[112] March 10, 1910.
[113] "The German Government is straining every nerve, with the zealous support of its people, to get ready for a fight with this country" (Morning Post, March 1, 1912). "The unsatiated will of the armed State will, when an opportunity offers, attack most likely its most satiated neighbors without scruple, and despoil them without ruth" (Dr. Dillon, Contemporary Review, October, 1911).
[114] I have shown in a former chapter (Chapter VI., Part II.) how these international hatreds are not the cause of conflict, but the outcome of conflicts or presumed conflicts of policy. If difference of national psychology—national "incompatibility of temper"—were the cause, how can we explain the fact that ten years since the English were still "hating all Frenchmen like the devil," and talking of alliance with the Germans? If diplomatic shuffling had pushed England into alliance with the Germans against the French, it would never have occurred to the people that they had to "detest the Germans."
[115] The German Navy Law in its preamble might have filched this from the British Navy League catechism.
[116] In an article published in 1897 (January 16) the London Spectator pointed out the hopeless position Germany would occupy if England cared to threaten her. The organ, which is now apt to resent the increased German Navy as implying aggression upon England, then wrote as follows: "Germany has a mercantile marine of vast proportions. The German flag is everywhere. But on the declaration of war the whole of Germany's trading ships would be at our mercy. Throughout the seas of the world our cruisers would seize and confiscate German ships. Within the first week of the declaration of war Germany would have suffered a loss of many million pounds by the capture of her ships. Nor is that all. Our Colonies are dotted with German trading-houses, who, in spite of a keen competition, do a great deal of business.... We should not, of course, want to treat them harshly; but war must mean for them the selling of their businesses for what they would fetch and going home to Germany. In this way Germany would lose a hold upon the trade of the world which it has taken her many years of toil to create.... Again, think of the effect upon Germany's trade of the closing of all her ports. Hamburg is one of the greatest ports of the world. What would be its condition if practically not a single ship could leave or enter it? Blockades are no doubt very difficult things to maintain strictly, but Hamburg is so placed that the operation would be comparatively easy. In truth the blockade of all the German ports on the Baltic or the North Sea would present little difficulty.... Consider the effect on Germany if her flag were swept from the high seas and her ports blockaded. She might not miss her colonies, for they are only a burden, but the loss of her sea-borne trade would be an equivalent to an immediate fine of at least a hundred million sterling. In plain words, a war with Germany, even when conducted by her with the utmost wisdom and prudence, must mean for her a direct loss of a terribly heavy kind, and for us virtually no loss at all." This article is full of the fallacies which I have endeavored to expose in this book, but it logically develops the notions which are prevalent in both England and Germany; and yet Germans have to listen to an English Minister of Marine describing their Navy as a luxury!
[117] Here is the real English belief in this matter: "Why should Germany attack Britain? Because Germany and Britain are commercial and political rivals; because Germany covets the trade, the Colonies, and the Empire which Britain now possesses.... As to arbitration, limitation of armament, it does not require a very great effort of the imagination to enable us to see that proposal with German eyes. Were I a German, I should say: 'These islanders are cool customers. They have fenced in all the best parts of the globe, they have bought or captured fortresses and ports in five continents, they have gained the lead in commerce, they have a virtual monopoly of the carrying trade of the world, they hold command of the seas, and now they propose that we shall all be brothers, and that nobody shall fight or steal any more,'" (Robert Blatchford, "Germany and England," pp. 4-13).
[118] "Facts and Fallacies." An answer to "Compulsory Service," by Field-Marshal Earl Roberts, V.C., K.G.
[119] Discussing the first edition of this book, Sir Edward Grey said: "True as the statement in that book may be, it does not become an operative motive in the minds and conduct of nations until they are convinced of its truth and it has become a commonplace to them" (Argentine Centenary Banquet, May 20, 1910).
[120] Lecky, "History of the Progress of Rationalism in Europe."
[121] I do not desire in the least, of course, to create the impression that I regard the truths here elaborated as my "discovery," as though no one had worked in this field before. Properly speaking, there is no such thing as priority in ideas. The interdependence of peoples was proclaimed by philosophers three thousand years ago. The French school of pacifists—Passy, Follin, Yves Guyot, de Molinari, and Estournelles de Constant—have done splendid work in this field; but no one of them, so far as I know, has undertaken the work of testing in detail the politico-economic orthodoxy by the principle of the economic futility of military force; by bringing that principle to bear on the everyday problems of European statecraft. If there is such an one—presenting the precise notes of interrogation which I have attempted to present here—I am not aware of it. This does not prevent, I trust, the very highest appreciation of earlier and better work done in the cause of peace generally. The work of Jean de Bloch, among others, though covering different ground from this, possesses an erudition and bulk of statistical evidence to which this can make no claim. The work of J. Novikow, to my mind the greatest of all, has already been touched upon.