Where Are We Going?

by David Lloyd George

In a continent which is nominally Christian, the churches surely are not impotent. When the West was all Catholic, and it had the good fortune to have a high-minded and capable occupant of the throne of St. Peter, many a struggle was averted by his intervention. Can the churches not once more display their power? They can only do so by moving together, not merely every denomination in Britain, but every Christian community throughout Europe—Catholic and Protestant—Catholics even more than Protestants, for the countries where the peril is most imminent are more under the domination of the Catholic churches than of the Protestant faiths. If all the heroism of millions, their sacrifice and their sufferings, are to be thrown away, it will be the most colossal, criminal and infamous waste ever perpetrated in human history. Millions of men endangered their lives willingly. Millions lost their lives for the sake of establishing peace on earth on the basis of international right. A temple to human right was built with material quarried out of all that is choicest in the soul of man. But its timbers are being drenched with the kerosene of hatred, and one day a match will be lit by some careless or malignant hand which will set fire to this magnificent edifice; its splendour will be reduced to black embers, and the hope of mankind will be once more laid in ashes. The task of the churches is to put forth the whole of their united strength to avert that catastrophe.

Peace is only possible when you introduce into the attitude of nations towards each other principles which govern the demeanour of decent people in a community towards their neighbours. If international methods were introduced into the dealings of neighbours with each other life would become intolerable—the unconcealed suspicions, distrusts and ill-will which rule everywhere, the eternal expectancy of and preparation for blows, the readiness of the strong to use violence, either to enforce his will on his weaker neighbour or to deprive him of his liberty or his possessions, or even his life, to satisfy anger, revenge, or greed. Had this been the rule in private affairs, we should all have to live in caves, or in castles, according to our means. As a matter of fact, man is only half civilised. In international matters he is still a savage, in his heart he recognises no law but that of force. The savage has his restraints. His instinct warns him not to pounce save when he thinks he can do so effectively and with impunity, and for some purpose which he thinks worth his while. Whether he hates or covets, he has no other restraint. I wish I could say that in essence nations to-day obey any other impulse. Man must be civilised in his international relations, otherwise wars will go on as long as mankind remains on this earth.

I have seen a city wrenched from its people. I have seen a whole province appropriated against the protests of its people, and all within the last four years, since the Great War to establish international right. There was no conceivable justification for either of these depredations except that both the city and the province were desirable, were at hand, were very tempting, and that the owners were too feeble to resist their pillagers.

The lesson must be taught that larceny does not diminish in turpitude as it increases in the scale of its operations. A nation that feloniously steals, takes, and carries away a city or province is just as criminal as the thief sentenced to imprisonment for robbery by violence on the high-road. And these national felonies will assuredly bring trouble one day. They invariably do so, and unfortunately international trouble is never confined to the felon. Human retribution, once it begins, is as indiscriminating and uncontrollable as a prairie fire. The flames consume the wheat as well as the tares. Hell fire administered by the hand of man scorches the innocent equally with the guilty. The doom of Germany involved millions in its tortures who were outside her gates, abominated her crimes, and did all they could to prevent their perpetration. That is why it is written: "'Vengeance is mine, I will repay,' saith the Lord." It is the supreme duty of the churches to teach nations to understand that the moral law is just as applicable to them in their corporate capacity as it is to the individuals who compose them; to teach them that hatred is just as unseemly between nations as it is between individuals, and far more dangerous. Goodwill must be assiduously cultivated between nations. It must be ingeminated in every way—in schools, in the press, in sermons, in classes. The men who are always sowing distrust and dislike of men of other races and lands should be picked out, condemned, shown up, hunted by the scorn, the contempt and the wrath of their fellowmen. They are more dangerous than the incendiary who burns down an occasional hay-rick or habitation.

Let the best side of every nation be better known. Each nation has made its contribution to the sum of human greatness. Dwell on that, and not on the failings and the deficiencies, the errors, and the crimes which are unhappily common to all nations. Name me the land that has no stain on its record. There is no end to the resourcefulness of hate. Its variety is infinite. I recollect, not so long ago, a time when you were not a patriot if you were pro-French; the fact that you were pro-French stamped you as a Little Englander. France was supposed to be a busy and malignant foe of Britain all the world over, scheming everywhere against British interests. She stood for all that was unpleasant and repugnant to the British mind—in her thought, her literature, her politics, and her manners. France heartily reciprocated our dislike. There were at least two occasions when war between the two countries was apprehended, was openly talked of, and was even likely. The atmosphere of the press in both capitals was charged with brimstone.

Now it is to Germany you must not utter one word of toleration or even fair play. I am not counselling the abandonment of the just measure of our national rights as against either of these two countries, but they are both great nations. They are both nations that have contributed richly of the things that make for the elevation, for the happiness, for the splendour of mankind. If Germany is the land of Bismarck with its blood and iron, all Protestants will remember that she is also the land of Luther and the Reformation. If she fought in the late war for four years to establish a military domination in Europe, she fought for thirty years with enduring valour and much suffering to establish the freedom of conscience in Europe. She has given to the world great literature, great painters, great philosophers, great explorers in all the continents of thought. She is the land of unrivalled song. Even in the middle of the bloody conflict with Germany, every Sunday we praised God in our churches to the notes of German music. Let us give credit for these things in our efforts to reconstitute the reign of goodwill. And if we feel angry with France, let us remember her dazzling array of great writers, her gigantic struggles for liberty, the penetrating imagination devoted to scientific research, which has brought incalculable blessings to humanity. Let us not judge France by the fussy little men that give expression to her petulance in the fits of temper that overtake every nation, but by the great men who have given noble expression to her immortal soul. France is the land of Victor Hugo, of Pascal, of Renan, and many another teacher who has taken humanity by the hand along the upward road.

Everything depends on a consistent, determined, continuous inculcation of the principles and the ideal of goodfellowship, between nations. Goodwill on earth means to think well of and dwell on the best side of others, and goodwill on earth and peace have been linked together. Without the one you will not have the other. Let us, therefore, cultivate the spirit of brotherhood amongst men. The church must appeal to the noblest sentiments of the human heart. Mankind can only be redeemed by an appeal to those higher instincts. Not by an appeal to ignoble fear. War means terror, war means death, war means anguish. That will not prevent war, and never has. Man is the most fearless of God's creatures, and when his passions are roused there is no fear that will restrain him. The fire of his passion burns the restraints of self-preservation like bands of tow, so that fear will not restrain the nations and make peace among them. War destroys trade, it brings unemployment. Look at all the losses, reckoning them up in cash. That will not prevent war: it never has. Selfish interests have a means of deluding themselves. Greed has a blind side. Do not trust to selfishness and selfish interest to ensure peace. Selfishness will ensure nothing which is worth keeping in the world. Selfishness pays good dividends, but it wastes capital. The nation or the individual that makes self-love the managing-director of the soul will end in bankruptcy—bankruptcy of respect, bankruptcy of ideals—bankruptcy of honour—bankruptcy of friendships. What is it that Germany is suffering from now? Her great tragedy is not her indemnity, not even her gigantic casualties, not even the destruction of her trade. The one great tragedy of Germany is that she has lost the respect of mankind. It affects her trade, it affects her business, it makes it difficult for her to climb to the pitch whence she fell. The rope is gone. She has done things of which she herself is now ashamed. Her people—I can see it when I meet them—are ashamed. That is the tragedy. They are a gallant people, they are a brave people, they fought bravely, but they are broken-spirited. Why? They have lost their self-respect because they have done something that they know in their hearts was wrong. These are the things that have to be taught to nations.

A public opinion must be worked up that will be strong enough to sustain international right. No law is possible without an active public opinion for its enforcement, least of all international law. Without it the League of Nations is a farce. You might as well have a wooden cannon; however splendidly mounted it may be, however imposing its appearance, every one knows that the moment it is fired it will burst. Unless the world is taught to respect its authority, it will become a butt of derision. It is no use keeping up pretences. Pretences never delude events. The League of Nations may gather together representatives of all the great powers of the earth, and yet it may be a futile, barren, costly nothing unless it has behind it the spirit of the people who constitute those nations. The real danger of the moment is lest the League of Nations should become a mere make-believe, whilst the same old intrigues, the same old schemes, the same old international greed and hatred, should be working their will freely outside. The decision of the League of Nations has been, within the last two or three years, openly flouted by a member of that league, a member which owes its national independence to the treaty which founded that league. Another nation, one of the principal authors of the league, refuses to refer a question in which is it concerned, and in which Europe is concerned, to the arbitrament of the league. Both these nations prefer to resort to force. The rest of the world looks on feebly with indifference, accepting the rebuff to their league in each case. Why? Because there is no public opinion in the recalcitrant countries to bring pressure to bear on the respective governments, and there is no public opinion strong enough outside to exercise the necessary insistence.