Rebuilding Britain: A Survey of Problems of Reconstruction After the World War

by Sir Alfred Hopkinson

forcible means, would degrade us almost to the level of those who forced this War upon the world. It was the purity of our aims that united all the best elements of the nation in entering upon and in prosecuting the War, and in facing its losses. It was that which has confirmed the stability of the alliance, and from the beginning of the War made the best and most enlightened Americans earnest supporters of our cause, and has finally brought in the whole American nation, sworn to see the accomplishment of those aims. The aims with which Britain entered on the War appealed irresistibly to the people of the whole Empire, and not least to the imagination of the Indian races. An Indian friend of wide experience and calm and independent judgment wrote to me at the time, saying he had never seen anything like the spirit of intense loyalty called out by the belief of Indians that Britain was taking up a heavy burden to protect weaker nations from aggression and to maintain justice.[^[4]] Let us keep those aims pure to the end. It would, of course, be affectation to suggest that our object in the War is now simply a chivalrous desire to protect the weak or maintain justice. We now know that it is also to preserve our own existence as a nation, and that it would be better for us and our children that Britain should be sunk beneath the sea than that Germany should achieve a complete victory.

It must be reiterated that until Germans and Austrians can be admitted to free intercourse with other nations we can have no complete world peace. For such admission the conditions precedent above stated are essential. But if these are complied with, we must make our choice between the possibility of general peace with a League of Nations embracing all and a state of "veiled and suspended warfare." This

pregnant phrase caught my eye after the foregoing paragraphs were written. It is one to be remembered.

Although there is no sign at present of a changed spirit in the German rulers, or in the party which is now dominant in Germany, the prospect of an alteration in the spirit of the German people is not hopeless, unless they emerge from the War victorious. A significant passage from a German paper is quoted by Sir Dugald Clerk in the most valuable and encouraging address on the "Stability of Britain," delivered by him to the Royal Society of Arts in 1916. "So the Germans are awakening to a consciousness of the futility of their dream of domination founded upon the idea of might, irrespective of the rights of other nations, and they will ultimately be forced to accept the idea, so strange to them hitherto, that honesty between nations is as necessary as between man and man." The whole address should be read as an antidote by any who take a "gloomy joy in depreciation," as a tonic by those who are depressed by our failures and apprehensive of our future.

To maintain a real peace based on goodwill, we want to get rid of the jealous spirit which regards the prosperity of one nation as an injury to others. "The economic and financial strength of this country is founded upon the welfare not merely of the British people, but practically of all countries." "Commerce is not a war. It will be found that wealth increases simultaneously in industrious nations." "We must not even forget that a poverty-stricken Germany and Austria would react on the whole world." "Punish the Germans and Austrians by all means—they thoroughly deserve it—but do not imagine that by cutting those nations out of the world's commerce the other nations can be rendered more wealthy." These general statements do not exclude, of course, the possibility that it may be found necessary for a time by "economic pressure" to secure performance by the enemy of certain terms, nor that, during a period of reconstruction and readjustment, the conditions affecting certain

industries may not demand some special temporary protection for them. There may for a time have to be restrictions on certain imports from the enemy countries, and on certain exports to them, but all such proposals ought to be very jealously scrutinised, not only in regard to their effect on the particular trades directly affected, but on the country as a whole. The use of such weapons often injures those who use them more than those against whom they are used. Would not a German Minister of Propaganda, or a German Committee on War Aims, wishing to stimulate active support for the War among the German masses, be well advised to circulate some of the resolutions that have been passed by certain bodies in England and scatter them broadcast in Central Europe, with a few careful glosses and comments to point the moral? They would be a valuable asset for a German "ginger group." The open door into and out of this country for commodities generally has made it an emporium for world trade, and been one of the main causes why, in spite of deficient home production of necessaries, we have been able to stand the economic strain of the War. Striking off the fetters that it has been found necessary to impose—sometimes with undue strictness and pedantic minuteness—on British commerce and industry will be one of the first things to be hoped for from peace. It is impossible to give detailed examples here. Ask any merchant, he will give you specific instances of the need for a recovered freedom. Questions are so closely involved with each other that we may seem to be mixing up national trade interests with the ideal striving for peace and goodwill. Yet, after all, self-interest rightly understood and regard for the interests of others, with an honest wish for their welfare, are not feelings mutually exclusive. There is high authority for saying that "serving the Lord" is not incompatible with "diligence in business."

It is quite possible to lay too much stress on the necessity for definite and formal sanctions to enforce agreements. There are cases in which the enforce

ment of a definite penalty for a wrongful act or for breach of an agreement is very difficult, but in which the "sense of moral obligation," "respect for public opinion," and "reliance on principles of mutual consent" do regularly operate so strongly that the rules of conduct laid down are in fact observed. On the Manchester Exchange thousands of agreements involving millions of money are made, the breach of which could not be made the ground of a successful action at law. The number of cases of repudiation of such agreements is almost negligible. To plead the Statute of Frauds in an action for non-delivery or non-acceptance of goods under such informal agreements might be a defence in the law courts, but would not save the defendant from the indeterminate but effective penalties due to the feeling of his fellows that he was acting dishonourably. It is instructive to notice that in dealing with the question of industrial disputes, which are in many ways analogous to international, at least where they arise between organised bodies of employers and of workpeople, the Whitley Committee, in a supplemental report issued in January, 1918, expressed the opinion: (1) that no attempt should be made to establish compulsory arbitration or compulsory legislation to prevent strikes and lock-outs; (2) that there should be standing arbitration councils or panels of arbitrators to whom disputes arising could be voluntarily referred; (3) that provision should be made for independent inquiry and report as to the merits of trade disputes; (4) that legal penalties for breach of an award or of an agreement made to settle a trade dispute should not be imposed; (5) that the decisions of industrial tribunals and arbitrators should be co-ordinated as far as possible, and that there should be opportunity for interchange of opinion between the arbitrators whose awards should be circulated. A body of customary law on the subject would thus grow up without legal sanction, but of great value in promoting uniformity and preventing the ill-feeling which would arise from conflicting

decisions in different cases involving similar questions. Those who have taken any part in deciding questions affecting wages or trade conditions have found the need of some standard to appeal to, and felt the danger likely to arise from giving decisions either less or more favourable to either party than had been given in other districts in similar circumstances. In an analogous way, decisions of the prize court of one country are quoted in the courts of other countries, although they are not binding on them. International Law did exist, and had an important practical influence. Diplomatists did appeal to it, and the prize tribunals, in administering the law, stated distinctly that they would be guided by and would apply the principles of that law, even if the orders issued by the administrative Government of their own country were at variance with it. The decision of the Privy Council in the case of the Zamora establishes the principle that the law which prize courts will follow is International Law, and that they will do so though some Order in Council may conflict with it.

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