While the spirit of nationalism is such an acquired trait, and while it should therefore follow that the chief agency in divesting men of it must be disuse of the discipline out of which it has arisen, yet a positive, and even something of a drastic discipline to the contrary effect need not be altogether ineffectual in bringing about its obsolescence. The case of the Chinese people seems to argue something of the sort. Not that the Chinese are simply and neutrally unpatriotic; they appear also to be well charged with disloyalty to their alien rulers. But along with a sense of being on the defensive in their common concerns, there is also the fact that they appear not to be appreciably patriotic in the proper sense; they
are not greatly moved by a spirit of nationality. And this failure of the national spirit among them can scarcely be set down to a neutral disuse of that discipline which has on the other hand induced a militant nationalism in the peoples of Christendom; it should seem more probable, at least, that this relative absence of a national ambition is traceable in good part to its having been positively bred out of them by the stern repression of all such aspirations under the autocratic rule of their alien masters.
Peace on terms of submission and non-resistance to the ordinary exactions and rulings of those Imperial authorities to whom such submission may become necessary, then, will be contingent on the virtual abeyance of the spirit of national pride in the peoples who so are to come under Imperial rule. A sufficient, by no means necessarily a total, elimination or decadence of this proclivity will be the condition precedent of any practicable scheme for a general peace on this footing. How large an allowance of such animus these prospectively subject peoples might still carry, without thereby assuring the defeat of any such plan, would in great measure depend on the degree of clemency or rigor with which the superior authority might enforce its rule. It is not that a peace plan of this nature need precisely be considered to fall outside the limits of possibility, on account of this necessary condition, but it is at the best a manifestly doubtful matter. Advocates of a negotiated peace should not fail to keep in mind and make public that the plan which they advocate carries with it, as a sequel or secondary phase, such an unconditional surrender and a consequent régime of non-resistance, and that there still is grave doubt whether the peoples of these Western nations are at pres
ent in a sufficiently tolerant frame of mind, or can in the calculable future come in for such a tolerantly neutral attitude in point of national pride, as to submit in any passable fashion to any alien Imperial rule.
If the spiritual difficulty presented by this prevalent spirit of national pride—sufficiently stubborn still, however inane a conceit it may seem on sober reflection—if this animus of factional insubordination could be overcome or in some passable measure be conciliated or abated, there is much to be said in favor of such a plan of peaceable submission to an extraneous and arbitrary authority, and therefore also for that plan of negotiated peace by means of which events would be put in train for its realisation.
Any passably dispassionate consideration of the projected régime will come unavoidably to the conclusion that the prospectively subject peoples should have no legitimate apprehension of loss or disadvantage in the material respect. It is, of course, easy for an unreflecting person to jump to the conclusion that subjection to an alien power must bring grievous burdens, in the way of taxes and similar impositions. But reflection will immediately show that no appreciable increase, over the economic burdens already carried by the populace under their several national establishments, could come of such a move.
As bearing on this question it is well to call to mind that the contemplated imperial dominion is designed to be very wide-reaching and with very ample powers. Its nearest historical analogue, of course, is the Roman imperial dominion—in the days of the Antonines—and that the nearest analogue to the projected German peace is the Roman peace, in the days of its best security. There is every warrant for the presumption that the contem
plated Imperial dominion is to be substantially all-inclusive. Indeed there is no stopping place for the projected enterprise short of an all-inclusive dominion. And there will consequently be no really menacing outside power to be provided against. Consequently there will be but little provision necessary for the common defense, as compared, e.g., with the aggregate of such provision found necessary for self-defense on the part of the existing nations acting in severalty and each jealously guarding its own national integrity. Indeed, compared with the burden of competitive armament to which the peoples of Europe have been accustomed, the need of any armed force under the new régime should be an inconsiderable matter, even when there is added to the necessary modicum of defensive preparation the more imperative and weightier provision of force with which to keep the peace at home.
Into the composition of this necessary modicum of armed force slight if any contingents of men would be drawn from the subject peoples, for the reason that no great numbers would be needed; as also because no devoted loyalty to the dynasty could reasonably be looked for among them, even if no positive insecurity were felt to be involved in their employment. On this head the projected scheme unambiguously commends itself as a measure of economy, both in respect of the pecuniary burdens demanded and as regards the personal annoyance of military service.