[Footnote 1: Speaking generally, it cannot be said that the trade unions faced the crisis with either wisdom or courage. Their attitude, on the whole, was one of utter bewilderment. The lack of the power of adaptability to new circumstances, together with the fact that sufficient pressure was not brought to bear upon the Government in the first weeks of the war, accounts for the unfortunate position in which the trade unions found themselves.]
[Footnote 2: The scheme applies only to unions suffering from abnormal unemployment. There are also conditions that they "should not pay unemployment benefit above a maximum rate of 17s. per week, including any sum paid by way of State unemployment benefit," and that they "should agree while in receipt of the emergency grant to impose levies over and above the ordinary contributions upon those members who remain fully employed." The amount of the emergency grant in addition to the refund of one-sixth already payable will be either one-third or one-sixth of the expenditure on out-of-work pay, depending on the amount of the trade union levy. Under special conditions the grant is to be retrospective. It is, therefore, possible for trade unions to be subsidised so far as unemployment benefit is concerned, to the extent of one-half their payments. But this scheme does nothing to assist trade unions (of which there are many) which get no unemployment benefit.]
The decrease in earnings accompanying short time, and their total stoppage in the case of unemployment, mean amongst the workers a restriction of purchasing power. The shrinkage in the total wages bill, especially in Lancashire, must lead to a diminution in the income of small traders and the co-operative societies. Where trade is very bad the societies will be severely hit; smaller purchases will mean smaller profits, which, where there is no large reserve to fall back upon, will in turn mean the declaration of a smaller dividend. The "divi" received by the workers will be less, and the purchases which the thrifty housewife of the north usually makes with it in the way of clothing and replacement of household articles will be less also; where the "divi" has been left in the society, it will in a large number of cases be used to supplement the scanty wages earned on short time, or to provide the necessaries of life where the breadwinner is altogether unemployed. In places where times become very bad, the co-operative societies during the war, and for some time after, will suffer because of the conversion of the cash orders which ordinarily go to the "co-op" into credit orders at the shop round the corner. On the whole, however, the co-operative societies will probably come better out of the war than many classes of small shop-keepers. The small tailors, drapers, earthenware dealers, etc., and others who sell all but indispensable commodities, will see a shrinkage in their sales, especially if prices rise. The co-operative societies will also lose in this respect, but they will lose less on the whole, owing to the fact that a good deal of their capital is used in the sale of food-stuffs, the consumption of which will be restricted last. But admitting this, they cannot expect to escape unscathed, and the blow they suffer will be felt on other sides of their activity, such as their educational work, the income for which usually fluctuates with the prosperity of the societies.
The diminution of the purchasing power of the working people because of the restriction of the national wages bill, however, may be minimised by common action. The National Relief Fund and the Women's Employment Fund are intended really for this purpose. The establishment of women's training workshops and of maintenance grants on condition of attendance at schools and classes are steps in the same direction. The Government has increased the disgracefully low payments made to dependants of soldiers on active service, and its scale of pensions for widows of soldiers and sailors and for those totally or partially disabled in the performance of military or naval duties. Arrangements have been made for the payment of allowances of half wages up to a maximum of £1 a week to dependants of sailors employed on insured British merchant ships captured or detained by the enemy. More important from the point of view of industry as a whole are the steps which have been taken to minimise the effects of a diminution in the volume of employment by the development of new openings. The Government through the Board of Trade took the lead in the attempt to secure a share of the trade hitherto done by Germany and Austria. Special efforts were made to develop the manufacture of toys, and other industrial experiments were begun by the Central Committee on Women's Employment. The Government appointed a Chemical Products Supply Committee with a view to stimulating the production of dyes and drugs at home. These proposals are in the main an attempt to divert the trade of foreign countries, especially Germany, into British channels. The second line of action is fuller provision of home needs which cannot be satisfied by foreign producers, but are essentially domestic. Such needs are housing, public parks, roads, etc. Between August 4 and September 21, 1914, the Local Government Board received over 600 applications from local authorities for powers to borrow money amounting in all to over £2,500,000. About a fifth of this amount it was intended to expend on housing. During this period the Board sanctioned loans amounting in the aggregate to more than £3,500,000, as compared with rather under £2,000,000 in the same period in 1913. The Road Board arranged to put in hand the construction of certain new highways arranged for before the beginning of the war. In addition, in the first seven weeks of the war, the Board arranged to make grants amounting to about £450,000 in aid of new road construction and road improvements in many different parts of the country, which will involve a total expenditure of about a million sterling. The Development Commission began to consider schemes for the construction of light railways, for the improvement of the navigation of rivers, etc., in order that work of this kind should be ready to be put into operation when the necessity arose. The Board of Agriculture has urged that where practicable the acreage under wheat should be increased. This suggestion is, of course, valuable, but will not greatly affect the industrial situation. Even if the schemes sanctioned by the Local Government Board and those adopted by the Road Board were put into operation immediately, which is almost impossible, they would not make a very appreciable difference to the total wages bill of the country. But perhaps it is thought by the Government that the state of employment is not sufficiently grave to warrant a greater expenditure at the present time. In spite of the insistence on forestalling destitution, there is still among local authorities much confusion of charity and relief work with anticipation of future needs calling for employment through the ordinary channels of trade. On the whole the Government has not met the domestic problems of the war with the unanimity and boldness which has characterised its actions in the actual prosecution of the war and in dealing with the financial crisis.
4.The New Spirit.—The broader social effects which showed themselves in the early days of the war are illustrated by the remarkable growth of State Socialism. The nation became a community, united in a single purpose; breaches which many imagined to be permanent, cleavages which were thought to be fundamental, no longer existed. None was for a party; all were for the State. The three political parties formed a Parliamentary Recruiting Committee, and altogether impossible teams of people appeared on public platforms with a common aim; Mr. Ben Tillett, in words that might have fallen from the lips of a Tory ex-Cabinet minister, declared that "every resource at our command must be utilised for the purpose of preserving our country and nation"; the anti-militarist trade union movement earnestly appealed to those of its members who were ex-non-commissioned officers to re-enlist; the Queen and Miss Mary MacArthur were members of the same committee. This unanimity, which has pushed into the background for the present causes of difference, has led the vast majority of people to submit cheerfully to the will of the State. The unity of to-day must necessarily make its influence felt even when the reason of its existence has passed away. In the meantime it is assisting in the growth of a new spirit which the war itself has fostered. The social outlook of the people and their attitude towards the larger problems of life is changing, and patriotism has taken a deeper meaning.
So far we have devoted our attention to some of the immediate effects of the war. But on the return of peace there will be new influences at work, the immediate and ultimate effects of which will powerfully affect the course of future development. The European War will mark an era in international politics. It may also stand as a landmark in the history of the social and economic life of Western Europe. It is not unlikely that in this respect it will surpass in its importance all the wars of the past. The reasons are to be found in the magnitude and costliness of the war, the highly developed character and the inter-relatedness of foreign commerce, the possibility of new industrial forces coming into play, and the influence of the war on the political and social ideas of the European peoples. It may be that in this country the war will let loose economic forces destined to modify industrial organisation very profoundly; and that social forces, especially on the Continent, will be liberated to work towards fuller political freedom. These things lie in the veiled future, and prophecy is dangerous. We may, however, turn to consider some of the probable effects the war will leave behind it.
1.General Effects.—When the war comes to an end, an immediate revival of commercial relations between the combatant States and a general revival of foreign trade cannot be reasonably expected. After the Napoleonic Wars, English manufacturers, assuming the eagerness of continental peoples to buy their goods, were met with the obvious fact that impoverished nations are not good customers. When peaceful relations are resumed in Europe, we shall recognise very vividly the extent to which industry and commerce on the Continent have been closed down. Even assuming that British production continues, Germany, Belgium and Austria will have little to send us in exchange. The closing of the overseas markets of Germany, and the consequent shrinkage in production, the disruption of normal industrial life by the withdrawal of millions of men to join the colours, and the abnormal character of existing trade, due to the needs of the armies in the field, are not conditions favourable to the easy resumption of normal commercial relations. The dislocation of the mechanism of industry and commerce in Europe, on a much larger scale than ever before—a mechanism which has with growing international relations and interdependence become more complicated and more sensitive in recent years—cannot be immediately remedied by a stroke of the pen or the fiat of an emperor. The credit system upon which modern industry and commerce are built depends upon mutual confidence. This confidence will not be restored among the combatant nations immediately on the cessation of war; it will require time to grow. Further, Europe during the war has been spending its substance and must emerge much poorer. This applies not only to combatant States, but to neutral countries, some of which have floated loans to meet the abnormal expenditure thrown upon them by prolonged mobilisation. The capital and credit of a large number of people will have suffered great loss or have vanished into thin air. Houses, shops, and buildings of all kinds, produce manufactured and unmanufactured, bridges, ships, railway stations and stock of enormous value will have been destroyed. The community will have been impoverished, not only by the expenditure of great armies and the destruction of wealth, but by the utilisation for immediate consumption of wealth which would have been used as new capital, and by the withdrawal of probably close upon fifteen million men from production during the period of the war. Even if we assume that the world has lost the production of only twelve million men[1], the loss is enormous. If each man were capable of producing, on the average, wealth to the value of £100 per year, the loss of production per year during the continuance of the war would be about £1,200,000,000. The effect of these factors will be heightened by the fact that the millions of men whose needs during the war have been satisfied by their non-combatant fellow-countrymen will be thrown upon their own resources. And though Europe will still need to be fed and clad and housed, the effectual demand of the population for the goods and services it needs, a demand which it is able to satisfy because of its possession of exchangeable wealth, will be smaller than before the war. The demand will be more or less stifled until the credit system is re-established and mutual confidence restored, and until industry and commerce have adjusted themselves to the new situation. The volume of employment in this country during the war will have been swollen by temporary demands for war supplies which will cease when the war ends; foreign trade will be uncertain; a larger number of soldiers will be thrown on the labour market than ever before. It would seem, therefore, that in the absence of special steps, the volume of unemployment at the close of the war will be a good deal greater than during the progress of the war[2].
[Footnote 1: The number must be larger than this, as the mobilisation of the armies of neutral states should be taken into account.]
[Footnote 2: It is thought by some that the war will be followed by a short boom, when Europe will make good the necessities of industry and civilised life, but it is at least doubtful whether there will be a rapid reproduction of these commodities, owing to the conditions, already described, which will obtain at the close of the war. In any case, however, it will be merely a flash in the pan, and there will follow the gloom of a deep depression, unless there is clear-sighted State action.]
It is just conceivable, though one hopes not probable, that the economic effects of the war will be complicated by the imposition of war indemnities. The indemnity is really a means of obtaining booty from a vanquished State, and has been looked upon as a justifiable means of further humiliating an already beaten enemy. It has been pointed out[1], however, that the advantages derived from an indemnity are not an unmixed gain. The indemnity recoils on the heads of those who impose it. It is unnecessary here to enter into a consideration of the detailed effects of huge payments by defeated nations; though it may be remarked that the ramifications of such payments are so intricate and often so incapable of measurement, whilst other economic influences are at work at the same time, that it is impossible to draw an accurate conclusion as to the net advantage or disadvantage of indemnities to the State which levies them. But the point to be borne in mind is that the addition of a great debt to the already large burden of an unsuccessful war reacts upon all countries with which the defeated state enters into business relations. The losses due to this cause will not necessarily be counterbalanced by gains from increased trade with the country receiving the indemnity; and even if they were, the latter trade might be of a different character. In any case, countries not parties to the indemnity will be affected by it in some way or other; war indemnities, like wars, do not pass by neutral countries and leave them untouched.
[Footnote 1: See Norman Angell,The Great Illusion, Part I. chap. vi.]
It is important to remember that, though modern warfare is much more costly and more exhausting than in the past, there is another side to the matter. Society has also gained remarkably in its powers of recuperation. The blight of war is not as terrible as might be expected. The accumulated knowledge, the vastly increased productivity of industry, and the high organising ability, which have made the modern industrial and commercial world, will not be obliterated by the war. And though there will be difficulties in the way of their full operation when peace returns, they will aid powerfully in shortening the period of recovery. The forces which have transformed mediaeval into modern cities in a few short years will still exist. Though they can hardly be expected to overcome all the many factors likely to restrain economic activity, they may be relied on to stimulate the revival of normal economic life. Indeed, the knowledge of science and the faculty of organisation are likely to be applied more extensively than in the past to productive processes.
After the war, when the States of Europe begin to tread the paths of peace again, one of the first things to be done will be to repair as far as possible the damage done by the war. Take Belgium as an extreme example; leaving aside the irreparable destruction of historic buildings and priceless treasures, there are many million pounds' worth of houses and farm buildings, shops, warehouses, factories, public buildings, ships, railway stations, and bridges to be replaced. This work will take precedence over other kinds of production. Sugar, motor cars, glass, etc., will still be manufactured, but chiefly in order to buy the requisite raw materials and finished goods for the replacement of the wealth destroyed by the ravages of the war. Speaking generally, Belgium will probably consume less food than ordinarily, wear less clothes, and consume less luxuries. Savings, which would normally have been devoted to new industrial developments, will be needed to make good the losses in existing industrial establishments. It is clear, therefore, that the economic growth of Belgium will be retarded in a great degree.[1] The same holds good of Germany, though probably not to the same extent unless the theatre of war is extended to cover a considerable part of the Empire. In the case of our own country, provided it remains free from invasion, there will not be such a large replacement of lost wealth and capital destroyed by the war, except in the case of shipping; but in common with other States there will be the war to pay for, and certain obligations to meet regarding the maimed and the relatives of the slain. Taxation will be heavy, and therefore, on this ground alone the accumulation of new capital will be retarded. Industrial organisation, having been re-arranged and modified to meet the requirements of the war period, will not resume its old form without a good deal of creaking and jolting. And even if it could, it will not be able to face the new conditions arising out of the war at all rapidly. There is every prospect, therefore, of a time of great difficulty after the war is over, before the normal course of industrial and commercial activity is fully resumed. In all likelihood, we shall find that the relative importance of our various industries will have altered to some extent, and that the nature of our trade will have been modified also. Then also the relative positions of our home and foreign trade may shift; in other words, if the war lasts sufficiently long for new industries to develop and become efficient, they may survive the competition of foreign goods after the war; in which case, the goods which have hitherto been produced to buy the foreign goods will not now be required for foreign trade. It may be that on the return of peace, some European States, in order to give their industries an opportunity to recover from the effects of the war, will inaugurate new tariffs; there is, indeed, a strong possibility that on these grounds, and because of the dependence of the United Kingdom on the products of Germany, the Tariff Reform Movement here may be electrified into life.
[Footnote 1: If Germany be required to compensate Belgium for the damage done, these effects will in large part disappear; though the burden would still remain. The difference would be that it would be more widely distributed.]
2.Possible Industrial Developments.—But industrial changes will not be confined to the direction and form which economic activity will take. As has been suggested above, there may be far-reaching changes in the methods of production. It has been said that "there is only one way by which the wealth of the world will be quickly replaced after the war and that is by work. The country whose workers show the greatest capacity for productiveness will be the country which will most rapidly recuperate."[1] The question goes deeper than the replacement of wealth. The position after the war will be that production will be retarded because of the diminution in the rate of accumulation of new capital since the beginning of the war; there will be a certain amount of leeway to make up. Consequently, there will be every incentive towards the greatest possible efficiency in production. It is here that the workers are likely to be affected. Has labour reached its maximum efficiency? It has been shown by the application of what is called "scientific management," that the output of labour can be increased to a remarkable extent. For instance, instead of shovelling 16 tons a day, a man can shovel 59 tons; a man loading pig-iron increased his total load per day from 12-1/2 to 47-1/2 tons; the day's tale of bricks laid has been raised from 1000 to 2700. The list could be extended to cover operatives working at machines. In the endeavour to screw up industry to a maximum of production, it is not likely that the expedients of "scientific management" will long remain untried. Already the system is making considerable headway in the United States, and it is not altogether unknown in this country. It is not possible to enter into a full explanation of the methods of "scientific management." Briefly, by a process of scientific selection it puts each worker in the job for which he is best fitted, and teaches him exactly how to use the most efficient tools with which he would be provided. The method of teaching may be illustrated from Mr. F.W. Taylor's own example: "Schmidt started to work, and all day long and at regular intervals, was told by the man who stood over him with a watch, 'Now, pick up a pig and walk. Now sit down and rest. Now walk—now rest,' etc. He worked when he was told to work, and rested when he was told to rest, and at half-past five in the afternoon had his 47-1/2 tons loaded on the car."[2] By elaborate experiments the exact shape and size of a shovel is determined; by long observation useless and awkward movements of a workman are eliminated or replaced by the correct movements giving the maximum return for the minimum of effort. In this way, and by a bonus on wages, a largely increased output is obtained. It is clear that the adoption of such methods gives the "scientific manager" great power; it also seems inevitable that the workman should degenerate into an automaton; it is obvious that in the hands of employers ignorant of the principles underlying it, and seeing merely a new and highly profitable method of exploitation, it will be open to serious abuse, as experience has already shown in America.
[Footnote 1:Round Table, Sept. 1914, p. 708.]
[Footnote 2:Scientific Management, by F.W. Taylor, p. 47.]
So far the tremendous significance of "scientific management" has not been fully recognised. Properly understood, it is the complement to the industrial revolution, which by the more extensive use of machinery, etc., increased the efficiency of capital. The present movement aims at a similar increase in the efficiency of labour as an agent of production. The new revolution in industry has as yet merely begun, because employers, in spite of the motive of self-interest, are conservative; but it will receive an enormous impetus from the conditions arising out of the war. Like the introduction of machinery and factory industry a century and a half ago and onward, it may be accompanied by widespread evils and cruel exploitation. Indeed, there is every likelihood that the methods will be distorted and misused. By their careful application there is no doubt that the output of the labourer can be increased without the expenditure of greater effort than before, but even then there would be the tendency towards becoming de-humanised. This, however, might be overcome by shorter hours and higher wages, which would raise the standard of comfort and widen the worker's interests. Unwisely used, "scientific management" will become an instrument for shackling the worker, and increasing at a great rate the wealth of the capitalist. It will be freely admitted that anything that will increase the productivity of the labourer, and therefore the wealth of the community, is advantageous, provided there is an equitable distribution of the product, and that the effects on the working members of the State are not socially injurious. But the hidden evils that may manifest themselves are very real, and it is important that not only the workers, but the State should be prepared to save the good and prevent the evil. There will, however, be large numbers of employers of labour who will not avail themselves of the new-fangled methods, and who will endeavour to increase production by the old policy of "driving." And even without driving, wage-earning labour under present conditions may be carried on under circumstances unfavourable to industrial efficiency, and for hours inimical to the welfare of the community and actually injurious to industrial productivity. In the future the State will be more closely concerned with industry and commerce than hitherto; there will probably be a more clearly defined State policy aimed at the encouragement of production. Its view will be wider than that of the individual employer, and we may expect therefore, providing there is no serious reaction after the strain of the war, that the State will impose working conditions which will favour maximum production in the long run. It will be to the interest of the community to maximise the efficiency of the industrial system; and enlightened statesmanship will overhaul our existing code of industrial laws to achieve this object as far as possible, as well as to guard the community against the evils inherent in a misapplication of the principles of "scientific management."[1]
[Footnote 1: See an article on "Next Steps in Factory and Workshop Reform," by Arthur Greenwood, in thePolitical Quarterlyfor September 1914.]
After the war, unemployment is likely to increase. The work of new production will be put into operation only gradually; there will be every inducement to economise the use of labour as far as possible; wages during the depression will most probably fall; there will be disaffection in the ranks of the trade unionists; the possible consolidation of industries into the hands of fewer employers will increase the strength of the masters; the funds of the trade unions will be depleted by the heavy strain on their resources, and subject to a further drain after the war. The outlook of the trade union movement is, therefore, far from bright. It will be generally agreed that the bankruptcy or serious impoverishment of the unions of this country would be nothing less than a national disaster; but unless action of some kind is taken, they will become greatly weakened and almost impotent, and one great bulwark against unjust encroachments upon the rights of labour will be removed.
It is not improbable, however, that the community will indirectly assist the trade unions by the steps taken to mitigate the evils which the war will leave in its train. The army instead of being immediately disbanded may be gradually dismissed over a period of, say, five years; the widows and dependants of soldiers and sailors, and those who have returned maimed and crippled from the war, may be adequately provided for, and, together with children of twelve and thirteen, kept off the labour market; the larger schemes of the Development Commission may be put into operation; the legal minimum wage may be extended to all low-paid trades. In these and other ways the community may deal comprehensively with the problems it has to face. The difficulties of the aftermath period will call for both clear-sighted action and public spirit; and if it is to be bridged over successfully, the transition from a war to a peace footing must be gradual; the community must continue its state of mobilisation in order to meet the enemy within the gates. Provided the united wisdom of the nation is thrown into the task, the evil after-effects of the war may be, if not altogether avoided, restricted within narrow limits. At the bottom, therefore, the future course of events depends upon the temper and spirit of the people at the close of the war.
3.Social Effects and the New Outlook.—The European conflict will probably exercise a strong sobering influence upon the minds of the people. The gravity of the crisis, whatever victories may crown our arms, will be reflected in the gravity of the people. A new dignity, a greater self-respect, a deeper earnestness may arise among the mass of the people, to which the conduct of our soldiers in the field will contribute. High qualities of leadership win their admiration; but for them they claim no credit. The army is officered for the most part by people of a higher social standing, whose qualities they will willingly admit; but the social gulf debars them from gaining inspiration from their achievements. In the case of the rank and file, largely drawn from their own class, the effect is different. The Tommy is flesh of their flesh and blood of their blood. The qualities he displays reflect credit upon his class. The working man is not unmindful of the high opinion in which the British private has been held by a line of continental soldiers from Napoleon to Bernhardi. The exploits of his fellows in the field have given the lie to stories of deterioration; and working people are experiencing a sense of pride in their class which may have no inconsiderable effect on their attitude regarding social developments in the future.
Already the national temper has not submitted without protest to the disgraceful sweating of our troops merely because their patriotism has led them to sacrifice their lives, which are beyond all money payment. But the feeling in favour of the war and the spirit of trust in the Government has, up to the present, overridden serious criticism. The result has been that the Government has often remained inactive when action was needed and has acted unwisely and ignorantly at times; for example, in the case of the Local Government Board circular, stating that the Army Council are prepared to issue allowances through the Soldiers' and Sailors' Families Association or the Local Representation Committees. It has been said that "the whole system is an outrage on democratic principles. The State sweats its servants and then compels them to take the niggardly wages it allows them from a charitable society[1]." This type of action may pass muster during a time of stress, but whether the spirit of the people will accept it after the war is over and there are the dependants of the slain to be maintained and the permanently crippled to be provided for is a different matter. Not merely justice, but the new pride of the people will rebel against it. These are but phases of the larger social problem. There is the question of poverty in all its ramifications. For the moment, economic injustices and social evils have fallen into the back of people's minds, and the new and abnormal causes of destitution are calling forth special measures of assistance. After the war, the ever-present deep-seated poverty will reassert its presence, and in the hearts of many people the question will arise as to whether the community which courageously and whole-heartedly fought the enemy without the gates will turn with equal courage and determination when the time comes to fight the enemy within the gates. The experiences of the war time, the willingness to embark on great projects in face of a national crisis, will not be forgotten, but will inspire in social reformers the hope that the country may also face the internal national peril in a similar spirit. The national—as opposed to the individual—poverty which the war will cause may itself be a force making for good. As Mr. Lloyd George well said, "A great flood of luxury and of sloth which had submerged the land is receding and a new Britain is appearing. We can see for the first time the fundamental things that matter in life, and that have been obscured from our vision by the tropical growth of prosperity."[2] There seems a prospect of an era of social growth and regeneration following the war. In other European countries there may be equally important developments. It may well be that in the event of German defeat the democratic movements of that country will gain a great impetus from the blow given to the Prussian hegemony. In Russia there is an expectation of a new freedom. At the first meeting of the Duma after the opening of hostilities the Labour Party declared its opinion that "through the agony of the battlefield the brotherhood of the Russian people will be strengthened and a common desire created to free the land from its terrible internal troubles."
[Footnote 1:The Nation,Sept. 19, 1914.]
[Footnote 2: Speech at the Queen's Hall, London, Sept. 19, 1914.]
It must be admitted, on the other hand, that there is a possibility of a period of reaction and torpor after the strain of the war; the country will be seriously impoverished, and there will be a heavy burden of taxation in spite of some probable relief from the burden of armaments. Still, social evils and injustices will be more obvious than ever. There will be many new national and imperial problems clamouring to be faced. The intellectual ferment which has had its source in the war will remain at work to widen the mental outlook and deepen the social consciousness. On the whole, it will probably be true to say that, though circumstances may postpone it, there will sooner or later arise a great movement pledged to cleanse our national life of those features which bar the way to human freedom and happiness.
It also seems undeniable that the deep interest taken by large numbers of people in the war will rouse them to a sense of the importance of problems of government and of foreign policy. The working men's committees on foreign affairs of half a century ago, which have left no trace behind them, may be revived in a new form, and the differentiation of economic and social questions from political and foreign problems may be obliterated. The importance of the gradually widening area of vision among the more thoughtful section of the people can hardly be exaggerated. In no respect is the broadening of outlook more discernible than in the sphere of imperial affairs. Hitherto the Empire to the working man has been regarded as almost mythical. In so far as it did exist, it was conceived as a happy hunting ground for the capitalist exploiter. The spontaneous assistance given to the mother country by the colonies and dependencies has convinced him of the reality of the Empire, and vaguely inspired him with a vision of its possibilities as a federation of free commonwealths. In other words, the British Empire, contrasted with that of Germany, is gradually being recognised as standing for Democracy, however imperfect its achievements may be up to the present. Consequently, the return of peace will see a deeper interest in imperial questions; indeed, it is not too much to say that there will be an imperial renaissance, born of a new patriotism, "clad in glittering white." The change of heart which is taking place in the people of this country, through the opening of the flood-gates of feeling and thought by the unsuspecting warrior in shining armour, may bring a new age comparable in its influence on civilisation with the great epochs of the past. To-day is seed-time. But the harvest will not be gathered without sweat and toil. The times are pregnant with great possibilities, but their realisation depends upon the united wisdom of the people.
In order to understand the machinery of international trade, reference should be made to Hartiey Withers'Money Changing(5s.), or Clare'sA.B.C. of the Foreign Exchanges(3s.); an outline of the subject will be found in any good general text-book on Economics. On the financial situation, see articles on "Lombard Street in War" and "The War and Financial Exhaustion" (Round Table,September and December 1914); "War and the Financial System, August 1914," by J.M. Keynes (Economic Journal, September 1914); and articles in theNew Statesmanon "Why a Moratorium?" (August 15,1914), and "The Restoration of the Remittance Market" (August 29, 1914). Norman Angell'sThe Great Illusion(2s. 6d.) should be consulted for an examination of the relations between war and trade. The most accessible book dealing with the foreign trade of the European countries is theStatesman's Year-Book, published annually at 10s. 6d. The chapters reprinted from theEncyclopaedia Britannicaare also useful. A valuable article on "The Economic Relations of the British and German Empires," by E. Crammond, appeared in theJournal of the Royal Statistical Society, July 1914. The same writer published an article on "The Economic Aspects of the War" inThe Quarterly Reviewfor October 1914 (6s.). A grasp of the economic development of Germany may be obtained from W.H. Dawson'sEvolution of Modern Germany(5s.) and the same writer'sIndustrial Germany(Nation's Library, 1s.). Mr. F.W. Taylor'sScientific Management(5s.) and Miss J. Goldmark'sFatigue and Efficiency(8s.) explain scientific management. A short account is also given in Layton'sCapital and Labour(Nation's Library, 1s.).
The course of unemployment in this country may be traced from the returns published each month in theBoard of Trade Labour Gazette(monthly, 1d.). Proposals for dealing with possible and existing distress during the war are to be found in a pamphlet onThe War and the Workers,by Sidney Webb (Fabian Society, 1d.). For the possible use of trade unions as a channel for the distribution of public assistance, see an article inThe Nationfor September 5, 1914, and Mr. G.D.H. Cole's article on "How to help the Cotton Operative" inThe Nationfor November 7, 1914. The same paper published two suggestive articles on "Relief or Maintenance?" (September 19 and October 3). The situation which has arisen in the woollen and worsted industries owing to the large demand for cloth for the troops is dealt with in an article on "The Government and Khaki," by Arthur Greenwood inThe Nationfor November 28, 1914. Reference may be made to the official White Paper on Distress; other official documents of note are the following:
"Separation allowances to the Wives and Children of Seamen,Marines, and Reservists." Cd. 7619. 1914. 1/2d."Increased Rates of Separation Allowance for the Wives andChildren of Soldiers." Cd. 7255. 1914. 1/2d."Return of Papers relating to the Assistance rendered by theTreasury to Banks and Discount Houses since the Outbreak ofWar on August 4, 1914, and to the Questions of the Advisabilityof continuing or ending the Moratorium and of the Nature ofthe Banking Facilities now available." H.C. 457 of 1914. 1d."Report, dated April 30, 1914, of a Sub-Committee of the Committeeof Imperial Defence on the Insurance of British Shipping inTime of War, to devise a scheme to ensure that, in case of war,British Steamships should not be generally laid up, and thatOversea Commerce should not be interrupted by reason ofinability to cover war risks of Ships and Cargoes by Insurance,and which would also secure that the insurance rates should notbe so high as to cause an excessive rise in prices." Cd. 7560.1914. 2 1/2d.
The Government has issued aManual of Emergency Legislation(3s. 6d.) containing the statutes, proclamations, orders in council, rules, regulations, and notifications used in consequence of the war; the appendices contain other documents (the Declarations of Paris and of London, the Hague Convention, etc.).
"Peace cannot become a law of human society, except by passing through the struggle which will ground life and association on foundations of justice and liberty, on the wreck of every power which exists not for a principle but for a dynastic interest."—MAZZINI in 1867.
"The greatest triumph of our time, a triumph in a region loftier than that of electricity or steam, will be the enthronement of this idea of Public Right as the governing idea of European policy; as the common and precious inheritance of all lands, but superior to the passing opinion of any. The foremost among the nations will be that one which, by its conduct, shall gradually engender in the minds of the others a fixed belief that it is just."—GLADSTONE.
§1.The Two Issues.—The War of 1914 is not simply a war between the Dual Alliance and the Triple Entente: it is, for Great Britain and Germany especially, a war of ideas—a conflict between two different and irreconcilable conceptions of government, society, and progress. An attempt will be made in this chapter to make clear what these conceptions are, and to discuss the issue between them as impartially as possible, from the point of view, not of either of the combatant Powers, but of human civilisation as a whole.
There are really two great controversies being fought out between Great Britain and Germany: one about the ends of national policy, and another about the means to be adopted towards those or any other ends. The latter is the issue raised by the German Chancellor's plea—not so unfamiliar on the lips of our own countrymen as we are now tempted to believe—that "Necessity knows no law." It is the issue of Law and "scraps of paper" against Force, against what some apologists have called "the Philosophy of Violence," but which, in its latest form, the French Ambassador has more aptly christened "the Pedantry of Barbarism." That issue has lately been brought home, in its full reality, to the British public from the course of events in Belgium and elsewhere, and need not here be elaborated. Further words would be wasted. A Power which recognises no obligation but force, and no law but the sword, which marks the path of its advance by organised terrorism and devastation, is the public enemy of the civilised world.
But it is a remarkable and significant fact that the policy in which this ruthless theory is embodied commands the enthusiastic and united support of the German nation. How can this be explained?
It must be remembered in the first place that the German public does not see the facts of the situation as we do. On the question of Belgian neutrality and the events which precipitated the British ultimatum, what we know to be a false version of the facts is current in Germany, as is evident from the published statements of the leaders of German thought and opinion, and it may be many years before its currency is displaced.
This difficulty should serve to remind us how defective the machinery of civilisation still is. One of the chief functions of law is, not merely to settle disputes and to enforce its decisions, but to ascertain the true facts on which alone a settlement can be based. The fact that no tribunal exists for ascertaining the true facts in disputes between sovereign governments shows how far mankind still is from an established "rule of law" in international affairs. Not only is the Hague powerless to give and, still more, to enforce its decision on the questions at issue between the European Powers. It has not even the machinery for ascertaining the facts of the case and bringing them to the notice of neutral governments and peoples in the name of civilisation as a whole.
But apart from divergent beliefs as to the facts, it is remarkable that thinking Germany should be in sympathy with the spirit and tone of German policy, which led, as it appears to us, by an inexorable logic to the violation of Belgian neutrality and the collision with Great Britain.
But the fact, we are told, admits of easy explanation. Thinking Germany has fallen a victim to the teachings of Treitschke and Nietzsche—Treitschke with his Macchiavellian doctrine that "Power is the end-all and be-all of a State," Nietzsche with his contempt for pity and the gentler virtues, his admiration for "valour," and his disdain for Christianity.
This explanation is too simple to fit the facts. It may satisfy those who know no more of Treitschke's brilliant and careful work than the extracts culled from his occasional writings by General von Bernhardi and the late Professor Cramb. It may gratify those who, with so many young German students, forget that Nietzsche, like many other prophets, wrote in allegory, and that when he spoke of valour he was thinking, not of "shining armour," but of spiritual conflicts. But careful enquirers, who would disdain to condemn Macaulay on passages selected by undiscriminating admirers from hisEssays, or Carlyle for his frank admiration of Thor and Odin and the virtues of Valhalla, will ask for a more satisfying explanation. Even if all that were said about Treitschke and Nietzsche were true, it would still remain an unsolved question why they and their ideas should have taken intellectual Germany by storm. But it is not true. What is true, and what is far more serious, both for Great Britain and for Europe, is that men like Harnack, Eucken, and Wilamowitz, who would repudiate all intellectual kinship with Macchiavelli and Nietzsche—men who are leaders of European thought, and with whom and whose ideas we shall have to go on living in Europe—publicly support and encourage the policy and standpoint of a Government which, according to British ideas, has acted with criminal wickedness and folly, and so totally misunderstood the conduct and attitude of Great Britain as honestly to regard us as hypocritically treacherous to the highest interests of civilisation.
That is the real problem; and it is a far more complex and difficult one than if we had to do with a people which had consciously abandoned the Christian virtues or consciously embarked on a conspiracy against Belgium or Great Britain. The utter failure of even the most eminent Germans to grasp British politics, British institutions, and the British point of view points to a fundamental misunderstanding, a fundamental divergence of outlook, between the political ideals of the two countries. It is the conflict between these ideals which forms the second great issue between Germany and Great Britain; and on its outcome depends the future of human civilisation.
§2.Culture.—What is the German ideal? What do German thinkers regard as Germany's contribution to human progress? The answer comes back with a monotonous reiteration which has already sickened us of the word. It isKultur, or, as we translate it, culture. Germany's contribution to progress consists in the spread of her culture.
Kulturis a difficult word to interpret. It means "culture" and a great deal more besides. Its primary meaning, like that of "culture," is intellectual and aesthetic: when a German speaks of "Kultur" he is thinking of such things as language, literature, philosophy, education, art, science, and the like. Children in German schools are taught a subject calledKulturgeschichte(culture-history), and under that heading they are told about German literature, German philosophy and religion, German painting, German music and so on.
So far, the English and the German uses of the word roughly correspond. We should probably be surprised if we heard it said that Shakespeare had made a contribution to English "culture": but, on consideration, we should admit that he had, though we should not have chosen that way of speaking about him. But there is a further meaning in the wordKultur, which explains why it is so often on German lips. It means, not only the product of the intellect or imagination, but the product of the disciplined intellect and the disciplined imagination.Kulturhas in it an element of order, of organisation, of civilisation. That is why the Germans regard the study of the "culture" of a country as part of the study of its history. English school children are beginning to be taught social and industrial history in addition to the kings and queens and battles and constitutions which used to form the staple of history lessons. They are being taught, that is, to see the history of their country, and of its civilisation, in the light of the life and livelihood of its common people. The German outlook is different. They look at their history in the light of the achievements of its great minds, which are regarded as being at once the proof and the justification of its civilisation. To the question, "What right have you to call yourselves a civilised country?" an Englishman would reply, "Look at the sort of people we are, and at the things we have done," and would point perhaps to the extracts from the letters of private soldiers printed in the newspapers, or to the story of the growth of the British Empire; a German would reply (as Germans are indeed replying now), "Look at our achievements in scholarship and science, at our universities, at our systems of education, at our literature, our music, and our painting; at our great men of thought and imagination: at Luther, Dürer, Goethe, Beethoven, Kant."
Kulturthen means more than "culture": it meansculture considered as the most important element in civilisation.It implies the disciplined education which alone, in the German view, makes the difference between the savage and the civilised man. It implies the heritage of intellectual possessions which, thanks to ordered institutions, a nation is able to hand down from generation to generation.
We are now beginning to see where the British and German attitudes towards society and civilisation diverge. Broadly, we may say that the first difference is that Germany thinks of civilisation in terms of intellect while we think of it in terms of character. Germany asks, "What do you know?" "What have you learnt?" and regards our prisoners as uncivilised because they cannot speak German, and Great Britain as a traitor to civilisation because she is allied with Russia, a people of ignorant peasants. We ask, "What have you done?" "What can you do?" and tend to undervalue the importance of systematic knowledge and intellectual application.
But we have found no reason as yet for a conflict of ideals. Many English writers, such as Matthew Arnold, have emphasised the importance of culture as against character; yet Matthew Arnold's views were widely different from those of the German professors of to-day. If their sense of the importance of culture stopped short at this point, we should have much to learn from Germany, as indeed we have, and no reason to oppose her. What is there then in the German admiration for culture which involves her in a conflict with British ideals?
§3.Culture as a State Product.—The conflict arises out of the alliance between German culture and the German Government. What British public opinion resents, in the German attitude, is not culture in itself, about which it is little concerned, but what we feel to be its unnatural alliance with military power. It seems to us wicked and hypocritical for a government which proclaims the doctrine of the "mailed fist" and, like the ancient Spartans, glories in the perfecting of the machinery of war, to be at the same time protesting its devotion to culture, and posing as a patron of the peaceful arts. It is the Kaiser's speeches and the behaviour of the German Government which have put all of us out of heart with German talk about culture.
This brings us to a fundamental point of difference between the two peoples. The close association between culture and militarism, between the best minds of the nation and the mind of the Government, does not seem unnatural to a modern German at all. On the contrary, it seems the most natural thing in the world. It is the bedrock of the German system of national education. Culture to a German is not only a national possession; it is also, to a degree difficult for us to appreciate, a State product. It is a national possession deliberately handed on by the State from generation to generation, hall-marked and guaranteed, as it were, for the use of its citizens. When we use the word "culture" we speak of it as an attribute of individual men and women. Germans, on the other hand, think of it as belonging to nations as a whole, in virtue of their system of national education. That is why they are so sure that all Germans possess culture. They have all had it at school. And it is all the same brand of culture, because no other is taught. It is the culture with which the Government wishes its citizens to be equipped. That is why all Germans tend, not only to know the same facts (and a great many facts too), but to have a similar outlook on life and similar opinions about Goethe, Shakespeare and the German Navy. Culture, like military service, is a part of the State machinery.
Here we come upon the connecting link between culture and militarism. Both are parts of the great German system of State education. "Side by side with the influences of German education," wrote Dr. Sadler in 1901,[1] "are to be traced the influences of German military service. The two sets of influence interact on one another and intermingle. German education impregnates the German army with science. The German army predisposes German education to ideas of organisation and discipline. Military and educational discipline go hand in hand…. Both are preserved and fortified by law and custom, and by administrative arrangements skilfully devised to attain that end. But behind all the forms of organisation (which would quickly crumble away unless upheld by and expressing some spiritual force), behind both military and educational discipline, lies the fundamental principle adopted by Scharnhorst's Committee on Military organisation in Prussia in 1807: 'All the inhabitants of the State are its defenders by birth.'"
[Footnote 1:Board of Education Special Reports,vol. ix. p. 43.]
At last we have reached the root of the matter. It is not German culture which is the source and centre of the ideas to which Great Britain is opposed: nor yet is it German militarism. Our real opponent is the system of training and education, out of which both German culture and German militarism spring. It is the organisation of German public life, and the "spiritual force" of which that organisation is the outward and visible expression.
§4.German and British Ideals of Education.—Let us look at the German ideal more closely, for it is worthy of careful study. It is perhaps best expressed in words written in 1830 by Coleridge, who, like other well-known Englishmen of his day (and our own) was much under the influence of German ideas. Coleridge, in words quoted by Dr. Sadler, defines the purpose of national education as "to form and train up the people of the country to obedient, free, useful, and organisable subjects, citizens and patriots, living to the benefit of the State and prepared to die in its defence." In accordance with this conception Prussia was the first of the larger States in Europe to adopt a universal compulsory system of State education, and the first also to establish a universal system of military service for its young men. The rest of Europe perforce followed suit. Nearly every State in Europe has or professes to have a universal system of education, and every State except England has a system of universal military service. The Europe of schools and camps which we have known during the last half century is the most striking of all the victories of German "culture."
Discipline, efficiency, duty, obedience, public service; these are qualities that excite admiration everywhere—in the classroom, in the camp, and in the wider field of life. There is something almost monumentally impressive to the outsider in the German alliance of School and Army in the service of the State. Since the days of Sparta and Rome, there has been no such wonderful governmental disciplinary machine. It is not surprising that "German organisation" and "German methods" should have stimulated interest and emulation throughout the civilised world. Discipline seems to many to be just the one quality of which our drifting world is in need. "If this war had been postponed a hundred or even fifty years," writes a philosophic English observer in a private letter, "Prussia would have become our Rome, worshipping Shakespeare and Byron as Pompey or Tiberius worshipped Greek literature, and disciplining us. Hasn't it ever struck you what a close parallel there is between Germany and Rome?" (Here follows a list of bad qualities which is better omitted.) … "The good side of it is the discipline; and the modern world, not having any power external to itself which it acknowledges, and no men (in masses) having yet succeeded in being a law to themselves, needs discipline above everything. I don't see where you will get it under these conditions unless you find some one with an abstract love of discipline for itself. And where will you find him except in Prussia? After all, it is a testimony to her that, unlovely as she is, she gives the law to Germany, and that the South German, though he dislikes her, accepts the law as good for him." And to show that he appreciates the full consequences of his words he adds: "If I had to live under Ramsay MacDonald (provided that he acted as he talks), or under Lieutenant von Förstner" (the hero of Zabern), "odious as the latter is, for my soul's good I would choose him: for I think that in the end, I should be less likely to be irretrievably ruined."
Here is the Prussian point of view, expressed by a thoughtful Englishman with a wide experience of education, and a deep concern for the moral welfare of the nation. What have we, on the British side, to set up against his arguments?
In the first place we must draw attention to the writer's candour in admitting that a nation cannot adopt Prussianism piecemeal. It must take it as a whole, its lieutenants included, or not at all. Lieutenant von Förstner is as typical a product of the Prussian system as the London policeman is of our own; and if we adopt Prussian or Spartan methods, we must run the risk of being ruled by him. "No other nation," says Dr. Sadler, "by imitating a little bit of German organisation can hope thus to achieve a true reproduction of the spirit of German institutions. The fabric of its organisation practically forms one whole. That is its merit and its danger. It must be taken all in all or else left unimitated. And it is not a mere matter of external organisation…. National institutions must grow out of the needs and character (and not least out of the weakness) of the nation which possesses them."
But, taking the system as a whole, there are, it seems to me, three great flaws in it—flaws so serious and vital as to make the word "education" as applied to it almost a misnomer. The Prussian system is unsatisfactory, firstly, because it confuses external discipline with self-control; secondly, because it confuses regimentation with corporate spirit; thirdly, because it conceives the nation's duty in terms of "culture" rather than of character.
Let us take these three points in detail.
The first object of national education is—not anything national at all, but simply education. It is the training of individual young people. It is the gradual leading-out (e-ducation), unfolding, expanding, of their mental and bodily powers, the helping of them to become, not soldiers, or missionaries of culture, or pioneers of Empire, or even British citizens, but simply human personalities. "The purpose of the Public Elementary School," say the opening words of our English code, "is to form and strengthen the character and to develop the intelligence of the children entrusted to it." In the performance of this task external discipline is no doubt necessary. Obedience and consideration for others are not learnt in a day. But the object of external discipline is to form habits of self-control which will enable their possessor to become an independent and self-respecting human being—and incidentally, a good citizen. "If I had tolive underRamsay MacDonald, or the Prussian Lieutenant," says our writer, "I would choose the latter, for my soul's good." But our British system of education does not proceed on the assumption that its pupils are destined to "live under" any one. Our ideal is that of the free man, trained in the exercise of his powers and in the command and control of his faculties, who, like Wordsworth's "Happy Warrior" (a poem which embodies the best British educational tradition):
… Through the heat of conflict, keeps the lawIn calmness made, and sees what he foresaw.
Neglect for the claims of human personality both amongst pupils and teachers is the chief danger of a State system of education. The State is always tempted to put its own claims first and those of its citizens second—to regard the citizen as existing for the State, instead of the State for its citizens. It is one of the ironies of history that no man was more alive to this danger than Wilhelm von Humboldt, the gifted creator of the Prussian system of education. As the motto of one of his writings he adopted the words, "Against the governmental mania, the most fatal disease of modern governments," and when, contrary to his own early principles, he undertook the organisation of Prussian education he insisted that "headmasters should be left as free a hand as possible in all matters of teaching and organisation." But the Prussian system was too strong for him and his successors, and his excellent principles now survive as no more than pious opinions. The fact is that in an undemocratic and feudal State such as Germany then was, and still largely is, respect for the personality of the individual is confined to the upper ranks of society.
"I do not know how it is in foreign countries," says one of Goethe's heroes,[1] "but in Germany it is only the nobleman who can secure a certain amount of universal or, if I may say so,personaleducation. An ordinary citizen can learn to earn his living and, at the most, train his intellect; but, do what he will, he loses his personality…. He is not asked, 'What are you?' but only, 'What have you? what attainments, what knowledge, what capacities, what fortune?' … The nobleman is to act and to achieve. The common citizen is to carry out orders. He is to develop individual faculties, in order to become useful, and it is a fundamental assumption that there is no harmony in his being, nor indeed is any permissible, because, in order to make himself serviceable in one way, he is forced to neglect everything else. The blame for this distinction is not to be attributed to the adaptability of the nobleman or the weakness of the common citizen. It is due to the constitution of society itself." Much has changed in Germany since Goethe wrote these words, but they still ring true. And they have not been entirely without their echo in Great Britain itself.[2]
[Footnote 1: Wilhelm Meister'sLehrjahre, Book v. chapter iii.]
[Footnote 2: The contrast which has been drawn in the preceding pages, as working-class readers in particular will understand, is between theaims, not the achievements, of German and British education. The German aims are far more perfectly achieved in practice than the British. Neither the law nor the administration of British education can be acquitted of "neglect for the claims of human personality." The opening words of the English code, quoted on p. 359 above, are, alas! not a statement of fact but an aspiration. We have hardly yet begun in England to realise the possibilities of educational development along the lines of the British ideal, both as regards young people and adults. If we learn the lesson of the present crisis aright, the war, so far from being a set-back to educational progress, should provide a new stimulus for effort and development.]
But man cannot live for himself alone. He is a corporate being; and, personality or no personality, he has to fit into a world of fellow-men with similar human claims. The second charge against the German system is that it ignores the value of human fellowship. It regards the citizens of a country as "useful and organisable subjects" rather than as fellow-members of a democracy, bound together by all the various social ties of comradeship and intercourse.
The Prussian system, with its elaborate control and direction from above, dislikes the free play of human groupings, and discourages all spontaneous or unauthorised associations. Schoolboy "societies," for instance, are in Germany an evil to be deplored and extirpated, not, as with us, a symptom of health and vigour, to be sympathetically watched and encouraged. Instead, there is a direct inculcation of patriotism, a strenuous and methodical training of each unit for his place in the great State machine. We do not so read human nature. Our British tendency is to develop habits of service and responsibility through a devotion to smaller and more intimate associations, to build on a foundation of lesser loyalties and duties. We do not conceive it to be the function of the school toteachpatriotism or toteachfellowship. Rather we hold that good educationisfellowship,iscitizenship, in the deepest meaning of those words; that to discover and to exercise the responsibilities of membership in a smaller body is the best training for a larger citizenship. A school, a ship, a club, a Trade Union, any free association of Englishmen, is all England in miniature. "To be attached to the subdivision, to love the little platoon we belong to in society," said Burke long ago, "is the first principle, the germ, as it were, of public affections. It is the first link in the series by which we proceed towards a love to our country and mankind…. We begin our public affections in our families. No cold relation is a zealous citizen. We pass on to our neighbourhoods, to our habitual provincial connections. These are inns and resting-places… so many images of the great country, in which the heart found something which it could fill."[1]
[Footnote 1:Reflections on the French Revolution, pp. 292, 494 (of vol. iii. ofCollected Works, ed. 1899).]
There is one fairly safe test for a system of education: What do its victims think of it? "In Prussia," says Dr. Sadler, "a schoolboy seems to regard his school as he might regard a railway station—a convenient and necessary establishment, generally ugly to look at, but also, for its purpose efficient." The illustration is an apt one: for a Prussian school is too often, like a railway station, simply a point of departure, something to be got away from as soon as possible. "In England a boy who is at a good secondary school cares for it as an officer cares for his regiment or as a sailor cares for his ship," or, we may add, as a Boy Scout cares for his Troop.[1]
[Footnote 1:Special Reports, ix. p. 113. Dr. Sadler's article deals with secondary schools only. Unfortunately, no one can claim that the idea of fellowship is as prominent in English elementary schools, or even in all secondary schools, as the quotation might suggest.]
Democracy and discipline, fellowship and freedom, are in fact not incompatible at all. They are complementary: and each can only be at its best when it is sustained by the other. Only a disciplined and self-controlled people can be free to rule itself, and only a free people can know the full meaning and happiness of fellowship.
§5.German and British Ideals of Civilisation.—Lastly, the German system regards national "culture" rather than national character as the chief element in civilisation and the justification of its claim to a dominant place in the world. This view is so strange to those who are used to present-day British institutions that it is hard to make clear what it means. Civilisation is a word which, with us, is often misused and often misunderstood. Sometimes we lightly identify it with motor cars and gramophones and other Western contrivances with which individual traders and travellers dazzle and bewilder the untutored savage. Yet we are seldom tempted to identify it, like the Germans, with anything narrowly national; and in our serious moments we recognise that it is too universal a force to be the appanage of either nations or individuals. For to us, when we ask ourselves its real meaning, civilisation stands for neither language nor culture nor anything intellectual at all. It stands for something moral and social and political. It means, in the first place, the establishment and enforcement of the Rule of Law, as against anarchy on the one hand and tyranny on the other; and, secondly, on the basis of order and justice, the task of making men fit for free institutions, the work of guiding and training them to recognise the obligations of citizenship, to subordinate their own personal interests or inclinations to the common welfare, the "commonwealth." That is what is meant when it is claimed that Great Britain has done a "civilising" work both in India and in backward Africa. The Germans reproach and despise us, we are told,[1] for our failure to spread "English culture" in India. That has not been the purpose of British rule, and Englishmen have been foolish in so far as they have presumed to attempt it: England has to learn from Indian culture as India from ours. But to have laid for India the foundations on which alone a stable society could rest, to have given her peace from foes without and security within, to have taught her, by example, the kinship of Power and Responsibility, to have awakened the social conscience and claimed the public services of Indians in the village, the district, the province, the nation, towards the community of which they feel themselves to be members, to have found India a continent, a chaos of tribes and castes, and to have helped her to become a nation—that is not a task of English culture: it is a task of civilisation.
[Footnote 1: For evidence of this see Cramb'sGermany and England, p. 25.]
Law, Justice, Responsibility, Liberty, Citizenship—the words are abstractions, philosophers' phrases, destitute, it might seem, of living meaning and reality. There is no such thing as English Justice, English Liberty, English Responsibility. The qualities that go to the making of free and ordered institutions are not national but universal. They are no monopoly of Great Britain. They are free to be the attributes of any race or any nation. They belong to civilised humanity as a whole. They are part of the higher life of the human race.
As such the Germans, if they recognised them at all, probably regarded them. They could not see in them the binding power to keep a great community of nations together. They could not realise that Justice and Responsibility, if they rightly typify the character of British rule, must also typify the character of British rulers; and that community of character expressed in their institutions and worked into the fibre of their life may be a stronger bond between nations than any mere considerations of interest. Educated Indians would find it hard to explain exactly why, on the outbreak of the war, they found themselves eager to help to defend British rule. But it seems clear that what stirred them most was not any consideration of English as against German culture, or any merely material calculations, but a sudden realisation of the character of that new India which the union between Great Britain and India, between Western civilisation and Eastern culture, is bringing into being, and a sense of the indispensable need for the continuance of that partnership.[1]
[Footnote 1: The reader will again understand that it is British aims rather than British achievements which are spoken of. That British rule is indispensable to Indian civilisation is indeed a literal fact to which Indian opinion bears testimony; and it is the conduct and character of generations of British administrators which have helped to bring this sense of partnership about. But individual Englishmen in India are often far from understanding, or realising in practice, the purpose of British rule. Similarly, the growth of a sense of Indian nationality, particularly in the last few years, is a striking and important fact. But it would be unwise to underestimate the gigantic difficulties with which this growing national consciousness has to contend. The greatest of these is the prevalence of caste-divisions, rendering impossible the free fellowship and social intercourse which alone can be the foundation of a sense of common citizenship. Apart from this there are, according to the census, forty-three races in India, and twenty-three languages in ordinary use.]
It is just this intimate union between different nations for the furtherance of the tasks of civilisation which it seems so difficult for the German mind to understand. "Culture," with all its intimate associations, its appeal to language, to national history and traditions, and to instinctive patriotism, is so much simpler and warmer a conception: it seems so much easier to fight for Germany than to fight for Justice in the abstract, or for Justice embodied in the British Commonwealth. That is why even serious German thinkers, blinded by the idea of culture, expected the break-up of the British Empire. They could imagine Indians giving their lives for India, Boers for a Dutch South Africa, Irishmen for Ireland or Ulstermen for Ulster; but the deeper moral appeal which has thrilled through the whole Empire, down to its remotest island dependency, lay beyond their ken.
Let us look a little more closely at the German idea of national culture rather than national character as the chief element in civilisation. We shall see that it is directly contrary to the ideals which inspire and sustain the British Commonwealth, and practically prohibits that association of races and peoples at varying levels of social progress which is its peculiar task.
"Culture," in the German idea, is the justification of a nation's existence. Nationality has no other claim. Goethe, Luther, Kant, and Beethoven are Germany's title-deeds. A nation without a culture has no right to a "place in the sun." "History," says Wilamowitz in a lecture delivered in 1898, "knows nothing of any right to exist on the part of a people or a language without a culture. If a people becomes dependent on a foreign culture" (i.e.in the German idea, on a foreign civilisation) "it matters little if its lower classes speak a different language: they, too … must eventually go over to the dominant language…. Wisely to further this necessary organic process is a blessing to all parties; violent haste will only curb it and cause reactions. Importunate insistence on Nationality has never anywhere brought true vitality into being, and often destroyed vitality; but the superior Culture which, sure of its inner strength, throws her doors wide open, can win men's hearts."[1] In the light of a passage like this, from the most distinguished representative of German humanism, it is easier to grasp the failure of educated Germany to understand the sequel of the South African War, or the aspirations of the Slav peoples, or to stigmatise the folly of their statesmen in Poland, Denmark, Alsace-Lorraine, and Belgium. "Importunate insistence on Nationality"—the words come home to us now with a new meaning when we learn that in Belgium, now perforce "dependent on a foreign culture," babies are registered under German names and newspapers printed in "the dominant language," and that already "forty newspaper vendors in Brussels have been sentenced to long terms of hard labour in German prisons for selling English, French, and Belgian newspapers."[2] "Our fearless German warriors," writes the leading German dramatist, Gerhart Hauptmann,[3] "arewell aware of the reasons for which they have taken the field. No illiterates will be found among them. Many of them, besides shouldering their muskets, carry their Goethe'sFaust, some work of Schopenhauer, a Bible, or a Homer in their knapsacks." Such is a serious German writer's idea of the way in which civilisation is diffused!