Janus in Modern Life

by W. M. Flinders Petrie

Another subject which has seemed to be a most promising line of advance is that of the reduction or abolition of warfare. We must not limit our view in this to open and direct violence, there are other forms of warfare quite as effective, and causing as much, or more, misery in the total. The warfare of trade is always going on, each nation is pushing its neighbours as much as it can for its own benefit. Some gain benefit by closed markets and bleeding a monopoly, others benefit by open markets, and each fights for what it wants by trade methods backed with force. The free trader honestly believes that all this can and should be abolished by each country producing what it is best fitted for, and a tacit or legal understanding that there is to be no trade rivalry on the various lines thus assigned to different countries. Such would be the only system which could abolish trade warfare. Under such a system advance would be greatly checked, if not killed. Look at the history of quinine; only twenty years ago it was 10s. an ounce, and the growers (though competing among themselves) did not think they could improve the process or reduce the price. The chemist in Europe stepped into the market and smashed the old system by much cheaper artificial quinine. But the growers, sooner than be ruined, invented extraction by petroleum, and brought down the price to 1s. 6d. an ounce. Now here were two acts of violent trade warfare between countries; the result being such an improvement that instead of one of the most life-saving medicines being a luxury, it can now be used six times more freely than before. Without trade war this would never have come about. Free trade implies free competition, and that is trade-warfare.

Another form of trade war is holding a country for the sake of a monopoly of trade, thus enabling a group of manufacturers—say of France—to tax all the inhabitants under their government, especially in colonies—as Algiers, Madagascar, Tahiti, &c. This is simply a form of tribute, like the taxation levied by Rome on various conquered countries; it holds back the taxed countries. If other countries wish to get a share of that trade they will have to fight, by trade or by violence, to conquer the right to join in it. And a trade war which shut, say, all English markets to France, until all French markets were open to England, would not violate any economic principle. It is meeting force by force, exclusion by exclusion; and no shudder at our using trade war ourselves will prevent for an instant the trade war which is used against us. Our principles will not weigh a feather in other nations' practice. But warfare is a temporary measure, and retaliation must only be temporary. The great danger would be in establishing a permanent system of taxation of foreign productions, which would be worked to the utmost by trades unions at home, in order to enable them to bleed the country to death by high prices. This terrible danger of ruin is the main reason against protective duties, though seldom, if ever, noticed in public discussion of the subject.

Another form of warfare is the relative burden of armaments. This may be called slow combustion, in contrast to the open flame of war. Now if there is no joint limitation—as at present—the most long-sighted and powerful nation stands to win at this game; the result is the same as if actual war were in progress, but the terrors and destruction of war are avoided. But if there be a joint limitation of armament—as some hope may be established—it must be on such a basis that no one state is left in a condition of clear superiority to another, otherwise it would tie the inferior state to be in a permanently inferior condition. And the qualities which will win will be subterfuge, evasion, and bad faith; whichever state contrives to be better prepared than another behind the agreement will stand to win when the war does come. In the unlimited condition the qualities win which are those best for mankind in all other respects; in the limited condition the qualities will win which are worst for mankind otherwise. The real fact is that great armaments are like great states, a needful condition of the new speed of communication. When it took two or three months to move an army from central Europe to England, we had two or three months to prepare; when it takes only two or three days we must be always prepared. No one can put the clock back, and steam is the end of small armaments. Within a generation of quick transport being started, big armaments were found needful, and will never cease to be needful. Great permanent combinations of states are the only line of relief under the new conditions, which bind mankind for ever in the future.

Let us look now at direct war. What are the qualities which tell for success, looking to the wars of recent times with which we are familiar? In the brains of the army the main qualities have been (1) Foresight; (2) Combining power; (3) Honesty; (4) Imagination; (5) Skill; and in the muscle of the army (6) Physique; (7) Industry; (8) Tenacity. In short, success in war requires precisely the same qualities as success in peace. Even if the cause is bad, yet it is the best man all round that wins. In each case recently the winner has been the better power for future civilisation. War then may be defined as the concentration into a year of the same results which would take place by economic causes within perhaps a generation or a century. So far as violent changes are undesirable—as we have noticed before—so far war is undesirable. But on the purely humanitarian view it may be better to flee before one's enemies for three months than have three years' famine; it may be better to kill 100,000 in a brief campaign than starve a million during a whole generation by bad trade owing to slow economic changes. War strikes the imagination and impresses the thoughtless with its horror, but a starving peace may be a far more painful process.

It is difficult to see that any of the causes of trade war, armament war, or open war are at all likely to be less in the future than they have been in the past; and if the causes are the same we must expect like effects. Nor do we see that any result of these different kinds of war is injurious to that character of man which is requisite for his advance in better lines. Each of these forms of competition tends to give an advantage to the best qualified race, and to promote the most beneficial strains of character. On the general principle that slow evolution is preferable to violent changes we must look for advance by intensified trade war rather than by armaments, and by the strain of armament rather than by open war.

A direction in which great improvements of organisation may be attained would be in better adaptation of checks. So far as possible, checks should be abolished by establishing interests in the same direction between different parties. The profit-sharing movement is an excellent beginning of what needs to be fully and exactly carried out. The checks of inspection, which have been so greatly multiplied lately, are peculiarly liable to abuses; and a system of fewer and far superior inspectors, much less inspection, and much heavier penalties to correspond, would in the long run prove the safer line. The great check by popular election is very wasteful, a general election costing the country over a million pounds in various ways. Precisely as fair a check would be gained by summoning one in a hundred of the electors by lot at the day of election; and the nursing of a constituency would be much diminished.

Lastly, let us look at the final type to which man will probably be led by natural survival. This enquiry is limited throughout to those qualities which are the product of external causes; and no attempt is made to estimate the more spiritual side of man or his higher mental development. For that we have not the same physical basis of research, and it would be a fruitless mixture to include such considerations—however important—in an enquiry which by its scope might be similarly applicable to lower organisms. We are therefore dealing here only with the physical basis of civilisation.

For the sake of safety from aggression and prevention of small quarrels, federations of great size must prevail; while those federations which allow for the greatest diversity between the states will prove more adaptable and vigorous. Similarly, states which allow of the greatest diversity of life to the individual will succeed best, by the promotion of the most vigorous strains. More systematic law will be needed between states. This may perhaps be on the line of all contracts being on the seller's law, and all marriage on the husband's law, regardless of change of residence; and all contracts being suable on their own law in any state.

The greatest empires have in the past allowed great diversity between states. Persia left each land to its own laws, and only required the control of a satrap, a small tribute, and unification of army and navy. Rome interfered very little with local law, and left the principal cities autonomous throughout the empire. Britain has carefully preserved local law where a system existed, as in India, the Cape, and many varieties nearer home, even in England itself. The United States have kept local laws of states and local legislatures. Hence it is likely that groups of states with great variety of type will prevail, only unified by a common system of defence and compulsory taxation for that purpose. It is even conceivable that such a system might be established in England, if the Privy Council was supplemented by Colonial ex-ministers of long standing, and was granted powers of assessment over all parliaments for the common defence.

The type of man which must prevail is that of the greatest industry and greatest individuality; each man belonging to many voluntary societies for various united benefits. Agriculture, the main industry of man, will be far more elaborate and economical; as much so as the present Chinese system, or even carried to further detail with machinery. And the unlimited supply of atmospheric nitrates, now in sight, will also greatly increase production. Profit-sharing or the shareholding of all workers must gradually prevail in all industries. The growth of rapidity of thought and action, and the economy of organisation, will enable a living to be earned with perhaps half a day's labour, or less. The large balance of time, beyond that which will be needed for bare necessities, will be spent on a much greater development of natural resources and conveniences of life; each man will thus enjoy the result of an immense accumulated capital of improvements and benefits. In short, each one will be rich, either by the cheapness of articles or abundance of money, a merely relative question. The accumulated wealth of improvement will leave a smaller profit on labour, or in other words capital will command a very low interest. Therefore there will be less inducement to work for saving; and hence spare time will be more readily employed in the personal quest of knowledge, and enlargement of mental interests, in literature, in science, in history, and in the arts, or among the less capable in mere amusements. But the higher the social organisation and reward of ability, the more intense will be the weeding of the less capable, and the more highly sustained will be the general level of ability.