The policy of the Russian Government, on the other hand, has been marked by that inconsistency, political blindness, and arbitrariness which one expects from an irresponsible bureaucracy. For ninety years Finland was left alone to work out her own salvation, entirely apart from that of the rest of the Empire; and then suddenly it was discovered that her coasts were of the highest strategical importance, and that she was developing a commercial and industrial system in dangerous competition with the tender plant of commerce and industry in Russia itself. The Slavophils raised an outcry, and the decree went out that the Russian whale should swallow this active and prosperous little Jonah. The former policy was really as stupid, though less cruel, than the latter. Had there been anything like that steady political tradition and wide political experience in Russia which we can draw upon in England, the Imperial Government would have from the first endeavoured to draw Finland closer to the Empire, not by bands of steel and iron but by the more delicate and more permanent ties of considerateness, affection, and self-interest. It is political stupidity, based upon ignorance and inexperience, and not inhumanity, which is the real explanation of Russia's unfortunate relations with her subject peoples during the past century. Moreover, the political machinery which has hitherto served her own internal needs is the worst possible instrument for dealing with provinces which possess a full measure of Western political consciousness together with the traditions of political liberty. Russia, therefore, requires representative institutions not merely for the political education of her own people and as a check upon bureaucratic tyranny and incompetency, but also in order that she may adopt some fair andconsistentpolicy towards her subject nationalities.
It may be optimistic, but I cannot help feeling that the present war will do much for Russia, much for Finland, much for Poland. Russia is fighting to defend a small nation against oppression, she is fighting a life-and-death struggle with the military bureaucracy which we call "Germany" for the moment, she is fighting on behalf of "liberty" and of the "scraps of paper" upon which the freedom of States and individuals depends. All this will leave a profound effect upon the national consciousness, and may even bring home for the first time to the people at large the meaning of political freedom. Russia is so vast, so loose in structure, so undeveloped in those means of intercommunication such as roads, railways, newspapers, etc., which make England like a small village-community in comparison, that it takes the shock of a great war to draw the whole people together. That it has done so, no one who has read the papers during the last two months can doubt. War, as a historical fact, has always been beneficial to Russia; the Crimean War led to the emancipation of the serfs, the Japanese War led to the establishment of a Duma, and the present war has already led to surprising results. The consumption of alcohol has been abolished, concessions have been promised to a reunited Poland, and, except against the unhappy Jews in the Polish war-area, there has been a subsidence throughout the Empire of racial antagonism. It is the hope of all who love Russia, and no one who really knows her can help loving her, that these beginnings may be crowned not only with victory over Germany in the field of battle but with victory over the German spirit in the world of ideas, a victory of which the first-fruits would be the firm establishment of representative government, a cleansing of the bureaucratic Augean stables, and a settlement of the problem of subject nationalities upon lines of justice and moderation.
But whatever the outcome may be, let us in England be fair to Russia. The road to fairness lies through understanding; and we have grossly misunderstood Russia because we have not taken the trouble to acquaint ourselves with the facts, the real facts as distinct from the newspaper facts, of her situation. When those facts are realised, is it for us to cast the first stone? Russia needs political reform, the tremendous task of Peter the Great needs completing, the bureaucracy must be crowned with representative institutions; but is Russia's need in the sphere of political reform greater than ours in the sphere of social reform?
Look at our vast miserable slums, our sprawling, ugly, aimless industrial centres, inhabited by millions who have just enough education to be able to buy their thinking ready-made through the halfpenny Press and just enough leisure for a weekly attendance at the local football match and an annual excursion to Blackpool or Ramsgate; who seldom, if ever, see the glorious face of Nature and, when they do, gaze into it with blank unrecognising eyes; whose whole life is one long round of monotony—monotonous toil, monotonous amusements, monotonous clothes, monotonous bricks and mortar;—until the very heaven itself, with its trailing cloud-armadas and its eternal stars, is forgotten, and the whole universe becomes a cowl of hodden grey, "where-under crawling cooped they live and die." And then look at those other millions—the millions of Russia—look at the grand simple life they lead in the fields, a life of toil indeed, but of toil sweet and infinitely varied; Russia is their country, not merely because they live there but because they—the peasants—now actually possess by far the greater part of the arable land; God is their God, not because they have heard of Him as some remote Being in the Sunday School, but because He is very near to them—in their homes, in their sacraments, and in their hearts; and so contentment of mind and soul is theirs, not because they have climbed higher than their fellows, whether by the accumulation of knowledge or wealth, but because they have discovered the secret of existence, which is to want little, to live in close communion with nature, and to die in close communion with God.
MAURICE BARING.The Mainsprings of Russia.1914. Nelson. 2s. net.
This is an excellent introduction to the subject, recording as it does the general impressions of an acute and sympathetic observer; it does not, of course, pretend to be comprehensive, and says nothing, for example, of the Jews, Poles, Finns, etc.
BERNARD PARES.Russia and Reform.1907. 10s. 6d. net.
MILYOUKOV.Russia and its Crisis.1905. 13s. 6d. net.
MAURICE BARING.The Russian People.1911. 15s. net.
These three books may be consulted for the Revolution of 1905 and the events which led up to it. Professor Milyoukov's book was actually published before the Revolution, but its author was leader of the Cadet party in the First Duma, and it is therefore something in the nature of a liberal manifesto. Professor Pares' book, which is perhaps the most penetrating and well-balanced of all and contains most valuable chapters on theIntelligentsia,does not, unfortunately, deal with the years of reaction which followed the dissolution of the First Duma. Mr. Baring's book may be recommended especially for the later chapters which deal with the causes of the failure of the Revolution. All three contain a good deal of sound historical matter.
H.W. WILLIAMS.Russia of the Russians.1914. 6s. net.
ROTHAY REYNOLDS.My Russian Year. 1913. 10s. 6d. net.
Two good books dealing with life in contemporary Russia. The first is the best and most comprehensive treatment of the new Russia which has emerged from the revolutionary period, and gives one not merely the political but also the social and artistic aspect. The other book is lightly and entertainingly written.
STEPHEN GRAHAM.Undiscovered Russia. 1911. 12s. 6d. net.
STEPHEN GRAHAM.Changing Russia. 1913. 7s. 6d. net.
STEPHEN GRAHAM.With the Russian Pilgrims to Jerusalem. 1913. 7s. 6d. net.
Mr. Stephen Graham may be said to have discovered the Russian peasant for English people, and his books give an extraordinarily vivid and sympathetic picture of Russian peasant-life by one who knows it from the inside. They afford also the best account of religion in Russia as a living force, while those who wish to know more of the Orthodox Church as an institution may be referred to chaps. xxvi. and xxvii. of Mr. Baring'sRussian People; chap. viii. of the same writer'sMainsprings of Russia; and chap. vi. of Sir C. Eliot's (Odysseus)Turkey in Europe(7s. 6d. net). The second of Mr. Graham's books deals with the threatening industrial changes in Russia. The third is a fine piece of literature as well as being the only account in any language of one of the most characteristic figures in modern Russian life—the peasant-pilgrim.
SIR D.M. WALLACE.Russia. 2 vols. 1905. 24s. net.
Russia and the Balkan States.Reprinted from theEncyclopedia Britannica.2s. 6d. net.
Both these accounts, though written many years ago, have now been brought up to date in view of present events.
R. NISBET BAIN.Slavonic Europe, 1447-1796. 1908. 5s. 6d. net.
F.H. SKRINE.The Expansion of Russia, 1815-1900.1903. 4s. 6d. net.
W.R. MORFILL.Russia. 1890. 5s.
W.R. MORFILL.Poland. 1893. 5s.
Are all useful for the history of Russia, and of her relations with Poland, and Finland. Readers may also be referred to theCambridge Modern History(vol. ix. chap. xvi.; vol. x. chaps. xiii., xiv.; vol. xi. chaps. ix., xxii.; vol. xii. chaps. xii., xiii.).
V O. KLUCHEFFSKY.A History of Russia.3 vols. 1913. Dent. 7s. 6d. net each.
The standard economic and social history of Russia up to the reign of Peter the Great.
H.P. KENNARD.The Russian Year-Book.Eyre and Spottiswoode. 10s. 6d. net.
Excellent for facts and figures.
E. SÉMÉNOFF.The Russian Government and the Massacres.1907. 2s. 6d. net.
An account of thepogromsin Russia from the Jewish point of view.
J.R. FISHER.Finland and the Tsars, 1800-1899.1899. 12s. 6d.
The best account in English of the history of Finland's relations withRussia up to the beginning of the reactionary period.
K.P. POBIEDONOSTSEV.Reflections of a Russian Statesman.1898. 6s. ForSlavophilism.
P. KHOPOTKIN.Memoirs of a Revolutionist.1907. 6s.
MAURICE BARING.Russian Literature.(Home University Library.) 1s.
A. BRÜCKNER.A Literary History of Russia.1908. 12s. 6d. net.
MAURICE BARING.Landmarks in Russian Literature.1910. 6s. net.
The last-named are the best available books in English on Russian literature. The works of the great Russian novelists are now accessible to English readers. Nothing helps one to understand Russia so well as reading the works of Tourgeniev, Tolstoi, and Dostoieffsky. The best translations are those of Mrs. Garnett. The following are recommended to those who are beginning the study of Russian literature and who are desirous of reading novels which throw light on the springs of Russian life and thought:—
TOURGENIEV.Fathers and Children.Heinemann. 2s. net.
A study of Russian Nihilism in the 'eighties, which may be read and compared with Kropotkin'sMemoirs.
TOLSTOI.War and Peace.Heinemann. 3s. 6d. net.Anna Karenin.Heinemann. 3s. 6d. net.
The first of these is perhaps the finest treatment of war in modern literature, the subject being the Russian campaign of Napoleon in 1812. No other book gives one a better idea of the way the Russians make war and of the essential greatness of the Russian national spirit.
DOSTOIEFFSKY.The Brothers Karamazov.Heinemann. 3s. 6d. net.
This, which is one of the greatest novels ever written, depicts, at once relentlessly and with infinite tenderness, the spiritual conflict which has agitated Russian society for at least fifty years past.
JOSEPH CONRAD.Under Western Eyes.6s.
A powerful study of modern revolutionary types. Conrad, of course, is not aRussian novelist, but he is of Polish origin.
GOGOL.The Inspector-General.Walter Scott. 1s. net.
A comedy first produced in Petrograd in 1836. Gogol is one of Russia's classics. This play is a humorous treatment of bureaucratic corruption and inefficiency.
The present war has raised in the minds of many men a question which we as a people will soon be called upon to answer. Was this war necessary? Or was it caused by the ambitions and foolishness of statesmen? Might it not have been averted if the peoples of Europe had had more control over the way in which foreign policy was carried on?
Out of these questions has arisen a demand for the "democratisation of foreign policy"; that is, for greater popular control over diplomatic negotiations. In view of this, it becomes necessary for every British citizen to gain some idea of what foreign policy is and by what principles it should be governed.
It is the purpose of this chapter to give, first, some account of the actual meaning of the words "foreign policy," and then, secondly, to consider how foreign policy may best be controlled in the interests of the whole population of the British Empire, and in the interests of the world at large.
§1.The Foreign Office.—To the ordinary man foreign policy is an affair of mystery, and it not unnaturally rouses his suspicions. He does not realise, what is nevertheless the simple truth, that he himself is both the material and the object of all foreign policy.
The business of the Government of a country is to maintain and further the interests of the individual citizen. That is the starting-point of all political institutions. The business of the Foreign Office is a part of this work of Government, and consists in the protection of the interests of the individual citizen where those interests depend upon the goodwill of a foreign Government.
But just as in domestic politics the individual citizen is inclined to suspect—too often with truth—that the Government does not give impartial attention to the interests of all the citizens, but is preoccupied in protecting the interests of powerful and privileged persons or groups, so in foreign policy the individual citizen is particularly prone to believe that the time of the Foreign Office is taken up in furthering the interests of rich bondholders or powerful capitalists. Moreover, the charge is sometimes heard that some of the most powerful of these capitalists are engaged in the manufacture of armaments, and that the Foreign Office aims at securing orders from foreign Governments for these firms, thus encouraging the nations of the world to provide themselves with means of destruction.
Now, just as no sensible man will say that Governments do not often oppress the people under their care, so no sensible man will contend that Foreign Offices do not sometimes sin in the same way. But let us try to give an accurate picture of the work on which the British Foreign Office spends its time.
The organisation of the Foreign Office consists of:
(1) An office, situated in Downing Street, manned by a number of clerks, under the direction of the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs.
(2) The Diplomatic Service—that is to say, from three to eight officials residing in the capital of each foreign country. In the more important countries these officials are called an Embassy, and are under the direction of an Ambassador; in the smaller countries they are called a Legation, and are under the direction of a Minister. These Ambassadors and Ministers receive instructions from and report to the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, and are the mouthpiece of the British Government in all business which Great Britain transacts with foreign countries.
(3) The Consular Service—that is to say, a large number of officials, called Consuls, distributed over all the towns of the world where British subjects have important trade connections or where there are a considerable number of British subjects. These Consuls are under the direction of the Foreign Office and of the Embassy or Legation in the country where they reside, and their business is to assist British trade and protect British subjects.
§2.The Work of the Foreign Office.—The work of this whole organisation may be divided into four classes:
(1) The protection of individual British subjects. This protection often extends to the most petty matters. Through the offices of a Consul and of an Embassy or Legation flows day by day a continual stream of British subjects who are in small difficulties or have small grievances against the officials of the country. One old lady has lost her luggage; a working man is stranded without work and wants to get back to England; a commercial traveller has got into trouble with the customs officials and asks for redress. But the protection thus given is often concerned with very important matters, and is constantly employed on behalf of the poorest and the most helpless. For instance, our officials in the United States are constantly occupied, in assisting British immigrant working men and women who are suffering hardships under the stringent provisions of the United States immigration laws.
(2) The furthering of British trade. It is the duty of the whole Foreign Office organisation, but especially of the Consuls, to give advice to the representatives of commercial firms, to report openings for the sale of British goods abroad, and generally to give assistance to British trade in its competition with foreign trade. Enquiries will, for instance, be received by a Consul at a Chinese port from a manufacturer of pottery or harness or tin-tacks, asking what type of goods will be likely to find a market in that locality. The Consul will then enquire and give such information as his local knowledge enables him to supply. Or again, a foreign country will sometimes make regulations which hinder the importation of English products. English oats may, for instance, be affected with a blight which Italy fears may infect her crops if she allows their importation. It may then become the duty of the British Embassy at Rome to make arrangements with the Italian Government in order that English farmers may not suffer by losing the market for their produce. But one important point must be remembered, because it is too often forgotten by those who criticise the Foreign Office. There is one general restriction on the activities of the Foreign Office in assisting British trade: no British official is allowed to invite, or try to persuade, any foreign Government to give orders to British firms, whether for war material or for any other article.
What we have already said applies to the relations between civilised countries. But the relations between civilised countries on the one hand, and uncivilised or semi-civilised countries on the other hand, are very much more difficult in many ways. Difficulties especially arise with regard to commerce. Many of the less-developed countries of the world, such as some South American countries and China, cannot, like their richer neighbours, undertake the development of their own resources. They lack money, scientific training, business ability, and so on. They therefore give what are called "concessions" to foreign companies or capitalists; that is, the Government of the country leases some industry for a term of years to the foreign company. The Mexican Government, for instance, has leased its oil-wells to English, American, and Dutch companies, and the Chinese Government has largely confided the construction and management of its railroads to English, French, and German companies.
Now, in many countries where this happens, the Government is not strong enough or permanent enough to guarantee proper security of tenure to the foreign company to which it grants a concession; very likely some official is bribed to grant the concession to one company and then bribed by another company to cancel it, or the Government is overthrown by a revolution and its successor cancels the concessions it has granted. By this means, British workmen may be thrown out of work and their employment may pass to workmen in the United States or Germany. Consequently, foreign Governments—the Governments of civilised countries—gradually begin to intervene and give protection to their subjects who have concessions in such countries, provided that they have obtained their concessions in a respectable and proper manner. Competition between the different foreign companies then grows up; their Governments gradually begin to support them against each other in this competition, until at last it becomes necessary for the different Governments, if bad feeling is to be avoided, to try to arrive at some arrangement among themselves, fixing the way in which the concessions granted by this or that semi-civilised country shall be distributed among the subjects of the Great Powers. Something like this has been recently happening in China.
To a certain extent this line of action seems to be necessary in dealing with backward countries, and it may be made mutually beneficial both to those countries themselves and to the commerce of the Great Powers, but, on the other hand, the whole policy is obviously liable to great abuse. Consequently, every self-respecting Government knows that all matters relating to concessions must be treated with the greatest caution and forbearance, and that the interests of all concerned will be best served in the long run by gradually helping backward countries along the path of civilisation and strengthening their Governments so that they may be able to assume complete control of their own finance and commercial enterprises.
We have now described roughly the personal and the commercial work of the Foreign Office. This work covers all the immediate interests of individual British citizens in regard to foreign countries. If each British subject is protected when abroad, and if the trade and industry of the country on which the welfare and livelihood of every individual citizen ultimately depends is fostered and safe-guarded, then the primary duties of the British Government in relation to other Governments have been discharged.
But this is not enough. If the interests of the individual citizen of Great Britain are to be permanently secured in relation to foreign countries, we must be assured that the policy of foreign Governments is civilised and generally friendly to British subjects. There must be a general rule of law throughout the world on which British subjects can count with assurance of safety. And so the Foreign Office has a third and even more important class of work:
(3) The maintenance of permanent good relations with foreign countries. These good relations are secured, not only by continually friendly communication with foreign Governments over innumerable questions of policy, but also by the conclusion of a network of treaties, some of them designed to establish international co-operation in particular social or economic questions such, for instance, as the existing treaty between Great Britain and France providing for the mutual payment of compensation under the Workmen's Compensation Laws of the two countries, and others concluded with the object of defining the mutual policy of different countries in general matters such as the regulation of trade. The newest and most important class of treaties are those which, like the Hague Conventions and the treaties guaranteeing the neutrality of Belgium and Luxemburg, attempt to lay down general rules of law which all countries agree to observe. In other words, the office of diplomacy is to securecertaintyin the government of the world, so that every man may know what to expect in dealing with his fellow-man of a different nationality.
It is difficult to describe adequately the complexity of this diplomatic work. The economic and social systems of the world have become so involved and intertwined that there is hardly anything one country can do which does not react in some way on the interests of the subjects of another country.
In every European country, and in the United States, the Government is being more and more called upon to regulate the delicate economic and social machinery on which modern life depends. Each Government adopts an attitude towards such problems which is determined partly by the thought and the beliefs of its public men, and partly by the course of historical development through which each country has passed. There thus arises gradually in each country a more or less definite policy with which the country becomes identified. Formerly the policy of most European countries was mainly confined to questions arising in Europe itself, but in these days of industrial expansion the real aims of their policy generally lie outside Europe.
There are vast regions of the world where civilised government does not exist, or is only beginning to exist, but where the citizens of civilised countries travel and carry on trade. No civilised country can prevent its traders going where they please—indeed, the prosperity of every great country now depends to some extent at least upon its traders finding new markets for the sale of their goods—but if these traders go to an uncivilised country like Central Africa or the interior of China or the South Sea Islands the civilised country not only feels obliged to protect them there, but it must also, by every claim of justice and humanity, prevent them from ill-using the uncivilised and helpless natives.
The horrors which accompany the unregulated activity of foreign traders in a savage country may be seen from theLife of John G. Paton,a missionary in the New Hebrides Islands of the Southern Pacific. These islands, before they came under the government of any civilised Power, were visited by European and American traders, especially traders in sandalwood. "The sandalwood traders," wrote Paton, "are as a class the most godless of men…. By them the poor defenceless natives are oppressed and robbed on every hand; and if they offer the slightest resistance they are ruthlessly silenced by the musket or revolver…. The sale of intoxicants, opium, fire-arms, and ammunition by the traders among the New Hebrideans, had become a terrible and intolerable evil." It became necessary for the civilised Powers to prohibit, by international regulation, the sale of fire-arms and intoxicants in the islands. Such international regulations are always very difficult to enforce, and finally the administration of the islands was taken over by Great Britain and France, who now govern them jointly.
Hence the civilised countries of the world have gradually been led to assume jurisdiction in uncivilised regions, and have converted many of them into colonies or "protectorates" or "spheres of influence." By this process the interests of the nations of Europe reach out into all the far corners of the earth, and constant care and arrangement is needed to prevent those interests clashing. Where the interests of the different Powers do clash in an uncivilised or semi-civilised part of the world a general international agreement is often necessary to put things straight; for instance, during recent years the interests of Germany, France, and Spain—and to a less degree those of many other countries—were continually clashing in Morocco, till it became necessary in 1906 to conclude a general international treaty called the Algeciras Act, whereby the relations of all the Powers with regard to Morocco were defined in great detail.
§3.The Balance of Power.—It is this continual attempt to arrange matters and to keep the different Powers clear of each other in order that their interests may not clash, which is the real underlying cause to-day of what is known as the "Balance of Power." The doctrine of the "Balance of Power" grew up at the end of the seventeenth and beginning of the eighteenth century when Europe was threatened by the policy of aggression and conquest undertaken by Louis XIV. of France. From that day onward, European statesmen have sought to establish a definite European system and to limit the growth of the European States in such a way as to ensure that no State should be so strong as to threaten its neighbours.
The history of this attempt has been somewhat as follows. A coalition of the States of Europe was formed against the aggressions of Louis XIV. After a series of wars a peace was signed at Utrecht in 1713 defining the boundaries of the European States in such a way as to establish equality and a balance of power between them. For about ten years European statesmen attempted to maintain the system thus set up by means of what has since come to be known as the "Concert of Europe"—that is, by means of a series of international congresses where opportunity was given for the settlement of disputes between the different States. Soon, however, it became impossible to satisfy the ambitions of the rulers and peoples of Europe by this means, and the Concert of Europe broke up. Wars followed, during which those statesmen, especially in England, who believed in the "Balance of Power" sought to prevent any European nation from being overwhelmed by its enemies. To this end, England supported Austria against the attacks of Prussia, and then later supported Prussia against a coalition formed by the rest of Europe to crush her. Unfortunately neither England nor France had sufficient strength or courage to prevent the partition of Poland between Prussia, Russia and Austria, which constituted a fatal violation of the Balance of Power. Peace did not return to Europe till 1815, when the whole continent had been driven to combine for the overthrow of Napoleon. At the Congress of Vienna in that year the "Concert of Europe" was revived, and for more than thirty years it practically succeeded by means of a series of international congresses in maintaining a stable and balanced system in Europe.
But this "Concert of Europe" was the very thing against which the democratic forces on the continent finally rebelled, for the "Concert" took the form of the so-called "Holy Alliance" between the rulers of Europe, whose object was to prevent popular movements from disturbing the neat and orderly peace which they had created. The system created by the Congress of Vienna began to break down in 1848. Since then the warlike nationalist and democratic movements in Europe, followed by the tremendous economic growth of the European nations, have made it almost impossible to secure any stable balance of power, though a more or less successful attempt to establish such a balance in the affairs of south-eastern Europe was made at the Congress of Berlin in 1878. The two Hague Conferences of 1899 and 1907 did little but reveal the mutual fears and suspicions of the European nations, though many statesmen, especially English and American, laboured sincerely to make the Hague Conventions the guarantee of a lasting peace. But it must be observed that the "Balance of Power," which was originally a distinctly European conception, has now become a world-wide conception. In order to secure a balance of power between the European States it is no longer sufficient to settle European frontiers; it is necessary to settle and, as it were, dovetail into each other the economic interests of the European countries in Africa, Asia, and the Southern Pacific. It is also necessary to define the relations of European countries to the States in North and South America.
What is the conclusion to be drawn from this history? The idea of the Balance of Power is unsatisfactory. You cannot really "balance" living forces. Nations are not dead masses which can be weighed against each other, but living growths which expand according to obscure natural laws. Human laws can never stop natural growth; growth can only be stopped by death, and so the Balance of Power seems to necessitate continual conflict. And so, at least twice in the last two centuries, the attempt to maintain a stable European system by a peaceful "Concert of Europe" has broken down. Once, in the Holy Alliance, that Concert itself became an intolerable tyranny. Many men to-day hope to secure peace by re-establishing the Concert of Europe on a democratic basis, but it may well be doubted whether any such system can be permanent, unless there be a radical reform in the mind and character not only of European statesmen but of the European peoples. We shall discuss this later, but meanwhile we may say this at least. A balance of power is an imperfect conception. It is a rough and ready—almost barbarous—policy. The best that can be said for it is that no alternative policy has been devised, or at least none has succeeded. Every one of us who has a spark of idealism believes that the day will come when it shall give place to some more perfect system. But at the present day not only international politics but also home politics are governed by this idea of a balance of power. No democracy has yet been able to establish itself in any country except by virtue of a continual conflict between class and class, between interest and interest, between capital and labour, and international conflicts are but the reflection of the domestic conflicts within each State; both are continual unsuccessful attempts to reach a stable equilibrium, and they can only be ended by a true fusion of hearts and wills.
§4.The Estimation of National Forces.—It has been necessary to undertake this long discussion in order to give a more or less clear idea of the work done by diplomacy in maintaining a stable international system. Arising out of this we have now to consider the fourth class of work—and the most difficult—which the Foreign Office has to perform. For want of a better name we may call it—
(4) The estimation of national forces. Nations are not mere agglomerations of individuals; they have each their own character, their own feelings, and their own life. Science has done little to determine the laws of their growth, but, as we have seen, each nation does grow, reaches out slowly—almost insensibly—in this or that direction, and gathers to itself new interests which in their turn give new impulse to its growth. Perhaps the best simile that we can use for the foreign policy of the world is that of a rather tangled garden, where creepers are continually growing and taking root in new soil and where life is therefore always threatening and being threatened by new life. The point is that we are dealing withlife—with its growth and decay; not with the movements of pieces on a chequer-board.
Now, the Foreign Office largely exists in order to watch this growth and, like a gardener, to train and lead it in directions where it can expand without danger. But for this work intimate knowledge is necessary—knowledge not so much of the personal character or policy of those who govern the different nations, but knowledge of the character, the economic needs, the beliefs, the feelings, and the aspirations of the half-dumb millions who form and ultimately determine the life of each nation. The diplomatist must study every political and social movement which goes on in a nation; he must estimate the effect which the national system of education is having on the mind of the nation; he must form an idea of the lessons which the Government of his own country should learn from the government of other countries, whether it be, for instance, lessons in constitutional government or in municipal sanitation; and he must above all be able to warn his Government of the dangers to his own country which the growth of foreign countries seems to entail, in order that peaceful measures may be taken in time to prevent a collision.
This, then, is a rough account of the actual work of diplomacy. It is not a full account. There are many wrong things done which deserve criticism, but which we have not had space to mention. There is also much self-sacrificing and thankless work done by diplomatists and consuls in distant parts of the world—much seeming drudgery which can hope for no reward—many honourable services rendered to the public of which the public never hears. But the above account will suffice to give a rough idea of the organisation with which we are dealing, and we may now pass on to consider the question of how this organisation should be managed and controlled.
This phrase is rapidly becoming a political catchword. As such it requires to be approached with the utmost caution. Before going further it is necessary to test the assumptions underlying it and to inquire how far they really correspond to the facts.
§1.Democracy and Peace.—First of all, the main assumption made by Englishmen who advocate the democratisation of foreign policy is that international peace would thereby be assured. True, the extension of the democratic principle is to many men an end in itself, quite apart from the question whether it tends to peace. But great masses of men are not moved to make political demands merely by theoretical considerations; it is the pressure of definite and imminent evils which arouses them to action. In the case of England the demand for greater democratic control in the sphere of foreign policy arose in large measure from the sudden realisation, in the late summer of 1911, at the time of the so-called Agadir crisis, that war between this country and Germany was a possibility with which English statesmen and the English people had to reckon. We had felt the breath of war actually on our cheek, and a large section of English sentiment revolted from it. A demand was raised for a democratic policy of peace. Three years later, on August 3, 1914, when Parliament met to decide the happiness or sufferings of the quarter of the human race comprised in the British Empire, the same demand was voiced in a series of speeches which accurately expressed the belief that peace was the policy of the people, while war was the secret aim of their rulers. Mr. T. Edmund Harvey, M.P., spoke as follows:
"I am convinced that this war, for the great masses of the countries of Europe, and not for our own country alone, is no people's war. It is a war that has been made … by men in high places, by diplomatists working in secret, by bureaucrats who are out of touch with the peoples of the world, who are the remnant of an older evil civilisation which is disappearing by gradual and peaceful methods."
Mr. Ponsonby, M.P., spoke in the same sense:
"I trust that, even though it may be late, the Foreign Secretary will use every endeavour to the very last moment, disregarding the tone of messages and the manner of Ambassadors, but looking to the great central interests of humanity and civilisation to keep this country in a state of peace."
Democracy means peace;—can we accept this assumption? Contrasts are sometimes illuminating, and it may be well to turn from the Parliamentary debate of August 3 to an article written sixty-two years ago in an English review by the greatest democrat of his time. In April 1852 Mazzini published in theWestminster Reviewan appeal to England to intervene on the Continent in favour of the revolutionary movements in progress there since 1848. The following is an extract from that article:
"The menace of the foreigner weighs upon the smaller States; the last sparks of European liberty are extinguished under the dictatorial veto of the retrograde powers. England—the country of Elizabeth and Cromwell—has not a word to say in favour of the principle to which she owes her existence. If England persist in maintaining this neutral, passive, selfish part, she will have to expiate it. A European transformation is inevitable. When it shall take place, when the struggle shall burst forth at twenty places at once, when the old combat between fact and right is decided, the peoples will remember that England had stood by, an inert, immovable, sceptical witness of their sufferings and efforts…. England will find herself some day a third-rate power, and to this she is being brought by a want of foresight in her statesmen. The nation must rouse herself and shake off the torpor of her Government."
Mr. Ponsonby appealing in the name of the people to Sir Edward Grey to stand aloof from European war; Mazzini appealing in the name of the people to the respectable, peaceable, middle classes of England to forsake Cobden's pacifist doctrines and throw England's sword into the scale of European revolution—it is a strange contrast which serves to remind us that the word "democracy," so lightly bandied about by political parties, has many different meanings and has stood for many different policies. It may be roughly said that it stood for internationalism in 1792, when France claimed as her mission the liberation of all nations under the tricolor; it stood for nationalism in 1848 in the mouth of Mazzini, Kossuth and the German constitutional party; to-day it again stands for internationalism in the more advanced countries of Europe, but are we justified as yet in calling this more than a phase in the development of democratic doctrine? It is a very difficult question, which it would be presumptuous to try to answer offhand; all we have tried to show here is that, on the whole, the assumption as to the peaceful tendencies of a democratic foreign policy is a doubtful one, on which we must to some extent reserve our judgment.
§2.Foreign Policy and Popular Forces.—The above considerations will help us to appreciate at its true value the second main assumption which lies behind the demand for increased democratic control of foreign policy—namely, the assumption that the stuff of international politics is at present spun from the designs of individual statesmen, and has no relation to the needs of the peoples they govern. Stated thus, this idea will not bear examination for a moment. The doctrine of the "economic interpretation of history," which has received perhaps its most emphatic expression in the teaching of Marxian socialists, is now in one form or another accepted by all thinking men. But "economics" is after all a rough name for the sum of the ordinary needs and efforts of every single human being, and the economic interpretation of history means that the history of the world is in the long run determined by the cumulative force of these humble needs and efforts. This and this alone is the real stuff of international politics. Statesmen may attempt to found systems, but the only real force in international as in domestic politics is the education of the individual man's desires. It is indeed open to any critic to say that our present capitalist economic system is responsible for war because it dams up and diverts from their true channels the needs and the efforts of the mass of mankind. But to this an Englishman may fairly answer that the free trade system under which our capitalist organisation has reached its greatest development was built up by the Manchester School with the sincere and avowed object of introducing universal peace. Cobden avowed this object clearly:
"I see," he said, "in free trade that which shall act on the moral world as the law of gravitation in the universe, drawing men together, thrusting aside the antagonism of race and creed and language and uniting us in the bonds of eternal peace… I believe that the desire and motive for large and mighty empires, for gigantic armies and mighty navies … will die away."
Yet, in spite of these aspirations, great wars have come to England, not once, but at least three times, since these words were spoken, and armaments are immeasurably larger than ever before.
Let us understand one thing clearly in connection with the present war. Mr. Ponsonby, in the words already quoted, implored Sir E. Grey to "look to the great central interests of humanity and civilisation," and to preserve the neutrality of England in those interests. But at the moment at which he spoke the eyes of English statesmen were looking at one thing alone. It was not a question of what French statesmen expected them to do. The British Government had explained quite clearly to French statesmen that they must not expect armed support from England. This fact had been made clear to the French Foreign Office long before in a series of conversations between the statesmen, and it had been embodied in a letter from Sir E. Grey to the French Ambassador. But when the shadow of war actually fell on France these conversations and this letter faded into the background. It was no longer a question of what the French President expected from the King of England. It was a question of what Jacques Roturier, artisan in the streets of Paris, knowing that the Germans were on the frontier and might be dropping their shells into Paris in a fortnight, expected from John Smith, shopkeeper in the East India Dock Road, London, safe behind the English Channel from all the horrors of war. That was, not rhetorically but in all soberness of fact, the real "international obligation" on August 3, 1914; for though treaties are made by statesmen they are in the long run interpreted, not by statesmen, but by the public opinion which becomes slowly centred on them—by the hopes and fears of millions of working men and women who have never read the terms of the treaty but to whom it has become the symbol of a friendship on which they can draw in case of need. The magistrate may write the marriage lines, but the marriage becomes what the husband and wife make it—a thing far deeper and more binding than any legal contract.
In the light of these considerations, we can establish one point of supreme importance in dealing with foreign policy—namely, that the causes of war are very different from the immediate occasions of war. When the British Government, at the outbreak of the present war, published a White Paper containing the diplomatic correspondence between July 20 and August 4, 1914, they were publishing evidence as to the immediate occasion of war—namely the Austrian ultimatum of July 23 to Serbia which brought on the war. In the twelve days which intervened between the delivery of that ultimatum and the declaration of war between England and Germany, the negotiations on which hung the immediate fate of Europe were, it is true, conducted by a few leading statesmen. But it is of little use to argue whether or not these negotiations were conducted ill or well, for they were not the realcauseof the war. The cause of the war must be sought in the slow development of forces which can be traced back for years, and even for centuries. It was comparatively futile for Parliament to discuss whether this or that despatch or telegram was wise or unwise; the real questions to be asked were—What produced the crowds in Vienna surging round the Serbian Legation at the end of June, and round the Russian Embassy at the end of July; what produced the slow, patient sympathy for the Balkan peoples and hatred for Austria in the heart of millions of Russian peasants; what produced the Servian nationalist movement; above all, what produced that strange sentiment throughout Germany which could honestly regard the invasion of Belgium as justifiable? To answer those questions we have to estimate the force of the most heterogeneous factors in history:—for instance, on the one hand, the slow break-up of the Turkish Empire, extending over more than two centuries, which has allowed the cauldron of the Slavonic Balkan peoples to boil up through the thin crust of foreign domination; and on the other hand, the gradual development of the whole system of German State education, and the character of the German newspapers, which have turned the eyes of German public opinion in upon itself and have excluded from public teaching and from the formation of thought every breath of fresh air from the outside world, until at last German public sentiment, through extreme and incessant self-contemplation, has lost the calmness and simplicity which were once the strength of the German character. No man can allot the responsibility for these things, spreading as they do over generations; but assuredly the responsibility does not rest with the half-dozen Ministers for Foreign Affairs who were in power in July 1914.
If we are right in what we have said above, then the phrase "the democratization of foreign policy" takes on a new meaning. It does not mean merely the introduction into foreign policy of any set of democratic institutions; it means the realisation by both statesmen and people that foreign policy is already in its essence a fundamentally democratic thing, and that the success or failure of any line of action depends not upon the desires of politicians but upon the mighty forces which move and determine the life of peoples.
At present the statesmen do not realise this sufficiently, and hence comes much futile and aimless talking and writing among politicians who fancy that what they say or write to each other in their studies can determine the course of the world. In order to enable diplomatists to discharge all the duties we have already enumerated under the heading of "the estimation of national forces," they need to have a better training and a fuller knowledge of the life and social movements both of their own country and of foreign countries. The Royal Commission on the Civil Service was still considering, when war broke out, how this could be accomplished. It is too long a question to enter on here, but it may safely be said that the more the problem is examined the more does it appear to be, like the wider problem of the whole body of 200,000 civil servants in the United Kingdom, a question of national education, and not a mere matter of Government regulations and democratic institutions. What is required, in the Foreign Office, as in the whole British civil service, has been well expressed by Mr. Graham Wallas in his bookHuman Nature in Politics:
"However able our officials are and however varied their origin, the danger of the narrowness and rigidity which has hitherto so generally resulted from official life would still remain and must be guarded against by every kind of encouragement to free intellectual development."
§3.Foreign Policy and Education.—But if statesmen do not sufficiently realise the strength of existing popular forces in foreign policy, it is equally true that the people themselves do not realise it. The people of every country are inclined to think that they can alter the destiny of nations by ousting one foreign minister from power and setting up another; they think that speeches and the resolutions passed by congresses can change fundamental economic facts. They think that mere expressions of mutual goodwill can take the place of knowledge, and they forget that no nation can shake itself free in a moment from the historical development which has formed it, just as no man can wholly shake himself free from the character which he has inherited from his ancestors. Indeed all our phrases—our whole attitude of mind—shows how little we, as a people, realise popular forces. We commonly speak, for instance, of Russia as if nothing in that vast country had any influence on foreign affairs except the opinions of a few bureaucrats in Petrograd. Our sympathy for or hostility to Russia is determined by our opinion of the Russian bureaucracy, and we never spare a thought for the hopes and fears and the dumb but ardent beliefs of millions of Russian peasants. We are apt to dismiss them from our minds as ignorant and superstitious villagers tyrannised over by the Tsar, without troubling to enquire narrowly into the real facts of Russian life. We thus make precisely the same mistake that diplomatists too often make. We forget that the masses of peasants who flow every year on pilgrimage to the shrines of their religion constitute a more vital fact in the history of the world than the deliberations of the Duma or the decisions of police magistrates.
Here we have a lesson to learn from Germany, for German statesmen, strangely enough, have taken immense trouble to make their policy a democratic one. The whole German nation is behind them because for years and years they have taught the nation through the schools, the universities, and the press, their own reading of history and their own idea of what true civilisation is. They have adapted their teaching to the fundamental characteristics and to the history of the German people. They have taken pains to ally the interests alike of capital and labour to their policy, and to fuse the whole nation by a uniform national education and by a series of paternal social reforms imposed from above. The real strength and danger of Germany is not what her statesmen or soldiersdo, but what Germans themselvesbelieve. We are fighting not an army but a false idea; and nothing will defeat a false idea but the knowledge of the truth.
When this war is over, whatever its outcome may be, we must try to introduce a new era into the history of the world. But our fathers and our fathers' fathers have tried to do this same thing, and we shall not succeed if we go about the work in a spirit of self-sufficiency and hasty pride. Only knowledge of the truth will enable us to succeed. Knowledge of the truth is not an easy thing; it is a question of laborious thought, mental discipline, the humility which is content to learn and the moral courage which can face the truth when it is learnt. How are we to gain these things?
First of all, by schools, universities, classes—all the machinery of our national and private education.
Then, by the same means as popular government employs in other matters—by discussion, by debates in Parliament, by criticism of the Government. Now, these means are not employed at present partly because it is feared that criticism of the Government in matters of foreign policy will weaken its hands in dealing with foreign nations. This is a just fear if criticism merely springs from the critics' personal likings or prejudices, but no such evil effects need be feared if the criticism springs from deep thought, from knowledge of the facts and from the patience and wisdom which thought and knowledge bring. But partly also effective discussion of foreign politics does not exist because we are more interested in home politics. We really have, if we cared to use it, as much democratic control over the Foreign Office under our constitution as over any Government Department, for the Foreign Office, like every other Department, is under the control of a member of Parliament, elected by the people. But we are more interested in social reform, in labour legislation, and in constitutional reform than in foreign politics; and so it is on questions of home policy that we make and unmake Governments, and when we discuss whether a Conservative or a Liberal Government ought to be in power, we never think what effect the change would have on foreign policy. If the democracy is to take a real part in foreign politics, it must recognise that great responsibilities mean great sacrifices. We must be content to think a little less of our internal social reform, and give more of our attention to the very difficult questions which arise beyond the Channel and beyond the Atlantic Ocean. We must live constantly in the consciousness that the world to-day is one community, and that in everything we do as a people we bear a responsibility not to ourselves alone but to the population of the British Empire as a whole and to the family of nations.
But when we have really set ourselves to understand and discharge the responsibilities of foreign policy, how shall we, the people of this country, make our opinions effective? How can we be sure that the Foreign Office will carry out a policy corresponding to the considered convictions which we as a people have formed?
As already stated, we have in our hands the same means of Parliamentary control over foreign policy as over internal policy. Parliament can overthrow a Government whose policy it disapproves, and it can refuse to grant supplies for the carrying out of such a policy. Short of this, the people can express through Parliament its views as to the way in which foreign policy should be conducted, and generally Ministers will bow, in this as in other matters, to the clearly expressed views of Parliament. We have, in fact, recently seen a striking example of this. When after the international crisis of 1911 the country clearly expressed the opinion that no secret engagements should be entered into with any Power which would force Great Britain to go to war in support of that Power, the Prime Minister stated, and has repeated his statement emphatically on several subsequent occasions, that the Government of this country neither had entered, nor would enter, into any such secret engagements, and that any treaty entailing warlike obligations on this country would be laid before Parliament. This has now become a fixed and recognised fact in British policy, and it is not too much to say that, like other constitutional changes under the British system of government, it is rapidly becoming a part of the unwritten constitution of the country.
But many people would like to go beyond this, and lay down that no treaty between Great Britain and another country shall be valid until it has been voted by Parliament. Many countries have provisions of this kind in their constitutions; for instance, the constitution of the United States provides that all treaties must be ratified by a two-thirds majority of the Senate, and the French constitution contains the following provision:
"The President of the Republic negotiates and ratifies treaties. He brings them to the knowledge of the Chamber so soon as the interests and the safety of the State permit.
"Treaties of peace and of commerce, treaties which impose a claim on the finances of the State, those which relate to the personal status and property rights of French subjects abroad, do not become valid until they have been voted by the two Chambers. No cession, exchange, or increase of territory can take place except by virtue of a law."
Such constitutional provisions may be good in their way, and it may be that we should copy them. But the question is one of secondary importance. Whether treaties must actually be ratified by Parliament, or merely laid before Parliament for an expression of its opinion, as is commonly done in this country, the Parliament and people of Great Britain will have control over foreign policy just in the measure that they take a keen interest in it. If they take a keen interest no statesman dependent for his position on the votes of the electorate will dare to embody in a treaty a policy of which they disapprove; while if they do not take an adequate interest, no amount of constitutional provisions will enable them to exercise an intelligent control over the actions of statesmen.
The same may be said of another expedient adopted in many countries; namely, the appointment by Parliament of Committees on Foreign Affairs, with power to call for papers and examine Ministers on their policy. Democratic government both in foreign and internal affairs has hitherto rested on the idea that Parliament should have adequate control over the principles on which policy is conducted, but must to a large extent leave the details of administration to the executive departments which are controlled by the Ministers of the Crown. Parliament, whether through committees or otherwise, will never be able to follow or control all diplomatic negotiations, any more than it can control all the details of the administration necessary to carry out a complicated law like the Insurance Act; and Committees of Parliament, however useful, will have no influence unless the people of the country so recognise their responsibilities in foreign politics that they will demand from the men whom they elect to Parliament a judgment and a knowledge of foreign affairs, at least as sound and well based as they now require in the case of internal affairs.
It will be seen that this imposes a very difficult task on the British electorate. How are they to weigh foreign affairs and internal affairs against each other? What are they to do if they approve the internal policy of a Government, but disapprove of its foreign policy, orvice versa? Are we, for instance, to sacrifice what we believe to be our duty in foreign affairs in order that we may keep in power a Government which is carrying out what we believe to be a sound policy of internal social reform? It is here, it would seem, that some reform is really needed. There is one solution: namely, to separate the control of domestic affairs on the one hand and foreign affairs on the other, placing domestic affairs in the hands of a Parliament and and a Cabinet who will stand or fall by their internal policy alone, and entrusting foreign affairs to an Imperial Parliament and an Imperial Cabinet formed of representatives not of Great Britain alone but of the whole British Empire. This is an idea which merits the most careful consideration by the people of the United Kingdom, for it may well be doubted whether any real popular control of foreign policy is possible until some such division of functions takes place. One word in conclusion. If it is true that domestic policy and foreign policy are separate functions of Government, it is also true that the domestic policy of a country in the long run determines its foreign policy. International peace can never be attained between nations torn with internal dissensions; international justice will remain a dream so long as political parties and schools of thought dispute over the meaning of justice in domestic affairs. A true ideal of peace must embrace the class struggle as well as international war. If we desire a "Concert of Europe" which shall be based on true freedom and not on tyranny, it behoves us to realise our ideal first in England, and to raise our country itself above the political and social conflicts and hatreds which have formed so large and so sordid a part of our domestic history for the last decade.
It is difficult to give a list of books illustrating foreign policy in general. The lists given in other chapters sufficiently illustrate the various problems with which foreign policy to-day has to deal.
The diplomacy of a century ago is well illustrated by theDiaries and Correspondence of the Earl of Malmesbury. 4 vols. 1844. (Out of print.) For the diplomacy of the middle of the nineteenth century, when the present national forces of Europe were being created, the following biographies are useful:
Life of Lord Stratford de Redcliffe, by Lane-Poole. 2 vols. 1888.
Life of Lord Granville, by Lord Fitzmaurice. 2 vols. 1905.
Life of Lord Clarendon, by Sir Herbert Maxwell. 2 vols. 1913.
Life of Lord Lyons, by Lord Newton. 2 vols. 1898.
Life of Cavour, by Roscoe Thayer. 2 vols. 1911.
Bismarck's Reflections.
There are many studies of the diplomatic problems of the present day, but as they deal with history in the making they are to be read for the general survey they give of forces at work rather than as authoritative statements. A very comprehensive survey of all the complexities of international politics will be found in Fullerton'sProblems of Power(1913). 7s. 6d. net.
The actual workings of diplomacy may best be seen in the "White Books" of diplomatic correspondence, periodically published by the Foreign Office, such, for instance, as the successive volumes ofCorrespondence Respecting the Affairs of Persia. Perhaps the best idea of the actual labour of foreign relations can be gained by consulting such compilations as Hertslet'sCommercial Treaties—23 vols. 1827-1905—which are a record of work actually completed.
On the staffing of the Foreign Office and the Diplomatic Service, see the fifth Report of the Royal Commission on the Civil Service (Cd. 7748), just published (5-1/2 d.).
"March ahead of the ideas of your age, and it will follow you: go with them, and you can feel at ease: remain behind them, and you are lost."—NAPOLEON III.
§1.Is there an Idea behind the War?—The object of the preceding chapters has been to provide the historic background without which it is impossible to understand either the motives of our opponents or the events which led up to their quarrel. It is now necessary to attempt a survey of the issues raised by the war, both as concerns Europe as a whole and the individual nations which form its component parts. This is a task of no small difficulty, for just as it is true to say that no war in the previous history of mankind has ever been waged on so huge a scale as this, so it is also true to say that the issues raised by it are vaster and more varied than those of any previous European conflict. It is as though by the pressure of an electric button some giant sluice had been opened, unchaining forces over which mortal men can hardly hope to recover control and whose action it is wellnigh impossible to foresee.
Yet complex as is the problem before us, it is essential that we should face it bravely. There is grave danger lest, just as we have been "rushed into" this war (through no fault of ours, as the diplomatic correspondence abundantly proves), so we may at a given moment be "rushed out" of it, without having reached any very clear idea as to what issues are involved, and how far our vital interests have been affected.
The essence of the problem before us is to discover whether there is an Idea behind this war—whether on our own side or on that of the enemy. A dangerous question, this!—a question posed again and again by the jingoes and the fanatics of history, and invariably answered according to the dictates of their own convenience. And yet a question which we dare not shirk, a question which a Carlyle, a Ruskin, a William Morris would not have hesitated to formulate. Does Britain stand for an Idea? Is it true that we are fighting in the main for the cause of Liberty and Democracy, for progress in Europe and the world at large? And if this be really true to-day, how can we best ensure that it shall still be true at the close of this long war, if, as we hope and pray, victory crowns the arms of the Allies? It was an Idea that nerved Britain for the struggle against Napoleon. It was an Idea that inspired Germany in the great uprising of 1813 against Napoleon. It was an Idea that brought the Balkan League into being and carried its armies in triumph to Salonica and Adrianople. Freedom, Unity, Liberation, such were the forms which that Idea took: the determination of a free people to resist an upstart despot's designs of world-dominion; the enthusiasm of a divided nation for the dream of national unity; the longing of races which had but recently won their own freedom, to emancipate their kinsmen from an alien and oppressive yoke. In each of these struggles error and even crimes were committed by the victors, and yet it is a thousand times true to assert that the victorious Idea represented in each case the triumph of civilisation. To-day the position is equally clear. In opposing Germany's claim to override international treaty obligations to suit the convenience of her military strategists, in associating ourselves with Belgium and Serbia in their vindication of the rights of the smaller nations, we are not merely resisting a fresh bid for world-dominion on the part of a single power, but are challenging the theory that Might is superior to Right in the political world.
§2.The Aims of British Statesmanship.—Mr. Asquith on September 19 defined as follows the three main aims of British statesmanship in entering upon war: "(1) To vindicate the sanctity of treaty obligations and what is properly called the public law of Europe, (2) to assert and to enforce the independence of free States, relatively small and weak, against the encroachments and the violence of the strong, and (3) to withstand, as we believe in the best interests not only of our own Empire, but of civilisation at large, the arrogant claim of a single Power to dominate the development of the destinies of Europe." In speaking thus, Mr. Asquith had no intention of placing Britain upon a moral pedestal or of suggesting that we have ever enjoyed a monopoly of political right dealing. Every nation has blots upon its scutcheon; and the cynic may point to the Irish Union, the destruction of the Danish fleet, the Cyprus Convention, as proofs that we have richly earned the name of "Perfidious Albion." Let us forego the patriotic retort which would fling in Prussia's teeth such incidents as the conquest of Silesia, the partition of Poland, the Ems telegram, the seizure of Kiaochau. But let us, while admitting our shortcomings in the past, nail our colours to the mast and insist that this war shall never degenerate into one of mere revenge or aggrandisement, that the fate of the nations of Europe shall be decided, so far as possible, in accordance with their own aspirations rather than the territorial ambitions of dynasties or racial cliques.
Is it, then, possible, when considering the lines of settlement, to lay down any general principles? The Europe which we have known has gone beyond recall; the new Europe which is coming to birth will be scarcely recognisable to those who have known its predecessor. Its political, racial, social, economic outlook will be radically changed. Let us then meet fate halfway and admit boldly that wewanta new Europe. But let us bear in mind the fiery process by which a huge bell is forged and the fate which befell the impatient apprentice who opened the furnace doors too soon. The Prussian leaders, to whom war is an ideal and a programme, are entitled, if fortune should desert them, to manoeuvre for a "draw"; for they would console themselves with the hope of winning a subsequent match. But to us, who regard war as a hateful necessity, from which we do not shrink, but which we did everything in our power to avert—to us there can be no thought of relinquishing our task, until there is a reasonable prospect of a really lasting settlement. We should need no prompting from our statesmen to realise that this must be "a fight to a finish." There must be no reversion to thestatus quo, that accursed device of a worn-out diplomacy, with its inevitable seeds of new quarrels and yet another Armageddon.
Public Law, Nationality, and a general reduction of armaments (as distinguished from complete disarmament) are the three foundation stones of the new era, as already envisaged in the public utterances of those who have some right to speak for the Triple Entente. Let us then endeavour to apply these principles to the various problems raised by the war. It is obvious that their application depends upon the victory of the Allies. If we are defeated, public law will have lost its value, for the Germans will have asserted their right to violate its fundamental provisions. The idea of Nationality will have received its death-blow; for not only will the independence of several of the smaller nations have been destroyed, but Germany will have reasserted her right to dominate her own minor nationalities, and to drain the life-blood of the 26 million Slavs of Austria-Hungary in a conflict with their own Slavonic kinsmen. Finally, all hope of reduced armaments will have been exploded, since the theory of Blood and Iron will have attained its fullest expression in the virtual domination of a single power on land and sea. Regrets or misgivings we may have, but the time for their utterance has long since passed. The British nation must have no illusions; defeat means the downfall of the Empire, and the reduction of Britain to the position of a second-rate power. Either we shall emerge victorious, or for all practical purposes we shall not emerge at all. Even ifweshrink from a "fight to a finish," our enemies can be relied upon to persist to the bitter end. It is for this reason only, and not because I underestimate for a moment the vast resources, the splendid organisation, the military valour of Germany, that I restrict myself in the following pages to a consideration of the possible effects of victory rather than of defeat. It would be the height of folly to anticipate victory before it is achieved; but it is essential that we should be prepared for all possible contingencies, and this involves a careful survey of the various factors in an extraordinarily complicated situation.
§3.Britain and Germany.—In the forefront of the discussion stands our quarrel with Germany. What are to be our future relations with Germany after the war? If there is anything in the assertion that we are fighting for the cause of liberty and progress, it can only mean that we are fighting a system rather than a nation—Prussian militarism and bureaucracy, but not German civilisation. We have to go still further and consider the motive powers behind that iron system. Sitting in our little island, we are apt to forget what it means to possess a purely artificial frontier of 400 miles, and to see just beyond it a neighbour numbering 171,000,000 inhabitants, in an earlier stage of civilisation and capable of being set in motion by causes which no longer operate in the western world.