No matter what opinion one may hold with respect to the necessity of secret diplomacy, it must be recognized that this practice involves a very narrow conception of the active scope of democracy. It is in fact a historical survival from the period of the absolutist state; or in other words, that aspect of the modern state which deals with foreign affairs has retained the character of absolutism. It is a superstition, in the picturesque sense of that word used by Lowell, when he defines it as “something left standing over from one of the world’s witenagemotes to the other.” In this case, indeed the most recent witenagemote approached the question and proposed a step in advance towards its solution. But the difficulty still persists.
In its relations with other states, the state is considered to be absolute, not bound by any laws, responsible only for its own security, welfare and progressing influence. The struggle for political power still exists among states, in essentially the same keenness and rigidity with which it appeared to the eyes of Machiavelli. The importance of world-wide human relationships, and of international coöperation in scientific and economic life, has indeed been brought forth and given its place in the public mind; but because of the manner in which the conduct of international affairs is actually handled, the feeling thus generated does not have much chance to influence action at critical times, when the people are startled and excited by the sudden revelation of dangers, which awaken in them all the bitter feelings engendered by the past struggles of mankind.
This survival is given strength by class interests, pride of race, and by the manipulations of plutocratic control. Where affairs are handled by a narrow circle of men, no matter how high-minded and how thoroughly conscious of their public responsibility, yet with the necessary limitations of the human mind, they cannot but be influenced at every turn by the opinions of others with whom they are actually in contact; so that in decisions on these momentous matters, the thing which is concretely present is very often an interest comparatively narrow in itself, and related to the public welfare only by a series of remote inferences which are accepted at their face value. The most successful statesman of the nineteenth century said that the whole Balkan question was not worth the bones of one Pomeranian grenadier; yet his successors in power risked the very existence of the nations of Europe for one phase of that question.
Powerful interests will always have means, formal or informal, to lay their needs and desires before the men in power. They may indeed be very important and may deserve special attention, but unfortunately, many cases have happened in which their point of view has been adopted without making sure that there existed a general public interest sufficiently important to warrant taking the risks involved.
A diplomatic caste recruited from a certain class of society, trained in the traditions of authority, in contact all the time with men of similar views and principles, cannot in the nature of things free itself from the limitations of such environment and such training.
From the personal point of view diplomacy has adhered to the belief in the superior intelligence, ability and foresight in the handling of foreign affairs, on the part of those who by inherited traditions and special experience may be said to belong to a caste distinguished from the mass of humanity. Some one has said, there is a great danger in that there exists a caste of people who have taken the making of history as their profession; who still cling to the erroneous idea that the manipulation of large masses of people, the redistribution of territories, and the modification of the natural processes of grouping and settlement, is history. But such people who believe they are making history are really obstructing it. Even so unusual a man as Bismarck, working as he did on a great national problem, did not gain lasting success in action whereby he endeavored to anticipate the developments of history. The artful contrivance and harsh, ruthless execution of many of his plans left a heritage of evil to the world; but the greatest evil lay in the example given by so successful a man in making it seem that history could actually thus be made. The attitude which is taken in behalf of such men, in claiming for them a completely free and full discretion in controlling foreign affairs, recalls a statement made by H. G. Wells concerning a British leader: “He believes that he belongs to a particularly gifted and privileged class of beings to whom the lives and affairs of common men are given over—the raw material for brilliant careers. It seems to him an act of insolence that the common man should form judgments on matters of statecraft.” The diplomats of the old school indeed do require the people, but only as material with which to work out their grandiose projects. Their view not too distantly resembles that of the German militarists to whom ordinary humanity existed only for one purpose, “to do their damn’d duty.”
We should naturally expect to find the greatest secrecy and the most callous use of secretive methods, where absolutism remains most completely established. In the last remaining absolutism, that of Japan, these expectations are fulfilled, both as regards carefully-guarded secrecy of all diplomatic action, and the habitual use of well phrased declarations of a theoretical policy, announced for public consumption, but bearing only a Platonic relation to the details of actual doings. But more liberally governed states have not by any means all freed themselves from this practice, even to the extent of faithfully keeping the representative bodies, and the public, informed of the true character and aims of important national policies.
During the discussions of the last few years, a great many remedies for this state of affairs have been suggested. The Constitutional practice of the United States has been taken as a model in England in the suggestion that there should be a representative committee on foreign affairs in the House of Commons, which should keep in constant touch with the diplomatic officials and supervise the conduct of foreign relations; that there should be at least two days given to the discussion of the Foreign Office Vote; that there should be full reports made on the progress of all important negotiations; and that treaties and alliances should not be concluded, nor war made, without a previous authorization on the part of Parliament. The last formal proposal of this kind was the motion made in March, 1918, in the House of Commons, the opposition to which by Mr. Balfour has already been alluded to. That he should object particularly to the prying into foreign affairs on the part of persons “not responsible,” and by “politicians,” that the proposed committee of the House of Commons should be thus characterized, throws light on the prejudices involved; but it also reveals the absurdity of the present arrangement from the point of view of free government. In France there has existed, since 1902, a standing committee on foreign and colonial affairs in the Chamber of Deputies.
When he was premier, in 1920, Signor Giolliti introduced a bill carrying the following provision: “Treaties and International understandings, whatever be their subject and character, are valid only after they have been approved by Parliament. The Government of the King can declare war only with the approval of the two Chambers.” The ministry of Giolliti fell before this sound measure could be passed.
It may be questioned whether many of the arrangements suggested could be more than palliatives, as long as an intelligent and constant public interest in foreign affairs has not been aroused, and as long as the absolutist aspect of foreign policy continues. The suggestion that war should not be made without a previous national referendum, has indeed logic on its side from the point of view of the democratic theory of state, but it has thus far not entered into the state of practical consideration.