Of the rest, the greater nations that are spoken of as Powers no such general statement will hold. These are
the peoples who stand, in matters of national concern, on their own initiative; and the question of peace and war at large is in effect, a question of peace and war among these Powers. They are not so numerous that they can be sifted into distinct classes, and yet they differ among themselves in such a way that they may, for the purpose in hand, fairly be ranged under two distinguishable if not contrasted heads: those which may safely be counted on spontaneously to take the offensive, and those which will fight on provocation. Typically of the former description are Germany and Japan. Of the latter are the French and British, and less confidently the American republic. In any summary statement of this kind Russia will have to be left on one side as a doubtful case, for reasons to which the argument may return at a later point; the prospective course of things in Russia is scarcely to be appraised on the ground of its past. Spain and Italy, being dubious Powers at the best, need not detain the argument; they are, in the nature of things, subsidiaries who wait on the main chance. And Austria, with whatever the name may cover, is for the immediate purpose to be counted under the head of Germany.
There is no invidious comparison intended in so setting off these two classes of nations in contrast to one another. It is not a contrast of merit and demerit or of prestige. Imperial Germany and Imperial Japan are, in the nature of things as things go, bent in effect on a disturbance of the peace,—with a view to advance the cause of their own dominion. On a large view of the case, such as many German statesmen were in the habit of professing in the years preceding the great war, it may perhaps appear reasonable to say—as they were in the habit of saying—that these Imperial Powers are as well
within the lines of fair and honest dealing in their campaign of aggression as the other Powers are in taking a defensive attitude against their aggression. Some sort of international equity has been pleaded in justification of their demand for an increased share of dominion. At least it has appeared that these Imperial statesmen have so persuaded themselves after very mature deliberation; and they have showed great concern to persuade others of the equity of their Imperial claim to something more than the law would allow. These sagacious, not to say astute, persons have not only reached a conviction to this effect, but they have become possessed of this conviction in such plenary fashion that, in the German case, they have come to admit exceptions or abatement of the claim only when and in so far as the campaign of equitable aggression on which they had entered has been proved impracticable by the fortunes of war.
With some gift for casuistry one may, at least conceivably, hold that the felt need of Imperial self-aggrandisement may become so urgent as to justify, or at least to condone, forcible dispossession of weaker nationalities. This might, indeed it has, become a sufficiently perplexing question of casuistry, both as touches the punctilios of national honour and as regards an equitable division between rival Powers in respect of the material means of mastery. So in private life it may become a moot question—in point of equity—whether the craving of a kleptomaniac may not on occasion rise to such an intolerable pitch of avidity as to justify him in seizing whatever valuables he can safely lay hands on, to ease the discomfort of ungratified desire. In private life any such endeavour to better oneself at one's neighbors' cost is not commonly reprobated if it takes effect on a decently large
scale and shrewdly within the flexibilities of the law or with the connivance of its officers. Governing international endeavours of this class there is no law so inflexible that it can not be conveniently made over to fit particular circumstances. And in the absence of law the felt need of a formal justification will necessarily appeal to the unformulated equities of the case, with some such outcome as alluded to above. All that, of course, is for the diplomatists to take care of.
But any speculation on the equities involved in the projected course of empire to which these two enterprising nations are committing themselves must run within the lines of diplomatic parable, and will have none but a speculative interest. It is not a matter of equity. Accepting the situation as it stands, it is evident that any peace can only have a qualified meaning, in the sense of armistice, so long as there is opportunity for national enterprise of the character on which these two enterprising national establishments are bent, and so long as these and the like national establishments remain. So, taking the peaceable professions of their spokesmen at a discount of one hundred percent, as one necessarily must, and looking to the circumstantial evidence of the case, it is abundantly plain that at least these two imperial Powers may be counted on consistently to manoeuvre for warlike advantage so long as any peace compact holds, and to break the peace so soon as the strategy of Imperial enterprise appears to require it.
There has been much courteous make-believe of amiable and upright solicitude on this head the past few years, both in diplomatic intercourse and among men out of doors; and since make-believe is a matter of course in diplomatic intercourse it is right and seemly, of course,
that no overt recognition of unavowed facts should be allowed to traverse this run of make-believe within the precincts of diplomatic intercourse. But in any ingenuous inquiry into the nature of peace and the conditions of its maintenance there can be no harm in conveniently leaving the diplomatic make-believe on one side and looking to the circumstances that condition the case, rather than to the formal professions designed to mask the circumstances.