A High Ideal.
It might seem that the ideal which I now set up for the negotiator is one too high for any man to reach. It is true that no man can ever carry out his instructions without a fault, but unless he has before him an ideal as a guide he will find himself plunged in the midst of distracting affairs without any rule for his own conduct. Therefore I place before him these considerations: that despite all disappointments and exasperations he must act with sang-froid; he must work with patience to remove all obstacles that lie in his path, whether they are placed there by accident or act of God or by the evil design of men; he must preserve a calm and resolute mind when the conjunctures of events seem to conspire against him; and finally, he must remember that if once he permit his own personal or outrageous feelings to guide his conduct in negotiation he is on the sure and straight road to disaster. In a word, when events and men are unkind he must never despair of being able to change them, nor again when they smile upon his efforts must he cherish the illusion that their good favour will endure for ever.
The Negotiator’s Twofold Function.
The functions of a minister despatched on a mission to a foreign country fall into two principal categories: the first to conduct the business of his master, and the second to discover the business of others. The first of these concerns the prince or his ministers of state, or at all events those deputies to whom are entrusted the examination of his proposals. In all these different kinds of negotiation he must seek success principally by his straightforward and honest procedure, for if he attempts to succeed by subtlety or by a sense of superiority over those with whom he is engaged he may very likely deceive himself. There is no prince or state which does not possess some shrewd envoy to discern its real interests. And indeed, even among people who seem to be the least refined, there are often those who know their own interests best, and follow them with the most constancy. Therefore the negotiator, no matter how able he may be, must not attempt to teach such persons their own business, but he should exhaust all the resources of his mind and wit to prove to them the great advantage of the proposals which he has to make.
Diplomacy a Commerce in Benefits.
An ancient philosopher once said that friendship between men is nothing but a commerce in which each seeks his own interest. The same is true or even truer of the liaisons and treaties which bind one sovereign to another, for there is no durable treaty which is not founded on reciprocal advantage, and indeed a treaty which does not satisfy this condition is no treaty at all, and is apt to contain the seeds of its own dissolution. Thus the great secret of negotiation is to bring out prominently the common advantage to both parties of any proposal, and so to link these advantages that they may appear equally balanced to both parties. For this purpose when negotiations are on foot between two sovereigns, one the greater and the other the less, the more powerful of these two should make the first advance, and even undertake a large outlay of money to bring about the union of interests with his lesser neighbour, for his own self-interest will show him that he has really the greater object and the larger advantages in view, and that any benefits he may confer or subsidies which he may grant to his weaker ally will be readily repaid by the success of his designs. Now, as we have said, the secret of negotiation is to harmonise the interests of the parties concerned. It is clear that if a negotiator excludes the honest and straightforward method of reason and persuasion, and adopts on the contrary a haughty and menacing manner, then obviously he must be followed by an army ready to invade the country in which he has put forth such provocative claims. Without such a display of force his claims will fall to the ground, even though by advantageous arguments they might have prevailed with the prince whom he addressed, and who might have accepted them had they been proposed in a different manner. When a prince or a state is powerful enough to dictate to his neighbours the art of negotiation loses its value, for then there is need for nothing but a mere statement of the prince’s will; but when there is a balance of force an independent prince will only decide to favour one of the two parties of a dispute if he discerns advantages to himself and good results to the prosperity of his realm.
Harmony the Ideal State.
A prince who has no powerful enemies can easily impose tribute on all neighbouring Powers, but a prince whose aim is self-aggrandisement and who has powerful enemies must seek allies among the lesser states in order to increase those friendly to him; and if possible he should be able to prove his power by the benefits which an alliance with him can confer upon them. Therefore the principal function of the negotiator is to bring about a harmonised union between his master and the sovereign to whom he is sent, or else to maintain and increase existing alliances by every means in his power. He must labour to remove misunderstandings, to prevent subjects of dispute from arising, and generally to maintain in that foreign country the honour and interests of his prince. This includes the protection and patronage of his subjects, assistance to their business enterprises, and the promotion of good relations between them and the subjects of the foreign prince to whose court he is accredited. He must always assume that there is no prince nor state in the world which does not desire to avoid a condition of crisis, and that those princes who love to fish in troubled waters will never lack the means to stir them up, but that the storms which such men conjure up are apt to overwhelm them, so that the wise negotiator will do all he can to avoid giving provocation, and will conduct himself in such a manner that no one will be able to impute reckless motives to him.
The Search for Information.
His second function being the discovery of all that is happening at court and in the cabinet, he should first of all take steps to learn from his predecessor all that he knows regarding the state of affairs in the country to which he is about to proceed and to acquire from him those hints and suggestions which may be of use. He should take up the friends and acquaintances left behind by his predecessor, and should add to them by making new ones. It would be no bad practice in this matter to imitate the established rule of the Venetian Republic, which obliges an ambassador returning from a foreign court to render a detailed account in writing of the country, both for the information of the public and for the instruction of his successor at the embassy. The diplomatists of Venice have drawn great advantage from this practice, and it has been often remarked that there are no better instructed negotiators in Europe than those of Venice.