Reventlow then says that a comparison of "the Calais idea" with Suez is as idle as the comparison of a chair with a table. He says Jaeckh is mistaken in supposing Calais does not concern more than the south coast of England or that it merely threatens one of many ways to and from England. Reventlow says:
"This by no means completes the Calais idea. From a military or political or economic point of view one should look at the matter with the eyes of Great Britain and define the Calais idea as a possibility for a seafaring continental power to conduct a war against Great Britain from the continental coast channel and with all military resources while holding open communication between the Atlantic Ocean and the North Sea."
Note on the Principle of Nationality
By John Galsworthy
This article, dealing with the consequences of the war, originally appeared in La Revue of Paris, and is here reproduced by permission of Mr. Galsworthy.
IN these times one dread lies heavy on heart and brain—the thought that after all the unimaginable suffering, waste, and sacrifice of this war, nothing may come of it, no real relief, no permanent benefit to Europe, no improvement to the future of mankind.
The pronouncements of publicists—"This must never happen again," "Conditions for abiding peace must be secured," "The United States of Europe must be founded," "Militarism must cease"—all such are the natural outcome of this dread. They are proclamations admirable in sentiment and intention. But human nature being what it has been and is likely to remain, we must face the possibility that nothing will come of the war, save the restoration of Belgium, (that, at least, is certain;) some alterations of boundaries; a long period of economic and social trouble more bitter than before; a sweeping moral reaction after too great effort. Cosmically regarded, this war is a debauch rather than a purge, and debauches have always to be paid for.
Confronting the situation in this spirit, we shall be the more rejoiced if any of our wider hopes should by good fortune be attained.
Leaving aside the restoration of Belgium—for what do we continue to fight? We go on, as we began, because we all believe in our own countries and what they stand for. And in considering how far the principle of nationality should be exalted, one must well remember that it is in the main responsible for the present state of things. In truth, the principle of nationality of itself and by itself is a quite insufficient ideal. It is a mere glorification of self in a world full of other selves; and only of value in so far as it forms part of that larger ideal, an—international ethic, which admits the claims and respects the aspirations of all nations. Without that ethic little nations are (as at the present moment) the prey—and, according to the mere principle of nationality, the legitimate prey—of bigger nations. Germany absorbed Alsace-Lorraine, Schleswig, and now Belgium, by virtue of nationalism, of an overweening belief in the perfection of its national self. Austria would subdue Serbia from much the same feeling. France does not wish to absorb or subdue any European people of another race, because France, as ever, a little in advance of her age, is already grounded in this international ethic, of unshakable respect for the rights of all nations which belong, roughly speaking, to the same stage of development. The same may be said of the other western democratic powers, Britain and America. "To live and let live," "to dwell together in unity," are the guiding maxims of the international ethic, by virtue of which alone have the smaller communities of men—the Belgiums, Bohemias, Polands, Serbias, Denmarks, Switzerlands of Europe—any chance of security in the maintenance of their national existences. In short the principle of nationality, unless it is prepared to serve this international ethic, is but a frank abettor of the devilish maxim, "Might is right." All this is truism; but truisms are often the first things we forget.