Peace Theories and the Balkan War

by Norman Angell

I may say, in passing, that I am not clear that even on the question thus raised Mr. Angell makes out his case. His case, broadly stated, is that the net of "Finance"—or, to put it plainer, Cosmopolitan Usury—which is at present spread over Europe would be disastrously torn by any considerable war; and that in consequence it is to the interest of the usurers to preserve peace. But here, it seems to me, we must make a clear differentiation. It may easily be to the interest of a particular usurer, or group of usurers, to provoke war; that very financial crisis which Mr. Angell anticipates may quite probably be a source of profit to them. That it would not be to the interest of a nation of usurers to fight is very probable. That such a nation would not fight, or, if it did, would be exceedingly badly beaten, is certain. But that only serves to raise the further question of whether it is to the ultimate advantage of a nation to repose upon usury; and whether the breaking of the net of usury which at present unquestionably holds Europe in captivity would not be for the advantage, as it would clearly be for the honour, of our race…. The sword is too sacred a thing to be prostituted to such dirty purposes. But whether he succeeds or fails in this attempt, it will make no difference to the mass of plain men who, when they fight and risk their lives, do not do so in the expectation of obtaining a certain interest on their capital, but for quite other reasons.

Mr. Angell's latest appeal comes, I think, at an unfortunate moment. It is not merely that the Balkan States have refused to be convinced by Mr. Angell as to their chances of commercial profit from the war. It is that if Mr. Angell had succeeded to the fullest extent in convincing them that there was not a quarter per cent. to be made out of the war, nay, that—horrible thought!—they would actually be poorer at the end of the war than at the beginning, they would have gone to war all the same.

Since Mr. Angell's argument clearly applies as much or more to civil as to international conflicts, I may perhaps be allowed to turn to civil conflicts to make clear my meaning. In this country during the last three centuries one solid thing has been done. The power of Parliament was pitted in battle against the power of the Crown, and won. As a result, for good or evil, Parliament really is stronger than the Crown to-day. The power of the mass of the people to control Parliament has been given as far as mere legislation could give it. We all know that it is a sham. And if you ask what it is that makes the difference of reality between the two cases, it is this: that men killed and were killed for the one thing and not for the other.

I have no space to develop all that I should like to say about the indirect effects of war. All I will say is this, that men do judge, and always will judge, things by the ultimate test of how they fight. The German victory of forty years ago has produced not only an astonishing expansion, industrial as well as political of Germany, but has (most disastrously, as I think) infected Europe with German ideas, especially with the idea that you make a nation strong by making its people behave like cattle. God send that I may live to see the day when victorious armies from Gaul shall shatter this illusion, burn up Prussianism with all its Police Regulations, Insurance Acts, Poll Taxes, and insults to the poor, and reassert the Republic. It will never be done in any other way.

If arbitration is ever to take the place of war, it must be backed by a corresponding array of physical force. Now the question immediately arises: Are we prepared to arm any International Tribunal with any such powers? Personally, I am not…. Turn back some fifty years to the great struggle for the emancipation of Italy. Suppose that a Hague Tribunal had then been in existence, armed with coercive powers. The dispute between Austria and Sardinia must have been referred to that tribunal. That tribunal must have been guided by existing treaties. The Treaty of Vienna was perhaps the most authoritative ever entered into by European Powers. By that treaty, Venice and Lombardy were unquestionably assigned to Austria. A just tribunal administering international law must have decided in favour of Austria, and have used the whole armed force of Europe to coerce Italy into submission. Are those Pacifists, who try at the same time to be Democrats, prepared to acquiesce in such a conclusion? Personally, I am not.

I replied as follows:

Mr. Cecil Chesterton says that the question which I have raised is this: "Should usurers go to war?"

That, of course, is not true. I have never, even by implication, put such a problem, and there is nothing in the article which he criticises, nor in any other statement of my own, that justifies it. What I have asked is whether peoples should go to war.

I should have thought it was pretty obvious that, whatever happens, usurers do not go to war: the peoples go to war, and the peoples pay, and the whole question is whether they should go on making war and paying for it. Mr. Chesterton says that if they are wise they will; I say that if they are wise they will not.

I have attempted to show that the prosperity of peoples—by which, of course, one means the diminution of poverty, better houses, soap and water, healthy children, lives prolonged, conditions sufficiently good to ensure leisure and family affection, fuller and completer lives generally—is not secured by fighting one another, but by co-operation and labour, by a better organisation of society, by improved human relationship, which, of course, can only come of better understanding of the conditions of that relationship, which better understanding means discussion, adjustment, a desire and capacity to see the point of view of the other man—of all of which war and its philosophy is the negation.