As a matter of simple fact, as we shall see presently, the book was largely an attempt to show that the economic argument usually adduced for a particularly ruthless form of national selfishness was not a sound argument; that the commonly invoked justification for a selfish immoralism in Foreign Policy was a fallacy, an illusion. Yet the critics somehow managed to turn what was in fact an argument against national egoism into an argument for selfishness.
What was the political belief and the attitude towards life which The Great Illusion challenged? And what was the counter principle which it advocated as a substitute therefore?
It challenged the theory that the vital interests of nations are conflicting, and that war is part of the inevitable struggle for life among them; the view that, in order to feed itself, a nation with an expanding population must conquer territory and so deprive others of the means of subsistence; the view that war is the ‘struggle for bread.’[101] In other words, it challenged the economic excuse or justification for the ‘sacred egoism’ which is so largely the basis of the nationalist political philosophy, an excuse, which, as we shall see, the nationalist invokes if not to deny the moral law in the international field, at least to put the morality governing the relations of States on a very different plane from that which governs the relations of individuals. As against this doctrine The Great Illusion advanced the proposition, among others, that the economic or biological assumption on which it is based is false; that the policy of political power which results from this assumption is economically unworkable, its benefits an illusion; that the amount of sustenance provided by the earth is not a fixed quantity so that what one nation can seize another loses, but is an expanding quantity, its amount depending mainly upon the efficiency with which men co-operate in their exploitation of Nature. As already pointed out, a hundred thousand Red Indians starved in a country where a hundred million modern Americans have abundance. The need for co-operation, and the faith on which alone it can be maintained, being indispensable to our common welfare, the violation of the social compact, international obligation, will be visited with penalties just as surely as are violations of the moral law in relations between individuals. The economic factor is not the sole or the largest element in human relations, but it is the one which occupies the largest place in public law and policy. (Of two contestants, each can retain his religion or literary preferences without depriving the other of like possessions; they cannot both retain the same piece of material property.) The economic problem is vital in the sense of dealing with the means by which we maintain life; and it is invoked as justification for the political immoralism of States. Until the confusions concerning it are cleared up, it will serve little purpose to analyse the other elements of conflict.
What justifies the assumption that the predatory egotism, sacred or profane, here implied, was an indispensable part of the pre-war political philosophy, explaining the great part of policy in the international field?[102]
First the facts: the whole history of international conflict in the decade or two which preceded the War; and the terms of the Treaty of Versailles. If you would find out the nature of a people’s (or a statesman’s) political morality, note their conduct when they have complete power to carry their desires into effect. The terms of peace, and the relations of the Allies with Russia, show a deliberate and avowed pre-occupation with sources of oil, iron, coal; with indemnities, investments, old debts; with Colonies, markets; the elimination of commercial rivals—with all these things to a degree very much greater and in a fashion much more direct than was assumed in The Great Illusion.
But the tendency had been evident in the conflicts which preceded the War. These conflicts, in so far as the Great Powers were concerned, had been in practically every case over territory, or roads to territory; over Madagascar, Egypt, Morocco, Korea, Mongolia; ‘warm water’ ports, the division of Africa, the partitioning of China, loans thereto and concessions therein; the Persian Gulf, the Bagdad Railway, the Panama Canal. Where the principle of nationality was denied by any Great Power it was generally because to recognise it might block access to the sea or raw materials, throw a barrier across the road to undeveloped territory.
There was no denial of this by those who treated of public affairs. Mr Lloyd George declared that England would be quite ready to go to war rather than have the Morocco question settled without reference to her. Famous writers like Mahan did not balk at conclusions like this:—
‘It is the great amount of unexploited raw material in territories politically backward, and now imperfectly possessed by the nominal owners, which at the present moment constitutes the temptation and the impulse to war of European States.’[103]
Nor to justify them thus:—
‘More and more Germany needs the assured importation of raw materials, and, where possible, control of regions productive of such materials. More and more she requires assured markets, and security as to the importation of food, since less and less comparatively is produced within her own borders for her rapidly increasing population. This all means security at sea.... Yet the supremacy of Great Britain in European seas means a perpetually latent control of German commerce.... The world has long been accustomed to the idea of a predominant naval power, coupling it accurately with the name of Great Britain: and it has been noted that such power, when achieved, is commonly found associated with commercial and industrial pre-eminence, the struggle for which is now in progress between Great Britain and Germany. Such pre-eminence forces a nation to seek markets, and, where possible, to control them to its own advantage by preponderant force, the ultimate expression of which is possession.... From this flow two results: the attempt to possess, and the organisation of force by which to maintain possession already achieved.... This statement is simply a specific formulation of the general necessity stated; itself an inevitable link in a chain of logical sequence: industry, markets, control, navy, bases....[104]