THE PRACTICAL OUTCOME
CHAPTER I
THE RELATION OF DEFENCE TO AGGRESSION
Necessity for defence arises from the existence of a motive for attack—Platitudes that everyone overlooks—To attenuate the motive for aggression is to undertake a work of defence.
The general proposition embodied in this book—that the world has passed out of that stage of development in which it is possible for one civilized group to advance its well-being by the military domination of another—is either broadly true or broadly false. If it is false, it can, of course, have no bearing upon the actual problems of our time, and can have no practical outcome; huge armaments tempered by warfare are the logical and natural condition.
But the commonest criticism this book has had to meet is that, though its central proposition is in essence sound, it has, nevertheless, no practical value, because—
1. Armaments are for defence, not for aggression.
2. However true these principles may be, the world does not recognize them and never will, because men are not guided by reason.
As to the first point. It is probable that, if we really understood truths which we are apt to dismiss as platitudes, many of our problems would disappear.
To say, "We must take measures for defence" is equivalent to saying, "Someone is likely to attack us," which is equivalent to saying, "Someone has a motive for attacking us." In other words, the basic fact from which arises the necessity for armaments, the ultimate explanation of European militarism, is the force of the motive making for aggression. (And in the word "aggression," of course, I include the imposition of superior force by the threat, or implied threat, of its use, as well as by its actual use.)
That motive may be material or moral; it may arise from real conflict of interest, or a purely imaginary one; but with the disappearance of prospective aggression disappears also the need for defence.
The reader deems these platitudes beside the mark?
I will take a few sample criticisms directed at this book. Here is the London Daily Mail:
The bigger nations are armed, not so much because they look for the spoils of war, as because they wish to prevent the horrors of it; arms are for defence.[111]
And here is the London Times:
No doubt the victor suffers, but who suffers most, he or the vanquished?"[112]
The criticism of the Daily Mail was made within three months of a "raging and tearing" big navy campaign, all of it based on the assumption that Germany was "looking for the spoils of war," the English naval increase being thus a direct outcome of such motives. Without it, the question of English increase would not have arisen.[113] The only justification for the clamor for increase was that England was liable to attack; every nation in Europe justifies its armaments in the same way; every nation consequently believes in the universal existence of this motive for attack.
The Times has been hardly less insistent than the Mail as to the danger from German aggression; but its criticism would imply that the motive behind that prospective aggression is not a desire for any political advantage or gain of any sort. Germany apparently recognizes aggression to be, not merely barren of any useful result whatsoever, but burdensome and costly into the bargain; she is, nevertheless, determined to enter upon it in order that though she suffer, someone else will suffer more![114]
In common with the London Daily Mail and the London Times, Admiral Mahan fails to understand this "platitude," which underlies the relation of defence to aggression.
Thus in his criticism of this book, he cites the position of Great Britain during the Napoleonic era as proof that commercial advantage goes with the possession of preponderant military power in the following passage:
Great Britain owed her commercial superiority then to the armed control of the sea, which had sheltered her commerce and industrial fabric from molestation by the enemy.
Ergo, military force has commercial value, a result which is arrived at by this method: in deciding a case made up of two parties you ignore one.
England's superiority was not due to the employment of military force, but to the fact that she was able to prevent the employment of military force against her; and the necessity for so doing arose from Napoleon's motive in threatening her. But for the existence of this motive to aggression—moral or material, just or mistaken—Great Britain, without any force whatsoever, would have been more secure and more prosperous than she was; she would not have been spending a third of her income in war, and her peasantry would not have been starving.
Of a like character to the remark of the Times is the criticism of the Spectator, as follows:
Mr. Angell's main point is that the advantages customarily associated with national independence and security have no existence outside the popular imagination.... He holds that Englishmen would be equally happy if they were under German rule, and that Germans would be equally happy if they were under English rule. It is irrational, therefore, to take any measures for perpetuating the existing European order, since only a sentimentalist can set any value on its maintenance.... Probably in private life Mr. Angell is less consistent and less inclined to preach the burglar's gospel that to the wise man meum and tuum are but two names for the same thing. If he is anxious to make converts, he will do well to apply his reasoning to subjects that come nearer home, and convince the average man that marriage and private property are as much illusions as patriotism. If sentiment is to be banished from politics, it cannot reasonably be retained in morals.
As the reply to this somewhat extraordinary criticism is directly germane to what it is important to make clear, I may, perhaps, be excused for reproducing my letter to the Spectator, which was in part as follows:
How far the foregoing is a correct description of the scope and character of the book under review may be gathered from the following statement of fact. My pamphlet does not attack the sentiment of patriotism (unless a criticism of the duellist's conception of dignity be considered as such); it simply does not deal with it, as being outside the limits of the main thesis. I do not hold, and there is not one line to which your reviewer can point as justifying such a conclusion, that Englishmen would be equally happy if they were under German rule. I do not conclude that it is irrational to take measures for perpetuating the existing European order. I do not "expose the folly of self-defence in nations." I do not object to spending money on armaments at this juncture. On the contrary, I am particularly emphatic in declaring that while the present philosophy is what it is, we are bound to maintain our relative position with other Powers. I admit that so long as there is danger, as I believe there is, from German aggression, we must arm. I do not preach a burglar's gospel, that meum and tuum are the same thing, and the whole tendency of my book is the exact reverse: it is to show that the burglar's gospel—which is the gospel of statecraft as it now stands—is no longer possible among nations, and that the difference between meum and tuum must necessarily, as society gains in complication, be given a stricter observance than it has ever heretofore been given in history. I do not urge that sentiment should be banished from politics, if by sentiment is meant the common morality that guides us in our treatment of marriage and of private property. The whole tone of my book is to urge with all possible emphasis the exact reverse of such a doctrine; to urge that the morality which has been by our necessities developed in the society of individuals must also be applied to the society of nations as that society becomes by virtue of our development more interdependent.
I have only taken a small portion of your reviewer's article (which runs to a whole page), and I do not think I am exaggerating when I say that nearly all of it is as untrue and as much a distortion of what I really say as the passage from which I have quoted. What I do attempt to make plain is that the necessity for defence measures (which I completely recognize and emphatically counsel) implies on the part of someone a motive for aggression, and that the motive arises from the (at present) universal belief in the social and economic advantages accruing from successful conquest.
I challenged this universal axiom of statecraft and attempted to show that the mechanical development of the last thirty or forty years, especially in the means of communication, had given rise to certain economic phenomena—of which re-acting bourses and the financial interdependence of the great economic centres of the world are perhaps the most characteristic—which render modern wealth and trade intangible in the sense that they cannot be seized or interfered with to the advantage of a military aggressor, the moral being, not that self-defence is out of date, but that aggression is, and that when aggression ceases, self-defence will be no longer necessary. I urged, therefore, that in these little-recognized truths might possibly be found a way out of the armament impasse; that if the accepted motive for aggression could be shown to have no solid basis, the tension in Europe would be immensely relieved, and the risk of attack become immeasurably less by reason of the slackening of the motive for aggression. I asked whether this series of economic facts—so little realized by the average politician in Europe, and yet so familiar to at least a few of the ablest financiers—did not go far to change the axioms of statecraft, and I urged re-consideration of such in the light of these facts.
Your reviewer, instead of dealing with the questions thus raised, accuses me of "attacking patriotism," of arguing that "Englishmen would be equally happy under German rule," and much nonsense of the same sort, for which there is not a shadow of justification. Is this serious criticism? Is it worthy of the Spectator?
To the foregoing letter the Spectator critic rejoins as follows:
If Mr. Angell's book had given me the same impression as that which I gain from his letter, I should have reviewed it in a different spirit. I can only plead that I wrote under the impression which the book actually made on me. In reply to his "statement of fact," I must ask your leave to make the following corrections: (1) Instead of saying that, on Mr. Angell's showing, Englishmen would be "equally happy" under German rule, I ought to have said that they would be equally well off. But on his doctrine that material well-being is "the very highest" aim of a politician, the two terms seem to be interchangeable. (2) The "existing European order" rests on the supposed economic value of political force. In opposition to this Mr. Angell maintains "the economic futility of political force." To take measures for perpetuating an order founded on a futility does seem to me "irrational." (3) I never said that Mr. Angell objects to spending money on armaments "while the present philosophy is what it is." (4) The stress laid in the book on the economic folly of patriotism, as commonly understood, does seem to me to suggest that "sentiment should be banished from politics." But I admit that this was only an inference, though, as I still think, a fair inference. (5) I apologize for the words "the burglar's gospel." They have the fault, incident to rhetorical phrases, of being more telling than exact.
This rejoinder, as a matter of fact, still reveals the confusion which prompted the first criticism. Because I urged that Germany could do England relatively little harm, since the harm which she inflicted would immediately react on German prosperity, my critic assumes that this is equivalent to saying that Englishmen would be as happy or as prosperous under German rule. He quite overlooks the fact that if Germans are convinced that they will obtain no benefit by the conquest of the English they will not attempt that conquest, and there will be no question of the English living under German rule either less or more happily or prosperously. It is not a question of Englishmen saying, "Let the German come," but of the German saying, "Why should we go?" As to the critic's second point, I have expressly explained that not the rival's real interest but what he deems to be his real interest must be the guide to conduct. Military force is certainly economically futile, but so long as German policy rests on the assumption of the supposed economic value of military force, England must meet that force by the only force that can reply to it.
Some years ago the bank in a Western mining town was frequently subjected to "hold-ups," because it was known that the great mining company owning the town kept large quantities of gold there for the payment of its workmen. The company, therefore, took to paying its wages mainly by check on a San Francisco bank, and by a simple system of clearances practically abolished the use of gold in considerable quantities in the mining town in question. The bank was never attacked again.
Now, the demonstration that gold had been replaced by books in that bank was as much a work of defence as though the bank had spent tens of thousands of dollars in constructing forts and earthworks, and mounting Gatling guns around the town. Of the two methods of defence, that of substituting checks for gold was infinitely cheaper, and more effective.
Even if the inferences which the Spectator reviewer draws were true ones, which for the most part they are not, he still overlooks one important element. If it were true that the book involves the "folly of patriotism," how is that in any way relevant to the discussion, since I also urge that nations are justified in protecting even their follies against the attack of other nations? I may regard the Christian Scientists, or the Seventh Day Adventists, or the Spiritualists, as very foolish people, and to some extent mischievous people; but were an Act of Parliament introduced for their suppression by physical force, I should resist such an act with all the energy of which I was capable. In what way are the two attitudes contradictory? They are the attitudes, I take it, of educated men the world over. The fact has no importance, and it hardly bears on this subject, but I regard certain English conceptions of life bearing on matters of law, and social habit, and political philosophy, as infinitely preferable to the German, and if I thought that such conceptions demanded defence indefinitely by great armaments this book would never have been written. But I take the view that the idea of such necessity is based on a complete illusion, not only because as a matter of present-day fact, and even in the present state of political philosophy, Germany has not the least intention of going to war with us to change our notions in law or literature, art or social organization, but also because if she had any such notion it would be founded upon illusions which she would be bound sooner or later to shed, because German policy could not indefinitely resist the influence of a general European attitude on such matters any more than it has been possible for any great and active European State to stand outside the European movement which has condemned the policy of attempting to impose religious belief by the physical force of the State. And I should regard it as an essential part of the work of defence to aid in the firm establishment of such a European doctrine, as much a part of the work of defence as it would be to go on building battleships until Germany had subscribed to it.
A great part of the misconception just dealt with arises from a hazily conceived fear that ideas like those embodied in this book must attenuate our energy of defence, and that we shall be in a weaker position relatively to our rivals than we were before. But this overlooks the fact that if the progress of ideas weakens our energies of defence, it also weakens our rival's energy of attack, and the strength of our relative positions is just what it was originally, with this exception: that we have taken a step towards peace instead of a step towards war, to which the mere piling up of armaments, unchecked by any other factor, must in the end inevitably lead.
But there is one aspect of this failure to realize the relation of defence to aggression, which brings us nearer to considering the bearing of these principles upon the question of practical policy.
CHAPTER II
ARMAMENT, BUT NOT ALONE ARMAMENT
Not the facts, but men's belief about facts, shapes their conduct—Solving a problem of two factors by ignoring one—The fatal outcome of such a method—The German Navy as a "luxury"—If both sides concentrate on armament alone.
"Not the facts, but men's opinions about the facts, are what matter," one thinker has remarked. And this is because men's conduct is determined, not necessarily by the right conclusion from facts, but the conclusion they believe to be right.
When men burned witches, their conduct was exactly what it would have been if what they believed to be true had been true. The truth made no difference to their behavior, so long as they could not see the truth. And so in politics. As long as Europe is dominated by the old beliefs, those beliefs will have virtually the same effect in politics as though they were intrinsically sound.
And just as in the matter of burning witches a change of behavior was the outcome of a change of opinion, in its turn the result of a more scientific investigation of the facts, so in the same way a change in the political conduct of Europe can only come about as the result of a change of thought; and that change of thought will not come about so long as the energies of men in this matter are centred only upon perfecting instruments of warfare. It is not merely that better ideas can only result from more attention being given to the real meaning of facts, but that the direct tendency of war preparation—with the suspicion it necessarily engenders and the ill-temper to which it almost always gives rise—is to create both mechanical and psychological checks to improvement of opinion and understanding. Here, for instance, is General von Bernhardi, who has just published his book in favor of war as the regenerator of nations, urging that Germany should attack certain of her enemies before they are ready to attack her. Suppose the others reply by increasing their military force? It suits Bernhardi entirely. For what is the effect of this increase on the minds of Germans possibly disposed to disagree with Bernhardi? It is to silence them and to strengthen Bernhardi's hands. His policy, originally wrong, has become relatively right, because his arguments have been answered by force. For the silence of his might-be critics will still further encourage those of other nations who deem themselves threatened by this kind of opinion in Germany to increase their armaments; and these increases will still further tend to strengthen Bernhardi's school, and still further silence his critics. The process by which force tends to crush reason is, unhappily, cumulative and progressive. The vicious circle can only be broken by the introduction somewhere of the factor of reason.
And this is precisely, my critics urge, why we need do nothing but concentrate on the instruments of force!
The all but invariable attitude adopted by the man in the street in this whole discussion is about as follows:
"What, as practical men, we have to do, is to be stronger than our enemy; the rest is theory, and does not matter."
Well, the inevitable outcome of such an attitude is catastrophe. It leads us not toward, but away from, solution.
In the first edition of this book I wrote:
Are we immediately to cease preparation for war, since our defeat cannot advantage our enemy nor do us in the long run much harm? No such conclusion results from a study of the considerations elaborated here. It is evident that so long as the misconception we are dealing with is all but universal in Europe, so long as the nations believe that in some way the military and political subjugation of others will bring with it a tangible material advantage to the conqueror, we all do, in fact, stand in danger from such aggression. Not his interest, but what he deems to be his interest, will furnish the real motive of our prospective enemy's action. And as the illusion with which we are dealing does, indeed, dominate all those minds most active in European politics, we (in England) must, while this remains the case, regard an aggression, even such as that which Mr. Harrison foresees, as within the bounds of practical politics. (What is not within the bounds of possibility is the extent of devastation which he foresees as the result of such attack, which, I think, the foregoing pages sufficiently demonstrate.)
On this ground alone I deem that England, or any other nation, is justified in taking means of self-defence to prevent such aggression. This is not, therefore, a plea for disarmament irrespective of the action of other nations. So long as current political philosophy in Europe remains what it is, I would not urge the reduction of the British war budget by a single sovereign.
I see no reason to alter a word of this. But if preparation of the machinery of war is to be the only form of energy in this matter—if national effort is to neglect all other factors whatsoever—more and more will sincere and patriotic men have doubts as to whether they are justified in co-operating in further piling up the armaments of any country. Of the two risks involved—the risk of attack arising from a possible superiority of armament on the part of a rival, and the risk of drifting into conflict because, concentrating all our energies on the mere instrument of combat, we have taken no adequate trouble to understand the facts of this case—it is at least an arguable proposition that the second risk is the greater. And I am prompted to this expression of opinion without surrendering one iota of a lifelong and passionate belief that a nation attacked should defend itself to the last penny and to the last man.
In this matter it seems fatally easy to secure either one of two kinds of action: that of the "practical man" who limits his energies to securing a policy which will perfect the machinery of war and disregard anything else; or that of the Pacifist, who, persuaded of the brutality or immorality of war, is apt to deprecate effort directed at self-defence. What is needed is the type of activity which will include both halves of the problem: provision for education, for a Political Reformation in this matter, as well as such means of defence as will meantime counterbalance the existing impulse to aggression. To concentrate on either half to the exclusion of the other half is to render the whole problem insoluble.
What must inevitably happen if the nations take the line of the "practical man," and limit their energies simply and purely to piling up armaments?
A British critic once put to me what he evidently deemed a poser: "Do you urge that we shall be stronger than our enemy, or weaker?"
To which I replied: "The last time that question was asked me was in Berlin, by Germans. What would you have had me reply to those Germans?"—a reply which, of course, meant this: In attempting to find the solution of this question in terms of one party, you are attempting the impossible. The outcome will be war, and war would not settle it. It would all have to be begun over again.
The British Navy League catechism says: "Defence consists in being so strong that it will be dangerous for your enemy to attack you."[115] Mr. Churchill, even, goes farther than the Navy League, and says: "The way to make war impossible is to make victory certain."
The Navy League definition is at least possible of application to practical politics, because rough equality of the two parties would make attack by either dangerous. Mr. Churchill's principle is impossible of application to practical politics, because it could only be applied by one party, and would, in the terms of the Navy League principle, deprive the other party of the right of defence. As a matter of simple fact, both the British Navy League, by its demand for two ships to one, and Mr. Churchill, by his demand for certain victory, deny in this matter Germany's right to defend herself; and such denial is bound, on the part of a people animated by like motives to themselves, to provoke a challenge. When the British Navy League says, as it does, that a self-respecting nation should not depend upon the goodwill of foreigners for its safety, but upon its own strength, it recommends Germany to maintain her efforts to arrive at some sort of equality with England. When Mr. Churchill goes farther, and says that a nation is entitled to be so strong as to make victory over its rivals certain, he knows that if Germany were to adopt his own doctrine, its certain outcome would be war.
In anticipation of such an objection, Mr. Churchill says that preponderant power at sea is a luxury to Germany, a necessity to Britain; that these efforts of Germany are, as it were, a mere whim in no way dictated by the real necessities of her people, and having behind them no impulse wrapped up with national needs.[116]
If that be the truth, then it is the strongest argument imaginable for the settlement of this Anglo-German rivalry by agreement: by bringing about that Political Reformation of Europe which it is the object of these pages to urge.
Here are those of the school of Mr. Churchill who say: The danger of aggression from Germany is so great that England must have an enormous preponderance of force—two to one; so great are the risks Germany is prepared to take, that unless victory on the English side is certain she will attack. And yet, explain this same school, the impulse which creates these immense burdens and involves these immense risks is a mere whim, a luxury; the whole thing is dissociated from any real national need.
If that really be the case, then, indeed, is it time for a campaign of Education in Europe; time that the sixty-five millions, more or less, of hard-working and not very rich people, whose money support alone makes this rivalry possible, learned what it is all about. This "whim" has cost the two nations, in the last ten years, a sum larger than the indemnity France paid to Germany. Does Mr. Churchill suppose that these millions know, or think, this struggle one for a mere luxury, or whim? And if they did know, would it be quite a simple matter for the German Government to keep up the game?
But those who, during the last decade in England, have in and out of season carried on this active campaign for the increase of British armaments, do not believe that Germany's action is the result of a mere whim. They, being part of the public opinion of Europe, subscribe to the general European doctrine that Germany is pushed to do these things by real national necessities, by her need for expansion, for finding food and livelihood for all these increasing millions. And if this is so, the English are asking Germany, in surrendering this contest, to betray future German generations—wilfully to withhold from them those fields which the strength and fortitude of this generation might win. If this common doctrine is true, the English are asking Germany to commit national suicide.[117]
Why should it be assumed that Germany will do it? That she will be less persistent in protecting her national interest, her posterity, be less faithful than the British themselves to great national impulses? Has not the day gone by when educated men can calmly assume that any Englishman is worth three foreigners? And yet such an assumption, ignorant and provincial as we are bound to admit it to be, is the only one that can possibly justify this policy of concentrating upon armament alone.
Even Admiral Fisher can write:
The supremacy of the British Navy is the best security for the peace of the world.... If you rub it in, both at home and abroad, that you are ready for instant war, with every unit of your strength in the first line and waiting to be first in, and hit your enemy in the belly and kick him when he is down, and boil your prisoners in oil (if you take any), and torture his women and children, then people will keep clear of you.
Would Admiral Fisher refrain from taking a given line merely because, if he took it, someone would "hit him in the belly," etc.? He would repudiate the idea with the utmost scorn, and probably reply that the threat would give him an added incentive to take the line in question. But why should Admiral Fisher suppose that he has a monopoly of courage, and that a German Admiral would act otherwise than he? Is it not about time that each nation abandoned the somewhat childish assumption that it has a monopoly of the courage and the persistence in the world, and that things which would never frighten or deter it will frighten and deter its rivals?
Yet in this matter the English assume either that the Germans will be less persistent than they, or that in this contest their backs will break first. A coadjutor of Lord Roberts is calmly talking of a Naval Budget of 400 or 500 million dollars, and universal service as well, as a possibility of the all but immediate future.[118] If England can stand that now, why should not Germany, who is, we are told, growing industrially more rapidly than the English, be able to stand as much? But when she has arrived at that point, the English, at the same rate, must have a naval budget of anything from 750 to 1000 million dollars, a total armament budget of something in the region of 1250 millions. The longer it goes on, the worse will be England's relative position, because she has imposed on herself a progressive handicap.
The end can only be conflict, and already the policy of precipitating that conflict is raising its head.
Sir Edmund C. Cox writes in the premier English review, the Nineteenth Century, for April, 1910:
Is there no alternative to this endless yet futile competition in shipbuilding? Yes, there is. It is one which a Cromwell, a William Pitt, a Palmerston, a Disraeli, would have adopted long ago. This is that alternative—the only possible conclusion. It is to say to Germany: "All that you have been doing constitutes a series of unfriendly acts. Your fair words go for nothing. Once for all, you must put an end to your warlike preparations. If we are not satisfied that you do so, we shall forthwith sink every battleship and cruiser which you possess. The situation which you have created is intolerable. If you determine to fight us, if you insist upon war, war you shall have; but the time shall be of our choosing and not of yours, and that time shall be now." And that is where the present policy, the sheer bulldog piling up of armaments without reference to or effort towards a better political doctrine in Europe, inevitably leads.
CHAPTER III
IS THE POLITICAL REFORMATION POSSIBLE?
Men are little disposed to listen to reason, "therefore we should not talk reason"—Are men's ideas immutable?
We have seen, therefore—
1. That the need for defence arises from the existence of a motive for attack.
2. That that motive is, consequently, part of the problem of defence.
3. That, since as between the advanced peoples we are dealing with in this matter, one party is as able in the long run to pile up armaments as the other, we cannot get nearer to solution by armaments alone; we must get at the original provoking cause—the motive making for aggression.
4. That if that motive results from a true judgment of the facts; if the determining factor in a nation's well-being and progress is really its power to obtain by force advantage over others, the present situation of armament rivalry tempered by war is a natural and inevitable one.
5. That if, however, the view is a false one, our progress towards solution will be marked by the extent to which the error becomes generally recognized in international public opinion.
That brings me to the last entrenchment of those who actively or passively oppose propaganda looking towards reform in this matter.
As already pointed out, the last year or two has revealed a suggestive shifting of position on the part of such opposition. The original position of the defenders of the old political creeds was that the economic thesis here outlined was just simply wrong; then, that the principles themselves were sound enough, but that they were irrelevant, because not interests, but ideals, constituted the cause of conflict between nations. In reply to which, of course, came the query, What ideals, apart from questions of interest, lie at the bottom of the conflict which is the most typical of our time—what ideal motive is Germany, for instance, pursuing in its presumed aggression upon England? Consequently that position has generally been abandoned. Then we were told that men don't act by logic, but passion. Then the critics were asked how they explained the general character of la haute politique, its cold intrigues and expediency, the extraordinary rapid changes in alliances and ententes, all following exactly a line of passionless interest reasoned, though from false premises, with very great logic indeed; and were asked whether all experience does not show that, while passion may determine the energy with which a given line of conduct is pursued, the direction of that line of conduct is determined by processes of another kind: John, seeing James, his life-long and long-sought enemy, in the distance, has his hatred passionately stirred, and harbors thoughts of murder. As he comes near he sees that it is not James at all, but a quiet and inoffensive neighbor, Peter. John's thoughts of murder are appeased, not because he has changed his nature, but because the recognition of a simple fact has changed the direction of his passion. What we in this matter hope to do is to show that the nations are mistaking Peter for James.
Well, the last entrenchment of those who oppose the work is the dogmatic assertion that though we are right as to the material fact, its demonstration can never be made; that this political reformation of Europe the political rationalists talk about is a hopeless matter; it implies a change of opinion so vast that it can only be looked for as the result of whole generations of educative processes.
Suppose this were true. What then? Will you leave everything severely alone, and leave wrong and dangerous ideas in undisturbed possession of the political field?
This conclusion is not a policy; it is Oriental fatalism—"Kismet," "the will of Allah."
Such an attitude is not possible among men dominated by the traditions and the impulses of the Western world. We do not let things slide in this way; we do not assume that as men are not guided by reason in politics, therefore we shall not reason about politics. The time of statesmen is absorbed in the discussion of these things. Our press and literature are deeply concerned in them. The talk and thought of men are about them. However little they may deem reason to affect the conduct of men, they go on reasoning. And progress in conduct is determined by the degree of understanding which results.
It is true that physical conflict marks the point at which the reason has failed; men fight when they have not been able to "come to an understanding" in the common phrase, which is for once correct. But is this a cause for deprecating the importance of clear understanding? Is it not, on the contrary, precisely why our energies should be devoted to improving our capacity for dealing with these things by reason, rather than by physical force?
Do we not inevitably arrive at the destination to which every road in this discussion leads? However we may start, with whatever plan, however elaborated or varied, the end is always the same—the progress of man in this matter depends upon the degree to which his ideas are just; man advances by the victories of his mind and character. Again we have arrived at the region of platitude. But also again it is one of those platitudes which most people deny. Thus the London Spectator:
For ourselves, as far as the main economic proposition goes, he preaches to the converted.... If nations were perfectly wise and held perfectly sound economic theories, they would recognize that exchange is the union of forces, and that it is very foolish to hate or be jealous of your co-operators.... Men are savage, bloodthirsty creatures ... and when their blood is up will fight for a word or a sign, or, as Mr. Angell would put it, for an illusion.
Criticism at the other end of the journalistic scale—that, for instance, from Mr. Blatchford—is of an exactly similar character. Mr. Blatchford says:
Mr. Angell may be right in his contention that modern war is unprofitable to both belligerents. I do not believe it, but he may be right. But he is wrong if he imagines that his theory will prevent European war. To prevent European wars it needs more than the truth of his theory: it needs that the war lords and diplomatists and financiers and workers of Europe shall believe the theory.... So long as the rulers of nations believe that war may be expedient (see Clausewitz), and so long as they believe they have the power, war will continue.... It will continue until these men are fully convinced that it will bring no advantage.
Therefore, argues Mr. Blatchford, the demonstration that war will not bring advantage is futile.
I am not here, for the purpose of controversy, putting an imaginary conclusion into Mr. Blatchford's mouth. It is the conclusion that he actually does draw. The article from which I have quoted was intended to demonstrate the futility of books like this. It was by way of reply to an early edition of this one. In common with the other critics, he must have known that this is not a plea for the impossibility of war (I have always urged with emphasis that our ignorance on this matter makes war not only possible, but extremely likely), but for its futility. And the demonstration of its futility is, I am now told, in itself futile!
I have expanded the arguments of this and others of my critics thus:
The war lords and diplomats are still wedded to the old false theories; therefore we shall leave those theories undisturbed, and generally deprecate discussion of them.
Nations do not realize the facts; therefore we should attach no importance to the work of making them known.
These facts profoundly affect the well-being of European peoples; therefore we shall not systematically encourage the efficient study of them.
If they were generally known, the practical outcome would be that most of our difficulties herein would disappear; therefore anyone who attempts to make them known is an amiable sentimentalist, a theorist, and so on, and so on.
"Things do not matter so much as people's opinions about things"[119]; therefore no effort shall be directed to a modification of opinion.
The only way for these truths to affect policy, to become operative in the conduct of nations, is to make them operative in the minds of men; therefore discussion of them is futile.
Our troubles arise from the wrong ideas of nations; therefore ideas do not count—they are "theories."
General conception and insight in this matter is vague and ill-defined, so that action is always in danger of being decided by sheer passion and irrationalism; therefore we shall do nothing to render insight clear and well-defined.
The empire of sheer impulse, of the non-rational, is strongest when associated with ignorance (e.g., Mohammedan fanaticism, Chinese Boxerism), and only yields to the general progress of ideas (e.g., sounder religious notions sweeping away the hate and horrors of religious persecution); therefore the best way to maintain peace is to pay no attention to the progress of political ideas.
The progress of ideas has completely transformed religious feeling in so far as it settles the policy of one religious group in relation to another; therefore the progress of ideas will never transform patriotic feeling, which settles the policy of one political group in relation to another.
What, in short, does the argument of my critics amount to? This: that so slow, so stupid is the world that, though the facts may be unassailable, they will never be learned within any period that need concern us.
Without in the least desiring to score off my critics, and still less to be discourteous, I sometimes wonder it has never struck them that in the eyes of the profane this attitude of theirs must appear really as a most colossal vanity. "We" who write in newspapers and reviews understand these things; "we" can be guided by reason and wisdom, but the common clay will not see these truths for "thousands of years." I talk to the converted (so I am told) when my book is read by the editors and reviewers. They, of course, can understand; but the notion that mere diplomats and statesmen, the men who make up Governments and nations, should ever do so is, of course, quite too preposterous.
Personally, however flattering this notion might be, I have never been able to feel its soundness. I have always strongly felt the precise opposite—namely, that what is plain to me will very soon be equally plain to my neighbor. Possessing, presumably, as much vanity as most, I am, nevertheless, absolutely convinced that simple facts which stare an ordinary busy man of affairs in the face are not going to be for ever hid from the multitude. Depend upon it, if "we" can see these things, so can the mere statesmen and diplomats and those who do the work of the world.
Moreover, if what "we" write in reviews and books does not touch men's reasons, does not affect their conduct, why do we write at all?
We do not believe it impossible to change or form men's ideas; such a plea would doom us all to silence, and would kill religious and political literature. "Public Opinion" is not external to men; it is made by men; by what they hear and read and have suggested to them by their daily tasks, and talk and contact.
If it were true, therefore, that the difficulties in the way of modifying political opinion were as vast as my critics would have us believe, that would not affect our conduct; the more they emphasize those difficulties, the more they emphasize the need for effort on our part.
But it is not true that a change such as that involved here necessarily "takes thousands of years." I have already dealt with the plea, but would recall only one incident that I have cited: a scene painted by a Spanish artist of the Court and nobles and populace in a great European city, gathered on a public holiday as for a festival to see a beautiful child burned to death for a faith that, as it plaintively said, it had sucked in with its mother's milk.
How long separates us from that scene? Why, not the lives of three ordinarily elderly people. And how long after that scene—which was not an isolated incident of uncommon kind, but a very everyday matter, typical of the ideas and feelings of the time at which it was enacted—was it before the renewal of such became a practical impossibility? It was not a hundred years. It was enacted in 1680, and within the space of a short lifetime the world knew that never again would a child be burned alive as the result of a legal condemnation by a duly constituted Court, and as a public festival, witnessed by the King and the nobles and the populace, in one of the great cities of Europe.
Or, do those who talk of "unchanging human nature" and "thousands of years" really plead that we are in danger of a repetition of such a scene? In that case our religious toleration is a mistake. Protestants stand in danger of such tortures, and should arm themselves with the old armory of religious combat—the rack, the thumbscrew, the iron maiden, and the rest—as a matter of sheer protection.
"Men are savage, bloodthirsty creatures, and will fight for a word or a sign," the Spectator tells us, when their patriotism is involved. Well, until yesterday, it was as true to say that of them when their religion was involved. Patriotism is the religion of politics. And as one of the greatest historians of religious ideas has pointed out, religion and patriotism are the chief moral influences moving great bodies of men, and "the separate modifications and mutual interaction of these two agents may almost be said to constitute the moral history of mankind."[120]
But is it likely that a general progress which has transformed religion is going to leave patriotism unaffected; that the rationalization and humanization which have taken place in the more complex domain of religious doctrine and belief will not also take place in the domain of politics? The problem of religious toleration was beset with difficulties incalculably greater than any which confront us in this problem. Then, as now, the old order was defended with real disinterestedness; then it was called religious fervor; now it is called patriotism. The best of the old inquisitors were as disinterested, as sincere, as single-minded, as are doubtless the best of the Prussian Junkers, the French Nationalists, the English militarists. Then, as now, the progress towards peace and security seemed to them a dangerous degeneration, the break-up of faiths, the undermining of most that holds society together. Then, as now, the old order pinned its faith to the tangible and visible instruments of protection—I mean the instruments of physical force. And the Catholic, in protecting himself by the Inquisition against what he regarded as the dangerous intrigues of the Protestant, was protecting what he regarded not merely as his own social and political security, but the eternal salvation, he believed, of unborn millions of men. Yet he surrendered such instruments of defence, and finally Catholic and Protestant alike came to see that the peace and security of both were far better assured by this intangible thing—the right thinking of men—than by all the mechanical ingenuity of prisons and tortures and burnings which it was possible to devise. In like manner will the patriot come finally to see that better than Dreadnoughts will be the recognition on his part and on the part of his prospective enemy, that there is no interest, material or moral, in conquest and military domination.
And that hundred years which I have mentioned as representing an apparently impassable gulf in the progress of European ideas, a period which marked an evolution so great that the very mind and nature of men seemed to change, was a hundred years without newspapers—a time in which books were such a rarity that it took a generation for one to travel from Madrid to London; in which the steam printing-press did not exist, nor the railroad, nor the telegraph, nor any of those thousand contrivances which now make it possible for the words of an American statesman spoken to-day to be read by the millions of Europe to-morrow morning—to do, in short, more in the way of the dissemination of ideas in ten months than was possible then in a century.
When things moved so slowly, a generation or two sufficed to transform the mind of Europe on the religious side. Why should it be impossible to change that mind on the political side in a generation, or half a generation, when things move so much more quickly? Are men less disposed to change their political than their religious opinions? We all know that not to be the case. In every country in Europe we find political parties advocating, or at least acquiescing in, policies which they strenuously opposed ten years ago. Does the evidence available go to show that the particular side of politics with which we are dealing is notably more impervious to change and development than the rest—less within the reach and influence of new ideas?
I must risk here the reproach of egotism and bad taste to call attention to a fact which bears more directly on that point, perhaps, than any other that could be cited.
It is some fifteen years since it first struck me that certain economic facts of our civilization—facts of such visible and mechanical nature as reacting bourses and bank rate-movements, in all the economic capitals of the world, and so on—would soon force upon the attention of men a principle which, though existing for long past in some degree in human affairs, had not become operative to any extent. Was there any doubt as to the reality of the material facts involved? Circumstances of my occupation happily furnished opportunities of discussing the matter thoroughly with bankers and statesmen of world-wide authority. There was no doubt on that score. Had we yet arrived at the point at which it was possible to make the matter plain to general opinion? Were politicians too ill-educated on the real facts of the world, too much absorbed in the rough-and-tumble of workaday politics to change old ideas? Were they, and the rank and file, still too enslaved by the hypnotism of an obsolete terminology to accept a new view? One could only put it to a practical test. A brief exposition of the cardinal principles was embodied in a brief pamphlet and published obscurely without advertisement, and bearing, necessarily, an unknown name. The result was, under the circumstances, startling, and certainly did not justify in the least the plea that there exists universal hostility to the advance of political rationalism. Encouragement came from most unlooked-for quarters: public men whose interests have been mainly military, alleged Jingoes, and even from soldiers. The more considerable edition has appeared in English, German, French, Dutch, Danish, Swedish, Spanish, Italian, Russian, Japanese, Erdu, Persian, and Hindustani, and nowhere has the Press completely ignored the book. Papers of Liberal tendencies have welcomed it everywhere. Those of more reactionary tendencies have been much less hostile than one could have expected.[121]
Does such an experience justify that universal rebelliousness to political rationalism on which my critics for the most part found their case? My object in calling attention to it is evident. If this is possible as the result of the effort of a single obscure person working without means and without leisure, what could not be accomplished by an organization adequately equipped and financed? Mr. Augustine Birrell says somewhere: "Some opinions, bold and erect as they may still stand, are in reality but empty shells. One shove would be fatal. Why is it not given?"
If little apparently has been done in the modification of ideas in this matter, it is because little relatively has been attempted. Millions of us are prepared to throw ourselves with energy into that part of national defence which, after all, is a makeshift, into agitation for the building of Dreadnoughts and the raising of armies, the things in fact which can be seen, where barely dozens will throw themselves with equal ardor into that other department of national defence, the only department which will really guarantee security, but by means which are invisible—the rationalization of ideas.
CHAPTER IV
METHODS
Relative failure of Hague Conferences and the cause—Public opinion the necessary motive force of national action—That opinion only stable if informed—"Friendship" between nations and its limitations—America's rôle in the coming "Political Reformation."
Much of the pessimism as to the possibility of any progress in this matter is based on the failure of such efforts as Hague Conferences. Never has the contest of armament been so keen as when Europe began to indulge in Peace Conferences. Speaking roughly and generally, the era of great armament expansion dates from the first Hague Conference.
Well, the reader who has appreciated the emphasis laid in the preceding pages on working through the reform of ideas will not feel much astonishment at the failure of efforts such as these. The Hague Conferences represented an attempt not to work through the reform of ideas, but to modify by mechanical means the political machinery of Europe, without reference to the ideas which had brought it into existence.
Arbitration treaties, Hague Conferences, International Federation involve a new conception of relationship between nations. But the ideals—political, economical, and social—on which the old conceptions are based, our terminology, our political literature, our old habits of thought, diplomatic inertia, which all combine to perpetuate the old notions, have been left serenely undisturbed. And surprise is expressed that such schemes do not succeed.
French politics have given us this proverb, "I am the leader, therefore I follow." This is not mere cynicism, but expresses in reality a profound truth. What is a leader or a ruler in a modern parliamentary sense? He is a man who holds office by virtue of the fact that he represents the mean of opinion in his party. Initiative, therefore, cannot come from him until he can be sure of the support of his party—that is, until the initiative in question represents the common opinion of his party. The author happened to discuss the views embodied in this book with a French parliamentary chief, who said in effect: "Of course you are talking to the converted, but I am helpless. Suppose that I attempted to embody these views before they were ready for acceptance by my party. I should simply lose my leadership in favor of a man less open to new ideas, and the prospect of their acceptance would not be increased, but diminished. Even if I were not already converted, it would be no good trying to convert me. Convert the body of the party and its leaders will not need conversion."
And this is the position of every civilized government, parliamentary or not. The struggle for religious freedom was not gained by agreements drawn up between Catholic States and Protestant States, or even between Catholic bodies and Protestant bodies. No such process was possible, for in the last resort there was no such thing as an absolutely Catholic State or an absolutely Protestant one. Our security from persecution is due simply to the general recognition of the futility of the employment of physical force in a matter of religious belief. Our progress towards political rationalism will take place in like manner.
There is no royal road of this kind to a better state. It seems decreed that we shall not permanently achieve improvement which we as individuals have not paid for in the coin of hard thinking.
Nothing is easier to achieve in international politics than academic declarations in favor of Peace. But governments being trustees have a first duty in the interests of their wards, or what they conceive to be such interests, and they disregard what is still looked upon as a conception having its origin in altruistic and self-sacrificing motives. "Self-sacrifice" is the last motive governments can allow themselves to consider. They are created to protect, not to sacrifice, the interests of which they are placed in charge.
It is impossible for governments to base their normal policies on conceptions which are in advance of the general standard of the political opinion of the people from whom they derive their power. The average man will, it is true, quite readily subscribe abstractly to a peace ideal, just as he will subscribe abstractly to certain religious ideals—to take no thought for the morrow, not to save up treasure upon earth—without the faintest notion of making them a guide of conduct, or, indeed, of seeing how they can be a guide of conduct. At peace meetings he will cheer lustily and sign petitions, because he believes Peace to be a great moral idea, and that armies, like the Police, are destined to disappear one day—on about the same day in his belief—when the nature of man shall have been altered.
One may be able fully to appreciate this attitude of the "average sensual man" without doubting the least in the world the sincerity, genuineness, wholeheartedness of these emotional movements in favor of peace, which from time to time sweep over a country (as on the occasion of the Taft-Grey exchange of views on arbitration). But what it is necessary to emphasize, what cannot be too often reiterated, is that these movements, however emotional and sincere, are not movements which can lead to breaking up the intellectual basis of the policy which produces armaments in the Western World. These movements embrace only one section of the factors making for peace—the moral and the emotional. And while those factors have immense power, they are uncertain and erratic in their operation, and when the shouting dies and there is a natural reaction from emotion, and it is a question once more of doing the humdrum week-day work of the world, of pushing our interests, of finding markets, of achieving the best possible generally for our nation as against other nations, of preparing for the future, of organizing one's efforts, the old code of compromise between the ideal and the necessary will be as operative as ever. So long as his notions of what war can accomplish in an economic or commercial sense remain what they are, the average man will not deem that his prospective enemy is likely to make the peace ideal a guide of conduct. Incidentally he would be right. At the bottom of his mind—and I say this not lightly and as a guess, but as an absolute conviction after very close observation—the ideal of peace is conceived as a demand that he weaken his own defences on no better assurance than that his prospective rival or enemy will be well-behaved and not wicked enough to attack him.
It appeals to him as about equivalent to asking that he shall not lock his doors because to suppose people will rob him is to have a low view of human nature!
Though he believes his own position in the world (as a colonial Power, etc.) to be the result of the use of force by himself, of his readiness to seize what could be seized, he is asked to believe that foreigners will not do in the future what he himself has done in the past. He finds this difficult to swallow.
Save in his Sunday moods, the whole thing makes him angry. It appeals to him as "unfair," in that he is asked by his own countrymen to do something that they apparently do not ask of foreigners; it appears to him as unmanly, in that he is asked to surrender the advantage which his strength has secured him in favor of a somewhat emasculate ideal.
The patriot feels that his moral intention is every bit as sincere as that of the pacifist—that, indeed, patriotism is a finer moral ideal than pacifism. The difference between the pacifist and the advocate of real-politik is an intellectual and not a moral one at all, and the assumption of superior morality which the former sometimes makes does the cause which he has at heart infinite harm. Until the pacifist can show that the employment of military force fails to secure material advantage, the common man will, in ordinary times, continue to believe that the militarist has a moral sanction as great as that underlying pacifism.
It may seem gratuitously ungracious to suggest that the very elevation which has marked peace propaganda in the past should have been the very thing that has sometimes stood in the way of its success. But such a phenomenon is not new in human development. There was as much good intention in the world of religious warfare and oppression as there is in ours. Indeed, the very earnestness of the men who burnt, tortured, and imprisoned and stamped out human thought with the very best motives, was precisely the factor which stood in the way of improvement.
Improvement came finally, not from better intention, but from an acuter use of the intelligence of men, from hard mental work.
So long as we assume that high motive, a better moral tone is all that is needed in international relations, and that an understanding of these problems will in some wonderful way come of itself, without hard and systematic intellectual effort, we shall make little headway.
Good feeling and kindliness and a ready emotion are among the most precious things in life, but they are qualities possessed by some of the most retrograde nations in the world, because in them they are not coupled with the homely quality of hard work, in which one may include hard thinking. This last is the real price of progress, and we shall make none of worth unless we pay it.
A word or two as to the rôle of "friendship" in international relations. Courtesy and a certain measure of good faith are essential elements wherever civilized men come in direct contact; without them organized society would go to pieces. But these invaluable elements never yet of themselves settled real differences; they merely render the other factors of adjustment possible. Why should one expect courtesy and good-fellowship to settle grave political differences between English and Germans when they altogether fail to settle such differences between English and English? What should we say of a statesman professing to be serious who suggested that all would be well between President Wilson and the lobbyists concerning the tariff, between the Democrats and Republicans on protection, between the millionaire and the day laborer on the question of the income tax, and a thousand and one other things—that all these knotty problems would disappear, if only the respective protagonists could be persuaded to take lunch together? Is it not a little childish?
Yet I am bound to admit that a whole school of persons who deal with international problems would have us believe that all international differences would disappear if only we could have enough junketings, dinner-parties, exchange visits of clergymen, and what not. These things have immense use in so far as they facilitate discussion and the elucidation of the policy in which the rivalry has its birth, and to that extent only. But if they are not vehicles of intellectual comprehension, if the parties go away with as little understanding of the factors and nature of international relationship as they had before such meetings took place, they have served no purpose whatsoever.
The work of the world does not get done merely by being good friends with everybody; the problems of international diplomacy are not to be solved merely by a sort of international picnic; that would make the world too easy a place to live in.
However ungracious it may seem, it is nevertheless dangerous to allow to go unchallenged the notion that the cultivation of "friendship and affection" between nations, irrespective of the other factors affecting their relationship, can ever seriously modify international politics. The matter is of grave importance, because so much good effort is spent in putting the cart before the horse, and attempting to create an operative factor out of a sentiment that can never be constant and positive one way or the other, since it must in the nature of things be largely artificial. It is a psychological impossibility in any ordinary workaday circumstances to have any special feeling of affection for a hundred or sixty or forty millions of people, composed of infinitely diverse elements, good, bad, and indifferent, noble and mean, pleasing and unpleasing, whom, moreover, we have never seen and never shall see. It is too large an order. We might as well be asked to entertain feelings of affection for the Tropic of Capricorn. As I have already hinted, we have no particular affection for the great mass of our own countrymen—your lobbyist enthusiast for Mr. Wilson, your railroad striker for the employer of labor, your Suffragette for your anti-Suffragette, and so on ad infinitum. Patriotism has nothing to do with it. The patriot is often the person who had the heartiest detestation for a large mass of his fellow-countrymen. Consider any anti-administration literature. As an English instance a glance at Mr. Leo Maxse's monthly masterpieces of epithet-making, or at what the pan-Germans have to say of their own Empire and Government ("poltroons in the pay of the English" is a choice tit-bit I select from one German newspaper), will soon convince one.
Why, therefore, should we be asked to entertain for foreigners a sentiment we do not give to our own people? And not only to entertain that sentiment, but to make (always in the terms of the present political beliefs) great sacrifices on behalf of it!
Need it be said that I have not the least desire to deprecate sincere emotion as a factor in progress? Emotion and enthusiasm form the divine stimulus without which no great things would be achieved; but emotion divorced from mental and moral discipline is not the kind on which wise men will place a very high value. Some of the intensest emotion of the world has been given to some of the worst possible objects. Just as in the physical world, the same forces—steam, gunpowder, what you will—which, controlled and directed may do an infinitely useful work—may, uncontrolled, cause accidents and catastrophes of the gravest kind.
Nor is it true that the better understanding of this matter is beyond the great mass of men, that sounder ideas depend upon the comprehension of complex and abstruse points, correct judgment in intricate matters of finance or economics. Things which seem in one stage of thought obscure and difficult are cleared up merely by setting one or two crooked facts straight. The rationalists, who a generation or two ago struggled with such things as the prevalent belief in witchcraft, may have deemed that the abolition of superstitions of this kind would take "thousands of years."
Lecky has pointed out that during the eighteenth century many judges in Europe—not ignorant men, but, on the contrary, exceedingly well-educated men, trained to sift evidence—were condemning people to death by hundreds for witchcraft. Acute and educated men still believed in it; its disproof demanded a large acquaintance with the forces and processes of physical nature, and it was generally thought that, while a few exceptional intelligences here and there would shake off these beliefs, they would remain indefinitely the possessions of the great mass of mankind.
What has happened? A schoolboy to-day would scout the evidence which, on the judgment of very learned men, sent thousands of poor wretches to their doom in the eighteenth century. Would the schoolboy necessarily be more learned or more acute than those judges? They probably knew a great deal about the science of witchcraft, were more familiar with its literature, with the arguments which supported it, and they would have hopelessly worsted any nineteenth-century schoolboy in any argument on the subject. The point is, however, that the schoolboy would have two or three essential facts straight, instead of getting them crooked.
All the fine theories about the advantages of conquest, of territorial aggrandizement, so learnedly advanced by the Mahans and the von Stengels; the immense value which the present-day politician attaches to foreign conquest, all these absurd rivalries aiming at "stealing" one another's territory, will be recognized as the preposterous illusions that they are by the younger mind, which really sees the quite plain fact that the citizen of a small State is just as well off as the citizen of a great. From that fact, which is not complex or difficult in the least, will emerge the truth that modern government is a matter of administration, and that it can no more profit a community to annex other communities, than it could profit London to annex Manchester. These things will not need argument to be clear to the schoolboy of the future—they will be self-evident, like the improbability of an old woman causing a storm at sea.
Of course, it is true that many of the factors bearing on this improvement will be indirect. As our education becomes more rational in other fields, it will make for understanding in this; as the visible factors of our civilization make plain—as they are making plainer every day—the unity and interdependence of the modern world, the attempt to separate those interdependent activities by irrelevant divisions must more and more break down. All improvement in human co-operation—and human co-operation is a synonym for civilization—must help the work of those laboring in the field of international relationship. But again I would reiterate that the work of the world does not get itself done. It is done by men; ideas do not improve themselves, they are improved by the thought of men; and it is the efficiency of the conscious effort which will mainly determine progress.
When all nations realize that if England can no longer exert force towards her Colonies, others certainly could not; that if a great modern Empire cannot usefully employ force as against communities that it "owns," still less can we employ it usefully against communities that we do not "own"; when the world as a whole has learned the real lesson of British Imperial development, not only will that Empire have achieved greater security than it can achieve by battleships, but it will have played a part in human affairs incomparably greater and more useful than could be played by any military "leadership of the human race," that futile duplication of the Napoleonic rôle, which Imperialists of a certain school seem to dream for us.
It is to Anglo-Saxon practice, and to Anglo-Saxon experience, that the world will look as a guide in this matter. The extension of the dominating principle of the British Empire to European society as a whole is the solution of the international problem which this book urges. That extension cannot be made by military means. The English conquest of great military nations is a physical impossibility, and it would involve the collapse of the principle upon which the Empire is based if it were. The day for progress by force has passed; it will be progress by ideas or not at all.
Because these principles of free human co-operation between communities are, in a special sense, an Anglo-Saxon development, it is upon us that there falls the responsibility of giving a lead. If it does not come from us, who have developed these principles as between all the communities which have sprung from the Anglo-Saxon race, can we ask to have it given elsewhere? If we have not faith in our own principles, to whom shall we look?
English thought gave us the science of political economy; Anglo-Saxon thought and practice must give us another science, that of International Polity—the science of the political relationship of human groups. We have the beginnings of it, but it sadly needs systemization—recognition by those intellectually equipped to develop it and enlarge it.
The developments of such a work would be in keeping with the contributions which the practical genius and the positive spirit of the Anglo-Saxon race have already made to human progress.
I believe that, if the matter were put efficiently before them with the force of that sane, practical, disinterested labor and organization which have been so serviceable in the past in other forms of propaganda—not only would they prove particularly responsive to the labor, but Anglo-Saxon tradition would once more be associated with the leadership in one of those great moral and intellectual movements which would be so fitting a sequel to our leadership in such things as human freedom and parliamentary government. Failing such effort and such response, what are we to look for? Are we, in blind obedience to primitive instinct and old prejudices, enslaved by the old catchwords and that curious indolence which makes the revision of old ideas unpleasant, to duplicate indefinitely on the political and economic side a condition from which we have liberated ourselves on the religious side? Are we to continue to struggle, as so many good men struggled in the first dozen centuries of Christendom—spilling oceans of blood, wasting mountains of treasure—to achieve what is at bottom a logical absurdity; to accomplish something which, when accomplished, can avail us nothing, and which, if it could avail us anything, would condemn the nations of the world to never-ending bloodshed and the constant defeat of all those aims which men, in their sober hours, know to be alone worthy of sustained endeavor?
APPENDIX
ON RECENT EVENTS IN EUROPE
APPENDIX
ON RECENT EVENTS IN EUROPE
At the outbreak of the Balkan War "The Great Illusion" was subjected to much criticism, on the ground that the war tended to disprove its theses. The following quotations, one from Mr. Churchill, the First Lord of the Admiralty, and the other from the English Review of Reviews, are typical of many others.
Mr. Churchill said, in a speech at Sheffield:
Whether we blame the belligerents or criticise the powers, or sit in sackcloth and ashes ourselves is absolutely of no consequence at the present moment....
We have sometimes been assured by persons who profess to know that the danger of war has become an illusion.... Well, here is a war which has broken out in spite of all that rulers and diplomatists could do to prevent it, a war in which the Press has had no part, a war which the whole force of the money power has been subtly and steadfastly directed to prevent, which has come upon us, not through the ignorance or credulity of the people, but, on the contrary, through their knowledge of their history and their destiny, and through their intense realization of their wrongs and of their duties, as they conceived them, a war which from all these causes has burst upon us with all the force of a spontaneous explosion, and which in strife and destruction has carried all before it. Face to face with this manifestation, who is the man bold enough to say that force is never a remedy? Who is the man who is foolish enough to say that martial virtues do not play a vital part in the health and honor of every people? (Cheers.) Who is the man who is vain enough to suppose that the long antagonisms of history and of time can in all circumstances be adjusted by the smooth and superficial conventions of politicians and ambassadors?
The London Review of Reviews said in an article on "The Débâcle of Norman Angell":
Mr. Norman Angell's theory was one to enable the citizens of this country to sleep quietly, and to lull into false security the citizens of all great countries. That is undoubtedly the reason why he met with so much success.... It was a very comfortable theory for those nations which have grown rich and whose ideals and initiative have been sapped by overmuch prosperity. But the great delusion of Norman Angell, which led to the writing of "The Great Illusion," has been dispelled for ever by the Balkan League. In this connection it is of value to quote the words of Mr. Winston Churchill, which give very adequately the reality as opposed to theory.
In reply to these and similar criticisms I wrote several articles in the London Press, from which the following few pages are selected.
What has Pacifism, Old or New, to say now?
Is War impossible?
Is it unlikely?
Is it futile?
Is not force a remedy, and at times the only remedy?
Could any remedy have been devised on the whole as conclusive and complete as that used by the Balkan peoples?
Have not the Balkan peoples redeemed War from the charges too readily brought against it as simply an instrument of barbarism?
Have questions of profit and loss, economic considerations, anything whatever to do with this war?
Would the demonstration of its economic futility have kept the peace?
Are theories and logic of the slightest use, since force alone can determine the issue?
Is not war therefore inevitable and must we not prepare diligently for it?
I will answer all these quite simply and directly without casuistry or logic-chopping and honestly desiring to avoid paradox and "cleverness." Nor will these quite simple answers be in contradiction to anything that I have written, nor will they invalidate any of the principles I have attempted to explain.
My answers may be summarized thus:
(1) This war has justified both the Old Pacifism and the New. By universal admission events have proved that the Pacifists who opposed the Crimean War were right and their opponents wrong. Had public opinion given more consideration to those Pacifist principles, this country would not have "backed the wrong horse" and this war, two wars which have preceded it and many of the abominations of which the Balkan peninsula has been the scene during the last 60 years might have been avoided. In any case Great Britain would not now carry upon her shoulders the responsibility of having during half a century supported the Turk against the Christian and of having tried uselessly to prevent what has now taken place—the break-up of the Turk's rule in Europe.
(2) War is not impossible, and no responsible Pacifist ever said it was; it is not the likelihood of war which is the illusion, but its benefits.
(3) It is likely or unlikely according as the parties to a dispute are guided by wisdom or folly.
(4) It is futile and force is no remedy.
(5) Its futility is proven by the war waged daily by the Turks as conquerors, during the last 400 years. And if the Balkan peoples choose the less evil of two kinds of war and will use their victory to bring a system based on force and conquest to an end, we who do not believe in force and conquest will rejoice in their action and believe it will achieve immense benefits. But if instead of using their victory to eliminate force, they in their turn pin their faith to it, continue to use it the one against the other and to exploit by its means the populations they rule; if they become not the organizers of social co-operation among the Balkan populations, but merely, like the Turks, their conquerors and "owners," then they in their turn will share the fate of the Turks.
(6) The fundamental causes of this war are economic in the narrower, as well as in the larger sense of the term; in the first because conquest was the Turk's only trade—he desired to live out of taxes wrung from a conquered people, to exploit them as a means of livelihood, and this conception was at the root of most of Turkish misgovernment. And in the larger sense its cause is economic because in the Balkans, remote geographically from the main drift of European economic development, there has not grown up that interdependent social life, the innumerable contacts which in the rest of Europe have done so much to attenuate primitive religious and racial hatreds.
(7) A better understanding by the Turk of the real nature of civilized government, of the economic futility of conquest, of the fact that a means of livelihood (an economic system) based upon having more force than someone else and using it ruthlessly against him is an impossible form of human relationship bound to break down, would have kept the peace.
(8) If European statecraft had not been animated by false conceptions, largely economic in origin, based upon a belief in the necessary rivalry of states, the advantages of preponderant force and conquest, the Western nations could have composed their quarrels and ended the abominations of the Balkan peninsula long ago—even in the opinion of the Times. And it is our own false statecraft—that of Great Britain—which has a large part of the responsibility for this failure of European civilization. It has caused us to sustain the Turk in Europe, to fight a great and popular war with that aim, and led us into treaties which, had they been kept, would have obliged us to fight to-day on the side of the Turk against the Balkan States.
(9) If by "theories" and "logic" is meant the discussion of and interest in principles, the ideas that govern human relationship, they are the only things that can prevent future wars, just as they were the only things that brought religious wars to an end—a preponderant power "imposing" peace playing no rôle therein. Just as it was false religious theories which made the religious wars, so it is false political theories which make the political wars.
(10) War is only inevitable in the sense that other forms of error and passion—religious persecution for instance—are inevitable; they cease with better understanding, as the attempt to impose religious belief by force has ceased in Europe.
(11) We should not prepare for war; we should prepare to prevent war; and though that preparation may include battleships and conscription, those elements will quite obviously make the tension and danger greater unless there is also a better European opinion.
These summarized replies need a little expansion.
Had we thrashed out the question of war and peace as we must finally, it would hardly be necessary to explain that the apparent paradox in Answer No. 4 (that war is futile, and that this war will have immense benefits) is due to the inadequacy of our language, which compels us to use the same word for two opposed purposes, not to any real contradiction of fact.
We called the condition of the Balkan peninsula "Peace" until the attack was made on Turkey merely because the respective Ambassadors still happened to be resident in the capitals to which they were accredited.
Let us see what "Peace" under Turkish rule really meant and who is the real invader in this war. Here is a very friendly and impartial witness—Sir Charles Elliot—who paints for us the character of the Turk as an "administrator":
The Turk in Europe has an overweening sense of his superiority, and remains a nation apart, mixing little with the conquered populations, whose customs and ideas he tolerates, but makes little effort to understand. The expression, indeed, "Turkey in Europe" means indeed no more than "England in Asia," if used as a designation for India.... The Turks have done little to assimilate the people whom they have conquered, and still less, been assimilated by them. In the larger part of the Turkish dominions, the Turks themselves are in a minority.... The Turks certainly resent the dismemberment of their Empire, but not in the sense in which the French resent the conquest of Alsace-Lorraine by Germany. They would never use the word "Turkey" or even its oriental equivalent, "The High Country" in ordinary conversation. They would never say that Syria and Greece are parts of Turkey which have been detached, but merely that they are tributaries which have become independent, provinces once occupied by Turks where there are no Turks now. As soon as a province passes under another Government, the Turks find it the most natural thing in the world to leave it and go somewhere else. In the same spirit the Turk talks quite pleasantly of leaving Constantinople some day, he will go over to Asia and found another capital. One can hardly imagine Englishmen speaking like that of London, but they might conceivably speak so of Calcutta.... The Turk is a conqueror and nothing else. The history of the Turk is a catalogue of battles. His contributions to art, literature, science, and religion, are practically nil. Their desire has not been to instruct, to improve, hardly even to govern, but simply to conquer.... The Turk makes nothing at all; he takes whatever he can get, as plunder or pillage. He lives in the houses which he finds, or which he orders to be built for him. In unfavorable circumstances he is a marauder. In favorable, a Grand Seigneur who thinks it his right to enjoy with grace and dignity all that the world can hold, but who will not lower himself by engaging in art, literature, trade, or manufacture. Why should he, when there are other people to do these things for him. Indeed, it may be said that he takes from others even his religion, clothes, language, customs; there is hardly anything which is Turkish and not borrowed. The religion is Arabic; the language half Arabic and Persian; the literature almost entirely imitative; the art Persian or Byzantine; the costumes, in the Upper Classes and Army mostly European. There is nothing characteristic in manufacture or commerce, except an aversion to such pursuits. In fact, all occupations, except agriculture and military service are distasteful to the true Osmanli. He is not much of a merchant. He may keep a stall in a bazaar, but his operations are rarely undertaken on a scale which merits the name of commerce or finance. It is strange to observe how, when trade becomes active in any seaport, or upon the railway lines, the Osmanli retires and disappears, while Greeks, Armenians, and Levantines thrive in his place. Neither does he much affect law, medicine or the learned professions. Such callings are followed by Moslems but they are apt to be of non-Turkish race. But though he does none of these things ... the Turk is a soldier. The moment a sword or rifle is put into his hands, he instinctively knows how to use it with effect, and feels at home in the ranks or on a horse. The Turkish Army is not so much a profession or an institution necessitated by the fears and aims of the Government as the quite normal state of the Turkish nation.... Every Turk is a born soldier, and adopts other pursuits chiefly because times are bad. When there is a question of fighting, if only in a riot, the stolid peasant wakes up and shows surprising power of finding organization and expedients, and alas! a surprising ferocity. The ordinary Turk is an honest and good-humored soul, kind to children and animals, and very patient; but when the fighting spirit comes on him, he becomes like the terrible warriors of the Huns or Genghis Khan, and slays, burns, and ravages without mercy or discrimination.[122]
Such is the verdict of an instructed, travelled, and observant English author and diplomatist, who lived among these people for many years and who learned to like them, who studied them and their history. It does not differ, of course, appreciably, from what practically every student of the Turk has discovered: the Turk is the typical conqueror. His nation has lived by the sword and to-day he is dying by the sword, because the sword, the mere exercise of force by one man or group of men upon another, conquest in other words, is an impossible form of human relationship.
In order to maintain this evil form of relationship—its evil and futility constitute the whole basis of the principles I have attempted to illustrate—he has not even observed the rough chivalry of the brigand. The brigand, though he might knock men on the head, will refrain from having his force take the form of butchering women and disembowelling children. Not so the Turk. His attempt at Government will take the form of the obscene torture of children, of a bestial ferocity which is not a matter of dispute or exaggeration, but a thing to which scores, hundreds, thousands even of credible European witnesses have testified. "The finest gentleman, sir, that ever butchered a woman or burned a village," is the phrase that Punch most justly puts into the mouth of the defender of our traditional Turcophil policy.
This condition is "Peace" and the act which would put a stop to it is "War"! It is the inexactitude and inadequacy of our language which create much of the confusion of thought in this matter; we have the same term for action destined to achieve a given end and for counter-action destined to prevent it.
Yet we manage in other than the international field, in civil matters, to make the thing clear enough.
Once an American town was set on fire by incendiaries and was threatened with destruction. In order to save at least a part of it the authorities deliberately burned down a block of buildings in the pathway of the fire. Would those incendiaries be entitled to say that the town authorities were incendiaries also and "believed in setting fire to towns"? Yet this is precisely the point of view of those who tax Pacifists with approving war because they approve the measure aimed at bringing it to an end.
Put it another way. You do not believe that force should determine the transfer of property or conformity to a creed, and I say to you: "Hand me your purse and conform to my creed or I kill you." You say: "Because I do not believe that force should settle these matters, I shall try to prevent it settling them; therefore if you attack I shall resist; if I did not I should be allowing force to settle them." I attack; you resist and disarm me and say: "My force having neutralized yours and, the equilibrium being now established, I will hear any reasons you may have to urge for my paying you money or any argument in favor of your creed. Reason, understanding, adjustment shall settle it." You would be a Pacifist. Or, if you deem that that word connotes non-resistance, though to the immense bulk of Pacifists it does not, you would be an Anti-bellicist, to use a dreadful word coined by M. Emile Faguet in the discussion of this matter. If however you said: "Having disarmed you and established the equilibrium, I shall now upset it in my favor by taking your weapon and using it against you unless you hand me your purse and subscribe to my creed. I do this because force alone can determine issues and because it is a law of life that the strong should eat up the weak," you would then be a Bellicist.
In the same way, when we prevent the brigand from carrying on his trade—taking wealth by force—it is not because we believe in force as a means of livelihood, but precisely because we do not. And if, in preventing the brigand from knocking out brains, we are compelled to knock out his brains, is it because we believe in knocking out people's brains? Or would we urge that to do so is the way to carry on a trade or to govern a nation or that it could be the basis of human relationship?
In every civilized country, the basis of the relationship on which the community rests is this: no individual is allowed to settle his differences with another by force. But does this mean that if one threatens to take my purse, I am not allowed to use force to prevent it? That if he threatens to kill me, I am not to defend myself, because "the individual citizens are not allowed to settle their differences by force"? It is because of that, because the act of self-defence is an attempt to prevent the settlement of a difference by force, that the law justifies it.[123]
But the law would not justify me if, having disarmed my opponent, having neutralized his force by my own and re-established the social equilibrium, I immediately proceeded to upset it by asking him for his purse on pain of murder. I should then be settling the matter by force—I should then have ceased to be a Pacifist and have become a Bellicist.
For that is the difference between the two conceptions; the Bellicist says: "Force alone can settle these matters; it is the final appeal, therefore fight it out; let the best man win. When you have preponderant strength, impose your view; force the other man to your will; not because it is right, but because you are able to do so." It is the "excellent policy" which Lord Roberts attributes to Germany and approves.
We Anti-bellicists take an exactly contrary view. We say: "To fight it out settles nothing, since it is not a question of who is stronger, but of whose view is best and, as that is not always easy to establish, it is of the utmost importance in the interest of all parties, in the long run, to keep force out of it."
The former is the policy of the Turks. They have been obsessed with the idea that, if only they had enough of physical force ruthlessly exercised, they could solve the whole question of government, of existence for that matter, without troubling about social adjustment, understanding, equity, law, commerce; that "blood and iron" were all that was needed. The success of that policy can now be judged.
Good or evil will come of the present war according as the Balkan States are on the whole guided by the Bellicist or by the opposed principle. If, having now momentarily eliminated force as between themselves, they re-introduce it; if the strongest, presumably Bulgaria,[124] adopts Lord Roberts's "excellent policy" of striking because she has the preponderant force, enters upon a career of conquest of other members of the Balkan League and of the populations of the conquered territories and uses them for exploitation by military force—why then there will be no settlement and this war will have accomplished nothing save futile waste and slaughter. For they will have taken under a new flag, the pathway of the Turk to savagery, degeneration, death.
If on the other hand they are guided more by the Pacifist principle, if they believe that co-operation among States is better than conflict, if they believe that the common interest of all in good Government is greater than the special interest of anyone in conquest, that the understanding of human relationships, the capacity for the organization of society are the means by which men progress and not the imposition of force by one man or group upon another, why, they will have taken the pathway to better civilization. But then they will have disregarded Lord Roberts's advice.
This distinction between the two systems, far from being a matter of abstract theory of metaphysics or logic-chopping, is just the difference which distinguishes the Anglo-Saxon from the Turk, which distinguishes America from Turkey. The Turk has as much physical vigor as the American, is as virile, manly, and military. The Turk has the same raw materials of Nature, soil, and water. There is no difference in the capacity for the exercise of physical force—or if there is, the difference is in favor of the Turk. The real difference is a difference of ideas, of mind, outlook on the part of the individuals composing the respective societies; the Turk has one general conception of human society and the code and principles upon which it is founded, mainly a Militarist one; the American has another, mainly a Pacifist one. And whether the European society as a whole is to drift towards the Turkish ideal or towards the Anglo-Saxon ideal will depend upon whether it is animated mainly by the Pacifist or mainly by the Bellicist doctrine; if the former, it will stagger blindly like the Turk along the path to barbarism; if the latter, it will take a better road.
In dealing with answer No. 4 I have shown how the ambiguity of terms[125] used leads us so much astray in our notions of the real rôle of force in human relationships. But there is a curious phenomenon of thought which explains perhaps still more how misconceptions grow up on this subject and that is the habit of thinking of a war which, of course, must include two parties in terms solely of one party at a time. Thus one critic[126] is quite sure that because the Balkan peoples "recked nothing of financial disaster," economic considerations have had nothing to do with their war—a conclusion which seems to be arrived at by the process of judgment just indicated: to find the cause of conditions produced by two parties you shall rigorously ignore one. For there is a great deal of internal evidence for believing that the writer of the article in question would admit very readily that the efforts of the Turk to wring taxes out of the conquered peoples—not in return for a civilized administration, but simply as the means of livelihood, of turning conquest into a trade—had a very great deal to do in explaining the Turk's presence there at all and the Christian's desire to get rid of him; while the same article specifically states that the mutual jealousies of the great Powers, based on a desire to "grab" (an economic motive), had a great deal to do with preventing a peaceful settlement of the difficulties. Yet "economics" have nothing to do with it!
I have attempted elsewhere to make these two points—that it is on the one hand the false economics of the Turks and on the other hand the false economics of the Powers of Europe, coloring the policy and statecraft of both, which have played an enormous, in all human probability, a determining rôle in the immediate cause of the war; and, of course, a further and more remote cause of the whole difficulty is the fact that the Balkan peoples, never having been subjected to the discipline of that complex social life which arises from trade and commerce have not, or at least not so completely, outgrown those primitive racial and religious hostilities which at one time in Europe as a whole provoked conflicts like that now raging in the Balkans. The following article which appeared[127] at the outbreak of the war may summarise some of the points with which we have been dealing:—
"Polite and good-natured people think it rude to say 'Balkans' if a Pacifist be present. Yet I never understood why, and I understand now less than ever. It carries the implication that because war has broken out that fact disposes of all objection to it. The armies are at grips, therefore peace is a mistake. Passion reigns in the Balkans, therefore passion is preferable to reason.
"I suppose cannibalism and infanticide, polygamy, judicial torture, religious persecution, witchcraft, during all the years we did these 'inevitable' things, were defended in the same way, and those who resented all criticism of them pointed in triumph to the cannibal feast, the dead child, the maimed witness, the slain heretic, or the burned witch. But the fact did not prove the wisdom of those habits, still less their inevitability; for we have them no more.
"We are all agreed as to the fundamental cause of the Balkan trouble: the hate born of religious, racial, national, and linguistic differences; the attempt of an alien conqueror to live parasitically upon the conquered, and the desire of conqueror and conquered alike to satisfy in massacre and bloodshed the rancor of fanaticism and hatred.
"Well, in these islands, not so very long ago, those things were causes of bloodshed; indeed, they were a common feature of European life. But if they are inevitable in human relationship, how comes it that Adana is no longer duplicated by St. Bartholomew; the Bulgarian bands by the vendetta of the Highlander and the Lowlander; the struggle of the Slav and Turk, Serb and Bulgar, by that of Scots and English, and English and Welsh? The fanaticism of the Moslem to-day is no more intense than that of Catholic and heretic in Rome, Madrid, Paris, and Geneva at a time which is only separated from us by the lives of three or four elderly men. The heretic or infidel was then in Europe also a thing unclean and horrifying, exciting in the mind of the orthodox a sincere and honest hatred and a (very largely satisfied) desire to kill. The Catholic of the 16th century was apt to tell you that he could not sit at table with a heretic because the latter carried with him a distinctive and overpoweringly repulsive odor. If you would measure the distance Europe has travelled, think what this means: all the nations of Christendom united in a war lasting 200 years for the capture of the Holy Sepulchre; and yet, when in our day their representatives, seated round a table, could have had it for the asking, they did not deem it worth the asking, so little of the ancient passion was there left. The very nature of man seemed to be transformed. For, wonderful though it be that orthodox should cease killing heretic, infinitely more wonderful still is it that he should cease wanting to kill him.
"Just as most of us are certain that the underlying causes of this conflict are 'inevitable' and 'inherent in unchanging human nature,' so are we certain that so un-human a thing as economics can have no bearing on it.
"Well, I will suggest that the transformation of the heretic-hating and heretic-killing European is due mainly to economic forces; that it is because the drift of those forces has to so great a degree left the Balkans, where until yesterday the people lived a life little different from that which they lived in the time of Abraham, unaffected that war is now raging; that economic factors of a more immediate kind form a large part of the provoking cause of that war; and that a better comprehension by great nations of Europe of certain economic facts of their international relationship is essential before much progress towards solution can be made.
"But then by 'economics' of course I mean, not a merchant's profit or a money-lender's interest, but the method by which men earn their bread, which must also mean the kind of life they lead.
"We generally think of the primitive life of man—that of the herdsman or the tent liver—as something idyllic. The picture is as far as possible from the truth. Those into whose lives economics do not enter, or enter very little—that is to say, those who, like the Congo cannibal, or the Red Indian, or the Bedouin, do not cultivate, or divide their labor, or trade, or save, or look to the future, have shed little of the primitive passions of other animals of prey, the tigers and the wolves, who have no economics at all, and have no need to check an impulse or a hate. But industry, even of the more primitive kind, means that men must divide their labor, which means that they must put some sort of reliance upon one another; the thing of prey becomes a partner, and the attitude towards it changes. And as this life becomes more complex, as the daily needs and desires push men to trade and barter, that means building up a social organization, rules and codes and courts to enforce them; as the interdependence widens and deepens it necessarily means the cessation of certain hostilities. If the neighboring tribe wants to trade with you it must not kill you; if you want the services of the heretic you must not kill him, you must keep your obligation towards him, and mutual good faith is death to long-sustained hatreds.
"You cannot separate the moral from the social and economic development of a people. The great service of a complex social and industrial organization, which is built up by the desire of men for better material conditions, is not that it 'pays,' but that it makes a more interdependent human society, and that it leads men to recognize what is the best relationship among them. The fact of recognizing that some act of aggression is causing stocks to fall is not important because it may save Oppenheim's or Solomon's money but because it is a demonstration that we are dependent upon some community on the other side of the world, that their damage is our damage, and that we have an interest in preventing it. It teaches us, as only some such simple and mechanical means can teach, the lesson of human fellowship.
"It is by such means as this that Western Europe has in some measure, within its respective political frontiers, learned that lesson. Each nation has learned, within its own confines at least, that wealth is made by work, not robbery; that, indeed, general robbery is fatal to prosperity; that government consists not merely in having the power of the sword but in organizing society—in 'knowing how,' which means the development of ideas; in maintaining courts; in making it possible to run railways, post-offices, and all the contrivances of a complex society.
"Now rulers did not create these things; it was the daily activities of the people, born of their desires and made possible by the circumstances in which they lived, by the trading and the mining and the shipping which they carried on, that made them. But the Balkans have been geographically outside the influence of European industrial and commercial life. The Turk has hardly felt it at all. He has learned none of the social and moral lessons which interdependence and improved communications have taught the Western European, and it is because he had not learned these lessons, because he is a soldier and a conqueror to an extent and completeness that other nations of Europe lost a generation or two since, that the Balkanese are fighting and that war is raging.
"Not merely in this larger sense, but in the more immediate, narrower sense, are the fundamental causes of this war economic.
"This war arises, as the past wars against the Turkish conqueror have arisen, from the desire of the Christian peoples on whom he lives to shake off this burden. "To live upon their subjects is the Turks' only means of livelihood," says one authority. The Turk is an economic parasite and the healthy economic organism must end by rejecting him.
"The management of society, simple and primitive even as that of the Balkan mountains, needs some effort and work and capacity for administration; otherwise even rudimentary economic life cannot be carried on. The Turkish system, founded on the sword and nothing else ('the finest soldier in Europe'), cannot give that small modicum of energy or administrative capacity. The one thing he knows is brute force; but it is not by the strength of his muscles that an engineer runs a machine, but by knowing how. The Turk cannot build a road or make a bridge or administer a post-office or found a court of law. And these things are necessary. He will not let them be done by the Christian, who, because he did not belong to the conquering class, has had to work and has consequently come to possess whatever capacity for work and administration the country can show, because to do so would be to threaten the Turk's only trade. In the Turk granted the Christians equal political rights they would inevitably 'run the country.' And yet the Turk himself cannot do it; and he will not let others do it, because to do so would be to threaten his supremacy.
"The more the use of force fails, the more, of course, does he resort to it and that is why many of us who do not believe in force and desire to see it disappear from the relationship not merely of religious but of political groups, might conceivably welcome this war of the Balkan Christians, in so far as it is an attempt to resist the use of force in those relationships. Of course, I do not try to estimate the 'balance of criminality.' Right is not all on one side—it never is. But the broad issue is clear and plain. And only those concerned with the name rather than the thing, with nominal and verbal consistency rather than realities, will see anything paradoxical or contradictory in Pacifist approval of Christian resistance to the use of Turkish force.
"One fact stands out incontrovertibly from the whole weary muddle. It is quite clear that the inability to act in concert arises from the fact that in the international sphere the European is still dominated by illusions which he has dropped when he deals with home politics. The political faith of the Turk, which he would never think of applying at home as among the individuals of his nation, he applies pure and unalloyed when he comes to deal with foreigners as nations. The economic conception—using the term in that wider sense which I have indicated earlier in this article—which guides his individual conduct is the antithesis of that which guides his national conduct.
"While the Christian does not believe in robbery inside the frontier, he does without; while within the State he realizes that it is better for each to observe the general code, so that civilized society can exist, than for each to disregard it, so that society goes to pieces; while within the State he realizes that government is a matter of administration, not the seizure of property; that one town does not add to its wealth by 'capturing' another, that indeed one community cannot 'own' another—while, I say, he believes all these things in his daily life at home, he disregards them all when he comes to the field of international relationship, la haute politique. To annex some province by a cynical breach of treaty obligation (Austria in Bosnia, Italy in Tripoli) is regarded as better politics than to act loyally with the community of nations to enforce their common interest in order and good government. In fact, we do not believe that there can be a community of nations, because, in fact, we do not believe that their interests are common, but rival; like the Turk, we believe that if you do not exercise force upon your 'rival' he will exercise it upon you; that nations live upon one another, not by co-operation with one another—and it is for this reason presumably that you must 'own' as much of your neighbors as possible. It is the Turkish conception from beginning to end.
"It is because these false beliefs prevent the nations of Christendom acting loyally the one to the other, because each is playing for its own hand, that the Turk, with hint of some sordid bribe, has been able to play off each against the other.
"This is the crux of the matter. When Europe can honestly act in common on behalf of common interests some solution can be found. And the capacity of Europe to act in harmony will not be found as long as the accepted doctrines of European statecraft remain unchanged, as long as they are dominated by existing illusions."
FOOTNOTES:
[1] "The True Way of Life" (Headley Brothers, London), p. 29. I am aware that many modern pacifists, even of the English school, to which these remarks mainly apply, are more objective in their advocacy than Mr. Grubb, but in the eyes of the "average sensual man" pacificism is still deeply tainted with this self-sacrificing altruism (see Chapter III., Part III.), notwithstanding the admirable work of the French pacifist school.
[2] The Matin newspaper recently made a series of revelations, in which it was shown that the master of a French cod-fishing vessel had, for some trivial insubordinations, disembowelled his cabin-boy alive, and put salt into the intestines, and then thrown the quivering body into the hold with the cod-fish. So inured were the crew to brutality that they did not effectively protest, and the incident was only brought to light months later by wine-shop chatter. The Matin quotes this as the sort of brutality that marks the Newfoundland cod-fishing industry in French ships.
Again, the German Socialist papers have recently been dealing with what they term "The Casualties of the Industrial Battlefield," showing that the losses from industrial accidents since 1871—the loss of life during peace, that is—have been enormously greater than the losses due to the Franco-Prussian War.
[3] "The Interest of America in International Conditions." New York: Harper & Brothers.
[4] That is to say, all this was to have taken place before 1911 (the book appeared some years ago). This has its counterpart in the English newspaper feuilleton which appeared some years ago entitled, "The German Invasion of 1910."
[5] See letter to the Matin, August 22, 1908.
[6] In this self-seeking world, it is not reasonable to assume the existence of an inverted altruism of this kind.
[7] This is not the only basis of comparison, of course. Everyone who knows Europe at all is aware of the high standard of comfort in all the small countries—Scandinavia, Holland, Belgium, Switzerland. Mulhall, in "Industries and Wealth of Nations" (p. 391), puts the small States of Europe with France and England at the top of the list, Germany sixth, and Russia, territorially and militarily the greatest of all, at the very end. Dr. Bertillon, the French statistician, has made an elaborate calculation of the relative wealth of the individuals of each country. The middle-aged German possesses (on the established average) nine thousand francs ($1800); the Hollander sixteen thousand ($3200). (See Journal, Paris, August 1, 1910).
[8] The figures given in the "Statesman's Year-Book" show that, proportionately to population, Norway has nearly three times the carrying trade of England.
[9] See citation, pp. 14-15.
[10] Major Stewart Murray, "Future Peace of the Anglo-Saxons." London: Watts and Co.
[11] L'Information, August 22, 1909.
[12] Very many times greater, because the bullion reserve in the Bank of England is relatively small.
[13] Hartley Withers, "The Meaning of Money." Smith, Elder and Co., London.
[14] See pp. 75-76.
[15] See note concerning French colonial policy, pp. 122-124.
[16] Summarizing an article in the Oriental Economic Review, the San Francisco Bulletin says: "Japan at this moment seems to be finding out that 'conquered' Korea in every real sense belongs to the Koreans, and that all that Japan is getting out of her war is an additional burden of statesmanship and an additional expense of administration, and an increased percentage of international complication due to the extension of the Japanese frontier dangerously close to her Continental rivals, China and Russia. Japan as 'owner' of Korea is in a worse position economically and politically than she was when she was compelled to treat with Korea as an independent nation." The Oriental Economic Review notes that "the Japanese hope to ameliorate the Korean situation through the general intermarriage of the two peoples; but this means a racial advance, and through it closer social and economic relations than were possible before annexation, and would probably have been easier of accomplishment had not the destruction of Korean independence embittered the people."
[17] Spanish Four per Cents. were 42½ during the war, and just prior to the Moroccan trouble, in 1911, had a free market at 90 per cent.
F.C. Penfold writes in the December (1910) North American Review as follows: "The new Spain, whose motive force springs not from the windmills of dreamy fiction, but from honest toil, is materially better off this year than it has been for generations. Since the war Spanish bonds have practically doubled in value, and exchange with foreign money markets has improved in corresponding ratio. Spanish seaports on the Atlantic and Mediterranean teem with shipping. Indeed, the nature of the people seems changing from a dolce far niente indolence to enterprising thrift."
[18] London Daily Mail, December 15, 1910.
[19] "Traité de Science des Finances," vol. ii., p. 682.
[20] "Die Wirtschafts Finanz und Sozialreform im Deutschen Reich." Leipzig, 1882.
[21] "La Crise Économique," Revue des Deux Mondes, March 15, 1879.
[22] Maurice Block, "La Crise Économique," Revue des Deux Mondes, March 15, 1879. See also "Les Conséquences Économiques de la Prochaine Guerre," Captaine Bernard Serrigny. Paris, 1909. The author says (p. 127): "It was evidently the disastrous financial position of Germany, which had compelled Prussia at the outbreak of the war to borrow money at the unheard-of price of 11 per cent., that caused Bismarck to make the indemnity so large a one. He hoped thus to repair his country's financial situation. Events cruelly deceived him, however. A few months after the last payment of the indemnity the gold despatched by France had already returned to her territory, while Germany, poorer than ever, was at grips with a crisis which was to a large extent the direct result of her temporary wealth."
[23] "Das Deutsche Reich zur Zeit Bismarcks."
[24] The figures of German emigration are most suggestive in this connection. Although they show great fluctuation, indicating their reaction to many factors, they always appear to rise after the wars. Thus, after the wars of the Duchies they doubled, for the five years preceding the campaigns of 1865 they averaged 41,000, and after those campaigns rose suddenly to over 100,000. They had fallen to 70,000 in 1869, and then rose to 154,000 in 1872, and what is more remarkable still, the emigration did not come from the conquered provinces, from Schleswig-Holstein, Alsace or Lorraine, but from Prussia! While not for a moment claiming that the effect of the wars is the sole factor in this fluctuation, the fact of emigration as bearing on the general claim made for successful war demands the most careful examination. See particularly, "L'Émigration Allemande," Revue des Deux Mondes, January, 1874.
[25] The Montreal Presse, March 27, 1909.
[26] Speech, House of Commons, August 26, 1909. The New York papers of November 16, 1909, report the following from Sir Wilfrid Laurier in the Dominion Parliament during the debate on the Canadian Navy: "If now we have to organize a naval force, it is because we are growing as a nation—it is the penalty of being a nation. I know of no nation having a sea-coast of its own which has no navy, except Norway, but Norway will never tempt the invader. Canada has its coal-mines, its gold-mines, its wheat-fields, and its vast wealth may offer a temptation to the invader."
[27] The recent tariff negotiations between Canada and the United States were carried on directly between Ottawa and Washington, without the intervention of London. Canada regularly conducts her tariff negotiations, even with other members of the British Empire. South Africa takes a like attitude. The Volkstein of July 10, 1911, says: "The Union constitution is in full accord with the principle that neutrality is permissible in the case of a war in which England and other independent States of the Empire are involved.... England, as well as South Africa, would best be served by South Africa's neutrality" (quoted in Times, July 11, 1911). Note the phrase "independent States of the Empire."
[28] Times, November 7, 1911.
[29] The London World, an Imperialist organ, puts it thus: "The electoral process of reversing the results of the war is completed in South Africa. By the result of last week's contests Mr. Merriman has secured a strong working majority in both Houses. The triumph of the Bond at Cape Town is no less sweeping than was that of Het Volk at Pretoria. The three territories upon which the future of the subcontinent depends are linked together under Boer supremacy ... the future federated or uniformed system will be raised upon a Dutch basis. If this was what we wanted, we might have bought it cheaper than with two hundred and fifty millions of money and twenty thousand lives."
[30] A Bill has been introduced into the Indian Legislative Council enabling the Government to prohibit emigration to any country where the treatment accorded to British Indian subjects was not such as met with the approval of the Governor-General. "As just treatment for free Indians has not been secured," says the London Times, "prohibition will undoubtedly be applied against Natal unless the position of free Indians there is ameliorated."
[31] Britain's total overseas trade for 1908 was $5,245,000,000, of which $3,920,000,000 was with foreigners, and $1,325,000,000 with her own possessions. And while it is true that with some of her Colonies Britain has as much as 52 per cent. of their trade—e.g., Australia—it also happens that some absolutely foreign countries do a greater percentage even of their trade with Britain than do her Colonies. Britain possesses 38 per cent. of Argentina's foreign trade, but only 36 per cent. of Canada's, although Canada has recently given her a considerable preference.
[32] West Africa and Madagascar.
[33] It is a little encouraging, perhaps, for those of us who are doing what we may towards the dissemination of saner ideas, that an early edition of this book seems to have played some part in bringing about the change in French colonial policy here indicated. The French Colonial Ministry, for the purpose of emphasizing the point of view mentioned in Le Temps article, on two or three occasions called pointed attention to the first French edition of this book. In the official report of the Colonial Budget for 1911, a large part of this chapter is reprinted. In the Senate (see Journal Officiel de la République Française, July 2, 1911) the Rapporteur again quoted from this book at length, and devoted a great part of his speech towards emphasizing the thesis here set out.
[34] A financier to whom I showed the proofs of this chapter notes here: "If such a tax were imposed the output would be nil."
[35] A correspondent sent me some interesting and significant details of the rapid strides made by Germany in Egypt. It had already been stated that a German newspaper would appear in October, 1910, and that the official notices of the mixed courts have been transferred from the local French newspapers to the German Egyptischer Nachrichten. During the years 1897-1907, German residents in Egypt increased by 44 per cent., while British residents increased by only 5 per cent. Germany's share of the Egyptian imports during the period 1900-1904 was $3,443,880, but by 1909 this figure reached $5,786,355. The latest German undertaking in Egypt was the foundation of the Egyptische Hypotheken Bank, in which all the principal joint-stock banks of Germany were interested. Its capital was to be $2,500,000 and the six directors included three Germans, one Austrian, and two Italians.
Writing of "Home Sickness among the Emigrants" (the London World, July 19, 1910), Mr. F.G. Aflalo said:
"The Germans are, of all nations, the least troubled with this weakness. Though far more warmly attached to the hearth than their neighbors across the Rhine, they feel exile less. Their one idea is to evade conscription, and this offers to all continental nations a compensation for exile, which to the Englishman means nothing. I remember a colony of German fishermen on Lake Tahoe, the loveliest water in California, where the pines of the Sierra Nevada must have vividly recalled their native Harz. Yet they rejoiced in the freedom of their adopted country, and never knew a moment's regret for the Fatherland."
[36] According to a recent estimate, the Germans in Brazil now number some four hundred thousand, the great majority being settled in the southern states of Rio Grande do Sul, Paraná, and Santa Catharina, while a small number are found in Sao Paulo and Espirito Santo in the north. This population is, for the most part, the result of natural increase, for of late years emigration thither has greatly declined.
In Near Asia, too, German colonization is by no means of recent origin. There are in Transcaucasia agricultural settlements established by Würtemberg farmers, whose descendants in the third generation live in their own villages and still speak their native language. In Palestine, there are the German Templar Colonies on the coast, which have prospered so well as to excite the resentment of the natives.
[37] London Morning Post, February 1, 1912.
[38] North American Review, March, 1912. See also citation, p. 15.
[39] April, 1912.
[40] "Germany and the Next War," by Gen. Friedrich von Bernhardi. London: Edwin Arnold, 1912.
[41] See, notably, the article from Admiral Mahan, "The Place of Power in International Relations," in the North American Review for January, 1912; and such books of Professor Wilkinson's as "The Great Alternative," "Britain at Bay," "War and Policy."
[42] "The Valor of Ignorance." Harpers.
[43] For an expression of these views in a more definite form, see Ratzenhofer's "Die Sociologische Erkenntniss," pp. 233, 234. Leipzig: Brockhaus, 1898.
[44] Speech at Stationer's Hall, London, June 6, 1910.
[45] "The Strenuous Life." Century Co.
[46] McClure's Magazine, August, 1910.
[47] Thomas Hughes, in his preface to the first English edition of "The Bigelow Papers," refers to the opponents of the Crimean War as a "vain and mischievous clique, who amongst us have raised the cry of peace." See also Mr. J.A. Hobson's "Psychology of Jingoism," p. 52. London: Grant Richards.
[48] North American Review, March, 1912.
[49] "The Interest of America in International Conditions." New York: Harper & Brothers.
[50] It is related by Critchfield, in his work on the South American Republics, that during all the welter of blood and disorder which for a century or more marked the history of those countries, the Roman Catholic priesthood on the whole maintained a high standard of life and character, and continued, against all discouragement, to preach consistently the beauties of peace and order. However much one may be touched by such a spectacle, and pay the tribute of one's admiration to these good men, one cannot but feel that the preaching of these high ideals did not have any very immediate effect on the social progress of South America. What has effected this change? It is that those countries have been brought into the economic current of the world; the bank and factory and railroad have introduced factors and motives of a quite different order from those urged by the priest, and are slowly winning those countries from military adventure to honest work, a thing which the preaching of high ideals failed to do.
[51] "To-day and To-morrow," p. 63. John Murray.
[52] Since the publication of the first edition of this book there has appeared in France an admirable work by M.J. Novikow, "Le Darwinisme Social" (Felix Alcan, Paris), in which this application of the Darwinian theory to sociology is discussed with great ability, and at great length and in full detail, and the biological presentation of the case, as just outlined, has been inspired in no small part by M. Novikow's work. M. Novikow has established in biological terms what, previous to the publication of his book, I attempted to establish in economic terms.
[53] Co-operation does not exclude competition. If a rival beats me in business, it is because he furnishes more efficient co-operation than I do; if a thief steals from me, he is not co-operating at all, and if he steals much will prevent my co-operation. The organism (society) has every interest in encouraging the competitor and suppressing the parasite.
[54] Without going to the somewhat obscure analogies of biological science, it is evident from the simple facts of the world that, if at any stage of human development warfare ever did make for the survival of the fit, we have long since passed out of that stage. When we conquer a nation in these days, we do not exterminate it: we leave it where it was. When we "overcome" the servile races, far from eliminating them, we give them added chances of life by introducing order, etc., so that the lower human quality tends to be perpetuated by conquest by the higher. If ever it happens that the Asiatic races challenge the white in the industrial or military field, it will be in large part thanks to the work of race conservation, which has been the result of England's conquest in India, Egypt, and Asia generally, and her action in China when she imposed commerical contact on the Chinese by virtue of military power. War between people of roughly equal development makes also for the survival of the unfit, since we no longer exterminate and massacre a conquered race, but only their best elements (those carrying on the war), and because the conqueror uses up his best elements in the process, so that the less fit of both sides are left to perpetuate the species. Nor do the facts of the modern world lend any support to the theory that preparation for war under modern conditions tends to preserve virility, since those conditions involve an artificial barrack life, a highly mechanical training favorable to the destruction of initiative, and a mechanical uniformity and centralization tending to crush individuality, and to hasten the drift towards a centralized bureaucracy, already too great.
[55] One might doubt, indeed, whether the British patriot has really the feeling against the German that he has against his own countrymen of contrary views. Mr. Leo Maxse, in the National Review for February, 1911, indulges in the following expressions, applied, not to Germans, but to English statesmen elected by a majority of the English people: Mr. Lloyd George is a "fervid Celt animated by passionate hatred of all things English"; Mr. Churchill is simply a "Tammany Hall politician, without, however, a Tammany man's patriotism." Mr. Harcourt belongs to "that particular type of society demagogue who slangs Peers in public and fawns upon them in private." Mr. Leo Maxse suggests that some of the Ministers should be impeached and hanged. Mr. McKenna is Lord Fisher's "poll-parrot," and the House of Commons is the "poisonous Parliament of infamous memory," in which Ministers were supported by a vast posse comitatus of German jackals.
[56] Speech at Stationers' Hall, London, June 6, 1910.
[57] I have in mind here the ridiculous furore that was made by the British Jingo Press over some French cartoons that appeared at the outbreak of the Boer War. It will be remembered that at that time France was the "enemy," and Germany was, on the strength of a speech by Mr. Chamberlain, a quasi-ally. Britain was at that time as warlike towards France as she is now towards Germany. And this is only ten years ago!
[58] In his "History of the Rise and Influence of the Spirit of Rationalism in Europe," Lecky says: "It was no political anxiety about the balance of power, but an intense religious enthusiasm that impelled the inhabitants of Christendom towards the site which was at once the cradle and the symbol of their faith. All interests were then absorbed, all classes were governed, all passions subdued or colored, by religious fervor. National animosities that had raged for centuries were pacified by its power. The intrigues of statesmen and the jealousies of kings disappeared beneath its influence. Nearly two million lives are said to have been sacrificed in the cause. Neglected governments, exhausted finances, depopulated countries, were cheerfully accepted as the price of success. No wars the world had ever before seen were so popular as these, which were at the same time the most disastrous and the most unselfish."
[59] "Be assured," writes St. Augustine, "and doubt not that not only men who have obtained the use of their reason, but also little children who have begun to live in their mother's womb and there died, or who, having been just born, have passed away from the world without the Sacrament of Holy Baptism, must be punished by the eternal torture of undying fire." To make the doctrine clearer, he illustrates it by the case of a mother who has two children. Each of these is but a lump of perdition. Neither has ever performed a moral or immoral act. The mother overlies one, and it perishes unbaptized. It goes to eternal torment. The other is baptized and saved.
[60] This appears sufficiently from the seasons in which, for instance, autos da fé in Spain took place. In the Gallery of Madrid there is a painting by Francisco Rizzi representing the execution, or rather the procession to the stake, of a number of heretics during the fêtes that followed the marriage of Charles II., and before the King, his bride, and the Court and clergy of Madrid. The great square was arranged like a theatre, and thronged with ladies in Court dress. The King sat on an elevated platform, surrounded by the chief members of the aristocracy.
Limborch, in his "History of the Inquisition," relates that among the victims of one auto da fé was a girl of sixteen, whose singular beauty struck all who saw her with admiration. As she passed to the stake she cried to the Queen: "Great Queen, is not your presence able to bring me some comfort under my misery? Consider my youth, and that I am condemned for a religion which I have sucked in with my mother's milk."
[61] Spectator, December 31, 1910.
[62] See quotations, pp. 161-162, from Homer Lea's book, "The Valor of Ignorance."
[63] Thus Captain d'Arbeux ("L'Officier Contemporaine," Grasset, Paris, 1911) laments "la disparition progressive de l'idéal de revanche," a military deterioration which is, he declares, working the country's ruin. The general truth of all this is not affected by the fact that 1911, owing to the Moroccan conflict and other matters, saw a revival of Chauvinism, which is already spending itself. The Matin, December, 1911, remarks: "The number of candidates at St. Cyr and St. Maixent is decreasing to a terrifying degree. It is hardly a fourth of what it was a few years ago.... The profession of arms has no longer the attraction that it had."
[64] "Germany and England," p. 19.
[65] See the first chapter of Mr. Harbutt Dawson's admirable work, "The Evolution of Modern Germany." T. Fisher Unwin, London.
[66] I have excluded the "operations" with the Allies in China. But they only lasted a few weeks. And were they war? This illustration appears in M. Novikow's "Le Darwinisme Social."
[67] The most recent opinion on evolution would go to show that environment plays an even larger rôle in the formation of character than selection (see Prince Kropotkin's article, Nineteenth Century, July, 1910, in which he shows that experiment reveals the direct action of surroundings as the main factor of evolution). How immensely, therefore, must our industrial environment modify the pugnacious impulse of our nature!
[68] See citations, pp. 161-166, notably Mr. Roosevelt's dictum: "In this world the nation that is trained to a career of unwarlike and isolated ease is bound to go down in the end before other nations which have not lost the manly and adventurous qualities." This view is even emphasized in the speech which Mr. Roosevelt recently delivered at the University of Berlin (see London Times, May 13, 1910). "The Roman civilization," declared Mr. Roosevelt—perhaps, as the Times remarks, to the surprise of those who have been taught to believe that latifundia perditere Romam—"went down primarily because the Roman citizen would not fight, because Rome had lost the fighting edge." (See footnote, p. 237.)
[69] "The Valor of Ignorance." Harpers.
[70] See M. Messimy's Report on the War Budget for 1908 (annexe 3, p. 474). The importance of these figures is not generally realized. Astonishing as the assertion may sound, conscription in Germany is not universal, while it is in France. In the latter country every man of every class actually goes through the barracks, and is subjected to the real discipline of military training; the whole training of the nation is purely military. This is not the case in Germany. Very nearly half of the young men of the country are not soldiers. Another important point is that the part of the German nation which makes up the country's intellectual life escapes the barracks. To all practical purposes very nearly all young men of the better class enter the army as one year volunteers, by which they escape more than a few weeks of barracks, and even then escape its worst features. It cannot be too often pointed out that intellectual Germany has never been subjected to real barrack influence. As one critic says: "The German system does not put this class through the mill," and is deliberately designed to save them from the grind of the mill. France's military activities since 1870 have, of course, been much greater than those of Germany—Tonkin, Madagascar, Algeria, Morocco. As against these, Germany has had only the Hereros campaign. The percentages of population given above, in the text, require modification as the Army Laws are modified, but the relative positions in Germany and France remain about the same.
[71] Vox de la Naçión, Caracas, April 22, 1897.
[72] Even Mr. Roosevelt calls South American history mean and bloody. It is noteworthy that, in his article published in the Bachelor of Arts for March, 1896, Mr. Roosevelt, who lectured Englishmen so vigorously on their duty at all costs not to be guided by sentimentalism in the government of Egypt, should write thus at the time of Mr. Cleveland's Venezuelan message to England: "Mean and bloody though the history of the South American republics has been, it is distinctly in the interest of civilization that ... they should be left to develop along their own lines.... Under the best of circumstances, a colony is in a false position; but if a colony is a region where the colonizing race has to do its work by means of other and inferior races, the condition is much worse. There is no chance for any tropical colony owned by a Northern race."
[73] June 2, 1910.
[74] See an article by Mr. Vernon Kellogg in the Atlantic Monthly, July, 1913. Seeley says: "The Roman Empire perished for want of men." One historian of Greece, discussing the end of the Peloponnesian wars, said: "Only cowards remain, and from their broods came the new generations."
Three million men—the élite of Europe—perished in the Napoleonic wars. It is said that after those wars the height standard of the French adult population fell abruptly 1 inch. However that may be, it is quite certain that the physical fitness of the French people was immensely worsened by the drain of the Napoleonic wars, since, as the result of a century of militarism, France is compelled every few years to reduce the standard of physical fitness in order to keep up her military strength, so that now even three-feet dwarfs are impressed.
[75] I think one may say fairly that it was Sydney Smith's wit rather than Bacon's or Bentham's wisdom which killed this curious illusion.
[76] See the distinction established at the beginning of the next chapter.
[77] M. Pierre Loti, who happened to be at Madrid when the troops were leaving to fight the Americans, wrote: "They are, indeed, still the solid and splendid Spanish troops, heroic in every epoch; one needs only to look at them to divine the woe that awaits the American shopkeepers when brought face to face with such soldiers." He prophesied des surprises sanglantes. M. Loti is a member of the French Academy.
[78] See also letter quoted, pp. 230-231.
[79] "Patriotism and Empire." Grant Richards.
[80] "For permanent work the soldier is worse than useless; his whole training tends to make him a weakling. He has the easiest of lives; he has no freedom and no responsibility. He is, politically and socially, a child, with rations instead of rights—treated like a child, punished like a child, dressed prettily and washed and combed like a child, excused for outbreaks of naughtiness like a child, forbidden to marry like a child, and called "Tommy" like a child. He has no real work to keep him from going mad except housemaid's work" ("John Bull's Other Island"). All those familiar with the large body of French literature, dealing with the evils of barrack-life, know how strongly that criticism confirms Mr. Bernard Shaw's generalization.
[81] September 11, 1899.
[82] Things must have reached a pretty pass in England when the owner of the Daily Mail and the patron of Mr. Blatchford can devote a column and a half over his own signature to reproaching in vigorous terms the hysteria and sensationalism, of his own readers.
[83] The Berliner Tageblatt of March 14, 1911, says: "One must admire the consistent fidelity and patriotism of the English race, as compared with the uncertain and erratic methods of the German people, their mistrust, and suspicion. In spite of numerous wars, bloodshed, and disaster, England always emerges smoothly and easily from her military crises and settles down to new conditions and surroundings in her usual cool and deliberate manner.... Nor can one refrain from paying one's tribute to the sound qualities and character of the English aristocracy, which is always open to the ambitious and worthy of other classes, and thus slowly but surely widens the sphere of the middle classes by whom they are in consequence honored and respected—a state of affairs practically unknown in Germany, but which would be to our immense advantage."
[84] "Der Kaiser und die Zukunft des Deutschen Volkes."
[85] See also the confirmatory verdict of Captain March Phillips, quoted on p. 291.
[86] "My Life in the Army," p. 119.
[87] I do not think this last generalization does any injustice to the essay, "Latitude and Longitude among Reformers" ("Strenuous Life," pp. 41-61. The Century Company).
[88] See for further illustration of the difference and its bearing in practical politics Chapter VIII., Part I., "The Fight for the Place in the Sun."
[89] See Chapter VII., Part I.
[90] Aristotle did, however, have a flash of the truth. He said: "If the hammer and the shuttle could move themselves, slavery would be unnecessary."
[91] "Facts and Comments," p. 112.
[92] Buckle ("History of Civilization") points out that Philip II., who ruled half the world and drew tribute from the whole of South America, was so poor that he could not pay his personal servants or meet the daily expenses of the Court!
[93] I mean by credit all the mechanism of exchange which replaces the actual use or metal, or notes representing it.
[94] Lecky ("Rationalism in Europe," p. 76) says: "Protestantism could not possibly have existed without a general diffusion of the Bible, and that diffusion was impossible until after the two inventions of paper and printing.... Before those inventions, pictures and material images were the chief means of religious instruction." And thus religious belief became necessarily material, crude, anthropomorphic.
[95] "Battles are no longer the spectacular heroics of the past. The army of to-day and to-morrow is a sombre gigantic machine devoid of melodramatic heroics ... a machine that it requires years to form in separate parts, years to assemble them together, and other years to make them work smoothly and irresistibly" (Homer Lea in "The Valor of Ignorance," p. 49).
[96] General von Bernhardi, in his work on cavalry, deals with this very question of the bad influence on tactics of the "pomp of war," which he admits must disappear, adding very wisely: "The spirit of tradition consists not in the retention of antiquated forms, but in acting in that spirit which in the past led to such glorious success." The plea for the retention of the soldier because of his "spirit" could not be more neatly disposed of. See p. 111 of the English edition of Bernhardi's work (Hugh Rees, London).
[97] See quotations, pp. 161-166.
[98] The following letter to the Manchester Guardian, which appeared at the time of the Boer War, is worth reproduction in this connection:
"Sir,—I see that 'The Church's Duty in regard to War' is to be discussed at the Church Congress. This is right. For a year the heads of our Church have been telling us what war is and does—that it is a school of character; that it sobers men, cleans them, strengthens them, knits their hearts; makes them brave, patient, humble, tender, prone to self-sacrifice. Watered by 'war's red rain,' one Bishop tells us, virtue grows; a cannonade, he points out, is an 'oratorio'—almost a form of worship. True; and to the Church men look for help to save their souls from starving for lack of this good school, this kindly rain, this sacred music. Congresses are apt to lose themselves in wastes of words. This one must not, surely cannot, so straight is the way to the goal. It has simply to draft and submit a new Collect for war in our time, and to call for the reverent but firm emendation, in the spirit of the best modern thought, of those passages in Bible and Prayer-Book by which even the truest of Christians and the best of men have at times been blinded to the duty of seeking war and ensuing it. Still, man's moral nature cannot, I admit, live by war alone; nor do I say with some that peace is wholly bad. Even amid the horrors of peace you will find little shoots of character fed by the gentle and timely rains of plague and famine, tempest and fire; simple lessons of patience and courage conned in the schools of typhus, gout, and stone; not oratorios, perhaps, but homely anthems and rude hymns played on knife and probe in the long winter nights. Far from me to 'sin our mercies,' or to call mere twilight dark. Yet dark it may become; for remember that even these poor makeshift schools of character, these second-bests, these halting substitutes for war—remember that the efficiency of every one of them, be it hunger, accident, ignorance, sickness, or pain, is menaced by the intolerable strain of its struggles with secular doctors, plumbers, inventors, schoolmasters, and policemen. Every year thousands who would once have been braced and steeled by manly tussles with small-pox or diphtheria are robbed of that blessing by the great changes made in our drains. Every year thousands of women and children must go their way bereft of the rich spiritual experience of the widow and the orphan."
[99] Captain March Phillips, "With Remington." Methuen. See pp. 259-60 for Mr. Blatchford's confirmation of this verdict.
[100] And here as to the officers—again not from me but from a very Imperialist and militarist quarter—the London Spectator (November 25, 1911), says: "Soldiers might be supposed to be free from pettiness because they are men of action. But we all know that there is no profession in which the leaders are more depreciated by one another than in the profession of arms."
[101] Professor William James says: "Greek history is a panorama of war for war's sake ... of the utter ruin of a civilization which in intellectual respects was perhaps the highest the earth has ever seen. The wars were purely piratical. Pride, gold, women, slaves, excitement were their only motives."—McClure's Magazine, August, 1910.
[102] "Britain at Bay." Constable and Co.
[103] See quotation from Sir C.P. Lucas, p. 111-12.
[104] See details on this matter given in Chapter VII., Part I.
[105] London Morning Post, April 21, 1910. I pass over the fact that to cite all this as a reason for armaments is absurd. Does the Morning Post really suggest that the Germans are going to attack England because they don't like the English taste in art, or music, or cooking? The notion that preferences of this sort need the protection of Dreadnoughts is surely to bring the whole thing within the domain of the grotesque.
[106] I refer to the remarkable speech in which Mr. Chamberlain notified France that she must "mend her manners or take the consequences" (see London daily papers between November 28 and December 5, 1899).
[107] Not that a very great period separates us from such methods. Froude quotes Maltby's Report to Government as follows: "I burned all their corn and houses, and committed to the sword all that could be found. In like manner I assailed a castle. When the garrison surrendered, I put them to the misericordia of my soldiers. They were all slain. Thence I went on, sparing none which came in my way, which cruelty did so amaze their fellows that they could not tell where to bestow themselves." Of the commander of the English forces at Munster we read: "He diverted his forces into East Clanwilliam, and harassed the country; killed all mankind that were found therein ... not leaving behind us man or beast, corn or cattle ... sparing none of what quality, age, or sex soever. Beside many burned to death, we killed man, woman, child, horse, or beast or whatever we could find."
[108] In "The Evolution of Modern Germany" (Fisher Unwin, London) the same author says: "Germany implies not one people, but many peoples ... of different culture, different political and social institutions ... diversity of intellectual and economic life.... When the average Englishman speaks of Germany he really means Prussia, and consciously or not he ignores the fact that in but few things can Prussia be regarded as typical of the whole Empire."
[109] "International Law." John Murray, London.
[110] Lord Sanderson, dealing with the development of international intercourse in an address to the Royal Society of Arts (November 15, 1911), said: "The most notable feature of recent international intercourse, he thought, was the great increase in international exhibitions, associations, and conferences of every description and on every conceivable subject. When he first joined the Foreign Office, rather more than fifty years ago, conferences were confined almost entirely to formal diplomatic meetings to settle some urgent territorial or political question in which several States were interested. But as time had passed, not only were the number and frequency of political conferences increased, but a host of meetings of persons more or less official, termed indiscriminately conferences and congresses, had come into being."
[111] January 8, 1910.
[112] March 10, 1910.
[113] "The German Government is straining every nerve, with the zealous support of its people, to get ready for a fight with this country" (Morning Post, March 1, 1912). "The unsatiated will of the armed State will, when an opportunity offers, attack most likely its most satiated neighbors without scruple, and despoil them without ruth" (Dr. Dillon, Contemporary Review, October, 1911).
[114] I have shown in a former chapter (Chapter VI., Part II.) how these international hatreds are not the cause of conflict, but the outcome of conflicts or presumed conflicts of policy. If difference of national psychology—national "incompatibility of temper"—were the cause, how can we explain the fact that ten years since the English were still "hating all Frenchmen like the devil," and talking of alliance with the Germans? If diplomatic shuffling had pushed England into alliance with the Germans against the French, it would never have occurred to the people that they had to "detest the Germans."
[115] The German Navy Law in its preamble might have filched this from the British Navy League catechism.
[116] In an article published in 1897 (January 16) the London Spectator pointed out the hopeless position Germany would occupy if England cared to threaten her. The organ, which is now apt to resent the increased German Navy as implying aggression upon England, then wrote as follows: "Germany has a mercantile marine of vast proportions. The German flag is everywhere. But on the declaration of war the whole of Germany's trading ships would be at our mercy. Throughout the seas of the world our cruisers would seize and confiscate German ships. Within the first week of the declaration of war Germany would have suffered a loss of many million pounds by the capture of her ships. Nor is that all. Our Colonies are dotted with German trading-houses, who, in spite of a keen competition, do a great deal of business.... We should not, of course, want to treat them harshly; but war must mean for them the selling of their businesses for what they would fetch and going home to Germany. In this way Germany would lose a hold upon the trade of the world which it has taken her many years of toil to create.... Again, think of the effect upon Germany's trade of the closing of all her ports. Hamburg is one of the greatest ports of the world. What would be its condition if practically not a single ship could leave or enter it? Blockades are no doubt very difficult things to maintain strictly, but Hamburg is so placed that the operation would be comparatively easy. In truth the blockade of all the German ports on the Baltic or the North Sea would present little difficulty.... Consider the effect on Germany if her flag were swept from the high seas and her ports blockaded. She might not miss her colonies, for they are only a burden, but the loss of her sea-borne trade would be an equivalent to an immediate fine of at least a hundred million sterling. In plain words, a war with Germany, even when conducted by her with the utmost wisdom and prudence, must mean for her a direct loss of a terribly heavy kind, and for us virtually no loss at all." This article is full of the fallacies which I have endeavored to expose in this book, but it logically develops the notions which are prevalent in both England and Germany; and yet Germans have to listen to an English Minister of Marine describing their Navy as a luxury!
[117] Here is the real English belief in this matter: "Why should Germany attack Britain? Because Germany and Britain are commercial and political rivals; because Germany covets the trade, the Colonies, and the Empire which Britain now possesses.... As to arbitration, limitation of armament, it does not require a very great effort of the imagination to enable us to see that proposal with German eyes. Were I a German, I should say: 'These islanders are cool customers. They have fenced in all the best parts of the globe, they have bought or captured fortresses and ports in five continents, they have gained the lead in commerce, they have a virtual monopoly of the carrying trade of the world, they hold command of the seas, and now they propose that we shall all be brothers, and that nobody shall fight or steal any more,'" (Robert Blatchford, "Germany and England," pp. 4-13).
[118] "Facts and Fallacies." An answer to "Compulsory Service," by Field-Marshal Earl Roberts, V.C., K.G.
[119] Discussing the first edition of this book, Sir Edward Grey said: "True as the statement in that book may be, it does not become an operative motive in the minds and conduct of nations until they are convinced of its truth and it has become a commonplace to them" (Argentine Centenary Banquet, May 20, 1910).
[120] Lecky, "History of the Progress of Rationalism in Europe."
[121] I do not desire in the least, of course, to create the impression that I regard the truths here elaborated as my "discovery," as though no one had worked in this field before. Properly speaking, there is no such thing as priority in ideas. The interdependence of peoples was proclaimed by philosophers three thousand years ago. The French school of pacifists—Passy, Follin, Yves Guyot, de Molinari, and Estournelles de Constant—have done splendid work in this field; but no one of them, so far as I know, has undertaken the work of testing in detail the politico-economic orthodoxy by the principle of the economic futility of military force; by bringing that principle to bear on the everyday problems of European statecraft. If there is such an one—presenting the precise notes of interrogation which I have attempted to present here—I am not aware of it. This does not prevent, I trust, the very highest appreciation of earlier and better work done in the cause of peace generally. The work of Jean de Bloch, among others, though covering different ground from this, possesses an erudition and bulk of statistical evidence to which this can make no claim. The work of J. Novikow, to my mind the greatest of all, has already been touched upon.
[122] "Turkey in Europe," pp. 88-9 and 91-2.
It is significant, by the way, that the "born soldier" has now been crushed by a non-military race whom he has always despised as having no military tradition. Capt. F.W. von Herbert ("Bye Paths in the Balkans") wrote (some years before the present war): "The Bulgars, as Christian subjects of Turkey exempt from military service, have tilled the ground under stagnant and enfeebling peace conditions, and the profession of arms is new to them."
"Stagnant and enfeebling peace conditions" is, in view of subsequent events, distinctly good.
[123] I dislike to weary the reader with such damnable iteration, but when a British Cabinet Minister is unable in this discussion to distinguish between the folly of a thing and its possibility, one must make the fundamental point clear.
[124] This Appendix was written before the Balkan States fell to fighting one another. It is scarcely necessary to point out that the events of the last few days (early summer 1913) lend significance to the argument in the text.
[125] See p. 390.
[126] Review of Reviews, November, 1912.
[127] In the Daily Mail, to whose Editor I am indebted for permission to reprint it.
INDEX
- Acceleration, Law of, relation to sociology, [197], [220]
- Adam, Paul, advocate of war, [216]
- Aflalo, F.G., home-sickness among emigrants, [132], [133]
- Africa, South: gold-mines of, as motive of Boer War, [125];
- position of trade in, in event of war, [126]
- Alsace-Lorraine, annexation of, [45]-[49]
- America. See [United States]
- America, South: financial development of, [78], [245];
- Annexation: of Alsace-Lorraine and value of, to Germany, [45]-[49];
- Arabia and internal wars, [232]
- Argentine international trade, [78]
- Aristotle: on slavery, [269];
- the State, [296]
- Armagh, Archbishop of, advocate of war, [166]
- Armament, Armaments: United Service Magazine quoted on limitations of, [18];
- Asia Minor: protection of German interest in, [147];
- benefit of, to Britain if under German tutelage, [149]
- Asquith, Mr.: on Canadian Navy, [113];
- Austria, annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, [303]
- Autos da fé in Spain, [208]
- Bachmar, Dr. F., on union of Germany and South Africa, [24]
- Bacon on nature of man, [58]
- Balfour, Mr. A.J., on independence of the Colonies, [114]-[115]
- Bank of England: position of, if Germany invaded England, [56]-[57];
- helped by Bank of France, [318]
- Banking: Withers on interdependence necessary in, [59]-[61].
- See also [Finance]
- Barracks, Mr. R. Blatchford on moral influence of, [259]-[260]
- Barrès, M., advocate of war, [216]
- Baty, Mr. T., social "stratification" and business, [323]-[325]
- Beaulieu, Paul, on French indemnity, [94]
- Belgium economic security, [43]-[44]
- Berliner Tageblatt, [255]
- Bernhardi: on defence of war, [158]-[159];
- Bertillon, Dr., on relative individual wealth in nations, [36]
- Biermer, Professor, on Protectionist movement in Germany, [95]
- Birrell, Mr. Augustine, [367]
- Bismarck: and Machiavelli's dictum as to policy of a prudent ruler, [41];
- Blatchford, Mr. Robert, [18], [177], [178], [215], [216], [259]-[260], [316], [349], [357]
- Block, Maurice, on French indemnity, [98]
- Blum, Hans, [98]
- Boer War: motives of, [115];
- Bosnia and Herzegovina. See [Austria]
- Bourget, Paul, advocate of war, [216]
- Brazil, international trade of, [78]
- Britain: possibility of being "wiped out" in twenty-four hours, [21]-[22];
- conquest of, a physical impossibility, [30];
- Sir C.P. Lucas's policy of colonial government, [111];
- position of, with regard to "ownership" of Colonies, [115];
- attitude of, with regard to German trade in Asia Minor, [147]-[148];
- Prussianization of, [258];
- contrast between, and Ancient Rome, [276];
- position of, with regard to her independent States, [300]-[301];
- cause of hostility towards Germany, [315];
- what the world has to learn from Imperial development of, [380]-[381];
- the real exemplar of the nations, [380]-[382]
- Brunetière, advocate of war, [216]
- Bülow, Prince von, on Germany's "rage for luxury," etc., [215]-[216]
- Caivano, Tomasso, [230]-[231]
- Canada: English merchant in, [35];
- Capital. See [Finance]
- Catholics and Protestants, [205]
- Chamberlain, Mr. Joseph, [310]
- Charles II. of Spain, [208]
- Churchill, Mr. Winston; dictum of, on war, [345]-[346];
- Colonies: no advantage gained by conquest of, [32]-[33], [109]-[111];
- commercial value of, [107];
- Sir C.P. Lucas on Britain's policy of colonial government, [111]-[112];
- and national independence, [112];
- Volkstein on colonial neutrality in warfare, [114];
- Britain's "ownership" of, [115];
- administrative weaknesses of, [117]-[119];
- fiscal position of, [119]-[121];
- false policy of conquest of, [121];
- Méline régime and advantages of independent administration of French, [123]-[124];
- impossibility of "possession" of, [135];
- how Germany exploits her, [135];
- economic retribution on, [301]-[302]
- Colonies, Crown, [33], [111]-[119]
- Commerce: definition of, [71];
- Community, what constitutes well-being of a, [173]-[175]
- Competition: methods of industrial, [11];
- Confiscation, the impossibility of, [63]-[64]
- Conqueror, policy of, in regard to wealth and territory, [34]-[36]
- Conquest: Blackwood's Magazine in defence of, [19]-[20];
- impossibility of, from point of view of trade, [30]-[31];
- of Colonies, no advantages gained by, [32]-[33];
- alleged benefits of, disproved by prosperity of small States, [39]-[40];
- no advantage gained by, in modern warfare, [44]-[45], [110];
- advantage of, in ancient and medieval times, [51]-[54];
- alleged benefits of, disproved, [99]-[101];
- unable to change national character of conquered territory, [135]-[136];
- inadequate value of present methods of, [135];
- lessening rôle of, in commerce, [139]-[143];
- paradox of London police force applied in relation to, [144];
- where it has benefited nations, [145];
- effect of co-operation as a factor against, [195];
- enervating effects of, on Romans, [238];
- Spain ruined by glamour of, [242]-[247];
- co-operation taking place of, [244]-[248];
- changed nature of, [283];
- warlike nations the victims of, [272];
- logical absurdity of, summed up, [378]-[382].
- See also [War]
- Conscription: and the peace ideal, [219];
- Co-operation and competition, [185]-[186];
- Courtesy in international relations, [374]
- Cox, Sir Edmund C., [351]
- Credit: in its relation to war, [30]-[31];
- definition of, [277]
- Critics, arguments of, against "The Great Illusion," [358]-[359]
- Cuba, War of, financial effect of, to Spain, [241]
- Daily Mail, [45]-[49], [214]-[215], [253], [330]
- D'Arbeux, Captain, [214]
- Dawson, Harbutt, [256]
- Defence: Navy League on, [345];
- Demolins, Edmond, [258]
- Déroulède, advocate of war, [216]
- Dervishes, appreciation of, as fighters, [289];
- Despot, financial embarrassment of the, [273]-[274]
- Despotism, the reasons for poverty of, [274]
- Dilke, Sir Charles, [116]
- Domination. See [Conquest]
- Dreyfus case, Times quoted on, [250]-[252]
- Duel, survival and abandonment of, [201]-[204]
- Economics. See [Finance]
- Emigration, statistics of, for Germany, [100]
- Emotion, need for the control of, [377]
- Empiricism the curse of political thinking, [262]
- England. See [Britain]
- Environment, the rôle of, in the formation of character, [218]
- Faguet, advocate of war, [216]
- Farrar, Dean, advocate of war, [166]
- Farrer, [42]
- Fian, Dr., [208]
- Finance: interdependence of credit-built position of, on German invasion, [31];
- investment secure in small States, [36], [37], [38], [39], [42], [43];
- in its relation to industry, [54]-[56];
- position of Bank of England on German invasion, [56]-[58];
- effect on bank rate of financial crisis in New York, [58]-[59];
- effect of repudiation in South American States, [77]-[78];
- why repudiation is unprofitable, [78]-[79];
- cause of bank crisis in United States, [79];
- Withers's appreciation of English bankers, [80];
- Lavisse on Germany's financial crisis, [96];
- the meaning of "the money of a nation," [172];
- physical force replaced by economic pressure, [269];
- economic and physical force in their relation to money, [273];
- British methods of enforcing financial obligations in South America, [303];
- organization of capital, [318];
- Bank of England helped by Bank of France, [318];
- internationalization of, [318]-[319];
- why a Western bank ceased to be robbed, [337]-[338];
- Spectator quoted on economic interdependence, [356]-[357].
- See also [Wealth]
- Fisher, Admiral, [350]
- Fleet. See [Navy]
- Force: the diminishing factor of, [185], [263];
- co-operation and the advantage of, [263];
- justification of, by police, [264]-[265];
- replaced by economic pressure, [269];
- in its relation to slavery, [269]-[270];
- the general domination of, [270]-[271];
- Herbert Spencer quoted on limitation implied by physical, [271]-[272];
- difference between economic and physical, [273]-[275]
- France: Max Wirth on her position ftper Franco-German War, [95];
- Bismarck on, [97]-[98];
- standard of comfort in, higher than in Germany, [101];
- financial superiority of, [102];
- colonial administration of the Méline régime, [121]-[124];
- supposed benefit of "expansion" to, [139]-[143];
- a more military nation than Germany, [225]-[226];
- conscription in, [226];
- physical results of Napoleonic wars in, [238];
- cause of failure of expansion in Asia, [240];
- stigmatized by Times in Dreyfus case, [250]-[252];
- Mr. Chamberlain on, [310];
- position of the statesman in, [370]
- Franco-German War: position of France after, [95]-[99];
- Fried, A., [316]-[317]
- Friendship in international relations, [374];
- Froude, [311]
- Gaevernitz. See [Schulze-Gaevernitz]
- Germany: Mr. Harrison on effect of military predominance of, [6];
- Dr. Schulze-Gaevernitz on German Navy, [6];
- R. Blatchford on German attack, [18];
- Admiral von Koster on overseas interest of, [20]-[21];
- future demands of, with regard to Europe, [23];
- aims of Pan-Germanists, [43]-[44];
- the position of German citizen if Germany "owned" Holland, [44];
- value of Alsace-Lorraine to, [45]-[49];
- Withers quoted on commerce of, and English credit, [59];
- false theory of annihilation of, explained, [69];
- Lavisse on financial crisis in, [96];
- economic effect of aforesaid crisis, [97]-[99];
- progress of Socialism in, after war of 1870, [99];
- emigration statistics in, [100];
- financial position in regard to France, [102];
- political evolution of, before the war, [102];
- social difficulties in, resulting from Franco-German War, [103];
- failure of war from point of view of annexation and indemnity, [104];
- and the acquisition of Canada, [109]-[110];
- the case of colonial conquest, [118]-[121];
- if Germany had conducted the Boer War, [126]-[127];
- trade of, with occupied territory, [132];
- trade in Egypt, statistics of, [132];
- benefits of "ownership," fallacy of, [133];
- growth and expansion of, [140]-[143];
- methods of colonial exploitation, [140]-[142];
- protection of interests in Asia Minor, [147];
- commercial supremacy of, in undeveloped territory, [147]-[148];
- Sir H. Johnston on Germany's real object of conquest, [150];
- burden of Alsace-Lorraine, [176];
- R. Blatchford on policy of, [178];
- R. Blatchford in defence of, [215];
- "rage for luxury" in, [216];
- reputed military character of, disproved on investigation, [217]-[218];
- as type of a military nation, [225]-[226];
- conscription in, [225]-[226];
- wisdom of, in avoiding war, [226];
- Kotze scandal in, [252];
- no advantage gained by war of 1870, [252];
- growth of social democratic movement in, [254];
- Berliner Tageblatt in praise of England as compared with, [255];
- progress owing to regimentation, [255]-[256];
- Mr. Harbutt Dawson on unified, [256]-[257];
- false idea of British hostility to, [310];
- cause of British hostility towards, [315];
- R. Blatchford on warlike preparations of, to destroy Britain, [316];
- Mr. Fried on heterogeneous nature of, [316]-[317];
- North German Gazette on strikes in, and effects of co-operation, [319]-[320];
- Morning Post on German aggression, [331];
- Mr. Churchill and German defence, [346];
- Spectator on position of, if attacked by Britain, [347];
- Mr. Blatchford on reasons for attack by, [349];
- Sir E.C. Cox on British policy with regard to, [351];
- Anglo-German banquets, futility of, towards mutual understanding, [375]
- Giffen, Sir Robert, on cost of Franco-German War, [88], [93], [94]
- Goltz, von der, [178]-[179]
- "Great Illusion, The," history of, [365]-[366]
- Grey, Sir Edward, [358]
- Grubb, Mr. Edward, [7]
- Hague Conferences, cause of failures of, [368]
- Hamburg, annexation of, by Britain and probable result, [61]-[62]
- Harrison, Mr. Frederic: quoted on effect of Germany's predominance in military power, [6];
- Holland: economic security of, on invasion, [42]-[43];
- Holy Sepulchre, fights between Infidels and Christians for, [206]
- Honour: Mr. Roosevelt on national, [202];
- Human nature: alleged unchangeability of, [198]-[200];
- Hyndman, Mr. H.M., [308]
- Ideas, rationalization of, [367]
- Indemnity; Sir R. Giffen quoted on, from Franco-German War, [91];
- Individual, false analogy between nation and, [193], [297]-[301]
- Industrialism, cruelties of, [9], [10]
- Industry, relation of, to finance, [54]-[56]
- L'Information, [56]
- Intercommunication of States, [193]-[194]
- Interdependence: plea of, against war, [30]-[31];
- International politics, obsolete conception of, Admiral Mahan on elements of, [170], [171], [172]
- Investment. See [Finance]
- James I. of Scotland, [208]
- James, Professor William, [165], [294]
- Japan, position of, as "owner" of Korea, [86]
- Johnston, Sir Harry H., [150]
- Kidd, Benjamin, [17], [18]
- Kingsley, Charles, [165]
- Kitchener, Lord, [200];
- W.H. Steevens' description of, [282]
- Korea, position of Japan as "owner" of, [86]
- Koster, Admiral von, [20], [21]
- Kotze scandal, the, and "rottenness" of German civilization, Times on, [252]
- Kropotkin, Prince, [218]
- Labour: division of, explained from point of view of conquest, [53];
- in the modern world, [66]
- Laurier, Sir Wilfrid, [113]
- Lavisse, [96]
- Law of Acceleration. See [Acceleration, Law of]
- Law, natural, of man in relation to strife, [185]
- Lea, General Homer, [161], [212], [213], [234], [282]
- Lecky, [206], [210], [278], [377]
- Limborch, [208]
- Loti, Pierre, [242]
- Lucas, Sir C.P., [111]
- Machiavelli, [41]
- McDougal, Professor W., [308], [311]
- McKenzie, F.A., [75]
- Mahan, Admiral: quoted on international relations, [15], [16];
- Manchester Guardian and peace, [287]-[288]
- Mankind: biological development of, [186];
- Martin, T.G., [18]
- Matin, Le, [9], [10], [214]
- Maxse, Leo, [196], [219]
- Méline régime, the, in French Colonies, [121]
- Merchant adventurer, the case of, in sixteenth century, [108]-[109]
- Militarists, views of, on war, [178]-[179]
- Military force: when and where it may be necessary, [146];
- not essential to national efficiency, [243]
- Military support of Colonies. See [Colonies]
- Military training, its influence on peace, [218]-[219]
- Moltke, von, [163]
- Money. See [Finance]
- Morning Post, [304], [331]
- Mulhall on comparative standard of comfort in European countries, [36]
- Murray, Major, [41]
- Napoleonic wars, results of, [238]
- Nation, Nations: falseness of analogy between individual and a, [193], [297]-[299];
- honour of, [202];
- why warlike, do not inherit the earth, [224];
- warlike and unwarlike, [225], [227], [234];
- Canada least warlike, [234];
- power of a, not dependent on its army and navy, [240]-[241];
- reason for decay of military, [247]-[248];
- complexity of, [317]-[318];
- Spectator on economic theories of, [319]
- National efficiency, relation to military power, [244]
- Nationalism and the co-operation of States, [312]-[313]
- Navy, British: Times on powers of, [17];
- Northmen methods, [200]
- Norway: the carrying trade of, [74];
- no temptation to invade, Sir Wilfrid Laurier on, [113]
- Novikow, J., Darwinian theory of, [184]
- Owen, Mr. Douglas, [19]
- "Ownership." See [Possession]
- Pacifists: pleas of, [6], [7], [10]-[12];
- Pan-Germanists, aims of, [44]
- Patriots: Patriotism, national honour and, [204];
- Peace: why propaganda has given small results, [10]-[12];
- Penfold, F. C, [87]
- Philippines, financial effect of loss of, to Spain, [241]
- Phillips, Captain March, [291]
- Pitcairn, [208]
- Police Force, London, paradox of, applied in relation to conquest, [144], [145], [264]
- Politics, obsolete terminology of, [76]
- Portugal, cause of failure of expansion in Asia, [239]-[240]
- Possession: Sir J.R. Seeley on, [129];
- Printing: results of invention of, [277]-[279];
- power of, [364]
- Prussia: cause of prosperity of, [246];
- agitation for electoral reform in, [254]
- Public Opinion, [81]-[87]
- Pugnacity: irrational nature of, [187]-[189];
- Referee, [19]
- Regimentation, Germany's progress owing to, [255]-[256]
- Religion: early ideals of, [174]-[175];
- Critchfield on influence of Catholic priests in South American Republics, [175];
- struggles of, and the State, [181]-[182], [205]-[206], [207];
- beliefs no longer enforced by Government, [205];
- Lecky on wars of, [206]-[211];
- freedom of opinion in, [212];
- reason of cessation of wars of, [307];
- relation to politics of, [362]-[363]
- Renan, Ernest, [164]-[229]
- Repudiation. See [Finance]
- Revenue, State, what becomes of, [48]
- Rizzi, Francisco, [208]
- Robertson, John M., [249]
- Rohrbach, Dr. P., [136]
- Roman civilization: Mr. Roosevelt on, [223];
- Sir J.R. Seeley on downfall and decay of, [237]
- Rome, Ancient: Sir J.R. Seeley on downfall and decay of, [237];
- Roosevelt, Mr., [164], [201], [202], [222], [229], [231], [234], [262]
- Salisbury, Lord, [36]
- Samoa, the case of the Powers, [149]
- Sanderson, Lord, [324]
- Schulze-Gaevernitz, Prof. von, [6]
- Sea-Power, overseas trade, Benjamin Kidd on, [17]-[18].
- See also [British Navy]
- Seeley, Sir J.R., [129], [237]
- Shaw, G.B., [250]
- Slavery, Slaves: society of, in Rome, [268];
- Socialism, progress of, in Germany after War of 1870, [99]
- Soetbeer, [98]
- Soldier: R. Blatchford on character of, [259]-[260];
- Spain: F.C. Penfold on progress of, since war, [87];
- Spanish American. See [America, South]
- Spectator, [156], [209], [210], [292], [333]-[337], [347], [356]
- Spencer, Herbert, [271]-[272]
- State, States: analogy between individuals in, [194]-[195];
- division of, in relation to conflict, [196];
- ancient and modern, character of, [296];
- false analogy between, and a person, [298]-[301];
- independent nature of, [300]-[301];
- Morning Post on the organism of, [304];
- heterogeneous elements of, [306];
- Professor McDougal on pugnacity of barbarous, [308]-[309];
- definition of, [313];
- reasons for lessening "rôle" of hostility among, [313]-[314];
- position of citizen of small, if he became citizen of a large, [321]-[322]
- States small: as prosperous as the Great Powers, [32], [40];
- Statesmen: Major Murray on methods of, with regard to treaties, [41];
- Leo Maxse on character of English, [196]
- Steevens, W.H., [282], [289], [290], [291]
- Steinmetz, S.R., [160]
- Stengel, Baron von, [20], [162], [229]
- Story, General John P., [162]
- Switzerland: the commercial power of, [75];
- Temps, Le, [122]
- Territorial independence, Farrer on, [42]
- Times, the, [17], [232], [250], [252], [319], [331]
- Trade: T.G. Martin on Britain's carrying, [18];
- Admiral von Koster quoted on German overseas, [20]-[21];
- impossible to capture, by military conquest, [30]-[33];
- statistics of Britain's overseas, [120];
- diminishing factor of physical force in, [275]-[276].
- See also [Competition], [Commerce], [Industry]
- Transvaal: treatment of British Indian in, before and after the war, [117]-[119];
- Treasury, Mr. D. Owen on what enriches, [19]
- Treaties, Major Stuart Murray on futility of, [41]
- Tribute, exaction of, an economic impossibility, [31]
- Tripoli, ineptitude of Italy in, [143]
- United States: Germans in, [133];
- General Lea and Daily Mail on national ideals in, [214]
- United Service Magazine, [18]
- War: the case of, from militarist point of view, [6];
- cost of Franco-German War, [88]-[91];
- Bernhardi in defence of, [158];
- S.R. Steinmetz on the nature of, [160];
- General Homer Lee in defence of, [161]-[162];
- General Storey in defence of, [162];
- Baron von Stengel in defence of, [163];
- Moltke in defence of, [163];
- Roosevelt in defence of, [164]-[223];
- Professor James in defence of, [165];
- famous clergyman in defence of, [165]-[166];
- defence of, summarized, [166]-[167];
- the reason for, [177];
- Von der Goltz on nature of, [178];
- result of armed peace, [179];
- justification of defender of, [182];
- and the natural law of man, [185];
- the irrational aspect of, [191];
- Spectator on means to an end, [209]-[210];
- Procurator of Russian Holy Synod on, [210];
- General Lea on its relation to commercial activities, [212];
- Captain d'Arbeux on military deterioration, [214];
- prominent advocates of, [216];
- pleas of military authorities, [223];
- General Homer Lea on military spirit, [223]-[224];
- advocates of, criticized, [229]-[230];
- the curse of, in South American Republics, [230];
- the question of just and unjust, [235]-[236];
- fundamental error of, [236];
- real process of, [237];
- Baron von Stengel's dictum, [238]-[239];
- national deterioration owing to, [239];
- effects of prolonged warfare, [245];
- changed nature of, [267];
- not now a physical but an intellectual pursuit, [281]-[282];
- General Homer Lea on nature of modern battles, [282];
- Bernhardi on tactics and "pomp of war," [285];
- radical change in methods of, [284]-[285];
- pleas of militarists analyzed, [286]-[287];
- Manchester Guardian on moral influence of, [287];
- emotional appeal of, [288];
- Mr. Churchill on, [346].
- See also [Conquest]
- Wealth: Referee on, in time of war, [19];
- Wilkinson, Professor, [29], [298]-[299]
- Wilson, H.W., [17]
- Wirth, Max, [95]
- Witchcraft: belief in, [341];
- Withers, Hartley, [59]
- World, the, [116]
By the Same Author
The Great Illusion
A Study of the Relation of Military Power in Nations to their
Economic and Social Advantages. 12mo. $1.00 net
Arms and Industry
A Study of the Foundations of International Polity
In Preparation:
The Citizen and Society
First Principles of their Relationship
"THE GREAT ILLUSION" AND
PUBLIC OPINION
AMERICA
"New York Times," March 12, 1911.
"A book which has compelled thought; a book full of real ideas deserves the welcome it has received. The author is enjoying the almost unlimited praise of his contemporaries, expressed or indicated by many men of eminence and influence, by countless reviewers who have lately hungered for a hero to worship.
"Moreover ... it certainly makes for genuine æsthetic pleasure, and that is all most of us ask of a book."
"The Evening Post," Chicago (Mr. Floyd Dell), February 17, 1911.
"The book, being read, does not simply satisfy curiosity; it disturbs and amazes. It is not, as one would expect, a striking expression of some familiar objections to war. It is instead—it appears to be—a new contribution to thought, a revolutionary work of the first importance, a complete shattering of conventional ideas about international politics; something corresponding to the epoch-making 'Origin of Species' in the realm of biology.
"All of this it appears to be. One says 'appears,' not because the book fails completely to convince, but because it convinces so fully. The paradox is so perfect there must be something wrong about it!...
"At first glance the statement which forms the basis of the book looks rather absurd, but before it is finished it seems a self-evident proposition. It is certainly a proposition which, if proved, will provide a materialistic common-sense basis for disarmament....
"There is subject-matter here for ironic contemplation. Mr. Angell gives the reader no chance to imagine that these things 'just happened.' He shows why they happened and had to happen....
"One returns again and again to the arguments, looking to find some fallacy in them. Not finding them, one stares wonderingly ahead into the future, where the book seems to cast its portentous shadow."
"Boston Herald," January 21, 1911.
"This is an epoch-making book, which should be in the hands of everyone who has even the slightest interest in human progress.... His criticism is not only masterly—it is overwhelming; for though controversy will arise on some of the details, the main argument is irrefutable. He has worked it out with a grasp of the evidence and a relentlessness of logic that will give life and meaning to his book for many a year to come."
"Life" (New York).
"An inquiry into the nature and history of the forces that have shaped and are shaping our social development that throws more light upon the meaning and the probable outcome of the so-called 'war upon war' than all that has been written and published upon both sides put together. The incontrovertible service that Mr. Angell has rendered us in 'The Great Illusion' is to have introduced intellectual order into an emotional chaos."
GREAT BRITAIN.
"Daily Mail."
"No book has attracted wider attention or has done more to stimulate thought in the present century than 'The Great Illusion.' Published obscurely, and the work of an unknown writer, it gradually forced its way to the front.... Has become a significant factor in the present discussion of armaments and arbitration."
"Nation."
"No piece of political thinking has in recent years more stirred the world which controls the movement of politics.... A fervour, a simplicity, and a force which no political writer of our generation has equalled ... rank its author, with Cobden, among the greatest of our pamphleteers, perhaps the greatest since Swift."
"Edinburgh Review."
"Mr. Angell's main thesis cannot be disputed, and when the facts ... are fully realized, there will be another diplomatic revolution more fundamental than that of 1756."
"Daily News."
"So simple were the questions he asked, so unshakable the facts of his reply, so enormous and dangerous the popular illusion which he exposed, that the book not only caused a sensation in reading circles, but also, as we know, greatly moved certain persons high-placed in the political world.
"The critics have failed to find a serious flaw in Norman Angell's logical, coherent, masterly analysis."
Sir Frank Lascelles (formerly British Ambassador at Berlin) in Speech at Glasgow, January 29, 1912.
"While I was staying with the late King, his Majesty referred me to a book which had then been published by Norman Angell, entitled 'The Great Illusion.' I read the book, and while I think that at present it is not a question of practical politics, I am convinced that it will change the thought of the world in the future."
R.A. Scott James in "The Influence of the Press."
"Norman Angel in recent years has done more probably than any other European to frustrate war, to prove that it is unprofitable. He was probably the guiding spirit behind the diplomacy which checked the Great Powers from rushing into the Balkan conflict."
J.W. Graham, M.A., in "Evolution and Empire."
"Norman Angell has placed the world in his debt and initiated a new epoch of thought.... It is doubtful whether since the 'Origin of Species' so many bubbles have been burst, and so definitely plain a step in thought been made, by any single book."
Mr. Harold Begbie in the "Daily Chronicle."
"A new idea is suddenly thrust upon the minds of men.... It is hardly an exaggeration to say that this book does more to fill the mind with the intolerable weight of war, to convince the reasonable mind ... than all the moral and eloquent appeals of Tolstoy.... The wisest piece of writing on the side of peace extant in the world to-day."
"Birmingham Post."
"'The Great Illusion,' by sheer force, originality, and indisputable logic, has won its way steadily forward, and made its author a person to be quoted by statesmen and diplomatists not only in England, but in France, Germany, and America."
"Glasgow News."
"If only for the daring with which Mr. Angell's extraordinary book declares that the accepted ideas are so much moonshine, it would be a work to attract attention. When we add that Mr. Angell makes out a decidedly brilliant and arresting case for his contention, we have said sufficient to indicate that it is worth perusal by the most serious type of reader."
BRITISH COLONIAL OPINION.
W.M. Hughes, Acting Premier of Australia, in a letter to the "Sydney Telegraph."
"It is a great book, a glorious book to read. It is a book pregnant with the brightest promise to the future of civilized man. Peace—not the timid, shrinking figure of The Hague, cowering under the sinister shadow of six million bayonets—appears at length as an ideal possible of realization in our own time."
Sir George Reid, Australian High Commissioner in London (Sphinx Club Banquet, May 5, 1911).
"I regard the author of this book as having rendered one of the greatest services ever rendered by the writer of a book to the human race. Well, I will be very cautious indeed—one of the greatest services which any author has rendered during the past hundred years."
FRANCE AND BELGIUM.
M. Anatole France in "The English Review," August, 1913.
"One cannot weigh too deeply the reflections of this ably reasoned work."
"La Petite République" (M. Henri Turot), 17 Décembre, 1910.
"J'estime, pour ma part, 'La Grande Illusion' doit avoir, au point de vue de la conception moderne de l'économie politique internationale, un retentissement égal à celui qu'eut, en matière biologique, la publication, par Darwin, de 'l'Origine des espèces.'
"C'est que M. Norman Angell joint à l'originalité de la pensée le courage de toutes les franchises, qu'il unit à une prodigieuse érudition la lucidité d'esprit et la méthode qui font jaillir la loi scientifique de l'ensemble des événements observés."
"Revue Bleu," Mai, 1911.
"Fortement étayées, ses propositions émanent d'un esprit singulièrement réaliste, également informé et clairvoyant, qui met une connaissance des affaires et une dialectique concise au service d'une conviction, aussi passionnée que généreuse."
M. Jean Jaurès, during debate in French Chamber of Deputies, January 13, 1911; see Journal Officiel, 14 Janvier, 1911.
"Il a paru, il y a peu de temps, un livre anglais de M. Norman Angell, 'La Grande Illusion,' qui a produit un grand effet en Angleterre. Dans les quelques jours que j'ai passés de l'autre côté du détroit, j'ai vu, dans les réunions populaires, toutes les fois qu'il était fait mention de ce livre, les applaudissements éclater."
GERMANY AND AUSTRIA.
"Kölnische Zeitung."
"Never before has the peace question been dealt with by so bold, novel, and clear a method; never before has the financial interdependence of nations been shown with such precision.... It is refreshing to have demonstrated in this unsentimental, practical way the fact that as our financial interdependence increases war as a business venture necessarily becomes more and more unprofitable."
"Der Turmer" (Stuttgart).
"This demonstration should clear the air like a thunderstorm.... It is not because the book brilliantly expresses what are in many respects our own views that we urge its importance, but because of its unanswerable demonstration of the futility of military power in the economic field."
"Königsberger Allgemeine Zeitung."
"This book proves absolutely that conquest as a means of material gain has become an impossibility.... The author shows that the factors of the whole problem have been profoundly modified within the past forty years."
"Ethische Kultur" (Berlin).
"Never has militarism been combated by economic weapons with the skill shown by Norman Angell.... So broad and comprehensive a grasp of the moral as well as the economic force, that the book is a real pleasure to read.... The time was ripe for a man with this keenness of vision to come forward and prove in this flawless way that military power has nothing to do with national prosperity."
Professor Karl von Bar, the authority on International and Criminal Law, Privy Councillor, etc.
"Particularly do I agree with the author in these two points: (1) That in the present condition of organized society the attempt of one nation to destroy the commerce or industry of another must damage the victor more perhaps than the vanquished; and (2) that physical force is a constantly diminishing factor in human affairs. The rising generation seems to be realizing this more and more."
Dr. Friedrich Curtius.
"The book will, I hope, convince everyone that in our time the attempt to settle industrial and commercial conflicts by arms is an absurdity.... I doubt, indeed, whether educated folks in Germany entertain this 'illusion' ... or the idea that colonies or wealth can be 'captured.' ... A war dictated by a moral idea, the only one we can justify, is inconceivable as between England and Germany."
Dr. Wilhelm Ostwald, who has occupied chairs in several German Universities, as well as at Harvard and Columbia.
"From the first line to the last 'The Great Illusion' expresses my own opinions."
Dr. Sommer, Member of the Reichstag.
"A most timely work, and one which everyone, be he statesman or political economist, should study ... especially if he desires to understand a peace ideal which is practical and realizable.... Without agreeing on all points, I admit gladly the force and suggestiveness of the thesis.... We on our side should make it our business, as you should on yours, to render it operative, to use the means, heretofore unrealized, of joint work for civilization. In rendering possible such joint work, Norman Angell's book must take a foremost place."
Dr. Max Nordau.
"If the destiny of people were settled by reason and interest, the influence of such a book would be decisive.... The book will convince the far-seeing minority, who will spread the truth, and thus slowly conquer the world."
Dr. Albert Suedekum, Member of the Reichstag, author of several works on municipal government, editor of Municipal Year-Books, etc.
"I consider the book an invaluable contribution to the better understanding of the real basis of international peace."
Dr. Otto Mugdan, Member of the Reichstag, Member of the National Loan Commission, Chairman of the Audit Commission, etc.
"The demonstration of the financial interdependence of modern civilized nations, and the economic futility of conquest, could not be made more irrefutably."
Professor A. von Harder.
"I agree that it is a mistake to wait for action as between governments; far better, as Jaurès proved the other day in the French Chamber, for the peoples to co-operate.... The book should be widely circulated in Germany, where so many are still of opinion that heavy armaments are an absolute necessity for self-defence."
FINANCIAL AND ECONOMIC AUTHORITIES.
"American Journal of Political Economy."
"The best treatise yet written on the economic aspect of war."
"American Political Science Review."
"It may be doubted whether within its entire range the peace literature of the Anglo-Saxon world has ever produced a more fascinating or significant study."
"Economist" (London).
"Nothing has ever been put in the same space so well calculated to set plain men thinking usefully on the subject of expenditure on armaments, scare and war.... The result of the publication of this book has been within the past month or two quite a number of rather unlikely conversions to the cause of retrenchment."
"Investors' Review" (London), November 12, 1910.
"No book we have read for years has so interested and delighted us.... He proceeds to argue, and to prove, that conquests do not enrich the conqueror under modern conditions of life.... The style in which the book is written—sincere, transparent, simple, and now and then charged with fine touches of ironic humour—make it very easy to read."
"Economic Review" (London).
"Civilization will some day acknowledge a deep debt of gratitude to Mr. Norman Angell for the bold and searching criticism of the fundamental assumptions of modern diplomacy contained in his remarkable book.... He has laid his fingers upon some very vital facts, to which even educated opinion has hitherto been blind."
"Journal des Economistes."
"Son livre sera beaucoup lu, car il est aussi agréable que profond, et il donnera beaucoup à réfléchir."
"Export" (Organ des Centralvereins für Handelsgeographie).
"By reason of its statement of the case against war in terms of practical politics and commercial advantage (Real-und Handelspolitikers), the keenness and the mercilessness of the logic by which the author explodes the errors and the illusions of the war phantasists ... the sense of reality, the force with which he settles accounts point by point with the militarists, this book stands alone. It is unique."
"The Western Mail."
"A novel, bold, and startling theory."
MILITARY OPINION.
"Army and Navy Journal" (N.Y.), October 5, 1910.
"If all anti-militarists could argue for their cause with the candour and fairness of Norman Angell we should welcome them, not with 'bloody hands to hospitable graves,' but to a warm and cheery intellectual comradeship. Mr. Angell has packed away in his book more common sense than peace societies have given birth to in all the years of their existence...."
"United Service Magazine" (London), May, 1911.
"It is an extraordinarily clearly written treatise upon an absorbingly interesting subject, and it is one which no thinking soldier should neglect to study.... Mr. Angell's book is much to be commended in this respect. It contains none of the nauseating sentiment which is normally parasitic to 'peace' literature. The author is evidently careful to take things exactly as he conceives them to be, and to work out his conclusions without 'cleverness' and unobscured by technical language. His method is to state the case for the defence (of present-day 'militarist' statecraft), to the best of his ability in one chapter, calling the best witnesses he can find and putting their views from every standpoint so clearly that even one who was beforehand quite ignorant of the subject cannot fail to understand. Mr. Angell's book is one which all citizens would do well to read, and read right through. It has the clearness of vision and the sparkling conciseness which one associates with Swift at his best."
"The Army Service Corps Quarterly" (Aldershot, England), April, 1911.
"The ideas are so original and clever, and in places are argued with so much force and common sense, that they cannot be pushed aside at once as preposterous.... There is food here for profound study.... Above all, we should encourage the sale of 'The Great Illusion' abroad, among nations likely to attack us, as much as possible."
"War Office Times" (London).
"Should be read by everyone who desires to comprehend both the strength and the weakness of this country."
Transcriber's notes:
- Punctuation has been normalized.
- On page 33 "be yond" changed to "beyond."
- "... beyond saving the Mother Country...."
- On page 72 "such and-such" changed to "such-and-such."
- On page 190 "reationship" changed to "relationship."
- "... co-operation on basis of mutual profit the only relationship...."
- On page 202 "porportion" changed to "proportion."
- "Our sense of proportion in these matters...."
- On page 241 "real ze" changed to "realize."
- "... explicable by the fact that she failed to realize this truth...."
- On page 267 "anchronism" changed to "anachronism."
- "... it is an anachronism; it finds its justification in...."
- On page 317 "indentification" changed to "identification."
- "... identification between a people and the acts...."
- On page 340 "orginally" changed to "originally."
- "... our relative positions is just what it was originally...."
- On page 359 "fanticism" changed to "fanaticism."
- "... Mohammedan fanaticism, Chinese Boxerism...."