In the Ethics of War, Newman argues that "there is nothing more fundamental to civilized warfare than that no war shall be commenced without a previous statement of grievances, and demand of redress—a demand made to the Sovereign himself; and that only after he has refused redress, and when in consequence war has been solemnly declared, with its motives and aim, shall hostilities be begun. In dealing with great Powers we anxiously observe these forms…. But it is our Asiatic wars which have brought out the formidable fact that the Cabinets claim to discard the authority of Parliament altogether…. There is no more fundamental principle of freedom … than that no nation shall be dragged into a war by its executive, against its will and judgment…. Nay, if even a majority of every class in the nation desired war, yet they have no right to enter into it without first hearing what the minority has to say on the other side. This is the essential meaning of deliberative institutions."
Mr. Toulmin Smith, whose weighty words bring to bear on the subject the witness of an England of medieval days, says that in the fourteenth century it was a positive rule that "consent of the Great Council, and afterwards of the Parliament, was necessary to a war or to a treaty." In his Parliamentary Remembrances he gives many precedents, both from the histories of England and Scotland, showing that no peace was made, no war was made, without Parliament being summoned. Henry V, he says, would not enter "matters of foreign embroilment" (war with France, for instance) without the consent of Parliament; and when the French king wished for peace, Henry replied that peace needed to "be allowed, accepted, and approved by the three Estates of each kingdom." The same process was gone through with regard to the French king and his Estates of France. Newman quotes Rome, whose citizens went through a long formality before making any war, the King and Senate "consulting the College of Heralds for erudite instructions as to minute ceremonies. For perhaps four centuries the discipline of the army was admirable; its decline began from the day when a general (Gen. Manlius) first took upon himself to make war at his own judgment, trusting to obtain a bill of indemnity."
Livy tries to force on us the belief that the Romans were never aggressive; that they only conquered the world in self-defence. And it is true that here would come in difficulties in the way of carrying out John Stuart Mill's obiter dictum as regards wars of defence and of offence, for many plausible reasons have been constantly brought forward for aggressive wars: to take one only, it is not always easy to say what is "defence" and what "offence." One may see some other country assuming a warlike attitude towards ourselves, and it might very possibly be allowed to come within the bounds of the word "defence" if we were prepared to strike the initial blow before our enemy—to all intents and purposes, save for the actual throwing of the glove—were fully prepared as to armaments, etc. It is well known how earnestly Richard Cobden, the Manchester Apostle of Free Trade, was one of the most prominent champions of peace; he who, for championing the cause of the Abolition of corn duties for the sake of his poorer countrymen, when he and others pushed forward the "Anti-Corn Law League" (which was passed in 1846), lost all his own private funds, and his business was ruined, simply because his time was all given not to his own affairs, but to the service of his country. Mr. Cobden, as Newman reminds us, "was entirely convinced that European wars could be stopped by a general agreement to abide by arbitration." Indeed, he prevailed on the Ministers of his day so far that, when the Russian War ended in 1856, "Lord Clarendon, in the name of England, initiated some important clauses, of which one avowed that the Powers who signed the treaty would never thenceforward undertake war without first attempting to stay and supersede it by arbitration. England, France, Russia, Sardinia, and Turkey all signed this treaty, yet in a very few years the solemn promise proved itself to be mere wind." He goes on say, "When passions are at work, superior might, not unarmed arbitration, is needed to control them."
Cobden always declared that no one need fear Russia's strength because of her climate, her vast wildernesses, her frozen seas, her great unwieldiness. It is seen, therefore, that the sort of arbitration planned out by Cobden did not work. It must, according to Newman, be an armed one. It is clear that it is not possible to agree in toto with the Quaker method of opposing war, and the most thoughtful Quakers will hardly urge it perhaps to-day. War, for defence of one's country, is a present necessity. What, then, are Francis Newman's proposed remedies? For in the beginning of this chapter I stated that he, very definitely, had his answer to the great question as regards the nation: its veto or agreement, whenever war is proposed. First of all, before giving these however, let us look for a moment at the plan pursued in such case in modern England. This plan he always set himself against with all the force of personal conviction: "It is the singular disgrace of modern England to have allowed the solemn responsibility of war to be tampered with by the arbitrary judgment of executive officers: … this same nation permits war to be made; lives by the twenty thousand or fifty thousand to be sacrificed … at the secret advice of a Cabinet, all of one party, acting collectively for party objects, no one outside knowing how each has voted…. The orders to make or not to make war went out direct from the Board of Control—that is, really from the Ministry in Downing Street. Two, or even one resolute man had power to make war without check…. If Earl Grey is right, and a Cabinet must be a party, this is a decisive, irrefragable reason why a Cabinet must never exercise the function of deciding on Peace or War. The recent [Footnote: He is writing in 1859.] overthrow of the East India Company has swept away all the shams which have hidden from England that the Ministry in Downing Street worked the Indian puppet…. Parliament should claim that public debate shall precede all voluntary hostilities, small or great … to protest in the most solemn way that henceforth no blow in war shall be struck until the voice of Parliament has permitted and commanded it."
Then, in Newman's article "On the War Power," he goes on to say: "In regard to the difficulties as regards arbitration, and also as regards the voice of the people being made a sine quâ non, whenever a proposal for war emanates from the powers that be: When an evil is undeniable, serious, unjust in principle … (referring to secret diplomacy), a remedy must exist. Where there is a will there is a way: nay, many ways."
Then he declares that these (following) measures have commended themselves to him. The full discussion in Parliament by representatives of the people; the determination that nothing shall be settled by secret diplomacy as regards war until the whole matter has been thoroughly threshed out. In more than a few ways, Vox populi, vox Dei is still true.
Next he puts before us the advisability of an armed arbitration.
"If we look to a great central European Power as having for one of its functions to repress wars and enforce arbitration, it is evident that a large increase of force is necessary beyond all that is at present in prospect. If wars voluntarily taken up for noble objects must be sustained out of spare energy, much more does the place of that Power which is to forbid wars require a great superfluity of energy. To be able to do this within the limits of a great federation is in itself a mighty achievement." [Footnote: Europe in the Near Future, F. W. Newman.] And again: "Apparently the only way in which European wars can be suppressed is by the successive agglomeration of free men, living under and retaining their separate institutions, into powers which have no interest in war, but much interest in peace; until unions reach such a magnitude as to be able to forbid wars of cupidity, and offer a high tribunal for the redress of international grievances…. If all parts of a mighty union have their proportionate weight in questions of war and peace, no partial and vicious expediency can actuate them in common. Justice alone is the universal good which can unite their desires and efforts, or make them collectively willing to undergo sacrifice…. The wider the federation, the more benign its aspect on the whole world without, especially if the populations absorbed into it are heterogeneous in character, in pursuit, and in cultivation…. A federation resting on strict justice, conceding local freedom, but suppressing local wars and uniting its military force for national defence, is economic of military expenditure in time of peace in proportion to the magnitude of the populations federated."