Investing Money Abroad
The truth is, of course, that the honourable name of commerce is now used to cover very different kinds of enterprise. We used to export goods; now we export cash. Wealthy men, not being content with the sound, but not magnificent interest on home securities, take their money abroad and invest in extremely remunerative—though of course speculative—businesses in South Africa, or South America, concerned with rubber, petroleum, or whatnot. Often they subscribe to a foreign loan—in itself a perfectly legitimate and harmless operation, but not harmless or legitimate if one of the conditions of the loan is that the country to which it is lent should purchase its artillery from Essen or Creusot, or its battleships from our yards. For that is precisely one of the ways in which the traffic in munitions of war goes on increasing and itself helps to bring about a conflagration. Financial enterprise is, of course, the life-blood of modern states. But why should our army and navy be brought in to protect financiers? Let them take their own risks, like every other man who pursues a hazardous path for his own private gain. Private investment in foreign securities does not increase the volume of a nation's commerce. The individual may make a colossal fortune, but the nation pays much too dearly for the enrichment of financiers if it allows itself to be dragged into war on account of their "beaux yeux."
Ideal Aims
It is time to gather together in a summary fashion some of the considerations which have been presented to us in the course of our inquiry. We have gone to war partly for direct, partly for indirect objects. The direct objects are the protection of small nationalities, the destruction of a particularly offensive kind of militarism in Germany, the securing of respect for treaties, and the preservation of our own and European liberty. But there are also indirect objects at which we have to aim, and it is here, of course, that the speculative character of our inquiry is most clearly revealed. Apart from the preservation of the smaller nationalities, Mr. Asquith has himself told us that we should aim at the organisation of a Public Will of Europe, a sort of Collective Conscience which should act as a corrective of national defects and as a support of international morality. Nothing could well be more speculative or vague than this, and we have already seen the kind of difficulties which surround the conception, especially the conflict between a collective European constraint and an eager and energetic patriotism. We must not, however, be deterred by the nebulous character of some of the ideals which are floating through our minds. Ideals are always nebulous, and always resisted by the narrow sort of practical men who suggest that we are metaphysical dreamers unaware of the stern facts of life. Nevertheless, the actual progress of the world depends on the visions of idealists, and when the time comes for the reconstitution of Europe on a new basis we must already have imaginatively thought out some of the ends towards which we are striving. We must also be careful not to narrow our conceptions to the level of immediate needs—that is not the right way of any reform. Our conceptions must be as large and as wide and as philanthropical as imagination can make them; otherwise Europe will miss one of the greatest opportunities that it has ever had to deal with, and we shall incur the bitterest of all disappointments—not to be awake when the dawn appears.
Greatness of States
What, then, are some of those nebulous visions which come before the minds of eager idealists? We have got to envisage for ourselves a new idea of what constitutes greatness in a state. Hitherto we have measured national greatness by military strength, because most of the European nations have attained their present position through successful war. So long as we cherish a notion like this, so long shall we be under the heel of a grinding militarism. We have set out as crusaders to destroy Prussian militarism, and in pursuit of this quest we have invoked, as a matter of necessity, the aid of our militarists. But when their work is done, all peoples who value freedom and independence will refuse to be under the heel of any military party. To be great is not, necessarily, to be strong for war. There are other qualities which ought to enter into the definition, a high standard of civilisation and culture—not culture in the Prussian sense, but that which we understand by the term—the great development and extension of knowledge, room for the discoveries of science, quick susceptibility in the domain of art, the organisation of literature—all these things are part and parcel of greatness, as we want to understand it in the future. It is precisely these things that militarism, as such, cares nothing for. Therefore, if we are out for war against militarism, the whole end and object of our endeavour must be by means of war to make war impossible. Hence it follows, as a matter of course, that the new Europe must take very serious and energetic steps to diminish military establishments and to limit the size of armaments. If once the new masters of Europe understand the immense importance of reducing their military equipment, they have it in their power to relieve nations of one of the greatest burdens which have ever checked the social and economic development of the world. Suggestions have already been made as to the reduction of armaments, and, although such schemes as have been set forward are, in the truest sense, speculative, it does not follow that they, or something like them, cannot hereafter be realised. Nor yet in our conception of greatness must we include another false idea of the past. If a nation is not necessarily great because it is strong for war, neither is it necessarily great because it contains a number of cosmopolitan financiers trying to exploit for their own purposes various undeveloped tracts of the world's surface. These financiers are certainly not patriots because, amongst other things, they take particular care to invest in foreign securities, the interest of home investments not being sufficient for their financial greed. It will not be the least of the many benefits which may accrue to us after the end of this disastrous war if a vulgar and crude materialism, based on the notion of wealth, is dethroned from its present sovereignty over men's minds. The more we study the courses of this world's history, the more certainly do we discover that a love of money is the root of most of the evils which beset humanity.