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THE BIOLOGY OF BRITISH POLITICS
THE BIOLOGY OF BRITISH POLITICS
By CHARLES H. HARVEY
LONDON
SWAN SONNENSCHEIN & CO., LIM.
New York : CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
1904
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CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
PAGE
I. Disintegration of Liberal and Conservative
Parties . . . . . . . i
II. Need for a Science of Politics . . 3
III. Former Attempts ..... 4
IV. Progress made in ..... 4
1. Collection of Facts
2. Hypothesis of Society as an Organism
3. Application of Biological Laws
V. Particular Features of Human Societies 9
VI. Explanation by Fact of Intra-Group
AND Extra-Group Struggles. . . 9
VII. Combination replacing Struggle . . 10 VIII. Place of the Individual . . . .11
CHAPTER I
THE PAST STRUGGLE
I. Law of the Struggle for Existence . 14
II. Among Nations . . . . . .14
III. Characteristic Features of the Collective
Struggle . . . . . -15
IV. Variations among Nations . . .16
V. The Struggle in the Sixteenth, Seven- teenth AND Eighteenth Centuries . . 18 I. Portugal; 2. Spain; 3. Holland; 4. France; 5. Great Britain.
VI. Cause of Rise of British Colonial Empire 25 VII. Heredity and Environment in Reference
TO Nations ...... 28
VIII. Adaptation to Conditions ; illustrated
in British History . . . .31
133392
vi CONTENTS
CHAPTER II THE PRESENT STRUGGLE
Summary
PAGE
I. European History: i. 1815-56; 2. 1856-70 . 35
11. The Colonial Movement since 1870 . . 2)7
III. General Dimensions of the Struggle . 41
IV. Survey of the Great Powers ... 42
(i) Austria-Hungary, (2) Italy, (3), United States, (4) France (5) Germany,(6) Russia, (7) Great Britain V. Possibilities of War from —
1. Decadent Nations
2. Colonial Frontiers
3. Buffer States
4. Minor Points of Dispute . . .51
CHAPTER III EXTERNAL ADAPTATION
Summary
I. National Interests are of Two Kinds, In- ternal and External . . . -58 II. External Interests ..... 60
I. Food
1. Present Supply
2. Necessity for Security of Sources
3. Means
II. Defence
1. Position of the Navy
(i) Change of Conditions
(2) Mercantile Marine
(3) Growth of Colonial Interests
2. The Army
(i) Its Functions
(2) The need for Reform
III. Organization
1. Natural Growth of British Empire
2. Necessity for Conscious Organization (i) as to Defence ; (2) as to Food
3. First Steps
4. Imperial Unity
CONTENTS vii
CHAPTER IV
INTERNAL ADAPTATION
Summary
PAGE
I. Variations in Nations , . . . Z6
II. Internal Interests . . . . .90 I. The Body of Citizens I. Number; 2. Distribution; 3. Health; 4. Disease n. Activities of the Nation
I. Capital; 2. Labour; 3. Land ; 4. Dis- tribution
III. Constitution of the Nation
I. Representation ; 2. Finance ; 3. Services
IV. Education
III. Law of Internal Reform and External Pres- sure . . . . . . .112
CHAPTER V COMBINATION
Summary
I. Evolution from Struggle to Combination . 115 II. Sociological Illustrations . . .115
III. Previous Attempts at unifying Human Race
— Oriental, Roman, Napoleon . . • 117
IV, Enumeration of Groups of Existing Nations 119 V. Common Civilization of THE Western Nations 122
VI. Theory of the Balance of Power . .126
VII. Ideal Schemes of an International State —
Henri IV, William Penn, Kant . . 128
VIII. Development of European Concert . 131 IX. Examination of instances of its Failure 136
X. Development of its Functions . -139
XI. Various International Institutions . 141
XII. Embodiment of the International State
IN THE Hague Tribunal . . .141
viii CONTENTS
CHAPTER VI THE LAW OF PROGRESS
Summary
PAGE
I. Questions raised by the Struggle be- tween Nations ..... 147 II. Concrete Definition of Progress . . i4g
III . External Expansion and Internal Progress 150 IV. Intra-Group and Extra-Group Struggles 152 V. Function of Social Reform VI. Imperialism is not Reactionary VII. The International State. VIII. Weakness of the International State IX. Twofold Direction of Progress X. The Realization of the Individual and
the Unity of Humanity . . .167
154 157 159 163 165
INTRODUCTION
I. One of the striking features in the history of British politics during the nineteenth century is the change which came over the two great parties. On one side, in the latter part of the century, the Conservatives, the party of the existing order, passed a number of measures which made important alterations in the constitution, and initiated con- siderable social changes. On the other side, the Liberal party, who in the middle years of the century were dominated by the Manchester School and the doctrine of Laissez-faire, at the close of the century were found passing legislation entirely hostile to these principles — legislation by which the State assumed a much larger control of trade. Finally, the close of the century saw the Liberal party rent asunder on the great question of Ireland, and a deep division appearing on the war in South Africa. While again with the opening of the twentieth cen-
B
2 THE BIOLOGY OF BRITISHi' POLITICS
tury, the Unionist party appears likely to be per- manently cleft on the question of Protection. Thus Liberals and Conservatives alike find themselves more and more frequently in opposition to their own party ; and side by side with their opponents. Even when a party is united negatively against a proposal, immediately positive counter-proposals have to be made, dissensions appear. Moreover, the rise of the Imperialist movement has shown the existence in sections on both sides, of a belief and a policy in Imperial matters absolutely identical ; while a similar reintegration has appeared on the question of Free Trade. A further instance of the confusion which besets politics is the attitude of the Labour Party to Liberalism. And lastly there comes an appeal from men who, disregarding the old parties, call for a new interest in politics, a new point of view.
"All of us have been brought up with a certain sense of duty. We have a domestic duty, a professional duty^ and a pohtical duty ; but of a national duty, as distinct from services to the party , there has been little idea.^^ — Spenser Wilkinson, The Nation^s Awakening, p. 7.
All this goes to show that the old single party
INTRODUCTION 3
guide to political action has broken down and a new is wanted but unavailable. Those who have been near to politics during these recent years must have felt the difficulties of making poHtical decisions, must have felt the pain of political estrangement. In such a time of the break-up of old traditions, of the birth of new doctrines, of the pressure of new facts, one asks if a science of politics is not possible. Is there not a guide through the mazes of policy, a test of interests, a rule of action ? It is too plain that at present there is not. The practical difficul- ties into which the ordinary citizen and even the accomplished politician are continuously plunged, make it absolutely clear that politics still is only an empirical art.
II. That there is no Science of Politics has been seen clearly by the philosopher as plainly as it has been felt by the practical politician. We will let Dr. Beattie Crozier express it : —
" Navigation, for example, with its pole-star, com- pass and charts, has been for ages dependent on astronomy ; engineering has always kept in touch with mathematics ; steam locomotion with physics ; medicine, manufactures, agriculture, with advances in physiology and chemistry ; and when practical
4 THE BIOLOGY OF BRITISH POLITICS
difficulties have arisen and have proved insur- mountable in the existing state of knowledge, these arts have had to wait for new discoveries in their related sciences to start them on their way again. But it is not so with Statesmanship and the Art of Government, which have remained where they were from the time when Plato complained that it was generally felt that although cooking and shoe- making required some special training, the govern- ment of men might safely be left to the first man who should happen to come along. " — History of Intellectual Development, p. 2.
III. There have been attempts at a Political Science. The theory of the Social Contract was an attempt. The theory of Laissez-faire was an attempt at PoHtical Science. But neither rested sufficiently upon facts. The former had hardly a foundation of them. The latter had a foundation of facts, but was not a complete generalization. Change of conditions, introducing new facts, has displaced whatever truth they once had.
IV. What progress, then, has been made towards the establishment of a Political Science ?
I. The first step towards the construction of such a science is the collection of facts. This has
INTRODUCTION 5
already been done in the work of the historian. But the mere collection of facts is not sufficient to make a science. So far, history has been too often only the collection of facts, without that classification which is the essential character of a science. There is the descriptive historian. There is the philosophical historian. There are historians of departments ; of social life ; of constitutions ; of law. The descriptive history of sections of society has been fully done ; the relation of the individual to society has been frequently treated. But what is now wanted is the generalization of the facts concerning the relation of nations with one another, and the effect of this upon their internal condition.
2. The second step in the establishment of scientific politics is the application of the conception of society as an organism. Mr. Herbert Spencer was the author of the first detailed exposition of this.
We quote the following from The Study of Sociology (1872) J —
" A little time might, perhaps, with advantage be devoted to the natural history of societies. Some guidance for political conduct would possibly be reached by asking — What is the normal course of social evolution, and how will it be affected by this or that poHcy ? It may turn out that legislative
6 THE BIOLOGY OF BRITISH POLITICS
action of no kind can be taken that is not either in agreement ^vith, or at variance with, the pro- cesses of national growth and development, as naturally going on ; and that its desirableness is to be judged by this ultimate standard, rather than by proximate standards. Without claiming too much, we may at any rate expect that, if there does exist an order among those structural and functional changes which societies pass through, knowledge of that order can scarcely fail to affect our judgments as to what is progressive and what retrograde — what is desirable, what is practicable, what is Utopian "
(P- 71)-
In his Principles of Sociology, Mr. Herbert Spencer applied this conception of society as an organism in the widest sociological sense. Sir Leslie Stephen has done a similar work in the ethical section of sociology. It is its application in the political section which now concerns us. Sir John Seeley has already partly done this in his Lectures on Political Science. If a State is in this sense an organism, there must necessarily be two aspects, one the internal, in which the interaction of the various parts of the organism is treated ; the other, the external in which the interaction of political com- munities upon one another is treated. There is
INTRODUCTION 7
again to be considered the relation between these two ; that is, the relation between the organism, as affected by the interaction of its own parts, and the same organism as affected by other and similar organisms. Sir John Seeley, in his incomparable manner, treated the classification of political com- munities and their mutual interaction (Lectures on Political Science J 1885-6). The internal aspect of political States did not come within his work. Indeed, it seems as if he saw in the interaction of states the chief determining causes of their internal condition. He certainly expounded at length the effect of continental politics upon Great Britain, and he showed the general law, hereafter referred to, that the progress of internal reform varies inversely with external pressure.
3. The third stage in the development of this science was the application of the evolutionary laws to political societies. This was first done by Mr. Walter Bagehot in Physics and Politics (1873). Mr. Bagehot was mainly occupied with the effects upon societies, of war and its later substitute, discussion.
(i) In the elimination of incoherent nations.
(2) In the establishment of certain intellectual and moral characteristics.
He showed that war is to a certain extent super-
8 THE BIOLOGY OF BRITISH POLITICS
seded in civilized societies by discussion, and that the conflict of ideas in discussion gives rise to pro- gress. Bagehot saw too that mixture of race was the cause of the variations which are necessary for progress.
This hne was taken still further by Mr. D. G. Ritchie, who in Darwinism and Politics (1889) showed the sociological equivalents of heredity, environment and variation. Dr. J . B . Hay craft, again, in Darwinism and Race Progress (1895) explained the biological causes of the advance or the degeneration of races. , He dealt specially with the factor of disease and made his work particularly interesting by bringing his science to bear directly upon pressing social and political problems. In these works the operation of the laws of Natural Selection has been conclusively proved. As research advances they will be stated more exactly, but the fact of the unity of biological law is established.
We may say, then, that the method of Political Science consists of —
I. The observation of facts concerning nations, that is, history.
II. The hypothesis of nations as organisms.
III. The application of the laws of biology to explain the growth and development of nations.
INTRODUCTION 9
V. That a State is an organism, and that the facts of struggle, selection and co-operation exist in all organisms of collective life is abundantly clear. But the modifications which ensue when the collective life is that of conscious volitional human beings gathered in large bodies, wait still to be elucidated.
As compared with the animal struggle, the most noticeable feature of that within human societies is that it is limited. The more advanced the society, the greater the limitation. All the varied forms of philanthropy, all the provision of States for the distressed, all the charities of private life are appa- rently direct reversals of the natural laws of conflict and selection. Yet, being the characteristic of all collective life, and especially of the higher forms, this must have singular significance in the process of evolution. The explanation of those charities which suspend the struggle between individuals is the greatest problem of philosophy, either as psychology or ethics or politics.
VI. This explanation is to be found, we suggest, in the effects of the struggle between nations, upon the individuals composing them. Professor Karl Pear- son, who treated this subject in an article, " Socialism and Natural Selection" (The Fortnightly Review,
10 THE BIOLOGY OF BRITISH POLITICS
July 1894), used the terms Intra-group and Extra- group struggle. Summarized, his explanation is that the struggle between individuals within a society — the intra-group struggle — may become so keen as to be a disadvantage in its struggle — the extra-group struggle — with competing societies. Hence, in civilized societies the intra-group struggle is limited for the sake of greater efficiency in the extra-group struggle. This probably explains the fact that the most powerful nations are precisely those which have reached the highest degrees of internal reform. As Mr. Bagehot put it, " the strongest tend to be the best." It gives a solid reason for the good citizen to set his strength on the side of Reform and to resist reaction. It gives a guide to politics which, so far, has never been avail- able.
VII. Finally, observation of the growth of societies shows that progress is always the result of sub- stituting combination for competition. The family bond constitutes a greater security for the indi- vidual than the unattached individual could have by his own resources. The coalescence of a group of families into a tribe was an advantage in the main needs of life. The growth of a number of tribes into
INTRODUCTION ii
a national unity was a common gain. Do we not observe in current history a continuation of the same process ? Is not internationalism a sub- stitution of combination for competition ?
We thus find two fundamental laws in the history of States.
I. The limitation of the internal struggle.
II. The substitution of combination for com- petition.
The purpose of the chapters which follow is to attempt to show the action of these laws in one of the organisms called States, the British Empire ; and to suggest how these laws may be a guide deciding what should be the Hne of pohtical action in any particular case. Thus it is possible that some of the difficulties of politics may be solved, and it is possible that science may in this way make a further advance into that practical life which it is its ultimate destiny to dominate.
VIII. If the foregoing theory be true ; that is, if the methods of science can be appHed to politics, if the conception of States as organisms be true, and if the laws of biological evolution can be apphed to them ; in a phrase, if there is a Science of Pohtics, what is the true conception of the individual ?
12 THE BIOLOGY OF BRITISH POLITICS
Doubtless there will be a change, and in the end the new view will be this :/Man is only found in political societies. His constitution, physical, mental and moral, is directly shaped by that society out of which he rises : he is, in fact, but a fragment of a whole, which properly is the unit of politics. Neither theoretical nor practical politics can rightly treat him as if alone. They can only reason about him, or legislate concerning him, in the society of which he is a part. Political Science, therefore, has for its unit the Statej It will treat of the individual man, but of him only as a section. And it will be reason- able to suppose that it can only treat of him truly in so far as it treats of him as a section of his greater whole.
To make this fact still more certain, we might point to the similar change which has C9me over ethics. Whereas, at one time, the individual man with certain innate qualities was regarded as the subject of moral philosophy ; to-day there is an increasing tendency to regard as the proper subject of ethical study the institutions in which those qualities are expressed. Ethical science has turned from the individual soul to its collective embodi- ments.
If such a change involve a loss, and the
INTRODUCTION 13
destruction of centuries of effort, inasmuch as it dethrones the primacy of the individual, the gain is, that in reahty Pohtical Science shows that the reaUzation of the individual may be regarded as the end of pohtical action ; in other words, that nations advance only in the measure that their citizens attain a fuller and fuller individuality.
CHAPTER I
THE PAST STRUGGLE
I. The law of the survival of the fittest, or Natural Selection, as Darwin called it, states that —
1. There is a continuous struggle for existence between all forms of life, owing to the impossibility of life for all the forms produced. Only those individuals fitted for their environment will live on and reproduce themselves.
2. Those offspring having variations from the parent form which better fit them for the con- ditions of living will tend to multiply more rapidly than the others.
II. We have now to apply these terms to the bodies of collective life called nations.
In the first place, we may regard a nation as a single organism, as we call an ant or a beech tree a single organism. Between these organisms called
THE PAST STRUGGLE 15
nations a struggle for existence goes on as between all plants and animals, but with this difference: this is a collective struggle. Great numbers of separate individuals and their successive genera- tions are found united in a common effort against a second great number of separate individuals and successive generations of these, such as Rome and the Carthaginians in the Punic Wars. This struggle is one of mass against mass. In Nature, the species which becomes entirely unfit for its environment dies. So in history nations have perished ; for examples, the Assyrians, the Baby- lonians and the Medes, and in later times the Tasmanians. A species just fitted for its environ- ment may continue to exist and reproduce without making either advance or retrogression ; thus some nations, while unable to grow in comparison with their more successful competitors, may yet not be extinguished. And it is a fact worth noting 7 by the student of history that no nation, having j accepted Christianity, has perished.
III. The difference between collective struggle for existence, as in nations, and individual struggle for existence, as in plants, must be observed.
I. In the latter a great number of individuals
i6 THE BIOLOGY OF BRITISH POLITICS
are produced, and of these the few most favoured will survive while the majority will die. In the struggle between nations there are but few forms in the fight, but these remain through long periods. The struggle is really between species where the individuals of the same species die but successive generations carry on the fight. The type remains.
2. Whereas up to this century the struggle has been between single nations, it is now between communities of nations — that is, empires. The movements which established French, German and Italian unity, our own great colonial develop- ment, and the marvellous development of the United States and Russia, have now made Ihe struggle one between empires.
We shall see this in detail later : the point to be observed now is that the struggle has been raised to a wider plane.
Through individual, and family, and tribe, and nation, and finally empire, the struggle has been a collective one on an increasingly large scale.
IV. Now natural quahties or cHmate or internal conditions or any circumstance may arise in the life of a nation which will give it either advantage or disadvantage in the race. Taking the rise of any
THE PAST STRUGGLE 17
one nation over a number of competitors, we should find that it is accounted for by the appearance of certain variations which fitted that nation for ex- ternal conditions better than its neighbours. If we examined the history of the decline of any great nation, we should find that it could be traced to the appearance of variations either from within or without, that became disadvantageous to the nation in the conditions of its existence.
There are, as a matter of fact, continually variations in the life of a nation ; but these have to become widespread before they can influence national life. For example, the rise of the Puritans was a successful variation which gave England advantage in its relation with external nations, because they became powerful enough to resist an un- regulated monarchy and injurious tendencies in the Church. On the other hand, the rise of the Jesuits in England about the same time, and the rise of the Quakers, were unsuccessful variations which never became diffused enough to affect the course of our history.
It should be understood clearly that the question of their value is not here considered, but only the degree of their strength. By successful variation, is meant simply some movement which becomes
c
i8 THE BIOLOGY OF BRITISH POLITICS
powerful enough to affect the national life, and be thus a cause either of national ascent or descent. What the historian does in his investigation of the changes of a nation is to discover those which are causes. In other words, the historian studying the history of a nation is a biologist studying a species. In this sense there is passing upon history some such a change as is shown by comparing the old, limited sphere of natural history with the larger generalizations of biology.
V. Let us see how these facts of struggle, variation and survival are exemplified in the rise of the British Empire. The first essential is the quantita- tive realization of what the British Empire is among the Powers of the world, that is, area of territory, the number of subjects and the amount of trade, and comparing these with other peoples. To take a map and to observe the quantity of red is totally inade- quate. It is the situation of the territories in the temperate zones which is the remarkable fact about the British possessions ; and, moreover, as some one said, " the truth is that the whole of the ocean should be painted red." The beginning of the Empire may be dated from the discovery of North America in 1497 by John and Sebastian Cabot.
THE PAST STRUGGLE 19
For the possession of that empire there has been a continuous struggle with other nations from that time until this, and practically a continuous increase of our own empire with the one exception of the loss of the American Colonies. Portugal was the first of the colonizing Powers, and after her the struggle was between Spain, Holland and France and Great Bri- tain. Let us take these in order and see what were the causes that gave England victory and an em- pire of greater magnitude than the world has hither- to seen.
I. Portugal was the first of the five nations to colonize. But before England appeared as a com- petitor Portugal itself had passed into the hands of Spain and its colonies to Holland. It is well to note, however, the causes that made and destroyed it. When the colonizing work of Portugal began, it was a united people, trained by years of war with the Moors ; with a long coast-line and great maritime skill. Prince Henry's school of navigation and geography was the nursery of discovery in Africa, in the West Indies, in India and China.
The zenith of this colonial Power was reached under Albuquerque in the beginning of the sixteenth century. The end of it came between the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, when Spain conquered
20 THE BIOLOGY OF BRITISH POLITICS
her. What were the causes of this fall ? Let us remember the singular promise of the Portuguese power illustrated in the fact that it was in Por- tuguese ships that English sailors first went to India.
Concisely stated, the causes of the Portuguese decline were —
(i) Her colonial system was entirely centrahzed — she never discovered a sound method of local government. Her colonies were ruled from home.
(2) One result of this was the rise of a large official class and a corresponding decline in trade.
(3) The colonial officials returning brought cor- ruption into the national life.
(4) The national life was weakened by the ex- pulsion of the Jewish financiers, and by the In- quisition, which destroyed the best vitality of the nation.
(5) The nation was numerically too small to pro- vide population for the colonies founded.
(6) Portugal never produced a really great man.
(7) Lastly, her navy, the indispensable instrument of colonial power, became mercenary by the employ- ment of Moors.
2. Portugal fell before Spain, the first of our rivals in colonial empire. In the latter part of
THE PAST STRUGGLE 21
the sixteenth century the Spanish Empire was the greatest power in the world. It had been brought to greatness by —
(i) The attainment of national unity through the expulsion of the Moors, and the union of Leon and Castile and Aragon in 1474.
(2) By its training in the wars against the Moors.
(3) By the industries of Flanders and Italy.
(4) By its ability to enlist maritime genius in its service : such as Columbus and Magellan.
The zenith of the Spanish Empire was reached at the date of the Armada in 1588. After that blow it decayed, first in Europe and then in its colonies, while Holland and France and England grew. Again, we shall find that inability to adapt itself to its conditions was the cause of its fall. Events happened which ruined it as a colonial empire.
(i) Like the Portuguese, the Spanish government of the colonies was over centralized. For example, its colonial officials were taken entirely from the aristocracy.
The native aristocracy which grew up gradually in the colonies themselves was never trained in self- government.
(2) The danger of this system is that a blow at the centre ruins the whole framework. Such a blow
22 THE BIOLOGY OF BRITISH POLITICS
came in the defeat of the Armada. The heart of the nation being struck, the members withered.
(3) But the vitality of the nation had already been weakened by the Inquisition, which had drained away the best life of the nation.
(4) Moreover the Spanish colonies were exploited entirely for the benefit of the mother country. The Spaniards wanted gold and wealth from their colonies, and let other industries die.
(5) They refused them hberty of rehgion, they refused them hberty of trade.
(6) They colonized too rapidly for consolidation and attempted too many things at once.
(7) And lastly, they did what Englishmen have never done — they mixed with the lower races.
3. The third great colonial Power was Holland. The struggle between Holland and England was purely one of commercial rivalry. It was settled in 1673 by England's complete victory. The prize in dispute was the carrying trade of the world. In i66g of 25,000 ships, carrying the trade of Europe, 15,000 belonged to Holland. But Holland's surplus population was never numerous enough to found a true colonial empire. Its colonial policy was simply a means to an end, commerce.
THE PAST STRUGGLE 23
We must note that Holland is naturally a poor country, and greatly in contrast with the rich soils of France and England. Its fall was simply that of the weak power before the strong. The testi- mony as to the interior soundness of the nation is clear.
"Its fall came, not from the corruption of an enervated people, but from the immense violence of its effort." — A. S. Green, December 19, 1899, Century, p. 904-
4. The fourth great colonial rival was France. With France the contest for colonial supremacy was prolonged and bitter. The struggle was for life or death. It began with William of Orange and ended at Waterloo, until it recommenced after the Franco- Prussian War. In these 127 years England and France were at war for sixty-four years.
(i) Exiling the Protestants, France lost her best life. It is estimated that 250,000 persons were driven out by persecution.
(2) The closeness of their control of the colonies caused the interdicts to extend to them also.
(3) The French failed to realize the importance of their navy and lost it.
(4) Their greatest statesmen, such as Dupleix in India, were not supported by the nation at home.
24 THE BIOLOGY OF BRITISH POLITICS
Of their three greatest colonial rulers, one died in misery, one was shut up in the Bastille and one was executed.
(5) The French aimed at political power rather than the development of a territory by commerce.
(6) The government was incompetent even for the attainment of political ends. The Indian cam- paign was described as " worked by unskilled generals, undisciplined soldiers, unprepared country, and no public spirit."
(7) Emigration was never large enough to support the colonies established.
(8) Distraction of purpose ruined her. French ambition has always been in Europe, and all her colonial struggles were for European predominance. Now, the door being closed there, she has turned towards a colonial empire.
Let us now gather in the causes of decline that were common to the colonial rivals of Great Britain.
I. Of these four colonial Powers we see that three lost their navies and one became mercenary.
II. We see that three of them had an intensely centralized system of Government, which made the extremities weak.
III. We see that the same three, by religious per- secution, expelled their best life.
THE PAST STRUGGLE 25
IV. We see that none of the four suppHed their colonies with a large enough stream of emi- grants.
V. We see that none of them developed and nourished an independent life in the colonies them- selves. Spain and Portugal exploited them for entirely selfish interests, France for the sake of political power.
VI. We see that two of them, Spain and France, expanded too rapidly for the consolidation of the centre and extremities.
5. The struggle between the five nations was con- cluded in the victory at Waterloo, when England emerged, the greatest Power in Europe, with an extraordinary naval predominance and a vast colonial empire. To realize how complete this suc- cess is, we need here some quantitative description of the British Empire, which is the survival of three hundred years of struggle with four great Powers, and a description of the present colonial possessions of these four Powers.
VI. Let us now deal with the causes which have given this success to England.
Mr. Boyd Carpenter states them as follows : — I. Commercial enterprise of the British nation.
26 THE BIOLOGY OF BRITISH POLITICS
2. Religious intolerance at home driving men, in this case of strong national attachment, to make new and free settlements.
3. Geographical position of Great Britain.
4. Variety of occupations to be found here, fitting Englishmen for colonial settlement.
5. Changeful climate, which gave adaptability to British colonists.
6. Mixture of race.
Let us consider these in detail,
1. Commercial enterprise has always been one of the leading motives of colonization.
2. As an example of religious intolerance causing expansion, the founding of the American colonies is a clear case.
3. The situation of England, isolated from the Continent, with the sea both a defence and a means of communication with every part of the earth, has been the centre and source of British power.
" The nature of Great Britain's defence and the peculiar character of the part which she is called upon to play in history flow from the fact that Great Britain is an island, and from the close proximity of the island State to the European Continent occupied by the group of civilized nations that constitutes the great centre of the world's civilization and of
THE PAST STRUGGLE 27
the world's energy. An island State of limited size and population cannot in a period of developed navigation, if it is the near neighbour of other States of equal civilization and greater population, maintain its independence except by means of the command of the sea. But the command of the sea carries with it the command of all the coasts in the world, and af- fords to the nation which holds it the opportunity for unlimited colonization and empire in regions of comparatively undeveloped civilization and energy. It is, therefore, the coveted prize of all highly civilized nations having a coast line fit to be a basis for maritime enterprise. Its possession involves a kind of leadership — what the ancient Greeks called tjyeiJLovLa in that part of the world remote from the European centre of gravity." — " Helpless Europe," National Review, April 1897, p. 193.
4. Every variety of occupation is found in England. To see the advantage of this, note as a single case how the Spaniards have failed in agri- culture.
5. The English climate prepares a colonist for any climate, from Labrador to the West Indies.
6. In the mixture of race which is true of the British character, we come upon a fact of great importance. The successive inflow of Romans,
1
28 THE BIOLOGY OF BRITISH POLITICS
Saxons, Danes and Normans — and consequently the most adventurous of these — has specially adapted the British for colonizing work. It has been said jthat Englishmen are the " mud of all races." All the great conquering peoples have been of mixed race, and even where there has not been physical mingling there has been mixture of ideas and cus- toms, e.g. in the contact of Romans and Cartha- ginians, by which Rome became a naval power. On the other hand, exclusive races invariably fall ; for example, the Moors and the Inds.
VII. Now these six causes,which have been advan- tages in the struggle, can be arranged as follows : —
1. Natural physical advantages, (i) Geographical.
(2) Climatic. I
(3) Variety of occupations.
2. Mixture of races.
(i) Commercial enterprise. (2) Search for religious freedom. But these two heads— Natural Physical Advan- tages, and Mixture of Races— correspond to Envi- ronment and Sex in Biology.
I. The natural physical advantages possessed by England as a result of its insular position corre-
THE PAST STRUGGLE 29
spond to the favouring environment which enables a plant to develop and reproduce successfully.
This statement is so obviously true that it scarcely needs illustration.
2. The effect of mixture of race corresponds to the effect of sex. We know this fact of evolution, that the highest species are propagated by sex. The reason for this I give in the words of Dr. Wallace : —
" When a complex organism is sexually propa- gated, there is an ever-present cause of change, which, though shght in one generation, is cumulative, and under the influence of selection is sufficient to keep up the harmony between the organism and its slowly changing environment."
How does this come about ?
" Each new germ grows out of the united germ plasus of two parents, whence arises a mingling of their characters in the offspring. This occurs in each generation ; hence every individual is a complex result, reproducing in ever-varying degrees the diverse characteristics of his two parents, four grandparents, eight great-grandparents, and other more remote ancestors ; and that ever - present individual variation arises which furnishes the material for natural selection to act upon.
30 THE BIOLOGY OF BRITISH POLITICS
Diversity of sex becomes, therefore, of primary importance as the cause of variation. When a sexual generation prevails, the characteristics of the individual alone are reproduced, and there are thus no means of effecting the change of form or structure required by changed conditions of exis- tence."— Darwinism, p. 439.
But this is precisely the effect of mixture of race. We cannot express this better than is done by Mr. D. G. Ritchie :—
" The success of mixed races (provided the mixture
be a good one), the advantage which has often
come to a country even from conflict, are to a great
extent to be explained by the additional chances of
favourable variations which such races possess over
those who are living on with the same stock of blood,
institutions and ideas. ' Protestant variations ' at
least imply intellectual progress. The absence of
dissent and of controversy (which is the conflict
and mingling of different ideas), means intellectual
sterility." — Darwinism and Politics, p. 128.
^ Mixture of race thus explains the genius of the
. /Anglo-Saxons for governing foreign people of dif-
L ferent law^s and customs and religion.
The capacity for adapting a superior government to nations on a lower plane, the sense of local rights,
THE PAST STRUGGLE 31
the respect of nationality, which have been the invariable accompaniments of British rule, are to be traced probably to the composite nature of the British character itself.
Napoleon forced the Code Napoleon on every part of his dominions. But observe how differently the British Empire acts. If new territory has been acquired, the existing law^ has been retained. Con- sequently the empire at this moment exhibits the unique spectacle of a number of native systems of law being administered within it and by its power. In Quebec and Mauritius the old French law, in Guiana the Dutch law, in the Straits Settlements the Koran.
The whole history of Great Britain, of its internal institutions and its external empire, is a record of variation and adaptations by compromise, and this has been made possible by the fact that the British are a composite people.
VIII. Hence there has been continually operating in our history a prolific cause of variations supplying new compromises and adaptations, when changes at home or changes abroad demanded new adjustments. The English people have thus had aU the character- istics of a successful species — natural advantages
32 THE BIOLOGY OF BRITISH POLITICS
and a race capacity for adaptation to environment. British history is full of instances where the political genius of the nation has met some crisis and effected a reconciliation of imperial with local interests — some Canadian or Indian or Australian disaffection. An Englishman may well go to history as Emerson did, to revive his drooping spirits. But he must go to it for instruction too. More and more we are regulating every sphere of life by science. We found our religion upon science, we found our conduct upon science : let us found our politics upon science. If a man will go to history in this spirit, assuredly he will be convinced that the expansion of England has been achieved, not in defiance of the providential government of the human race, as some will have us believe, but exactly in obedience to, and as the result of, those great natural processes which are operative upon mineral, vegetable and plant, and which the language of religion describes as the will of God. A man going to history in the manner of science will see that the magnitude and the power of the British Empire have been attained only by fitness to con- ditions, and that conditions are constantly changing. They change for the nation as they change for the single organism : and if the necessary adjustments are not made, the one will perish as certainly as
THE PAST. STRUGGLE 33
the other. This brings us to the vital questions : What changes are taking place ? What is, for the British Empire, fitness to conditions ? Is it not evident that the struggle which so far has been between nations — between England, Spain, France, Holland and Portugal — is now raised to a plane where the contending forces are much greater — in fact, empires — between France, the United States, Germany and Russia ?
CHAPTER II
THE PRESENT STRUGGLE
In the previous chapter I endeavoured to show that from the sixteenth century down to the battle of Waterloo in 1815, there was a successive struggle between Portugal, Spain, Holland, France and England for Colonial Empire. Moreover, that this struggle was analogous to that which we see in the natural world between species and species ; that is to say, that what the historian describes as causes in the rise or fall of each of these empires, is what the biologist, studying species, would describe as favourable or unfavourable variations. I went on to point out that this struggle has been raised to a wider plane, that it has become a struggle between empires. Here I take it up, and in this chapter desire to show the nature of the struggle that is now proceeding. The third part will bring us to the practical conclusion, which is this. Observing in the past the course of the struggle,
84
THE PRESENT STRUGGLE 35
out of which the British Empire came as the sur- vival of the fittest, we shall be able to discover what for an empire is fitness to conditions. In the light of this knowledge we may know how to act, and to advise action, so that this empire in the contemporary struggle may maintain its peace.
I. I will ask you to observe three dates in the history of the nineteenth century — 1815, 1856, 1870.
I. The first is the year of Waterloo, and the second Congress of Vienna. The second is the year of the Crimean War, the third that of the Franco-German War. Let me set forth the signifi- cance of these three most pregnant years in the European history of the last century.
The second Congress of Vienna after the Battle of Waterloo in 18 15 secured the settlement of Europe. From the Napoleonic struggle Great Britain emerged the greatest Power of the sea and the greatest Power in Europe. The last great struggle — the struggle of Napoleon for an Indian and colonial empire — had been made and decided. On sea and land England had a predominance which has never since been exceeded. By the Congress of Vienna, as we have seen, Europe was
36 THE BIOLOGY OF BRITISH POLITICS
settled mainly on its present basis. After then, that is, between 1815 and 1856, there were forty years of comparative peace.
" After nearly twenty years of the most tre- mendous wars known in all history, it might be expected that undisturbed repose would follow for a like period ; but the years of war had also been years of social upheaval and change, so the ensuing peace resembled the exhaustion which follows fever rather than the calm repose of healthy toil." — A Century of Continental History, J. H. Rose, p. 161.
Let us see what was taking place in that time. In the first place England was consolidating her Indian and Canadian possessions, and colonizing in Australia and Africa, while everywhere on the Continent the distress caused by the Napoleonic wars and the new conditions of industry were producing discontent and revolution. Great Britain, possessing absolute supremacy at sea and the con- tinental nations seething with internal problems, an extraordinary movement of British expansion set in. That is the iirst feature of 1815-1856.
2. The second is that Russia, semi-Asiatic and secure from the internal convulsions that culminated in the continental riots of 1848, was also free to expand. Consequently as the result of the attempt
THE PRESENT STRUGGLE yj
to resist the Russian expansion, after forty years cam-e the Crimean War.
Now the real meaning of 1856 cannot be better expressed than in this sentence of Mr. Stead's : " Then Russia's natural drift southward to the Bosphorus was diverted — diverted eastward." ^ We see, therefore, the significant and perfectly natural fact that in this period after Waterloo, while all other continental nations are torn by rebellion or revolution, the two isolated powers, England and Russia, are steadily pushing on, the one by sea, the other by land. 1856 checked the Russian advance. It did not stop it, but merely diverted it.
II. Our third date is 187O; the year of the Franco- German War. The result of that war was the establishment of the unity of Germany and Italy. On September 20, 1870, the Italian troops entered Rome. On January 18, 187 1, King William was proclaimed German Emperor. From that year the present inter-empire struggle begins. Let us see why. We have already noted that the two Powers the least affected by the great social move- ments of the middle of the century were free to expand. We might note here, however, so powerful 1 Lest we Forget, W. T. Stead.
38 THE BIOLOGY OF BRITISH POLITICS
was the influence of the sense of nationality after the Franco-German War that even Russia herself shared in it considerably. The Russo-Turkish War of 1878 was fought by the enthusiasm of Pan- Slavism. Germany, France, and Italy having thus established national equilibrium, proceeded by the inevitable law of national development to advance externally. Let a nation settle its internal affairs, and reach some measure of national har- mony, it will at once begin to enlarge its borders. Obviously a nation expending its energy in a class struggle for political control will never be able to move outward with success. 1870, therefore, was the unlocking of the national doors. We see after then the rise in France, Germany and Italy of a new colonial movement. This we shall consider in detail later. For the present I want to prove this important fact, that a general continental colonial development began after 1870.
1873. France declared a protectorate over Annam.
1880. France annexes Tahiti.
188 1. France takes Tunis, and thus acquires 600 miles of Mediterranean shore.
1882. Italy took up position at Assab on the Red Sea.
1883. France took Madagascar.
THE PRESENT STRUGGLE 39
1884. Germany declared a protectorate over Angra Pequena.
1885. Germany occupied Caroline Islands. 1885. France conquers Annam and Tonquin.
1885. Italy took Massowah.
1886. German East Africa Company was founded.
1892. French took Dahomey.
1893. French advance in Siam.
1894. Italians attempt Abyssinia. 1894. Germany took the Cameroons.
1897. Germany took Kiao-Chau, whence fol- lowed the series of Chinese amputations.
In this list the acquisitions of Russia and Great Britain are not included. Their advance has been constant throughout the last century. With Germany and France and Italy, however, it was the war of 1870 that liberated them to seek colonial empire. The point to be noted is that territorial expansion in Europe being closed, and the neces- sity for new markets becoming greater, these nations turned naturally to colonial development. But colonial empire means a navy. We have, therefore, this vital fact to confront, that Great Britain, which in the early years of the century had absolute supremacy on the seas, is now sur-
40 THE BIOLOGY OF BRITISH POLITICS
rounded by powers whose colonial development has compelled them within the last few years to enlarge their navies beyond all precedent, and to lay plans for the future which will make it appar- ently impossible for Great Britain of herself to maintain the existing proportion between her own and continental navies. That is one of the gravest problems that face far-seeing and sober- minded statesmen. I dwell on this fact again and again. Hitherto, with her insular position and her terrible naval power. Great Britain has been free, and in all the alliances of Europe has had no necessities and no obligations. Cannot indeed the coldness and even ill-will of our continental neigh- bours be traced partly to British aloofness from their quarrels ? But that is absolutely changed now. Her frontiers touch the frontiers of Ger- many, France, and Russia ; and on the sea her pupils have become her rivals. While once Great 1 1 Britain had a monopoly of ship-building, now the largest modern ship belongs to Japan, the fastest to Germany, and the latest to France. The present international position, therefore, is entirely different from that at the opening of the nineteenth century. Then the whole of Europe had a common interest in resisting the designs of Napoleon, and England
THE PRESENT STRUGGLE 41
in the early years secured complete control of ocean highways. Let us now see the Powers engaged in this contest. They are France, Ger- many, Russia, Great Britain, Austria and Italy ; the two Eastern empires, China and Japan ; and, somewhat isolated, the United States. It is impos- sible to deal here with the whole field, so let us put aside for the moment China and Japan. We shall then have to survey the seven empires : Russia, France, Germany, Great Britain, Italy, Austria and the United States.
III. We are dealing now solely, let me observe, with the territorial struggle between these Powers. During the nineteenth century each of them, except- ing Austria, has enormously increased its area. The acquisition of new lands, however, is almost completed. For this reason Lord Rosebery thinks that the danger of war is abated. But it seems to me the gravest probabihty of dispute lies in the dissolution of the three dying or incoherent em- pires, China, Turkey and Austria. To what an extent the world is engaged in this contest may be seen from the fact that the land territory of the seven Powers is fifty-nine per cent, of the land surface of the globe, and that these same seven
42 THE BIOLOGY OF BRITISH POLITICS
Powers have almost entire control of the seas. Their united populations are approximately fifty- eight per cent, of the world. Their armies on a war footing are eighteen millions of men. Their navies, without Austria, are nearly i,8oo ships. The total cost of these annually is 300 million pounds. The total area which has been acquired by only four of these Powers during the nineteenth century is thirteen million square miles. Still further to illustrate the reality of the struggle, we may note that the area of Spanish possessions in the same period has fallen from six and a half million square miles to less than half a million square miles. Such is the general description of the magnitude of this territorial competition be- tween the seven principal Powers — the number of the people comprised, the area they hold — grass and flowers of the field that they are ! — the money cost of the instruments by which they hold it, to say nothing of the blood and tears, and the diverted and wasted thought by which they have reached it. But they are facts.
IV. Let us go on with the particular movements of these seven Powers, and see the points of the struggle.
THE PRESENT STRUGGLE 43
(i) Austria-Hungary
The smallest of the Powers in area is Austria- Hungary. It has but a few ships, and these only for coast defence ; and colonial possessions only one- tenth of its own size. It is held together only by the frail thread of the Emperor's life, and after that, what ? For Austria-Hungary is a hetero- geneous collection of nationalities attracted into disruption by the great adjacent Powers, Russia, Italy, and Germany, who each have racial interests in the empire. The personality of the Emperor Joseph alone seems to preserve unity among these elements. The Austrian elections which were held in 1901 placed in the new House of Deputies as many as twenty- three distinct parties. It is a significant fact that in Austria, the least expan- sive of the powers, only one man in five has a vote, the present franchise laws having been framed fifty-five years ago.
(2) Italy
Of Italy we note —
I. Her extraordinary development as a navaj Power. Her navy in 1800 of thirty-six ships had become, in 1900, 227. This is in accordance with a true instinct, for Italy lies entirely in the Mediter-
44 THE BIOLOGY OF BRITISH POLITICS
ranean Sea, with two islands, Sicily and Sardinia. 2. That she has been seized by the impulse to expand. Since 1885 Italian colonies have been founded in East Africa, the colony of Erythrea on the Red Sea, and on the Italian Somali coast, amounting to not quite twice her own size. And, moreover, because France in 1881 seized Tunis, Italy, when the Turkish Empire falls, wants Tripoli. The noticeable thing is that motives entirely pohtical urged them into these colonies. But they are costly, and all round she is opposed by French and Russian influences. A treaty in 189 1 defined the British and Italian spheres in Africa, but Italy is not satisfied. The friendship, how- ever, between the two peoples, it is satisfactory to be able to say, is safe, because of their general mutual interests. For example, the Russian frontier in Armenia is only 800 miles from the Red Sea.
(3) The United States The one significant fact that concerns us here is that the United States have abandoned their old limitation to home affairs. In 1898 they founded an over-sea empire. Cuba and Porto Rico, the Sandwich Islands and Guam, were annexed ; and in the international movements in China the United
THE PRESENT STRUGGLE 45
States have taken a prominent part. This develop- ment of American pohtics is a most clear example of that inevitability of struggle which it is the purpose of this paper to show. In both the in- stances mentioned the cause was the decay of a great Power. It is, in fact, the unavoidable col- lision that follows when a high and low civilization meet.
(4) France
France has a vast colonial empire, the largest after our own. The policy of Great Britain, the policy of Germany and the policy of Russia are regulated upon the clear principle of self-interest, not by moral philosophy or pot-house politics, as Count von Bulow puts it. But no one who is familiar with French aspirations can fail to observe the fascination that political predominance and prestige have for the French mind. They are allured by this ignis fatuus now as always. And indeed it seems likely to become the most terrible in history. As we have seen, after the Franco- Prussian War, France, under the leadership of Jules Ferry, began to seek for empire outside Europe. It has now become a great colonial Power, and in Africa has a territory as large as
46 THE BIOLOGY OF BRITISH POLITICS
that of England. Fortunately, many points of possible dispute have been settled by the Anglo- French Agreement of 1904. But there are the factors that France is the richest natural country in Europe, her unswerving pursuit of ideas and the pride of her political spirit. At this moment, November 1904. feeling between Great Britain and France was never before so friendly ; but the deter- mination of France to obliterate the memory of 1870 in a greater victory, and her continuous endeavour to found a great Colonial Empire, together with the fact that Great Britain has been the historic obstacle to that expansion, are a con- stant strain upon their relations. Who can mis- take the following ? —
"The New Century will possibly witness deep transformations in Europe. Now to be absent- minded at certain critical moments is to be de- feated. The present state of the world lays it upon all Frenchmen to remain closely united. A sustained effort towards concord, a watchful atten- tion to the events which are being foreshadowed, an active diplomacy, backed by a powerful, united and respected army and carefully managed finances — such is the wish of men, who, having reached the age of understanding at the period of France's
THE PRESENT STRUGGLE 47
misfortune, have entered public life only in order to contribute to her resurrection."
That is from the President of the French Chamber of Deputies, M. Deschanel, January 10, 1901.
(5) Germany
The important fact about Germany is that its frontiers are conterminous with Russia for 843 miles, and with France for 242 miles, requiring for their defence 17 camps and 119 fortresses. It has become a colonial and a naval Power.
In 1801 the German States had no colonial possessions, and no navy. In 1901 Germany has 1,027,000 square miles of colonial territory and a navy of 212 ships. Her colonial empire dates only from 1885, and lies chiefly in Central Africa and the Pacific. This is notwithstanding the fact that they cost her for 1900 one and a quarter million pounds. The reliable thing in German policy is the consistency with which it acts upon the prin- ciples of self-interest ; Bismarck and his successors have never allowed sentiment or passion to influence them in their alliances, or to divert them from pursuing strictly and only the national interests. Except when forced by Napoleon, Germany has
48 THE BIOLOGY OF BRITISH POLITICS i
never been at war with Great Britain, and at scarcely a point now is there the possibiHty of a territorial dispute.
(6) Russia
We come now to the greatest military Power on earth, to that Power whose growth during the nineteenth century is as marvellous as our own. It has been indeed exactly parallel, for while Great Britain has expanded by sea, Russia has expanded by land. The silent irresistible absorption of area has proceeded east and wes't by alternate steps, without cessation, impelled, as it were, by some single inscrutable will. If figures can convey anything, surely the following will. In the last century its area increased by as much as the whole of Europe without Russia, until to-day it has an area of eight and a half million square miles.
In 1801 the Russian army was 433,000 ; to-day on a peace footing it is 1,100,000, and in war would be 4,620,000. Its population then was 35,000,000 ; to-day it is 135,000,000. The direction of its expan- sion is always south and east, that is, towards ice-free ports. The Trans-Siberian Railway from Moscow to Vladivostok is completed. What that means for Europe may be seen from the following : —
THE PRESENT STRUGGLE 49
" The journey from London to Shanghai at present costs, by sea, £68 to £95, and takes about thirty-five days. Bv the Siberian route it will cost £13 los. to £33 los., according to class, and occupy sixteen days. When that is opened the two Rus- sian ports on the Pacific, Port Arthur and Vladi- vostok, will become in all probability two of the greatest ports in the world." When we look at a map and see the Russia of 1801 and that of 1901 as a swelling dark cloud, when we note its approach to India, its work in Persia, its move- ment through Siberia and North China, it is a fool's paradise to live without the thought that one day, and soon, the expansions of Russia and Great Britain must meet.
During the nineteenth century Russia has ab- sorbed—
West Finland,
Lithuania,
Poland,
North Shore of Black Sea,
Crimea,
Caucasus,
Part of Armenia,
Asia — as much as Russia in Europe at the time of Catherine.
E
50 THE BIOLOGY OF BRITISH POLITICS Far East — as much as the area of Spain and Italy.
(7) Great Britain And now after this outHne of six of the great Powers we come to the largest. It is not, we trust, without a feeling of pride and a realization of responsibility that a British citizen reads the following, which expresses and summarizes in a striking way the facts, too often forgotten, of the magnitude of the British Empire.
*' What the British Empire covers.
*' No man has ever reigned over an empire so vast as King Edward's. His Majesty rules over one continent, a hundred peninsulas, five hundred promontories, a thousand lakes, two thousand rivers, and ten thousand islands. Queen Victoria ascended the throne of an empire embracing 8,329,000 square miles ; she handed it down to King Edward with three million miles added to it ! The Queen found the revenues of the empire at £75,000,000 ; she left them at £225,000,000. The army has twice as many men as in the first year of Victoria's reign, and the navy has nearly quadrupled itself. Seventy out of every hundred ships on the sea fly the British flag. The empire
-Kf^v^
THE PRESENT STRUGGLE 51
to which Victoria acceded as Queen in 1837 covered one-sixth of the land of the world ; that of King Edward covers nearly one-fourth. The Union Jack has unfolded itself, so to speak, over two acres of new territory every time the clock has ticked since 1800. Edward VII rules over an empire fifty-three times as big as France, fifty-two times as big as Germany, three-and-a-half times as big as the United States, and three times as big as Europe. He has three times as many subjects as the Czar, and he reigns over more territory in America than the President of the United States. " — St. Jameses Gazette, January 25, 1901.
Gathering up the foregoing facts, it will be / accurate to say that the nations of the earth are ( gathered in larger masses than ever before, and f that their frontiers touch or approach each other \ at an increasing number of points. - — ^
V. Of the present international struggle we have thus outlined the largest factors, with their chief points of contact. In such a condition of inter- national politics we have to estimate the forces which make for peace and for war. Since the first migrations of men the struggle between nations has never ceased. The movements of races have
52 THE BIOLOGY OF BRITISH POLITICS
always been attended by war. The new feature, however, is that there is now estabHshed an equi- librium of population. The temperate regions seem to be occupied. Europe is filled up.
" Since the nations of modem Europe took their present distinct characters, with their languages and their local seats, between the sixth and the eleventh centuries, no new nation has appeared in Europe, nor is there the least likelihood that any will." — Bryce, " The Migrations of the Races of Men," Contemporary Review, July 1892, p. 147.
The only unoccupied parts of the north temperate regions are in South - Western and South - Eastern Siberia, and parts of Western Canada. But these have large increasing pop- ulations near. In Asia there are some un- occupied parts of Asia Minor, Mesopotamia and Persia. But misgovemment keeps them empty. There are unoccupied parts of Africa and Aus- tralia, but the lack of moisture makes it improb- able that they can ever be inhabited. While, therefore, it is true to say that an equilibrium of peoples has been estabhshed in the temperate regions, on the other hand there is still the chance of movements of peoples in the tropical regions. These, however, except China, contain no native
tHE PRESENT STRUGGLE 53
civilization of any power. In the temperate re- gions, therefore, because the movements of races have ceased, the chances of war have diminished. Even thus the international struggle has not ceased. It has taken a different form, and has now become a commercial struggle. The Western peoples are maissed in greater and greater numbers, which gives rise to keener competition in commerce. Yet, observing the struggle, the competitors, and the various forces acting upon them, we see that there is still the danger of war. They lie in these directions : —
1. In the first place the three empires, China, Turkey and Austria, continually present dan- gerous problems, which, it is possible, may only find a solution by force. There are the conflicting commercial interests of the Powers in China ; there are the rival claims waiting upon the appar- ently certain dissolution of Turkey ; there are the disruptive tendencies in Austria, due to its some- what unnatural composition.
2. In the second place conflicts may arise in the settlement of the colonial frontiers of the great Powers. The greatest source of danger at one time was Africa, but the partition of Africa is now almost complete.
54 THE BIOLOGY OF BRITISH POLITICS
3. In the third place, the position of what are called buffer States, such as Afghanistan, between Great Britain in India, and Russia, offer points of danger, especially where, being weak, they are susceptible to the competing influences and pres- sures of the Powers.
4. Lastly, there are minor outstanding differ- ences between the Powers which, however, are capable of settlement by arbitration, but yet are those occasions which in a state of strained feelings between nations offer the chance and point of war.
We have now seen the outlines of the present international struggle. We have seen the chief factors and the chief points of contact. This is the environment in which the British Empire exists.) I Former conditions are changed. Whereas once tne naval supremacy of Great Britain was absolute and beyond comparison, it is now chal- lenged by Germany, by France, and by the United States. While other nations after the Napoleonic tempest were raising themselves out of the dust, England was adding to her territories almost without a rival. Now her colonies abut on the colonies of her European neighbours. The old isolation is broken up and Great Britain is face to face with competitors who build their navies,
THE PRESENT STRUGGLE 55
found their colonies, push their trade, and extend their influence at her very doors. This being the environment of the British Empire, we proceed to inquire what are the readjustments necessary to secure her continued existence under these changed conditions.
CHAPTER III]
EXTERNAL ADAPTATION
This book is based upon the theory that empires are organisms exhibiting in the phases of their ex- istence and in their activities the laws which regu- late all life. In other words, it is assumed that history is a branch of biology. In particular the attempt has been made to apply this theory to the British Empire. The subject is thus conveniently divided into three parts : the past of the British Empire, the present and the future. In the first chapter we treated of the empire in the past ; that is, from about the beginning of the sixteenth cen- tury up to the Battle of Waterloo. In that period we found that there had been a struggle for Colonial Empire between five great Powers : and that by the end of this period four of these Colonial Empires had disappeared, leaving Great Britain, the last and the greatest, with absolute command of .the sea. But the essential point was that these empires, in their
EXTERNAL ADAPTATION 57
growth and in their decay, had followed a natural law. They had grown or decayed according as by some internal variation or some external change they had been better or worse adapted to their environment.
In the second chapter we surveyed the position of the British Empire in the present ; that is to say, in the conditions which have been brought about mainly by developments since the Battle of Water- loo. We observed that the two powers since Water- loo most free from internal strife, Great Britain and Russia, had expanded continuously — the Crimean War in 1856 not stopping the expansion of the latter, but merely altering its direction. We observed also that in this same period the struggle for national unity in the ruined nations of 1815 — France, Italy and Germany, was success- fully completed by 1870, and that these countries immediately began to acquire Colonial possessions. We saw further in this same period the unexpected rise of the United States of America as an Imperial Power. Taking a " Rundschau," then, of existing conditions, the spectacle that the world presents at this moment is that of Seven Great Powers engaged in a rivalry in empire and a rivalry in commerce more extended and more intense than
58 THE BIOLOGY OF BRITISH POLITICS
ever before. If we were scientists in tracing law in the history of Colonial Empires, if we were historians in marking the direction of the current of events in the nineteenth century, we have now become politicians by taking the historical ex- perience of the past, and applying it to the policy of Great Britain in the present state of international developments.
I. In this third chapter, I propose still to consider the British Empire as a single organism, exhibiting needs and activities similar to those of other organisms ; similar, for example, to those of a human being ; and consisting of various organs which have their particular functions, the whole ministering to the health of the organism. The theory upon which we are going is that the health of the organism, in this case the British Empire, will depend upon its being fitted for its environ- ment. But as this environment is continually changing, the health of the organism depends upon its being able to make those internal changes which fit it for the new conditions as they arise. In the first part I tried to establish the truth that the death of former Colonial Empires, like all death, followed upon their inability either to make the
EXTERNAL ADAPTATION 59
changes essential to fitness, or upon the rise of internal developments which unfitted them for their environment. Here it is worth while to mark the distinction between the lower and higher organisms. In the lower those variations which become advantages or disadvantages arise, it seems, spontaneously, but the function of reason in the higher I take to be just this conscious adaptation of a continually changing organism to a continually changing environment. Policy, then, we might truly define as the reason of States. Naturally the subject falls into two divisions.
A wise policy of self-preservation, proceeding on scientific methods, will, in the first place, observe these constant changes of the environment — such changes as were described in the preceding chapter — and will make those adaptations which alone can secure the national existence. In the second place, a scientific policy will observe in the nation itself the changes constantly arising which may unfit it for its surroundings, and will act towards these in its own interests of self-preservation.
Hence we may say that the interests of the empire are of two kinds ; external and internal.
I. The main external interests are — I. Food.
6o THE BIOLOGY OF BRITISH POLITICS
I. Defence.
II. Organization.
2. The main internal interests are —
I. Population.
II. Activities.
III. Constitution.
IV. Education.
These, of course, are not absolute divisions ; these interests act and re-act upon one another. But, for convenience, we may consider them in these two classes.
II. I take the external interests first, because they are primary, and of these I take the question of food.
I. — I. The first fact to be observed is that Great Britain has become mainly dependent for the supply of its food upon outside sources. This is due chiefly to the great increase of population, which in the nineteenth century rose from 15 to 41 millions ; and, concurrently with this, a decrease in agriculture and an increase in manufactures and industries. This is in accordance with a general law of European nations. The closest parallel is Germany, whose population in the nineteenth century increased from 20 to 55 millions, and whose imports of food between 1888 and 1898 rose from
EXTERNAL ADAPTATION
6i
45 to 90 millions sterling. These facts show that Germany is passing through the same develop- ment as ourselves ; agriculture decreasing, industries and manufactures increasing, and consequently greater dependence for food upon outside sources. We get our food mainly from abroad. Let us see to what extent. I take the main items : —
|
For 1900 |
|||
|
they are as follows : — |
|||
|
Corn |
. |
• ;^56,i6s,722 |
|
|
Meat |
. |
. 68,203,243 |
|
|
Potatoes |
2,234,569 |
||
|
Cheese . |
6,858,216 |
||
|
Eggs . |
5,406,020 |
||
|
Fish |
3,636,923 |
||
|
Tea |
10,686,910 |
||
|
Sugar . |
. |
. 20,350,147 |
|
|
Butter and |
Margarine |
. 19,915,260 |
|
|
;^i93»457»oio |
It is impossible, however, to actualize these figures in the mind. Let us put them in another way. Of the necessaries com is the most necessary ^ and of com the chief item is wheat. Of wheat it is calculated that we require 23*25 miUion quarters
62 THE BIOLOGY OF BRITISH POLITICS
annually : but it is calculated that the United Kingdom in 1901 produced about yi millions.
Mr. Mulhall calculated that the total of food which England raises is only sufficient to support us for five and a half, months. It may be put in this simple form : —
■ Beginning a year's supply of English produce in January — Bread would be exhausted by the middle of March.
Butter „ ,, „ end of April.
Cheese „ , „ end of June.
Meat „ „ „ middle of July.
Eggs „ „ „ end of July.
2. That represents approximately the food pro- duction of the country at this moment. Supposing now we were at war with one or with a combination of the Great Powers, it is absolutely certain that the first aim would be to stop the supply of food to us. Some one has said (Mr. Arnold White) that the war would be brought home to us, not by the presence of a foreign army in our towns, but by the butcher, the baker, and the milkman failing to call/
That would be the fact whatever great Power or
^Efficiency and Empire, p. 262,
EXTERNAL ADAPTATION 63
combination of Powers were the enemy. It could be effected simply by Russia forbidding the export of wheat or by attempts of France and Germany to corner American wheat. Moreover, in these cir- cumstances the supremacy of the navy would avail nothing. Have we tried to imagine what would be the condition of this country if a war of this kind were really upon us ? The thousands who in time of peace barely live from day to day would be at once in extremities, and wealth itself would be a name without a substance.
It may be said that there is no probability of war. Yet is there a responsible statesman living who would act as if there were none ? ^
3. What then is proposed in order to prepare ourselves against this possibility of a cessation of food supply ?
(i) In the first place it is necessary that the gradual decrease in Great Britain of land under cultivation should cease. Between 187 1 and 1901 three million acres went out of cultivation. Of course this is chiefly owing to the immensely increased supplies
^Neutral countries, no doubt, would object to the stop- ping of their trade, but the necessity of starving Great Britain would be for the enemy a greater necessity, and so food would become contraband of war.
64 THE BIOLOGY OF BRITISH POLITICS
from abroad, and hence a reduction in price which has made the profitable cultivation of some ground impossible. The average general price of wheat for 1899 was the lowest annual average, with the exception of 1894-95, for the whole recorded series of 129 years.
Moreover, it is probable that the United Kingdom can never be entirely self-supporting.
Mr. Mulhall calculates that for the United King- dom to be self-supporting in grain there would have to be put under cultivation 10 J million acres more than at present.
The further development of this point would be to consider the various proposals for increasing the food production of Great Britain by improved methods and machinery, and a reduction in the cost of transit.
(2) We must look next to the Colonies and to India. The possibilities of these, especially the Colonies, for the supply of food are incalculable. By the further development of railways and irrigation in India, and the extended cultivation of land in Canada, vast supplies will be forthcoming. To illustrate this let us take the single province of Manitoba, which is rather larger than England and Wales together.
EXTERNAL ADAPTA'
Dr. Parkin says of it : " The soil of Manitoba, as of much of the prairie land of Canada, is among the richest in the world ; so deep and rich, indeed, that it produces crop after crop for many years without the addition of manure. It is peculiarly adapted for the growth of wheat, which is the most important product of the province. The rapid advance of Manitoba in population and production is shown by the fact that while in 1882 no wheat had been exported, in 1890, eight years later, it produced 15,000,000 bushels more than was re- quired within the province itself." — Round the Empire, G. R. Parkin, p. 66.
Side by side with this let us put the fact that the United States, owing to the exhaustion of wheat- lands and the rapid growth of population, will in a few years cease to export wheat.
(3) There would still be the possibility of a tem- porary stopping of supplies during a state of war.
Powerful as the navy is, the mercantile marine of England, which carries a large part of the com- merce of the world, would be especially liable to capture. However complete the defence, there would certainly be a dearth in food supply. Some kind of permanent food-store, therefore, enough to
F
66 THE BIOLOGY OF BRITISH POLITICS
meet the necessary wants of the population, for, say two years, would be a wise provision.
A scheme of this kind has been formulated by Colonel Murray.^ These are the three directions in which the problem of our food supply may be met.
(a) A larger production in Great Britain by the cultivation of unused land, improved methods and cheaper carriage.
(b) The development of Colonial and Indian supplies.
(c) Storehouses for immediate want in case of emergency.
A consideration of this problem will at once show the need of utilizing in all parts of the empire and specially in the United Kingdom and in India every improvement in the machinery of production and distribution ; and the importance of every move- ment which takes men to the land in the colonies, or in England brings them back to the land.
II. The first concern of a State being food, the second is defence. As soon as we consider the sources of the food supply of England we realize the importance of the question of defence.
I. A survey of British history establishes the fact that, in respect of material force, the British Em- 1 See Our Food Supply in Time of War,
EXTERNAL ADAPTATION 67
pire was built up and has been maintained by the supremacy of the navy.
That is the historic principle of British defence. That must be the first concern of every government. Neglect of that would bring the empire into certain ruin, and in place of
This royal throne of kings, this Scepter'd Isle, there would be " a pauperized, discontented, over- populated island in the North Sea." But our work here is to discover in the present conditions what new facts have arisen to necessitate a completer adaptation of our measures for protection. I desire to repeat and emphasize this, as it is in the failure to recognize new facts that old institutions bring on their death. In the first place, looking around on the vast national movements of the nineteenth century, we might expect to find some incrccLse in the pressure of surrounding powers upon the British Empire ; and observing, in the second place, the great extension of our own fron- tiers, we might expect to need some corresponding provision of new defence. The new facts come from these two directions.
(i) On one side Germany, France, Russia and the United States have increased their navies in- credibly. Moreover, if at one time the Mediter-
68 THE BIOLOGY OF BRITISH POLITICS
ranean was the centre of world-politics, and at a later time the Atlantic ; certainly it seems that in the future the Pacific will focus the interests of the world, and consequently the long coast lines of the British Empire there will require, more than ever before, the absolute supremacy of the British navy. The principle of British naval power hitherto has been that it should equal a combination of any two great Powers. In the proportion that the latter have increased their naval expenditure. Great Britain has followed. Hence a continual rise of the naval estimates, not due to jingoism but to common sense. This apparently is sufficient to meet any probable combination of Powers : and probably the strength of the British navy is one of the greatest factors of peace in the world. But this standard of the navy, equality with any two Powers, is not sufficient to-day.
(2) It is not sufficient owing to the enormous increase of the British mercantile marine, which would be particularly exposed in a state of war. Depending as we do for our food supply upon the mercantile marine, its protection in war would be one of the greatest necessities, and one of the greatest difficulties. How important this matter is will be seen from the following figures : —
EXTERNAL ADAPTATION 69
In fifty years the carrying power of British ships, excluding colonial, has increased ninefold.
The actual tonnage of the mercantile navy of the United Kingdom is nearly equal to the whole of those of the next six great Powers.
Or, taking the total value of exports and imports of which British ships now carry two- thirds, the figures rose in the last century from 67 millions to 815 millions.
Or, to put it in another way, the total over-sea commerce of the empire during 1837-1891 rose from 210 to 1,200 millions.
The defence of this immense commerce in time of war would be one of the chief duties of the navy. Yet it is doubtful if the navy could effectively do this. There is a valuable historical warning in the American Civil War. The victory of the North was due in a large measure to its navy, which sup- plied both the armies of Grant and Sherman, and blockaded 2,400 miles of coast. But then came the curious fact that the navy of the North was not sufficient to protect its trading ships, and a few cruisers of the Southern States, between July 1862 and June 1863 practically put an end to the North's trade.
(3) There is a third reason for holding that the
70 THE BIOLOGY OF BRITISH POLITICS
old principle of Great Britain being equal to any two Powers is not sufficient. This is the problem of the defence of Greater Britain. The more es- tablished and the wealthier the Colonies become, and the more the Pacific becomes the centre of interest, the greater becomes their exposure to attack.
We shall return to this, but I refer to it now in order to show that, efficient as our navy is, the need for it by the natural growth of the empire, is con- stantly growing.
In the presence of these three facts : the increase of foreign navies, the increase of our mercantile interests, the increased necessity in current political conditions for colonial defence : — a corresponding increase in the navy and the constant insistence upon its efficiency are absolutely necessary. Again I say it is more than a government's ordinary pro- vision for defence that is necessary. What is wanted is the special adaptation to new needs. Here the question becomes one for experts. It is impossible for an outsider to prescribe the point and degree of action. All the ordinary citizen can do is to keep constantly before him in the choice of his representative such a truth as this which follows.
EXTERNAL ADAPTATION 71
" Our fleet is the one thing that stands between England and annihilation. People who think other- wise only flatter themselves with a vain illusion. On the morning of the day on which the battle of iEgospotami was fought Athens was mistress of the seas, the queen of a great colonial empire, and the centre of a vast maritime trade. By night her violet crown had been trampled in the dust, and her supremacy, whether by land or sea, her fame, her prestige, at once faded from the page of history." — Lord Dufferin.
2. Seeing that our first defence is the navy, it is probable that we shall never need an army as large as those of the continental nations with their long land frontiers. But we need an army.
(1) (a) For home defence. If we were to lose what is called the command of the sea, resistance to an enemy would be useless. But, without losing command of the sea, in the event of the absence of the fleet or in the event of a temporary defeat, a brief invasion is possible.
The continental plans against Great Britain are probably based upon this contingency. But what is wanted to meet this possibility is an army able temporarily to defend the country until the navy recovers its supremacy.
72 THE BIOLOGY OF BRITISH POLITICS
(b) For garrisons of coaling stations and fortified places on our trade routes — enough to defend them at least temporarily, until the arrival of naval forces.
(c) For small expeditions necessary in dealing with tribes within and on the frontiers of the empire.
{d) For the defence of the land frontiers of Canada and India : as, in the event of attack, the militia of Canada and the Indian army would certainly have to be supplemented by Imperial forces.
Hence the uses of the army being chiefly abroad, what is wanted is a comparatively small regular force, but extremely mobile, which can quickly be conveyed to any portion of the empire. More than this Great Britain does not want. The ex- penditure upon the army appears to be high enough.
(2) What is the internal character — the morale of our army ? The South African War has shown the need for an alteration in training, and it c^n hardly be doubted that many of the technical defects will be removed.
But army reform, like navy reform, is in the end a question for experts. At the same time the interest of the ordinary citizen in this question has
EXTERNAL ADAPTATION 73
to be stated. And the ordinary citizen sees the state of the army to-day to be this : —
Broadly speaking, he sees the army to be com- posed of two parts —
(a) One at the top drawn from the leisured classes, not serious, but needing occupation with honour, and, being wealthy, able to establish a standard of living quite beyond the means of, say, the middle class, which is thus excluded.
(b) The other portion, at the bottom, consisting generally, though with very many worthy excep- tions, of the lowest class ; and giving a character to the rank and file of being the home of the man not fitted to take any other place in society.
We are all willing and glad to recognize that there are many exceptions to these, but the general statement is true.
Imagine then the disastrous gulf between these two classes — between the officers and the men ; a gulf visible and degrading, as any one may see who has lived in the neighbourhood of soldiers : dete- rioration for the men, inefficiency for the officers. Compare with this the description of the German Army as " the national school for the training of character" (Sydney Low).
In Germany, to have passed through the army
74 THE BIOLOGY OF BRITISH POLITICS
is the stamp of manhood and the condition of social esteem. And what virtues are possible in the military life, Germany produces ; and produces in connexion with her army not virtues only, but intellectual gifts of the highest order.
So long as the necessity for an army exists, let this be the ideal : "a national school for the train- ing of character." The questions of the organ- ization of the War Office, of the length of service, of the principle of regimentation, etc., are, in the main, questions for experts : but it is the duty of the thoughtful citizen to see that the status of the rank and file is raised, and that greater efficiency from the officers is secured by throwing open the commissions to a wider competition. How can this be done ?
(/) I take the latter first. Let the rate of pay be raised so that the sons of the large and able middle class can compete. Let the unnecessary expenses of officers' life be abolished. See the article, " Officers' Expenses," by Major-General Herbert, Nineteenth Century, December 1901.
By these means those places hitherto mainly filled from a small circle of the nobility or aristocracy or wealth will be filled by a selection from a much wider area. At present selection is artificially
EXTERNAL ADAPTATION 75
restricted, and as a natural consequence, efficiency is restricted.
(2) Then in order to raise the status of the rank and file and thus turn into economic usefulness the large body of labour rendered unproductive by the existence of a standing army, let us give to the soldier in his years of service the knowledge of some craft or the opportunity of continuing in some craft which he has already begun. Then, his term of service ended, he will be able to take a place in the regular work of society instead of being turned adrift to swell the number of unskilled labourers. I take the following from a suggestive article on " The the Future of Great Armies" (Sydney Low, Wn^- teenth Century, September 1899, p. 393) : —
" And while the martial conflict only comes once in many years, and may not come at all, the indus- trial struggle goes on without intermission. There- fore a real and complete national system of training will prepare for the one as well as the other ; and common sense seems to suggest that the prepara- tion for both should go on simultaneously. The army will become not only a school but a technical school. The conscript will be dismissed, not merely with some mastery of those weapons he may never be called upon to use, but also with a knowledge
76 THE BIOLOGY OF BRITISH POLITICS
of these other crafts and apphances with which his hand will be familiar all the days of his life. He will have learnt many things which will render him more capable as a clerk, artisan, labourer, or tiller of the soil, according to his vocation. He will have the opportunity of keeping up the rudiments of any trade he may have learnt before joining the ranks, and of acquiring greater proficiency in it. The socialist ideal of ateliers nationaux may be, in part, at least, realized. ' The State ' will undertake the industrial training of the young workman ; but the studio will be annexed to the barracks. ..."
If these two reforms could be achieved, then much would have been done to raise, on the one hand the morale, and on the other hand the efficiency of the army ; and military life would become again what it has been before, the home of noble virtues.
III. We have now come to the question of organi- zation. In considering food supply, we saw that Great Britain was dependent upon outside suppHes, and therefore must look more and more to Greater Britain. In considering defence, we found that the main requirement was the protection of a mercantile shipping covering all seas, and the naval defence of the Colonies : we found also that the
EXTERNAL ADAPTATION ^^
main duty lies in the extremities of the empire. Looking thus at the plain, cold, hard facts in relation to food and defence, upon which, after all, civiliza- tion, with all its flowers, is built, we see that the primal interests of Great and Greater Gritain are inseparable.
I. Leaving out of account all the bonds of origin, of language, of religion, it is a solid fact, and not merely a paper scheme, or a dream of the Imperialist mind, that the British Empire is a great mass of living interest, the unconscious growth of a thou- sand years, bound in the most sensitive solidarity. Yet it is without a political form.
A natural growth, a historical evolution it is, but not a political unit. If we examine the high- est activities of British civilization, in Literature, Education, Art, Religion ; or if we examine the material upon which this civilization is built, the Capital, the Labour, the Communications of its framework ; or at the base, the first requisites of defence and food, we should find that the unity of British interests is a fact and a formula which expresses the current political tendencies of the empire. In being and reality there does exist a British Commonwealth. To give this commonwealth political form and political expression is the next
78 THE BIOLOGY OF BRITISH POLITICS
movement necessary in British politics. In doing this we may be guided by two features in the history of its development.
This vast and marvellous mass of life has grown instinctively and unconsciously. Seeley summed this up by saying that England had " con- quered the world in a fit of absence of mind." That is the curious feature of British expansion — its un- premeditated, seemingly chanceful growth, adding here, adding there, without plan, without design, but naturally and irresistibly.
Side by side with this unconscious expansion
has gone on an equally steady movement towards
the concentration of these growths into a few great
groups ; the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia,
^^nd probably the West Indies and South Africa.
) This integration of States is a part of the great move-
/ ment of nationality which is the main historical
\^ feature of the nineteenth century.
2. Hence, following this line of development and looking at the international position to-day and the pressure of the great world Powers, the practical conclusion is that the cohesion of the British Empire must be secured by a more definite political organ- ization of its common interests. This is a pro- posal in fact for Imperial Federation. A believer
EXTERNAL ADAPTATION 79
in small nationalities will turn away, but the aver- age man will wait for a definite plan ; he will say, Produce your scheme t Probably the British mind would never think of applying a theoretical scheme to such a complex mass of interests as the British Empire. What can be done is to follow the natural lines already laid down. Has not the success of British policy been due to the rejection of sym- metrical schemes of reform, and the use and gradual transformation of existing materials as the oppor- tunity arises ? This, I suggest, will be the method of Imperial Federation. Once being convinced that the development of world-politics and the necessities of national existence require, after the unconscious growth, the conscious organization of the empire, a politician will search around for pre- cedents and beginnings already made. These he will find in abundance. For example, let us take, as the two primal needs, the need for defence and the need for food, and see the line of organizing development which the empire is taking.
(i) In the matter of defence the larger colonies, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and the South African colonies, Cape Colony and Natal, have already established independent military and, in some cases, naval forces. The colonial military
8o THE BIOLOGY OF BRITISH POLITICS
forces now amount to 82,871 men. Under the Federal Defence Bill of Australia it was estimated that there would be available in time of war 970,000 men ; and in Canada the reserve would probably be 1,000,000 men. There were in South Africa 70,000 soldiers raised from various colonies. Now this suggests the first form which Imperial Federa- tion will take. The early proposals were that the Colonies should contribute to an Imperial Defence Fund, by a tax per head of population, or a per- centage upon imports. Events have gone in a different direction. With the consent of the Colonies, however, their forces could be recognized as part of the Imperial army. As such they would serve possibly only within their own country ; but would have the power of volunteering for service outside their own country. They would be represented on the general staff, and in time of war would be under one control.
The cost of naval defence is borne at present almost entirely by Great Britain ; although the protective advantage is equally as great for the Colonies as for the home country. Canada, Austra- lasia and South Africa may possibly establish local navies, which would be regarded as divisions of the Imperial navy. But having regard to the special-
EXTERNAL ADAPTATION 8i
ization of ship-building in Great Britain, financial contribution appears to be the more desirable. The greater the developments of the Colonies, the greater will be the inducement of self-interest to do this.
BtU Imperial military and naval unity requires some form of central representation of the Colonial States.
(2) Again, in the matter of food supply, we saw that the security of the British people requires the development of the food-producing powers of the Colonies. But this is part of the larger question of the trade relations between the various parts of the empire.
The Colonies in their commercial policy are pro- tective ; and in their stage of development rightly so. Great Britain has, comparatively speaking, Free Trade. So long as these diverse systems within the empire exist, an Imperial Customs Union is impossible. But as the Colonies develop they will require Protection less and less. Already within groups such as those of the Australian Common- wealth, areas of Free Trade are established ; the next step being the extension of preferential treat- ment to British countries outside these groups, as Canada did in 1897. ^^ ^^^ other hand, in
Q
83 THE BIOLOGY OF BRITISH POLITICS
Great Britain there is certainly a reverse tendency to Protection. In this way, with the organization of the empire becoming gradually more complete, we may expect to see within the empire a corre- sponding approximation to Free Trade.
On the other hand, outside the empire the great Powers are raising old and adding new protective tariffs which undoubtedly help the British consumer, but certainly injure the British merchant.
But the above must be considered in connexion with a wider movement. In fact, at this moment the industries of nations exhibit a parallel movement to that of territorial Nationalism in the nineteenth century. Each nation has become internally a Free Trade unity but externally Protective. Hence the International struggle is largely in the in- dustrial area one between competing areas of Free Trade — free within but more and more Pro- tective without. It is this law of industrial organi- zation that suggests the scientific policy of the British Empire. Changed conditions call for the adequate re-adaptation.
That is a matter which interests the Colonies as much as the mother country, and therefore, while it cannot be said that a Customs Union of the empire is at present practicable, yet common action
EXTERNAL ADAPTATION 83
within the empire is becoming daily more possible. Indeed, it is perfectly certain that the commercia interests of the empire are already so connected, that some means for their centralized representation will in the future have to be found.
Thus, both in the questions of Imperial defence and commerce, the interests of the British Empire require consolidization and organization, and are already moving in that direction. The natural growths of such great Powers as the Greater Colonies exhibit cannot remain in the present relation with the mother country. The anomaly of the present system is, that from the point of view of the Col- onies, they have no share in determining the action of Great Britain in the foreign relations which affect them. It is the one right reserved to the mother country. It is the one defect of colonial liberty ; while, on the other hand, from the point of view of Great Britain they contribute practically nothing to the cost of the army and navy by which they are directly protected.
3. But the political beginnings of a definite Imperial unity have already been made. We have seen the recent practice growing up of calling Colonial conferences for the consideration of Colonial problems. Such a conference might easily
84 THE BIOLOGY OF BRITISH POLITICS
be made the nucleus of a Permanent Committee of the Privy Council in the way that the Board of Trade, the Judicial Committee, the Board of Education, and practically the Local Government Board and the Agricultural Board, have sprung from the Privy Council. This is the first step towards Federation.
4. Still the Anglo-Saxon ideal is direct repre- sentative government. We come, then, to this ultimate goal of Imperial politics.
(i) A representative Imperial Parliament, dealing exclusively with Imperial affairs and directing the general policy of the empire.
(2) Local Parliaments for the various responsible bodies.
As soon as that need appears clearer and clearer in British politics, it will have an immense effect upon the present constitution of the House of Commons, and upon the House of Lords. Compare the twenty-minutes sittings of the latter with the utter and absurd block in the medley of incongruous questions which occupy the House of Commons, and see if necessity itself will not compel the separ- ation of local from Imperial business. Such a reform would be a considerable advance in the path to Imperial Federation.
EXTERNAL ADAPTATION 85
Thus taking account, not only of the needs but also of the actual tendency of events, it can hardly be doubted that some definite form of Imperial unity will comparatively soon come into being. And after that the codification of the law of the empire : the establishment of an Imperial Civil Service and some unification of the educational systems of the empire would seem to be the direct line in the continuation of Imperial organization.
The conclusion to which we have been led is that in the present state of international rivalry the elementary needs of the British Empire as regards defence and food make Great and Greater Britain increasingly interdependent ; and show that the present unrepresented unity of interests which have unconsciously grown must be definitely ex- pressed by a unity of organization.
CHAPTER IV
INTERNAL ADAPTATION
The conclusion which we reached in the previous chapter, after a view of the history of modern Colonial empires and a survey of current develop- ments, was that the existence of the British Empire in the future depends upon its capacity for adapting itself to its environment : in other words, to make those changes which are required by changing con- ditions. Further, we found that this constant neces- sity for readjustment comes from two directions : first from the continual change of external conditions; second from the continual interior changes of the organism itself. The interests of the empire fall thus into the natural divisions, internal and external. In the last chapter we considered the external interests ; that is to say, the readjustments which are required by the change of external conditions.
L The present will be an attempt to consider the internal interests* Our subject arranges itself in a
86
INTERNAL ADAPTATION ^7
simple division. Changes will appear, either by a natural growth or by a conscious purpose, which will be either serviceable or unserviceable to the life of the organism. Or, to express it in the language of biology, variations will arise which will become either advantages or disadvantages in the struggle.
Every new development in the life of the nation is a variation causing a greater or less adaptation of the nation to its environment. The rise or the fall of nations has been determined in considerable part by the internal changes which have appeared within them. For instance, the expulsion of the Huguenots from France weakened its industrial life. On the other hand, Cromwell's extension of civil and religious freedom to the Jews attracted the Jewish workmen from Flanders, and thus instituted what became a favourable variation in the industrial life of England.
Coming down the stream of history to current times, we see on every hand combinations of indi- viduals existing precisely for the purpose either of preventing in the life of the State changes which they regard as deteriorations or of effecting changes which they regard as improvements. Examples abound — in art, in literature, in social life, in politics, in religion. In fact, any association com-
88 THE BIOLOGY OF BRITISH POLITICS
mitted to some reform is endeavouring to bring about, consciously, some variation which it is asserted will be beneficial to the nation ; or is endeavour- ing to resist some variation which it is asserted will injure the nation.
Here we are concerned chiefly with politics ; so let us take from politics two examples.
What has the Liberal party endeavoured to do but to secure from time to time just those changes in the internal life of Great Britain which, it is asserted, would be beneficial to the country ? In other words, in British politics the Liberal party has made it the principle of its existence to secure in the great organism of the State those changes which would bring about better adjustment to conditions ; and by this the Liberal party will be historically judged.
On the other hand, what has the Conservative party endeavoured to do but to preserve existing conditions, and to resist innovations which it re- garded as likely to be injurious to the nation ? In other words, the Conservative party has made it the principle of its existence to conserve a Constitution which showed a healthy adjustment to conditions. And by this the Conservative party will be his- torically judged. If the Liberal party have created
INTERNAL ADAPTATION 89
movements which have issued in injury to the State, or if the Conservative party have preserved institu- tions that have sapped the strength of the State, it is not their principles that are to be blamed, but their deductions. If the conflicts between these two parties in British political life be examined, it will be seen that their arguments may be resolved into these two statements.
1. The Liberal party has said that the welfare of the country in existing conditions requires an alteration of the Constitution.
2. The Conservative has said that the welfare of the country in existing conditions requires the con- tinuance of the Constitution in its existing form.
Perhaps it would be possible to trace the stability and progress of British life, in comparison with that of the Continent, to the presence in Great Britain of these two great forces, nearly equal, but with a slight predominance of the reforming one, working in accordance with the natural constitution of things, one for what was regarded as the maintenance of a successful harmony between the State and its en- vironment ; the other for what was regarded as a necessary new adjustment.
This brings us face to face with the questions which are at the heart of politics.
90 THE BIOLOGY OF BRITISH POLITICS
Are there appearing in the internal Hfe of the nation changes which we ought to counteract because they will injure its health ?
Is there necessity for changes within the life of the nation in order to make a better adjustment to its environment ?
II. The main internal interests of a nation can be arranged conveniently in four classes.
I. Population.
1. Number of Citizens.
2. Distribution.
3. Health.
4. Disease.
II. Those which concern the activities of the nation : which are the production and distribution of wealth.
1. Capital.
2. Labour.
3. Land.
4. Distribution.
III. Those which concern the constitution of the nation.
1. Representation.
2. Contributions.
3. The Services.
INTERNAL ADAPTATION 91
IV. Those which concern the adaptation of the new nation for the future, that is Education.
Upon this classification two remarks should be made. These divisions do not correspond to actual facts. The interests overlap. They are merely mentally useful. For instance, iii. 2, the just dis- tribution of national burdens, directly affects i. 3, the health of the citizens, and so on.
Although the general subject of these chapters is the British Empire, here we are looking mainly at one portion of it, the United Kingdom. We do this for the reason that the United Kingdom is the most important part, and at least our consideration must be made from that point — the point of view of the centre.
Our purpose, then, is to take each of these great national interests and to see what alterations in the national organism must be either prevented or established in order to effect its completer adjust- ment to exivSting conditions, or, in other words, to safeguard the national health.
I. Let us take first the primary question, the body or fabric of the nation.
I. It is perfectly obvious that no State with a considerably declining population can exist for long. Rome perished for this as muchr as anything, that it
OF i I M I \/ L
92 THE BIOLOGY OF BRITISH POLITICS
lacked men. At present there are no serious signs that the population of the United Kingdom is either diminishing or even stationary. But the following facts should be observed.
(i) That within the last twenty years the birth rate of the United Kingdom has fallen more than that of any other European country.
(2) That there has been a greater loss of natural increase than in France, which has hitherto shown the greatest decline.
2. But a question almost as important is that the citizens should be advantageously distributed. Yet what appearance does the empire present at this moment ? (i) On the one hand, here in England, at the centre, we have enormous masses of people congested in the large towns, with the natural harvest of disease. On the other hand, at the extremities of the empire, there are vast tracts of country, con- taining incalculable undeveloped wealth, waiting for men. Had we the gift of sight in these matters, we should see in one glance, according to the census of 1901, 304,874 persons living in London in one- roomed tenements ; and we should see at the same moment Mr. Smart, the Canadian Government representative, in England begging for emigrants for the unoccupied lands of Canada. (2) Without going
INTERNAL ADAPTATION 93
to the Colonies, within England itself there is a stream of the healthiest life flowing from the land to the towns, there to lose its vitality. (3) In the third place, there is a stream of foreign immigration com- ing to this country to make the poor poorer.
Hence a wise national policy will be directed to- wards this readjustment of the national life along three lines.
(/) The encouragement of emigration.
(2) The treatment of the land question in Great Britain.
(j) The restriction of alien immigration.
3. Not only must there be a sufficient supply of citizens advantageously distributed, but they must be physically efficient. It will be necessary con- stantly to survey the condition of the national health and constantly to observe internal develop- ments in relation to this great interest. It seems to me that the reform movement in relation to —
Intemperance,
Overcrowding,
Conditions of employment, will take a greater impetus when it is seen to be demanded by the national health, which is the health of the individual citizen. I would at once place the stress of the case for these movements upon a con-
94 THE BIOLOGY OF BRITISH POLITICS
sideration that affects every citizen. Looking at various evidence, it is clear that the changes in Great Britain during the nineteenth century from agricul- ture to industries by concentrating the larger portion of the population in large towns, has resulted in the deterioration of the average health of the town citizen. The recent figures in regard to enlistment show this. Of 11,000 men who applied in Manchester for service in the South African War, 8,000 were rejected as physically unfit. In 1898, of 66,501 re- cruits examined by the Medical Department, 23,287 were rejected as unfit. Still wider evidence is given in Mr. Rowntree's exact descriptions of poverty in the city of York. The facts which he gives re- levant to this subject are as follows : Taking the stan- dard of diet, the lowest possible for physical efficiency — so low that it costs per week for a man or woman 3s. and for a child 2s. 3d. — Mr. Rowntree found that 27*84 per cent, of the people of York fell below this standard. Mr. Booth's figures for a similar standard in London are 307 per cent. This means that a large part of the people of England never have, from the cradle to the grave, sufficient food or clothing or housing to sustain the lowest standard of physical efficiency. If the slightest economic depres- sion sets in, many more are added to these num-
INTERNAL ADAPTATION 95
bers. How is national health possible under these conditions of inherited and accumulated poverty ?
In contrast to the special causes that in England are tending to lower the national vitality, we see on the Continent that conscription is gradually raising the standard of health.
Hence in connexion with this factor of interna- tional competition, the need for measures that will secure the basis of good work, the health of the citizens.
4. The next step is to consider that phenomenon in the life of the national organism which in Nature is known as disease. Just as in a plant or in an animal there may be some unhealthy growth which draws upon the vitality of the organism, or some parasite which lives upon it without an organic con- tribution, so in the national organism we see similar symptoms of disease. They are — (i)^(a) The physically and men- tally defective. {b) The idle and dissolute. The
(c) The orphans. • Distressed.
{d) The unemployed. (e) The aged poor.
(2) The criminal.
(3) The unproductive rich.
96 THE BIOLOGY OF BRITISH POLITICS
(i) The Distressed. The special difficulty of civilization is that this distress accumulates from generation to generation into a larger deterrent weight from which the new- comers find it almost impossible to escape. Some of this distress is due to unpreventable misfortune, some of it to moral defects, but probably the greater part can be traced to poverty produced by imperfect social organization.
(2) The Criminal. It is difficult to separate crime as to its cause from the foregoing : except that it appears to be the result of poverty in the second and third generations.
(3) The Unproductive Rich. Modem societies have within them a class of persons who, by inheriting the wealth of their parents, or having acquired it by no labour, live upon but contribute nothing to society. They are, in a similar sense to the poor and the criminal, an unhealthy growth, and render no return. Not less than the poor and the criminal, a wise national policy will remove the conditions which favour the development of this social disease, the more sinister because not widespread, but concentrated. Unless it can be shown that the existence of such a class is
INTERNAL ADAPTATION 97
beneficial to society, the national reason points to its dispersion by alterations in taxation which will prevent the accumulation of vast and sometimes misused wealth.
Such in outline is the first circle of national interests which includes the human material of the nation, its quantity, distribution and quality.
II. The next circle of interests is that which in- cludes the work of the nation : we may define it to be the production and distribution of wealth.^
Wealth is produced and distributed by the appli- cation of capital and labour to land and natural material. Hence we have within the nation engaged in this work, the following groups : —
1. Capital.
2. Labour.
3. Land.
4. Railways, docks and ships, etc.
Strictly, railways, docks and ships, etc., are part of capital and labour, but their importance suggests their separate treatment.
Now all these have to he regulated with a view to the welfare of the whole organism. The permissible
1 By wealth here is meant economic wealth. In a full treatment, artistic, scientific and literary activity would be included under this head.
H
98 THE BIOLOGY OF BRITISH POLITICS
power of these separate interests is defined by this ' law, and the State should act so as to establish it.
In a progressive nation these interests have a natural but somewhat unequal and conflicting expansion which requires constantly to be regulated and harmonized, according to the health of the whole organism. There is a tendency in each of these bodies to pursue their ends to a point where they begin to conflict with the general interests of the nation. By natural expansion and combination they become more powerful, as in the case of Trusts. Hence it becomes more and more necessary for the State to regulate them. Further, sometimes they become hostile to one another, as in the case of employers and Trade Unions. In such cases the State has to use its influence to secure an agreement.
Keeping to our method, let us take these bodies of interests in succession and see the points at which changes in this organism of the State are requiring new adaptations. Wealth, it has been said, is pro- duced by the application of the floating instruments. Capital and Labour, to natural national resources and supplies.
I. Capital.
That the power of Capital has to be regulated is seen by legislation since 1865, which shows how the
INTERNAL ADAPTATION 99
State has had to intervene between the employer and the employed in order to protect the latter. In Western civilization Capital has immense power and is beset by the temptation to act in its own interests against the larger interests of the community. Hence the long series of laws which have restricted the power of Capital. But current developments suggest that in the future there will be combinations of Capital exerting powers which may require to be brought under stricter legislative control. This, however, is still in the future. The immediate necessity is to see that no doctrine or phrase like " Vested Interest," " Freedom of Contract," " Free- dom of Trade," '' Liberty," obscure this law, that every single interest within the community is sub- ordinate to the interests of the whole.
2. Labour.
We come to Labour — that interest which directly concerns four-fifths of the nation. The organic relation between any one section of the community and the interest of the whole is perfectly illustrated by the history of the relations between the State and Labour during the nineteenth century. Broadly speaking there have been three stages.
(i) Through changes brought about by the evo-
100 THE BIOLOGY OF BRITISH POLITICS
lution of new forms of industry, Labour, in respect of wages and hours and conditions of work, becomes generally distressed. This state of Labour is im- proved by a series of Acts referred to above.
(2) In the second stage Labour by organization, having become powerful enough to fight with Capital, there arises the need for State action to prevent the injury to industry caused by industrial strife.
(3) Now we seem to be entering the third stage, in which the power of organized and combined Labour is limited and regulated by law.
In each of these three stages Labour as an organ of an organism is a possible source of national injury, and the welfare of the nation can only be secured by guarding or harmonizing or limiting it.
Still keeping to our method, we ask, what does the national health require in this matter of Labour ?
(la) We see first that there are still survivals from the first stage. In many trades, in many places, es- pecially in those where women are largely employed, low grade Labour is still a disease in the social organism. Wherever, through natural causes, it is unorganized there it is really in the first stage — in the power of Capital, and a source of national in- efficiency. This is the reason and the justification of
INTERNAL ADAPTATION loi
all the proposals which are directed to the improve- ment of its conditions.
(2a) Then frequently it happens that Labour, having become organized, enters upon a struggle with Capital, in which no principle of absolute justice being involved, the result, if left to a natural course, would go to the stronger. But meanwhile the nation is injured. Such internal strife, if continued for long, or often repeated, would become indus- trially ruinous. Perhaps an old and rich nation can bear it, and so makes no provision against it. But young nations cannot ; and consequently w^e see that systems of compulsory arbitration have been established in New Zealand and Australia. But some system of compulsory arbitration is becoming more necessary in Great Britain. Proceeding on the principle of British political evolution, it seems as if the next step is to give to the arrangements of the existing Conciliation Board statutory force.
(3a) This brings us to the third stage of Labour, when it is what Capital is at its worst ; conservative, exclusive, resisting new methods, limiting output and making demands out of proportion to the econo- mic developments of the country.
Whether the recent allegations are facts or not, the possibility of organized Labour sometimes acting
102 THE BIOLOGY OF BRITISH POLITICS
thus is certain. And being an organ in an organism, it weakens the whole. The State should have the power of protecting itself against this.
Once let us be possessed by the organic con- ception of the nation, legislation in its dealings with Capital and Labour will take a new construc- tive spirit.
Trade is the main function of the nation ; and the nation, acting in its corporate capacity as the State, will do more than remove the diseases of Labour, or prevent the conflicts and limit the powers of Labour. It will act constructively, and foster by all ts powers the industry and commerce of the country. For example, in relation to Labour, it will by its access to information increase the flow of Labour to the parts where it is wanted. The beginnings of this are already made in the Labour Gazette, the Board of Trade returns, the Emigrant's Infor- mation Office, and the Consular returns.
There is a further subject, the State en- couragement of Trade. Under this head would come —
(/) The opening of new markets ;
(2) Technical education ;
(j) Reform of the law of companies and of patents; and
INTERNAL ADAPTATION 103
{4) Codification of the law. 3. Land.
But the ultimate source of wealth is the Land, and this, therefore, is one of the greatest national interests. Again, let us remind ourselves that we are especially concerned with the new phenomena and the new conditions which are appearing in our national life. The whole land question needs treat- ment. Here it is the immediate changes which con- cern us. Already in the United Kingdom there is a greater proportion of uncultivated land than in any country of Western Europe. The special fact is that the decrease continues. Since 1871, 3,123,000 acres have gone out of cultivation, so that in 1901 out of 77,677,959 acres in the United Kingdom only 15,119,000 acres are under cultivation. Conse- quently Great Britain is becoming increasingly de- pendent upon foreign and colonial supplies. More- over, as we saw before, the drift of the younger rural population to the towns is gradually diminish- ing the vitality of the nation. How is this condition of things to be met ? The plain fact to be seen at first is that the price of corn has been lowered so much through foreign and colonial competition as to make the poorer land unprofitable to cultivate. The foreign competition wiU continue to exist, and
104 THE BIOLOGY OF BRITISH POLITICS
therefore the problem is to increase the productivity of British agriculture.^
From observation of the most successful nations in agriculture, it seems as if this increased production will be secured by the following means : —
(i) By an increase in the number of small farms.
(2) By the substitution of owners of farms for tenants.
(3) By improved methods and machinery.
(4) By the cheapening of carriage of produce.
(I and 2) The first two depend to some extent upon improvements in the laws of land transfer.
(3) The third upon the spread of technical educa- tion in agriculture, and the spread of co-operation.
(4) The fourth upon the nationalization of railways. (i) In reference to the first, it is interesting to
note that the average size of the Danish farm is thirty-one acres, of the Belgian farm fourteen acres, but in Great Britain the average is sixty-two acres. The success of farming in Denmark and Belgium suggests that small farms are the most productive. (2) Then comes the question of ownership. In
^ There is the suggestion of Protection of AgricuUure by taxes upon imports of foreign corn, and the recent movement in this direction points to a recognition of the need for some measures.
INTERNAL ADAPTATION 105
Denmark every farmer owns his farm. In France forty-five and a quarter million acres, and in Ger- many 86 per cent, of the land, is farmed by the owners. But in Great Britain, in 1900, 28,098,446 acres were farmed by tenants and only 4,338,940 by owners ; that is, about one-eighth by owners and seven-eighths by tenants.
(3) Supposing that these changes could be effected, there still remains the fact that foreign competition tends to bring the price of corn below the cost of production. This can be met in part by improve- ments in agricultural methods, chiefly by the ap- plication of scientific research. The spread of this requires a system of education in which technical instruction in agriculture is given in each rural dis- trict. Even then capital is necessary to the small farmer, if he is to use the best methods and the best machinery. The problem is how to place capital within his reach. There are two ways in which this can be done : by the establishment of agricultural banks, similar to those of Denmark, and by the organization of co-operative farming.
(4) There still remains the need for a cheaper dis- tribution of produce. The practical student of the agricultural problem inevitably comes to this. So important is the whole question of distribution for
io6 THE BIOLOGY OF BRITISH POLITICS
the general interest of the nation that, although it is a question partly of Capital and partly of Labour, we treat it separately as one of the main interests. 4. Distribution, The machinery of distribution is a combination of Labour and Capital, and it is one form of the prob- lems to be classed under those heads. The reason for placing it alone here is that in the condition of the food supply of Great Britain the problem of distribu- tion is of primary importance. Under this head must be placed all the questions relating to shipping, docks, canals and railways. Obviously the national interest of commerce is considerably affected by inefficient docks or monopolizing railway companies. Yet congested docks and ruinous railway rates are seriously affecting British commerce. On the theory of the freedom of trade the solution would have to be left to natural results. So far as this means the removal of restrictions upon trade it is true, but if the organic conception of the State be true, the State must go beyond this and legislate constructively. Hence I see no other final solution to the problem of distribution, as it appears in Great Britain to-day, but in the municipal and State ownership of the means of distribution.
III. We now come to that circle of national
INTERNAL ADAPTATION 107
interests which are known as poUtical. We may classify them simply as relating to —
1. Representation.
2. Finance.
3. Services.
I. The first is that which concerns the govern- ment-making power.
There are various forms which this takes. In Great Britain it is Democracy. Yet if the organic conception of communities is true, there is no abso- lute right in any form which Government may take. The only justification of its existence is that is con- serves the health of the State. The extensions of the franchise in the nineteenth century were in reality based upon the reasoning which has been confirmed by experience that the extension of the government-making power was necessary for the welfare of the State. On the other hand, the re- sistance to women's suffrage is based upon the belief that the extension to them of government-making power would injure the State. We cannot make it too clear that no forms of government and no defi- nitions of the government-making power have any right except in so far as for existing conditions they are the fittest to secure the health of the nation. 2. The next class is that which concerns the
io8 THE BIOLOGY OF BRITISH POLITICS
financial contribution to the State, or in other words the distribution of the burdens of the State. If it can be shown that one section of the community shares in the benefits of the State, without pro- portionately contributing towards bearing the bur- dens, the organic conception of the community requires the alteration of this, as a matter of the national well-being.
3. The third class of interests is that which concerns the actual work of Government, or what may be called the Services : comprising the military, naval and civil services. Of the two former we have previously spoken.
Keeping to our plan of observing the new con- ditions which require new adaptations, we shall find that they are here very frequent.
(i) As the nation increases, the distance, even in the truest Democracy, between the government- making power and the actual government becomes greater and greater.
Not the whole nation, for by excluding women, half of the nation is excluded, nor all the men, for only two- thirds of these are electors. Nor do these govern, for in each constituency a few choose one for whom a part of the electors vote, the other voters being entirely unrepresented. In Parliament
INTERNAL ADAPTATION 109
it is not the members who govern. They choose practically a Ministry ; but this Ministry has a smaller Cabinet, and this an inner one. In the end it is the permanent officials who really govern. Democratic government is therefore this : the govern- ment-making power in the hands of the many, the actual work of government by the few. Hence the need for shaping the services in such a way as to make them the true expression of the Democracy.
(2) But the natural movements towards com- bination and collectivism appear to be likely to make the services larger and more important.
(3) In the third place, in an empire such as the British, governing millions of subjects of a lower civilization, there would always be the need for — and within the Victorian era this need has increased — a large and highly trained service accurately embodying the principles of the civilization which
it represents.
Hence the accentuated need, both in regard to home and imperial interests, for the evolution of an expert service which in the work of administration will be the expression of the national will.
We have now considered the three main circles of national interests in regard to —
I. The body of the nation ;
no THE BIOLOGY OF BRITISH POLITICS
II. The activity of the nation ;
III. Political constitution of the nation ;
and in each we have endeavoured to observe the points at which, through natural changes in the organism itself, new adjustments are required.
IV. We have now come to the greatest problem which a nation has to solve, that which transcends all others ; and on the proper comprehension of which mainly depends the future life of the nation. In the plant or animal or in the individual human life, we see that the separate organism is born ; grows ; has, it may be, a short span of life ; and then dissolves. On the other hand, the life of the nation is continuous, and will continue so long as it is fitted for its conditions. Now the means through which that fitness is secured is the education of a country. By its system of education a nation secures for its newer life, its body of the future, the power to make the adjustments absolutely necessary for its continued existence. What marks off the human race from animals is the power of accumu- lating a collective fund of wealth ; that is, of experi- ence, of science, of instruments, to which is given the name civilization.
The transfer of that fund from one generation to another, or continuously from the old part to the
INTERNAL ADAPTATION iii
new, is education. We might go further, and say that the quantity and character of that inherited fund, and not the difference as to individual capacity, determine the rank of national types in the scale of nations.
1. If the foregoing statement of the main in- terests of a nation be true, and if education has been assigned its true place as the national means of self-preservation for the future, then a national system of education will have for its end the instruc- tion of every young citizen in the subjects which lead to good citizenship in the three great concerns of the national life.
2. In the second place, a national system will give to the fittest of these the opportunity of receiving a higher training ; which, on one side, leading to the professions is called secondary education ; and on the other, leading to industry and commerce is called technical education.
The mass of incoherent details which is our educational system to-day will only be brought into order by the application of this clear principle, the competition of all citizens, the selection of the best, in order that the individual capacities of each may contribute its maximum to the national wealth. Having regard to the place which is given to educa-
112 THE BIOLOGY OF BRITISH POLITICS
tion in the policy of competing nations, we can hardly doubt that of all British interests it is the greatest. For education is nothing less than the transfer of the continuous, accumulated, collective mind of the nation from generation to generation.
We have now seen the outlines of the main national interests, internal and external, with the new changes that have to be met.
III. Some brief reference must be made here to the law which has regulated the relations between the internal conditions and the external environment of a nation. It has been given by Sir John Seeley. It is that internal reform varies inversely with ex- ternal pressure. In other words, when the com- petition of surrounding nations is severe, internal reforms are in a measure suspended, while the ener- gies of the nation are absorbed in external defence. Compare, for example, in Great Britain, the absence of reforming legislation during the Napoleonic wars, and the partial cessation of reform since the new European struggle after 1870, with the flood of Liberal measures during the middle of the nineteenth century, when the continental nations were engaged in the establishment of national unity.
The foregoing principles should be some guide in
INTERNAL ADAPTATION 113
the intricate questions of modern politics, where the systematic application of scientific methods is as necessary as anywhere.
It is infinitely necessary when we take stock of current politics.
How little done, how much to do !
CHAPTER V
COMBINATION
We saw in the first chapter that during the period between the sixteenth century and the Battle of Waterloo there was a successive struggle for colonial empire between five great Powers — Portugal, Spain, Holland, France and England ; which resulted at the Battle of Waterloo in the establishment of the British Colonial Empire, and practically the dis- appearance of all its predecessors. In the second chapter we saw the main features of international history from the Battle of Waterloo to the present time. We saw that this period could be divided into two main parts : the first from 1815 to 1870, when France, Germany and Italy were establishing national unity, and when the two Powers which had already a national unity were silently and constantly expanding their territories ; the second beginning at 1870, when all these five Powers, together with a new Power, the United States, moved forward in
114
COMBINATION 115
a common accentuated struggle. In the third and fourth chapters we took the general law which we saw had governed the rise and fall of nations, and, applying it to British politics, we tried to deduce, in regard to internal and external interests, the prac- tical measures necessary for the preservation of the British Empire.
I. The object of the present chapter is to describe how the struggle which was the main characteristic of international history from the sixteenth to the twentieth century is gradually being superseded by another principle, the principle of association. In other words, the primary law, competition, is giving way before the later law, combination. Conse- quently, following the line of development indicated by our history, we shall find that the evolutionary policy of the British Empire lies in the support of schemes of association by which the great Powers may secure common ends. And although this coin- cides with what is regarded apparently on other grounds as the noblest policy, yet its real justifi- cation lies in its being their self-interest.
II. The history of civihzation is a record of the continual substitution of combination for competi-
ii6 THE BIOLOGY OF BRITISH POLITICS
tion. The order of the process is this : First, be- tween individuals, a struggle of ever-increasing severity, until the formation by combination of new collective forms ; then a struggle between these forms until they again are superseded in the process of combination by still higher collective forms. In this way the human race progressed through all the stages of civilization, from the immediate an- cestors of man up to the highest existing societies. We might express this movement from competition to combination in tabular form, thus : —
|
Individual. |
Family. |
|
Family. |
Tribe. |
|
Tribe. |
Nation. |
|
Nation. |
Empire. |
|
Empire. |
International State, |
The first steps of the process are now mostly hidden by time, but sufficient evidence remains to show the main lines of the movement.
The later stages, however, — that from the tribe to the nation, from the nation to the empire — are re- corded in history. Our present subject is the last stage, that from the struggles of competing States to their combination into a confederation acting for common ends. The interesting thing is that we can watch it in detail, since the process comes within the immediate historical horizon. This last stage we
COMBINATION 117
take to be that large varied and spontaneous move- ment, half unconscious, half perceived, known as Internationalism. Before relating the steps of this growth, we have to observe earlier attempts at the formation of a world-state.
III. In ancient and mediaeval and modern history there have been several periods during which the greater part of the human race has been in a sense gathered within one political body. In ancient times there was the succession of Eastern empires, the Assyrian, Babylonian and Persian ; and the Western empires, the Grecian and the Roman. Through the Middle Ages in varying form there was the idea of the Holy Roman Empire, linking on the old Roman dominion to its last successor in modern times, the Napoleonic Empire, and its echoes in the third Napoleon. But these all had one pro- minent characteristic which separates them from the Western empires of to-day. They were estab- lished by force ; their unity was the unity of sub- jection, imposed by conquest.
In these periods, during which some kind of world unity has been dominant, it is noticeable that the earliest were little more than aggregations of tribes held together by some central power, whom they
ii8 THE BIOLOGY OF BRITISH POLITICS
aided by tributes in kind or of military service. The later forms of world unity are less and less cen- tralized, allowing more and more of local autonomy. The Macedonian Empire and the Empire of the Roman Republic were quite consistent with con- siderable self-government in their component parts. This is still more true of the Augustan Empire ; while in the Holy Roman Empire, which was the ideal continuity of the Roman idea, the local self- control of the constituent parts amounts almost to absolute independence, the unity consisting only of the spiritual bond. Finally, in the last embodiment of the Roman idea, the Napoleonic Empire, the notion of the older imperialism has almost dis- appeared before the newer sense of nationality. Thus there has always been present in the world some political form which has embodied in a vague way the ultimate ideal of human unity. But always in varying degrees these forms have been inorganic, f as Sir John Seeley named them ; that is, their unity has been imposed upon them by the compulsion of a stronger power, and has not been based upon the consent and organic contribution of the members. y The dreams of universal dominion which have inspired and deluded the great conquerors of history have been dispelled by the course of time. They
COMBINATIO:
have disappeared before a different form of political unity, whose small beginnings and slow growth it is our very privilege to watch.
IV. Let us now see the present dispositions of nations.
Practically the whole of the earth's surface has been explored and appropriated by one or other of the great races, so that there is now small oppor- tunity for those migrations which were formerly the source of wars and the rise and fall of successive empires. Equilibrium has thus been established between nations. Then, again, the scientific dis- coveries of the uses of steam and electricity have infinitely increased the means of intercommunication, so that practically the human race is one family.
1. But in this family we find one great domi- nant group, the Western nations. They are Great Britain, France, Germany, Austria, Russia, Italy, in Europe, and the United vStates in America. These seven nations with their Colonies actually comprise about 59 per cent, of the area of the earth, and about 58 per cent, of its population.
2. Then around these seven Powers there are in Europe a number of smaller Powers having the same Western civilization. They are Spain, Portugal,
120 THE BIOLOGY OF BRITISH POLITICS
Denmark, Belgium, Holland, Sweden, Norway, Switzerland and Greece, and the kingdoms of Rou- mania, Bulgaria, Servia and Montenegro.
3. In South America there are a number of repub- lics independent, but really under the protection of one of the seven Great Powers, the United States.
4. Moreover, in Asia, Japan, by its civiHzation and its alliance with Great Britain, must be counted with the Western Powers. What are left ?
5. In Africa there are four independent States: Abyssinia, Morocco, Liberia and the Congo Free State. The last is actually under the control of the King of Belgium and is practically a Belgian colony; while Abyssinia, Morocco and Liberia are being more and more permeated by Western influences through the channels of commerce and politics.
6. In Asia there are two States, Afghanistan and Siam acting as buffers between three Western Powers ; the first dividing Great Britain from Russia and the second from France.
Between greater Western Powers Afghanistan and Siam are, of course, under Western influence.
7. There remain the three Oriental empires of Persia, Turkey and China. To a considerable extent China has already been partitioned out among the great Western empires ; while Persia and Turkey
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are equally commanded by the West through the medium of finance and commerce. The fact and the character of the dominance of the Western nations is seen most clearly in the affairs of these three empires. They remain politically independent, but are in reality entirely in the power of the Western States.
(i) Persia is a field of contest between them. The Germans have secured the right to construct one railway ; the Russians are designing another ; and Great Britain, having already laid its Indian railway up to the Persian frontier, desires to continue it across Persia and thus have an overland route to India. These railways are designed partly for military, partly for commercial purposes, but they can only be authorized by political influence. Hence Persia is absolutely dominated by Western capital, Western designs and Western politics.
(2) What is happening in Persia is a stage further in China. At least four of the Great Powers have assumed a joint control of China by dividing out the larger and richer territories into spheres of influence and spheres of interest ; which means Western influence and Western interest.
(3) In the third place, Turkey lives as a political unity really only for the reason that the Western
122 THE BIOLOGY OF BRITISH POLITICS
Powers cannot agree about the division of its terri- tory.
From this rapid survey we conclude that while the human race is one family, yet it is dominated by one group of nations.
V. Let us now see more exactly the character of this group of the seven greater Western States. On the one side they are seven perfectly distinct inde- pendent nationalities, marked off from one another by geographical boundaries, by the evolution of their history and by certain distinctive features in their civilization. These together form what we call nationality. We may say that most of them attained national unity in the great movement which characterized the nineteenth century, the movement now almost completed, called nationalism. Thus to take only the greater Powers. In 1867 Austria established a modern if not a Democratic Constitu- tion. In 1870 Germany and Italy secured national unity on a democratic basis of government. In 1875 France gained a permanent representative con- stitution. It was the same sense of national unity which was the heart of the contest in the American Civil War. Even Russia, which has no Democratic government, yet freed its serfs between 1859 ^^^
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1861 ; while Great Britain established its own democratic constitution in the years 1832-1867, 1884. So that the order of events is this. First, the gradual dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire, then the stupendous attempt of Napoleon to force it afresh in his own personal power upon Europe ; and as a direct result, the reactive and triumphant rise of the great nationality movement.
But the careful observer of the life of this group of Western nations cannot fail to see in them the growth of a common life. We see a common civilization spreading through them to such an extent that for many purposes these seven nations and the smaller around them constitute a single confederation. So real is this, so actual and tangible the interests which unite them, that they have in fact become in a slight but true and infinitely potential sense, a distinct organic body. It is the movement towards this end which we describe as Internationalism, to connect it with, and to dis- tinguish it from the earlier antecedent movement in the nineteenth century, known as nationalism. Two causes have given to the civilization of the Western States that common ground which is the basis of their unity and of their joint political action.
I. In the first place, they are all fragments of
124 THE BIOLOGY OF BRITISH POLITICS
the Roman civilization. France, Germany, Italy and Austria have a direct descent from the Holy Roman Empire ; while, less direct but not less truly. Great Britain, Russia and the United States trace their origin to Rome.
2. In the second place, the growth of science, in ethnological research, and in the discovery of com- munication by steam and electricity, has tended to unify the human family.
One of the most remarkable features in the social history of the Western States during recent years is the growing consciousness of these common elements. It is remarkable because, at this very time, and coincidentally with it, there has been a greater emphasis upon nationality. By no means can it be said that the sense of nationality has been weakened, as the sense of internationality has grown. It is precisely the opposite. The fact is they had de- veloped side by side. Our present point is to observe the growth of the international sense. It has grown in science, literature, religion, politics, law, com- merce, capital and labour. The plainest and directest evidence is the number of international congresses which are held. I have collected the following list of subjects considered at international congresses at various times during a recent period of
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125
a few months, as each of these congresses was announced.
Wireless Telegraphy.
Gynecology.
Surgery.
Deep- Sea Exploration.
Medicine.
Earthquakes.
Sanitation.
Academies.
Press.
The Question of Copyright
Lot of the BHnd. Franciscan Research. Protection of Children Y.M.CA. Eucharistic. Old Catholics.
Arbitration League. Parliaments.
Maritime Law. Penal Law. Maritime Association. Comparative Legislation.
Textile Trade Workers.
Trams and Light Railways.
Co-operation.
Trusts.
Labour.
Exhibitions.
Science.
.}"
Literature.
Religion.
Politics.
Law.
Commerce.
From this hst of congresses it will be seen that in each of these great departments of civilization there
126 THE BIOLOGY OF BRITISH POLITICS
is a sense of international inter-dependence. But is it any more than a loose similarity ? Is nationality something fixed, rigid and limited ? Will the life of each nation continue to develop only within its own bounds, unallied, uncooperating ? Is nationalism the last and highest reach of political evolution ?
Let us look back over the argument. We saw in the first place that in the development of civilized life there has been a constant substitution of co- operation within collective bodies for competition among individuals. We then saw the attempted domination of single Powers, like the Roman or the Papal or the Napoleonic, and then the present pre- dominance of the group of Western nations. We saw that these Western nations have for the most part a common civilization. Now — and this is the heart of our subject — we have to see that already in an embryonic way there has been growing up a new Power which is nothing less than the Western Powers concentrated, united and organic. Let us trace the stages of its formation.
VI. After the disappearance of the Holy Roman Empire, before the nations of Europe had attained their present fixity, the relations of European States, during the seventeenth, eighteenth and the first half
COMBINATION 127
of the nineteenth century, were regulated by a theory, known as the " Balance of power." This expression, the " balance of power," appeared yearly in the Army Bill — " to secure the Queen's dominions and the balance of power" — until 1867, when John Bright secured its deletion. Generally speaking, the one endeavour of all the shifting alliances and combinations of the period of the "balance of power" was to frustrate the attempt of any one nation to absorb the others.
The national boundaries were constantly changing, and certain districts of Central Europe passed from one Power to another just as in succession one or other became the stronger. This was the state of international relations regulated by the theory of the " balance of power."
This theory broke down before the stupendous eruption of Napoleon. To defeat the designs which he seemed almost to have achieved, required nothing less than the forces of the combined Powers of Europe. It has been said truly that Napoleon rendered the life of Europe organic. Europe was con- solidated against him ; t^e instrument which really destroyed him was a new instrument called the European Concert. The European Concert was thus forced into existence by the pressure of Napoleon.
128 THE BIOLOGY OF BRITISH POLITICS
VII. I stay here for a moment to point out that although it was an immediate practical necessity which fused Europe into a unity against France, yet the idea of a European order superior to the interests of single nations was already present in philosophic minds. The ideal of a Christian Com- monwealth was distinctly cherished in the time of our own Queen Elizabeth. In the last years of the sixteenth century, Henri IV proposed the plan of a Christian Commonwealth. The following description of it is from an article in the New England Magazine by Mr. Edwin R. Mears : —
I. "Henri IV, acting in concert with Queen Eliza- beth in her old age, conceived the plan of what he called the Christian Commonwealth, to be formed among the Powers of Europe. His plan in brief was this, to reduce the number of European States, much as the Congress of Vienna eventually did two hundred years afterwards, so that all Europe should be divided among fifteen Powers. Russia did not then count as part of Europe ; and Prussia was not then bom. Of these Powers, six were the kingdoms of England, France, Spain, Denmark, Sweden and Lombardy. Five were to be elective monarchies, viz., the German Empire, the Papacy, Poland, Hungary and Bohemia ; and there were to be four
COMBINATION 129
republics — Switzerland, Venice, the States of Hol- land and Belgium, and the Republic of Italy, made up somewhat as the kingdom of Italy is now. These fifteen Powers were to maintain but one standing army. The chief business of this army was to keep the peace among the States, and to prevent any sovereign from interfering with any other, from enlarging his borders, or other usurpations. This army and the navy were also to be ready to repel invasions of Mussulmans and other barbarians. For the arrangement of commerce, and other mutual interests, a senate was to be appointed of four mem- bers from each of the larger, and two from each of the smaller States, who should serve three years, and be in constant session. It was supposed that, for affairs local in their character, a part of these senators might meet separately from the others. On occasions of universal importance, they would meet together. Smaller congresses, for more trivial circumstances, were also provided for. . . . Accord- ing to Sully, at the moment of Henri's murder, he had secured the practical active co-operation of twelve of the fifteen Powers who were to unite in this confederation."
2. Again, in 1693, William Penn published An Essay towards the Present and Future Peace of
130 THE BIOLOGY OF BRITISH POLITICS
EuropCy by the Establishment of an European Diet, Parliament or Estates. Penn wrote : —
" The sovereign princes of Europe, who represent that society or independent state of men that was previous to the obhgations of society, should, for the same reason that engaged men first into society, viz., love of peace and order, agree to meet by their stated deputies in a general diet, estates or parliament, and there establish rules of justice for sovereign princes to observe one to another ; and thus to meet yearly, or once in two or three years at farthest, or as they shall see cause, and to be styled the Sovereign or Imperial Diet, Parliament or State of Europe^ before which sovereign assembly should be brought all differences depending between one sovereign and another that cannot be made up by private embassies before the session begins ; and that if any of the sovereignties that constitute these imperial States shall refuse to submit their claims or pretensions to them, or to abide and perform the judgment thereof, and seek their remedy by arms or delay their com- pliance beyond the time prefixed in their resolutions, all the other sovereignties, united as one strength, shall compel the submission and performance of the sentence, with damages to the suffering that obliged their party and charges to the sovereignties' sub- mission,"
COMBINATION 131
3. At the end of the eighteenth century, Kant (1795) pubhshed his work Towards Eternal Peace. Curiously, at the end of the nineteenth century the Czar issued his imperial rescript which led to the Hague Convention.
The idea of a Christian republic was familiar to Voltaire ; Burke's great argument against the Revolution was that it broke the " Community of European life," but ideals are realized through the graduated steps of the actual. Let us see.
VIII. Let us follow the development of the European Concert.
1. The first germ of the Concert was in 1791, when Leopold II, Emperor of Austria, issued a circular letter to the Powers of Europe proposing a European congress and armed intervention in the affairs of France.
2. The next step was Pitt's organization of an European resistance to Napoleon. This issued in the Treaty of St. Petersburg in 1805 and the Third Coalition. The military forces, however, of this Coalition were shattered at the battle of Austerlitz ; then came Pitt's sad farewell — " Roll up the map ol Europe, it will not be wanted for ten years."
3. Just ten years after, the Treaty of Chaumont
132 THE BIOLOGY OF BRITISH POLITICS
was signed, by which the European alHes bound themselves for twenty years and promised subsidies and forces for the struggle against Napoleon. This was the prelude to the great series of events between i8 14-18 15 which show the European Concert in operation. The whole series was : —
(i) The Treaty of Chaumont, which united England, Russia, Prussia and Austria against Napoleon.
(2) The Two Treaties of Paris, 1814-1815, which completed the overthrow of Napoleon.
(3) The Congress of Vienna, which settled the ter- ritorial boundaries of Europe, declared the freedom of navigation of European rivers and canals, and condemned. the slave trade.
This is the greatest development of the Concert. For the first time the fact of an European order was expressed.
We must here consider the history of the Holy Alliance. The Holy Alliance was a departure from the sound doctrine of the European Concert. It was a combination of Russia, Austria and Prussia ostensibly for conducting their internal and external policy according to the precepts of Christianity. As a matter of fact it became the opponent of reform and endeavoured to suppress the movements to- wards constitutional government. The Holy AUi-
COMBINATION 133
ance must thus be distinguished from the European Concert which acted in the Congress of Vienna. Great Britain, under Canning, would have nothing to do with it ; Canning tried to break it up. He was not opposed to the European Concert ; he was opposed to the Holy Alliance. And it is an interest- ing fact that the Monroe doctrine was promulgated at this juncture expressly upon Canning's advice, in order to counteract the repressive designs of the Holy Alliance.
4. The European Concert was next applied to the Eastern question. In 1827 it secured the inde- pendence of Greece.
5. In 1839-40 in the war between Mahomet Ali and Turkey.
6. In the early forties to secure administrative reforms in the Lebanon.
7. In 1853 came the Crimean War. That war was concluded by the Treaties of Paris of March and April, 1856. The signatories to the latter were Great Britain, France, Austria, Prussia, Russia, Turkey and Sardinia. It bound them " to forswear private interests and isolated action in their dealing with all questions arising out of the decay of Turkey " ; in other words, affirming the principle of the European Concert.
134 THE BIOLOGY OF BRITISH POLITICS
8. In 1878 the European Concert appeared again in the negotiations which ended in the Treaty of Berlin. The signatories to that treaty were Great Britain, Germany, France, Russia, Austria, Italy and Turkey. Whatever the final judgment upon the decisions then made, the power of the Concert was clearly shown.
9. In 1880 the allied fleets sailed to Dulcigno in order to enforce upon Turkey the decisions of the Berlin Congress, which gave Dulcigno to Montenegro and certain territory to Greece. This is one of the most successful instances of the operation of the Concert. Moreover, it gave a precedent to the Concert of the seven Powers who signed the Berlin Treaty. Russia and Italy alone supported Mr. Gladstone in his determination to enforce the pro- visions of that treaty upon Turkey. France, Ger- many and Austria held back. Nevertheless, Mr. Gladstone, with the support of Russia and Italy, seized the Customs House at Smyrna. He could only do that, however, through the fact that France, Germany and Austria remained passive, although refusing actual consent to the action. This is some- thing like introducing the principle of the majority into the decisions of the Concert.
10. In 1885 the action of the Concert was ex- \y^ tended to Africa.
pv^vb
^ .^M^
COMBINATION 135
A conference met at Berlin known as the " Inter- national Congo Conference of Berlin," which formed an independent State under the protection of the King of the Belgians. Moreover, the negotia- tions of the Congress were the basis of the subse- quent partition of Africa, the chief decision being, that a nation desirous of taking an interest in Africa should notify this to the other European Powers.
11. In 1900 the partition of Africa took place. It is remarkable for this that in spite of most complex questions the partition was completed without war.
12. We now have to note the extension of the Concert to the affairs of the Far East. In 1895 the treaty between Japan and China after the Chino- Japanese War was revised by the action of three of the great Powers — France, Germany and Russia, in which England did not acquiesce.
13. Two years later the action of the Concert developed still further. So far it had been hardly more than a passive council of the Powers, securing the performance of its decisions by the sense of the forces behind it. In 1897, by the forces of the Concert, Crete was detached from Turkey and given self-government under international supervision.
14. In 1890 the principle of the Concert reached so far its highest development. An international
r
r'
136 THE BIOLOGY OF BRITISH POLITICS
army composed of contingents of soldiers from the seven Powers — including for the first time the United States — suppressed the Boxer insurrection in China. After the rescue of the ambassadors at Pekin had been completed, the Concert, upon the proposal of the United States, proclaimed its ad- hesion to the commercial policy of equal treatment of all nations.
Again, in 1900, Great Britain and Germany made the same joint declaration of (i) commercial policy, and (2) thfeir resolve to maintain the integrity of China, and (3) their decision to confer for future action, if that integrity were threatened by other Powers.
The rapid outline of the foregoing events shows a continuous extension of the principle of the con- certed action of the European and Western Powers, commencing with Europe and expanding to the Near East, Africa, and then to the Far East.
We shall see later that there has been not only an extension of its application but also a development of its functions.
IX. But a question arises first. These have been the instances of its effective application. What can be learned from the cases in which there was a
COMBINATION 137
failure to apply the principle ? Let us take the most prominent.
I. The first is that of the Crimean War. The European Concert was not applied until the war had temporarily broken the power of Russia.
The war might be described as the claim of Russia to settle the Eastern question in her own way. This was thwarted by the action of Great Britain and France. Can it be doubted now that we were wrong ? Can it be doubted that if France and England had stood by Russia, Turkey would not have refused to accept the joint note which the five Powers had despatched ? Turkey, knowing the dissensions be- tween the Powers, refused and went to war with Russia, joined by Great Britain and France, who ought to have acted in concert against Turkey.
2. In 1875 Turkey is as bad as ever. Insurrec- tions broke out in Bosnia, Servia and Bulgaria. After the Andrassy note had been rejected by the in- surgents as giving no guarantee that Turkey would carry out the reforms stated, the three Powers, Russia, Germany and Austria issued the Berlin memoran- dum. This Great Britain refused to accept, and war broke out between Turkey and the insurgents.
3. Now let us see the further consequences arising out of this refusal to co-operate with the
138 THE BIOLOGY OF BRITISH POLITICS
Concert. In 1876 the Congress of Constantinople met to deal with the Turkish question. Its decisions were stated to Turkey, which rejected them. There- upon Russia took her own action and the Russo- Turkish War followed.
4. Let us still follow this thread. Russia was victorious, and in 1877 the Peace of San Stephano was signed. The European ^Powers then at once demanded that this treaty should be submitted to a European Congress. At the same time Great Britain secretly obtained the cession of Cyprus, in return for a guarantee of the integrity of Turkey ; and the clause of the treaty, constituting Russia protector of the Armenians, was cancelled.
But what followed ?
5. In 1896 the Armenian massacres took place. Great Britain would have forced Turkey to carry out the provisions of the Berlin Treaty. But Russia, France and Germany refused. We had checked Russia in 1856, we thwarted her again in 1876. In these cases it can hardly be questioned now, in the ight of later events, that Great Britain was wrong. There are arguments against the Russian case, but many facts point to the conclusion that all this chain of evil arose from the failure in 1856 to apply the principle of the European Concert.
COMBINATION 139
X. We have now considered the most important cases in which the European Concert has been ap- pHed in the settlement of international questions. We now come to the whole series of its actions as the organ of international law.
International law began with Grotius ; and until the nineteenth century progressed by the individual work of great jurists. But since the appearance of the European Concert, international law has come into operation mainly through the medium of the Concert.
The following is a brief summary of international law as far as it has been established in connexion with the Concert.
I. It condemned the slave trade in the congresses at Vienna in 1815, and at Aix-la-Chapelle in 1818.
II. It has secured the free navigation subject to territorial rights of international European rivers and canals.
1. In 18 15 abolishing the thirty or forty customs houses of the Rhine.
2. In 1856 those of the Danube.
In this case the International Commission was appointed, which expires in 1905, consisting of repre- sentatives from States bordering on the Danube.
3. In 1888 the Suez Canal.
140 THE BIOLOGY OF BRITISH POLITICS
4. Since 1888 the same principle has been extended to the Congo and the Niger.
III. It has partially laid down the conditions of neutrality, on the following points : —
1. As regards goods and ships —
(i) Right of search of neutral ships.
(2) Neutral goods.
(3) Rights of private goods.
2. As regards neutral States —
(i) That they may not go to war except in self- defence.
(2) The neutrality of Belgium was secured in
1832 by France and Great Britain both engaging to oppose the Power breaking this neutraUty. Its neutrality is now guaranteed by Austria, Russia, Great Britain and Prussia.
(3) The guarantee of Switzerland.
IV. Under this head comes the series of conven- tions regulating the usages of war.
1. In 1864 the Geneva Convention for the treat- ment of wounded.
2. The Conference at St. Petersburg prohibiting the use of explosive bullets.
3. In 1874 the Brussels Conference, which appa- rently failed through attempting too much, and
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being too near the irritations of the Franco- Prussian War.
4. In 1899 the Hague Convention ; to which we shall come again.
XL Connected with the development of inter- national law are the conventions held in Switzerland to secure international unions on the matters of postal services and telegraphs.
XII. The Hague Convention is the greatest ad- vance in international co-operation. The original proposal was to discuss the possibility of limiting armaments. To this was added, by the suggestion of the United States and Great Britain through Lord Salisbury, a proposal to discuss means for averting war.
As a matter of fact, it was on this question, and the regulation of the usages of war, that the Hague Convention accomplished the most.
1. It extended the Geneva Convention to naval warfare.
2. Prohibited the use of new weapons such as explosives from balloons^ and deleterious gases. ^
3. Passed the rules of the Brussels Conference of
1875 as to what an invader may or may not do.
^ Great Britain not assenting to this.
^ Great Britain and the United States not assenting.
142 THE BIOLOGY OF BRITISH POLITICS
4. Stated the conditions under which good offices may be offered for the prevention of war.
But the greatest result of the Hague Convention was the provision of a machinery by which a Court of Arbitration or a Commission of Inquiry could be formed. This is described in the Hague Con- ference Act as " Tribunal Arbitral." It consists of a " Bureau " under the control of a " Conseil Ad- ministratif Permanente," composed of diploma- tic representatives ; and a " Court Permanente d' Arbitrage " ; which is a list of members — four from each State — who are willing to act as arbitra- tors. The first case decided was that between Mexico and the United States.
The importance of this small beginning cannot be over-estimated. It is in reality the establishment of the organ of international law. So far international law has been at first the collected doctrines of indi- vidual writers ; then gradually recognized general customs of civilized nations. Its defect being that no definite expression of it could be found until conventions settled them point by point for limited areas. Now in this permanent Council we have an instrument which has become the definite authori- tative register of the decisions of international law. There then comes into view the question of the force
COMBINATION 143
behind the law. As soon as this central organ for the authoritative expression of the agreement of all the Powers upon definite points of international relations is founded, it is but a short step towards the compulsory establishment of their decisions. But such compulsion could hardly ever be necessary, because it would convey the certainty of the greatest human force on the earth.
Thus at the opening of the twentieth century we see in existence what is in reality an international State, practically identical with civilization, regulat- ing international relations in the interest of a general order, in accordance with laws which are gradually receiving precise expression ; and operating in a small degree by a supreme council.
The line of development of international politics in the nineteenth century certainly suggests that international politics will more and more be treated by international agreement — treated as if the Powers of the world constituted one organic State.
Now it can hardly be questioned that the state of world-politics in which the relations of nations are regulated in accordance with customs gradually receiving definite expression and controlled by general co-operation, is considerably superior to that stage in which each is fighting for its own. It is as
144 THE BIOLOGY OF BRITISH POLITICS
superior as the state of the unified organized nation is superior to the strife of closely related hostile tribes, or as the code of the tribe is superior to the crude impulses of the family bond.
Moreover, this development is the direct result of the preceding stages of nationalism and imperialism, using the words to describe the expansion, concen- tration and solidification of communities of nations and their possessions. Naturally the establishment of world-wide law is easier when the peoples of the world are gathered into a few great groups, than if they were divided into a large number of small nationalities. Yet the former is the certain end to which world-politics are moving.
Of the international State whose outlines we have tried to trace, Great Britain is a member. Hence its policy must be determined, or tend to be deter- mined by its membership of this State. As the international State develops, the greater will be the hold which it has upon the component members. The policy of Great Britain will, therefore, to a greater and greater degree be influenced by international relations. It may be that occasions will arise in which there will be some conflict between the imme- diate interest of the coimtry and its obligations as a member of this international State ; just as on occa-
COMBINATION 145
sions our civic obligations do not coincide with our individual interests. It is indeed only one more instance of the choice which has constantly to be made between immediate self-interest and obliga- tions towards the larger whole of which we form part. In the case of the international State every support given is probably the maximum of possible good which may be contributed to the well-being of the human race.
NOTE. — The foregoing account of the European Concert is derived mainly from six Lectures delivered at the London School of Economics by Mr. Charles Roberts, M.A.
CHAPTER VI
THE LAW OF PROGRESS
In previous chapters I have endeavoured to make an examination of European, and in particular of British, history upon a certain method. That method is to treat a nation as if it is an organism, one among many, to observe the laws which regulate their relations, and then to apply these to current British politics. An examination of the history of the Western nations shows that the relations between them have always been those of competition tending to some form of combination. The period which followed the break-up of the Roman Empire was occupied by a ceaseless struggle between its frag- ments. The smaller and weaker were absorbed in larger and stronger Powers. Of these, first one and then another obtained predominance, until a kind of working theory established itself as the rule of European national relations — the theory known as the Balance of Power. The aim of that theory was to prevent the rise of any single overwhelming
148
THE LAW OF PROGRESS 147
Power, by combining the existing Powers into counteracting groups. But the success of Napoleon produced a new combination, the combination of all the European Powers acting together for a common end, resistance to Napoleon. The Congress of Vienna after the fall of Napoleon — the first formal expression of the European Concert^secured the peace of Europe for forty years. During this period, while Germany, France and Italy were establishing unity. Great Britain and Russia, having no rivals, expanded enormously. The national movements in Germany, France and Italy were completed by 1870, and inevitable expansions of these nations began. Hence the present accentuated struggle between all the Western Powers. Side by side with this, how- ever, we have observed the steady development of international co-operation through all the depart- ments of a common civilization, taking definite political shape in an international State. Here we reach our present subject.
I. The spectacle of these long sanguinary struggles, this infinity of pain, draws from every heart the feeling — Where is the good in all this ? The mind is started on the inquiry. Where is the progress ? What has been gained ?
148 THE BIOLOGY OF BRITISH POLITICS
" If we ask, " says Mr. Bryce, " what has been the result of the changes we have been considering on the political organizations of mankind, and on the types of human culture, the answer must unquestion- ably be, that they have become fewer and fewer. From the beginning of authentic history, the process of i^ducing^he number of tribes, of languages, of independent political communities, of forms of bar- barism or of civilization, has gone on steadily, and indeed with growing speed. For many parts of the world our data do not go far back. But if we take the part for which the data are most complete, the basin of the Mediterranean, we find that now there are only nine, or at the most ten, languages (exclud- ing mere dialects) spoken on its coasts, while the number of States, counting in Montenegro, Egypt, Malta, and Morocco, is ten. In the time of Hero- dotus there must have been at least thirty languages, while the independent or semi-independent tribes, cities, and kingdoms were beyond all comparison more numerous. The result of migrations has been to overwhelm the smaU tribes and merge them in larger aggregates." — Contemporary Review, July 1892, p. 146.
L Hence we see the peoples of the world gathered into a few immense aggregations, each distinctly
THE LAW OF PROGRESS 149
marked off from the others and increasingly self- conscious. J
Our present purpose, then, is to take that series of movements known as Nationalism, Imperialism, and Internationalism, and discover their relations to Progress.
II. At the outset we are met by the difficulty of defining Progress. It has never yet been done with complete satisfaction.
But we can get a concrete illustration of Progress by selecting those nations which by general consent are called Progressive. Using this empirical method we may reach a complete analysis later. I should set down as, by general consent, the most progressive independent nations — the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Holland, Italy, Russia and Japan. This excludes certain nations, either because they cannot be called progressive nations of the first rank or because they are not independent. It excludes Belgium and Switzerland because their existence is guaranteed by the great Powers ; and they must, therefore, be considered politically depen- dent upon them. It excludes Sweden and Norway because they are not most progressive nations and be- cause their political condition does not seem settled.
y
150 THE BIOLOGY OF BRITISH POLITICS
Portugal, Spain and Greece, again, cannot be placed in the rank of most progressive nations. The whole of the Balkan States must be excluded. We then have Denmark. Denmark is a progressive people, but is dependent upon the great Powers partly by position, partly by the family alliances of its Crown. Again, we must exclude Austria from the ranks of the most progressive nations.
This leaves us, as was said, with eight nations, which we set down as the most advanced and ad- vancing of nations. Again, let me say, I am not here analysing the conception of Progress which is involved in calling these eight nations progressive. I simply accept current and generally accepted usage, which without doubt places these eight nations — and the smaller ones dependent on them — above all others.
III. We may go on to observe that these eight, the most progressive of nations, are precisely the expan- sive nations ; they are expansive both internally and externally. You see in them not only a continuous increase of population, but also a continuous ten- dency to outward expansion ; to found and populate colonies ; to define their nationality more distinctly, and to bring the old and the new into a larger unity
THE LAW OF PROGRESS 151
of organization. That is the main direction of their movements, notwithstanding the halts, retreats and diversions which now and again appear. I bring these two facts together, for there is probably some connexion, and in the explanation of that connexion lies, it appears to me, the fundamental law of the science of politics. In one way you select the nations that are called the most civilized, and in another you select Ihe nations that show the greatest tendency to expaision, and you find that they are identical. In fact, the great movement known as Imperialism is just exactly characteristic of all the most ad- vanced lations. I set down this generalization, then, merely descriptive, or empirical, if you will have it, lut yet absolutely true, that the progressive nations are the expansive nations.
Our next step is to analyse this connexion and see what is the real causal relation here expressed. Every one is familiar with the fact that the develop- ment of society is the substitution of combination and co-ojeration in place of competition over large and larger areas — the clan over the family, the ^ nation o\er the tribe. Every historical success has ^ been broight about by the superiority of combina- tion over individuals, of coherent communities over incoherert, the Jew against the Canaanite, the Greek
152 THE BIOLOGY OF BRITISH POLITICS
against the Persian, the Roman against the ItaHan. Indeed, the struggle between communities is the subject matter of history, it is the data of polkical science. /
/
IV. Now whatever increases the internal coherence of a community, whatever improves the healtt of its individual members, whatever, in short, maizes for social well-being, procures a greater success in the struggle between communities. It cannot be other- wise. If the political organization of a nation is such that each section of the community is ade- quately represented in the government, internal friction being thus eliminated and no pait of the social body being neglected, then that nation is certain, other things being equal, to win away over a nation of inferior political organization. Again, a country depending upon the enforced kbour of slaves, economically would be inferior t) one de- pending upon labour of the freemen. Again, the industries of a nation based upon the bes; scientific research and training will outdo the industries of a nation adhering to older and less econonical pro- cesses. Again, the physique of a nation btiilt up by training and healthful pursuits must triunph over a pampered people living upon wealth accumulated
THE LAW OF PROGRESS 153
from the past. These are truisms of history. Our point is to note that the organism superior within inevitably shows its superiority over surrounding organisms. This is clearly expressed by Professor Karl Pearson.
" Societies prepare for years, perhaps for cen- turies, for the extra-group struggle, which eventually changes the predominant races of continents. In a lesser form the struggle is ever going on. One after another inferior races are subjected to the white man ; it is an extra-group struggle for markets and trade- routes and spheres of influence, and only indirectly, but none the less really, for food-supply for the teeming multitudes at home. Meanwhile, the stability and power of any group depends on the preservation and increase of its traditions, on its technical education, on its stores of knowledge, on its material resources, and on its limit of endurance, far more than on the perpetuation of any struggle for existence within the group itself. When the extra-group struggle with inferior races abroad has run to its end, then, if not sooner, the population question will force on a severer struggle for existence between civilized communities at home. Whether this struggle takes the form of actual warfare, or of still keener competition for trade and food supply,
154 THE BIOLOGY OF BRITISH POLITICS
that group in which unchecked internal competition has produced a vast proletariat with no limit oi endurance, or with — to use a cant phrase — no * stake in the State ' — will be the first to collapse." — Fort- nightly Review, July 1894, p. 17.
V. That seems to me to define exactly the function of social reform. It is just the strengthening of the organism for its interior struggle ; its more complete adjustment to environment. If we went one by one through all the measures passed or proposed of social reform, we should find that they are either justified in fact or their justification claimed upon the ground of their service to the community, that they will render it more efficient. Given a com- munity conservative of healthy institutions and out of a wealth of ideals waiting to be realized, ready to make those re- adjustments to changing conditions which will fit it better for its environment, that com- munity is certain to progress over others which, on the one hand, may be preserving effete institutions, or, on the other hand, may be applying ideal con- ceptions to unfit conditions. Social reform is thus just what the words contain, the re-shaping of society which prepares it for its environment. Many reasons will be called in to defend the movements for
THE LAW OF PROGRESS 155
temperance, for labour, for the protection of children, for better housing, for education, for garden cities and the whole programme of good causes. But their one great main and sufficient test and real justification is that they can serve the social health, and hence increase the efficiency of the national organism in its competition with others. This is seen clearly in the great movement towards col- lectivism, or, if you will. Socialism. What is this but the attempt, within the social organism, to suspend that struggle between individuals — the intra- group struggle — which, if allowed free play, ends in general deterioration ? It might be urged that nature should be left to work out its own ends. But men are not individuals ; they live in societies, and the suspension of the individual struggle is necessary for the more efficient struggle of the collective whole. If the history of every reform could be examined, I believe it would be found that existing first as ideals, they were effected at the moment when the national mind was convinced that the national well-being would be increased by them, and not before. Social reform is rooted in the instinct of self-preservation. Hence Nationalism and its larger form, Imperialism, are inseparable from Progress.
Now it is certain that all reform has not been
156 THE BIOLOGY OF BRITISH POLITICS
advocated at first with the definitely conceived end of social efiiciency. Noble as the sense of nationality is, it has not directly produced all or even many of the great social advances. Reformers have not always said, Let us sweep away this abuse because it injures the social organism. What has happened generally is that some ideal has taken root in a few pioneers ; after varied experience it has been widely accepted ; then when, as we say, the time was ripe, it triumphed. It triumphed because it joined with economic or political necessity. The truth is that this is the ver}^ condition of the realiza- tion of the ideal. So soon as it is seen to be a posi- tive social advantage, then it becomes realized.
We are not now dealing with the great question why nations vary in the quality of their life ; why some remain stationary, others deteriorate, others advance. That is a question of readjustments to new conditions, and that again is a question of the supply of variations from which the readjustment can be selected. In other words, the advance of a community seems dependent upon its individual reformers. This again raises the question — What produces the reformers ? In a similar way the biological scientists, in tracing out the history of a species, is continually coming upon the bafiling
THE LAW OF PROGRESS 157
question — What caused the variations ? But that is outside of our present subject. The two facts now emphasized are that the nations which are the most advanced in political, social, intellectual and moral quality are the imperial nations. Secondly, that Imperialism necessarily follows as the result of the Progress. We might indeed add a third : that the Imperialism can never permanently exist without the Progress.
VI. This is the historical connexion between Im- perialism and Progress ; yet Imperialism is sometimes represented as reactionary. For example —
I. It is said that an imperial policy develops militarism. Without doubt, since 1870 armies have increased, especially in Europe, where the frontiers of nations adjoin and the pressure is heavier. Indeed, there is compulsory military service every- where, except in the two comparatively-speaking isolated powers, the United States and the United Kingdom. This is sad but true ; we might well wish it otherwise ; but the striking thing is that it is the direct result of the movement of Nationalism ; it is, in fact, the development of that struggle between nations which we have to accept as the fixed con- dition of human society. However we condemn
158 THE BIOLOGY OF BRITISH POLITICS
armaments, yet we live in a world full of them. It is
ya part of the same cosmic process which developed a lion's claws. The point to note is that it is the very severity of the pressure which by a natural logic will speed the remedy.
2. It is said that the Imperialism of the European
nations inflicts injustice upon native races which
come under their dominion. I mean not particular
charges, such as those recently brought against the
Congo Free State, but the general charge based upon
the theory that a nation has no right to assert
sovereignty over an area occupied by one of the
backward races. Here again I say the conditions
of human societies are fixed for us. You cannot
forbid men attempting "To' extend trade in new
countries, any more than you can condemn the
migrations recorded in history, which brought us
here. But in present political conditions trade can
only be kept by political protection, and that is
one aspect of Imperialism.
/ Militarism within and sovereignty over weaker
/ peoples are rooted in natural impulses in the order
/ of nature ; and in the order of nature we find them
y moving on to their destined development.
I return, then, to our first inquiry — What has been effected in the long era of competition between
THE LAW OF PROGRESS 159
peoples ? The answer is, the destruction of the unprogressive, the preservation of the best. Who are the best ? The nations of the greatest social health. What is socid health ? The happy con- dition of the individual. What else is Progress ?
This brings us to the second part of our subject.
VII. While the competition of nations secures the certainty of social reform, the co-operation of nations has an equally important effect in the progressive movement. We have seen that the mark of organic advance is when the organized co-operation of a number of units takes the place of unregulated com- petition between them. This is true of nations. European and world-history are more and more occupied with this very process of transition from strife to combination. In a previous paper I endeavoured to outline the growth of this move- ment ; the inheritance by the Western nations of a common civilization ; and founded upon this the gradual rise of an International State, at first of the loosest kind, consisting of the recognition of a few simple customs, mostly regulating warfare between them, then the slow but firm definition of common ideas and increasing instances of common action ;
i6o THE BIOLOGY OF BRITISH POLITICS
and finally the establishment of an international tribunal. Again we must note that the main factor in this movement, as in all life, is the instinct of self-interest. The decisions of the united Powers have a vastly more regulative and effective force than the formation of counterpoising groups of nations. In other words, the European Concert is a more advanced instrument than the Balance of Power. The extraordinary fact of the territorial division of Africa among the great Powers of Europe without war could not have been accomplished in the eighteenth century. But the European Con- cert of the nineteenth century did it. At this moment eight nations are before the Hague Tribu- nals submitting disputes to decision. Now what has made this possible ? Surely the cause is clear in the fact that the great aggregations of Western peoples, possessing a preponderance of the material forces in the world, make common action comparatively easy. The direct inducement to common action is the risk involved in a state of unregulated strife, where each is free to pursue its will. In fact, the Western nations form a community of the same kind as any social community in which the units forego some part of their liberty for the sake of a common good. As in lower planes of life one observes that the
THE LAW OF PROGRESS i6i
gradual substitution of co-operation for competition is a certain sign of Progress^ is in fact the very- thing Progress, so the evolution of the international society is Progress on the most extended plane of life.
What is the result ? There is in the first place in Europe the establishment of the independence, the right of life, of every nation of whatever size. No new ones will appear, no old ones will go. As migrations have ceased, territorial disputes are practically ended ; the boundaries of nations for the most part seem to have reached finality. Outside of Europe the expansion of European Powers is regu- lated by Western agreement. Hence to a great extent the causes of territorial wars have been removed. This stability of the independence of each unit is but the foundation of the International State. As the nations come into closer contact by more frequent common action, there is certain to be in increasing measure the spread of a sentiment of the same kind as patriotism — the sentiment of country, as Imperialism, the sentiment of empire, but of a more extended kind, the sentiment of internationalism. As the reality of this common bond grows, and the sense of it develops, nations will more and more be prepared to regulate their action
M
i62 THE BIOLOGY OF BRITISH POLITICS
by the obligations drawn from the larger society of which they form a part. There will be less and less need for individual self-assertion, since in a family of nations the rights of each are secure. The proof of this is in recent history. I do not think it can be denied that many instances have shown the reality of the co-operative sentiment which pervades in a growing degree all the Western nations.
Throughout this series of papers we have restricted our subject to political history ; so here, in measuring only the growth of international ideas by the extent to which they are being embodied in political insti- tutions, such as the Hague Courts, and the various International Unions centred in Switzerland, we must not forget that outside of politics there exists a great body of common ideas and institutions, which are the larger part of international life ; the common fund of Western civilization in science, art, literature and religion, and the real elements of the International State.
But it is necessary to note that the International State is, comparatively speaking, in a rudimentary stage. You will not find in it the coherence, the regulative and executive power of a highly developed community. The mutual interests of the vast units, as they are larger, will be more difficult to reconcile.
THE LAW OF PROGRESS 163
The equilibrium has been and may be again broken. Yet facts prove the reality of the progress made.
VIII. Some events, however, appear to negative the idea of any advance ; indeed, it has been asserted that the existence of a combination of Powers has aided reaction. I will take a typical case — Mace- donia.
In this question there have been three stages : —
1. One nation, Turkey, by reason of oppression inflicted upon its subject peoples is attacked and defeated by a second nation, Russia, which thereupon seizes the opportunity to secure large territorial gains and interests.
2. In the second place, the International State meeting decides that these terms constitute a dan- gerous aggrandizement of one of its members, and ignore the rights of another people ; revises them and delivers to the original offending Power, Turkey, a scheme of reforms which, at any rate at the time, it was hoped would be observed.
3. In the third place, after twenty-live years, the reforms had not been executed, the International State having failed so far to have them enforced. To this extent the European Concert has been a failure.
i64 THE BIOLOGY OF BRITISH POLITICS
The argument then goes on to compare the case of a single Power : the United States, seeing the mis- management of another Power in Cuba, Spain, attacks and defeats it, deprives Spain of its pos- session and establishes the independence of Cuba. Hence it is concluded that the humanitarian action of a single strong and enlightened Power is much quicker and more effective than the collective action of the International State.
But let us see the difference in the problems.
In Cuba two Powers were concerned. There was a single, simple question, in the end settled for right by force. Macedonia, on the contrary, is a maze of conflicting interests in which no single Power can act without encountering the interests of another Power. In these conditions the only possible solu- tion which can command final authority is the agreement of the European Concert.
4. That agreement is, since Turkey has failed to carry out its engagements, Russia and Austria are authorized to secure them. What we see in all this is the executive operation of two Powers upon an offending Power, with the sanction of the whole community of Powers.
This marks the real stage of development. The International State exhibits the characteristic of all
THE LAW OF PROGRESS 165
societies. Its morality is below the level of that of its best members. It guarantees the independence of each unit ; but it is difficult for it to act con- structively. It prevents encroachment of any of its members, but it cannot regenerate a decadent nation. Yet the European Concert, International Law, and the Hague Tribunal — in a word the International State — are as superior to the free struggles of nations as the crudest form of an organized nation is superior to the strife of clans.
IX. If these are true and typical facts, and if the generalizations drawn therefrom are valid, we may say that the progress of man has a twofold direction. On the one hand, in every civilized nation, and chiefly in the imperial nations, self-regarding action by voluntary societies and by legislation is proceeding in the direction of improving the status of the indi- vidual citizen ; to give him a sounder body, a trained mind and the command of his will ; and, the best that follows from all this, domestic happiness.
To eliminate the opposites, disease, ignorance and immorality, and the worst that follows from all this, domestic misery, is the end of all social reform, and as this end is attained we say progress is being made .
On the other hand, other-regarding action both by
i66 THE BIOLOGY OF BRITISH POLITICS
voluntary societies and by the State Governments, is proceeding in the direction of cosmopohtan human- itarianism, or, in more famihar language, towards the realization of the brotherhood: _ofjiian ; that is towards the recognition of the duties and the rights of a common humanity ; duties which now and again are antagonistic to their temporary interests. But in proportion as this wider law of the community of nations is established, we say that Progress is being made.
Again, let us meet an objection that applies equally to the national and the international move- ments. It is said, in reference to social reform, that the strengthening of the State is the weakening of the individual ; and in reference to the brotherhood of man, that the notion of internationalism is^the antithesis of nationalism ; that they [are fundamen- tally opposite tendencies.
That objection has to be met. I believe it is true that in a certain measure the self-preservation of the State does abridge the liberty of the citizens. Looking again, you will see that the State abridges liberty in proportion to the external pressure upon it. But that pressure, apparently, is just greatest when the units have realized to the full their nation- ality, and are not yet under the control of the Inter-
THE LAW OF PROGRESS 167
national State. That is exactly the present position. The evolution of society brings its own remedy. As the sense of internationalism spreads and as the International State is developed, the pressure of the constituent nations upon each other will come under a higher regulating law. Is this true ? We may point to the whole progression of biological parallels j that co-operation is the realization of individuality, / — in the sacred paradox. He that will lose his life shall ^ gain it. I point to the historic fact, that in one direction the amelioration of the individual citizen and the establishment of nationality are concur- rent ; in another direction that the largest and most compact nationalities are the most powerful inter- national forces.
X. To sum up the whole argument : Nationalism is the realization of the individual ; Internationalism is the realization of humanity. The realization of the individual and the realization of humanity are Progress.
The logic of this drives me to its natural conclusion. Progress is rooted in each citizen's conscious mem- bership of his nation. In so far as he realizes the ideal of the good citizen, he contributes to the effi- ciency of his own society in the machinery of Progress.
INDEX
Abyssinia, 120 Afghanistan, 54, 120 Afrita, I, 19, 53, 79, 135 Albuquerque, 19 Alien Immigration, 93 Amerita, 19, 120
— South, 120 American Civil War, 69 Arbitration, 142 Army, 71
— Reform, 72 Assyrian Empire, 15, 117 Australia, 79 Austria-Hungary, 43, 122, 150
Babylonian Empire, 15, 117 Bagehot, 7
Balance of Power, 127 Balkan States, 150 Belgium, 120, 140, 149 Booth, Charles, 94 Bright, John, 127 British Empire, 11, 181
— Expansion, 36
— Government, 30
— Internal Interests, 59
— Navy, 40, 66, 71
— Organization, 76
— Position, Geographical, 26
— Statistics, 50 Bryce, 52, 148 Bulgaria, 120 Bulow, 45 Burke, 131
Canada, 64, 72, 79, 92
Canals, 139, 140
Canning, 133
Capital, 98
Carpenter, Boyd, H. J., 25
Carthage, 15, 28
Charities, 9
China, 19, 41, 120
Christian Commonwealth, I2&
Christianity, 15
Civil Service, 107
Codification of Law, 85, 105
Colonial Conferences, 83
Colonial Forces, 79
Colonies :
— Portuguese, 20
— Holland, 22
— Spain, 21-22
— Great Britain, 25
— Italy, 31
— France, 23-25, 38
— Germany, 38
— United States, 44 Combination, 10, 114 Conference of Brussels, 140- Congo Free State, 120 Congress :
— Berlin, 134
— Constantinople, 138
— Vienna, 35, 132, 139 Conservative Party, i, 88 Conventions :
— Geneva, 140
— Hague, 140-142
— International, 124, 135 '
169
N
170
INDEX
Council, International, 142
Crete, 135
Criminals, 96
Cromwell, 87
Crozier, J. B., 3
Cuba, 164
Cyprus, 138
Defence, 66 Democracy, 107 Denmark, 120, 150 Deschanel, 47 Disease, 90 Distressed, 96 Distribution, 106 Dulcignio, 134 Dupleix, 23
Education, no
Emerson, 32
Emigration, 93
Ethics, 12
European Concert, 127, 131
141 Evolution, 116 Expansive Nations, 151 Expert Service, 109 External Adaptation, 56 — Pressure, 112
Far East, 135 Federation, Imperial, 79 Ferry, Jules, 45 Finance, 107 Flanders, 21, 87 Food Supply, 60-63 France :
— Colonies, 23-24
— Policy, 45
— Unity, 16, 38, 122 Free Trade, 2, 81
Germany, 16, 1 21-122
— Army, 73
— Expansion, 38
— Policy, 47
— Unity, 37 Gladstone, 134 Grecian Empire, 11; Greece, 120, 150 Green, A. S., 23 Grotius, 139 Guiana, 31
H
Haycraft, 8 Henri Quatre, 128 Herbert, 74 Historians, 5 Holland. 19. 22-23, 120 Holy Alliance, 132
Ideals, 155 Imperialism, 2, 155 India, 19-20, 54, 64, ^^ Individual, 13 Inquisition, 20, 22 Intemperance, 93 Internal Adaptation, 86 International State, 159 Ireland, i Italy, 16, 21, 43, 122
— Colonies, 44
— Navy, 43
— Unity, 37
Japan, 40-41, 120 Jesuits, 17 Jews, 20, 87
K
Kant, 131
INDEX
171
Labour, 99
JLabour Movement, 2
Laissez-faire, i, 4
Land, 103
Land Cultivation, 63. 103
Law, Biological, 8
Law, Native Systems of, 31
— of Evolution, 14 Liberal Party, i, 88 Liberia, 120 Liberty, 166
Leopold, the Second, 131 Low, Sydney, y2> 75
M
Macedonian Empire, 118 Magellan, 21 Man, 1 2
Manchester School, i Manitoba, 64 Mauritius, 31 Mears, E. R., 128 Medes, 15 Mediterranean, 148 Mercantile Marine, 65 Migrations, 51 Militarism, 158 Mixture of Race, 8, 28 Monroe Doctrine, 133 Montenegro, 120 Moors, 19-21, 28 Morocco, 120, 142 Mulhall. M. G., 64 Murray, Col., 66
N
Napoleon, 31, 35, 40, 117, 127 Nationalism, 155, 157 National Unity, 122
— Party, 2 Natural Selection, 8 Navies, 67 Neutrality, 140 New Zealand, 79 Norway, 120, 149
O
Organic Conception, 108 Organisms, 14, 58 Organization, 76 Overcrowding, 93
Parkin, G. R., 65 Parliament, 84 Pearson, Karl, 9, 153 , Penn, 129 Persia, 1 20-1 21 Persian Empire, 117 Physical Advantages, 28 Pitt, 131 Politics, Art of, 4
— Science of, 3
— Method, 8
— Unit, 12
— Classification, 7 Population, 91 Portugal, 19-20, 150 Powers, European, Statistics,
42 Preferences, 81 Privy Council, 83 Progress, 10, 149 Progressive Nations, 149 Protection, 81-82 Protestants, 23, 30 Poverty, 94 Puritans, 17
Quakers, 17
Q
R
Reform Movements, 112 Representation, 107 Ritchie, D. G., 8, 30 Rivers, 140
Roman Empire, Holy, 117, 124 Rome, 15, 28, 91, 118, 124 Rosebery, 41 Roumania, 1 20
172
Rowntree, 94
Russia. 36-37. 48, 122
Science, 32 Seeley, 6, 112, 118 Servia, 120 Sex, 29 Shipping, 68 Siam, 120
Siberian Railway, 49 Social Contract, 4 Socialism, 9 Social Organism, 5
— Reform, 154 Spain. 19-22, 119, 150 Spencer, 5
Stead, 37
Stephen, Sir Leslie, 6 Straits Settlement. 31 Struggle. Collective, 16
— Internal, 9, i53
— External, 9. ^53
— for Existence. 14. I53 Sweden, 120, i49 Switzerland. 120, 140, i49
Tasmania, 15 Treaty of Berlin, 138 — Chaumont, 132
INDEX
Treaty of Paris (1856), 133
— Paris (181 5), 132
— St. Petersburg, 131
— San Stephano, 138 Trusts, 98
Turkey, 41, 120-121, 137. i^S
U
United States, 44. 164 Unoccupied Regions, 52 Unproductive Rich. 96
Variations, 17, 156 Voltaire, 131
W Wallace, 29-30 Wars :
— American Civil War. 69
— Crimean, 35, 133. ^37
— Chino-Japanese, 135
. — Franco-German. 23, 35
— Russo-Turkish, 38 Waterloo, 23, 25, 35 Western CiviUzation, 119, 102 West Indies. 19
White. Arnold. 62 Wilkinson. 2, 27 Wilham of Orange, 23 World-States, 117 '
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" An interesting contribution to the controversy en the functions of the State." — Glasgow Herald.
89. German Bociallsm and F. Lassalle. W. H. Dawbom.
" As a biographical history of German Socialistic movements during this century it may be accepted as complete."— 5riti«A Weekly.
80. The Purse and the Conscience. H. M. Thompson, B.A. (Cantab.).
•• Shows common sense and fairness in his arguments."- Scotsman.
81. Origin of Property in Land. Fustbl de Coulangbs. Edited, with ai> Introductory Chapter on the English Manor, by Prof. W. J. Ashley, M.A.
•• His views are clearly stated, and are worth Tea,ding."— Saturday Review. 88. The English Republic. W. J. Linton. Edited by Einbton Fahkes.
" Characterised by that vigorous intellectuality which has marked his long life of literary and artistic activity."— ffftwgiow Herald. S9. The Co-Operative Movement. Beatbice Pottbb.
" Without doubt the ablest and most philosophical analysis of the Co-Operative Movement which has yet been produced. "—Sp«at«r. 84. Heltfhbourhood Guilds. Dr. Stanton Core.
"A most suggestive little book to anyone interested in the social question."— Pall Mall Gazette. 86. Modern Humanists. J. M. Bobebtson.
" Mr. Robertson's style is excellent— nay, even brilliant— and his purely literary criticisms bear the mark of much acumen."— r»m««.
86. Outlooks from the New Standpoint. B. Bblfobt Bax.
" Mr. Bax is a very acute and accomplished student of history and economics. — Daily Chronicle. T^ ^ • i. j l
87. DUtributing Co-Operatlve Societies. Dr. Luioi Pizzamiolio. Edited by
F. J. Snbll.
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statistics, and they speak for themselves."— 5p*a*er. .rrrxr
88^ Collectivism and Socialism. By A. Nacqubt. Edited by W. Hbafobd.
"An admirable criticism by a well-known French politician of the New Sociahsm
of Marx and Lassalle."- i)aiiy Chronicle.
SOCIAL SCIENCE SERIES— {Continued).
89. The London Protframmo. Sidmbt Webb, LL.lk
" Brimful of exc«lleat ideal."— iintiVcooWn.
40. The Modern State. Paul Lbbot fisAULiBU.
" A most intereating book ; well worth a place in the library of every social inquirer. "—A'. B. Bconomitt.
41. The Condition of Labour. Henrt Gborob.
" Writteu with striking ability, and sure to attract attention."— ^ewcowMe ChronicU.
42. The Revolutionary Spirit preceding tho French Revolution.
Felix Kocquain. With a Preface by Professor Huxlbt. ' The student of the French Revolution will find in it an excellent introduction to the fltudy of that catastrophe."— ScoUmaTi. 48. The Student's Marx. Edwabd Avelino, D.3««
" One of the most practically useful of any in the Series."— O^oi^ow Herald.
44. A Short History of Parliament. B. C. Skottowe. M.A. (Oxen.).
" Deals very carefully and completely with this side of constitutional history."— Spectator.
45. Poverty : Its Genesis and Exodni. J. G. Godabb.
" He states the problems Avith great force and cleamese."- i^. B- Beonomitt.
46. The Trade Policy of Imperial Federation. Maubicb H. Hebvbt.
" An interesting contribution to the discussion.' — Publiihers' Circular.
47. The Dawn of Radioallsm. J. Bowles Dalt, LL.D.
" Forms an admirable picture of an epoch more pregnant, perhaps, with political inatruction than any other in the world's history "—D«i/y Telegraph.
48. The DMtitnte Alien in Great Britain. Arnold White ; Montasue Cbacean-
THOBPE, Q.C. ; W. A. M'Arthub. M.P.; W. H. Wilkins, &c. "Much valuable information concerning a burning question of the day."— IH'tiiii.
49. IlUgitimaoy and the Innuanee af Stasoa* on Cenduet.
Albert Leffinowbll, M.D.
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interesting."— ff«»(mins<«r Remew.
60. Comnaerelal Crises of the Nineteenth Century. H. M. Htndman.
'One of the best and most permanently useful volumes of the Series."— Literary
11. The State and Penaloni In Old kg: J. A. Spender and Arthur Acland, M.P.
" A careful and cautious examination of the question."— Tim«s. 62. The Fallacy of Saving. John M. Hobertsom.
•• A plea for the reorganisation of our social and industrial system."- Sp«o*«r.
68. The Irish Peasant. Anom.
' A real contribution to the Irish Problem by a close, patient and dispassionate Investigator."— Do% Chronicle. 64 The Effects of Machinery on Wages. Prof. J. S. Nicholson, D.Se.
"Ably reasoned, clearly stated, impartially written."— Lit<r«ry World. 66. The Social Horizon. Anon.
"A really admirable little book, bright, clear, and nnconventlonaL"— />«({y Chronicle.
66. loolalisra, Utopian and Scientiflo. Frederick Enoils.
" The body of the book is still fresh and striking."— DaiZy Chronicle.
67. Land Nationalisation. A. B. Wallace.
" The most instructive and convincing of the popular works on the subject."— National Reformer. 66. The Ethic of Usury and Interest. Rev. W. Blissasb.
"The work is marked by genuine ability."— ITertA British Affrxculturaliit.
69. The Emancipation of Women. Adelb Crbpaz.
" By far the most comprehensive, luminous, and penetrating work on this question that I have yet met with.' —Bxtr»cl/rom Mr. Oladstonk'S Preface. 80. The Eight Hours' Question. John M. Bobbbtsoh.
"A very cogent and sustained argument on what is at present the unpopular side."- rim««. •1. Drunkenness. Osoboe B. Wilson, M.B.
" Weil written, carefully reasoned, free from cant, and full of sound sense."— Nationmi Observer. 02. The New Reformation. Bamsdbn Balhtorth.
" A striking presentation of the nascent religion, how best to realize the personal and social idea.]."— Westminster Review. 63 The Agricultural Labourer. T. E. Kbbbsw
" A short summary of his position, with appendices on wages, education, allo%> ments, etc., etc." 64. Ferdinand Lassalle as a Social Reforner. £. Bebnstbxx.
" A worthy addition to the Social Science Series."— JTerM Mritith Beonomitt.
SOCIAL SCIENCE SERIES— (Continued).
06. EBiland's Foreign Trade in XlXth Century. A. L. Bowlbt.
" Full of valuable information, carefully compiled."— riwiw.
66. Theory and Policy of Labour Protection. Dr. ScHAtPLE.
" An attempt to systematiee a coDMrratife programme of reform."— Man. Quwrd.
67. History of Rochdale Pioneeri. G. J, Holyoakb.
" Brought down from 1844 to the Rochdale CongreM of 1882."— Co- Op. Nt»»,
68. Rights of Women. M. Ostraoorski.
"An admirable storehouse of precedents, conveniently arranged. "—Z)atZy CAron.
69. Dwellings of (he People. Lockk Worthinoton.
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70. Hours, Wages, and Production. Dr. Bbbntamo.
" Characterised by all Professor Brentano's elearnees of style."— Jfconoimc Retiero.
71. Rise of Modern Democracy. Oh. Borobadd.
" A very useful little volume, characterised by exact research."— i)aiiy CKumieU.
75. Land Systems of Australasia. Wm. Epp8.
" Exceedingly valuable at the present time of depression and diflicalty."— Scott. Mag. 78. The Tyranny of Socialism. Y 7E8 Guyot. Pret by J. H. Lbvt.
"M. Ouyot is smart, lively, trenchant, and interesting."— Z)atZy ChrmncU. 74. Population and the Social System. Dr. Nith.
" A very valuable worlc of an Italian economist."— fFiMt. Rn.
76. The Labour Question. T. G. Spyers.
" Will be found extremely useful.*'— Tim**.
78. British Freewomen. C. C. Stopbs.
" The most c ouiplete study of the Women's Suffrage question."— .^n^^uA Worn. Rn.
77. Suicide and Insanity. Dr. J. K. Strahan.
" An interesting monograph dealing exhaustively with the subject." — Times. 76. A History of Tithes. Bev. H. W. Clares.
" May be recommended to all who deeire an accurate idea of the subject."- Z). Chron.
79. Three Months in a Worlishop. P. Gohrx, with Pref. by Prof. Blt.
" A vivid picture of the state of mind of Oerman workmen."— if oncA. Ghiard.
80. Darwinism and Race Progress. Prof. J. B. Hayc&avt.
" An interesting subject treated in an attractive fashion." — Qlatgovi Herald.
81. Local Taxation and Finance. G. H. Blundbn.
82. Perils to brltish Trade. £. Buboib. 88. The Social Contract. J J. BoUBBbatj. Edited by H. J. Tozkb. 84. Labour upon the Land. Edited by J. A. Hobbon, M.A. 86. Moral Pathology. Abthur £. Gilbb, M.D., B.So.
86. Parasitism, Organic and Social. Massabt and Vandbxybldb.
87. Allotments and Small Holding!. J. L. Gkbbk.
88. Money and its Relations to PrieeB. L. L. Pbicb.
89. Sober by Act of Parliament. W. A. Macbbhzoe. 9a Worliers on their Industries. F. W. Galtom.
91. ReTOlutlon and Counter-RevoIntloB. Kabl Mabx.
92, Over-Produotion and Crises. E. Bodbbrtub. 98. Loeal Government and State Aid. S. J. Ohapman. M. YiUage Communities In India. B. H. Badbk-Powbll, M.A., C.I.B. 96. Anglo-American Trade. 3. J. Ohapican.
96. A Plain Examination of Socialism.. .Gustavb Simonsok, M.A^M.D.
97. Cohimercial Federation & Colonial Trade PolicyiNJ. Davidson, M. A., PhiLD.
98. Selections from Fourier. OwGiDBandJ. Franklin.
99. Public-House Reform. \ A. N. Cubimik*.
100. The Village Problem. ( U tM I V t .^ S I T Y ) &• F. Millin.
101. Toward the Light. V qf / L. H, Bbrenb.
102. Christian Socialism in Engia^^^ ^ / A. V. Woodworth.
DOUBLE voxiurndsr^. 6d.
1. Life of Robert Owen. Llotd J©nbs.
2. The Impossibility of Social Democracy : a Second Part of " The Quiutessenco
of Sooialism ". Dr. A. Sohjuftle. 8. Condition of the Working Class in England in 1844. Fbbsbbick Enobls.
4. The Principles of Social Economy. Yvbs Gutot.
6. Soeial Peace. Or. voM Sohultzb-Gaevbrmitz.
6. A Handbook of Socialism. W. D. P. itJiass.
7. Socialism : its Growth and Outeome. W. Mobbib and E. B. Bax.
8. Boonomic Foundations of Society. A. LoRit-
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