V
It is, however, likely that the force of circumstances may expedite this process of education. The articles of the coming peace are guaranteed to contain a provision for general disarmament; and so far as Europe is concerned, this will be a work of necessity and not of supererogation. Professor Delbrück, for instance, has come to acknowledge that the “derided notions” of disarmament, hitherto “entertained only by persons of no account,” are likely to be raised to “the position of the ruling principle of our time.”[[49]] His conversion is due to the fact that the war will leave the belligerents of Europe in a financial position which will not only make the increase of armaments impossible, but will require the very drastic reduction of their military establishments. The only danger to the process of disarmament lies in the circumstance that two of the belligerent powers, the United States and Japan, have been so little crippled by the war that they are in a position and may get into the mood to maintain large armaments. It is useless to obscure from ourselves the further circumstance that these two powers that are in a position to afford large military establishments look upon one another with a considerable measure of suspicion despite their recent association upon the same side in the war, and the formal professions of mutual good-will that have latterly been made. It must be borne in mind that Japan is still mainly dynastic in government and consequently imperialistic in spirit, that its economic development seems to require an expansion of marketing opportunities, and that its over-population will stimulate emigration. In these matters there is plenty of inflammable stuff; and we should be guilty of not facing the facts of the case, did we not perceive that by reason of the attraction which Western America has for the Japanese emigrant, and of the peculiar interest which America has taken in the welfare of China, situations of very great peril may arise between Japan and the United States. It is upon such a state of the case that the argument for universal military service in America will be based; and indeed must be based; as it is inconceivable that any American in his senses should apprehend any danger from the other side of the Atlantic. The certain democratisation of Europe and the virtual certainty of the impossibility on financial grounds of any considerable war-like enterprise on the part of the European nations make the contingency of a Transatlantic war unthinkable at the present time, or indeed at any future time. This, of course, pre-supposes that the causes of friction likely to arise from the national underwriting of private foreign investments will be removed by a common understanding that the private ventures of capital abroad are made at its own risk.
[49]. Prüssische Jahrbucher (November, 1917).
The possible strain of the situation between the United States and Japan is, however, already alleviated to some extent by the prospect of a democratic movement in the latter country. Japan can in any case hardly expect to keep its institutions intact if it enters into reciprocal relations with democratic communities. Now, for the first time, a commoner is premier of Japan; and the widespread social discontent is likely to stimulate the tendency to popularise the machinery of government. It is probably too much to expect in the present state of Japanese education, that the veneration in which the dynasty is held will speedily disappear. Yet after the swift and dramatic disappearance of “divine rights” in Germany, it is not wise to assume that historical processes of this type are necessarily slow.
Apart, however, from the possible causes of friction between the United States and Japan, there seems to be little insuperable difficulty in reaching an international understanding concerning disarmament.[[50]] Upon such an understanding, the whole future of the projected League of Nations hangs. The League will be no more than an empty shell if the constituent nations still continue to go about with loaded fire-arms. Yet even if the League itself were not to come into existence immediately the economic necessity of disarmament would of itself suffice to change international relationships very profoundly. Reduction in armaments will involve a revolution in foreign policy. For the two things go together. A particular kind of foreign policy requires a corresponding scale of armaments; and the state of a nation’s armaments very materially affects the objects and the tone of its foreign policy. In a word the reduction of armaments would compel the nations in some sort to moralise their mutual relations. The old basis of ambition-cum-fear backed by force will have to be displaced by a practice of plain dealing and mutual understanding. Since the nations cannot afford to fight one another for some time to come, there is nothing for it but that they learn to behave themselves properly toward each other. After a while it is permissible to hope that they would not want to fight each other.
[50]. This statement does not seem quite so true now as when it was written, in view of the provisions of the Peace Treaty.