XXIX.—IS A PEACE POLICY PRACTICABLE?
The question whether a settled adherence to the principles of non-intervention is compatible at once with our interests and our honour is one upon which much of the future of England may depend. The answer is not to be found in sneers at a “peace-at-any-price policy,” which has never been adopted by any section of our countrymen, or in panegyrics upon the virtues evolved by war, made by men who sit comfortably in their arm-chairs while they hound others on to bloodshed. It is a question which of necessity can only be answered in certain cases as the circumstances arise, but there is nothing either cowardly or dishonourable in considering the general principles involved in a reply.
Looking at the world as it stands, it seems almost beyond hope that war will ever cease. It is true that we have got rid of blood-letting in surgery and that we have got rid of blood-letting in society, and it may, therefore, seem to some that there is a chance of getting rid of blood-letting between States. A century since, the doctor’s lancet and the duellist’s pistol were rivals in slaughter, and all but fanatics thought their abolition impossible. What will be said of war in the time to come?
Whatever may be said of it then, we know what can be said of it now. It is a grievous curse to the nations engaged, and a calamitous hindrance to civilization. It is a barbarous and illogical method of settling international disputes, which decides only that one side is the stronger, and never shows which side is the right. The cynical saying that God is on the side of the big battalions is true at bottom. We laugh to-day at the old custom of “Trial by battle,” recognizing that the innocent combatant was often the weaker or less skilful, and that the guilty consequently triumphed. But “Trial by battle,” as between nations, is equally absurd, if any one imagines that it shows which is the righteous. Who would contend that France was in the right when Napoleon Bonaparte, in his early career, by his superior skill in tactics, swept the nations of Europe before him at Arcola and Marengo, Austerlitz and Jena, and that he was in the wrong when, in the waning of his powers, he was irretrievably ruined at Waterloo? That Denmark was in the wrong because the combined forces of Austria and Prussia crushed her in the struggle over Schleswig-Holstein, and that Prussia was in the right when, after she and her neighbour had quarrelled like a couple of thieves over their booty, she placed the needle-gun against the muzzle-loader and overwhelmed Austria? The spirit which impels each combatant to call upon the Almighty as of right for assistance, and which leads the victor to sing a Te Deum at the struggle’s close, is a blasphemous one, which should not blind us to the criminality of most wars. To hurl thousands of men into conflict in order to extend trade or acquire territory is an iniquity, disguise it by what phrases we will. In private life the man who steals is called a thief, the man who kills is called a murderer; why in public life should the nation which steals, and which kills in order to steal, be differently treated? If there be retributive justice beyond the grave, Frederick the Great and Napoleon Bonaparte, who in cold blood and for selfish motives sacrificed tens of thousands of lives, will stand at the murderers’ bar side by side with those lesser criminals who have gone to the gallows for a single slaughter.
Let us look at war, therefore, as it is—a direful necessity, even when justified by self-preservation, a flagrant crime when entered upon for the extension of territory or trade. It is easy to raise the cry of patriotism whenever a war is undertaken, but the patriotism that pays others to fight is a cheap article which deserves no praise. As for the bloodthirsty bray of the music halls, which even English statesmen have not disdained to stimulate in favour of their policy, it is abhorrent to cleanly-minded men; the ethics of the taproom and the patriotism of the pewter-pot are not to their taste; and when it is seen that the most sanguinary writers and the most blatant talkers are the last to put their own bodies in peril, it cannot but be concluded that their theory is that patriotism is a virtue to be preached by themselves and practised by their neighbours.
But though a reckless or merely aggressive war is not only the greatest of human ills but the gravest of national crimes, an armed struggle is in certain instances a necessity. Self-preservation is the first law of nature; and as no man would condemn another for slaying, if no milder measure would do, one who attempted to kill him, and the law would regard such a course as justifiable homicide, so a nation is right to fight against invasion, and would deserve to be extinguished or enslaved if it did not. “Defence, not defiance,” the motto of our volunteers, should be the motto of our statesmen; and then, if an enemy attacked us, we should be able to give a good account of ourselves.
In order to act up to this motto, we must dabble as little as possible with affairs that do not directly concern us. We should cease to think that we are the arbiters of the world’s quarrels—we have enough to do to look after our colonies and ourselves—and we should withdraw from such entangling engagements as we have, and enter upon no fresh ones. When, for instance, we are urged to formally join the Triple Alliance, we must ask why we should bind ourselves to fight France and Russia because Germany would like to pay off old scores, Austria wishes to get to Salonica, and Italy is eager to assert her position as the latest-created “Great Power.” As it is, a Continental struggle, such as is bound to come in the near future, may sufficiently involve us. No one seems quite to know whether we are or are not bound by treaty to defend the territorial independence of Belgium; but as it is through “the cockpit of Europe” that Germany may next attempt to assail France, or France try to reach Germany, the question is a very important one. Would it not be better to settle that before we proceed to bind ourselves with the chains of an alliance which could do us little good, but might easily effect considerable harm?
Non-intervention has again and again been proved to be an honourable and beneficent policy. There has been scarcely a great war within the last thirty years in which we have not been urged by some section in this country to interfere. The Franco-Austrian conflict in 1859, the civil war in America, the Austro-Prussian attack upon Denmark, the Franco-German war, and the Russo-Turkish struggle—in every one of these we were urged to interfere on behalf of our interests or our honour, or both. In none did we do so, and who to-day will argue that abstention was wrong? There are some politicians who appear wishful to see England’s finger in every international pie, and the same old arguments, the same vehement appeals, are used whenever there is a struggle abroad. And when the next occurs, and these weather-beaten arguments and appeals are again brought to the fore, let those who may be swayed by them turn to the files of the newspapers which instigated intervention in all of the cases named; and let them reflect that non-intervention proved the best course in every one, and that what did so well before is most likely to do well again.
But, even if we sedulously pursue this policy, there are occasions when differences arise with other States, and the question is how these can be composed. In the large majority of cases the remedy will be found in arbitration. Here, again, we shall be confronted with assertions about honour and patriotism, which experience has proved to be worthless. Two striking instances have been afforded of the value of international arbitration. The greater is that which solved the difficulty between ourselves and the United States concerning the Alabama claims. Here was a matter in which England was distinctly in the wrong, and, as long as the sore remained open, so long was there danger of war ensuing between the two great English-speaking nations of the earth. When Mr. Gladstone’s first Government resolved to submit it to arbitration, no language was too vehement for some of our Tories to apply to the process. It was dishonourable, unpatriotic, and pusillanimous; but Mr. Gladstone persevered, and with what result? The dispute was settled, the sore was healed; and is there a solitary man among us who will contend that the better plan would have been to send into their graves thousands of unoffending men, and to perpetuate, perhaps for generations, a quarrel which has been so happily decided as now to have almost faded out of mind? The other instance is afforded by the resolve, in the spring of 1885, to refer the dispute with Russia concerning the Penjdeh conflict to arbitration. There were threatenings of slaughter on every hand, for weeks there appeared a danger of our being launched into war for a strip of Afghan territory, worthless alike to Russians, Afghans, and ourselves, and upon a conflict of testimony as to the original aggression, which even yet has not been composed. The agreement to submit the matter to the King of Denmark, though his arbitrament ultimately was dispensed with, gave a breathing time to Russia and England both; and who now would argue that we ought to have gone to war because of Penjdeh?
Therefore, if we adhere to a policy of non-intervention in disputes that do not directly concern us, and of arbitration in those in which we become involved, we shall be following a course which the immediate past has proved to be not only peaceful but honourable and agreeable to our interests. “The greatest of British interests is peace,” once observed the present Lord Derby; and the truth of the saying is unimpeachable. And when we are told that, strive as we will, war sometimes must come, one is reminded of the saying of a far greater statesman than Lord Derby, and one upon whose patriotism none has been able to cast a slur. It was Canning who, when told that a war in certain circumstances was bound to come sooner or later, replied, “Then let it be later.”
If, however, we wish England to pursue a peaceful policy, we must teach the people to believe that it is as honourable as it is practicable, and as truly patriotic as both. It is a mistake to think that the masses will oppose war merely because of the suffering and loss it entails; there are considerations beyond these which the artisan feels as keenly as the aristocrat, the peasant as the peer. The sentiment which resents, even to blood-shedding, an insult to the national flag, may be often to be deprecated but never to be despised; for when the people shall care nothing for the country’s honour, the days of independent national existence will be drawing to a close. And, therefore, when it is argued that a peace policy is practicable, it is held to be so only because it is honourable, patriotic, and just.