be, and should be, protected by force; that Catholics who did not resent an insult offered to their faith (like the failure of a Huguenot to salute a passing religious procession) were renegade.‘Now, what broke down this conception was a growing realisation that authority, force, was irrelevant to the issues of truth (a party of heretics triumphed by virtue of some physical accident, as that they occupied a mountain region); that it was ineffective, and that the essence of truth was something outside the scope of physical conflict. As the realisation of this grew, the conflicts declined.’—Foundations of International Polity, p. 214.[115]An attempt is made, inThe Great Illusion, to sketch the process which lies behind the progressive substitution of bargain for coercion (The Economic Interpretation of the History of Development ‘From Status to Contract’) on pages 187-192, and further developed in a chapter ‘the Diminishing Factor of Physical Force’ (p. 257).[116]‘When we learn that London, instead of using its police for the running in of burglars and “drunks,” is using them to lead an attack on Birmingham for the purpose of capturing that city as part of a policy of “municipal expansion,” or “Civic Imperialism,” or “Pan-Londonism,” or what not; or is using its force to repel an attack by the Birmingham police acting as the result of a similar policy on the part of the Birmingham patriots—when that happens you can safely approximate a police force to a European army. But until it does, it is quite evident that the two—the army and the police force—have in reality diametrically opposed roles. The police exist as an instrument of social co-operation; the armies as the natural outcome of the quaint illusion that though one city could never enrich itself by “capturing” or “subjugating” another, in some wonderful (and unexplained) way one country can enrich itself by capturing or subjugating another....‘France has benefited by the conquest of Algeria, England by that of India, because in each case the arms were employed not, properly speaking, for conquest, but for police purposes, for the establishment and maintenance of order; and, so far as they filled that role, their role was a useful one....‘Germany has no need to maintain order in England, nor England in Germany, and the latent struggle, therefore, between these two countries is futile....‘It is one of the humours of the whole Anglo-German conflict that so much has the British public been concerned with the myths and bogeys of the matter, that it seems calmly to have ignored the realities. While even the wildest Pan-German does not cast his eyes in the direction of Canada, he does cast them in the direction of Asia Minor; and the political activities of Germany may centre on that area for precisely the reasons which result from the distinction between policing and conquest which I have drawn. German industry is coming to have a dominating situation in the Near East, and as those interests—her markets and investments—increase, the necessity for better order in, and the better organisation of, such territories, increases in corresponding degree. Germany may need to police Asia Minor.’ (The Great Illusion, pp. 131-2-3.)[117]‘If a great country benefits every time it annexes a province, and her people are the richer for the widened territory, the small nations ought to be immeasurably poorer than the great; instead of which, by every test which you like to apply—public credit, amounts in savings banks, standard of living, social progress, general well-being—citizens of small States are, other things being equal, as well off as, or better off than, the citizens of great. The citizens of countries like Holland, Belgium, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, are, by every possible test, just as well off as the citizens of countries like Germany, Austria, or Russia. These are the facts which are so much more potent than any theory. If it were true that a country benefited by the acquisition of territory, and widened territory meant general well-being, why do the facts so eternally deny it? There is something wrong with the theory.’ (The Great Illusion, p. 44).[118]See Chapters ofThe Great Illusion,The State as a Person, andA False Analogy and its Consequences.[119]In the synopsis of the book the point is put thus: ‘If credit and commercial contract are tampered with an attempt at confiscation, the credit-dependent wealth is undermined, and its collapse involves that of the conqueror; so that if conquest is not to be self-injurious it must respect the enemy’s property, in which case it becomes economically futile.’[120]‘We need markets. What is a market? “A place where things are sold.” That is only half the truth. It is a place where things are bought and sold, and one operation is impossible without the other, and the notion that one nation can sell for ever and never buy is simply the theory of perpetual motion applied to economics; and international trade can no more be based upon perpetual motion than can engineering. As between economically highly-organised nations a customer must also be a competitor, a fact which bayonets cannot alter. To the extent to which they destroy him as a competitor, they destroy him, speaking generally and largely, as a customer.... This is the paradox, the futility of conquest—the great illusion which the history of our own empire so well illustrates. We “own” our empire by allowing its component parts to develop themselves in their own way, and in view of their own ends, and all the empires which have pursued any other policy have only ended by impoverishing their own populations and falling to pieces.’ (p. 75).[121]See Part I, Chapter II.[122]Government and the War, pp. 52-59.[123]The Political Theory of Mr Norman Angell, by Professor A. D. Lindsay,The Political Quarterly, December 1914.[124]In order that the reader may grasp more clearly Mr Lindsay’s point, here are some longer passages in which he elaborates it:—‘If all nations really recognised the truth of Mr Angell’s arguments, that they all had common interests which war destroyed, and that therefore war was an evil for victors as well as for vanquished, the European situation would be less dangerous, but were every one in the world as wisely concerned with their own interests as Mr Angell would have men to be, if they were nevertheless bound by no political ties, the situation would be infinitely more dangerous than it is. For unchecked competition, as Hobbes showed long ago, leads straight to war however rational men are. The only escape from its dangers is by submitting it to some political control. And for that reason the growth of economic relations at the expense of political, which Mr Angell heralds with such enthusiasm, is the greatest peril of modern times.‘If men are to avoid the danger that, in competing with one another in the small but immediate matters where their interests diverge, they may overreach themselves and bring about their mutual ruin, two things are essential, one moral or emotional, the other practical. It is not enough that men should recognise that what they do affects other men, and vice versa. They must care for how their actions affect other men, not only for how they may react on themselves. They must, that is, love their neighbours. They must further agree with one another in caring for certain ways of action quite irrespective of how such ways of action affect their personal interests. They must, that is, be not only economic but moral men. Secondly, recognising that the range of their personal sympathies with other men is more restricted than their interdependence, and that in the excitement of competition all else is apt to be neglected, they must depute certain persons to stand out of the competitive struggle and look after just those vital common interests and greater issues which the contending parties are apt to neglect. These men will represent the common interests of all, their common ideals and their mutual sympathies; they will give to men’s concern for these common ends a focus which will enable them to resist the pull of divergent interests and round their actions will gather the authority which these common ends inspire....’ ... Such propositions are of course elementary. It is, however, important to observe that economic relations are in this most distinguished from political relations, that men can enter into economic relations without having any real purpose in common. For the money which they gain by their co-operation may represent power to carry out the most diverse and conflicting purposes....’ ... Politics implies mutual confidence and respect and a certain measure of agreement in ideals. The consequence is that co-operation for economic is infinitely easier than for political purposes and spreads much more rapidly. Hence it easily overruns any political boundaries, and by doing so has produced the modern situation which Mr Angell has described.’[125]I have in mind, of course, the writings of Cole, Laski, Figgis, and Webb. InA Constitution for the Socialist Commonwealth of Great Britain, Mr Webb writes:—‘Whilst metaphysical philosophers had been debating what was the nature of the State—by which they always meant the sovereign Political State—the sovereignty, and even the moral authority of the State itself, in the sense of the political government, were being silently and almost unwittingly undermined by the growth of new forms of Democracy.’ (p. xv.)InSocial Theory, Mr Cole, speaking of the necessary co-ordination of the new forms of association, writes:—‘To entrust the State with the function of co-ordination would be to entrust it in many cases with the task of arbitrating between itself and some other functional association, say a church or a trade union.’ There must be a co-ordinating body, but it ‘must be not any single association, but a combination of associations, a federal body in which some or all of the various functional associations are linked together.’ (pp. 101 and 134.) A reviewer summarises Mr Cole as saying: ‘I do not want any single supreme authority. It is the sovereignty of the State that I object to, as fatal to liberty. For single sovereignty I substitute a federal union of functions, and I see the guarantee of personal freedom in the severalty which prevents any one of them from undue encroachments.’

[63]Mr Hartley Manners, the playwright, who produced during the War a book entitledHate with a Will to Victory, writes thus:—‘And in voicing our doctrine of Hate let us not forget that the German people were, and are still, solidly behind him (the Kaiser) in everything he does.’ ...‘The German people are actively and passively with their Government to the last man and the last mark. No people receive their faith and their rules of conduct more fatuously from their rulers than do the German people. Fronting the world they stand as one with their beloved Kaiser. He who builds on a revolution in Germany as a possible ending of the war, knows not what he says. They will follow through any degradation of the body, through any torture of spirit, the tyrants they have been taught from infancy to regard as their Supreme Masters of body and soul.’ ...And here is his picture of ‘the German’:—... ‘a slave from birth, with no rights as a free man, owing allegiance to a militaristic Government to whom he looks for his very life; crushed by taxation to keep up the military machine; ill-nourished, ignorant, prone to crime in greater measure than the peasants of any other country—as the German statistics of crime show—a degraded peasant, a wretched future, and a loathesome past—these are the inheritances to which the German peasant is born. What type of nature can develop in such conditions? But one—thebrute. And the four years’ commerce of this War has shown the German from prince to peasant as offspring of the one family—thebrutefamily.’ ...

[63]Mr Hartley Manners, the playwright, who produced during the War a book entitledHate with a Will to Victory, writes thus:—

‘And in voicing our doctrine of Hate let us not forget that the German people were, and are still, solidly behind him (the Kaiser) in everything he does.’ ...

‘The German people are actively and passively with their Government to the last man and the last mark. No people receive their faith and their rules of conduct more fatuously from their rulers than do the German people. Fronting the world they stand as one with their beloved Kaiser. He who builds on a revolution in Germany as a possible ending of the war, knows not what he says. They will follow through any degradation of the body, through any torture of spirit, the tyrants they have been taught from infancy to regard as their Supreme Masters of body and soul.’ ...

And here is his picture of ‘the German’:—

... ‘a slave from birth, with no rights as a free man, owing allegiance to a militaristic Government to whom he looks for his very life; crushed by taxation to keep up the military machine; ill-nourished, ignorant, prone to crime in greater measure than the peasants of any other country—as the German statistics of crime show—a degraded peasant, a wretched future, and a loathesome past—these are the inheritances to which the German peasant is born. What type of nature can develop in such conditions? But one—thebrute. And the four years’ commerce of this War has shown the German from prince to peasant as offspring of the one family—thebrutefamily.’ ...

[64]The following—which appeared inThe Timesof April 17, 1915—is merely a type of at least thirty or forty similar reports published by the German Army Headquarters: ‘In yesterday’s clear weather the airmen were very active. Enemy airmen bombarded places behind our positions. Freiburg was again visited, and several civilians, the majority being children, were killed and wounded.’ A few days later the ParisTemps(April 22, 1915) reproduced the German accounts of French air-raids where bombs were dropped on Kandern, Loerrach, Mulheim, Habsheim, Wiesenthal, Tüblingen, Mannheim. These raids were carried out by squads of airmen, and the bombs were thrown particularly at railway stations and factories. Previous to this, British and French airmen had been particularly active in Belgium, dropping bombs on Zeebrugge, Bruges, Middlekirke, and other towns. One German official report tells how a bomb fell on to a loaded street car, killing many women and children. Another (dated September 7, 1915) contains the following: ‘In the course of an enemy aeroplane attack on Lichtervelde, north of Roulers in Flanders, seven Belgian inhabitants were killed and two injured.’ A despatch from Zürich, dated Sept. 24, 1915, says: ‘At yesterday’s meeting of the Stuttgart City Council, the Mayor and Councillors protested vigorously against the recent French raid upon an undefended city. Burgomaster Lautenschlager asserted that an enemy that attacked harmless civilians was fighting a lost cause.’

[65]March 27th, 1919.

[66]In Drinkwater’s play,Abraham Lincoln, the fire-eating wife of the war-profiteer, who had been violently abusing an old Quaker lady, is thus addressed by Lincoln:—‘I don’t agree with her, but I honour her. She’s wrong, but she is noble. You’ve told me what you think. I don’t agree with you, and I’m ashamed of you and your like. You, who have sacrificed nothing babble about destroying the South while other people conquer it. I accepted this war with a sick heart, and I’ve a heart that’s near to breaking every day. I accepted it in the name of humanity, and just and merciful dealing, and the hope of love and charity on earth. And you come to me, talking of revenge and destruction, and malice, and enduring hate. These gentle people are mistaken, but they are mistaken cleanly, and in a great name. It is you that dishonour the cause for which we stand—it is you who would make it a mean and little thing....’

[66]In Drinkwater’s play,Abraham Lincoln, the fire-eating wife of the war-profiteer, who had been violently abusing an old Quaker lady, is thus addressed by Lincoln:—

‘I don’t agree with her, but I honour her. She’s wrong, but she is noble. You’ve told me what you think. I don’t agree with you, and I’m ashamed of you and your like. You, who have sacrificed nothing babble about destroying the South while other people conquer it. I accepted this war with a sick heart, and I’ve a heart that’s near to breaking every day. I accepted it in the name of humanity, and just and merciful dealing, and the hope of love and charity on earth. And you come to me, talking of revenge and destruction, and malice, and enduring hate. These gentle people are mistaken, but they are mistaken cleanly, and in a great name. It is you that dishonour the cause for which we stand—it is you who would make it a mean and little thing....’

[67]The official record of the Meeting of the Council of Ten on January 16, 1919, as furnished to the Foreign Relations Committee of the American Senate, reports Mr Lloyd George as saying:—‘The mere idea of crushing Bolshevism by military force is pure madness....‘The Russian blockade would be a “death cordon,” condemning women and children to starvation, a policy which, as humane people, those present could not consider.’

[67]The official record of the Meeting of the Council of Ten on January 16, 1919, as furnished to the Foreign Relations Committee of the American Senate, reports Mr Lloyd George as saying:—

‘The mere idea of crushing Bolshevism by military force is pure madness....

‘The Russian blockade would be a “death cordon,” condemning women and children to starvation, a policy which, as humane people, those present could not consider.’

[68]While attempting in this chapter to reveal the essential difference of the two methods open to us, it is hardly necessary to say that in the complexities and cross-currents of human society practical policy can rarely be guided by a single absolute principle. Reference has been made to the putting of the pooled force of the nations behind a principle or law as the alternative of each attempting to use his own for enforcing his own view. The writer does not suppose for an instant that it is possible immediately to draw up a complete Federal Code of Law for Europe, to create a well-defined European constitution and then raise a European army to defend it, or body of police to enforce it. He is probably the last person in the world likely to believe the political ideas of the European capable of such an agile adaptation.

[69]Delivered at Portland, Maine, on March 28th, 1918; reported inNew York Times, March 29th.

[70]Bertrand Russell:Principles of Social Reconstruction.Mr. Trotter inInstincts of the Herd in War and Peace, says:—‘We see one instinct producing manifestations directly hostile to each other—prompting to ever-advancing developments of altruism while it necessarily leads to any new product of advance being attacked. It shows, moreover ... that a gregarious species rapidly developing a complex society can be saved from inextricable confusion only by the appearance of reason and the application of it to life. (p. 46.)... ‘The conscious direction of man’s destiny is plainly indicated by Nature as the only mechanism by which the social life of so complex an animal can be guaranteed against disaster and brought to yield its full possibilities, (p. 162.)... ‘Such a directing intelligence or group of intelligences would take into account before all things the biological character of man.... It would discover when natural inclinations in man must be indulged, and would make them respectable, what inclinations in him must be controlled for the advantage of the species, and make them insignificant.’ (p. 162-3.)

[70]Bertrand Russell:Principles of Social Reconstruction.

Mr. Trotter inInstincts of the Herd in War and Peace, says:—

‘We see one instinct producing manifestations directly hostile to each other—prompting to ever-advancing developments of altruism while it necessarily leads to any new product of advance being attacked. It shows, moreover ... that a gregarious species rapidly developing a complex society can be saved from inextricable confusion only by the appearance of reason and the application of it to life. (p. 46.)

... ‘The conscious direction of man’s destiny is plainly indicated by Nature as the only mechanism by which the social life of so complex an animal can be guaranteed against disaster and brought to yield its full possibilities, (p. 162.)

... ‘Such a directing intelligence or group of intelligences would take into account before all things the biological character of man.... It would discover when natural inclinations in man must be indulged, and would make them respectable, what inclinations in him must be controlled for the advantage of the species, and make them insignificant.’ (p. 162-3.)

[71]The opening sentence of a five volumeHistory of the Peace Conference of Paris, edited by H. W. V. Temperley, and published under the auspices of the Institute of International Affairs, is as follows:—‘The war was a conflict between the principles of freedom and of autocracy, between the principles of moral influence and of material force, of government by consent and of government by compulsion.’

‘The war was a conflict between the principles of freedom and of autocracy, between the principles of moral influence and of material force, of government by consent and of government by compulsion.’

[72]Foremost as examples stand out the claims of German Austria to federate with Germany; the German population of the Southern Tyrol with Austria; the Bohemian Germans with Austria; the Transylvanian Magyars with Hungary; the Bulgarians of Macedonia, the Bulgarians of the Dobrudja, and the Bulgarians of Western Thrace with Bulgaria; the Serbs of the Serbian Banat with Yugo-Slavia; the Lithuanians and Ukrainians for freedom from Polish dominion.

[73]We know now (see the interview with M. Paderewski in theNew York World) that we compelled Poland to remain at war when she wanted to make peace. It has never been fully explained why the Prinkipo peace policy urged by Mr Lloyd George as early as December 1918 was defeated, and why instead we furnished munitions, tanks, aeroplanes, poison gas, military missions and subsidies in turn to Koltchak, Denikin, Yudenitch, Wrangel, and Poland. We prolonged the blockade—which in the early phases forbade Germany that was starving to catch fish in the Baltic, and stopped medicine and hospital supplies to the Russians—for fear, apparently, of the very thing which might have helped to save Europe, the economic co-operation of Russia and Central Europe.

[74]‘We have no quarrel with the German people. We have no feeling towards them but one of sympathy and friendship. It was not upon their impulse that their government acted in entering this war.’ ... ‘We are glad ... to fight thus for the ultimate peace of the world, and for the liberation of its peoples, the German peoples included: for the rights of nations great and small ... to choose their way of life.’ (President Wilson, Address to Congress, April 2nd, 1917).

[75]The Economic Consequences of the Peace, p. 211.

[76]See quotations from Sir A. Conan Doyle, later in this Chapter.

[77]See, e.g., the facts as to the repression of Socialism in America, Chapter V.

[78]The Atlantic Monthly, November 1920.

[79]Realities of War, pp. 426-7, 441.

[80]Is it necessary to say that the present writer does not accept it?

[81]The argument is not invalidated in the least by sporadic instances of liberal activity here—an isolated article or two. For iteration is the essence of propaganda as an opinion forming factor.

[82]In an article in theNorth American Review, just before America’s entrance into the War, I attempted to indicate the danger by making one character in an imaginary symposium say: ‘One talks of “Wilson’s programme,” “Wilson’s policy.” There will be only one programme and one policy possible as soon as the first American soldier sets foot on European soil: Victory. Bottomley and Maxse will be milk and water to what we shall see America producing. We shall have a settlement so monstrous that Germany will offer any price to Russia and Japan for their future help.... America’s part in the War will absorb about all the attention and interest that busy people can give to public affairs. They will forget about these international arrangements concerning the sea, the League of Peace—the things for which the country entered the War. In fact if Wilson so much as tries to remind them of the objects of the War he will be accused of pro-Germanism, and you will have their ginger Press demanding that the “old gang” be “combed out.”’

[83]‘If we take the extremist possibility, and suppose a revolution in Germany or in South Germany, and the replacement of the Hohenzollerns in all or part of Germany by a Republic, then I am convinced that for republican Germany there would be not simply forgiveness, but a warm welcome back to the comity of nations. The French, British, Belgians, and Italians, and every civilised force in Russia would tumble over one another in their eager greeting of this return to sanity.’ (What is coming?p. 198).

[84]See the memoranda published inThe Secrets of Crewe House.

[85]Mr Keynes is not alone in declaring that the Treaty makes of our armistice engagements a ‘scrap of paper.’The Round Table, in an article which aims at justifying the Treaty as a whole, says: ‘Opinions may differ as to the actual letter of the engagements which we made at the Armistice, but the spirit of them is undoubtedly strained in some of the detailed provisions of the peace. There is some honest ground for the feeling manifested in Germany that the terms on which she laid down her arms have not been observed in all respects.’A very unwilling witness to our obligations is Mr Leo Maxse, who writes (National Review, February, 1921):—‘Thanks to the American revelations we are in a better position to appreciate the trickery and treachery of the pre-Armistice negotiations, as well as the hideous imposture of the Paris Peace Conference, which, we now learn for the first time, was governed by the self-denying ordinance of the previous November, when, unbeknown to the countries betrayed, the Fourteen Points had been inextricably woven into the Armistice. Thus was John Bull effectively ‘dished’ of every farthing of his war costs.’As a fact, of course, the self-denying ordinance was not ‘unbeknown to the countries betrayed.’ The Fourteen Points commitment was quite open; the European Allies could have repudiated them, as, on one point, Britain did.

A very unwilling witness to our obligations is Mr Leo Maxse, who writes (National Review, February, 1921):—

‘Thanks to the American revelations we are in a better position to appreciate the trickery and treachery of the pre-Armistice negotiations, as well as the hideous imposture of the Paris Peace Conference, which, we now learn for the first time, was governed by the self-denying ordinance of the previous November, when, unbeknown to the countries betrayed, the Fourteen Points had been inextricably woven into the Armistice. Thus was John Bull effectively ‘dished’ of every farthing of his war costs.’

As a fact, of course, the self-denying ordinance was not ‘unbeknown to the countries betrayed.’ The Fourteen Points commitment was quite open; the European Allies could have repudiated them, as, on one point, Britain did.

[86]A quite considerable school, who presumably intend to be taken seriously, would have us believe that the French Revolution, the Russian Revolution, the English Trade Union Movement are all the work of a small secret Jewish Club or Junta—their work, that is, in the sense that but for them the Revolutions or Revolutionary movements would not have taken place. These arguments are usually brought by ‘intense nationalists’ who also believe that sentiments like nationalism are so deeply rooted that mere ideas or theories can never alter them.

[87]An American playwright has indicated amusingly with what ingenuity we can create a ‘collectivity.’ One of the characters in the play applies for a chauffeur’s job. A few questions reveal the fact that he does not know anything about it. ‘Why does he want to be a chauffeur?’ ‘Well, I’ll tell you, boss. Last year I got knocked down by an automobile and badly hurt. And I made up my mind that when I came out of the hospital I’d get a bit of my own back. Get even by knocking over a few guys, see?’ A policy of ‘reprisals,’ in fact.

[88]December 26th, 1917.

[89]A thing which happens about once a week in the United States.

[90]October 16th, 1917.

[91]The amazing rapidity with which we can change sides and causes, and the enemy become the Ally, and the Ally the enemy, in the course of a few weeks, approaches the burlesque.At the head of the Polish armies is Marshal Pilsudski, who fought under Austro-German command, against Russia. His ally is the Ukrainian adventurer, General Petlura, who first made a separate peace at Brest-Litovsk, and contracted there to let the German armies into the Ukraine, and to deliver up to them its stores of grain. These in May 1920 were the friends of the Allies. The Polish Finance Minister at the time we were aiding Poland was Baron Bilinski, a gentleman who filled the same post in the Austrian Cabinet which let loose the world war, insisted hotly on the ultimatum to Serbia, helped to ruin the finances of the Hapsburg dominions by war, and then after the collapse repeated the same operation in Poland. On the other side the command has passed, it is said, to the dashing General Brusiloff, who again and again saved the Eastern front from Austrian and German offensives. He is now the ‘enemy’ and his opponents our ‘Allies.’ They are fighting to tear the Ukraine, which means all South Russia, away from the Russian State. The preceding year we spent millions to achieve the opposite result. The French sent their troops to Odessa, and we gave our tanks to Denikin, in order to enable him to recover this region for Imperial Russia.

[91]The amazing rapidity with which we can change sides and causes, and the enemy become the Ally, and the Ally the enemy, in the course of a few weeks, approaches the burlesque.

At the head of the Polish armies is Marshal Pilsudski, who fought under Austro-German command, against Russia. His ally is the Ukrainian adventurer, General Petlura, who first made a separate peace at Brest-Litovsk, and contracted there to let the German armies into the Ukraine, and to deliver up to them its stores of grain. These in May 1920 were the friends of the Allies. The Polish Finance Minister at the time we were aiding Poland was Baron Bilinski, a gentleman who filled the same post in the Austrian Cabinet which let loose the world war, insisted hotly on the ultimatum to Serbia, helped to ruin the finances of the Hapsburg dominions by war, and then after the collapse repeated the same operation in Poland. On the other side the command has passed, it is said, to the dashing General Brusiloff, who again and again saved the Eastern front from Austrian and German offensives. He is now the ‘enemy’ and his opponents our ‘Allies.’ They are fighting to tear the Ukraine, which means all South Russia, away from the Russian State. The preceding year we spent millions to achieve the opposite result. The French sent their troops to Odessa, and we gave our tanks to Denikin, in order to enable him to recover this region for Imperial Russia.

[92]The Russian case is less evident. But only the moral inertia following on a long war could have made our Russian record possible.

[93]He complained that I had ‘publicly reproved him’ for supporting severity in warfare. He was mistaken. As he really did believe in the effectiveness of terrorism, he did a very real service by standing publicly for his conviction.

[94]Here is what theTimesof December 10th, 1870, has to say about France and Germany respectively, and on the Alsace-Lorraine question:—‘We must say with all frankness that France has never shown herself so senseless, so pitiful, so worthy of contempt and reprobation, as at the present moment, when she obstinately declines to look facts in the face, and refuses to accept the misfortune her own conduct has brought upon her. A France broken up in utter anarchy, Ministers who have no recognised chief, who rise from the dust in their air balloons, and who carry with them for ballast shameful and manifest lies and proclamations of victories that exist only in their imagination, a Government which is sustained by lies and imposture, and chooses rather to continue and increase the waste of lives than to resign its own dictatorship and its wonderful Utopia of a republic; that is the spectacle which France presents to-day. It is hard to say whether any nation ever before burdened itself with such a load of shame. The quantity of lies which France officially and unofficially has been manufacturing for us in the full knowledge that they are lies, is something frightful and absolutely unprecedented. Perhaps it is not much after all in comparison with the immeasurable heaps of delusions and unconscious lies which have so long been in circulation among the French. Their men of genius who are recognised as such in all departments of literature are apparently of opinion that France outshines other nations in a superhuman wisdom, that she is the new Zion of the whole world, and that the literary productions of the French, for the last fifty years, however insipid, unhealthy, and often indeed devilish, contain a real gospel, rich in blessing for all the children of men.We believe that Bismarck will take as much of Alsace-Lorraine, too, as he chooses, and that it will be the better for him, the better for us, the better for all the world but France, and the better in the long run for France herself. Through large and quiet measures, Count von Bismarck is aiming with eminent ability at a single object; the well-being of Germany and of the world, of the large-hearted, peace-loving, enlightened, and honest people of Germany growing into one nation; and if Germany becomes mistress of the Continent in place of France, which is light-hearted, ambitious, quarrelsome, and over-excitable, it will be the most momentous event of the present day, and all the world must hope that it will soon come about.’

[94]Here is what theTimesof December 10th, 1870, has to say about France and Germany respectively, and on the Alsace-Lorraine question:—

‘We must say with all frankness that France has never shown herself so senseless, so pitiful, so worthy of contempt and reprobation, as at the present moment, when she obstinately declines to look facts in the face, and refuses to accept the misfortune her own conduct has brought upon her. A France broken up in utter anarchy, Ministers who have no recognised chief, who rise from the dust in their air balloons, and who carry with them for ballast shameful and manifest lies and proclamations of victories that exist only in their imagination, a Government which is sustained by lies and imposture, and chooses rather to continue and increase the waste of lives than to resign its own dictatorship and its wonderful Utopia of a republic; that is the spectacle which France presents to-day. It is hard to say whether any nation ever before burdened itself with such a load of shame. The quantity of lies which France officially and unofficially has been manufacturing for us in the full knowledge that they are lies, is something frightful and absolutely unprecedented. Perhaps it is not much after all in comparison with the immeasurable heaps of delusions and unconscious lies which have so long been in circulation among the French. Their men of genius who are recognised as such in all departments of literature are apparently of opinion that France outshines other nations in a superhuman wisdom, that she is the new Zion of the whole world, and that the literary productions of the French, for the last fifty years, however insipid, unhealthy, and often indeed devilish, contain a real gospel, rich in blessing for all the children of men.

We believe that Bismarck will take as much of Alsace-Lorraine, too, as he chooses, and that it will be the better for him, the better for us, the better for all the world but France, and the better in the long run for France herself. Through large and quiet measures, Count von Bismarck is aiming with eminent ability at a single object; the well-being of Germany and of the world, of the large-hearted, peace-loving, enlightened, and honest people of Germany growing into one nation; and if Germany becomes mistress of the Continent in place of France, which is light-hearted, ambitious, quarrelsome, and over-excitable, it will be the most momentous event of the present day, and all the world must hope that it will soon come about.’

[95]We realise without difficulty that no society could be formed by individuals each of whom had been taught to base his conduct on adages such as these: ‘Myself alone’; ‘myself before anybody else’; ‘my ego is sacred’; ‘myself over all’; ‘myself right or wrong.’ Yet those are the slogans of Patriotism the world over and are regarded as noble and inspiring, shouted with a moral and approving thrill.

[96]However mischievous some of the manifestations of Nationalism may prove, the worst possible method of dealing with it is by the forcible repression of any of its claims which can be granted with due regard to the general interest. To give Nationalism full play, as far as possible, is the best means of attenuating its worst features and preventing its worst developments. This, after all, is the line of conduct which we adopt to certain religious beliefs which we may regard as dangerous superstitions. Although the belief may have dangers, the social dangers involved in forcible repression would be greater still.

[97]The Great Illusion, p. 326

[98]‘The Pacifists lie when they tell us that the danger of war is over.’ General Leonard Wood.

[99]The Science of Power, p. 14.

[100]Ibid, p. 144.

[101]See quotations, Part I, Chapters I and III.

[102]The validity of this assumption still holds even though we take the view that the defence of war as an inevitable struggle for bread is merely a rationalisation (using that word in the technical sense of the psychologists) of impulse or instinct, merely, that is, an attempt to find a ‘reason’ for conduct the real explanation of which is the subconscious promptings of pugnacities or hostilities, the craving of our nature for certain kinds of action. If we could not justify our behaviour in terms of self-preservation, it would stand so plainly condemned ethically and socially that discipline of instinct—as in the case of sex instinct—would obviously be called for and enforced. In either case, the road to better behaviour is by a clearer revelation of the social mischief of the predominant policy.

[103]Rear-Admiral A. T. Mahan:Force in International Relations.

[104]The Interest of America in International Conditions, by Rear-Admiral A. T. Mahan, pp. 47-87.

[105]Government and the War, p. 62.

[106]State Morality and a League of Nations, pp 83-85.

[107]North American Review, March 1912.

[108]Admiral Mahan himself makes precisely this appeal:—‘That extension of national authority over alien communities, which is the dominant note in the world politics of to-day, dignifies and enlarges each State and each citizen that enters its fold.... Sentiment, imagination, aspiration, the satisfaction of the rational and moral faculties in some object better than bread alone, all must find a part in a worthy motive. Like individuals, nations and empires have souls as well as bodies. Great and beneficent achievement ministers to worthier contentment than the filling of the pocket.’

[108]Admiral Mahan himself makes precisely this appeal:—

‘That extension of national authority over alien communities, which is the dominant note in the world politics of to-day, dignifies and enlarges each State and each citizen that enters its fold.... Sentiment, imagination, aspiration, the satisfaction of the rational and moral faculties in some object better than bread alone, all must find a part in a worthy motive. Like individuals, nations and empires have souls as well as bodies. Great and beneficent achievement ministers to worthier contentment than the filling of the pocket.’

[109]It is not necessary to enter exhaustively into the difficult problem of ‘natural right.’ It suffices for the purpose of this argument that the claim of others to life will certainly be made and that we can only refuse it at a cost which diminishes our own chances of survival.

[110]See Mr Churchill’s declaration, quoted Part I Chapter V.

[111]Mr J. L. Garvin, who was among those who bitterly criticised this thesis on account of its ‘sordidness,’ now writes: ‘Armageddon might become almost as frequent as General Elections if belligerency were not restrained by sheer dread of the consequences in an age of economic interdependence when even victory has ceased to pay.’(Quoted inWestminster Gazette, Jan. 24, 1921.)

(Quoted inWestminster Gazette, Jan. 24, 1921.)

[112]The introductory synopsis reads:—What are the fundamental motives that explain the present rivalry of armaments in Europe, notably the Anglo-German? Each nation pleads the need for defence; but this implies that some one is likely to attack, and has therefore a presumed interest in so doing. What are the motives which each State thus fears its neighbours may obey?They are based on the universal assumption that a nation, in order to find outlets for expanding population and increasing industry, or simply to ensure the best conditions possible for its people, is necessarily pushed to territorial expansion and the exercise of political force against others (German naval competition is assumed to be the expression of the growing need of an expanding population for a larger place in the world, a need which will find a realisation in the conquest of English Colonies or trade, unless these were defended); it is assumed, therefore, that a nation’s relative prosperity is broadly determined by its political power; that nations being competing units, advantage, in the last resort, goes to the possessor of preponderant military force, the weaker going to the wall, as in the other forms of the struggle for life.The author challenges this whole doctrine.

[112]The introductory synopsis reads:—

What are the fundamental motives that explain the present rivalry of armaments in Europe, notably the Anglo-German? Each nation pleads the need for defence; but this implies that some one is likely to attack, and has therefore a presumed interest in so doing. What are the motives which each State thus fears its neighbours may obey?

They are based on the universal assumption that a nation, in order to find outlets for expanding population and increasing industry, or simply to ensure the best conditions possible for its people, is necessarily pushed to territorial expansion and the exercise of political force against others (German naval competition is assumed to be the expression of the growing need of an expanding population for a larger place in the world, a need which will find a realisation in the conquest of English Colonies or trade, unless these were defended); it is assumed, therefore, that a nation’s relative prosperity is broadly determined by its political power; that nations being competing units, advantage, in the last resort, goes to the possessor of preponderant military force, the weaker going to the wall, as in the other forms of the struggle for life.

The author challenges this whole doctrine.

[113]See chaptersThe Psychological Case for Peace,Unchanging Human Nature, andIs the Political Reformation Possible?‘Not the facts, but men’s opinions about the facts, is what matters. Men’s conduct is determined, not necessarily by the right conclusion from facts, but the conclusion they believe to be right.’In another pre-war book of the present writer (The Foundations of International Polity) the same view is developed, particularly in the passage which has been reproduced in Chapter VI of this book, ‘The Alternative Risks of Status and Contract.’

[113]See chaptersThe Psychological Case for Peace,Unchanging Human Nature, andIs the Political Reformation Possible?

‘Not the facts, but men’s opinions about the facts, is what matters. Men’s conduct is determined, not necessarily by the right conclusion from facts, but the conclusion they believe to be right.’

In another pre-war book of the present writer (The Foundations of International Polity) the same view is developed, particularly in the passage which has been reproduced in Chapter VI of this book, ‘The Alternative Risks of Status and Contract.’

[114]The cessation of religious war indicates the greatest outstanding fact in the history of civilised mankind during the last thousand years, which is this: that all civilised Governments have abandoned their claim to dictate the belief of their subjects. For very long that was a right tenaciously held, and it was held on grounds for which there is an immense deal to be said. It was held that as belief is an integral part of conduct, that as conduct springs from belief, and the purpose of the State is to ensure such conduct as will enable us to go about our business in safety, it was obviously the duty of the State to protect those beliefs, the abandonment of which seemed to undermine the foundations of conduct. I do not believe that this case has ever been completely answered.... Men of profound thought and profound learning to-day defend it, and personally I have found it very difficult to make a clear and simple case for the defence of the principle on which every civilised Government in the world is to-day founded. How do you account for this—that a principle which I do not believe one man in a million could defend from all objections has become the dominating rule of civilised government throughout the world?‘Well, that once universal policy has been abandoned, not because every argument, or even perhaps most of the arguments, which led to it, have been answered, but because the fundamental one has. The conception on which it rested has been shown to be, not in every detail, but in the essentials at least, an illusion, amisconception.‘The world of religious wars and of the Inquisition was a world which had a quite definite conception of the relation of authority to religious belief and to truth—as that authority was the source of truth; that truth could be, and should be, protected by force; that Catholics who did not resent an insult offered to their faith (like the failure of a Huguenot to salute a passing religious procession) were renegade.‘Now, what broke down this conception was a growing realisation that authority, force, was irrelevant to the issues of truth (a party of heretics triumphed by virtue of some physical accident, as that they occupied a mountain region); that it was ineffective, and that the essence of truth was something outside the scope of physical conflict. As the realisation of this grew, the conflicts declined.’—Foundations of International Polity, p. 214.

‘Well, that once universal policy has been abandoned, not because every argument, or even perhaps most of the arguments, which led to it, have been answered, but because the fundamental one has. The conception on which it rested has been shown to be, not in every detail, but in the essentials at least, an illusion, amisconception.

‘The world of religious wars and of the Inquisition was a world which had a quite definite conception of the relation of authority to religious belief and to truth—as that authority was the source of truth; that truth could be, and should be, protected by force; that Catholics who did not resent an insult offered to their faith (like the failure of a Huguenot to salute a passing religious procession) were renegade.

‘Now, what broke down this conception was a growing realisation that authority, force, was irrelevant to the issues of truth (a party of heretics triumphed by virtue of some physical accident, as that they occupied a mountain region); that it was ineffective, and that the essence of truth was something outside the scope of physical conflict. As the realisation of this grew, the conflicts declined.’—Foundations of International Polity, p. 214.

[115]An attempt is made, inThe Great Illusion, to sketch the process which lies behind the progressive substitution of bargain for coercion (The Economic Interpretation of the History of Development ‘From Status to Contract’) on pages 187-192, and further developed in a chapter ‘the Diminishing Factor of Physical Force’ (p. 257).

[116]‘When we learn that London, instead of using its police for the running in of burglars and “drunks,” is using them to lead an attack on Birmingham for the purpose of capturing that city as part of a policy of “municipal expansion,” or “Civic Imperialism,” or “Pan-Londonism,” or what not; or is using its force to repel an attack by the Birmingham police acting as the result of a similar policy on the part of the Birmingham patriots—when that happens you can safely approximate a police force to a European army. But until it does, it is quite evident that the two—the army and the police force—have in reality diametrically opposed roles. The police exist as an instrument of social co-operation; the armies as the natural outcome of the quaint illusion that though one city could never enrich itself by “capturing” or “subjugating” another, in some wonderful (and unexplained) way one country can enrich itself by capturing or subjugating another....‘France has benefited by the conquest of Algeria, England by that of India, because in each case the arms were employed not, properly speaking, for conquest, but for police purposes, for the establishment and maintenance of order; and, so far as they filled that role, their role was a useful one....‘Germany has no need to maintain order in England, nor England in Germany, and the latent struggle, therefore, between these two countries is futile....‘It is one of the humours of the whole Anglo-German conflict that so much has the British public been concerned with the myths and bogeys of the matter, that it seems calmly to have ignored the realities. While even the wildest Pan-German does not cast his eyes in the direction of Canada, he does cast them in the direction of Asia Minor; and the political activities of Germany may centre on that area for precisely the reasons which result from the distinction between policing and conquest which I have drawn. German industry is coming to have a dominating situation in the Near East, and as those interests—her markets and investments—increase, the necessity for better order in, and the better organisation of, such territories, increases in corresponding degree. Germany may need to police Asia Minor.’ (The Great Illusion, pp. 131-2-3.)

‘France has benefited by the conquest of Algeria, England by that of India, because in each case the arms were employed not, properly speaking, for conquest, but for police purposes, for the establishment and maintenance of order; and, so far as they filled that role, their role was a useful one....

‘Germany has no need to maintain order in England, nor England in Germany, and the latent struggle, therefore, between these two countries is futile....

‘It is one of the humours of the whole Anglo-German conflict that so much has the British public been concerned with the myths and bogeys of the matter, that it seems calmly to have ignored the realities. While even the wildest Pan-German does not cast his eyes in the direction of Canada, he does cast them in the direction of Asia Minor; and the political activities of Germany may centre on that area for precisely the reasons which result from the distinction between policing and conquest which I have drawn. German industry is coming to have a dominating situation in the Near East, and as those interests—her markets and investments—increase, the necessity for better order in, and the better organisation of, such territories, increases in corresponding degree. Germany may need to police Asia Minor.’ (The Great Illusion, pp. 131-2-3.)

[117]‘If a great country benefits every time it annexes a province, and her people are the richer for the widened territory, the small nations ought to be immeasurably poorer than the great; instead of which, by every test which you like to apply—public credit, amounts in savings banks, standard of living, social progress, general well-being—citizens of small States are, other things being equal, as well off as, or better off than, the citizens of great. The citizens of countries like Holland, Belgium, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, are, by every possible test, just as well off as the citizens of countries like Germany, Austria, or Russia. These are the facts which are so much more potent than any theory. If it were true that a country benefited by the acquisition of territory, and widened territory meant general well-being, why do the facts so eternally deny it? There is something wrong with the theory.’ (The Great Illusion, p. 44).

[118]See Chapters ofThe Great Illusion,The State as a Person, andA False Analogy and its Consequences.

[119]In the synopsis of the book the point is put thus: ‘If credit and commercial contract are tampered with an attempt at confiscation, the credit-dependent wealth is undermined, and its collapse involves that of the conqueror; so that if conquest is not to be self-injurious it must respect the enemy’s property, in which case it becomes economically futile.’

[120]‘We need markets. What is a market? “A place where things are sold.” That is only half the truth. It is a place where things are bought and sold, and one operation is impossible without the other, and the notion that one nation can sell for ever and never buy is simply the theory of perpetual motion applied to economics; and international trade can no more be based upon perpetual motion than can engineering. As between economically highly-organised nations a customer must also be a competitor, a fact which bayonets cannot alter. To the extent to which they destroy him as a competitor, they destroy him, speaking generally and largely, as a customer.... This is the paradox, the futility of conquest—the great illusion which the history of our own empire so well illustrates. We “own” our empire by allowing its component parts to develop themselves in their own way, and in view of their own ends, and all the empires which have pursued any other policy have only ended by impoverishing their own populations and falling to pieces.’ (p. 75).

[121]See Part I, Chapter II.

[122]Government and the War, pp. 52-59.

[123]The Political Theory of Mr Norman Angell, by Professor A. D. Lindsay,The Political Quarterly, December 1914.

[124]In order that the reader may grasp more clearly Mr Lindsay’s point, here are some longer passages in which he elaborates it:—‘If all nations really recognised the truth of Mr Angell’s arguments, that they all had common interests which war destroyed, and that therefore war was an evil for victors as well as for vanquished, the European situation would be less dangerous, but were every one in the world as wisely concerned with their own interests as Mr Angell would have men to be, if they were nevertheless bound by no political ties, the situation would be infinitely more dangerous than it is. For unchecked competition, as Hobbes showed long ago, leads straight to war however rational men are. The only escape from its dangers is by submitting it to some political control. And for that reason the growth of economic relations at the expense of political, which Mr Angell heralds with such enthusiasm, is the greatest peril of modern times.‘If men are to avoid the danger that, in competing with one another in the small but immediate matters where their interests diverge, they may overreach themselves and bring about their mutual ruin, two things are essential, one moral or emotional, the other practical. It is not enough that men should recognise that what they do affects other men, and vice versa. They must care for how their actions affect other men, not only for how they may react on themselves. They must, that is, love their neighbours. They must further agree with one another in caring for certain ways of action quite irrespective of how such ways of action affect their personal interests. They must, that is, be not only economic but moral men. Secondly, recognising that the range of their personal sympathies with other men is more restricted than their interdependence, and that in the excitement of competition all else is apt to be neglected, they must depute certain persons to stand out of the competitive struggle and look after just those vital common interests and greater issues which the contending parties are apt to neglect. These men will represent the common interests of all, their common ideals and their mutual sympathies; they will give to men’s concern for these common ends a focus which will enable them to resist the pull of divergent interests and round their actions will gather the authority which these common ends inspire....’ ... Such propositions are of course elementary. It is, however, important to observe that economic relations are in this most distinguished from political relations, that men can enter into economic relations without having any real purpose in common. For the money which they gain by their co-operation may represent power to carry out the most diverse and conflicting purposes....’ ... Politics implies mutual confidence and respect and a certain measure of agreement in ideals. The consequence is that co-operation for economic is infinitely easier than for political purposes and spreads much more rapidly. Hence it easily overruns any political boundaries, and by doing so has produced the modern situation which Mr Angell has described.’

[124]In order that the reader may grasp more clearly Mr Lindsay’s point, here are some longer passages in which he elaborates it:—

‘If all nations really recognised the truth of Mr Angell’s arguments, that they all had common interests which war destroyed, and that therefore war was an evil for victors as well as for vanquished, the European situation would be less dangerous, but were every one in the world as wisely concerned with their own interests as Mr Angell would have men to be, if they were nevertheless bound by no political ties, the situation would be infinitely more dangerous than it is. For unchecked competition, as Hobbes showed long ago, leads straight to war however rational men are. The only escape from its dangers is by submitting it to some political control. And for that reason the growth of economic relations at the expense of political, which Mr Angell heralds with such enthusiasm, is the greatest peril of modern times.

‘If men are to avoid the danger that, in competing with one another in the small but immediate matters where their interests diverge, they may overreach themselves and bring about their mutual ruin, two things are essential, one moral or emotional, the other practical. It is not enough that men should recognise that what they do affects other men, and vice versa. They must care for how their actions affect other men, not only for how they may react on themselves. They must, that is, love their neighbours. They must further agree with one another in caring for certain ways of action quite irrespective of how such ways of action affect their personal interests. They must, that is, be not only economic but moral men. Secondly, recognising that the range of their personal sympathies with other men is more restricted than their interdependence, and that in the excitement of competition all else is apt to be neglected, they must depute certain persons to stand out of the competitive struggle and look after just those vital common interests and greater issues which the contending parties are apt to neglect. These men will represent the common interests of all, their common ideals and their mutual sympathies; they will give to men’s concern for these common ends a focus which will enable them to resist the pull of divergent interests and round their actions will gather the authority which these common ends inspire....

’ ... Such propositions are of course elementary. It is, however, important to observe that economic relations are in this most distinguished from political relations, that men can enter into economic relations without having any real purpose in common. For the money which they gain by their co-operation may represent power to carry out the most diverse and conflicting purposes....

’ ... Politics implies mutual confidence and respect and a certain measure of agreement in ideals. The consequence is that co-operation for economic is infinitely easier than for political purposes and spreads much more rapidly. Hence it easily overruns any political boundaries, and by doing so has produced the modern situation which Mr Angell has described.’

[125]I have in mind, of course, the writings of Cole, Laski, Figgis, and Webb. InA Constitution for the Socialist Commonwealth of Great Britain, Mr Webb writes:—‘Whilst metaphysical philosophers had been debating what was the nature of the State—by which they always meant the sovereign Political State—the sovereignty, and even the moral authority of the State itself, in the sense of the political government, were being silently and almost unwittingly undermined by the growth of new forms of Democracy.’ (p. xv.)InSocial Theory, Mr Cole, speaking of the necessary co-ordination of the new forms of association, writes:—‘To entrust the State with the function of co-ordination would be to entrust it in many cases with the task of arbitrating between itself and some other functional association, say a church or a trade union.’ There must be a co-ordinating body, but it ‘must be not any single association, but a combination of associations, a federal body in which some or all of the various functional associations are linked together.’ (pp. 101 and 134.) A reviewer summarises Mr Cole as saying: ‘I do not want any single supreme authority. It is the sovereignty of the State that I object to, as fatal to liberty. For single sovereignty I substitute a federal union of functions, and I see the guarantee of personal freedom in the severalty which prevents any one of them from undue encroachments.’

[125]I have in mind, of course, the writings of Cole, Laski, Figgis, and Webb. InA Constitution for the Socialist Commonwealth of Great Britain, Mr Webb writes:—

‘Whilst metaphysical philosophers had been debating what was the nature of the State—by which they always meant the sovereign Political State—the sovereignty, and even the moral authority of the State itself, in the sense of the political government, were being silently and almost unwittingly undermined by the growth of new forms of Democracy.’ (p. xv.)

InSocial Theory, Mr Cole, speaking of the necessary co-ordination of the new forms of association, writes:—

‘To entrust the State with the function of co-ordination would be to entrust it in many cases with the task of arbitrating between itself and some other functional association, say a church or a trade union.’ There must be a co-ordinating body, but it ‘must be not any single association, but a combination of associations, a federal body in which some or all of the various functional associations are linked together.’ (pp. 101 and 134.) A reviewer summarises Mr Cole as saying: ‘I do not want any single supreme authority. It is the sovereignty of the State that I object to, as fatal to liberty. For single sovereignty I substitute a federal union of functions, and I see the guarantee of personal freedom in the severalty which prevents any one of them from undue encroachments.’

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