"The British Colonial Empire of to-day is not the Empire which was the outcome of seventeenth-century methods. So far as the colonists themselves were concerned, English colonisation (in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries) was a complete success, but from the point of view of the mother country it was a failure, and the rock on which it foundered was the same rock which lost America to Spain and caused Canada to acquiesce in separation from France."
[80] I am ashamed to say that when I wrote these chapters I had not read Mr. H. N. Brailsford's War of Steel and Gold. But Mr. Brailsford's brilliant examination of the connection between War and Finance is quite consistent with my supplementary theory of War and Trade. "Trade supplies no explanation of Imperialism," says Mr. Brailsford (p. 75). It does, in so far as Traders support Imperialism because they think it is good for Trade: while financiers, as Mr. Brailsford shows, support Imperialism because they know it is good for investments.
[81] "What is vital to any real Democracy in a densely-peopled, economically-complicated modern State, is that the Government should not be one. The very concentration of authority which is essential in war is, in peace, fatally destructive not of freedom alone, but also of that maximum individual development which is the very end and purpose for which society exists."—Sidney Webb, Towards Social Democracy?, 1916.
[82] "Les Anglais veulent être conquérants; donc ils ne tarderont pas d'être esclaves."—Political Writings, C. E. Vaughan, I, 373.
[83] Spinoza, Ethica, IV, praefat. ad init. Humanam impotentiam in moderandis et coercendis affectibus servitutem voco.
[84] See above, § 2, on "defensive" war, and compare a passage from Mr. C. Grant Robertson's letter in The Times of August 15, 1916:—
"Bismarck repeatedly and explicitly in the Reichstag justified the wars of 1864, 1866, and 1870 as 'defensive'—i.e. as not 'willed' by Prussia. On the contrary, they were wars 'forced' on a peace-loving State denied its 'rights' by Denmark, Austria, and France. The argument, briefly, on Bismarckian principles is this. Prussia's policy is an 'Interessenpolitik'—a policy of 'interests.' An 'interest' confers a 'right.' The satisfaction of 'national interest' is therefore the achievement of 'national rights.' If these 'rights' can be achieved by a compromise—i.e. by the complete surrender of Prussia's opponents to the demands based on these 'rights'—that is a proof of her peace-loving nature. But if her opponents refuse, then the war by which the 'rights' are secured is a war 'forced' on Prussia. She has not 'willed' it. It is a 'defensive' war to prevent the robbery of her 'rights' by others; Bismarck, not without difficulty, converted his Sovereign to this argument. In each case—1864, 1866, 1870—William I was ultimately convinced that Denmark, Austria, and France were resisting the 'rights' of Prussia, and that war to secure them was 'defensive,' 'forced' on the King, and just. The successful issues confirmed William's conscience and proved that Bismarckian principles had the Divine sanction."
[85] This attitude is well illustrated by the history of the Crimean War. In January, 1855, "peace seemed impossible until some of the disgrace was wiped away, and the pacificists, Cobden and Bright, were burned in effigy.... The prolongation of the war called out no protest from the public." Yet "the popular war produced an unpopular peace." When after another year of fighting our French allies finally insisted on peace, "'there was no indication,' said a Frenchman, 'as to which was the victor and which the vanquished.' Reviews and illuminations could not obscure the truth; Britain had sacrificed lives and treasure and obtained little in return."—Alice Green's Epilogue to J. R. Green's Short History of the English People.
[86] Supra, I, § 5.
[87] Mr. Gilbert Cannan has noted somewhere that "a 'straight' fight between Great Britain and Germany will be like a fight between two drunken women in a slum."