XII
THE NATION
The conclusion to which a review of England's position and of the state of Europe points, is that while there is no visible cause of quarrel between Great Britain and Germany, yet there is between them a rivalry such as is inevitable between a State that has long held something like the first place in the world and a State that feels entitled in virtue of the number of its people, their character and training, their work and their corporate organisation, to aspire to the first place. The German nation by the mere fact of its growth challenges England for the primacy. It could not be otherwise. But the challenge is no wrong done to England, and the idea that it ought to be resented is unworthy of British traditions. It must be cheerfully accepted. If the Germans are better men than we are they deserve to take our place. If we mean to hold our own we must set about it in the right way—by proving ourselves better than the Germans.
There ought to be no question of quarrel or of war. Men can be rivals without being enemies. It is the first lesson that an English boy learns at school. Quarrels arise, as a rule, from misunderstandings or from faults of temper, and England ought to avoid the frame of mind which would render her liable to take offence at trifles, while her policy ought to be simple enough to escape being misunderstood.
In a competition between two nations the qualification for success is to be the better nation. Germany's advantage is that her people have been learning for a whole century to subordinate their individual wishes and welfare to that of the nation, while the people of Great Britain have been steeped in individualism until the consciousness of national existence, of a common purpose and a common duty, has all but faded away. What has to be done is to restore the nation to its right place in men's minds, and so to organise it that, like a trained athlete, it will be capable of hard and prolonged effort.
By the nation I mean the United Kingdom, the commonwealth of Great Britain and Ireland, and I distinguish it from the Empire which is a federation of several nations. The nation thus defined has work to do, duties to perform as one nation among many, and the way out of the present difficulties will be found by attending to these duties.
In the first place comes Britain's work in Europe, which to describe has been the purpose of the preceding chapters. It cannot be right for Britain, after the share she has taken in securing for Europe the freedom that distinguishes a series of independent States existing side by side from a single centralised Empire, to turn her back upon the Continent and to suppose that she exists only for the sake of her own colonies and India. On the contrary it is only by playing her part in Europe that she can hope to carry through the organisation of her own Empire which she has in view. Her function as a European State is to make her voice heard in the council of the European nations, so that no one State can dictate the decisions to be reached. In order to do that she must be strong enough to be able to say Aye and No without fear, and to give effective help in case of need to those other States which may in a decision vote on the same side with her.
In her attitude towards the Powers of Europe and in her dealings with them Great Britain is the representative of the daughter nations and dependencies that form her Empire, and her self-defence in Europe is the defence of the whole Empire, at any rate against possible assaults from any European Power. At the same time she is necessarily the centre and the head of her own Empire. She must take the lead in its organisation and in the direction of its policy. If she is to fulfil these duties, on the one hand to Europe and on the other to the daughter nations and India, she must herself be organised on the principle of duty. An England divided against herself, absorbed in the disputes of factions and unconscious of a purpose, can neither lead nor defend her Empire, can play her proper part neither in Europe nor in the world.
The great work to be done at home, corresponding to the ultimate purpose of national life, is that she should bring up her people to a higher standard of human excellence, to a finer type than others. There are English types well recognised. Fifty years ago the standard of British workmanship was the acknowledged mark of excellence in the industrial world, while it has been pointed out in an earlier chapter that the English standards, of character displayed in conduct, described in one aspect by the word "gentleman," and in another by the expression "fair-play," form the best part of the nation's inheritance. It is the business of any British education worth thinking of to stamp these hall-marks of character upon all her people.
Nothing reveals in a more amazing light the extent to which in this country the true meaning of our being a nation has been forgotten than the use that has been made in recent years of the term "national education." The leaders of both parties have discussed the subject as though any system of schools maintained at the public expense formed a system of national education. But the diffusion of instruction is not education, and the fact that it is carried on at the public expense does not make it national. Education is training the child for his life to come, and his life's value consists in the work which he will do. National education means bringing up every boy and girl to do his or her part of the nation's work. A child who is going to do nothing will be of no use to his country, and a bringing up that leaves him prepared to do nothing is not an education but a perversion. A British national education ought to make every man a good workman, every man a gentleman, every man a servant of his country.