Protection of Commerce
It is obvious, therefore, that if we confine ourselves purely to geographical conditions, and adhere to the principle that navies are required for the protection of coasts, we can at once reduce, within relatively small limits, the building of armoured ships. The reason why large navies have hitherto been necessary is because it has been assumed that they do not merely protect coasts, but protect lines of commerce. We have been told, for instance, that inasmuch as we cannot feed our own population, and our national food comes to us from Canada, America, the Argentine, Russia, and elsewhere, we must possess a very large amount of cruisers to safeguard the ships that are conveying to us our daily bread. If we ask why our ships must not only protect our shores, but our merchandise—the latter being for the most part a commercial enterprise worked by individual companies—the answer turns on that much-discussed principle, the Right of Capture at Sea, which was debated at the last Hague Conference, and as a matter of fact stoutly defended both by Germany and ourselves. If we look at this doctrine—the supposed right that a power possesses to capture the merchandise of private individuals who belong to an enemy country in times of war—we shall perhaps feel some surprise that a principle which is not admitted in land warfare should still prevail at sea. According to the more benevolent notions of conducting a campaign suggested, and indeed enforced by Hague Conventions and such like, an army has no right to steal the food of a country which it has invaded. It must pay for what it takes. Well-conducted armies, as a matter of fact, behave in this fashion: the necessity of paying for what they take is very strictly enforced by responsible officers. Why, therefore, at sea an opposite state of affairs should prevail is really not easy to understand. Most of the enemy's merchant ships which have been captured in the recent war belong to private individuals, or private companies. But they are taken, subject to the decision of Prize Courts, as part of the spoils of a successful maritime power. I am aware that the question is an exceedingly controversial one, and that Great Britain has hitherto been very firm, or, perhaps, I might be allowed to say, obstinate in upholding the law of capture at sea. But I also know that a great many competent lawyers and politicians do not believe in the validity of such a principle, and would not be sorry to have it abolished.[13] At all events, it is clear enough that if it were abolished one of the main arguments for keeping up a strong navy would fall to the ground. We should then require no patrol of cruisers in the Atlantic, in the Pacific, and in the Mediterranean. One thing at least is certain, that if we can ever arrive at a time when a real Concert of Europe prevails, one of the first things which it must take in hand is a thorough examination of the extent of defensive force which a nation requires as a minimum for the preservation of its independence and liberty.
[13] Notably Lord Loreburn, in his Capture at Sea (Methuen).
Trade in Armaments
Certainly one crying evil exists which ought to be dealt with promptly and effectively in accordance with the dictates of common sense as well as common morality. I refer to the trade in armaments carried on by private companies, whose only interest it is to foment, or perhaps actually to produce, war scares in order that munitions of war may be greedily purchased. A notorious example is furnished by the great works at Essen owned by Krupp. In the same position are the great French works at Creusot, owned by Schneider, and those of our own English firms, Armstrongs, Vickers, John Brown, and Cammell Laird. These are all successful concerns, and the shareholders have reaped large profits. I believe that at Creusot the dividends have reached twenty per cent., and Armstrongs yield rarely less than ten per cent. It is necessary to speak very plainly about industries of this kind, because, however we like to phrase it, they represent the realisation of private profit through the instruments of death and slaughter. It would be bad enough if they remained purely private companies, but they really represent the most solid public organisations in the world. We know the intimate relations between Krupp and the German Government, and doubtless also between Messrs. Schneider and the French Government. This sordid manufacture of the instruments of death constitutes a vast business, with all kinds of ramifications, and the main and deadly stigma on it is that it is bound to encourage and promote war. Let me quote some energetic sentences from Mr. H.G. Wells on this point: "Kings and Kaisers must cease to be commercial travellers of monstrous armament concerns.... I do not need to argue, what is manifest, what every German knows, what every intelligent educated man in the world knows. The Krupp concern and the tawdry Imperialism of Berlin are linked like thief and receiver; the hands of the German princes are dirty with the trade. All over the world statecraft and royalty have been approached and touched and tainted by these vast firms, but it is in Berlin that the corruption is centred, it is from Berlin that the intolerable pressure to arm and still to arm has come."[14]
What is the obvious cure for this state of things? It stares us in the face. Governments alone should be allowed to manufacture weapons. This ought not to be an industry left in private hands. If a nation, through its accredited representatives, thinks it is necessary to arm itself, it must keep in its own hands this lethal industry. Beyond the Government factories there clearly ought to be no making of weapons all over Europe and the world.
[14] There are one or two pamphlets on this subject which are worth consulting, especially The War Traders, by G.H. Perris (National Peace Council, St. Stephen's House, Westminster), and The War Trust Exposed, by J.F. Walton Newbold (the National Leader Press, Manchester). See also The War of Steel and Gold, by H.N. Brailsford, Chapter II, "Real Politics," p. 89. The sentences quoted from Mr. Wells come from The War that will end War (F. and C. Palmer), p. 39.