The trend of events is towards a peaceable settlement of international differences. National temperaments are being levelled by the ease of intercourse. The world is more and more assimilating to a condition like that of a great family, in which the individual nations, as members, are linked together by interests, which disputes ending in wars only impair and cannot benefit. The principle in early Roman law was that every stranger is a public enemy. The opposite prevails to-day with civilized peoples, that the normal relation between nations is one of peace and friendship. Unconquerable time itself works on increasingly, bringing the nations nearer to one another in the natural and orderly development of close international intercourse, strengthening the community of mankind. A deep meaning and philosophic truth is contained in the words of Vattel, “International justice is the daughter of economic calculations.” These international unions are most powerful auxiliaries in removing the hinderances that lie between nations; through them the lesson is being objectively taught that great nations are so dependent upon each other, that any disturbance in a particular one is felt by the others, and that when their friendly relations are interrupted, the civilized world suffers. Through this influence nations are beginning to take a wider view of their mutual duties and relations, and appeal to reason and conscience in international dealings finds a response and an application which could not have been expected earlier. These unions generate a spirit that turns its regard to the circuit of the globe, and to an inspiration in which international relations obtain a higher form and a more assured security, with no purpose to interfere with particular states or their complete autonomous organism, or to oppress nations, but the better to secure the peace of the one and the freedom of the other. The best human arrangements cannot completely insure the world against civil war. This ideal can be only approximated. It would be vain to look for a political millennium, for a time when the “only battle-field will be the market open to commerce and the mind open to new ideas,” when nations shall enjoy the boundless blessings offered them in the perfect freedom of human industry and in the reign of a perpetual peace,—
“When the war-drum throbs no longer and the battle-flags are furled
In the parliament of man, the federation of the world.”
The latest movement, on the part of Switzerland, in the inauguration of international legislation, relates to “international law” and the “interest of the working-classes.” The former was organized, in 1888, at Lausanne, the seat of the Swiss Federal Tribunal, and formed the “Institute of International Law;” the subjects discussed comprised the common features of the conflict of civil laws; the conflict of the laws relative to marriage and divorce; joint stock companies; encounters at sea; extradition; occupation of unclaimed territory, according to provisions of the Treaty of Berlin; international regulation of railways, telegraphs, and telephones in time of war; and the manner and limit of expulsion of strangers from the territory by governments. The second, relating to the “interest of the working-classes,” was foreshadowed by an article from the pen of M. Numa Droz, the chief of the Foreign Department in the Swiss Cabinet, and published in the Revue Suisse of February, 1889. In this article M. Droz announced that Switzerland was about to invite the other nations of Europe to a congress, in which projects for improving the condition of the laboring classes of Europe would be discussed. He expressed his confidence that only good could come from such an official gathering, and stated that Switzerland would consider it “as a great source of pleasure to offer cordial hospitality to the first European conference in the interest of labor legislation.” The distinguished and official authorship of this article caused it to attract much attention, and it received very favorable comment from the continental press. As indicated by M. Droz, within a short time after the appearance of his article, the Swiss Federal Council issued an invitation to the European manufacturing states to send representatives to a conference in September, 1889, at Bern, to consider the “well-being of the working-classes,” and the organization of an “International Labor Congress.” At the same time it suggested the following questions for consideration: Prohibition of Sunday work; fixing of a minimum age for the employment of children in factories, and a limitation of working-hours for young people; prohibition of the employment of minors and women in peculiarly unhealthy or dangerous industries; limitation of night-work; the adoption of a settled plan for the attainment of these objects. The second annual session of this conference was recently held at Berlin, by the invitation of the Emperor, who recognized that he could no longer depend on the army to repress industrial discontent. Should these conferences succeed in ameliorating the condition of the laboring classes throughout Europe, and thus lift from those countries the darkest and most angry cloud that now hangs over them, it will be the brightest jewel in the crown of Switzerland’s hegemony in the great work of international unions.
It can no longer be denied that it is possible to unite the whole globe in such organizations, now that international law, with its hypothesis of the union of many states in one humanity, extends over the greater part of the inhabited earth. There is a steadily-increasing interdependence of the nations of the world, especially of those which give themselves to commerce and manufactures, and alike of those which need a foreign field for a share of their capital. These ties unite them alike for good and evil, and render the prosperity of each dependent on the equal prosperity of all the rest. When this great truth is well understood, it may, perhaps, become the peacemaker of the world. Nations have their defects and passions like individuals, and well-established international laws, conventions, and unions are necessary to protect the weak and helpless from the strong and ambitious.
CHAPTER XXI.
SWITZERLAND AND THE EUROPEAN SITUATION.
Switzerland has no small influence on the affairs of Europe, as well by its situation as by its warlike genius. There is much of history, but still more political anomaly, written in the very conglomerate map of Switzerland. It is a land of unfulfilled destiny. The eye traces its great water-courses into the most important countries of civilized Europe, and recognizes the lines down which potent influences, social and political, are to descend. Its political boundaries do not coincide with those of nature; they are erratic, the result of wars and political vicissitudes. On the one hand, France shoots out spurs of her territory into Switzerland, and Switzerland, on the other hand, by the force of circumstances, has overlapped Italian ground, taking in Ticino south of the main chain of the Alps, which is Italian in climate and flora; a large part of the Grisons is east of the Rhine, and of the ranges separating it from Tyrol; while Schaffhausen and a couple of villages in the Canton of Basel are altogether on the north side of the line, the German town of Constanz is to the south of the line. Again, if a Swiss wishes to pass from the Rhine valley to Geneva by the south bank of the lake, he must cross French territory in order to do so. The southwest frontier of Switzerland stops at Geneva, instead of extending to the Jura, which forms its natural frontier. Military writers have pointed out that the easiest route for an investing force from Germany would be through Switzerland; and similarly for a force from France, over the Jura, by Zurich, to the Rhine at Schaffhausen. “That a power which was master of Switzerland could debouch on the theatre of operations of the Rhone, the Saône, Po, or Danube; from Geneva an army could march on Lyons, from Basel it could gain the valley of Saône by Belfort, from Constance the Danube could be reached; Italy could be invaded, and the lines of defence of that country against France and Austria turned.”[117]
This potential position of Switzerland, a prominent point of moral and political contact between powerful and somewhat antagonistic powers, on the one side confining the limits of the German empire, and on the other setting bounds to the French republic, naturally gives rise to many speculations. The gamut of these is frequently run by the newspapers; Germany making overtures for a treaty undertaking to protect Switzerland’s neutrality; France negotiating for the occupation by Switzerland of the Chablais and Faucigny districts, in Upper Savoy, in accordance with the treaties of 1815 and 1830, thus preventing the intervention of Italy as against France; then the right of Switzerland to occupy certain districts of Savoy, in case of war, is held by the German authorities to have been settled by the Congress of Vienna and needs no further discussion; on the other hand, it is alleged that this right was subsequently denied by Napoleon III., after the annexation of Savoy to France; and as a culmination, Germany makes a serious proposition to Italy for the partition of Switzerland, but Italy declines the offer, preferring to have a little neutral and friendly republic than a great military empire as her neighbor; the proposition is submitted to France in turn, and also declined, as the greater portion of Switzerland being Teutonic in race and tongue, France could get but a small fragment and Italy a still smaller. The theory is also advanced of making Switzerland, Alsace-Lorraine, Luxemburg, and Belgium into a sort of federated block of neutral territory, the inviolability of which all the rest of Europe should solemnly pledge itself to accept. Regardless of these diplomatic tergiversations Switzerland continues to be governed according to the choice of its own people, and not according to the bon plaisir of foreign powers. The sort of negative which the Swiss government practises, and which is what the position of the country specially requires, is displayed both in the theory and execution of the Swiss federal system, and by a great prudence in foreign policy. Its policy since the beginning of the sixteenth century has been neutrality. The object of the Congress of Vienna in guaranteeing the neutrality of Switzerland was primarily strategical; it was also felt to be essential that steps should be taken to prevent any one power from gaining possession of the line of the Alps upon the breaking out of a fresh war.[118] The appreciation of this danger was strongly expressed by the First Consul of France, in an address issued in 1803, wherein he announced: “I would have gone to war on account of Switzerland; I would have sacrificed a hundred thousand men, rather than allowed it to remain in the hands of the parties who were at the head of the last insurrection; so great is the influence of its geographical position upon France. The interests of defence bind Switzerland to France; those of attack render it of value to other powers.” Switzerland bears relations to the great powers of contemporary civilization, in some respects, even more remarkable than those which the little strip of soil along the Jordan, at the meeting of the continents, bore to the civilizations of antiquity. Like that of Palestine, its situation, while affording small temptation to aggression upon its neighbors, is supremely advantageous for defence, for isolation from foreign influence; and yet, at the same time, for the exercise of effective influence outward upon the coterminous nations. To these advantages it adds another, in its polyglot facility of communication with the most important nations of Europe. Preserving its ancient character, content within itself, constituting a confederated republic, which, by its good order and industry, morals and laws, rivals in age the oldest monarchy with its stability of self-government,—the greatest of these monarchies cannot afford to despise its friendship. Not only securing and protecting its own liberty, but it has been the arbiter of the fate of other people. It has given examples of those qualities by which men may be so ennobled that they are respected even amid their comparative poverty and weakness; heroes, though too few to be feared by the weak, they are too brave to be insulted by the strong.
In Europe, powers of apparently inconsiderable greatness have usually brought about its most decided changes, or at least have most influenced its historical course. Thus did Venice in the times of the Crusades, and Switzerland during the Burgundian and Italian wars; as Holland at the commencement of the eighteenth century gave a new form to Europe, so did Sweden predominate in the seventeenth century, and in the earlier half of that age surpass France herself in splendor. It seems to be a capital necessity of great states to have something placed between them that may relieve the severity of their mutual friction; an arm of the sea; an impassable mountain; a small neutral state, one not strong enough to play a great part in foreign politics, but, with a modest policy, absorbed in domestic affairs; any of these may be of great importance to limit and moderate the dangerous currents of great politics. This was illustrated by the action of Austria, after the partition of Poland and the consequent juxtaposition of Russia, offering to restore its part of Poland for the purpose of reconstituting that kingdom. The present age in Europe differs entirely from that of the Middle Ages. Then the general tendency was to small states, now it is to large ones. Then there existed a number of petty monarchies and republics; the unity of the Roman empire was ideal rather than actual. The tendency to form larger states began with England, and is seen on the continent after the latter part of the fifteenth century, and has not yet reached its limits. Everywhere there is a tendency to the formation of large and important states, speaking for the most part one language throughout their whole territory. It is promoted by the quickened impetus of trade and commerce, increased military and financial resources, improved and extended communication, and by the entire development of modern civilization. This progress towards the establishment of extensive and consolidated nationalities is conspicuously found in the present German empire. Though in no sense a restoration of the Holy Roman Empire, it is a real restoration of the ancient German kingdom, and the Kaiser fairly represents the German kingship from which the thirteen ancient Cantons gradually split off. Russia is practically the only Slavonic state; Italy comprises nearly all the Italians, except a few resident upon the head and eastern side of the Adriatic Gulf; France has by her losses in the Franco-Prussian war become more French, since neither Alsace nor Lorraine is inhabited by people of the Gallic race; Spain and Portugal comprise the entire Spanish Peninsula; Austria is a great mongrel state and represents no national aim, but is composed of fragments of various nationalities. The national question in the British Islands is not settled, and may end in separation or more probably in the formation of a federation. The smaller semi-independent principalities of Servia, Roumania, Bulgaria, East Roumelia are simply materials out of which a second Slavonic state may at some time be formed, perhaps under the authority of Russia. The natural fate of Holland is absorption into Germany; of Belgium, absorption into France. Turkey—how this cumberer of the earth can be disposed of without kindling a general European conflagration is a question that puzzles the wisest statesman. This unification might be made to play a beneficial part in checking war and improving the European situation; but so far it has merely essayed a science of combination, of application, and of deception, according to times, places, and circumstances. In the process of absorption there has not been shown much disposition to take questions of ethics into consideration in dealing with weaker peoples; even self-interest seems at times to be a less strong motive than the desire to annoy one’s neighbors. Bentham somewhere proves that there is such a thing as “disinterested malevolence;” and if it exists at all, it is certainly to be discovered in the action of these great European powers. Many of them present vicious systems of military and coercive governments; vast empires resting upon bayonets and semi-bureaucracy, an anachronism and an incubus upon the true development of national life. All these great powers are monstrous outgrowths of warlike ambition and imperial pride in different degrees and under different conditions. On nearly every battle-field great questions of dynastic and national reconstruction have hung in the balance; military operations have been the decisive factors. Huge military systems are abnormal, the morbid results of the spirit of war and domination, of national selfishness and revolutionary violence. The game of kings has become the impact of armed peoples. The Congress of Vienna settled the affairs of Europe upon a basis which endured with but few changes for almost fifty years; the great treaty of Berlin of 1878, in form an act of restitution as well as of peace, has become as dead a letter as the treaty of Paris of 1856. Principles of older date and less questionable validity than treaties patched up with premature jubilation obtain; and the solemn irony of Prince Talleyrand, that “non-intervention is a diplomatic term, which signifies much the same as intervention,” has become axiomatic. It is no exaggeration to speak of Europe as an armed camp, with the dogs of war pulling heavily on their chains. Armies of men stand scowling into one another’s eyes across a fanciful frontier, marked by a few parti-colored posts. In spite of all European assurances of “cloudless political horizons” and “luxuriant international olive-branches,” the perfection of armaments and the augmentation of already enormous armies go faithfully on. Every one who visits Europe must be amazed at the military influence that everywhere dominates, especially on the continent. “Above the roar of the city street sounds the sharp drum-beat of the passing regiment; in the sweet rural districts the village church-bell cannot drown the bugle peal from the fortress on the hill. France sinks millions in frontier strongholds, Russia masses troops in Poland and on the Pruth, Austria strengthens her fortresses in Galicia, and Germany builds railways to the Rhine and bridges to span its yellow flood.” There is no European peace, except that peace described by Hosea Biglow, which was “druv in with bag’nets.” Montesquieu, the upright magistrate, who, living under despotic rule, nevertheless insisted that by the Constitution of France its king was not absolute, sought in the records of history to discern the tendency of each great form of government, and has left his testimony that “L’esprit de la monarchie est la guerre et l’agrandissement; l’esprit de la république est la paix et la modération” (“the spirit of monarchy is war and aggrandizement; the spirit of a republic is peace and moderation”).
An armed truce is preserved out of mutual terror; if tranquillity exists, it is not the repose of reasonable, kindly powers, but the crouching attitude of relentless rivals dreading the enemy whom they hate, and afraid of the destructive weapons which support modern warfare, making the “mowing down” no longer figurative, but horribly literal. Sheer force holds a larger place than it has held in modern times since the fall of Napoleon; and the will to take, without better reason than the power to hold, is naked and undisguised. One of the most melancholy forms which this aggression has taken, and seems destined to occupy so much of the future energies of imperialism, is the partition and exploitation of the vast African continent and the defenceless islands of the Pacific. It is done in the name of “civilization,” and called l’occupation des territoires sans maître. In the Pacific Ocean the work has been nearly completed, Samoa and Hawaii remaining as almost the last abodes of aboriginal sovereignty. Colonial extension and annexation is a veritable European Pandora’s box; war is constantly threatened for the sake of localities whose very names were previously unknown, and whose possession would seem of no practical importance. Since Dido tricked the Numidian king in her survey and purchase of a site for Carthage,[119] the world has been in constant trouble upon the subject of boundaries, and a very large proportion of the wars between nations, like lawsuits between individuals, have arisen over disputed boundary lines. The cry of “fifty-four forty or fight,” the national watchword of the United States in 1846, has found an echo in every age. Between England and Russia smoulders the Central Asia and Turkish empire question; between England and France the matter of Egyptian occupation; Italy and France have their quarrel over Tunis and Tripoli, and the Mediterranean generally. Then there is the crux of the Balkan peninsula, where Austria and Russia glower at each other across the Carpathians; this Eastern question is opened as often as the temple of Janus, and, like that temple, its opening means war. So it goes; when pushed under at St. Petersburg, alarm makes its appearance in Paris; and when silenced on the Rhine, it causes itself to be heard among the Balkans. Russia lowers across Europe from the east, patiently waiting, and not fearing central European alliance, confident some day, by natural expansion, of overshadowing all eastern Europe, and gathering at will and in its own good time all the Slavonic people under its suzerain guardianship. France casts a dark shadow from the west, while the “furor Teutonicus” and the “furie Française” flourish perennially in the blood-feud which has Alsace-Lorraine for its bitter badge.[120] France looks with natural uneasiness at the iron circle in which the unity of Germany and Italy is circumscribing her influence and expansion. The tremendous struggle with Germany, with its crushing defeat and the provinces torn away, left a wound that will not heal, but with its gloomy memories and poignant regrets, with its latent but unfailing suggestion of revenge, too frequently guides her policy. While a united Germany made short work with the French emperor, it left France exasperated, and probably in a less unsound condition than at any previous moment since 1789.