:OJ
AN INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS
MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED
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THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
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THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, LTD.
TORONTO
AN INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF
INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS &
BY
A. J. GRANT J. D. I. HUGHES
ARTHUR GREENWOOD P. H. KERR
AND
F. F. URQUHART
MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED
ST. MARTIN'S STREET, LONDON
1916
COPYRIGHT
First Edition, April 1916 Reprinted June 1916
JX
PREFACE
THE Essays that constitute this volume were written at the suggestion of the Council for the Study of International Relations. The Council found itself hampered in beginning its work by the lack of books on international relations suitable for use in study circles and classes ; and it wishes to acknowledge its great indebtedness to the contributors for providing it with a general text-book at short notice, in spite of the pressure of much other work. It is hoped that the book will be found of value to all who realise the importance of the study of international problems. It should be pointed out that the Council for the Study of International Relations exists solely to encourage and assist the study of international relations from all points of views ; the books and pamphlets which it publishes or recommends are selected with that object alone in view, and the Council is not to be regarded as necessarily sharing the views set forth in them.
"Remota justitia quid sunt regna nisi magna latrocinia ? " — ST. AUGUSTINE.
(Without justice, what are states but great robber-bands ?)
VI
CONTENTS
WAR AND PEACE SINCE 1815
By A. J. GRANT, M.A., Professor of History in the University of Leeds.
PAGE
1. EARLY EFFORTS TO SECURE EUROPEAN UNITY . . 1
2. THE REVOLUTIONS OF 1848 AND THE NEW FORCES IN
EUROPE ........ 13
3. CAVOUR, NAPOLEON III., AND BISMARCK . . .17
4. HOPES AND FEARS SINCE 1871 . . . . .27
5. THE PAST AND THE FUTURE ..... 33
II
THE CAUSES OF MODERN WARS
By F. F. URQUHART, M.A., Fellow and Tutor of Balliol College, Oxford.
1. THE IDEAL OF A " STATIC " WORLD . . . .37
2. WARS OF CONQUEST ....... 43
3. WARS OF PRINCIPLE ...... 52
4. THE NECESSITY OF A FOREIGN POLICY . . .61
III
INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC RELATIONS
By ARTHUR GREENWOOD, B.Sc., Late Lecturer in Economics in the University of Leeds.
1. THE GROWTH OF INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC RELATIONS . 66
2. ECONOMICS AND POLITICS ...... 77
3. ECONOMIC INFLUENCES AND WAR . . . .94
4. INTERNATIONAL ECONOMICS AND THE FUTURE . . 102
vii
viii INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS
IV
INTERNATIONAL LAW By J. D. I. HUGHES, B.A.
i-Ar,i:
INTRODUCTION . . . . . . .113
1. Is INTERNATIONAL LAW REALLY A SPECIES OF LAW T 114
2. THE SCOPE AND CONTENT OF INTERNATIONAL LAW . 134
3. THE PRESENT POSITION OF INTERNATIONAL LAW , 135
POLITICAL RELATIONS BETWEEN ADVANCED AND BACKWARD PEOPLES
By P. H. KEHR, M.A., Editor of The Round Table.
1. THE NECESSITY FOR EMPIRE ..... 141
(a) THE RESULTS OF COMMERCIAL INTERCOURSE . . 143
(6) RESULTS AMONG SAVAGES ..... 145 (c) RESULTS AMONG MORE CIVILISED PEOPLES . .152
2. THE GOVERNMENT OF DEPENDENCIES . . . .166
3. THE PROBLEM OF SELF-GOVERNMENT . . 170
4. THE IMMIGRATION PROBLEM . ... 174
5. CONCLUSION . 179
By ARTHUR GREENWOOD
1. FREEDOM AND NATIONAL LIFE ..... 183
2. INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS . . . . .186
3. THE INTERNATIONAL Mnro .... 192
4. THE FULLER CITIZENSHIP . . . . . .195
APPENDIX NOTB ON COSMOPOLITAN ASSOCIATIONS, BY A. G. . .201
INDEX 205
WAR AND PEACE SINCE 1815
1. EARLY EFFORTS TO SECURE EUROPEAN UNITY
THE cry that was raised at the beginning of the present European struggle — that this must be a war to end war, and that on the conclusion of peace the system of isolated and individual states must give place to some sort of European confederation — had a familiar sound to the student of history. The great war of the French Revolution against Europe was prefaced by a declaration of the brother- hood of peoples and of the determination of France to wage no war of conquest. The message of the Revolution to Wordsworth was, "Wars shall cease: Did ye not hear that conquest is abjured ? " Napoleon had visions, not altogether unlike those that now have their home in Berlin, of a Europe, rational, prosperous, and peaceful under the presidency of the superior civilisation of France. And when the system of coalitions began to grow up against the power of Napoleon, it was not only the overthrow of his power that the Allies contemplated : they thought they saw through the battle- smoke a settled order in Europe, and a condition of per- manent peace.
The circumstances after the battle of Waterloo seemed 1 B
2 INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS i
particularly favourable to the realisation of such schemes. Europe had not been fighting against France, but against Napoleon ; and when once Napoleon was overthrown there was little difficulty in allowing the new France of the restored Bourbons to join the great Powers of Europe on equal and friendly terms. The long period of war, and what seemed to that fortunate age its unsurpassable suffer- ings and horrors, predisposed even politicians and diplo- matists to a search after the way of Peace. When the Congress of Vienna met, Gentz, its secretary, tells us that " men promised themselves an all-embracing reform of the political system of Europe, and guarantees for universal peace." But he has to admit, a few sentences later, that " The Congress resulted in ... no act of a higher nature, no great measure for public order or for the general good, which might compensate humanity for its long sufferings or pacify it for the future."
It is only too painfully evident that the expected pacifi- cation did not come. But there were sincere efforts made to work towards the desired goal. These efforts have lately been made the subject of an interesting and suggestive volume by Mr. Alison Phillips,1 and they deserve the careful study of those who, like the present writer, still cherish the ideal of a pacific and international organisation of Europe. There were two distinct lines of effort, though these were confounded in the public mind, and are often confounded in the short histories of that period.
There was first the Holy Alliance — the product of the imagination and the faith of the Czar Alexander I. In all European history it may be questioned whether there is
1 The Confederation of Europe, A Study of the European Alliance, 1815-1823, as an Experiment in the International Organisation of Peace.
i WAR AND PEACE SINCE 1815 3
any line of rulers whose characters and policies so well deserve study as the Czars of Russia since Peter the Great, and indeed since Ivan the Terrible. In their history there is, what the history of most royal houses presents us with, ambition without scruple, vice and crime raised to an unexampled height by the unexampled opportunities of an autocratic throne, the passion for conquest, and the dizziness of supreme power. But the distinguishing feature of the Czars is their recurring idealisms and the enthusiasm with which they have occasionally turned towards a policy that should rest on religious principles and establish peace. It seemed strange to many that the proposal of the Hague Conference should come from Russia, but it was quite in keeping with the traditions of the royal house of Russia. The strength and the weakness of the Czars were excellently exemplified in Alexander I. after the battle of Waterloo. The strong vein of mystic pietism, which was always in him, had recently been strengthened by his inter- views with the Baroness von Krudener, and it was under the influence of Bible-readings and prayer that he produced his project of the Holy Alliance, which received the support of the Emperor of Austria and the King of Prussia. We read it after the lapse of just a century (it was published in March 1816, but was produced and accepted in the previous autumn) with laughter for its absurd and dangerous idealism, or tears for the failure of its vain hopes. But it is a document of first-rate importance for our present inquiry, and some of its clauses must be quoted. It begins :
" In the name of the most Holy and Indivisible Trinity Their Majesties the Emperor of Austria, the King of Prussia and the Emperor of Russia . . . solemnly declare that the present Act has no other object than to publish in
4 INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS i
the face of the whole world their fixed resolution both in the administration of their respective states and in their political relations with every other government, to take for their sole guide the precepts of that Holy Religion, namely, the precepts of Justice, Christian Charity and Peace, which, far from being applicable only to private concerns, must have an immediate influence upon the counsels of Princes and guide all their steps, as being the only means of con- solidating human institutions and remedying their imper- fections. In consequence their Majesties have agreed on the following articles." Three articles follow. The first declares that the " Three contracting monarchs will remain united by the bonds of a true and indissoluble fraternity," and " regarding themselves towards their subjects and armies as fathers of families . . . will lead them to pro- tect Religion, Peace and Justice." The second article declares that " the Christian world of which the contracting monarchs and their peoples form part has in reality no other sovereign than Him to whom alone power really belongs," and they therefore " recommend to their people to strengthen themselves every day more and more in the principles and exercise of the duties which the Divine Saviour has taught to mankind." The third article declares that they are anxious to admit other Powers to the same compact.
Perhaps no politician in Europe took this quite seriously except the Czar himself. Metternich, the great Austrian diplomatist and statesman, who for the next thirty years was to share with Alexander I. the chief influence in Europe, declared that it was a " loud-sounding nothing." The Pope did not like this appeal to a vague something called Chris- tianity, signed by " a Catholic, a schismatic, and a heretic." The other signatories had given their adhesion out of deference to Alexander. England never gave in her
adhesion. Wellington and Castlereagh exercised the chief influence on British foreign policy at this period, and the Czar's mystic idealism found no echo in their definite and positive minds ; and their practical knowledge of affairs made them frightened of vague general principles, even of the noblest kind, when there was no indication of the sense in which they were to be interpreted, or of the precise aims that they were intended to subserve. Castlereagh wrote a little later : " The problem of a universal alliance for the peace and happiness of the world has always been one of speculation and hope, but it has never yet been reduced to practice and, if an opinion may be hazarded from its diffi- culty, it never can."
The Czar's schemes failed. Europe was soon to be guided by statesmen who rejected the idea that Christian morality, or morality of any kind, was binding upon those who acted on behalf of States ; and Bismarck and Cavour have left memories, admired, honoured, and imitated, far beyond that of Czar Alexander I. But our judgment of the past is constantly being altered by our fresh experiences in the present, and, at an hour when the successors of the three signatories of the Holy Alliance are acting in a manner so definitely opposed to its precepts, we may well ask our- selves whether a more sympathetic acceptance of its main aims might not have led to something better. No one now believes that the Czar was a hypocrite, covering with pious and humanitarian phrases designs against the constitutional development of the States of Western Europe or the in- tegrity of the dominions of the Sultan. However unwise the form, here was a great Power anxious to establish the principles on which a united and peaceful Europe might be based. Metternich eluded the proposal with cynicism and hypocrisy. Castlereagh met it with cold criticism,
6 INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS i
which was well-intentioned and honourable ; for recent inquiries have quite effaced the picture, once so popular, of Castlereagh as the arch-conspirator against the liberties of England and of Europe. But if the Czar had found in England support, however sober and however critical, was it impossible that great good might have followed ?
At the same time that Alexander I. was developing his project of the Holy Alliance, the more practical statesmen of Europe were busy with a more limited scheme. In 1814 the four great Powers, who were in alliance against Napoleon — Britain, Russia, Prussia, Austria — had entered into an alliance at Chaumont. Its immediate object was the pursuit of the great enemy, whose forces had already been broken at Leipzig, but the signatories desired also to regulate their relations to one another, when victory had fully come, and to secure the peace of Europe. With these ends in view, they aimed at the establishment of a permanent alliance. The sixteenth article reads : " The present treaty of alliance having for its object the maintenance of the Balance of Europe, to secure the repose and independence of the Powers, and to prevent the invasions which for so many years have devastated the world, the High Contracting Parties have agreed among themselves to extend its dura- tion for 20 years." Here then was the basis of the actual work done during the next few years for the maintenance of a United Europe. A quadruple alliance was established, which would soon develop into a quintuple alliance by the inclusion of France : it was to last for twenty years, and there were hopes that it might develop into a permanent feature of European life.
It may be questioned whether the League ever did any good. Undreamed-of difficulties rose across its path, and it was quite unable to surmount them. It perished in a
i WAR AND PEACE SINCE 1815 7
few years, and its end has usually been regarded as a triumph for Great Britain and for liberal ideas. Let us briefly trace the chief stages in its history before considering the causes of its failure. The special mission of the Quadruple Alliance was to watch the revolutionary tend- encies of France and to prevent another outburst from that quarter. Its first Conference was called at Aix-la- Chapelle in September 1818. Some thorny questions were successfully dealt with. The claim of the restored Bourbon monarchy to form the fifth member of the Alliance was considered and accepted. Arrangements were made for the reduction of the army of occupation in France. But already at this, the first meeting of the Alliance, difficulties of a serious kind and irreconcilable differences of opinion began to appear. The Czar wished to develop with all rapidity the Quadruple (now Quintuple) Alliance into a permanent organisation for the direction of European affairs, and further to pledge the organisation to maintain the Govern- ments then established in Europe. He did not himself aim at the repression of all constitutional movements ; he was still liberal in his ideas, and was regarded at Vienna as a dangerous revolutionary. He hoped that if the Govern- ments of Europe received from the Alliance a guarantee of their stability they would feel that it was safe to grant their peoples certain constitutional liberties. Europe, in his idea, was to be organised in favour of a sort of liberal con- servatism. Metternich hastened to underline the conser- vative part of the scheme ; he regarded it as a definite " triumph for the cabinets that have never tampered with the spirit of innovation." He hastened to welcome it as a guarantee of the established order of things in every State " to change which would be a crime." English statesmen, who were still conscious that the established order rested
8 INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS i
on the Revolution of 1688, were bound to receive the pro- posal in a different spirit. Wellington and Castlereagh declared that they were dismayed " by the abstractions and sweeping generalities in which the declaration was con- ceived." They invited further " conversations," and in the end Castlereagh administered a douche of cold water. Though he was a Tory and represented a Tory Government, he could not pledge Great Britain to suppress all efforts that threatened the established political order. The following wise and just sentences deserve to be quoted : " The idea of a solidary alliance by which each state shall be bound to support the state of succession, government and possession within all other states from violence and attack . . . must be understood as morally implying the previous establish- ment of such a system of general government as may secure and enforce upon all kings and nations an internal system of peace and justice. Till the mode of constructing such a system shall be devised the consequence is inadmissible, as nothing would be more immoral or more prejudicial to the character of governments generally than the idea that their force was collectively to be prostituted to the support of established power without any consideration of the extent to which it was abused." This protest was sufficient. No advance was made towards the organisation of a Govern- ment for Europe. The Declaration, which communicated to Europe the results of the Conference, confined itself to generalities which seem an echo of the Holy Alliance. The sovereigns " who have formed this august union . . . have consummated the work to which they were called. . . . They solemnly acknowledge that their duties towards God and the peoples whom they govern make it peremptory in them to give to the world ... an example of justice, of concord, and of moderation, etc. etc." The Great Powers
i WAK AND PEACE SINCE 1815 9
promised to meet together again ; and were pledged to little besides.
Before their next meeting the liberal and revolutionary movements which the Czar had foreseen and endeavoured to control had begun to manifest themselves. During the next five years (1818-1823) there were risings of various kinds in Spain, Portugal, Naples, Sardinia, Greece. The Czar's liberalism began to evaporate before the hot breath of Revolution : Metternich's desire to support the established order was as strong as it had always been. Both saw in the Great Alliance a valuable engine against the new move- ments, if only it could be put into motion against them.
A conference was called at Troppau to deal with the Spanish and Neapolitan question. The detached attitude of Great Britain was manifested by the fact that no pleni- potentiary was sent, Lord Stewart, the British Ambassador at Vienna, watching the proceedings for the Home Govern- ment. Russia, Prussia, and Austria debated first in private, and then issued in a famous document the following state- ment of their aims : " States which have undergone a change of government due to re volution, the results of which threaten other States, ipso facto cease to be members of the European Alliance. ... If immediate danger threatens other States the Powers bind themselves, by peaceful means, or if need be by arms, to bring back the guilty State into the bosom of the Alliance." Great Britain protested, politely but firmly, against the fundamental principles of the protocol, namely ; " that of rendering the Powers of the Alliance applicable to the internal transactions of independent States." The Conference moved from Troppau to Laybach, and there , dealt finally with the Neapolitan question. The constitu- tional and revolutionary movement in Naples was to be suppressed by an Austrian army, and Great Britain made no
10 INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS i
protest ; but the English representative protested, firmly and successfully, against an attempt to revive the Czar's plan, and to issue to the world the principles of the Troppau Declaration. The union of the Great Powers had not been formally broken, but the attitude of Great Britain and of France had made the concert little more than an empty name.
4. In 1822 the Congress of Verona was held. It was the last occasion on which the Great Alliance gave signs of life. The revolutionary leaven had not ceased to work since the meeting at Laybach. There was a revolutionary move- ment in Spain, and there was at stake in it not only the future of the Spanish monarchy in Europe, but also the future of the Spanish colonies in South America. In the south of the Balkan Peninsula the insurrection had broken out which was never to cease until free Greece had joined the European State system. Here were great questions likely to tax all the strength of the Alliance at its strongest. ^
The Alliance was far from strong ; the five Great Powers could hardly be said to be allied at all. There was instead a practical Alliance of the three Eastern Powers — Russia, Prussia, and Austria ; while the two constitutional Powers of the West^— Great Britain and France — stood aloof, critical and almost hostile. The Congress at Verona was not wanting in splendour. The crowned heads of Russia, Austria, and Prussia were there, and princelings in plenty ; Great Britain was represented by Wellington, whose presence and authority in Europe were almost more than royal. But there was no internal strength or unity corre- sponding to this outward display.
Castlereagh no longer guided the foreign policy of Great Britain ; a strange act of suicide had removed that misjudged statesman. Canning had taken his place and continued
i WAR AND PEACE SINCE 1815 11
the main line of his policy with much greater power of epigram and mordant phrase, but less sureness of judgment. It was the Spanish question which chiefly engaged the attention of the delegates. France was prepared to inter- fere there, as Austria had interfered in Naples, if she could count on the support of the other Great Powers. Russia, Austria, and Prussia were ready to give their support. Would Great Britain go along with them ? She had helped the Spaniards in the Peninsular War to free themselves from the despotism of Napoleon ; would she now co-operate with France to force them under a detested yoke ? Welling- ton, acting on the instructions of Canning, definitely refused. Great Britain was breaking no engagement. She had always protested against the idea of the intervention of the Alliance in the internal affairs of independent nations. It was, as Mr. Alison Phillips says, " the Allies that had moved away from Great Britain, which had merely adhered to her course." She had refused to co-operate at Troppau and at Laybach ; but there had been no such definite break as this. Wellington's action was the death-blow of the Great Alliance, which never met again. Canning's subse- quent action made it clear that any restoration of the Alliance was impossible ; for he recognised the independence of the American colonies of Spain, and he gave diplomatic assistance to the Greek insurgents. The Great Alliance was dead.
It seemed a welcome result to Canning. " Things are getting back to a wholesome state again," he wrote. "Every nation for itself and God for us all. The time for Areopaguses and the like of that is gone by." And English opinion generally echoed these sentiments.
The directjcause of the failure of the Gra^t AJlmnrp is plain. Those who exercised the chief influence in its councils
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— the Czar Alexander especially — were not content to use it merely as an instrument for maintaining peace ; they wished also to restrain the constitutional life of each State within narrow limits. The French Revolution was on their nerves. There was a movement which began by being purely domestic in its aims and which had declared at the outset the most pacific intentions ; but before it was done with it had set all Europe ablaze. There had been a meeting of the rulers of Prussia and Austria in 1792, in which they had declared that the restoration of order in France was a matter that interested all Europe. Then, too, it was largely the refusal of Great Britain to co-operate that had pre- vented an active interference. But if that interference had been active and successful, what catastrophes it would have saved ! Napoleon might have lived and died as an obscure officer of artillery.
There was good reason then for the apprehension of Russia and Austria that internal revolutions might trouble the peace of Europe. Yet few will think that it would have been well if the French Revolution had been crushed ; and hardly any one will wish that Canning had not recog- nised the independence of the South American republics, " calling into existence a new world to redress the balance of the old," or had not co-operated with the Greeks in their struggle for freedom.
But in 1915 it is not so easy as it once was to feel en- thusiasm for the destruction of an organisation which might perhaps have grown intoaworkable international institution. Liberty, indeed, is of such great worth that all may fairly be risked for her. But was there no via media possible ? no compromise ? Could not the Alliance have been called back by tact and diplomacy to its legitimate task of safeguarding the peace of Europe ? Perhaps not ; but we are just now
i WAR AND PEACE SINCE 1815 13
more impressed by the dangers of national anarchy than by the charms of national independence. " Every nation for itself and God for us all," said Canning. With the cry of Belgium in our ears we are inclined to rewrite it, " Every nation for itself, and the Devil take the weakest."
2. THE REVOLUTIONS OF 1848, AND THE NEW FORCES IN EUROPE
The dissolution of the Great Alliance left the Great Powers without any common principles or organisation. During the next quarter of a century the European world spun rapidly away from the restricted orbit in which Alexander of Russia had wanted to confine it. The Treaty of Vienna went by the board. Greece gained her independ- ence, and Alexander's successor co-operated powerfully in the winning of it. The well-intentioned but mechanical union of Holland and Belgium was broken by the revolu- tion of 1830, and Belgium gained her independence and a European guarantee. What glorious progress she made in her independence and how shamefully the guarantee was broken by Germany is now known to all the world. The " July revolution " in Paris sent the Bourbons on their travels again, and placed the Orleanist dynasty on a throne that rested on the will of the people. France showed in that movement that she could manage a revolution almost as peacefully as England had managed hers in 1688 ; but it was none the less a decisive breach in the principles of legitimacy. But the July revolution did not provide so permanent a settlement for France as the great Whig revolution had done for England. Dangerous stuff was fermenting in France, and not only in France but to a greater or less extent in every country in Europe. In
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France imperialism was born again. In Europe generally socialism and nationalism stepped into the arena.
The origins of socialism may be sought for, and perhaps found, centuries and even millenniums before 1848 ; but it was during the revolutions of that year that it first came to be known as a serious force with which the States of Europe would have to reckon. It spoke of peace, aimed at peace, consciously strove for peace, but was destined to act, at any rate indirectly, as a cause of strife. And of socialism nothing further need be said here. Yet it would be well if the " ideas of 1848 " were as carefully studied and as generally known as the " ideas of 1789." Voltaire, Montesquieu, Diderot, Rousseau have passed into the general consciousness, and I do not challenge their im- portance ; but Saint Simon, Fourier, Comte, and Louis Blanc are closer to our own problems, and a critical study of their ideas would cast much light on the path that lies before us. Enough that France dreamed again her glorious dream of the destruction of all oppression and poverty. She was again " on the top of golden hours," and there were many in other countries to share her enthusiasm.
Louis Blanc was the great missionary of socialism. No name is so intimately associated with the new gospel of nationalism, though Mazzini caught the ear of Europe as no one else did. Much has been written about nationalism of late ; for the war which has stimulated thought on so many subjects has made it especially necessary to analyse the meaning of nationalism and bring to the test its claim to provide a basis on which Europe may rest in peace and fraternity. It remains a great and vital principle in Europe, and the Allies are pledged to use their victory to extend its application. But the enthusiastic hopes of Mazzini are not held now. " To re-make the map of Europe, and to
i WAR AND PEACE SINCE 1815 15
rearrange the peoples in accordance with the special mission assigned to each of them by geographical, ethnical, and historical conditions — this is the first essential step for all." So wrote Mazzini in 1832. It has proved a long and difficult step ; and it seems clear that States will have to be formed in some cases without making it. And when the national State is formed it is by no means certain that it will be peaceful and fraternal to all others. The present hour makes it clear that a nationality can be as ambitious and as despotic as a dynastic ruler. National self-consciousness lies somewhere near the basis of most of the most bitter wars of the world. Canning declared : " Our business is to preserve the peace of the world and therefore the inde- pendence of the several nations which compose it." But Mr. Alison Phillips, the admiring historian of Canning's period, writes : " The principle of nationality was to become the main obstacle to any realisation of the vision of per- petual peace." It may be noted, too, that it presents us with a cause for war, which it would be peculiarly difficult to avoid by arbitration. For arbitration can hardly deal with anything but quarrels between State and State ; and nationalist movements cut right across State boundaries and, on the basis of a new principle unrecognised by inter- national law, claim to rearrange the frontiers or to create new States. It is clear, too, that there must be States which do not correspond with the boundaries of any one nation- ality ; and a pressing problem is how to harmonise such States with liberty and the satisfaction of national feeling. Switzerland, Canada, and South Africa show us that the problem is not insoluble, and most examples point to some form of federalism as the clue to the solution.
Imperialism, socialism, nationalism — these were the chief factors that produced the revolutions of 1848. The changes
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were as great and much more general than those of the first French Revolution. All Europe, except Great Britain and Russia, seemed thrown into the melting-pot. In many of the capitals of Europe — and especially in Berlin, Vienna, and Paris — crowned heads saw their power and even their lives threatened by the revolution, and fled for safety to a foreign country or to the shelter of the armies. There were some who seriously thought that monarchy was at an end, and that the future form of government would everywhere be republican. Then came reaction and disappointment. It was from Vienna that perhaps the greatest impulse to revolution had gone forth, and the overthrow of Metternich had been the signal for risings in Italy, Germany, and Hungary. And when reaction triumphed in Vienna the revolution was threatened and subsequently crushed in these three districts. The Italian forces, which had so joyously entered Milan and so gloriously fought there, were shattered, and Piedmont with difficulty maintained her constitutional liberties. The King of Prussia found that his sword was not broken, that his armies would still obey the word of command ; and it was by the military that the Assembly was dispersed. A constitution given by royal grace granted little but the name of constitutional life. Reaction, triumphant in Berlin, destroyed the hopes of German liberalism which once seemed so near to success. The Prussian King rejected the crown of United Germany which was offered to him, just because it was offered to him by the people. In Hungary, Magyar nationalism had been confronted by the nationalism of the smaller peoples. Russian armies came to the help of the Emperor Francis Joseph (it seems incredible that he still reigns at Vienna !) and Kossuth fled. In France the revolution triumphed ; the second republic was declared. France had long before
i WAR AND PEACE SINCE 1815 17
that been a fully self-conscious nation. It was the hopes and fears of socialism (using the word in the widest sense) which gave the chance to Napoleon. He was carried on a great wave of imperialist sentiment to the presidency of the Republic, and then in 1852 to the imperial title.
It is not my purpose to give a narrative of European history, but simply to trace the conditions under which peace has been kept or broken during the past century. And from this point of view it is remarkable that the bundle of crises of 1848 produced no international war. There was civic strife in many parts of Europe. The Russian armies entered the Austrian dominions, but it was in support of the Government. A crisis which might have deluged Europe in blood passed with unexpectedly little disturbance. It seemed to show that the European system was really grow- ing more stable, and that the peace tendencies were actually so strong that even without organisation they sufficed to prevent the outbreak of war. But an era of great wars was soon to arrive.
3. CAVOUR, NAPOLEON III., AND BISMARCK
The peace between the Great European Powers had been unstable and precarious, but there was no actual outbreak of war between them from 1815 to 1854. Then there came from the Balkans, which have so often been the storm-centre of Europe, the quarrel which produced the Crimean War. There is nothing very novel or characteristic of the nine- teenth century in that war or its causes ; it is rather, as a French historian has called it, a war of the eighteenth century strayed into the nineteenth. The motives of the different combatants are plain, and none of them very laudable. The decaying power of Turkey lay right across
C
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the path of Russia's ambition, and Russia had long claimed treaty rights of interference on behalf of the Christian subjects of the Sultan. She took her relation to the Christians seriously ; we have no right to accuse her of hypocrisy in the matter. But we are not unjust if we regard Russia's desire to secure control of the Dardanelles, where the Turk might at any time throttle the chief channel by which the trade of Russia had access to the Mediter- ranean, as the chief motive of her hostilities. Great Britain, under the influence of Palmerston's ideas, saw every move- ment of Russia with jealous eyes, and thought that Britain's interest lay in the support of the power of Turkey, of whose reform Englishmen had not yet despaired. France had for long been regarded as the protector of the Catholics of the East, and had just grounds of jealousy of the advance of Russia. But the exigencies of the position of Napoleon III. counted for more than the needs of the Christians of the East. His name had been his fortune, and it was in a great measure his evil destiny. A Napoleon raised by revolution to the throne of France had no justification unless he gave to his subjects military glory, nor would his throne be safe on any other condition. Success in some great military adventure was the law of his political existence. So France and England forgot their old enmity and joined together for a war which it was expected would be of short duration. Before the war was over their troops were joined by a con- tingent from the King of Sardinia, whose interest in the future of Turkey and the freedom of the Dardanelles was but small, but who, under the guidance of his great diplo- matist Cavour, desired to accustom Europe to think of him as a Power to be reckoned with. But the men who fought so bravely and suffered so terribly during the bitter winter in the trenches before Sebastopol must have found it hard
i WAR AND PEACE SINCE 1815 19
to say what they were fighting for, and at this moment when Russians, French, English, and Italians are fighting to break open the barrier of the Dardanelles the Crimean policy of the French and English is harder than ever to justify.
When at last the war came to an end that settled nothing, men hoped for a long era of peace. But one war followed another during the next fifteen years, and never again down to our own time has the relation of the Great Powers been at the best anything but one of jealous watchfulness. Italy fought two important wars during the next fifteen years ; Prussia three ; France one. The relationship of the Great Powers was throughout unstable.
Seignobos, at the end of his invaluable History of Con- temporary Europe, passes from his precise, impartial, and unemotional narrative to give us a glimpse of his philosophy of history. And his philosophy is a negation of all philo- sophy. It is chance that reigns, having expelled not only God but Law ! " There is a natural tendency," he writes, " to attribute great effects to great causes and to explain the political evolution of Europe by reference to profound and permanent forces, of wider scope than the actions of individuals. But the history of the nineteenth century cannot be brought into harmony with such a conception." He goes on to declare how large a part has been played by accident, and how vast has been the influence of individuals. I hope that we shall not find ourselves forced to abandon the idea of great causes in history, and that we shall still be able to find a purpose and an aim in the history of humanity. But certainly for this epoch (1856 to 1871) the influence of individuals was immense. Can any one conjecture what Italy, Germany, and France would be to-day if Cavour, Bismarck, and Napoleon III. had never been born ?
As we study their careers and penetrate their ideas, we
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cannot wonder that a period of wars set in. For these men — the three foremost actors on the European stage — for different reasons found that the end they pursued could only be gained by war, and for a large part of their political careers were so far from trying to maintain peace and the equilibrium of Europe, that they watched for some oppor- tunity of throwing Europe into the disorder of a great war.
Cavour's reputation has grown steadily since his death. All the world now recognises his unselfish patriotism and the passionate zeal for the Italian cause that was hidden beneath his reserved manners and his rather dull appearance. In the game of diplomacy he had amazing skill and finesse, and his success is the more remarkable because he was not, like Richelieu and Bismarck, supported by the overwhelm- ing strength of an army. Most Englishmen think of the achievement of Italian liberty and unity as the greatest and best thing that happened in the nineteenth century, and we are not likely to think less highly of it when the soldiers of Italy are fighting in alliance with those of France and England in defence of the liberties of the world. And yet — and yet — Cavour knew that his great goal could only be reached by war, and that Piedmont by herself was not strong enough to challenge the whole might of Austria. He sought eagerly for means that should embroil France with Austria ; stooped to treachery and fraud in pursuit of his ends ; connived at an attack upon Neapolitan terri- tory without declaration of war or even any statement of grievances ; and invaded the Papal territory upon a pretext that could deceive no one and was not intended to do so. If he could have been told in 1856 that Europe would enjoy peace for the next twenty years, he would have regarded that as the death-knell of his highest hopes.
Napoleon III. awaits an English biographer who shall
i WAR AND PEACE SINCE 1815 21
present the man and his policy to the world with sufficient insight and knowledge. In France, De la Gorce's fine work gives us a fascinating picture of the man and his times. He had great talents, but his name was more powerful in pro- moting his advance than his talents. The memories of the great days of the great Napoleon seemed all the brighter because of the dull rule of Louis Philippe, and all the suffer- ing and the failure had grown dim in men's minds. Then came the revolution, the socialist experiments which per- haps had never been intended to succeed, the outbreak of violence ; and the second Napoleon (though history calls him the third) rose, by much the same steps as the first Napoleon had trod in 1799, to the Presidency and then to the Empire of France. He was a man of ideas, and some of them were good ones ; he dreamed dreams which have some of them come true. One may conjecture that he would have made a great reputation for himself as a professor at the Sorbonne or as a Parisian journalist. But he was not of the stuff of which great rulers are made, especially such as have won their way to the throne in time of revolution. He had no natural liking for war, such was the opinion of Bismarck himself ; and indeed his talents did not lie that way. But his position was one that could hardly be main- tained in an atmosphere of peace. The first Napoleon found that unless he dazzled the eyes of France with recur- rent victories men's minds turned again to the watchwords of the Revolution ; they began to speak of liberty and equality again ; the Republic renewed its attractions. And so it was with Napoleon III. France had not raised him to the imperial power that he should use it in the spirit of Louis Philippe ; he would not be able to satisfy her with commercial progress, better organisation, and an honoured place in the commonwealth of Europe. His position forced
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him on to military adventures. To strengthen his unstable throne and to secure the succession to his son, he was pushed on to one enterprise after the other — to the Crimea, to Italy, to Mexico, to Sedan.
If Napoleon III. was an unsettling force in Europe, Bismarck's influence made constantly for war. We know him well, and he is not difficult to know. Not only the researches of historians, but his speeches, and above all his Reflections and Reminiscences, reveal the man to us. The contrast with Napoleon III. could not be more complete. The element of charlatanry which vitiates all Napoleon's qualities is entirely absent in Bismarck ; he is of one material throughout, and that material is granite. He was a great orator though he despised oratory, and wrote with wonderful effectiveness, though he never aspired to dis- tinction in literature. If we compare him with contem- porary statesmen, it is the concentration of his efforts on one purpose that marks him out from them, with the excep- tion, perhaps, of Cavour. He concerns himself little if at all with art and thought ; humanity, in both senses of the word, was hardly to be found in his vocabulary. He was really and deeply religious, and it would be interesting to analyse the character of his religion ; it is the " good Prussian God " that he believes in. He was devoted to one object only — the glorification of the Prussian State and of Germany only in so far as it could be absorbed into Prussia. But for the purposes of this chapter it is only necessary to insist that this man of genius (few will deny him the title) was as far as possible from thinking of the maintenance of the peace of Europe as a chief end of his efforts. He did not desire war for its own sake, though nowhere does he speak with any dread of its consequences. But the object after which he strove continually — the greatness of Prussia —
i WAR AND PEACE SINCE 1815 23
could best, he thought, be reached through war, and a great part of his statesmanship was devoted to the choosing of the proper occasion to make war. For the ideals of Western Europe, for self-government, public opinion, the free de- velopment of the individual, for progress, the fraternity of peoples, internationalism in all its forms, he had nothing but contempt. He specially disliked in English liberalism the view championed by Bright and Gladstone, that the laws of morality were applicable to politics. Democracy was for him the enemy, to be crushed, or, where that was impossible, to be humoured by meaningless concessions : " I look for Prussia's honour," he wrote, " in Prussia's abstinence, before all things, from every shameful union with democracy."
When three such statesmen exercised a preponderant influence on the destinies of Europe, it is needless to regard the wars of the third quarter of the century as something mysterious and inexplicable. Wars came because they were willed, not by the peoples, but by statesmen and governing classes.
Five wars fill these sixteen years. Of the Crimean War we have already spoken. In 1859 Cavour secured a war between Piedmont (Sardinia) and Austria, and gained the support of France. Victory came to the allied armies, and Cavour seemed within reach of his goal. Then Napoleon III. made peace with Austria behind the back of his ally. History still discusses his motives, and threatening move- ments of the armies of Prussia probably formed the chief. Cavour saw in the retirement of Napoleon the ruin of his hopes, but the spontaneous movement of central Italy compensated for the withdrawal of the French armies ; Garibaldi's amazing adventure won Sicily and Naples for the cause of Italy ; the unprovoked invasion of the Papal
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States completed the work. Dante and Machiavelli would both have welcomed the result, but Machiavelli alone would have approved the means.
Next came the war over the duchies of Schleswig- Holstein. It was a question where a just and fair solution would have been difficult even for the best-intentioned diplomacy, for the relation of the duchies to the crown of Denmark on the one side, and to Germany on the other, presented an almost inextricable tangle. No power, not even Great Britain, comes very well out of the story. The diet at Frankfort raised a weak and querulous voice in favour of a solution of the question by an appeal to the principles of Justice. Any such parliamentary action was pushed aside by the military powers of Prussia and Austria. It is of importance to notice that Bismarck's own position was most seriously threatened at the time. Let readers go to Mr. Headlam's Bismarck for an admirable account of the constitutional struggle of this time. Bismarck himself tells us : " Some progressive journals hoped to see me picking oakum for the benefit of the State ; and the House of Deputies declared by 274 to 45 that ministers were responsible with their persons and fortunes for unconstitutional expenditure." Bismarck has said scorn- fully of Napoleon III. that his wars were prompted by his political troubles at home. But Bismarck was himself saved from overthrow in the great crises of his career by turning public attention to war and intoxicating the people with victory.
The Danish duchies were occupied, in spite of the pathetic heroism of the Danes, by the two Great Powers, who then fell to blows with regard to the division of the spoil. Hence arose Bismarck's second war — the Seven Weeks' War with Austria. For a short time Prussia seemed upon the razor-
i WAK AND PEACE SINCE 1815 25
edge of fate. Then came complete victory, and when the battle of Sadowa had been fought and won, it was Bis- marck who, single-handed, arranged the terms of peace. His diplomatic talents never showed to greater advantage than at this crisis. Against the opinion of the King and his military advisers he insisted on favourable terms being granted to Austria and the South German States ; and dragged back Moltke, who was panting for more righting and conquering.
It was not humanity that controlled his action, but the vision of another war to come. He wished to secure the neutrality of Austria and the alliance of the German States for the war with France, which he foresaw. A war with France, Bismarck said, lay " in the logic of history " ; and again, " I took it as assured that war with France would necessarily have to be waged on the road to our further national development " ; and yet again, " I did not doubt that a Franco-German war must take place before the construction of a united Germany could be realised." Bismarck is not often guilty of cant, but this of the " logic of history " comes perilously near it. Like Edmund in King Lear, " he puts his own disposition to the credit of a star." Does the phrase mean much more than this — that Bismarck saw that German union could only be accom- plished if the States of the South were mesmerised by war and victory into acceptance of the dominion of Prussia ? Certainly he never made the least attempt to discover whether the " logic of history " were not capable of a peace- ful interpretation.
The situation in France lent itself to Bismarck's schemes. Napoleon's schemes did not prosper. His mind was losing, partly perhaps through illness, its old alertness and elas- ticity. The birth of the Prince Imperial made his parents
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cling more passionately to power, but had not really strengthened the dynasty. Opposition showed itself and was only partly quelled by the grant of more liberal in- stitutions. A good war and a good victory suggested itself as the one remedy, and if Napoleon did not approve he did not actively oppose. The diplomatic exchanges that pre- ceded the war cannot be examined ; but it is worth while re-emphasising the fact that the desired war had nearly failed to break out. If we misrepresent Bismarck here it is at least his own fault. He has told us through half a dozen channels that the Franco-German War would not have come when it did and as it did if he had not forced it upon the nation. In his Reminiscences (ii. p. 95) he has told us how he believed peace inevitable in consequence of the turn which had been taken by the negotiations with France, and had decided in consequence to resign. Then came a telegram from the King at Ems giving the account of his interview with Benedetti, the French envoy, which he believed to have ended peacefully and satisfactorily. Bismarck read the telegram to Moltke and Roon, who were dining with him ; it seemed to them to mean peace, and " their dejection was so great that they turned away from food and drink." Bismarck had been instructed to com- municate the news to the press in whatever way he thought best ; and he prepared a message which suggested, without asserting, that Benedetti's interview with the King had been a stormy one and had ended in a rupture. This version was greeted by Moltke with the words, " Now it has a different ring ; it sounded before like a parley, now it is like a flourish in answer to a challenge." And Roon exclaimed, " Our old God lives still and will not let us perish in dis- grace." The message thus prepared was sent to the papers. The inflammable feelings of Germany and of France blazed
i WAR AND PEACE SINCE 1815 27
up at its touch. The war came and produced the results that Bismarck desired — victory and the union of Germany under the leadership of Prussia. It is a far cry from the senti- mental phrases of the Holy Alliance to the scene at Berlin ; but Roon's morals and theology are no improvement on the Czar Alexander's.
The moderation of 1866 found no place in the Treaty of Frankfurt which marked the close of the Franco-German War. Alsace and Lorraine were torn from France without any consideration of the wishes of the inhabitants. A huge war indemnity was to be paid and an army of occu- pation was to be maintained until the money was forth- coming. Such a settlement made any reconciliation between France and Germany almost impossible. Nor did the authorities of Germany desire a reconciliation. The per- manent hostility of France has been a useful force for the maintenance of the German constitution which, created by war, has always seemed to exist for war, and would certainly have become liable to fundamental change in an atmosphere of settled peace. •
4. HOPES AND FEARS SINCE 1871
After the Treaty of Frankfurt the land had rest for more than forty years. From 1871 until July 1914 there was no conflict among the Great Powers of Europe. That is a remarkable fact. Western Europe has not been free from war for so long since the end of the peaceful period of the Roman Empire in the second century A.D.
When the history of those forty -three years comes to be written they will doubtless be labelled with various titles. From the point of view that we are considering they might be called " The Great Disappointment " ; for those who
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loved peace and regarded it as the first necessity for the progress of European civilisation began to think before the end that the omens were favourable to their hopes, and that, in spite of the many and great dangers, a few more years might see some great thing done to bring the chief States of the world together in permanent co-operation. It may be well, while we can almost hear the guns in Flanders and Poland and the Dardanelles, to review the grounds of these vanished hopes.
There was the manifest need of peace. Despite the enormous increase of wealth the problem of poverty was urgent and seemed the one central problem of civilisation. War would only intensify it, and could not solve any phase of it, except for the passing moment. Assuming that reason guides in the long run the actions of mankind, it seemed incredible that Europe should plunge into that abyss in which she now agonises.
Then there was the general increase in popular control over the actions of the State, the democratic and labour movement in its varying forms. Hatred of militarism was a common feature of all these movements, however widely they differed in other respects.
Further, the unity and solidarity of civilisation had grown clearer and clearer. To the historian of progress it was plain that Europe was a real unity which transcended the particular nations ; and in England and France at any rate it had become a commonplace to say that from the point of view of culture national frontiers were almost negligible. The great Germans of a past age had contri- buted to this feeling. Goethe and Beethoven were on our side. Music seemed the real universal language by which what is best in each nation can hold communion without any sense of separation.
i WAK AND PEACE SINCE 1815 29
Labour and capital — those unreconciled antagonists — seemed each to contribute to the victory of the international idea. Both spread their organisations over all civilised countries irrespectively of language, race, or State. Mr. Norman Angell's widely read pamphlet The Great Illusion was interpreted as meaning that the economic interdepend- ence of States was so great that war was henceforth nearly an impossibility.
It seemed, too, to many of us (it is well to confess our blindness, if indeed we were blind) that the heart of Europe was turning to peace. France seemed to be forgetting her dreams of revenge ; in England any statesman who dared to speak of war as anything but a great evil would have had to disappear from public life, and the individual voices who spoke in praise of the " glorious game of war " were few and seemed to be losing influence. The dangerous and war- like temper of much German thought was known, though not so well known as it now is ; but from individual Germans and from important groups came manifestations of peaceful aims which were certainly sincere.
These hopes were not the dreams of pacifists alone. Mr. Alison Phillips ended his well-known Handbook of Modern Europe (published in 1901) with an expression of hope that the nations of Europe might, " in spite of count- less jealousies and misunderstandings, grow in time to realise their unity in all that constitutes a nation : in their common origins, their common traditions, their common interests."
In addition to these general tendencies efforts were made, of a tentative kind, to give Europe principles and organisa- tions on which she might base a peaceful existence. The principle of " Balance of Power " is insufficient and often dangerous to peace, but since the sixteenth century it has
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given Europe an ideal that has not been altogether without value. And though the Great Powers have not tried again the experiment that failed in the Holy Alliance and in the Treaty of Chaumont, they have often come together to consider the measures that should be taken to meet a European crisis. It seemed possible that out of this vague Concert of Europe there might be developed some more permanent organisation for the guardianship of the peace of Europe. Sir Edward Grey gave utterance to such a hope just before the outbreak of the present war. Most important and most hopeful of all was the establishment of the Conference at the Hague on the initiative of the Czar in 1899, when the delegates of twenty-six States met together to try to find the road to peace. The failure of the Hague movement has been loudly proclaimed. Certainly it did not reduce armaments ; too obviously it did not secure peace ; but it provided a permanent machinery for arbitra- tion, which has been extensively used. When the flood of war recedes the Hague tribunal will assuredly be left stand- ing, and it will probably form the centre and starting-point of the efforts towards peace and internationalism in the future.
On the other hand, the thunder-stroke of July 1914 only appeared to come out of a clear sky to those who had not been watching the clouds. The atmosphere had never been peaceful since 1871.
There had been first the competition in armaments. For this the Treaty of Frankfurt was chiefly responsible. Bismarck, as we have seen, had made no effort to conciliate France ; rather, and in this he represented the mind of Germany, he aimed at her humiliation. Moreover, the war, with its hurricane attack, had shown how terrible were the dangers of unpreparedness, and that a war might be irre-
i WAK AND PEACE SINCE 1815 31
trievably lost in the first few days of it. So army bill followed army bill ; universal military service was adopted all over the Continent. Competition in navies followed later, but became quite as serious. Some said, and perhaps believed, that all this made for peace, that war had become so terrible that it would not be waged. A popular politician in England once affirmed that the conscience of mankind had grown so sensitive that it would soon be as impossible for a commander to give the order for torpedoing the enemy's vessel as it would be for him to revert to cannibalism. It is now clear that armaments are made to be used, and when made are very likely to be used.
Then colonial rivalries came to increase resentments that had their origins in Europe. Great Britain became in- creasingly conscious of her colonial possessions, and the sentiment of imperialism, though it struggled into life with difficulty, became extremely strong and sometimes danger- ous. France built up a great African colonial empire. Germany was later in the field, but threw herself with characteristic force and thoroughness into the task of winning and organising colonies. There was much friction between Russia and Great Britain on account of rival claims in Asia. Africa seemed even more likely to prove the cause of a great European conflict, but the difficulty was tem- porarily overcome by the partition of Africa among the European Powers, which was largely engineered by Lord Salisbury. But colonial rivalries and the passion for acquisition still remained. When Great Britain was engaged in the Boer War the opinion of the civilised world was ranged against her. That the danger passed without war seemed to some to show that the European State system was more stable than many had imagined. But it was not- after all from this source that the great conflagration came.
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While the Great Powers of Europe were at peace, though hardly peaceful, the Balkan Peninsula was the cause of constant disquiet. Hopes founded on the possibility of the Turks reforming themselves hardly survived the Crimean War. Turkish rule in the Peninsula was what it had always been, the military rule of an alien minority, which made no effort to conciliate the subject populations. The hopes of the non-Turkish and Christian populations rose higher and gave rise to movements which proved in the end successful. It would serve no good purpose here to follow the course of Balkan history since 1871. There was war there on three occasions before the outbreak of the present conflict : in 1876-77, when a Russian army marching to the assistance of the Bulgarians arrived at the gates of Constantinople, only to be turned back from final victory by the action of the British Government; in 1897, when a frontier quarrel led to a war between Greece and Turkey, which would have had more serious consequences for Greece if it had not been for the intervention of Europe ; and again two years ago (1913), when the Balkan League nearly swept the Turks from Europe and then fell to pieces and civil war in the hour of victory. There was some comfort for the lovers of peace in these wars, in that the war was in each instance kept from kindling a European conflagration. If peace were prolonged it was thought that there would be greater and greater unwillingness to disturb it, and the folly of the expenditure on armaments that were never to be used would at last be forced on the minds of statesmen.
Then came the thunderclap of 1914.
So of all mortals under heaven's wide cope
We were most hopeless that had once most hope,
And most beliefless who had most believed.
i WAE AND PEACE SINCE 1815 33
5. THE PAST AND THE FUTURE
We examined at the beginning of this paper the failure of the Holy Alliance and the schemes for the Confederation of Europe which followed the battle of Waterloo ; and we saw that the failure of those schemes was largely to be ascribed to the fact that the statesmen of Europe did not realise that states grew, and that their social and political structure inevitably changed with time. Can we see any such general cause for the failure of the hope that grew again after 1871 ? The attempt is at least worth making.
There are many who would ascribe it to the inherent defects of human nature. A politician of the Elizabethan age, in speaking of the conditioti of Ireland and the failure of all the schemes (very bad schemes they were) for its better government, summed up his opinion by saying, " The true cause of the trouble is the Devil, who will not have Ire- land to be reformed." A similar philosophy of despair has been on the lips of many of us during the past year. " Man," it has been said, " is not good enough to make the best of. Neither head nor heart is sound. He cannot will peace steadily, and when he wills it cannot pursue it by the right methods." The States of Europe seem then doomed to the fate of the great crowd of sinners in the Fourth Circle of Dante's Inferno, who perpetually roll great weights along with all the force of their bodies, until they strike against others, who half-blindly are pushing similar weights, when, after a savage altercation they turn round, soon to strike against other opponents, and so suffer eternally in meaning- less and profitless effort and conflict.
Such pessimism is not reasonable even in this dark hour. The catastrophe indeed has no parallel in history since the barbarians of the north trampled down the civilisation of
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the Roman Empire ; but even so the forces that were drawing Europe together will not cease to work. The in- tellectual and moral unity of Europe remains a fact. Hope is a duty, but it must also find something tangible to which it may cling, and such support is not wanting. All history may be interpreted as an effort after unity and peaceful intercourse among men. Nor need we be discouraged by the fact that from the beginning of recorded history efforts to secure unity and peace have ended in failure. For though no complete or final victory has been gained, a real advance has been made. And the persistent and recurrent efforts even in the darkest periods may be regarded as the best prophecy of victory. After the War all opinions and all organisations will be revised in the light of the test afforded by this crisis. And to the writer of this chapter one thing seems clear. The problem of international organisa- tion will have to be resolutely faced. The independent and self -determining State has many attractions and many advantages ; but we see where it leads us. The spon- taneous trend towards human unity is real and strong, but it has to be supplemented by conscious effort, and it must find support and expression in permanent organisations. The organisation and development of the State has been attended with loss as well as gain to the individuals and groups contained within it ; but the gain has enormously outweighed the loss. What has been lost in independence and egotistic self-consciousness has been repaid over and over again in order, peace, and the sense of belonging to a great whole. The State and the nation would similarly gain enormously by recognising their subordination to Europe, or even to a human unity greater than Europe, and by allowing nationalist and imperialist aims to be modified and overruled by the claims of humanity. The first and
i WAK AND PEACE SINCE 1815 35
immediate enemy is that doctrine, specially represented by Germany, but lurking really in the minds of many who denounce the doctrine of Treitschke and Machiavelli, that the State is an end in itself, that private morality cannot or ought not to be brought into connection with public morality, and that nothing can be imagined higher than the State. But even when that form of madness has given way to a higher and saner view of history and society, there can be no guarantee of international peace except by international institutions. It is easy to say that they have often been tried and they have always failed. Their success has been temporary and limited, but we look back now with better appreciation to the Catholic Church of the Middle Ages, and to the Holy Eoman Empire, as to great and noble efforts in the right direction. The dreams of Henry of Navarre, of Leibnitz, of Saint Pierre were Utopian. But we may take courage from the War which has realised so many scientific nightmares to believe that dreams may also come true in the domain of political and social organisation. It is the great sin of Germany that she has made all international organisation so much more difficult than it seemed some years ago. But the effort must begin again with a clearer realisation of the goal we are aiming at : Europe must be provided not merely with a permanent court for arbitration, good as that is, and capable of indefinite expansion. In whatever form there must be a European directorate.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
A bibliography of this chapter is not really possible, for it touches on the whole century since the battle of Waterloo. I have expressed my debt for the first pages to Alison Phillips, Confederation of Europe, A Study of the European Alliance 1815-1823. Of the many histories of the nineteenth century I should like specially to recommend
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C. A. Fyffe's Modern Europe (Cassell, 10s. 6d.) and W. Alison Phillips's Modern Europe (Rivington, 6s.), the first distinguished by great vigour and clearness of exposition and by warm sympathy with liberal and humane movements: the second full, accurate, and impartial. J. A. R. Marriott's Remaking of Modern Europe, 1789-1878 (Methucn, 2s. 6d.) is short, but clear and stimulating. For the study of the political development of the European states, C. Seignobos, Political History of Contemporary Europe (Heinemann, 6s.) is essential; but in it political change is isolated from all the forces that have influenced it, from industry, thought, and even from war. The Cambridge Modern History, vols. x., xi., and xii., is a useful work of reference.
For Bismarck, who dominates the diplomacy of the century, we have the excellent biography of J. W. Headlam (Putnam, 6s.); but Bismarck's own Reflections and Recollections is a book essential to any criticism of his policy. For Cavour and Italy, Bolton King's History of Italian Unity (Nisbet, 24s.) and Stillman, Union of Italy (Cam- bridge, 4s. 6d.), are of great use. Cavour's own Letters (untranslated) are the great mine of information. Books on modern France in English are curiously few. The chapters in Jarvis's Studentf' France (Murray, 7s. 6d. ) are useful : also Lebon's Modern France (Unwin, 5s.) : chapters in the Cambridge Modern History and an Essay of Lord Acton's in Historical Essays and Studies the " Causes of the War of 1870." The Bibliography published by the Council for the Study of International Relations (The Causes of the War : What to Read (6d.)) is of great value for the purposes of this chapter.
II
THE CAUSES OF MODERN WARS
1. THE IDEAL OF A " STATIC " WOULD
MANY philosophers, both kindly and cynical, have been impressed by the degree to which men are influenced by the words they use. Thought and language are inextricably linked together, and the word which should be the expres- sion of the thought is often its master. Thus the word " Foreign " has done much to diminish both the interest which British people should have felt in the conduct of their country towards other countries and their sense of responsibility for that conduct. " Foreign policy " sounded something which had to do with other states, something unknown and more or less unknowable as far as ordinary folk were concerned ; it was the sphere of the aristocratic or bureaucratic diplomatist, or at best of the Parliamentary or journalistic specialist. It was full of problems that could not be even understood without some knowledge of foreign geography, foreign history, and, to some extent, foreign languages. Even with such an equipment the inquiry might be baffled by the secrecy of diplomatic methods. There might be treaties on which the peace of the world depended, and yet they remained secret. To this day the full terms of the Triple Alliance have not been
37
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made public . In a word the whole thing was " Continental , ' ' not British ; and British people were inclined to pass it by and to absorb themselves in political or social questions with which they were familiar. The very fact that of recent years an effort, on the whole successful, had been made to keep foreign affairs out of party politics, whilst it is, perhaps, the severest judgment that could be passed on the Party System, has tended to deepen the prevailing ignorance. It may be argued that frank ignorance is better than the kind of knowledge which is derived from a general election. Still the ignorance was there, and with it perhaps even more dislike and suspicion. Men, for instance, who were devoted to the social and economic problems amid which they lived, and which they could see and touch, grew impatient of far-away questions which appeared to lie at the mercy of diplomatists, men whom they profoundly distrusted ; and their impatience was not lessened when politicians with whom they disagreed intruded, as they would put it, into home politics arguments derived from our foreign relations. The war was a rude awakening. No man can now afford to neglect foreign politics. They have come terribly home to all of us, and there can be little doubt about the immediate task. Yet when the men who have all through distrusted diplomacy and all its methods begin to inquire into the past and to think of the future, they often ask themselves if a more democratic system might not simplify foreign relations almost beyond recognition. They know that they themselves, in the past, wished nothing but good to other peoples, and they cannot conceive that, under normal conditions, the people in other states should wish them any harm. If only the intrigues of ambitious govern- ments and the greed of bondholders could be controlled, and if countries could be kept clear of entanglements and
n THE CAUSES OF MODERN WARS 39
alliances, secret or avowed, international relations could be established on a permanent basis of non-intervention. Peace is so obviously the interest of a people that it is unbelievable that any should want to go to war. War must come from smaller bodies within a nation who may expect some profit from it. If Governments were really representative of the people and controlled by them, states would soon settle down into a static condition in which each respected the independence of the others. This principle and practice of non-interference would not prevent all possible disputes ; there are still, for one thing, debatable lands, but it would solve the great majority of international questions, those, especially, which stir men's blood and awake national antagonisms. Other questions could be left to Hague Courts or arbitration. Treaties and alliances, with all their provocative tendencies, would be unnecessary ; nations would not have to place themselves in one or other of rival groups, and the ghastly competition in armies and armaments would Cease. Isolation of this kind would not separate nations. On the contrary it would form the only secure basis on which to establish a union of peoples. Commercial and other dealings and every form of neigh- bourly office would develop, and something might be done to fill up the chasms which have been dug between the nationalities of the world. Such a state of affairs reads like a dream, an impossible millennium ; yet it seems to require for its realisation merely a democratic control of foreign policy, and then little more than the negative virtue of non-interference, of minding one's own business ; a virtue which seems easy enough to men who have never had the least wish to interfere with any foreign nation.
Let it be said at once that this conception of a static relation between nations was the foundation on which the
40 INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS n
traditional system of International Law was built up. That system, as we find it elaborated three centuries ago in the great legal treatise of Hugo Grotius, was accepted as an ideal, however flagrantly it may have been violated in practice, till the middle of the last century. It treated States as corporate persons ; they were all, great or small, equal in rights ; they were all independent ; only special treaty-rights would justify one State in interfering with the internal affairs or the independence of another. This doctrine still remains for most men the cardinal principle of international morals, but it has been obscured and complicated by the principle of Nationality according to which the rights of the " nation," often an uncertain quantity, over-ride those of the " State," a determinate political unit. But though there will always be difficulties of interpretation and difficulties in applying principles to practice, the essential point is the conviction that the moral law is binding on men whether they act singly or whether they act in masses, that there is a right and a wrong in State action, and that in all cases the action of the State should be capable of justification on some general principle. This is the foundation of all International Law, that is not merely a matter of convenience, and it is this which gives a dignity to that static community of States referred to above. The best reason for not interfering with your neighbour is respect for his rights and his independence. Common sense, therefore, law and morals appear for once to agree.
Yet in spite of all that can be said in favour of the apparently simple policy of non-intervention it is, as a matter of fact, so pathetically far from the present reality that it seems almost childish to discuss it. Nor indeed can this grim contrast between the real and the ideal be
ii THE CAUSES OF MODEKN WAKS 41
explained by saying that in each country the popular wish for peace and goodwill has not been able to express itself in the action of the Government. The solution is not so simple.
To begin with it is not at all certain that absolute stability in the relations between States is in itself desirable. This world is not a " static " world. Our apparent state of rest is often but the resultant of conflicting forces. However much sanctity we may allow to the claims of stability and tradition, we must also make provision for change, for new conditions. There may be a danger of what Lord Acton called " the tyranny of the dead over the living." We can see now that it would have been absurd to stereotype the territorial divisions of the Europe of the Congress of Vienna in 1815, and to our descendants the Europe of 1913 will doubtless look equally capable of improvement. Again the doctrine of non-intervention has its limitations. It is probably the safest of all the general principles regulating the relations between States, and yet, as we shall see, when- ever there has been some big movement afoot, whenever ideas, things of the spirit, have exercised more than common influence over men's actions, these material frontiers of States have been but flimsy barriers, and the bonds of a common faith or a common enthusiasm have proved stronger than political ties. Such movements may have been often enough revolutionary, arrogant, contemptuous of the rights of others, but not always. They have also been the result of good will towards the oppressed, for there is occasion sometimes, though perhaps rarely, for national knight-errantry.
Even were we to agree that the static system is always and altogether desirable, it is certainly not likely to survive for long by the mere good will of the countries composing it. A dynamic force is certain to break into the static
42 INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS u
calm, a force which comes from human will, from a country that for some reason or other is discontented with the status quo. There have at all times been countries with unsatisfied desires, countries with appetites or ideals for which they were prepared to fight. Let it be admitted that in some cases these are the appetites of a government or a governing class, and that with a more democratic constitution they would be kept under control ; still it will be long before all the great states of Europe have demo- cratic governments, and it would be folly to attempt to construct an ideal Europe on the supposition that demo- cracies are to prevail universally. It is much more important, however, to notice that as a rule wars have been " popular," that the dynamic force has come, if not from the whole nation, at least from an active and widespread minority, without protest from the rest ; and this, after all, is what is usually meant by a " national " movement. Look into all the great movements of history whether religious, political, or national, and you will find that they are the acts of minorities. The majority is, perhaps neces- sarily, passive, though it may be consenting. It is then the object of this chapter to point out the dynamic forces that have produced wars during the recent history of Europe ; not that it is possible to draw exact conclusions from a summary historical survey, but because it is our only means of getting to understand how nations act, what motives are apt to influence them. We get to know our fellow-men by the experience we have of ourselves and of those around us. It is not necessary to study history in order to know men, though history may often show us unexpected sides of human character. In dealing with nations, however, the scale is so much greater that we have to take a wider sweep, to cover a longer time as well as
n THE CAUSES OF MODERN WARS 43
a greater space ; and, indeed, unless we are somewhat withdrawn from the events we cannot rightly judge them.
2. WARS OF CONQUEST
There is something antique and barbarous about the very name, " Wars of Conquest." It suggests at once —
old, unhappy, far-off things And battles long ago,
and the frankest conquerors are the famous men of the East and of antiquity, men as different from one another as Alexander and Attila, but with this in common that they made no pretence at disguising what we might almost call their " cosmic " appetites under any of the specious phrases which have been common in later ages. Yet even these classic conquerors, though they appear to be inspired merely by love of power, of territory, or of spoil, have often enough been the expression of some national movement or some racial passion. They did not drag after them to victory an unwilling people. The passions which blazed in Attila must have burnt more moderately in the poorest Hun camp-follower. Who can tell what obscure stirrings among the tribes of Central Asia, or even farther East amongst the herdsmen of Tartary, may not have started on their careers of bloodshed . and conquest a Genghis Khan or a Timur ? There have been conquering nations as well as individual conquerors. The Northmen, those accomplished ninth- century artists of destruction, threw themselves spon- taneously on the doomed Carolingian empire ; and the impulse that scattered the Englishmen of Elizabeth's day over the high seas of the world was as national and as popular as any movement for constitutional reform or social improvement. Napoleon, of conquerors one of the most
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selfish, though probably less so than in his cynical moments he professed to be, Napoleon would have been impossible without the Revolution. The story of his victories is incomprehensible unless we realise that the soldier of the Grand Army, even while he was treading down the peoples of Europe, still looked on himself as a kind of missionary of Reason among foolishly unreasonable men, not as a conquering Frenchman among vanquished foreigners. The spirit that inspired him was mainly revolutionary, not patriotic, and hence it was long before it inspired a counter patriotic spirit in his German or Italian victims.
In modern times wars of conquest do not wear the frank and open, if brutal, faces they wore of old. They are half concealed under such phrases as " economic necessity," " natural " or " military frontiers," " racial " or " religious sympathies," " national aspirations." No doubt these phrases do represent claims which have to be taken into account. The motives of men are complicated and various ; still more various are the motives of nations, and it would be absurd to write down as hypocrites the people who appeal to these motives of action. It is, however, most important that we should be on our guard against the old freebooting instincts, the love of power and territory and wealth. These forms of political appetite do not become more respectable by being transferred from an eighteenth- century monarch to a nineteenth- or twentieth-century nation, but they may become more difficult to detect. It might, therefore, be an aid to clearness of thought to inquire how far recent wars can be classed under the heading of Wars of Conquest.
The plea of geographical necessity, or geographical " right " has often been used to justify wars of aggression. The most classic instance is the conviction, so often current
ii THE CAUSES OF MODEEN WAES 45
in France, that the Khine is the " natural frontier " of the country. " It is an idea based on the totally false assump- tion that a great river is a good frontier. Even if that assumption were correct it is hard to see how a war with such an object can be anything other than a war of conquest. The " Rhine frontier " cry was, therefore, both bad Inter- national Law and bad geography, yet it has at times found great favour in France among all classes and parties, from Louis XIV. to the leaders and rank and file of the Revolu- tion. A much better geographical plea can be made for an inland country which is anxious to secure a port on the open sea. It is very natural that a country like Russia should wish to command the " gates of her house," the Bosphorus and the Dardanelles ; it is still more natural that Austria should not wish to be cut off from the Adriatic by the loss of Trieste. But a desire, however strong, does not make a " right." In the eighteenth century the Kings of Prussia were very anxious to bind their scattered pro- vinces together into a continuous state ; in order to do so they had to annex a part of Poland. This Prussian " geo- graphical necessity " hardly justifies the First Partition of Poland. A " geographical " war, then, would seem to be a war of conquest, at least in so far as it is no more than geographical. In practice there will be other motives involved, and the long-standing hostility of Russia to Turkey is a good illustration of the manner in which different sections of a population may act from different motives. Since Waterloo Russia has on three different occasions made war on Turkey. The Government, the official class, and probably all the upper classes, were influenced mainly by the wish ultimately to secure Constantinople and the commanding position which that conquest would give Russia in the East. To the Russian people the Turkish
46 INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS 11
War was almost a crusade, a religious war, a part of the struggle between the Cross and the Crescent. In more recent times sympathy with the Christian population of Turkey has influenced the minds of the educated classes, though this motive was probably combined with the wish to extend the power of Russia.
To qualify the Russian acquisitions from Turkey as wars of conquest, and yet to say nothing of the enormous and apparently continuous extension of the British Empire in the East will be thought, perhaps, a gross piece of pro- verbial British hypocrisy. To many of our foreign critics, and to some even of our foreign friends, the growth of our Indian Empire is a standard example of a policy of conquest deliberately planned, untiringly and successfully carried out. To India we have now added Egypt, where we have come as the successors to many previous conquerors, Persian, Macedonian, or Arab, and with as little right as they. The results of our national policy are writ large on the face of the globe, our critics will say, what can be gained by a wearisome scrutiny of the process by which the Empire has been won ? Yet those who have taken the trouble to scrutinise have generally come to a different conclusion. Some of these are explained in another chapter where the relations between " advanced " and " backward " races are discussed.
No one would attempt to defend all that the Company or the English Government have done in India. There have been at times high-handed action and a disregard of the rights and customs of the people, but rarely indeed has there been a policy of conquest. In Egypt again it is easy to find fault with what we have done. There was at one time, for instance, too much anxiety about the interests of bondholders both English and French, yet there as else-
ii THE CAUSES OF MODERN WAES 47
where European administration has been introduced largely in order to protect the country from the hopeless confusion which resulted from the haphazard introduction of the European credit system and of Levantine officials into an Oriental country. Perhaps ultimate European control was inevitable once the doors were thrown open as wide as they were in the middle of the nineteenth century, to European capital. The hunger of the Khedive Ismail for loans was at first only surpassed by the anxiety of the European capitalists to lend. By his efforts to develop the country on Western lines and by the digging of the Suez Canal, he placed Egypt in that dangerous borderland between East and West, and the problems of finance and administration became more and more difficult. British policy in the Nile Valley during the 'seventies and 'eighties is open to a number of criticisms, but nothing could be more unlike a deliberate scheme to get possession of the country. Never was there a policy so unforeseeing. The English Ministers seemed to stumble blindly after the events. What they expected to be a peaceful " Demonstration " at Alexandria turned into a bombardment ; this necessitated a landing to protect the town. The landing resulted in an Expedition and a regular campaign. Victory led to what was certainly intended to be a brief occupation, and the brief occupation passed into an indefinite one. Finally a Protectorate has recently succeeded the " occupation." None of these stages seem to have been foreseen by the Government at home ; each was brought about by events over which it had no control, but which might in most instances have been expected. If a study of Egyptian history absolves the English government of any Machiavellian policy it is at the expense of its intelligence ; and it is a striking contrast to turn from the tentative, disconnected policy of the
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English Government, to that firm yet sympathetic adminis- trative work which has transformed Egypt.
It is interesting to compare the long meanderings of the Egyptian question with the rapid action of Italy in Tripoli. The Turks, realising no doubt the difficulties of an Oriental Government in a country where East mingles with West, endeavoured to keep Tripoli a purely Oriental province, even though that meant sacrificing its economic develop- ment. This did not, however, protect them from the very deliberate attack of Italy, and it is difficult to see in the " Lybian War " anything but a simple War of Conquest. The Italians, indeed, hardly troubled to dispute this, though they gave as their excuse " economic necessity," the want, that is to say, of a country in which the surplus population of Southern Italy may find a home. Should Tripoli turn out to be a country of great possibilities, smothered hitherto by bad government, it may be possible to find some justifica- tion for the Italian attack, though " the duty of develop- ment " is one of the most difficult problems of International Law. In any case the invasion of Tripoli was thoroughly popular in Italy. It was in a sense forced on a hesitating Government by a fairly widespread agitation, and was taken up enthusiastically in all classes of the nation.
No war of recent history has for us anything like the poignant interest of the Franco -German War of 1870. Though it was fought nearly half a century ago it appears to us now almost as the Prologue to the great tragic drama which is being enacted on a stage so vast that, as far as Europe is concerned, there is little room left for the few anxious spectators. How is that war to be judged ? Was it a war for power or principle ? It is essential that some answer to this insistent question should be attempted. We know now the inner history of the events which led
ii THE CAUSES OF MODERN WARS 49
up to the actual outbreak of hostilities, and over those tragic days looms the giant and sinister figure of Bismarck. He alone had a clear vision of the events that were happen- ing. Compared to him the other actors are like men shouting and fighting in a mist. In a moment of self- revelation Napoleon III. once said to Bismarck, " We must not make events, we must let them come." That was not Bismarck's habit. His was a more Satanic temper. He not only contrived the snare into which the French Emperor and nation fell ; at the last moment he pushed his victims in. He must bear, therefore, the greater part of the blame. Yet even a Bismarck could not set two great nations at war about a Hohenzollern candidature which had been abandoned unless he had the help of accomplices ; and unfortunately he had the help of many.
On the one hand, there were many Frenchmen, and they were to be found in all political parties, who regretted the predominance which Prussia had secured by the defeat of Austria in 1866, and who saw in the growing consolidation of Northern Germany a menace to France. There were others who thought that the predominance of Prussia should be " compensated " by a territorial addition to France, and amongst them unfortunately was the Emperor, Napoleon III. On several occasions during the interval between 1866 and 1870, Napoleon ha'd endeavoured to secure such compensation. Now it was a piece of German territory on the left bank of the Rhine, now it was Belgium, now Luxemburg. These efforts had fortunately failed, and with the advent of a constitutional Government at the beginning of 1870, they seem to have been given up for good; but they had naturally contributed to encourage in Germany the conviction that France had taken up the arrogant posi- tion that nothing could happen in Europe without her leave,
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and that she would not allow Germany to become a united country without her intervention. Though Napoleon III.'s " compensation " policy had come to an end, it was still very recent, and among the French there was a sensitive- ness and a military self-confidence which Bismarck was able to excite to a fever-heat by secretly pushing on the Hohenzollern marriage scheme. Such, indeed, was the state of excitement in Paris that even well-informed neutrals thought that the French were responsible for the war. But Bismarck had also got his accomplices nearer home. There were Germans who had been educated in the later developments of the Nationality doctrine, and who conceived that ethnography gave them a " right " to force Alsace back into the German nation ; there were others who nourished a bitter, historic anger, who hungered to avenge the ancient spoliations of the French, the ravages of Louvois, the invasions of Napoleon. Most of all there were the men of Bismarck's own temper, the military chiefs who had from the first seen in a war with France the in- evitable sequel of the Austrian war as the only way of giving to Prussia the control of Germany, and to Germany a commanding position in Europe. War, in the bad philosophy of these men, was not a contingency which might have to be faced, not the tragic but sole-remaining defence of the cause of justice and their own independence ; it was to them a national weapon as legitimate as industrial enterprise or commercial expansion, and far more honour- able. They prepared for it, therefore, with a cold intensity of conviction which made the future contest in all its details almost more real to their minds than the preliminary period of preparation. Yet Bismarck and his allies were not Germany. It was only through the most elaborate use of the press, and by taking advantage of the folly of the French,
n THE CAUSES OF MODERN WARS 51
that he was able to bring about the final catastrophe. It is hard, therefore, to classify the war of 1870. There was a good deal of the spirit of conquest about it. Many Germans coveted French provinces, and the old fatal fascination of the Rhine frontier had not lost all its power over the French. But it was a war for power rather than for territory, and the men who set the snare must bear more of the blame than those who rushed blindly in. Neither side had any real sense of the gravity and dignity of war. Neither French nor Germans saw in it an act of justice ; neither attempted to formulate a plea founded on the general principles which should direct human conduct. Indeed, any sober consideration of the point on which the peace of the world was hanging, a Spanish marriage which had never taken place, should have been followed by a burst of Homeric laughter. Unfortunately neither sobriety nor humour was to be found on either side. Both east and west of the Rhine there was passion : on the west it was blind, incoherent, mutable ; on the east, behind the popular passion there were hands that guided and eyes that saw. This rapid survey of the motives behind some recent wars seems to show that the spirit of conquest is far from dead in the modern world. It may not appear in the dramatic shape of an Alexander or a Napoleon, but it is there just as surely though in company with other spirits of a more respectable character, or at least of a better reputation — the spirit of Nationality, for instance. The wish for terri- tory, the wish for power, the wish for the means of wealth : it will be long before they are exorcised from the minds of men ; and when they reach a certain degree of intensity they break through all frontiers. Nor do they appear to be confined to governments and bureaucracies, or to the small cliques who may expect to make a direct profit out
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of war. In the eighteenth century it was much easier for the interests or ambitions of princes and peoples to be distinct, but in the nineteenth century, with the growth of unified states, the spread of democratic ideas and the great increase in the power of the press, wars have become far more national. The initiative may have come from the governments, but they have often had as little difficulty as Alexander in getting their people to follow. There was one occasion in our own history, it was in 1857, when the House of Commons revolted against a government on account of one of the most unjustifiable of our little nineteenth century wars, but Lord Palmerston was brought back triumphantly by a general election within a month. Nor can it be said that the present war, with all that led up to it and all its ramifications in the south of Europe, is a very hopeful sign for the future. It will be long before national aspirations and national antagonisms are guided solely by principle. Nationalities have proved as self-assertive and as acquisitive as the old kings, and in drawing practical conclusions it would be sheer folly to assume that wars of conquest are entirely things of the past.
3. WARS OF PRINCIPLE
Throughout history, as far as we know it, men have been prepared to sacrifice the comforts of peace and life itself for an " idea." By this is meant something more than the mere interests of their own country. An isolated robber fights for his own interest ; the member of a robber band fights for the band, but his own personal advantage is very closely bound up with it. The larger the society to which a man belongs, the less selfish does his action on its behalf become. But unselfishness is not enough to justify an act.
ii THE CAUSES OF MODEEN WAES 53
There is a lightness or a wrongness in the acts themselves, and if a society is engaged in doing something unjust, the individual member of it, though in a low sense of the word he is acting " patriotically," cannot be said to be acting on principle. " Patriotism is not enough." If it were, each side in every war would be in the " right," the word right would in fact lose its meaning, and war would be removed from the moral order altogether and reduced to the level of a fight between packs of highly intelligent wolves. Principle must, therefore, be something of universal application, some standard by which both sides can be judged, some form of the moral law. Of such principles the most simple is the right of self-defence. One country may clearly defend itself from the unprovoked attack of another : both the conscience and the romance of the human race have glorified a death in defence of hearth and home. It may happen, on the other hand, that sufficient provoca- tion has been given to justify the aggressor, and it is the high duty of International Law to lay down, as far as pos- sible, the general principles which would justify a state in beginning a war : a duty difficult to carry out, but the most vital to the wellbeing of the world. Assuming, how- ever, that there has been no real provocation, the country that defends itself is fighting not only for its own independ- ence but also to prevent the triumph of brute force amongst the members of the community of states, and it would be difficult to find a nobler cause.
The phrase " Wars of Principle " is generally used, how- ever, in a different sense : it is used to signify a war for a cause which is not merely that of a country. The Crusades are a proverbial type of such a war. From the point of view of Christendom as a whole they were wars of self- defence, but the Turks did not threaten the west of Europe,
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and, though the motives of individual Crusaders were as varied as their characters, the general cause, that of recover- ing or protecting from the Moslem the Holy Places sanctified by the life and death of Our Lord, had about it no spark of personal or national selfishness. The Wars of Religion of the sixteenth century were in another sense Wars of Principle. Religious and political motives were intermingled to a degree, which is the despair of the historian who attempts to disentangle the threads, yet in the main they were the work of men who believed that they should sacrifice political loyalty to religion. In nearly every country in Europe there was a minority, usually, though not always, persecuted, which claimed the right to rebel and even to call in foreign assistance. Thus for a brief period the French Huguenots entered into an alliance with England and even handed over Havre to Queen Elizabeth. These wars were often enough disgraced by great ferocity, by per- secutions, massacres and assassinations. The strength of religion in good men is the measure of the bitterness it can cause and the evil it can do when perverted into fanaticism. For all their cruelty, however, there is an undeniable dignity about the War of Religion which Wars of Conquest, or for economic advantages, can hardly claim. They were also, like the Crusades, intensely democratic. It is amongst the rank and file of an army that the religious motive will, as a rule, be most unalloyed. A good example is our own Civil War, for, on one side at least, it was a war of religion. The opposition to Charles I. was constitutional in form but its heart was religious. It was religion which turned opposi- tion into rebellion, and it was religion too which was the soul of Cromwell's wonderful Puritan army.
The Great Rebellion was the last of the Wars of Religion. On the Continent they had already changed into political
ii THE CAUSES OF MODEEN WARS 55
wars, wars of conquest or partition, and such remained the character of European hostilities down to the French Revolution. There was not much of the Crusader about Louis XIV. or Frederick the Great. With the Revolution, however, we get a new chapter in the history of enthusiasm. English constitutional movements have generally been caused by specific grievances and directed to- wards definite reforms, such, for instance, as the extension of the franchise. They have not been statements of general principle. They have been attempts to solve our own particular problems ; and with us periods of constitutional crisis have nearly always been periods of self-absorption and isolation from continental questions. That is not the way of the French, a people whose peculiar mission it is to express the ideas that at any given time are floating about in the world. With them constitutional movements become transformed into spiritual forces, into doctrines with a universal appeal. Thus, since the days of Burke it has been a commonplace to compare the French Revolu- tion to a religious movement. It was the enthusiastic assertion of a number of ideas and doctrines for which it is impossible to find a simple formula, but the most important of which was the principle of equality. In the first generous outburst of optimism Frenchmen thought that the Revolu- tion would inaugurate a period of universal peace ; but in- stead of peace it proved to be a sword. The Revolution was soon to have its fanatics as Religion had had. Indeed the Jacobin is perhaps the most accomplished type of the fanatic, the hard man in whom pride has dried up the springs of human kindness, who is incapable of seeing men as they really are and to whom all opposition is wickedness which should be hated and punished. The development of Revolutionary fanaticism and the undoubted provocations
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of Prussia and Austria produced the Revolutionary War. It was not to be expected that the Terror, so pitiless at home, would be tolerant abroad, and inoffensive nations, like the Dutch or the Swiss, found in Revolutionary France a more arrogant neighbour than ever the Bourbon kings had been. It is impossible to draw a hard and fast line between the wars of the Revolution and those of Napoleon. The Emperor did but carry out with far greater efficiency and success the policy inaugurated by the Republic, and, how- ever selfish his own motives may have been, the spirit that inspired the Frenchmen who fought and died for him in the rough places of Spain or the snows of Russia was Revolu- tionary and cosmopolitan, not national. To be propa- gandist, aggressive, military long remained a characteristic of French constitutional movements, and both in 1830 and 1848 it was with some difficulty that the extremists could be prevented from throwing themselves on Germany and inaugurating a new Revolutionary war. Even during the Franco-German War of 1870-71, there were men who thought that the country could be saved at the last moment by a return to the methods of 1793, but they had the great mass and the renewed seriousness of the country against them, and to-day nothing can be further removed from Revolutionary fanaticism or frenzy than the quiet and impressive courage with which the French people have met the invader.
Though the Revolutionary fire was still smouldering one principle of international action came by degrees in the nineteenth century to dominate all others, the Principle of Nationality ; and with it most of the wars of the century have at least been connected. To write its history would mean writing the history of Europe since the fall of the Roman Empire, but in its modern form the Principle of
n THE CAUSES OF MODERN WARS 57
Nationality was born with the partition of Poland. " Thenceforward," in Lord Acton's words, " there was a nation demanding to be united in a State — a soul, as it were, wandering in search of a body in which to begin life over again," and it is amongst the Poles that the cause of Nationality has been sanctified by the purest and most passionate self-sacrifice. The French Revolution nourished the Principle first of all by dissolving the identity which the Reformation period had established between the Sovereign and the State, and secondly by arousing, mostly when it was in its Napoleonic stage, the national spirit of the countries it oppressed : to quote Lord Acton again : " Napoleon called a new power into existence by attacking nationality in Russia, by delivering it in Italy, by governing in defiance of it Germany and Spain." The War of Liberation against Napoleon was an outburst of national feeling. In its earlier and simpler forms, then, the Principle of Nationality is hardly to be distinguished from the right of self-defence, but in time it began to make new claims less easy to reconcile with the accepted principles of the Law of Nations. It was urged that a population which had through race, language or past history an identity of its own, had a right to an independent political existence, and this whether it was oppressed or not, and in spite of traditional allegiances or the terms of treaties. Thus the Greeks rebelled against the Turks more from a consciousness of their own strength than from any violence of oppression. Though the Belgians had many grievances against the Dutch Government that had been set over them, Belgian independence was really due to the fact that the country had a national identity which had a right to be recognised politically. The Austrian rule in Lombardy was over a century old, and the Austrian provinces were probably the best administered in Italy
58 INTEKNATIONAL RELATIONS n
before 1848, but that did not prevent a widespread feeling that the foreigners should be driven out.
A further stage was reached when to the idea of inde- pendence was added that of unity. It seemed, indeed, natural that people of the same " nationality " should be formed into one united state, and the stories of Italian and German unity are the most characteristic features in the annals of the nineteenth century. Yet there was an un- fortunate ambiguity about the term " Nationality." To some the most essential of the elements which go to make up a " nation " was the enduring will of the people to have an independent and united political existence. Race, language, religion, traditions, these were important only in so far as they helped to produce the common will. When we are dealing with intelligent and free human beings their will is what matters, and " nationality " must be the expression of that will. Thus Alsace did not belong to the German nationality in 1870, because in spite of race and language the Alsatians willed determinedly to remain French. To others the claims of race and language seemed so command- ing that they were prepared to override the will of a minority which should attempt to hold out against them. The Italian patriots put the cause of Italian unity above the long-established rights of the hitherto independent Italian states, and the German extremists were ready to bring Alsace by force into Germany. Thus the Principle of Nationality was in a sense a new gospel with new ideas of right and wrong in national affairs, and it is not surprising that to the conservatives of the day it should seem a revolu- tionary force and the cause of wars which were partially wars of opinion. The war of 1859, in which France defeated Austria, drove her out of Lombardy, and broke her power in Italy, is the war which is most directly derived from the
n THE CAUSES OF MODEEN WAES 59
Principle, but the Danish war of 1864, the Prusso-Austrian War of 1866, and the Franco-German War of 1870 are all connected with the Nationality problem. They were stages in the construction of German unity.
Nationality continues to exert at the present day an immense power over men's minds, and that not only in the Austrian Empire and the Balkan Peninsula. Differences of language tend to become everywhere the basis of political partisanship. Old languages are revived, long-forgotten racial distinctions rediscovered. The efforts of the map-makers can hardly keep pace with the movement, and the ethno- graphic map of Europe is becoming more and more of a motley. Little countries like Belgium and Switzerland, where the motives for union seem so strong, are beginning to surrender to racialism, and the United States to reflect the racial antagonisms of Europe. It cannot be denied, too, that the Principle has changed in character with its success. In its early days it expressed the cry of an oppressed people. It nerved the Poles to resist the three robber states, and heartened men who were struggling to preserve their own language, to live their own lives, and stand upon the ancient ways. With success it has become allied with national pride, and with the wish to acquire power and territory. Nor when they are powerful are modern nationalities very tender towards weaker peoples. The Germans have shown little inclination to give independence to the Slavs within their borders. This is not the place to pursue the fascinating subject of the future of the National Principle, but it must at least be pointed out that it cannot provide a final solution of international problems. If a population of a certain race and language find it impossible to live under the same political system as others of a different race and language, it is no doubt best not to force them to do so, and this is
60 INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS n
especially the case when there is political oppression. But this process cannot be carried out indefinitely ; there are races and subdivisions of races, there are languages and dialects ; there are many districts where it would be im- possible to establish a homogeneous race without wholesale massacre or deportation. What is much more important, it is essential for the great cause of peace and unity that men should learn to understand and tolerate one another. Surely it is obvious that both Englishmen and Irishmen in the United Kingdom, English and French in Canada, English and Dutch at the Cape, will all be the better men if they can acquire sufficient broadmindedness and sufficient mutual goodwill to be able to live together under the same political institutions. To identify racial and political borders may be and very often is the only means of securing peace and order, but it must tend to deepen political divisions and to strengthen national antagonisms. Men begin to use a dangerous language about a " French soul " or a " German soul," as if the differences between countries were things admirable in themselves and to be encouraged. There is more hope for future peace in Federal States, such as the British, the Austrian, and possibly in the future the Russian Empires, than in great centralised racially homo- geneous states, for a Federation endeavours by free in- stitutions to bind men together. Even the Austrian Empire, though it failed with the Southern Slavs, had the great merit of keeping together in tolerable friendliness men of the German, Bohemian, and Polish races.
For the moment, however, Nationality remains one of the great forces making for movement and change in the political world. It is in direct opposition to any static condition of international affairs. Like other political ideals it is to be found in all classes, but particularly amongst
n THE CAUSES OF MODEKN WAES 61
the more democratic sections of the community. Political leaders, like the crusading chiefs, may be moved by ambition or influenced by motives of expediency : it is among the rank and file that the whole-hearted, uncompromising idealist will be found.
4. THE NECESSITY OF A FOREIGN POLICY
This attempt to get some general view of the motives behind modern wars seems at least to show that there are many dynamic forces abroad. There are, indeed, others which fortunately have not yet led to warfare, the colour question for example, an extreme case of the Nationality Principle. So many and so powerful are these dynamic forces that the mere suggestion of a static arrangement of nations could hardly be made anywhere except in England. In other countries there is much less satisfaction with the status quo. It is not difficult to see why there should be this difference. England, in the first place, has no serious territorial ambitions, and secondly, Englishmen expect much less from the State than do the inhabitants of Con- tinental countries. We have a very great place in the sun. Our insular position has not only saved us from invasion, it has done us the benefit, almost equally great, of freeing us from Continental ambitions. In the world at large our problems, and they are very serious ones, consist in th.e difficulties of uniting and governing the different parts of the Empire. We have outlets for our trade, Dominions and dependencies that produce raw material, undeveloped land partially occupied by our own kinsfolk for our emigrants. Territorially we are a " sated " people. It is not surprising, perhaps, that we have aroused the jealousy of less fortunate nations. Then, again, much of this national success has
62 INTEKNATIONAL RELATIONS n
been due not to government action but to individual enter- prise. Our possessions over seas, at any rate during the last hundred years, have been won more by the energy of our colonists and traders and the activity of our industrial production than by war or government action. We hardly knew ourselves what we were doing, and the other European states did not realise till near the end of the nineteenth century how important colonial expansion would be in the future. Thus our Empire was able to grow with very little opposition from rival European military states. It had not always been so. We had plenty of rivals in the past, and Englishmen of the sixteenth century looked to Queen Elizabeth to help them to defeat the Spanish attempt to keep the monopoly of the American trade, as their descend- ants two hundred years later looked to Pitt to prevent France from securing the vast unoccupied spaces of North America. Pitt indeed did the work so thoroughly that from his day to our own we have been practically without a rival on the high seas. What Englishmen expected of Pitt in the eighteenth century other countries expect of their governments to-day, help and direction in achieving their " national aspirations " — not necessarily by war, but at least by management and diplomacy.
It need hardly be pointed out that if we abandon the ideal of a static world some kind of Foreign Policy becomes essential. If even one important state is of a predatory disposition others must combine to resist it, and such alliances are not always easy to maintain. If, on the other hand, some change in the territorial or other arrangements of states and their dependencies becomes advisable, such a change should be carried out by reasonable means, by friendly discussion, according to accepted principles. It should be the result of reason, not of chance or violence.
n THE CAUSES OF MODERN WARS 63
Diplomacy can be directed by justice as well as by injustice. It has a bad name probably because the diplomats who thought merely of their country's material interests, who were engaged in some elaborate and unworthy intrigue, have often been more able and more active than the defenders of the right. Nothing has done more to promote the success of injustice than the idea that good intentions are an equivalent for knowledge and capacity. The simplicity of the dove and the wisdom of the serpent are not incompatible, and wisdom requires knowledge and experience. But besides a knowledge of the conditions of other countries and of the relations be- tween them, of the facts in other words, a knowledge and a sense of law is also necessary. When honest men are engaged in private affairs a sense of law and moral principle may be presumed. This is unfortunately not always the case in international affairs. The principles of Inter- national Law have been so obscured by persistent and successful violations of them, by the introduction of new ideas, by the absence of any generally accepted guide, that a statesman may find it easier to follow what may seem the clear voice of interest than the possibly uncertain utterances of moral principle. It is here that the people should help. The more widely international problems are understood the better for every reason ; but in knowledge of facts the professional will always have an advantage, and in moments of crisis secrecy is inevitable. The publication of despatches might indeed easily precipitate the hostilities which it is the effort of honest diplomacy to prevent. In matters of principle it is otherwise. The man who is not absorbed in the detail of negotiation will find it easier to keep before bis mind general principles of right action. He is not oppressed by the terrible responsibility for national
64 INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS n
success or failure, but he is responsible, as every man in a free state must be to some extent, for his country's right conduct. A public opinion well informed on the general position of foreign affairs, enlightened by much more definite ideas than we have now of right and wrong in international dealings, and above all keenly alive to the overwhelming importance of this aspect of state action, should be the essential background to diplomacy. It will support a minister who is prepared to take risks in order to make sure that he is in the right ; it will call him severely to account if he acts dishonestly ; it will insist that before the country is involved in war every other means should be attempted and every possible piece of evidence pro- duced which the national conscience may require. Justice is inseparable from judgment, and judgment means the possession of principles of law and the examination of evidence. It is particularly in these moral questions that the judgment of the great working classes is soundest ; it is in these that their influence can and should be exerted. The future may see some day the establishment of an international system of states and of a body capable of applying and enforcing international law, but there are many difficulties and dangers in that path. Our immediate duty is at any rate to set our own house in order, and by our example to help to secure the principle that in inter- national relations, as in all human action, the moral issue should predominate.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Some historical books will be found in the bibliography after Chapter I., and those on International Law in that after Chapter IV. Unfortunately, modern treatises on International Law are as a rule very unsatisfactory and incomplete on the fundamental
ii THE CAUSES OF MODERN WARS 65
question, " What constitutes a just war ? " They concern themselves more with positive international enactments than with the discussion of the genera] principles of the Law of Nations. Some writers, who seem to find it difficult to accept a moral system independent of the State, found international morals on a kind of quasi-State of states. This appears to be Mr. Delisle Burns' s point of view in his Morality of Nations (University of London Press, 5s. net). The more traditional system, that of basing international morals on the " Natural Law," is employed in the Primer of Peace and War, edited by the Rev. C. Plater, and published by the Catholic Social Guild through King & Son (Is. 6d.). It is a very courageous attempt to deal in a short compass with fundamental questions. A great deal has been written about " Nationality " (cf. the useful bibliography under the heading " Nationalism " in The Causes of the War : What to Read, published by the Council for the Study of International Relations), but there does not appear to be any substantial work dealing with the different phases of the movement. An interesting study of it, written in 1862, from a more or less adverse point of view, will be found in the Essay on " Nationality " in Lord Acton's History of Freedom and Other Essays.
Ill
INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC RELATIONS
1. THE GROWTH OP INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC RELATIONS
INTIMATE economic relations on a large scale between people in different countries are a product of the modern world. In the early Middle Ages trade was for the most part local in character. Many physical obstacles in the way of the transportation of goods had not been overcome. The pack-horse was unable to carry great burdens ; wheeled vehicles oftentimes could make little progress on account of the condition of the roads ; bridges were by no means common ; the system of tolls on both roads and bridges in very many places degenerated into a means of extortion. The sea had not really been conquered, and the slave, who required a considerable space for his accom- modation compared with the amount of goods that he could propel, was but a feeble motive force, so that overseas trade was for long largely in goods of small bulk and high value. Even in times of peace, where government was weak, land carriage was far from safe, the feudal lords themselves in some cases lending their aid to highway robbery, whilst on the seas the merchant was at the mercy of pirates. Brigandage and piracy rendered trading highly speculative, and the merchant, to cover his risks, extracted high prices, which naturally hindered large sales. The
66
ni INTEENATIONAL ECONOMIC RELATIONS 67
modern commercial spirit was unborn, and both Church and State hedged trading round with restrictions intended to safeguard public morality.
In the course of the Middle Ages, however, great trading cities arose, whose ships were to be found in every important port in Europe, bringing from other lands articles of luxury, the staple commodities being for the most part produced at home. The galleys of the Middle Ages bore, not grain and coal and machinery, but precious stones, perfumes and spices, silks, fine brocades and furs, though as time wore on woollen and linen goods, leather, metals, and foodstuffs came to play an increasing part in the traffic between different countries. But broadly speaking, in mediaeval times the nations were much more economically self- contained than they have since become. Economic life had a simplicity which it has since lost, and though in some ways highly organised, it was yet primitive in the sense that life was tolerable without the use of produce brought from distant lands.
The centralised monarchies of Western Europe, whose rise closed the Middle Ages, systematised the economic tendencies of the times, and gradually developed conscious national policies aimed at national development and welfare, and working through restrictions and protection. This period, roughly the end of the fifteenth century, marks the beginning of the modern economic age through the rapid enlargement of the known world. The extension of Turkish power in Asia Minor and the invasion of the Balkan Peninsula seriously hampered the caravan trade between the East and the West, for the Turks were not traders. Indeed, the warrior Turks slammed the gate to the Golden Orient in the face of the merchant princes of the West. Anxious to retain this lucrative Eastern trade, they looked
68
to the possibility of finding a sea route. This economic impulse, together with the improvements in high seas navigation and the spirit of discovery fostered and aided by Prince Henry the Navigator of Portugal, led to adventurous voyages which during the fifteenth century opened both the East and the West. A procession of sailors felt their way down the coast of Africa, passing the Equator, rounding the Cape, and ultimately reaching India and the East Indian Islands. Other sailors seeking the East by a Western route stumbled on the New World. In the light of the political philosophy of the sixteenth and succeeding centuries, these vast territories with their wealth of produce were looked upon as means to national wealth and power. Trading companies, anxious to embark on this doubly lucrative trade of exchanging commodities of little Western value for produce in great demand to be sold to the peoples of the Old World, sought monopolies from their rulers. States regarded their " colonies " as private preserves, as markets for their goods, and sources of supply for valuable merchandise. The economic factor began to play a much greater part in high politics and to complicate the play of motives. The wars of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were largely colonial and commercial in their origin, whatever their immediate pretext. This was the period of struggle for colonial empires, not merely because territory increased national prestige, but because posses- sions were regarded as a possible source of wealth, which was one of the elements of national power.
It was this same mercantile policy which led England to encourage exports and discourage most imports, to regard agriculture as one of the foundations of national welfare, and to watch with approval the growth of English shipping. Our economic policy, in common with that of our neighbours,
in INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC RELATIONS 69
was intensely national. And though foreign trade grew in volume and value, complex restrictions hampered its development, means of transport and communication were slow, and the methods of production inadequate to open up the world's resources. What the discoveries of the fifteenth century did was to bring to light potential sources of raw materials and potential markets, the full importance and value of which were not recognised until it became possible to utilise them.
If the conquest of the seas and the discovery of new lands marked one great economic epoch, the Industrial Revolution marked another. Steam - driven machinery during the last century and a half has gradually been applied to one industry after another ; in recent years the use of electricity as a motive force has made great headway. Power-driven machinery increased enormously the pro- ductivity of industry, and called for ever larger and larger quantities of raw material, which as the nineteenth century proceeded were drawn from widely dispersed sources of supply — wool from the Antipodes and South America, cotton from the United States and Egypt, and so forth. The world was ransacked for mineral wealth ; new areas were opened up for agricultural produce. The greater output of industry implied larger markets, which were sought in other lands. America, Asia, and Africa were drawn into the European markets to supply the needs of modern industry, and to share in its products.
Better means of transport and communication became as vital as larger markets, and were intimately bound up with the supply of both raw materials and finished products over a large area. As the nineteenth century proceeded, steamships of greater and greater power and increasing size gradually ousted the sailing vessels from routes where
70 INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS m
trade was large and certain ; and what was of equal import- ance, the service became much more frequent. Distances have been shortened by the construction of canals, of which by far the most important are those of Suez and Panama. Then postal facilities improved, the telegraph and telephone linked together buyers and sellers at a distance, and the world became one great economic unit.1 The Industrial Revolution was not merely a revolution in industry, but also in commerce and finance.
The keynote of the change that it has wrought is economic interdependence. The economic self-sufficiency of the Middle Ages has passed away. The countries of Europe not only rely on each other for the satisfaction of many of their needs, but draw their supplies of food, raw materials, and manufactured goods from distant parts of the world. In spite of protective tariffs, a rough kind of territorial division of labour has taken place. Far from perfect though it may be, it has nevertheless increased the dependence of nations on each other. In this country, for example, even the very means of life, once produced in sufficient quantities for home needs, and even for export, are now swept into our markets from the ends of the earth. The enormous growth of foreign trade during the past century is witness of the phenomenon that nations no longer stand alone, and that the world has become — or rather is increasingly becoming — a single economic unit.
Capital, once viscid and sluggish in its flow, has now become liquid, finds little obstacle in political boundaries or natural frontiers, and pours its fertilising stream into the undeveloped regions of the world. Even labour, notwith-
1 There are now close upon 300,000 nautical miles of submarine cables in the world, bringing the various countries into rapid and intimate communication with each other.
m INTEKNATIONAL ECONOMIC RELATIONS 71
standing the ties of home, of friends, and of familiar institu- tions, has become much more mobile than early economists would have expected. Streams of Europeans of all nationalities have gone out to people and develop countries beyond the seas.1 The concessionnaire, the modern Pied Piper of Hamelin, has by the music of higher wages called to him not only white, but also coloured labourers, with far- reaching consequences.
Parallel with the growth of a world-wide economic intercourse — the " cosmopolitanisation " of industry and commerce — there has been, necessarily, the development of a world-system of exchange, of a means of settling debts owed, say, by a British cotton merchant to an American exporter, and of projecting capital and credit, say, from London to the oil-fields of Southern Russia. The bankers and bill-brokers have supplied the means, and business can be transacted between China and America with little more difficulty than between London and Edinburgh. It is clear that the complicated transactions of the modern economic world, the transference of goods, securities, loanable capital and credit, the payment for services rendered, the distribution of the produce of the world's work, require a complicated, highly organised, and delicate mechanism if they are to be carried through smoothly and economically. But because it is delicate and responds like a barometer to changes in the international atmosphere, it is the more easily disturbed by abnormal events. The rise of modern industry, commerce, and finance has brought us new economic problems, which need not, however, be dealt with here. But it is worth while mentioning in
1 Between 1853 and 1912, a period of sixty years, over 12J million emigrants of British origin left this country for places outside Europe.
72 INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS ...
passing that even political events which do not at first sight appear to have any intimate relations with economic life, will disturb the foreign exchanges, and react on the world of business. The mere rumour of war is reflected in the sensitive nervous system of modern economic life — the banking world ; the outbreak of war results in total temporary paralysis, as may be seen from the events of July and August 1914.
Although the whole trend of modern industry, commerce, and finance has been towards closer intercourse and greater interdependence, this movement has been hampered by the fact that there has been no parallel development in the direction of the political unification of the world. Economic and political influences have intermingled in the world, and political considerations have often worked against the normal evolution of economic society towards greater unity. In spite of the cosmopolitan character of great masses of modern capital, there is some capital that is controlled solely by members of the same state, which seeks fields for ex- ploitation abroad, and enters into competition with capital from other states. This would be nothing more than the economic rivalry of individuals in a competitive system, if it were not that often either open or tacit support is given to the prospective concessionnaires by the states of which they are members.
Further, the imposition of tariff restrictions has impeded the full play of the economic forces making for the inter- dependence of peoples, in so far as they have prevented the growth of the world division of labour which lies at the roots of interdependence. It is argued that a tax on the importation of a commodity into a country keeps out a supply which would otherwise have entered it, and in its place home-produced commodities are bought which were
not sold before, because they were either inferior in quality or higher in price than those imported. Hence, part of the consumers of the world are living on commodities produced with less efficiency than the remainder of the world's supply. Moreover, commodities enjoying a bounty on' export are enabled to make their way into foreign markets, which they were not able to supply on their merits without the aid of such bounty ; again, there may be economic loss on the whole. It must be remembered, also, that the fiscal system of a country is usually the result of other than merely economic considerations. A state may impede the free interchange of some commodities in order deliberately to restrict their consumption because their use may be deleterious, though naturally revenue is one object of the taxation. More important than this is the use of its fiscal system by a state as a means of obtaining its own economic advantage. The argument may be put in this way. " It is true that artificial barriers to trade are injurious to the world as a whole, but we may impose them in such a way that they will yield us a greater advantage than the share of advantage we should get from free economic intercourse." And for a time it is conceivable that, though the whole world may lose, a single nation may gain by such a policy. But more important still is the use of tariffs and bounties in order to bring about all-round economic development with a view to minimising a state's dependence on the people of other states. So long as wars are a possibility, so long are states likely to consider the danger of economic inter- dependence in the event of hostilities. One great gain which the world will reap from the cessation of wars will be found in the further unification of economic society by the abandonment of tariff restrictions imposed in the main for military reasons. Few nations are prepared to face the
74 INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS m
possibility of starvation in time of war. This country has adopted an alternative policy of depending on naval power to keep open trade routes. The German Empire, on the other hand, has adopted a policy of maintaining agricultural efficiency. In the words of Prince von Billow, " economic policy must foster peaceful development ; but it must keep in view the possibility of war, and, for this reason above all, must be agrarian in the best sense of the word." l Further, if one state becomes the predominant source of supply for a commodity, and a trust is formed, the whole world then lies at the mercy of a single compact economic unit. Twenty years ago, when this country was very largely dependent upon American wheat, people were afraid of a " corner," and the havoc it might work. Such a contingency will always tend to a policy of developing a home supply as the best safeguard. Even where con- siderations of war do not weigh very heavily, a state may still prefer to protect certain industries which it believes to be necessary to the welfare of its people. It may believe, for example, that a vigorous agricultural population, even i-f they are less favourably situated for efficient production than the farmers of other countries, are a national asset, even though urban life becomes more tolerable and more healthy. " We admit," it may say, " that there is a material loss to our community and to the world in giving artificial aid to our agriculturists when they might be making machinery, but national welfare is not to be measured in material wealth." In this case the state would be making an economic sacrifice in the interests of what it believed to be a greater good. But strong as national motives of different kinds have been in seeking national ends irre- spective of the world's material progress, they have signally 1 Imperial Germany, p. 221.
m INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC RELATIONS 75
failed to overcome the economic forces transcending political boundaries and binding the peoples of all states together.
The increasing consolidation and unification of the economic world has its necessary counterpart in the funda- mental unity of the labouring classes.1 The cry of Karl Marx, " Workers of the world, unite ! " assumed — what few would deny — that labour in all countries has certain common vital interests and problems. It is labour's recognition of the " cosmopolitanisation " of the industrial system. The solidarity of labour has been proclaimed by the international socialist and trade union movements. But the political systems of the world, which have impeded the growth of economic unity, have also been the means of bringing divisions into the international ranks of labour. The development of industry and commerce, bringing the produce of the nations into fuller competition in the markets of the world, has introduced trade rivalry on a scale hitherto unknown, and has consequently intro- duced competition between workers of different countries, in much the same way as capitalists with common interests in the economic system have solidified into rival national groups. In a Free Trade country, advocates of " Tariff Reform " remind the workers of the " unfair competition " due to inferior conditions of labour in other countries. Under a protective system efforts are made to exclude the pro- ducts of the foreign labourer, and thereby to ensure " more work" for the native labourer. A protective tariff, therefore, assumes that the economic interests of some labourers are antagonistic to those of others, and is a denial in the actual practice of the world of the principle of labour solidarity
But the cry of the unfair competition of cheap labour is strongest where there is a wide disparity in the standards 1 See Appendix (Note on Cosmopolitan Associations).
76 INTERNATIONAL KKI.ATIONS n,
of life of the competing workers, as in the case of white and Asiatic labour. The export of capital to tropical and semi-tropical regions has drawn into the economic whirlpool labour which has hitherto been outside the great vortex of world trade. In the use of cheap yellow labour the white workman sees a menace to the white standard of life. Hence the demands for the exclusion of the Asiatic from the labour market in Australia and North America, in spite of the fact that these labourers are as much a part of the capitalist system as their white brothers. The maintenance of the white standard of life and all that it implies is important for civilisation as a whole ; but to admit this is merely to admit the clash of immediate economic interests in the world of labour, and to deny the prospect of the real unity of labour in the present industrial society. It illustrates also the difficult problems the world has made for itself through its modern development.
It is clear that whilst economic forces have tended to break down barriers, to increase economic intercourse, and to bring an ever larger part of the world within the scope of these world forces, modern society has shown tendencies towards internal disruption due to the play of individual self-interest and of free competition. Externally, the political system of the world has retarded the growth of economic interdependence. Though Capital as a factor in the industrial and commercial world has a single interest, the capitalists who own it have their own interests which have tended to crystallise nationally. Similarly, Labour as an agent of production has its own interests as distinct from those of Capital, but its solidarity has been obscured partly by the competitive system which has set one labourer against another, and partly, though the two may be con- nected, by national and political influences.
in INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC RELATIONS 77
These influences, rightly or wrongly, have led to the clash of interests between those large social groups called states ; and nations with their vertical consolidation of all classes have confused the issues between those simpler horizontal combinations, across states, representing sectional interests. The international socialist movement has never really faced the issue between nationalism and the international economic society ; it has asserted its international position, but never, by resolution, denied the validity of nationalism, nor does it appear to have attempted to reconcile the con- flicting claims. The international trade union movement has avoided even more the consideration of the question. The problem of the future is to weave out of the nations of the world a political organisation which shall control the cosmopolitan economic society that has grown in modern times, just as in a well-ordered state economic interests would be subordinated to the wider social aims of the community.1
2. ECONOMICS AND POLITICS
The deep-seated economic changes which have taken place in the modern age have resulted in bringing economic influences into a much more prominent place in world affairs. This is not to say that the world of to-day has necessarily become materialised, but only that a vastly more powerful weapon has been placed in the hands of individuals and communities striving to realise immaterial ends — some probably of a low order, but nevertheless super-economic. Internationally, economic influences have come to play a greater part in the rivalry between nations for power and prestige than ever before. Dr. Seton- Watson writes of " the three dominant factors of modern life — 1 See Appendix.
78 INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS ...
religion, nationality, and economics." l Mr. Morton Fuller- ton's analysis, though different, agrees in attributing considerable importance to the economic factor.
Behind the fa9ade of Governments two occult powers are now determining the destinies of the world. One of these is the disseminated Wealth of the Democracy, canalized both by the plutocratic oligarchy of the Bankers (la Haute Finance), whose clients, the Modern States, great and small, are constrained to apply to them for immense loans, and by the great manufacturers and mining proprietors, who tend to be actuated solely by economic interest, and who often combine in international trusts, the operations of which are merely hampered by patriotic questions of national policy and national honour.
The other power is the mysterious pervasive force known as Public Opinion, which is becoming more and more conscious of its efficacy, and, as its curiosity concerning the public weal and concerning international facts and correlations grows more alert, is manifesting a proportionately livelier jealousy of its prerogatives.2
In another passage he goes so far as to assert that " the economic necessities of a nation determine its policy." 3 A conviction of the truth that in the modern world one of the governing influences of action is economic does not involve acceptance of the view of " dollar diplomacy " ; that economic advantage is sought by states as an end in itself, or primarily as a means of enriching a certain class within the state.
What part have economic forces and interests played in determining foreign policy ? To put it concretely, Has British foreign policy, for example, aimed deliberately and exclusively at the extension of British trade and commerce ? So far back as the Middle Ages, Edward III. used the
1 The Future of Bohemia (Nisbet, 1915, 3d.), p. 4.
2 Problems of Power, p. 1.
3 Ibid. p. 213.
in INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC RELATIONS 79
British export of wool as a diplomatic weapon ; that is to say, as an instrument to serve the ends of national policy At a later period, when private enterprise was establishing trading companies and merchants were seeking for profits abroad, the Government granted the companies monopolies, not because the mercantile class dominated the Government and was able to exploit the state in its own private interests, but because the Government believed that foreign trade was a means to national power. The mercantilist policy of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries was not a sur- render of the state to the merchant community. It was rather a conscious national policy aimed at the development of national power and prestige, and which saw in a favour- able " balance of trade " and the accumulation of material wealth a means to that end. So far was this policy carried that commercial intercourse with states which were looked upon as " natural enemies " was discouraged ! The capitalists — commercial and industrial — of the Industrial Revolution period, finding this state direction and super- vision irksome, were among those who most strongly cried for the abolition of restrictions and for the regime of laissez- faire. During the great agitation in the first half of the nineteenth century for the abolition of the Corn Laws, and of the protective system generally, opposition came from those who felt that freedom of trade would affect them adversely, whilst the movement was supported by those who saw in the abolition of tariff restrictions the chances of greater private gain. In other words, self-interest played a great part in the controversy, and many people, without considering their own pockets first, would naturally found their judgment on their own industrial experience. At the same time, the crucial question and the real issue upon which the controversy turned was that of national
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interest — or national self-interest, if that term be preferred. Again, when in the twentieth century Mr. Joseph Chamber- lain revived the old controversy in a new form, and urged the reintroduction of a " Colonial " system, enthusiastic support came from those who controlled the industries which were likely to profit by it, and stubborn opposition from those who felt their economic interests threatened. And much of the flood of argument was used to show the free-traders on the one hand that they would be better off under a protective tariff, and the protectionists on the other that they were better off with the system of free imports. But Mr. Chamberlain's motive was political, and he was not concerned with the aggrandisement of one group of capitalists rather than another. Rightly or wrongly, he believed that fiscal charges were called for in what he considered to be the best interests of the nation and the Empire. The economic results were not to him ends in themselves, but means for the realisation of imperial power and prestige. The tariff was an economic instrument to be wielded for political purposes, a weapon with which to gain state ends in the sphere of international politics.
Similarly, in the struggle for concessions in undeveloped regions, though there may be competition between rival groups of capitalists actuated solely by motives of self- interest, it does not follow that they control for their own ends the diplomatic negotiations between states with regard to concessions, or that the states have been prosti- tuted to serve the purpose of a few individuals. Conces- sions are counters in the great diplomatic game in which states are striving for position, power, and prestige, and for the satisfaction of their ambitions. This may not be a high standard of conduct. The relations between states ought, we may agree, to be based on higher motives. The
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point, however, is that the interests of the financier are served, not primarily on his individual behalf, but for the satisfaction of state aspirations. In the same way the offers made to induce labour to emigrate to new countries have not as their first object either the alleviation of distress or the advancement of the economic position of a number of individual labourers, but the development of a young state's own resources and power.
Nevertheless, a powerful vested interest is always a menace. Wealth is power ; and the accumulated resources of great financiers may, indeed, sway Governments. Finan- cial interests are well represented in the councils of the nations, and executive power may fall into the hands of those who, however sincere they may be, contemplate national problems through financial spectacles. Further, where Governments are corrupt or feeble, the financier eager for concessions may work his will and profit thereby with the connivance of the state, which has used its re- sources for other than state ends. Cases of this kind are not wanting. The part played by the Banca di Eoma in the Tripolitan War illustrates the kind of entanglement of finance and the State to which self-seeking private interests may give rise.
Human motives are usually complex, and national motives not less so. The desire to make money is no stronger than the desire to make history. " The desire to make history," " national prestige," etc., may appear to be merely phrases, but, as Professor Graham Wallas l has pointed out, a phrase may be an effective motive, even though it is never analysed, and these things are ends in themselves. To explain national policy, therefore, merely
1 See his treatment of political motives in Human Nature in Politics.
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on the basis of financial interest is too simple a method, and one which, by telling part of the truth and giving less than its due to the remainder, conveys as a result a more or less erroneous impression. For example, to explain British policy in Egypt solely on the grounds of the private financial interests which were at stake, is to neglect other important factors. Financiers had encouraged for their own ends " the rake's progress " in Egypt, and the pressure which they exerted undoubtedly influenced the Government. Further, British diplomacy might have been more clear- sighted. Even so, wider questions were involved. The British Government was a shareholder in the Suez Canal ; the Canal was of great commercial and strategic importance. What was at stake was several millions of national capital, the control of an important trade route, and the highway to the eastern parts of the Empire. There was also the question of preventing chaos extending to other regions and leading, perhaps, to serious widespread disturbances. And only a cynic would suggest that the fears of Gladstone, Granville, and others for the lives of the quarter of a million residents in Egypt were a hypocritical pretence. Con- sideration of these factors weighed heavily in the minds of many who would repudiate the idea of intervention in the interests of a horde of financiers.
In European intervention in China, the partition of Africa, the question of Morocco — in all the great inter- national entanglements of modern times — there is to be seen the confused play of mixed motives, the interaction of economic influences and political forces — the investor, seeking for new fields to exploit, endeavouring to drive the diplomats, the diplomats anxious for economic develop- ments as a means to national prestige, security, and the realisation of national ambitions.
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In no country does one see the motives behind national policy so clearly as in Germany. The aims and actions of the German Empire are rooted in the ideas expressed by List and Treitschke. Industry, commerce, transport, tariff system, foreign trade, have all been viewed as means for the fulfilment of a national purpose. Whoever may have gained by the way, their gains are merely means to a greater end. And since Germany's entry into WeltpolitiJc no country has pursued more thoroughly a policy of utilising economic methods, not for the aggrandisement of interested parties, but for the realisation of political ambitions.1
Now that nations are not economically self-sufficing, even with the aid of protective tariffs, economic motives have become more and more important in the field of international politics, because economic insecurity means national insecurity and the probable frustration of national hopes. Consequently negotiations and treaties nowadays turn largely upon commercial questions. Our own Imperial Conference, though naturally devoting itself to matters of Imperial defence, has found much of its time absorbed in questions of an economic character.
The recent agreement between China and Japan illus- trates the extent to which economic considerations enter into modern treaties.
On May 8, 1915, after prolonged negotiations, China agreed to certain demands made upon her by Japan. They were mainly five in number : —
1 The importance of economic power as a basis of political power is well illustrated in the case of the German Empire. " One of the most important influences on the redistribution of political power in Europe during the past forty years has been the discovery that Germany, instead of being comparatively poor in coal, is one of the greatest coal countries in the world." (Professor Gregory in Con- temporary Revieio, Dec. 1915.)
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1. — Shantung
China agreed (1) to recognise the arrangements between Japan and Germany (in the treaty of peace) concerning the latter's rights in Shantung ; (2) not to cede or lease any portion of the province ; (3) to apply to Japanese capitalists for a loan if it is decided to build a railway connecting Cheefoo or Lungkau with the Tsingtau-Tsinan line ; (4) to open more trade marts in the province.
2. — South Manchuria
China agreed (1) to extend the lease of the Kwangtung pro- vince to ninety-nine years ; (2) to give liberty of trade and move- ment to Japanese subjects in South Manchuria ; (3) to approach Japanese capitalists if it should require loans for construction works in the country ; (4) to consult the Japanese Government before engaging foreign advisers for the administration of South Manchuria.
3. — Eastern Inner Mongolia
China agreed (1) to consult Japan before contracting any loans for construction works in this area ; (2) to open more trade marts.
4. — Kiau-Chau
Japan agreed that if on conclusion of the war she has the free disposal of Kiau-Chau, she would be ready to restore it to China on certain conditions, the principal being that Kiau-Chau Bay should become an open port.
5. — Miscellaneous Points
China agreed (1) to allow the Han-Yeh-Siug Company to carry on ita operations ; (2) not to grant any rights to any Power to build military or naval establishments in Fukien.1
It would seem that the object of Japan in this Treaty was threefold : first, to strengthen her own economic position by obtaining a favourable outlet for her capital,
1 Statesman's Year Book, 1915, p. Ixv.
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shielded by a monopoly, and by obtaining new markets within easy reach of her shores ; secondly, to gain political power in China through the power of the purse ; and thirdly, thereby to increase her prestige among the nations of the world.
The part played by " high finance " in modern diplomacy is well illustrated in the French loan to Turkey in 1914. In spite of already heavy commitments in the Balkans, Paris financiers agreed to lend £32,000,000 to the Turks. " For this accommodation the Turkish nation have had to pay very heavily in railway and harbour concessions, and the security has cut deep into the independence of its Anatolian home- land." " The loan negotiations covered the whole diplo- matic field between France and Turkey. The status of French subjects in Turkey was regulated to the annihilation of Turkish ambitions of abrogating the privileged status of foreigners. In return, Paris agreed to a 4 per cent increase of customs duties, and a tariff instead of ad valorem rates, as well as to various monopolies, to which London, Vienna, and Rome had already assented. Turkey further conceded to France the concession of the ports of Jaffa, Haifa, and Tripoli in Syria, and of Ineboli and Eregli on the Black Sea, as well as 1250 miles of railway construction in Syria (Rayak-Ramleh) and in Anatolia (Samsun-Sivas- Erzindjan, Kharput-Angora, Van-Bitlis, and Boli-Havza). Moreover, the French abandoned the Bagdad Railway to the Germans by surrendering the £1,400,000 Bagdad stock held by French banks in return for rights in the 1910 loan to Turkey." *
As economic considerations have come to play an increasingly important part in the policy of nations, they have also been a means of feeding the fires of national
1 Nationalism and the Near East, pp. 329-30.
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hostility. Economic power has become a stick with which to belabour rival states. Serbia, for example, has been in economic bondage to Austria-Hungary, because the latter controlled the outlets through which Serbian products flowed to Central Europe. The power thus placed in the hands of the politicians of the Dual Empire was used as a means to achieve the political subordination of the Balkan state. This intolerable situation led Serbian policy in a direction in harmony with her political aspirations ; and though the Balkan League and the Balkan Wars were not in the first place due to economic considerations, these added to the force of other circumstances.
Another illustration of the use of the economic weapon to obtain political ends may be drawn from the annexation of Bosnia by Austria-Hungary in 1908. The Turks, unable to offer effective military or diplomatic opposition, replied by an economic boycott of the produce of the Dual Mon- archy. So effectual was this that before long Austria was glad to offer the Ottoman Empire compensation. It is extremely improbable that prolonged diplomatic negotia- tions would have led to the satisfaction of Turkish claims, but what diplomacy could not do was accomplished by the silent operation of economic forces through the policy of the " general strike."
Further, a state which seeks to attain its aims through military power, and estimates its prestige in terms of the size and efficiency of its military and naval forces, will endeavour to include under its flag regions supplying the sinews of war. Notwithstanding any economic arguments on the futility of the mere possession of territory, a state lacking materials for the manufacture of munitions of war will cast an eye over the disposable areas of the world in the hope of obtaining territory which will satisfy its
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needs. Alternatively it will seek for open markets for the purchase of them. These self-same commodities are also the first essentials to the arts of peace. So that in the modern world a lack of those products on which the very life of a nation in time of war depends is likely to reflect itself in its policy. It has been said of Germany that " even more than an open market in which to sell her goods, she wants an open market from which to buy other essential products, the possession of which is to-day a matter of life and death for her. She is scouring the world for iron." l The need of iron and copper, tin and zinc, oil and rubber, has been a great factor in the growth of the concessionaire class. Both military and economic necessity have led states into rivalry for economic pre- dominance in the areas whence these products come. The source of trouble is not the economic rivalry between sovereign states themselves, but the more complicated question of the relation between sovereign states with regard to the undeveloped regions of the world. It would seem, therefore, that whilst economic interdependence makes for peace in some directions, it may be the cause of international unrest and hostility.
The question as to whether the cosmopolitan character of credit and capital, and the existence of great world markets for the world's merchandise, make for peace, does not admit of a simple answer. It is often assumed that the greater mobility of capital in modern times, and the irriga- tion of the world through financial channels, exercises a pacific influence. Over the greater part of the economic field, the close interdependence of nation and nation, of industry and industry, of raw material and finished product, has driven home the advantages of peace, and the dis- 1 Problems of Power, p. 214.
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integrating effects of war. Those who are concerned with supplying the staple commodities of the everyday life of the world are, in the main, interested in the preservation of peace. And the fact that capital and credit roam at large over the world seeking for rich pastures is a steadying factor. On the other hand, the network of capitalists making the paraphernalia of war, and exercising in subtle ways a constant pressure upon Governments, is an ugly menace to the world's peace. This influence is an ever- present irritant in a world of sore places. Granting that the armament firms are interested in war scares rather than wars, a mere scare may be sufficient to set into motion well-nigh uncontrollable forces making for war. Moreover, though it is true that a vast amount of the world's capital is cosmopolitan, there is, as we have seen, a volume of capital which is national in character, and which, in search of foreign outlets, operates often with the military and naval resources of states behind it, being, as it were, a medium for the in- crease of national prestige. It is worth remarking that the British capitalist prefers investments under British govern- ment, and though a considerable amount of British capital is invested outside the British Empire, most of this is under the jurisdiction of states (e.g. U.S.A.) over which the British Government can exercise no influence. The French Foreign Office exercises a limited control over the flow of French capital, by requiring the Foreign Minister's sanction before stocks or shares can be bought and sold on the Paris Exchange. As France is, after Great Britain, the chief capital-exporting country in the world, this provision has proved a useful diplomatic weapon on more than one occasion.
Then also capital lent to a state, which uses it directly or indirectly for strengthening its military power, or for
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purposes which other states believe to be inimical to their interests, may be a means of exciting hostility leading to bad blood, if not to a breach of the peace. The possession of loanable capital by the citizens of a state may be used by it as a diplomatic instrument, complicating international relations, if not actually endangering peace, and introducing an influence tending to the settlement of issues on grounds other than those of justice. A state with money to lend may use the power it wields to gain ends antagonistic to the interests of other states. A state which has borrowed money may find in the lending state a friend who will either condone its actions,1 or a mentor who will insist on the maintenance of conditions which will safeguard the loan. It is certain that the possession of Turkish bonds led many people in this country to approve a kindly policy towards the Ottoman Empire, and vested interests, blind to wider impersonal considerations, supported intervention in Egypt from pecuniary motives. War loans raised abroad are likely to prolong wars which the economic exhaustion of belligerent resources might otherwise have brought to an end ; whilst a great part of the sums so raised only go to strengthen the position of the armament dealers, either through an agreement to take part of the loan in munitions, or in order to pay for war materials already bought.
In weak and backward states the invasion of foreign capital is often the first step to political tutelage and international jealousy. Important industrial and com- mercial interests closely affecting the welfare of other states may be imperilled by internal disorder in a country which the latter may find itself unable to suppress. The
1 The alliance between Russia and France is in part at least an alliance between a debtor and a creditor state for their mutual advantage.
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usual end is that law and order are restored by external aid, but at the expense of some loss of the country's political independence. It is clear, therefore, without pursuing further the complicated effects of the entry of economic influences into politics, that the very factors of modern life which have brought people more closely together, may also be forces harnessed to plough up misunderstandings rather than to aid understanding. According to an American writer, " among the Western peoples the most probable future causes of war, in addition to national antipathies, will be clashing commercial or industrial interests, contests for new markets and fresh opportunities for profitable in- vestments of capital, and possibly, extensive migrations of labourers." x
The intimate connection between economics and politics is recognised in the largely untrue but widely accepted dictum that " trade follows the flag." In the earlier days of colonial development it could be said with some truth, but in recent times there are many instances to show that the flag follows trade. The days of military conquest have been succeeded by the period of economic conquest with its frequent consequence, political possession. The normal evolution appears to be trade, administration, possession. This process has gone on both unconsciously and consciously. In India, for example, the flag followed trade, though the process took two and a half centuries to complete from the establishment of the East India Company to the declaration of Queen Victoria as Empress of India after the Indian upheaval. In this case the grant of a charter to the British East India Company was not the first step in a deliberate policy of territorial expansion.
1 Some Roads towards Peace, by C. W. Eliot (Carnegie Endowment for International Peace), p. 14.
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Briefly, trade in India was seen to be impossible without law and order. Internal disorder in the country drove the Company to protect itself by gradually developing a system of administration, the Company taking upon itself important functions of government and becoming a quasi-state, which, owing to its very nature as a business concern, could not be relied upon to exercise its powers wisely. It was therefore an anomaly to which there was only one end — absorption as a definite part of the State controlling the Company. On this point it may be said that government by chartered company can never be more than temporary, and is a doubtful expedient from the point of view of political science, whatever may be said of the efficiency of the chartered company as an engine of economic exploita- tion.
The history of external interference in China is as yet but in its early stages, commercial rather than political, but in recent years the feeling has grown that commercial rivalry in the Far East was the prelude to political partition. The integrity of China, words often on the lips of diplomats, will only be preserved through the fear of each of the Powers, that others may get more than a due share of the lion's skin, or through the operation of a new spirit in international politics. It is said that Japan has designs upon China, and, if so, there is little doubt that the treaty quoted above is intended as a step along the way. " The foreign financial control of Macedonia, Crete, and Egypt," says a recent writer, " was the beginning of the end of Ottoman rule there ; and foreign control of Armenia and Syria will have the same result." x
" Economic penetration " is nowadays considered as a powerful instrument for the realisation of Chauvinist 1 Nationalism and War in the Near East, p. 332.
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ambitions. Commercial predominance in an area unclaimed by a great Power easily becomes political suzerainty when the time is ripe, or the issue is forced in the diplomatic world. Germany's deliberately pursued policy of " peaceful penetration " in the Balkan Peninsula was an integral part of her general foreign policy in the Near East, and appears, to judge by the Pan-Germans, to have been regarded as the first step towards the establishment of colonial possessions in Asia Minor. The policy of economic penetration may, however, be frustrated by the growth of national and demo- cratic movements. Because Russia, by means of the Russian Railway, gained control in Manchuria, it does not follow that the Bagdad Railway will also achieve a similar end. Half a century ago Austria, by the construction of the Oriental Railway to Constantinople, secured a measure of economic control over the Balkans, which led to no real political control owing to the rise of national movements and the diplomatic support given to them by other Powers. It is clear, therefore, that though a policy of economic penetra- tion may pave the way for political penetration, political forces may act as a barrier to schemes of foreign exploita- tion, though those who mould these forces may fall into the grip of other Powers through the poverty of their own resources, as has happened in the Balkans, where certain of the states became financially indebted to Paris. Though in Africa " trade followed the flag," modern developments also proceeded in the opposite direction through the discovery of the policy of economic penetration. The modern state seeks to control economic forces more than it thought to do, or was even able to do, a century ago. In these circumstances it is evident that the industrial revolu- tion and its economic consequences have not made only in the direction of peace.
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How far economic questions are involved in the relations between states may perhaps be best seen in a brief considera- tion of the issues to be faced at the end of the Great War. The statement of Dr. Seton-Watson, a publicist who will not be suspected of underestimating the importance of other issues, may well be quoted in full :
If Nationality is to be the dominant factor in the future settlement of Europe, two other vital factors — economics and religion — must on no account be neglected, unless we are to court disaster. The geographical configuration of the Continent and the distribution of the various races renders some inter- national arrangement of a commercial nature an almost essential postulate of future peace. The free navigation of the Dardanelles and the Bosphorus is in a special category of its own, and lies in the interests of every nation in Europe without exception. If Italy should succeed in establishing her claim to Trieste, she must, alike in her own interests and in those of European peace, convert the city into a free port for all commerce. Its inclusion in the Italian tariff system would rapidly reduce a nourishing port to ruin and create an intolerable situation for its entire hinterland, besides acting as a direct challenge to Germany to upset the settlement at the earliest possible date ; whereas its proclamation as a free port would give full scope to every legitimate aspiration of German commerce in the eastern Mediterranean. In the same way, if Fiume should become the port of the new Serbo- Croat state, some satisfactory arrangement must be made for the free access of Hungarian and Bohemian commerce to the sea. From such an arrangement each of the three states would derive great benefits, and its triangular nature would be its most effective guarantee. A similar experiment has already been successfully tried at the harbour of Salonica, where Serbia possesses a special zone of her own, exempt from Greek customs dues. It is to be hoped that Greece will voluntarily cede Kavala in return for valuable territorial expansion elsewhere ; but failing that, a free port and special tariff concessions for the future Struma valley railway ought to be assured to Bulgaria.
Finally, in the north of Europe similar adjustments would be necessary. If, as all but a few reactionaries hope and believe, this war should bring at least a partial atonement for that
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greatest of political crimes, the partition of Poland, then the river system of the Vistula will resume its old importance as a geographical unit, and the new Poland must inevitably obtain its outlet to the sea. The only possible way of ending the secular feud of Pole and German is to reunite the broken fragments of the Polish race and to restore the port of Danzig to its natural position as a free port. The alternative would be the cession of Danzig and at least a portion of West Prussia to the new Poland, the isolation of East Prussia from the German motherland, and the consequent creation of a new " Alsace- Lorraine " in the east of Europe. This would be not to undo, but merely to invert, the crime of the Polish Partition, and to produce a situation such as must inevitably lead to fresh armed conflicts. Here then is obviously a point at which wise and far-sighted commercial provisions can do much to modify acute racial antagonisms.
There is indeed much to be said for some special international arrangement, on the lines of the Danube Commission, for regulat- ing the commerce of all the riparian states with each other and with the outer world. In such cases as the Seine, the Po, or the Volga only a single state is concerned, and the problem must be regarded as one of internal policy. But Germany has as great an interest as Holland in the mouth of the Rhine, Belgium is no less interested than Holland in the mouth of the Scheldt ; on the Elbe and the Moldau depends much of Bohemia's pros- perity ; the Danube is likely to assume for Hungary an even greater importance in the future than in the past ; while the Vistula supplies the key to the Polish problem.1
This passage shows forcibly not only the interdependence of economics and politics, but the real economic back- ground of the Great War.
3. ECONOMIC INFLUENCES AND WAR
In the modern world any dislocation or suspension of trade and industry has consequences far beyond the im- mediate area of disturbance. The dislocation produced
1 What is at Stake in the War, pp. 13-15 (Papers for War Time).
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by a serious earthquake, a political revolution or a war, each in varying degrees, has economic consequences not exactly calculable but far-reaching and often profound. It is not necessary to labour the economic wastage of modern warfare. Wars entail an immediate economic loss to the world as a whole. There may, on the other hand, be some gains to show. If, for example, the result of a war is to bring a larger portion of the world within the sphere of better government, or rearrange the political framework, within which the economic system functions, in such a way as to permit of better economic arrangements, the result in the long run may be largely to reduce the net loss — if not, indeed, to effect a gain — by securing the more effective utilisation of nature's resources, and facilitating that orderly development of industry and commerce which depends upon enlightened rule and wise administration. Moreover, in spite of the great risks of unforeseen economic consequences, and of the certainty of more or less serious economic injury to the community as a whole, individual states, belligerent or non-belligerent, may on balance show no appreciable ultimate loss.
In some ways it is futile to attempt to measure the relative gain and loss of war. In the first place, the result of the calculation will depend on the length of the period over which the consequences of the war are measured, as short period gains may prove to be counterbalanced by ultimate losses and vice versa. Secondly, no one can fore- cast with certainty the course of events and their economic bearing if the dispute had been settled by some other means than war. In any case, the good and bad effects of war are so inextricably intertwined and so utterly incapable of measurement that it becomes impossible to strike a balance with any degree of accuracy. The economic
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effects of war are to be judged not only by the immediate economic losses it involves, but also by their influence on the future course of economic development, as compared with the possibilities of the inscrutable " what might have been." Not only so, but the political changes involved react on economic life either for good or evil, so that the political consequences of war may be either economically advantageous or the reverse. It has been well said that in the modern world purely economic matters do not exist ; the bonds between economics and politics are too intimate. If, as a result of the Franco-German War, Germany had obtained in the Treaty of Frankfort all the iron mines of Eastern France, as she thought she had done, " the im- perious call of iron " would never have arisen, and the political history and the economic life and growth of the last generation would have been different ; whether the net result would have been economically good or not is a question which may be left to those who enjoy journeys into the region of speculation.
What are the material costs of war ? In the first place, war disturbs the normal workaday life of the world. In spite of periodical war scares and the apparently important part played by military considerations, the modern economic world has been evolved upon the assumption of a state of peace. It is built upon a peace foundation. When we speak of " the crushing burden of armaments," judging their cost by the expenditure on life-giving state services, we are apt to forget that the volume of goods produced in preparation for war is small in comparison with the total volume of the world's production. Broadly speaking, only a small proportion of the workers of the world are engaged either directly or indirectly upon the production of war materials. The vast majority are engaged in supplying
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food and clothing, housing accommodation, and the amenities of civilised life, or in conveying them from place to place, or in building the ships and rolling-stock which carry them. Even in Germany, where the water and railway transport system has been consolidated and developed with strategic intentions, intermittent years of warfare cannot submerge the importance of long periods of peaceful use.
And the whole world, in spite of rivalry and individual self-seeking, is engaged in the stupendous task of supplying its normal needs. This task has called for the co-ordinated activity of all its producers and a considerable amount of international co-operation. Whatever diplomats and the Press may say to the contrary, however much people at times are pulled up before the prospect of an " inevitable " war, the world goes on its way producing and consuming, on the assumption that to-morrow will be as to-day, and that peace will continue. The credit system — an economic device for taking time by the forelock — an institution in- dispensable in modern industry and commerce, is unwork- able on any other assumption.
War shatters the peace basis of the economic world. The whole economic organisation, even in the most militar- istic country, must be revolutionised and re-established on a war basis. The vast engine of economic life amid creaks and jolts ponderously beats the ploughshare into engines of war. Large numbers of men leave the productive labours of peace for military or naval service ; a large portion of the remainder of the working population are turned into producers of the manifold needs of modern armies and navies. Those on active service not only become non-producers, but become consumers on a scale which they have hardly dreamt of before. Less of the
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commodities of peace are produced. Plant and work- people, both relatively less fitted for their new work, make war materials of some kind instead of the goods to which they are accustomed, and the tale of loss is increased.1 Trade between the belligerent countries ceases, and a nation exercising control of the seas destroys the enemy's trade with neutral countries, thus compelling resort to substitutes, if these are obtainable within the country. The war itself is the cause of immense destruction, all the greater in modern times because it may be carried on in large industrial areas. Because of the great cost of war, countries trench upon their capital, or at the best devote to the work of war wealth which under normal circumstances would have gone to swell the world's capital, so that future production suffers. Large numbers of people are either killed or permanently incapacitated, and as they are for the most part young men, the world loses the best part of a lifetime's labour. At the end of the war, the confusion and dislocation caused through the reconversion of industry from a war footing to the normal peace footing is the occasion of further inefficiency and waste. Credit, without which commerce must languish, depends on trust and confidence, a state of mind which is not immediately restored with the return of peace. This is by no means the full story of the economic losses of war, but it serves to indicate what war means to industry and commerce.
1 It should be noted that the dislocation created by war is not so great as at first sight appears, since a considerable proportion of the expense is in the nature of allowances, food, clothing, etc., to soldiers and sailors and their dependents, who, for the most part, consume in war time the things they use in times of peace. Further, the division of labour in such a way that parts of war commodities and their accessories are manufactured in a large number of different workshops, merely means the employment of peace industries for war purposes, without very much change.
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Modern wars are costly for two reasons : first, because of the economic interdependence of peoples ; and secondly, because of the revolution which has taken place in the methods of waging war. War has become a large-scale machine industry. Elaborate trenches constructed with far more care than the average house, mines on land and sea, field telephones, wire entanglements, motor transport, the large size of modern armies, the huge and complicated engines which destroy themselves in propelling costly pro - jectiles, have industrialised warfare to an extent which few people realised until the other day.
It had been thought that a great war would work such economic disaster that its end would be a matter of weeks or at the most months. The fact is that the efficiency of production, the technical knowledge, the power of organisa- tion which have assisted in unifying the economic world, and added to the awful thoroughness of war, are instruments in the hands of belligerent states for the purpose of organ- ising for war. The adaptability and resourcefulness of modern industry and commerce, the power to distribute the enormous financial burdens over generations, will work to overcome the smashing blow which war gives to society. The very qualities which have developed the world organisa- tion of industry and commerce, and which control it in times of peace, are devoted to adapting it to the different needs and circumstances of war. The growing inter- dependence and complexity of international economic relations will not render war impossible, but they will make it more and more costly. But even here the extraordinary recuperative powers of the economic organism, the greater knowledge of economic phenomena and, therefore, the greater possibility of control, together with the increased willingness of modern states to institute control, will tend
100 INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS in
to diminish the net loss of warfare. Even so, however, the cost of war is almost beyond calculation, and as cosmo- politan forces develop, and the interdependence of east and west and .north and south becomes greater, the cost will correspondingly increase. This will, at any rate, tend to cool the ardour of those who call for war, and give pause to sabre-rattling politicians, though, in itself, it will only show the folly of war and not its impossibility.
It has already been suggested that there is a credit side to warfare. So far as the world as a whole is concerned, the aggregate gains from war will in all probability be less than the total loss, though to what extent none can say. Political changes due to war may have permanent economic effects, of considerable importance, given sufficient time in which to operate. The colossal and pressing demand for munitions of war and their accessories taxes the economic world to the utmost. Necessity is the mother of invention ; and in belligerent states and neutral countries with manu- facturing industries, the demand for war-supplies is likely to lead to steps to satisfy it. New methods of production, new inventions, improved organisation, such as we have already seen to be a result of war, will be the means taken to augment the supply of needed commodities. These changes will tend to persist. The effects of an industrial revolution, as a direct consequence of war precipitating drastic changes in economic life, cannot be dismissed as negligible in their influence on the rate and character of economic progress. The economic losses of war are im- mediately apparent, the possible gains less obvious. Further, though the flood of loss is to some extent distri- buted over time, its greatest effects are felt during the period of war and in the succeeding years ; but, in general, it will diminish with the passage of time. The gains, on
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the other hand, are cumulative, and will, in some cases, fructify after a considerable period of time. The former tend to be eradicated from economic society ; the latter become permanently absorbed into its fabric. Hence it is that estimates of the relative losses and gains of war are impossible for long periods and futile for short periods.
This holds also in the case of single states. A state that went to war in the hope of obtaining material advantage from it would run fearful risks of disappointment. It would be a gambler's throw ; for not only is there the chance of defeat, but the chance of future economic developments being different from what was desired, as economic forces and tendencies are not fit subjects for definite prophecy. As a set-off to the costs of war, however, a country may obtain a revision of another country's tariff in its favour, or a treaty conferring special advantages on its nationals ; or it may obtain new territory, the revenue from which will exceed the cost of administration, or perhaps supply it with ports under its own fiscal control. Further, it may secure an indemnity in order to burden its enemy with the greater cost of the war. For, as a recent writer points out,1 skilful handling of an indemnity may avoid the pitfalls dangerous to the unwary, and it may be similar in its results to a loan made by the people of one country to another state.
A study of the last Balkan Wars shows the complex character of their economic effects and the intimate manner in which economic and political consequences are inter- woven, as well as the ramifications of their reaction upon the Great Powers.2 The relatively primitive stage of economic development reached in the Balkans, however,
1 Mr. J. H. Jones in The Economics of War and Conquest. * See the illuminating account of the economic results of the Balkan Wars in Nationalism and War in the Near East.
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makes it less difficult to trace the effects of war there. A war in which the Great Powers were engaged would be more difficult to unravel, and its effects would be both more deep-seated and far-reaching. Whether any of them would show the solid and undoubted economic gains which resulted to Greece is more than doubtful, though it is extremely likely that some of them would suffer the equally undoubted losses which were the lot of Bulgaria.
To say that there may be some economic gains from war is not to assert that war is the only way or the best way to obtain them. Much less can one argue that wars are a good thing, as at the best they mean a certain im- mediate economic loss and a problematical and probably long-period gain. There is, however, no evidence that any statesman «ver decided on war or risked war because he thought it would pay. The case against war rests really on other than economic grounds.
4. INTERNATIONAL ECONOMICS AND THE FUTURE .
The free trade agitation in this country two generations ago was, in the eyes of its leaders, much more than an economic movement. It was thought that, under the leadership of Britain, the world would adopt a free trade policy, that as a consequence all nations would prosper, and that the abandonment of hostile tariffs would remove many causes of friction. Hence, international relations would be more harmonious, and the blessings of free trade would militate against war. The movement was therefore a peace movement. In the mind of John Bright, for example, freedom of trade was a means towards the realisa- tion of international friendship ; or as Cobden said, " Free trade is the best peacemaker."
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With few exceptions — though in a few cases not without periods of hesitation — the states of the world have chosen the other path. Has the regime of protection endangered peaceful international relations, and is the future peace of the world dependent upon the abolition of protective tariffs ? So far as the Great Powers themselves are con- cerned, the most that can be said is that, though in them- selves insufficient to lead to war, protective measures have at times swollen the volume of an already existing feeling of hostility between nations. Even during the worst periods of German or American " dumping " — a device of protection — no one in this country dreamt of going to war on the question. The most that was demanded was some form of economic retaliation. It will be generally found that when a country raises its tariff wall and inflicts injury on the industrial and commercial interests of other countries, the cry is for economic reprisals and not for the use of armed force.1
But in the case of the outposts of empire, the problem is somewhat different. These outlying territories are potential markets for European produce and important sources of supply of essential raw materials. The Powers whose " possessions " they are more frequently than not give the goods of their nationals preferential treatment as against foreign imports. Neither Britain nor Germany, however, has pursued this policy. Preferential treatment has undoubtedly fostered bad feeling between the nations. Nations entering into the field of world politics at a later date have found the greater part of the earth under the flag of other states, and barriers in the way of seeking over-
1 The chief blows to British trade have come from tariff revisions in the United States ; concurrently, political relations between Great Britain and the United States have improved !
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seas markets and obtaining supplies of important products. In the case of countries not annexed by Western Powers, such as China, " the open door " policy has been supported in order that no state may secure monopolistic advantages in trade.
Without exaggeration it may be said that universal free trade would be the greatest step towards the realisation of peace. But the economically ideal policy may not be politically expedient. At present, states are moved by motives of self-interest and not by world interest, to say nothing of motives of a non-economic character. Fiscal policy is intimately bound up with taxation and domestic policy generally. It is because of this that the British self-governing dominions retain full control over their fiscal systems. Imperial interference would strike at the roots of self-government. A unified fiscal system for the British Empire as a whole will be possible when it is in accord with the national interests of its constituent self-governing parts. The majority of states in the world do not conceive of free trade as being in the best interests of their own national development, and without infringing their independence it could not be imposed upon them. The day of free trade will have dawned when the nations judge it to be in harmony with their own domestic interests. For that day and, therefore, for the realisation of universal freedom of trade we shall have long to wait, even if the economic bonds between nations grow stronger and more numerous.
The suggestion, however, that the foreign possessions of the Powers should be thrown open to the traders and contractors of all nations on equal terms, as is done in the British Empire, is within the range of practical politics. It is hardly likely that the Powers concerned would agree to
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the abolition of tarifE restrictions, for that would be con- sidered the prerogative of the governing authority, but it is perhaps not unlikely that they might agree to uniform tariffs for imports whatever the country of origin. This would remove from the field of international politics a source of irritation and hostility.
The interdependence of peoples has led to a belief in the use of the " economic boycott " as a possible alternative to war. The idea is by no means new. Although the transport of troops and supplies, the possibility of bombard- ment of enemy territory, etc., are valuable results of naval superiority, they are merely incidental ; the fundamental advantage of maritime supremacy to the state that possesses it in war-time is economic. It is essential to maintaining its own supplies from neutral and allied countries ; at the same time it enables it to prevent the import of supplies into an enemy country. It is because of the economic consequences that countries dependent for their existence upon foreign produce have greater need of naval power than economically independent countries. In the modern world, however, the number of self-supporting states is becoming less, for the state of to-day needs so much. Hence the increasing importance of the naval arm. The economic boycott is intended to secure the same results as naval supremacy, without resort to the same methods.
In the words of Mr. J. A. Hobson, " The boycott is a weapon which could be employed with paralysing power by a circle of nations upon an offender against the public law of the world. ... If all diplomatic intercourse were withdrawn ; if the international postal and telegraphic systems were closed to a public law breaker ; if all inter- State railway trains stopped at his frontiers ; if no foreign ships entered his ports, and ships carrying his flag were
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excluded from every port ; if all coaling stations were closed to him ; if no acts of sale or purchase were permitted to him in the outside world — if such a political and commercial boycott were seriously threatened, what country could long stand out against it ? Nay, the far less rigorous measure of a financial boycott, the closure of all foreign exchanges to members of the outlaw State, the prohibition of all quotations on foreign Stock Exchanges, and of all dealings in stocks and shares, all discounting and accept- ances of trade bills, all loans for public and private purposes, and all payments of moneys due — such a withdrawal of financial intercourse, if thoroughly applied and persisted in, would be likely to bring to its senses the least scrupulous of States." l
It is an indication of the importance of economic influ- ences in the modern world that economic means should be suggested as a substitute for war. As Mr. Hobson points out, the prosecution of a boycott would react injuriously upon the states putting it into operation. Its chief weak- ness probably is " the fact that any such boycott would be far less potent or immediate in its pressure against some nations than against others. While Great Britain would have to yield at once to the threat of such pressure, Russia or even the United States, could stand out for a considerable time, and China might even regard it — the boycott — as a blessing." 2 There are some difficulties which would render its use less powerful, not the least of which is that of stopping private trading, especially as " running the blockade " would be highly profitable if successful.3 It is also not unlikely that a boycott might precipitate war.
1 Towards International Government, pp. 90-91.
• Ibid. p. 93. 8 Great Britain's difficulty in blockading Germany is significant.
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For its successful use the boycott assumes the active co- operation of a number of states, indeed of the most im- portant states of the world. This is where the real difficulty lies. Could the nations of the world agree on common action for the maintenance of peace, the chances of war would be greatly diminished. Up to the present such full co-operation has not been forthcoming, so far as agree- ment to keep the peace has been concerned, and it is questionable how far states will, in the immediate future, be willing to act together on an economic basis.
It has been suggested by Mr. F. N. Keen that " the States comprised in the international scheme might be required to keep deposited with, or under the control of, the International Council sums of money . . . which might be made available to answer international obligations, and an international bank might be organised." 1 It should, however, be remembered that any sums likely to be placed by states on deposit for this purpose will be so small com- pared with the cost of war that a state prepared to face such expenditure would not be deterred by the loss of its account in the international bank.
The suggestion has been made that the close economic co-operation of the Allied Powers should be made the basis of an economic league. Proposals in this direction have emanated from individuals in this country, in France, Italy, and Russia. The motives appear to be various. It is felt by certain people that some form of Zollverein would cement the friendship of states which have fought together, by others that such a league would be able to prosecute with vigour the economic chastisement of the Germanic Powers on the cessation of military and naval operations ; some see in the idea the beginning of a scheme of international economic 1 The World in Alliance, p. 58.
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co-operation, with the boycott as its weapon against aggression. The chances are that an economic league on the lines suggested would exclude enemy Powers, and be merely a method of prolonging warfare in another sphere and keeping alive feelings of hostility.
It is outside the scope of this chapter to put forth con- structive proposals, but even the all too brief examination of the economic proposals that have been made will serve to show the difficult problems that the future must face. On the economic side it may be pointed out that in the settlement of the Great War there will be a number of complicated matters needing treatment, connected with the payment of compensation, indemnities, loans, etc. These questions are different in character from those with which diplomatists aie familiar, and after the principles involved have been settled, there could be no better way of dealing with these economic problems than by the appoint- ment of an international economic commission, which might also advise on the question of the economic recon- struction of Europe. If such a body became permanent, it would ultimately become a commission charged with the control of certain international economic forces.
In conclusion, we have seen the growth in modern times of closer economic intercourse between the people of different nations ; and the tendency towards the greater economic unification of the world. The markets for the great staple commodities have become world-wide, and peoples hitherto more or less self-sufficing have come to depend on others to an increasing extent for the satisfaction of the varied needs of modern life. Consequently, relations in our day are more intimate in times of peace and their disruption is more far-reaching and disastrous in times of war. Economic forces and factors, once mainly local or national,
ra INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC RELATIONS 109
have come to operate over larger and larger areas until they are rapidly becoming world-wide. Capital and labour are enabled to seek employment over a great field ; and the opportunities of each for consolidation have multiplied. In point of fact, the former is more unified than the latter, though both capitalists and labourers, each within their own ranks, compete with each other, the former chiefly through the medium of foreign investments and concessions, the latter mainly through the operation of fiscal systems.
Economic power is an important asset to a state ; its political power and prestige depend in some degree upon its economic power. The old mercantilist policy of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries has been discarded by the states of the world for a more complex subtle policy in harmony with modern economic developments* The era of territorial occupation has given place to the period of economic exploitation ; and the rivalry of states is fought out more and more in the sphere of industrial and com- mercial competition, in which struggle the undeveloped regions of the world are the chief battle-ground. Hence the subtle relations existing in some countries between the Government and its financiers. Nearer home, governments are ready to utilise geographical advantages for diplomatic purposes, usually to hamper the economic development of another country. The world, in consequence, loses ; and hostility is increased.
Thus whilst greater economic intercourse has made for peace through interdependence, economic rivalry overseas, and the use of economic pressure in one form or another as a diplomatic weapon^ together with the pervasive influence of large-scale co-operative capitalism in munitions industries, have disturbed the peaceful relations fostered by fuller intercourse. Amid the tangled causes of the Great War
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may be discerned economic threads. The effects of war on the world's economic life we have seen to be deep-seated and difficult to measure.
Finally, we have touched upon one or two suggestions for the future in order to emphasise the difficulty and complexity of the problems in store for the world. The need, we realise, is for a large view. From the international economic standpoint the question is twofold ; in the first place there is the problem, which will assume larger propor- tions in the future, of subjecting to control the cosmopolitan economic forces, e.g. combinations, and the competition between white and coloured labour ; secondly, there arise thorny questions connected with the development of the world's resources. The rivalry of capitalists for outlets has in its present form little to commend it, and concession- aires eager for quick returns are apt to be careless of ultimate economic interests and to show little consideration for the labour they employ, judging by the Congo and Putumayo scandals. Further, the utilisation of a nation's geographical position to exploit a neighbour, whether by tariffs, by hindrances to through transport, or what not, is merely a method of taking advantage of the world's economic needs, which ought not to be made the plaything either of capitalists or states.
These questions necessitate international control through the institution of some permanent body or bodies specially established to deal with them, and under the direction of an international political institution. Economic inter- nationalism will perform its real function in the world only when it is politically controlled in the wider interests of humanity.
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BIBLIOGRAPHY
There is no single book covering the ground dealt with in the chapter. The most convenient book dealing with the growth of international economic relations is A History of Commerce by Clive Day. (Longmans. 7s. 6d.) Any good text-book on economics will throw light upon economic interdependence, etc. The distribution and earnings of British foreign investments, which is essential to an understanding of their influence on policy, are given in a valuable paper by Sir G. Paish in The Journal of the Royal Statistical Society for January 1911. On the relations between economics and politics reference should be made to —
Problems of Power, by W. Morton - Fullerton. (Constable.
7s. 6d.)
Nationality and the War, by Arnold Toynbee. (Dent. 7s. 6d.) The New Europe, by Arnold Toyn bee. (Dent. Is. 6d.) Chapter
III. deals with " Politics and Economics." The War of Steel and Gold, by H. N. Brailsford. (Bell. 2s.) Ten Years of Secret Diplomacy, by E. D. Morel. (National
Labour Press. Is.)
German Culture. (Jack. 2s. 6d.) Chapter on " Political and Economic Aspects of German Nationalism," by Professor D. H. Macgregor.
Labour and the War, by G. D. H. Cole. (Bell. 2s.) Chapter I. (" War and Class-War ") and Chapter II. (" Labour and the Outbreak of War ").
For Section 3 on " Economics and War," see —
The Great Illusion, by N. Angell (Heinemann. 2s. 6d.), and
Mr. Angell's other works. The Economics of War and Conquest, by J. H. Jones. (Kong &
Son. 2s. 6d.) The Franco - German War Indemnity, by H. H. O'Farrell.
(Garton Foundation. Is.) Nationalism and War in the Near East, by a Diplomatist.
(Clarendon Press. 12s. 6d.) Chapter VIII. deals with
the economic results of the Balkan Wars. The Political Economy of War, by F. W. Hirst. (Dent. 5s.)
For Section 4 dealing with the economic aspects of international peace, etc., see —
The War of Steel and Gold, by H. N. Brailsford. (Bell. 2s.)
Part II.
Towards International Government, by J. A. Hobson. (Allen and Unwin. 2s. 6d.) Chapter VII. (" The Economic Boycott ") and Chapter IX. (" International Government in Relation to Problems of Economic Opportunity ").
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The Ethics of International Trade, by H. Lambert. (Papers for
War Time. 2d.) The Great Settlement, by C. Ernest Fayle. (Murray. 6s.)
Chapter V. (" Colonial Questions in the Settlement ") and
Chapter VI. (" The Economic Factors of the Settlement "). Towards a Lasting Settlement, ed. by C. R. Buxton. (Allen and
Unwin. 2s. 6d.) Chapter by Mr. J. A. Hobson on " The
Open Door."
See Appendix (Note on Cosmopolitan Associations).
IV
INTERNATIONAL LAW
IT may be well to state what is attempted in the present chapter, not in a vain effort to forestall criticism, but to indicate the aim with which it is written. A mere digest of International Law would be of little use at the present time. The conflict between the ideals of stability and adaptation to new needs arises in any system of rules, and in the international system this conflict is present in a degree which is not found in other systems. The present time has afforded peculiar opportunities to this conflict, so that many have become sceptical as to whether it would not be better to deny the existence of a system of rules which could be regarded in any sense as binding upon nations, or rather upon the Governments which represent them, and are the guardians of their honour.
It will clearly be of more use, therefore, to give a general survey of the nature and of the contents of the international system of rules than to attempt a digest of the rules them- selves ; to feel towards a method of thinking upon these matters which may enable us to acquire a balanced and reasoned outlook to the exclusion of a somewhat flippant scepticism.
The chief question, therefore, that this essay will seek to answer is :
113 I
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I. Is International Law really a true species of Law ? Some reference will also be made to
II. The Scope and Contents of International Law, and
III. The Position of International Law at the present time.
1. Is INTERNATIONAL LAW REALLY A SPECIES OF LAW?
This, of course, is a question going to the root of our subject, a question which introduces us to a lengthy con- troversy upon the nature and definition of law, of which some account must be given because a substantial question lies hidden behind it. In dealing with abstract definitions it is always well to keep in mind the real substantial facts which lurk behind the abstract statements with which one is concerned, so that a discussion may be as far removed from intellectual pedantry as possible. What then is the substance of the controversy raised by those who deny that International Law is Law ? Let us approach the question as follows :
Is it true or not to speak of the community of states ? If there is such a community, then there must be rules to regulate the relations of the individuals who form that community, and these rules must be taken to be laws until they are proved not to be. The essence of a law ia that it belongs to a system of rules which exist for the regulation of the rights and duties of members of a community. If we decide that there is a community of states, we may throw the burden upon objectors to prove that the rules governing those states are not laws.
He would be a rash man who, even at the present time, would deny that there is a community of states. A quarrel
iv INTERNATIONAL LAW 115
does not sever a family into me.re unrelated individuals. No one would deny that France, Great Britain, Russia, Japan, and Italy are at present members of a community, and to these we may certainly add all neutral countries. Those who are most readily sceptical about international law call Germany an outlaw, and so imply a community governed by law from which she is excluded. If then there are rules applicable to the conduct of these individual states in their relations to other states, why should not these rules be termed laws in the fullest sense of the term ? The various objections may be considered in order.
1. The main objection which interests lawyers comes from those who accept what is called the Austinian theory of law. The history of the political ideas involved in this theory may be left to political philosophers ; at present we must be content to see for ourselves whether we can accept the definition of law put forward by Austin and his followers.
John Austin was the first to fill the Chair of Jurisprudence in the University of London in the earlier half of the nine- teenth century, and he set himself to define the nature of law. He took his standpoint outside society and came to the following conclusions upon the laws by which society is regulated.
In any civil society there is a cleavage between governor and governed, and the governor sets laws to be obeyed by the governed. Law, therefore, is a command, and implies power in the governor of enforcing the command by the application of force. The governor is sovereign, and the governed are subjects. Apart from the historical career of this system of ideas upon the nature of society, it may be noted that Austin's thinking was moulded by the Constitu- tion of England about the time of the Reform Act of 1832. Before the extension of the franchise in 1832, the political
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condition of England would not contradict very forcibly a theory which regarded law as a mere command to the mass of the community by a sovereign parliament. Even after the extension of the franchise in 1832 there was not such a realisation of the ideal of self-government as would make the theory obviously unsatisfactory.
It is clear, however, that the growth of democratic in- stitutions and ideas would not be consistent with retaining such a conception of the nature of law. It would be con- tradictory to inform a self-governing citizen that his con- duct was regulated from above by a sovereign whose com- mands were backed by force. Even in Austin's writings there are many passages departing from his own clear-cut conceptions. The growth of democratic self-government through an extended franchise led therefore to modifica- tion of Austin's views by successive writers. The problem was — How can you tell a self-governing citizen that he is commanded, without contradicting yourself ? The result of successive steps in reasoning may be stated as follows : It is true that Parliament makes laws which are commands, backed by force, but the Parliament is only the organ of speech ordained by the constitution to give expression to the will of the community as a whole. The community as a whole is the sovereign seat of authority, and it is an organic whole in which the self-governing citizen finds his place, obedient to laws which are the expression of his social self. The main point of this inadequate statement of certain aspects of political theory is to emphasise the fact that for many minds, particularly for English minds, the idea that law is necessarily a command backed by force has been retained, and reconciled with political conditions which seemed at first to destroy it. For such minds International Law can never be truly called law. It is the command of
rv INTERNATIONAL LAW 117
no sovereign with executive organs comparable to those which appear in a modern state for the enforcement of the uttered commands. State Law is State Command, and State Command is the only law in the true sense of the term. The challenge is clear : before any system of rules can be termed ' law,' point to the sovereign who enunciates the rules, and who in the last resort will enforce them.
There are many lines of attack upon this clear-cut system of ideas. Some minds of an idealistic turn will seek to find a deeper meaning in the civil law than that which is implied in regarding it as a command ; others of a pene- trating type will approach the matter psychologically and ask, What are the facts of civic life, and the relation of law thereto ? and will attempt an examination of the motives for obedience to this law which is called a command backed by force. The method of approach which will prove most useful for present purposes is the historical.
The best known pioneer in the application of historical methods to legal study is Sir Henry Maine, and two famous chapters written by him in The Early History of Institu- tions are generally taken to have put Austin's conception of law out of court as a serious definition. It may be said in passing that Maine paid a tribute to Austin's thinking which has escaped many who follow his ideas in preference to those of Austin. Maine acknowledged that if we regard modern state life alone, Austin's conception of law would serve very well, but he contended that for a full definition of law it was impossible so to confine our outlook.
To the assertion that law is inevitably the command of a sovereign, the historian replied that there are many com- munities to-day, representing a stage in civilisation through which even organised modern communities have passed, which are in no sense governed by laws in the shape of
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commands issuing from an organised sovereign. They are governed by customary law in various stages of develop- ment, representing the gradual accumulation of rules from a time when human groups made their half -conscious adap- tations to surrounding circumstances. As a rough example of such adaptation we may note one cause of the develop- ment of two forms of early tribal organisation. Where a tribe has to sustain itself by hunting, the man had to be free from the cares of home to the fullest degree, so that the woman acquired a domestic position of such strength that she became the head of the family. The man married into her family, and the phenomenon of the matriarchal system followed. On the other hand, in more settled modes of living, the man can gather an agricultural community round him and found a patriarchal household. The woman will be taken into his family, and he will have power over her, and her children will be his children, with no rights of inheritance through their mother. In this way early law grew up, by gradual development from first principles laid down under stress of circumstance, much as a pathway grows through a forest, deviating according as the first pioneers adapted themselves to the conditions under which they laboured. Such rules are not commanded from above like the roads of a model building estate, any more than are the forest pathways. They are obeyed rather by consent than by command, obeyed as law rather than because they are law.
The historian took up the cudgels on behalf of these early rules, and claimed that any definition of law worthy of th^ name should include a survey of them. Some thought it a fit answer to say that to define a man there is no need to define an ape. Even assuming that this answer was founded upon good evolutionary theory, it is clear that it by no
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means silences the historian. The controversy is important from one point of view, because if we can really put our finger upon the point at issue, it will probably help us to make up our minds upon the nature of International Law.
The Austinian says, law is a command of a sovereign : the historian says that this does not account for the earlier types of law prevalent in tribal organisation, and that any true definition of law must embrace all forms of law ; the International lawyer talks of his system of law, and the Austinian denies that he has any right to do so, because his laws again are not commands proceeding from a definite sovereign with executive powers. If the historian and the International lawyer can find a common ground upon which to attack the narrow views of the Austinian, it is clear that in all probability they have a very good case.
They certainly have a common ground, and the criti- cism which we may imagine them to make upon the Austinian will proceed upon the following lines.
The essence of law is that it regulates rights and duties between the individual members of a community. To require that every law shall be the command of a sovereign with executive power is to introduce into the definition of an age-old phenomenon characteristics derived from ex- tremely modern conditions. Men have been in communi- ties from time immemorial, and laws have regulated their conduct, and it is only comparatively recently that law has attached to itself two characteristics :
(i.) That it proceeds from a definite sovereign body, with recognised power to formulate rules which shall figure as laws.
(ii.) That this sovereign body has recognised power of enforcing obedience or punishing disobedience to the rules it has enunciated.
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To say that law is essentially the command of a sovereign backed by force, and that nothing else is law, is to regard only these modern accidental developments and to make them the essence of the matter to be defined.
Taking a comprehensive view of human associations it is clear that a community may be regulated by laws which have not been enunciated by a definite sovereign, e.g. it may be governed by pure customary law. It is clear also that there may not be a definite executive power where there is absent a definite sovereign to enunciate laws. It is purely arbitrary to say that these earlier laws were not laws, because the essence of law really is that it regulates conduct in a community. The point is that in the history of law there are two distinct lines of development to be traced. In the first place there is the growth of the system of rules which apply to the groups of facts with which the law has to deal. This growth may be gradual, or may be subject to revolutionary changes where new groups of facts suddenly develop in the economic life of the community, or where new abuses suddenly become prominent. In the second place there is the development of governmental organs and machinery for the enactment and enforcement of laws. It is idle to deny that these two lines of growth are closely connected, but in order to define law it is essential to sever one from the other. A law is none the less a law whether it is enforced by tribal machinery, or by feudal, or by the executive of a modern state. It is none the less a law whether it is enunciated by a modern parliament, or whetl. it has been forged in the reaction of a mass of men against their surrounding conditions. Wherever there is a com- munity, the absence of pure anarchy implies the presence of laws, whether or not there be a definite sovereign to command and enforce.
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Turning to the question with which we began, and recalling the fact than an international community of states does certainly exist, it follows as night the day that there must be a system of true laws to regulate rights and duties. They need not be enunciated by a sovereign body, nor certain of enforcement by a sovereign executive.
The whole trouble has arisen because Austin adopted a system of ideas for the definition of law which historically were concerned with a very different question, viz. the seat of authority in a political community. Whether sovereignty is to reside in the general will, or in a commanding sovereign, whether authority be conferred upon the monarch by Divine grant, or by a grant from the people, all these controversies are irrelevant for the purpose of defining law. It may or may not be good political theory to say that a sovereign has authority underived from his subjects and commands them ; but to proceed from this to the statement that the nature of all true law is that it is commanded by a sovereign is once again to inflict on lawyers debatable conclusions in the form of a definition, and such was the work done by Austin.
It is often said that law is " the delimitation of rights," and this may be accepted as a phrase implying the con- clusions which were reached in the above argument.
It is always unwise to drive an analogy too far, and it must not be thought that modern international law has much in common with early tribal law. It has to meet wholly different groups of facts, and its development is aided by the high skill of modern intelligence. The analogy is useful, however, in the one fundamental matter, that in both the tribal and the international community there is law apart from the existence of a modern state sovereign. The analogy breaks down in a matter equally fundamental, that whereas the development of organised state machinery out
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of tribal conditions involved also the break-down of tribal law in the face of new conditions, there is no reason why the development of more organised international machinery should involve a similar break-down of the present system of international law. The substance of the rules for times of peace might remain much the same, even though a more organised enforcement should develop, though the law of neutrality and the laws of war would cease to exist as such.
2. Although the above line of argument be admitted to be sound it is still possible that present events might suggest a further objection, or a series of objections, which should here be considered. They all have a connection with each other, and may be considered together, viz. :
(i.) Even admitting that a system of law need not have a modern organised executive behind it, it must be backed up by force in some way, so that offenders shall be punished, or have the possibility of punishment before their eyes as a deterrent.
(ii.) If it were anything approaching a system of law, it must surely be such as would exclude warfare as a means of deciding disputes.
(iii.) Is it not so continually broken that it becomes a mere farce to call it law ?
(As to i.) Need a system of law be backed up by force ? There is not the slightest reason why it should. A law may be a true law though obedience to it can never be enforced. It is commonly said that International Law is law because states agree to regard certain rules as law. It makes no difference whatever whether states will abide by it when the time of trial arrives. This cannot be emphasised too strongly, nor is this statement such a foolish one as might at first appear. Were the functions of international law exhausted after it had provided a standard for breaches of
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itself, it would still have served the purpose of a system of law, viz. to delimit rights and duties. The sole function of a system of law is to provide a considered measure by which conduct may be judged as legal or illegal.
When we accuse Germany of having broken certain laws, when Germany and the United States accuse us of having broken certain laws, is it nothing to have precedents and a considered system to which an appeal may be made for judgment in the questions at issue ? Law is everywhere but the crystallisation of previous experience, something agreed upon as representing the balance of equity in the case, and the question whether its conclusions can be en- forced upon a refractory member is, however important, irrelevant to the question whether it is law. It is untrue, however, to say that international law can never be en- forced : it has its sanctions, regulated by itself. For instance, the United States might have withdrawn from diplomatic intercourse with Germany in consequence of the submarine policy of the German Navy. She might have confiscated German shipping in her harbours.
Another form of sanction is the approved form of self- help which has figured largely in the present war, viz. reprisals. In response to Germany's modes of warfare, we announce a stricter control over produce entering and leaving German soil ; then by way of reprisals Germany enters upon her submarine policy, upon which we accord special treatment to their captured crews ; and this again calls for reprisals on the part of Germany in treating more harshly certain British prisoners in her hands.
It is true that the organised enforcement, such as is seen in a modern state, is absent, but it is untrue to say that there is no enforcement at all. War itself may be regarded as a possible mode of enforcement. We were bound by treaty
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to enter the war in defence of Belgian neutrality ; but in the United States, certain utterances of Mr. Roosevelt practic- ally called upon America to vindicate the law by a war on its behalf. The practical utility of a system of law will doubtless depend upon the efficacy of the sanctions attached to it, but it is wholly erroneous to deny the system of rules the status of laws merely because such sanctions are weak or, indeed, absent altogether.
(As to ii.) Should not international law exclude warfare as a mode of decision, if it is to be worthy of the name of law ?
The feeling that a system of law is inconsistent with war- fare lurks strongly in the minds of most of us, so that it would be well to consider the relations of international law to warfare, and to realise that the Conventions agreed upon at the Hague have no magical power to prevent the occurrence of war.
(a) We may note at once that by common consent a large part of international relations are regarded as being beyond the domain of law, i.e. questions of policy and honour and vital interests. Instances of this may be taken at random.
In the draft of a scheme for the pacific settlement of international disputes issued by the New Statesman in July 1915 a rigid distinction was drawn between justiciable and noii- justiciable cases, i.e. cases of a legal nature or not of a legal nature. Cases of a legal nature were for hearing by an International High Court, but larger questions of policy were for treatment by an International Council. A legal matter is one where facts have to be elucidated and rules applied, as for instance in the arbitration between Great Britain and the United States on the conduct of the Ala- bama. In this case the British authorities had failed to act in accordance with the standard of care demanded of
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neutrals, in order to prevent ships being fitted out by one of the belligerents in the neutral port, before using such ships to cruise against the enemy. The Alabama was rigged up in British waters for the Southern States, and subsequently wrought great havoc among the shipping of the United States. She sailed just before the British authorities made up their minds to lay hold of her, though after the authorities had ample evidence in their possession to justify and to impose the duty to effect a seizure. Now it is clear that if there are certain recognised principles of neutrality, the best mode of settling this dispute is to apply them to the facts as found after an enquiry, and to award compensation to the injured party. This was in fact done, except that in the absence of agreement upon the law to be applied, rules for the guidance of the arbitrators were agreed upon by treaty between Great Britain and the United States. It is easy to see the distinction between this type of case and great settlements of Europe, such as took place at the Congress of Vienna, which may be regarded as a council dealing with non- justiciable matters.
The same recognition that the scope of International Law is at present limited is seen in Article 38 of the first Con- vention agreed upon at the Hague Conference of 1907. In that Article the Contracting Powers agree that arbitration is the most effective means of settling disputes in " questions of a legal nature, and especially in the interpretation or application of International Conventions." The Powers say they will have recourse to arbitration "in so far as circumstances permit." In 1907 the Powers registered a declaration upon the subject of compulsory arbitration, but limited their acceptance of the principle to " certain dis- putes, in particular those relating to the interpretation and application of the provisions of international agreements."
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The Anglo-French Treaty of 1903 for reference to arbitration of disputes between France and England follows the same lines of thought. Article I. provides that " differences of a legal nature " or " relating to the interpretation of treaties/' shall be heard by the Permanent Court of Arbitration established by the Hague Convention, " provided that they do not affect the vital interests, the independence, or the honour of the two Contracting States."
It must be understood, therefore, that the system of international law itself recognises the distinction between legal and non-legal matters in the general mass of inter- national relations, and this will not appear strange if we remember that the duel survived as a serious matter well into the modern state with its efficient legal administration. We may note here that with regard to the severance of matters of honour and vital interests from the sphere of law, the steps taken by the United States are noteworthy as representing a possible plank across a gulf as yet un- bridged. By a recent treaty between Great Britain and the United States it is agreed that even matters affecting honour and vital interests shall be sent to a commission for enquiry before recourse is had to extreme measures.
(b) So far we have merely noted that international law is consistent with warfare, and recognises it as a mode of deciding " non- justiciable " matters. International Law goes further than this and deals with warfare as a cause of rights and duties. Two of the most important departments of the system assume a state of war to be existing. The laws to regulate the conduct of war have reference to the relations between the belligerents themselves ; the laws of neutrality relate to the rights and duties of neutral states in relation to each of the belligerents. Historically, the department which deals with the conduct of belligerents
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was the earliest to arise, and the main work of the modern Hague Conferences is to be found in thirteen Conventions, of which eleven assume a state of war to exist before they are applicable.
To sum up : international law recognises a sphere where legal modes of settlement are not at present applicable, but it attempts to regulate warfare itself, and to settle the position of neutrals by well-defined measures of conduct. It does not purpose to render warfare impossible.
(As to iii.) In the light of present events ought we not to admit that a system of law which is so easily broken is worthless, that it is a mere collection of pious aspirations ? This is a question which should be thoroughly and squarely faced at the present time. A flippant idealism too soon gives way to an equally flippant scepticism. It would certainly be a curious result if we came to the conclusion that a system of law which has engaged the minds of the greatest should finally be found to be worthless. Three lines of thinking deserve consideration before the pessi- mistic conclusion is finally adopted.
(i.) Even if it is broken regularly in the case of a conflict between legal duty and interest, it still stands as a measure of the conduct in question. The breach will throw a heavy burden of justification upon the guilty party. Having broken the law, he must appeal to international morality to absolve him. A striking instance of this is close at hand. A series of breaches of international law upon the part of Germany led finally to our maritime policy as declared on the 1st of March 1915. In what precise details this policy departed from the accepted law of blockade it is unnecessary to discuss here. Let us assume that a real breach of law was embarked upon. The result was that Mr. Balfour, on March 29, published a powerful defence of our action by an
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appeal to international morality. He recognised that the burden of justification lay upon us since the law was not observed. This justification consisted of two parts : first, that Germany had herself made an adherence to law im- possible ; secondly, that our departure did not violate the principles of morality. He closed his defence as follows : " But though, as I think, international law can hardly be literally obeyed unless both sides are prepared to obey it, we must not conclude that the absence of reciprocity justifies the injured party in acting as if international law and inter- national morality had thereby been abrogated. This would be a monstrous doctrine. . . . Germany would indeed have no right to complain of retaliation in kind ; but this would not justify us in descending to her level. The policy which I am defending has no resemblance to this. It violates no deep ethical instincts ; it is in harmony with the spirit of international law ; it is more regardful of neutral interests than the accepted rules of blockade ; nor is the injury which it is designed to inflict on the enemy of a different character from that inflicted by an ordinary blockade. And lastly, it is a reply to an attack which is not only illegal but immoral ; and if some reply be legitimate and necessary can a better one be devised ? "
A system of law is surely serving a sound practical purpose when a departure from its rules calls forth such an eloquent justification.
It might be urged, however, Why not rely on inter- national morality alone and in the first place, instead of formulating a law only to break it and fall back upon inter- national morality ? The answer is simply that wherever conduct has to be measured in a community, laws appear for our general guidance ; they serve as general judgments upon the merits of a case, departure from which has to be
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specially justified. So far then, it is agreed, that in calling for this special justification for a breach of its rules, the system of law between nations has an effective reply to those who would call it worthless.
(ii.) A second consideration to be undertaken, is that because in times of stress certain rules of law are broken, it by no means follows that the whole system is vitiated. A few decayed timbers will not bring the house down ; they may even be replaced by better ones. The outstanding breaches of law in the present war have been in the conduct of belligerent operations on the part of Germany. These breaches, however, leave untouched the whole department of law which regulates the conduct of nations in time of peace. The disputes between Great Britain and the United States with regard to certain branches of the law of neutrality are still being conducted upon the basis of a reference to law and legal principle.
(iii.) Thirdly, the distinction must be emphasised between a breach of international law and a new departure which claims the status of a precedent. In statute law, a change in the law is made consciously, with deliberation, accom- panied by a definite repeal, express or tacit, of previous law to the contrary. This is not the case with customary law. Changes are made by gradual process, and the initiative will often have to be taken by a particular agent, to be followed or not by successive agents in the future. Many courses of international conduct have this pioneering nature. It is vital to a true appreciation of the nature of international law to realise that the spirit of the rules has, in comparison with the letter, a validity which it can never have in ordinary state law. With the highly organised legal machinery of the state, with permanent means for a conscious alteration of law, an adherence to the letter of the written rule serves
K
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best as a guarantee of justice. It is very different where such machinery is absent to which an appeal might have been made for alteration. In this case a party may often have to innovate tinder new sets of circumstance, and appeal to his contemporaries and to his successors for approval of his conduct.
To appreciate this, and to gain a method of judgment into international matters, an enquiry into a few topics suggested by current events will be useful.
(a) Let us take first the practice of the British Govern- ment in the present war of bringing ships into port in order to search them for contraband goods, or other prohibited cargoes.
It has long been recognised as a belligerent right, that a commissioned ship may call upon neutrals on the high seas to submit to a visit and search, in order to determine whether there is any prohibited cargo on board. If the search reveals nothing suspicious, the neutral is allowed to proceed upon its way ; if there is suspicion or apparent guilt the neutral is brought into port to undergo proceedings in a Prize Court. It is clear that to bring a ship into port before searching her will involve delay to many innocent cargoes, and dislocation in shipping, and upon this ground protests have arisen in America against our treatment of neutral cargoes.
The British reply alleged as a justification the skill with which modern ships were packed, the ruses to which guilty cargoes had recourse to escape detection, such that a proper search was impossible on the high seas. If the right to search is admitted at all, must not the law go further and admit that any measures necessary for the exercise of this right are permissible ? This would seem to be a reasonable proposition, and the question of the legality of our procedure
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is therefore reduced to this question of fact — Can we examine vessels with reasonable thoroughness upon the high seas ? If not, then are our methods reasonable as they are at present exercised ?
(b) The law of blockade provides a very useful field for illustrating how an apparent breach of law may finally be accepted as but a further application of underlying principles.
Let us take as an example a doctrine which has appeared in recent discussions, the " doctrine of continuous voyage." It is recognised as an elementary principle of law that in time of war one belligerent may blockade the coast of another. This means that he can by an effective show of force compel neutral traders to abstain from commerce with the blockaded coast, or at least to attempt such commerce only at the risk of suffering the penalty of confiscation. So far the matter is clear. Suppose, however, that close by the blockaded area there is territory belonging to a sovereign who is not implicated in the war, so that other neutrals can make this territory a base of operations, close at hand, for the running of the blockade : ought the blockading Power to stand by and see his blockade evaded in this manner ?
The point to be grasped is that the blockade-running will consist of two parts : (1) the apparently innocent voyage from one neutral port to another which is conveni- ently close to the blockaded area ; (2) the dash from this base of operations through the blockade by as many Captain Kettles as the trader can secure for employment.
No one would deny that the second voyage is a guilty one, since its destination is a port on the enemy coastline which is being blockaded : but is the first voyage to be liable to the same penalties, since its destination is not an enemy port at all, but a neutral port which has nothing to do with
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the war? The question arose in great prominence during the blockade of the Southern States by the United States Government in the Civil War, and the Government claimed the right to seize British ships on the way to neutral ports, situated adjacent to the Southern States. The ground was that these ships were making the neutral ports bases of operations for evading the blockade, and that the guilty intention justified capture upon what was apparently an innocent voyage to a neutral port. The British Govern- ment acquiesced in this equitable extension of the law of blockade, in spite of the protests of our traders. In other words, what appeared at first to be a grave breach of law, was found to be a logical application of the spirit of the law.
This extension, allowed by Great Britain to the United States during the Civil War is particularly interesting, since the same principle is now the ground of justification for Great Britain of certain seizures under circumstances again somewhat different.
The case of the steamship Neches may be taken as typical. She was a ship of American register, sailing from Rotterdam to a port of the United States, with cargo of enemy origin, i.e., the goods came from territory in the possession of Germany. The British Government had issued an order to the effect that every merchant vessel sailing from a port other than a German port, with goods of enemy origin, may be required to discharge such goods in a British or allied port, and the Neches was dealt with in accordance with this order. There was here no question of contraband. The United States Government felt " that it must insist upon the rights of American owners to bring their goods out of Holland in due course in neutral ships, even though such goods may have come originally from the territories of a country at war with Great Britain." It is clear that unless
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there is a definite principle upon which such a seizure may be grounded, the protest of the United States is justified. There is no ground apparent on the surface why a neutral vessel should not carry goods coming from Germany origin- ally, when sailing from one neutral port to another. It has been accepted since the middle of the nineteenth century that a neutral vessel protects enemy cargoes other than contraband.
The defence put forward by the British Government was again that their conduct was only the application of the underlying principles of established law. We did not claim a right to haul enemy goods out of neutral bottoms, but claimed that the measures " constitute no more than an adaptation of the old principles of blockade to the peculiar circumstances with which we are confronted." In other words, we did not claim to have broken the law upon a just provocation, but logically to have applied pre-existing rules.
A moment's reflection will show that the case does not differ widely from the extension made in the Civil War by the Government of the United States. It will be remem- bered that in the latter case the ships were captured on the way from a neutral British port to another neutral port which was used as a base of operations for running the blockade. In the present case the seizure is also made between a neutral port and the neutral port of destination. The only difference between the two cases is, that whereas in the American seizures the goods were destined to enter enemy territory, in the present case the goods had made exit from enemy territory. In other respects, the case is on all fours with the American precedent. Now it is clear that a blockade may be broken both by entrance into and exit from the blockaded area, so that it is very difficult to see why the United States should object to our seizure. The
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case would clearly seem to fall into the category of an apparent breach of law, which resolves itself upon examina- tion into no more than a legitimate development of pre- existing rule.
The above discussion of points which have arisen in the present war suggests a method by which an attempt may be made to grasp the spirit of a legal rule ; to distinguish a breach from an equitable application of pre-existing rule.
To sum up the conclusions arrived at so far : Inter- national Law is true lav/ because it regulates lights and duties within the community of states ; to object to this on the ground that no definite sovereign commands and enforces it, is to confuse the question of the efficiency of administrative machinery with the question of the defini- tion of law. Even if international law were never enforced at all, it would serve its purpose by affording a standard for the judgment of conduct, a measure of breaches of itself. It has, however, sanctions of its own, and even war itself may take on this character. Even if war is not for the enforcement of international law, it does not deny the existence of the system, since the system is largely con- cerned with groups of fact which are only present in war time. Finally, before becoming sceptical about the obedi- ence paid to international law, it is well to distinguish between a breach and an application of an underlying principle.
2. THE SCOPE AND CONTENTS OF INTERNATIONAL LAW
The barest outline will suffice here to show that there are many timbers to the structure. The first great division is into rules relating to the relations of states in time of peace, and rules relating to the condition of war.
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In the department relating to peace there is close analogy with State Law. There is the law of persons, dealing with questions of incapacity. In State Law the married women, infant, and lunatic have special disabilities. So in inter- national law there are bodies without the full capacity of an independent sovereign state, e.g., a neutralised state must not enter into diplomatic alliances ; a semi-sovereign state may be under a similar disability where the protector has taken over the control of its foreign policy.
There is also the law dealing with the birth, growth, and death of states : e.g. when should a rebel community be recognised as independent ? What rules apply to decide the succession to rights and obligations when one state is wholly or partly absolved in another ? A special com- mission was appointed after the South African War to deal with concessions made by the defeated governments.
The departments dealing with proprietary relations is concerned with the question of title to territory, regulation of boundaries, navigation of rivers not contained within a single state, and the position of the high seas.
Corresponding to the law of contract, there is the law as to treaties. In the departments relating to war, there are rules governing the conduct of belligerents as against each other ; and rules governing the relation of neutrals to the belligerents. The general topics within these two depart- ments are familiar enough in outline from a knowledge of current events.
3. THE PRESENT POSITION OF INTERNATIONAL LAW
It is impossible at the present time to refrain from specula- tion as to what may be the future of this system of law, for the future of humanity at large will be reflected in its fate.
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The preliminary to any sound speculation will be to make an estimate of its present position. This estimate may be made along the following lines :
(i.) The relation of international law to power : The idea is firmly rooted in some minds that the whole system is vitiated because it rests not on right but upon power. In its earlier stages International Law had a transcendental flavour about it by its association in juristic minds with natural law. In so far as the complex idea of natural law contained in it some reference to certain im- mutable principles of right and wrong conceived to exist, the conception of international law gained a nobility of stature by this association. In so far as the connection with natural law gave jurists the opportunity of laying down dogmati- cally their own opinions as of international validity, the association led to uncertainty and disagreement, and to great confusion between authoritative and persuasive sources of law. For its actual rules the system of inter- national law is no longer conceived to be dependent upon natural law. They are dependent upon international agreement, and it is clear that such agreements will often be compromises between governments of varying degrees of strength, so that it cannot be denied that many of the recognised principles are representative of the power of contending governments. For instance, naval supremacy renders Great Britain unwilling to surrender the right to capture private property at sea. Naval inferiority rendered Germany unwilling to surrender the right to use unanchored mines, in spite of the fact that some five hundred Chinese fishermen were sent to the bottom by the stray mines from the Russian and Japanese naval operations. Instances might be multiplied to show that many rules thus represent a com- promise, the result of a struggle in power and influence.
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We may even go further, and affirm that the system as a whole depends upon the balance of power being so main- tained among states that no state or group of states can assume a dictatorial position. At the outbreak of the present war the question was much debated whether we intervened for selfish reasons of self-preservation, or for the vindication of international law after the violation of Belgium. It may be noted that an intervention purely for self-preservation would still make for the maintenance of international law, since the system demands a certain rough equality in the Great Powers or the groups which they form.
This dependence upon power does not vitiate the system as a means towards realising the aim of justice. The same dependence upon power may be seen in municipal law. It has been said that since the Reform Act of 1832 the history of the law upon landlord and tenant is one of continuous progress in favour of the tenant. This is to say that the rules of law were adapted in accordance with a different distribution of political power. The dependence upon power is no special defect of international law, because in every system the approach to justice is through similar tangled and thorny ways. The matter can only be left to the philosophers to tell us the relation between force and the ideal, or why the ideal must pay before it can be embodied in an institution.
(ii.) The transition to a conscious formulation of rules and arbitration.
Something very like legislative enactment has appeared in the Hague Conventions, which were the product of conferences held by the representatives of the powers, and one main effort of these conferences was the setting up of permanent judicial machinery for the trial of disputes. The details of these processes would occupy too much space here.
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The lawyer can but provide the machinery to which governments may have recourse, and since 1899, it is worthy of observation that recourse has been had to the international machinery on several occasions, the most notable of which was the inquiry into the facts in relation to the firing upon our fishing fleet by the Russian navy during the Russo-Japanese War. The main need would seem to be an attitude of caution towards attempts to ex- tend the scope of law too readily. With regard to arbitra- tion, the machinery is there, to be used if needed.
The question before us is really one of speculation as to how international legal machinery may develop. We saw above that the machinery develops alongside of the rules to be administered. One great lesson of the present war is the need for caution, for a sense of responsibility. The Declaration of London set forth to codify the law of contra- band, by way of something akin to legislative enactment, but the whole document has failed to stand the strain of actual facts. The reason is apparent if a comparison be made between the lists of contraband issued by the British Government during the war, with those put in the Declara- tion.
The main obstacle at present before a more perfect system of international courts is the attitude of the smaller states, especially those of South America. In any respect- able system of law the doctrine of equality before the law has validity. The doctrine means that once a law is made it will be applied impartially, but the smaller states confuse this with equality of influence, in the sense that every state should have equal power in voting upon drafts for rules, and in administering those rules in international tribunals. Up to the present this attitude has brought the improvement of legal machinery to a standstill.
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To sum up : we can trace in the international system the same transition as has taken place in the municipal system of law ; the unconscious formation of customary rules is giving way to conscious formulation of law following upon debates in conference. For the sake of the law itself more caution is needed, more reference to stress of war, before such formulation is finally made. In refusing to adhere to British proposals upon the subject of mines, Baron Marschall von Bieberstein said : "I have no need to tell you that I recognise entirely the importance of the codification of rules to be followed in war. But it would be well not to issue rules, the strict observation of which might be rendered impossible by the force of things. It is of the first import- ance that the international maritime law which we desire to create should only contain clauses the execution of which is possible from a military point of view, even in exceptional circumstances. Otherwise the respect for law will be lessened, and its authority undermined."
Rules may be formulated by any fertile brain, but whence may come their administration and observance ? The con- quering Norman made sound administration possible in England ; pressure from without might bring unity into Europe ; the final victory of law in the affairs of humanity can only come by disillusionment with warfare itself, a disillusionment which is behind the opposition of Church to State. Whether or not the scope of law may ever be so widely extended, let us not deny its uses in its present sphere. The laws of war have suffered most ; they were the product of the professional soldier's chivalry. Though conscript armies have betrayed this element of virtue, let us seek to preserve and develop what remains according to whatever opportunity may lie hidden before us.
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BIBLIOGRAPHY
LAWRENCE. Principles of International Law. 4th ed. Macmillan. 12s. 0.1. net.
A general survey of international law.
PEARCE-HIGGINS. The Hague Peace Conferences, Cambridge Uni- versity Press. 1909. 16s. net.
An account of the debates at, and methods of the Hague Conferences, and the texts of the Conventions framed. Prrr-CoBBETT. Cases and Opinions on International Law. 15s. net.
The leading cases, with comments.
VINOGRADOFF. Common Sense in Law. Home University Library. Is General outlook on legal theory.
POLITICAL RELATIONS BETWEEN ADVANCED AND BACKWARD PEOPLES
1. THE NECESSITY FOR EMPIRE
THE problem of the relations which should exist between advanced and backward peoples has always been one of the gravest that has presented itself to mankind. It figures continuously in the history of the Jews. It is the subject of the greatest epoch of Greek history— the struggle for liberty of Greek civilisation against the Persian tyrant. It was the constant preoccupation of Rome both in the days of the Republic and of the Empire. It engaged for cen- turies the attention of Christendom in the form of the Crusades against the Turk. And, since the opening of the seas made possible constant contact between East and West, it has proved one of the most prolific of all sources of discord between the Great Powers of the world.
The problem cannot be escaped by ignoring it. There are peoples who by reason of their character, their truthfulness and integrity, their political institutions, their sense of public responsibility, their resourcefulness and capacity progressively to improve the conditions under which they live, regard themselves as the leaders of mankind. These are, broadly speaking, the peoples of European origin. There
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are others who, because of their idolatry of wood or stone, the weakness of their sense of responsibility, their treatment of women, their apathy and their fatalist acquiescence in things as they are, are regarded by the civilised peoples as backward. These are, broadly speaking, the peoples of non-European origin. The civilised peoples are not all of one grade, nor are the backward all of another. Mankind is divided into a graduated scale varying infinitely from the zenith of civilisation to the nadir of barbarism. But, while it is difficult to establish any exact standard by which the comparative civilisation of peoples can be judged, the fact that there is a difference between them, and that this difference is one of quality and not merely of kind, is one of the most fundamental facts in human history. To refuse to recognise that the savages of Africa are immeasurably behind the Americans, or that the masses of India or Egypt, whatever the attainments of individual Indians or Egyptians, are definitely less advanced than the peoples of Europe to-day, is wilfully to close the eyes to truth and fact.
It is a problem, too, which time has made doubly insistent. Steamship, railway, and telegraph have reduced the world to manageable size. Travellers no longer set forth into the unknown, to return years afterwards with fabulous tales. Economic progress has linked all sections of humanity into unity. The habits and attainments of the backward races have been minutely studied and made familiar through books and the press. And the backward people themselves have been given access, through the immensely cheapened processes for distributing knowledge and literature, to the records and discoveries of Europe. The difficulty, indeed, of the relations between the advanced and the backward sections of mankind has tended to become greater rather than less in recent years. This is seen in the controversy
v ADVANCED AND BACKWARD PEOPLES 143
about Asiatic immigration into America, Canada, Australia, and South Africa. And it is seen in the growing demand for full self-government among the peoples who are still under the tutelage of some more civilised power.
There is, indeed, no political question about which it is more important, or more difficult to have clear ideas, for it is likely to be the crux of all the great international con- troversies of the future. And there are no people for whom it is more important to have such ideas than the inhabitants of the self-governing portions of the British Empire, because not only by their position and their sea-power have they a special interest in international affairs, but they themselves are responsible for the welfare of a State comprising one- quarter of the earth, and more than 350,000,000 peoples who are included among the backward races. The purpose of this chapter is not to consider the problem in detail, but only to serve as an introduction to its study. Its object is to attempt to make clear certain first principles, rather than to discover the solution of the manifold issues in which it presents itself to us in practical shape from day to day.
(a) The Results of Commercial Intercourse
The first, indeed the fundamental principle to realise is that the question is not a national but a human question, and that the true solution must be one which benefits humanity and not any single State or people. No sound judgment is possible until we look at the human race as one great family, and consider what ought to be the relations which should exist between the advanced and the back- ward members of that family. Just in so far as there are differences in the level of civilisation, the're is imposed upon the more civilised peoples the duty of helping their back-
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ward neighbours to rise to their own level. Civilisation, in its essence, is not so much a matter of mechanical achieve- ment as of character. It appears in the degree in which individuals are united by mutual trust and mutual service, and by the common determination to order the conditions of their social life ever more and more in accordance with truth and justice. Not the least decisive mark of a superior civilisation is the readiness of its members to sacrifice them- selves in order that their less fortunate fellows may learn how to share in their blessings. It was this conception which underlay the earliest relations between Christendom and the pagan world. The missionary apostolate, carrying a message of hope, sympathy, and encouragement, was the first as it is still the noblest ideal of the relations which should subsist between the advanced and the backward peoples. This conception still persists, and the missionary, educa- tional, and medical work now being carried on all over the non-European world, where it is prompted by the selfless desire to uplift and help, is probably, despite all its failures, the most permanent and most fruitful of all the methods of promoting mutual understanding and good relations among the chief families of men.
But unfortunately the relations between the advanced and backward peoples have not been confined to the selfless ministrations of the enlightened few. From the remotest antiquity there have always been some commercial relations between Europe and India and the Far East, and since the opening of the seas during the Renaissance, and the con- sequent discovery of America, southern Africa, and the sea- route to the East, intercommunication between Europe and the rest of the world for purposes of trade has rapidly and steadily increased. The individuals who engaged in trade entered upon it with no idea of helping the backward races,
v ADVANCED AND BACKWARD PEOPLES 145
but with the perfectly legitimate object of making profit out of the normal and mutually beneficial process of com- mercial exchange. No one realised that the methods suited to a civilised society might not be equally applicable else- where. And in fact deplorable results have invariably followed the appearance of the civilised trader among back- ward peoples.
(b) Results amo-ng Savages
Two modern instances of the effect of commercial contact between civilised and backward peoples may be given in order to illustrate the process which has always operated in the past, and which has produced the great modern empires. In the first case, the evils are due to the deliberate action of the traders themselves. Long absence from the restraints of their own civilisation, enervating climates, and contact with inferior civilisations, offering countless oppor- tunities for gain to the unscrupulous, produces in many cases a demoralising effect on those who are long engaged in the business. Having no defined responsibility for the welfare of the people with whom they are brought into contact, many of them succumb to the temptation to take full advantage of their own superior energy and knowledge, and of the weakness and vices of the backward peoples, to exploit them for their own profit. The following extract from the life of Dr. John Paton was written in 1892, and represents his own experiences of the New Hebrides : —
We found the Tannese to be painted Savages, enveloped in all the superstition and wickedness of Heathenism. All the men an 1 children go in a state of nudity. The older women wear grass skirts, and the young women and girls, grass or leaf aprons like Eve in Eden. They are exceedingly ignorant, vicious, and bigoted, and almost devoid of natural affection. Instead of the
L
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inhabitants of Port Resolution being improved by coming in contact with white men, they are rendered much worse ; for they have learned all their vices, but none of their virtues — if such are possessed by the pioneer traders among such races ! The Sandalwood Traders are as a class the most godless of men, whose cruelty and wickedness make us ashamed to own them as our countrymen. By them the poor, defenceless Natives are oppressed and robbed on every hand ; and if they offer the slightest resistance, they are ruthlessly silenced by the musket or revolver. Few months here pass without some of them being so shot, and, instead of their murderers feeling ashamed, they boast of how they despatch them. Such treatment keeps the Natives always burning under a desire for revenge, so that it is a wonder any white man is allowed to come among them. Indeed, all Traders here are able to maintain their position only by revolvers and rifles ; but we hope a better state of affairs is at hand for Tanna. . . .
Thousands upon thousands of money were made in the sandal- wood trade yearly, so long as it lasted ; but it was a trade steeped in human blood and indescribable vice, nor could God's blessing rest on the Traders and their ill-gotten gains. . . . Sandalwood Traders murdered many of the Islanders when robbing them of their wood, and the Islanders murdered many of them and their servants in revenge. White men, engaged in the trade, also shot dead and murdered each other in vicious and drunken quarrels, and not a few put an end to their own lives. I have scarcely known one of them who did not come to ruin and poverty ; the money that came even to the shipowners was a conspicuous curse. . . .
One morning three or four vessels entered our Harbour and cast anchor in Port Resolution. The Captains called on me ; and one of them, with manifest delight, exclaimed, " We know how to bring down your proud Tannese now ! We'll humble them before you ! "
I answered, " Surely you don't mean to attack and destroy these poor people ? "
He replied, not abashed but rejoicing, " We have sent the measles to humble them ! That kills them by the score ! Four young men have been landed at different ports, ill with measles, and these will soon thin their ranks."
Shocked above measure, I protested solemnly and denounced
v ADVANCED AND BACKWARD PEOPLES 147
their conduct and spirit ; but my remonstrances only called forth the shameless declaration, " Our watchword is, Sweep these creatures away and let white men occupy the soil ! "
Their malice was further illustrated thus : They induced Kapuka, a young Chief, to go off to one of their vessels, promising him a present. He was the friend and chief supporter of Mr. Mathieson and of his work. Having got him on board, they confined him in the hold amongst Natives lying ill with measles. They gave him no food for about four-and-twenty hours ; and then, without the promised present, they put him ashore far from his own home. Though weak and excited, he scrambled back to his Tribe in great exhaustion and terror. He informed the Missionary that they had put him down amongst sick people, red and hot with fever, and that he feared their sickness was upon him. I am ashamed to say that these Sandalwood and other Traders were our own degraded countrymen ; and that they deliberately gloried in thus destroying the poor Heathen. A more fiendish spirit could scarcely be imagined ; but most of them were horrible drunkards, and their traffic of every kind amongst these Islands was, generally speaking, steeped in human blood.
The measles, thus introduced, became amongst our Islanders the most deadly plague. It spread fearfully, and was accom- panied by sore throat and diarrhoea. In some villages, man, woman, and child were stricken, and none could give food or water to the rest. The misery, suffering, and terror were un- exampled, the living being afraid sometimes even to bury the dead. . . .
The sale of Intoxicants, Opium, Firearms and Ammunition, by the Traders amongst the New Hebrideans, has become a terrible and intolerable evil. The lives of many Natives, and of not a few Europeans, were every year sacrificed in connection therewith, while the general demoralization produced on all around was painfully notorious. Alike in the Colonial and in the Home Newspapers, we exposed and condemned the fearful consequences of allowing such degrading and destructive agencies to be used as barter in dealing with these Islanders. It is in- finitely sad to see the European and American Trader following fast in the wake of the Missionary with opium and rum ! But, blessed be God, our Christian Natives have thus far, with very few exceptions, been able to keep away from the White Man's
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Fire-Water, that maddens and destroys. And not less cruel is it to scatter firearms and ammunition amongst Savages, who are at the same time to be primed with poisonous rum ! This were surely Demons' work.
To her honour, be it said, that Great Britain prohibited all her own Traders, under heavy penalties, from bartering those dangerous and destructive articles in trade with the Natives. She also appealed to the other trading Nations, in Europe and America, to combine and make the prohibition " International " with regard to all the still unannexed Islands in the Pacific Seas. At first America hesitated, owing to some notion that it was in- consistent with certain regulations for trading embraced in the Constitution of the United States. Then France temporising, professed willingness to accept the prohibition when America agreed. Thus the British Trader, with the Man-of-War and the High Commissioner ready to enforce the laws against him, found himself placed at an overwhelming disadvantage, as against the neighbouring Traders of every other Nationality, free to barter as they pleased. More especially so when the things prohibited were the very articles which the masses of the Heathen chiefly coveted in exchange for their produce ; and where keen rivals in business were ever watchful to inform and to report against him. If illicit Trading prevailed, under such conditions, no one that knows average Human Nature can feel any surprise.1
That this history is no extravagant exception when civilised adventurers come into unrestricted contact with primitive barbarism, is proved by the many similar cases which have lately come to light, notably the Congo, the Putumayo and the Mexican atrocities, and these are only the instances which by their conspicuous savagery have attracted the attention of the world in quite recent years. The occasions on which the civilised trader has found it im- possible to resist the temptation to secure the assistance of a chief to drive his subjects to labour by bribery or presents of guns or liquor, thereby converting him into a tyrant, or an incompetent sot, or to attract labour itself by offering 1 Life of John Paion, Missionary to the New Hebrides.
v ADVANCED AND BACKWARD PEOPLES 149
facilities for the purchase of drink or firearms, must be legion. In fact, the history of the last two centuries is studded with incidents of this kind, especially in Africa, largely connected with the Slave Trade.
When this state of affairs is discovered, what is to happen ? What is the obligation on those who by reason of their own claim to superior civilisation have the responsi- bility for saving the weak from the ravages of the strong ? There is only one course open to them. They must supplement voluntary missionary labour by the more difficult work of assuming responsibility for the govern- ment of the backward people. They must undertake this duty, not from any pride of dominion, or because they wish to exploit their resources, but in order to protect them alike from oppression and corruption, by strict laws and strict administration, which shall bind the foreigner as well as the native, and then they must gradually develop, by education and example, the capacity in the natives to manage their own affairs. Every alternative expedient breaks down in practice. To stand aside and do nothing under the plea that every people must be left free to manage its own affairs, and that intervention is wicked, is to repeat the tragic mistake of the Manchester school in the economic world which protested against any interference by the State to protect workmen, women, and children from the oppres- sion and rapacity of employers, on the ground that it was an unwarranted interference with the liberty of the subject and the freedom of trade and competition. To prevent adventurers from entering the territory is impossible, unless there is some civilised authority within it to stop them through its police. To shut off a backward people from all contact with the outside world by a kind of blockade is not only impracticable, but is artificially to deny them the
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chances of education and progress. The establishment of a genuine government by a people strong and liberal enough to ensure freedom under the law and justice for all is the only solution.
But it is not only in cases of deliberate cruelty or exploitation that this step is necessary. It becomes in- evitable wherever there is a sufficiently wide margin between the civilisation of the advanced trader and the backward native. Take another case. A certain company establishes a factory in the centre of a large native district with the object of obtaining palm oil as a raw material necessary to the manufactures of the world. To facilitate this perfectly legitimate and proper enterprise, and to economise labour, the company sets to work to build light railways. This is apparently a far better system than porterage. It saves time and labour, and greatly extends the area which can serve the factory. Yet it has a disastrous effect on the whole native people. They have been accustomed only to the ordinary village life, with an extremely rigid, if to our minds not very elevated code of morals, suited to their primitive needs. The sanctity of these customs depends largely on the fact that they travel little and seldom escape the influence of their own village traditions. Directly they are organised for labour and moved about the country in bands, these restraints go, temptation increases, and wages enable them to satisfy their desires. General de- moralisation is the result, followed by a great increase of prostitution, and the appearance of syphilis and other diseases. The end of what in itself appears to be an admir- able enterprise, profitable to all concerned, is the corruption of a native society, backward, it is true, but previously reasonably contented, healthy, and prosperous. The evil is not confined to the natives. The civilised trader is also often
v ADVANCED AND BACKWARD PEOPLES 151
demoralised by contact with primitive races and unlimited opportunities for exploiting peoples who cannot protect themselves. He has every right to trade, for the world could not get on without raw materials from tropical parts. His intentions may be perfectly straightforward and honourable. But none the less his presence among an uncivilised, back- ward people almost invariably sets up processes which are harmful to both.
In this kind of case also the only course is that a civilised government should step in and make itself responsible for government within the territory, so that it may regulate commercial and other development in the best interests of the people themselves, protect them from self-destruction by the free traffic in drink or firearms, and assist them to study the learning and the virtues, and not the vices and weaknesses, of the civilised world.
Contact between differing levels of civilisation, however, sometimes operates in a different way. A backward people, inspired by their own fanaticism and barbarism, or perhaps by reason of a blind but not unnatural resentment at the disturbing effect of foreign intrusion, destroy the lives and property of harmless foreigners. Missionaries and their families are murdered, legitimate trade is stopped, order and security disappear. No civilised people can stand by and see its own fellow-citizens, many of them engaged not only in peaceful avocations, but often on missionary and educational work, insulted or harmed, and take no notice. In some cases warnings prove to be sufficient. In others they are unheeded, and murder and destruction proceed. Then there is only one course to pursue, to put a stop to these conditions by intervention, which may or may not lead to the assumption of a permanent responsibility for maintaining law and order, and security for property and
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person. Moreover, it often happens that the chief sufferers by native anarchy are not foreigners, but the subjects of a dominant tribe or race. Conditions may arise of such a nature that the civilised world cannot in self-respect stand aside to look on. The depredations of the Mahdi and the Khalifa, and the atrocities perpetrated by them in the Sudan, and the Armenian and Macedonian massacres, are the most conspicuous recent examples of the moral necessity which civilised states are under to intervene by force or threats, to put an end to intolerable oppression and misrule.
(c) Results among more Civilised Peoples
It is these causes, natural to the world in its present state of development, which have brought about the creation of the modern empires and especially the British Empire. They operate not only in the case of the barbarous peoples, but also in the case of those peoples who are not uncivilised, yet who, for one reason or another, have been unable to maintain a civilised government for themselves, once close contact has been established with the modern world. The most conspicuous instance of this is India. India has a civilisation far older than that of Europe. In the far past she produced some of the greatest thinkers, and the finest literature. Her buildings, her pictures, and her handicrafts rank among the great achievements of man. Her leading men are able to move in Western circles on terms of absolute equality. Yet contact with the West, while it left her religious and her social customs unchanged, reduced her political organisation to such chaos that foreign control was the only chance for order and progress.
British rule in India was neither, as Seeley said, an acci-
v ADVANCED AND BACKWAED PEOPLES 153
dent, nor was it accomplished in a fit of absence of mind, nor was it the outcome of a deliberately imperial design. It came about by the logic of facts. There had been missionary contact between India and Europe in very early days. There had always been a considerable volume of trade in luxuries carried laboriously on the backs of camels and ponies over the deserts and mountains of the middle East, or in coasting vessels up the Persian Gulf or the Ked Sea. But the opening of the seas and the discovery of the sea route to India round the Cape of Good Hope in the last years of the fifteenth century led to regular and direct intercommunication between the two continents. Portugal was the pioneer, and trading companies for the purpose were first organised by the British and the Dutch about the year 1600. For a hundred and fifty years from that date, while European traders, notably the British, the French, the Dutch, and the Portuguese, struggled vigorously among themselves for commercial supremacy in the East, their intercourse with India itself was confined to trading with Indian merchants at certain defined " factories " on the coast, granted to them by the Mogul Emperors. With the death of Aurangzeb, the last of the Great Delhi Emperors, the Mogul Empire began to fall into ruins. And by the middle of the eighteenth century the internal condition of India was approaching anarchy. It is described by Sir Alfred Lyall in the following words :
At this point, therefore, it will be useful to sketch in loose out- line the condition, in the middle of the last century, of that vast tract of open plain country, watered by the Jumna, the Ganges, and their affluents, which stretches from Bengal north-westward to the Himalayas, and which is now divided into the three British provinces of Oudh, the North-West Provinces, and the Punjab. Throughout this vast region the flood of anarchy that had been rising since Aurangzeb's death was now at its height ; and as
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the struggle over the ruins of the fallen empire was sharpest at the capital and the centres of power, the districts round Delhi and Agra, Lucknow and Benares, were perhaps more persistently fought over than any other parts of India. Two centuries of systematic despotism had long ago levelled and pulverized the independent chiefships or tribal federations in these flat and fertile plains, traversed by the highways open to every successive invader. So when the empire toppled over under the storms of the eighteenth century, there were no local breakwaters to check the inrush of confusion. The Marathas swarmed up, like locusts, from the south, and the Afghans came pouring down from the north through the mountain passes. Within fifty years after the death of Aurangzeb, who was at least feared throughout the length and breadth of India, the Moghul emperor had become the shadow of a great name, a mere instrument and figure-head in the hand of treacherous ministers or ambitious usurpers. All the imperial deputies and vicegerents were carving out for them- selves independencies, and striving to enlarge their borders at each other's expense.
We have seen that the Nizam, originally Viceroy of the Southern Provinces, had long ago made himself de facto sovereign of a great domain. In the north-west the Vizier of the empire was strengthening himself east of the Ganges, and had already founded the kingdom of Oudh, which underwent many changes of frontier, but lasted a century. Rohilcund had been appro- priated by some daring adventurers known as Rohillas (or mountain men) from the Afghan hills ; a sagacious and fortunate leader of the Hindu Jats was creating the State of Bhurtpore across the Jumna river ; Agra was held by one high officer of the ruined empire ; Delhi, with the emperor's person, had been seized by another ; the governors sent from the capital to the Punjab had to fight for possession with the deputies of the Afghan ruler from Kabul, and against the fanatic insurrection of the Sikhs. These were, speaking roughly, the prominent and stronger com- petitors in the great scramble for power and lands ; but scarcely one of them (except the Sikhs) represented any solid organization, political principle, or title. Most of the rulerships depended on the personality of some chief or leader, who was raised more by the magnitude of his stakes than by the style of his play above the common crowd of plunderers and captains of soldiery. Any one who had money or credit might buy at the imperial treasury
v ADVANCED AND BACKWARD PEOPLES 155
a Firman authorizing him to collect the revenue of some refrac- tory district. If he overcame the resistance of the landholders, the district usually became his domain, and as his strength in- creased he might expand into a territorial magnate ; if the peasants rallied under some able headman and drove him off their own leader often became a mighty man of his tribe, and founded a petty chiefship of a ruling family. The traces of this chance medley and fluctuating struggle for the possession of the soil or of the rents were visible long afterwards in the complicated varieties of tenure, title, and proprietary usage that made the recording of landed rights and interests so perplexing a business for English officials in this part of India.
The English reader may now form some notion of the dis- tracted condition of upper India when the Marathas invaded it in 1758, with a numerous army intended to carry out definite plans of conquest. The Moghul empire was like a wreck among the breakers ; the emperor Alamgir, who had long been a State prisoner, had been murdered ; and the strife over the spoils had assumed the character of a widespreading free fight, open to all comers. But as any such contest, if it lasts, will usually merge into a battle between distinct factions under recognized leaders, so the rapidly increasing power of the Marathas, who came swarming up from the south-west, and the repeated invasions from the north-west of Ahmed Shah the Abdallee with his Afghan bands, drew together to one or the other of these two camps all the self-made princes and marauding adventurers who were parcelling out the country among themselves.1
In a country distracted like this, it was inevitable that the European traders should interfere. Their trade, carried on for a hundred and fifty years in comparative security, began to suffer, both from the inevitable interrup- tions due to internal disorder, and from the direct attack of marauders. In consequence they began to enlist troops to protect their trading stations. At this moment, too, war broke out in Europe between England and France, and fighting soon extended to India. The French, under
1 Sir Alfred Lyall, British Dominion in India, pp. 148-160.
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Dupleix, enlisted the assistance of native rulers in the struggle by promising them help against their own rivals. The rivals appealed to the British, who struck up a bargain on the same lines. Thus to the native anarchy and disorder was added the evil of war between two sets of foreigners.
In the struggle the English were victorious, mainly by reason of their superior sea-power in Europe, and at the end of the war they alone among foreigners had any power or influence in India. The situation in India with which they had to deal at the peace was very different from that which existed when the war broke out. Not only was the internal disorder of India far worse, but they found themselves practically saddled with the responsibility for the govern- ment of Bengal. During the struggle with the French the English in the trading factory of Calcutta had begun to fortify themselves against a possible French attack. This greatly incensed the young Nawab of Bengal, " a young man whose savage and suspicious temper was controlled by no experience or natural capacity for rulership," who marched against them. " The English defended themselves for a time ; but the town was open, the governor and many of the English fled in ships down the river ; and the rest surrendered on promise of honourable treatment. Yet those whom the Nawab captured with the fort were thrown into a kind of prison-room called the Black Hole, from which, after one night's dreadful suffering, only twenty- three out of one hundred and forty-six emerged alive." 1
The horror of the Black Hole of Calcutta was speedily avenged by Clive, who won a conclusive victory at the battle of Plassey. The Nawab fled, and was replaced upon the throne by Mir Jafir. But the matter could not end there. Mir Jafir in fact depended for his position on the
1 Sir Alfred Lyall, British Dominion in India, p. 129.
v ADVANCED AND BACKWARD PEOPLES 157
Company who had placed him on the throne, and this meant that the Company itself was the real authority in Bengal. Such an arrangement could not last. The combined effect of a weak and incompetent native ruler, and an irresponsible foreign trading company possessed of the only effective military force in the country, speedily reduced Bengal to hopeless suffering and chaos. The situation is well de- scribed by Sir Alfred Lyall.
For the English, after their victory at Plassey, the most urgent and important matter was the restoration of some regular ad- ministration. They had invested Meer Jafir with the Nawabship under a treaty which bound him to make to them heavy money payments in compensation for their losses by the seizure of Calcutta and other factories, and for their war expenditure ; agreeing in return to supply troops at the Nawab's cost whenever he should require them. The result was to drain the native ruler's treasury and at the same time to reduce him, for the means of enforcing his authority and maintaining his throne, to a con- dition of dependence upon the irresponsible foreigners who com- manded an army stationed within his province.
The difficulty of this consolidation was greatly enhanced by the perplexity and indecision of the English as to their actual situation in the country. Although they were conquerors de facto, they neither could nor would assume the attitude of rulers de jure, they were merely the representatives of a commercial company with no warrant from their nation to annex territory, and obliged to pretend deference toward a native ruler who was really subservient to themselves. Nothing more surely leads to misrule than the degradation of a civil government to subserve the will of some arbitrary force or faction within the State ; and in Bengal the evils of precarious and divided authority were greatly heightened by special aggravations. . . . This is the only period of Anglo-Indian history which throws grave and un- pardonable discredit on the English name. During the six years from 1760 to 1765, Olive's absence from the country left the Company's affairs in the hands of incapable and inexperienced chiefs, just at the moment when vigorous and statesmanlike management was urgently needed. That Clive himself foresaw
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clearly that the system would not answer and would not last, is shown by his letter (1759) to Pitt, in which he suggested to the Prime Minister the acquisition of Bengal in full sovereignty by the English nation, promising him a net revenue of two millions sterling. In the meantime he had done what he could to revive internal order, and had forced the Delhi prince to evacuate the province. The Dutch in Bengal, who naturally watched our proceedings with the utmost jealousy and alarm, were secretly corresponding with the Nawab and had brought over from Batavia a large body of troops. When their armed ships were prohibited by the English from ascending the river they began hostilities, and were totally defeated by Colonel Forde in an action described by Olive's report as " short, bloody, and deci- sive." But after Olive's departure for England in 1760 the invasions from outside were renewed ; and within Bengal the whole administration was paralyzed by acrimonious disputes between the Company's agents and the Nawab, who fought against his effacement, and was secretly corresponding with the Dutch. Being intent, as was natural, on asserting his own in dependent authority, he manoeuvred to thwart and embarrass the Company, intrigued with the rivals, and did his best to dis concert their joint operations against the Marathas who were laying his country waste, since a defeat might at least help to shake off the English.
It followed that as neither party could govern tolerably, both soon became equally unpopular, and that during these years the country was in fact without an authoritative ruler. For while the English traders garrisoned the country with a large body of well-paid and well-disciplined troops, the whole duty of filling the military chest and carrying on an executive government fell upon the Nawab, who was distracted between dread of assassina- tion by his own officers and fear of dethronement by the Company. As the English traders had come to Bengal avowedly with the sole purpose of making money, many of them set sail for Europe as soon as they had made enough. In the meantime, finding themselves entirely without restraint or responsibility, uncon- trolled either by public opinion or legal liabilities (for there was no law in the land), they naturally behaved as in such circum- stances, with such temptations, men would behave in any age or country. Some of them lost all sense of honour, justice, and integrity ; they plundered as Moghuls or Marathas had done
v ADVANCED AND BACKWAED PEOPLES 159
before them, though in a more systematic and business-like fashion ; the eager pursuit of wealth and its easy acquisition had blunted their consciences and produced general insubordination. As Clive wrote later to the Company, describing the state of affairs that he found on his return in 1765, " In a country where money is plenty, where fear is the principle of government, and where your arms are ever victorious, it was no wonder that the lust of riches should readily embrace the proffered means of gratification," or that corruption and extortion should prevail among men who were the uncontrolled depositaries of irresistible force. This universal demoralization necessarily affected the revenues, and exasperated the disputes between the Company and Meer Jafir by increasing the financial embarrassments of both parties. For the Nawab showed very little zeal in providing money for the troops upon whom rested the Company's whole power of overruling him, and arrears were accumulating danger- ously. . . . All this violent friction soon culminated in an explosion brought about by an awkward attempt on the part of Mr. Ellis, chief of the Patna factory, to seize Patna city, with the object of forestalling an attack by the Nawab on his factory. Although Ellis took the place he could not hold it, and his whole party were captured in their retreat ; but the Company's troops marched against and defeated the Nawab, who in his furious desperation caused his English prisoners to be massacred, and then fled across the frontier to the camp of the Vizier of Oudh. The Company, somewhat sobered by these tragic consequences of misrule, relinquished the more scandalous monopolies and restored Meer Jafir in 1763. When he died in 1765 the ruinous system of puppet Nawabs came practically to an end ; for in that year Lord Clive, who had returned to India, assumed, under a grant from the Delhi emperor, direct administration of the revenue of the three provinces of Bengal, Behar, and Orissa, an office that was entitled the Diwani. The Diwan had been origin- ally the Controller-General on behalf of the imperial treasury in each province, with supreme authority over all public expendi- ture ; so that the investiture of the Company with this office added the power of the purse to the power of the sword, and rendered them directly and regularly responsible for the most important departments of government.1
1 Sir Alfred Lyall, British Dominion in India, pp. 141-147.
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In this matter we shall gain little by attempting to assess credit or blame. It is really beside the point to do so. For while individual traders and the policy of the French and the English added enormously to the chaos, and caused much loss and suffering, the fundamental cause of the trouble was the collapse of the Mogul Empire, with which they had nothing to do. The Delhi Emperors had been able to control sufficiently both their own subjects and foreign traders, and so long as their authority survived no serious trouble arose. Directly it disappeared anarchy and dis- order set in, and it was inevitable that the foreigner, whether he wanted to or not, should make the confusion worse, and the restoration of good government more difficult. The only hope for India was that the Mogul Empire should be effectively restored, or else that some other Power should establish itself as supreme and restore peace, law, and order to the distracted country. There never was the slightest sign of the Delhi Emperors being able to reassert themselves. No other native Power appeared which manifested any con- structive governing ability. It therefore eventually became evident that if India was to be given peace and a chance for happiness and progress, if its peoples were to be protected alike from the foreigner and their own oppressors, and if commercial interchange with the West was not to languish from internal disorder, that the duty must be undertaken by the English who were left supreme in the East by the defeat of the French.
This conclusion was arrived at slowly and with extreme reluctance. The experience of the terrible years immediately following the battle of Plassey brought home first to Clive and later to Warren Hastings that the only hope for Bengal was the establishment of a strong Government which could control the lawless and predatory elements among the in-
v ADVANCED AND BACKWARD PEOPLES 161
habitants themselves, and also the foreign traders. Search as they would there was no native ruler who could do it. The system of bolstering up puppet rulers had proved a disastrous failure. The only thing left was for the com- pany to assume responsibility for government itself. But that process once begun could not be stopped. " The prime object of those who at this critical epoch directed the affairs of the English in India, was to place a limit upon the expansion of the Company's possessions, to put a sharp curb upon schemes of conquest, and to avoid any connection with the native princes that might involve us in foreign war." * Clive himself wrote that it was " the resolute inten- tion to bind our possessions absolutely to Bengal." But this proved impossible. What had originally been true of Bengal proved equally true of the territory bordering on Bengal. The Mahrattas and other princes were continu- ously at war. Napoleon set on foot intrigues against the English, and his expedition to Egypt was undertaken largely with the view of reaching India. Disorder beyond the British frontier continually threatened to spread across it.
The acts and results of Lord Cornwallis' administration show how difficult it had become for the English to stand still, or to look on indifferently at the conflicts that broke out all round them in India. . . ." No Governor- General ever set out for India under more earnest injunctions to be moderate, and above all things pacific, than Lord Cornwallis ; and these general orders were ratified by a specific Act of Parliament, framed with the express purpose of restraining warlike ardour or projects for the extension of dominion. Pitt's Act of 1784 was emphatic in this sense ; and in 1793 another Act declared that —
" Forasmuch as to pursue schemes of conquest and extension of dominion in India are measures repugnant to the wish, the honour, and the policy of this nation, it shall not be lawful for the Governor-General in Council to declare war, or to enter into
1 Sir Alfred Lyall, British Dominion in India, pp. 158, 159.
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any treaty for making war, or for guaranteeing the possessions of any country princes or states (except where hostilities against the British nation in India have been actually commenced or pre- pared), without express command and authority from the home government."
Yet Lord CornwaUis, whose moderation and judgment have never been doubted, found himself obliged to prepare for hostili- ties almost immediately after his arrival at Calcutta ; and he soon discovered that the restraining statutes operated to promote the very evils they were intended to prevent. Under their restrictions the English Governor- General was obliged to look on with tied hands at violent aggressions and dangerous com- binations among the native States, and was held back from interposing until matters had reached a pitch at which the security of his own territory was actually and unmistakably threatened. The Mysore war, and a considerable extension of dominion, followed in spite of all injunctions and honest efforts to the contrary. Yet such was the confidence in the good inten- tions of Cornwallis that when he left India in 1793 there was a general impression in England that he had merely taken the necessary steps for inaugurating a pacific and stationary policy. Whereas in fact we were on the threshold of an era of wide- ranging hostilities and immense annexations.
Nothing indeed is more remarkable, as illustrating the per- sistence of the natural forces that propelled the onward move- ment of our dominion, than the fact that the immediate conse- quence of bringing India under direct Parliamentary control was to stimulate, not to slacken, the expansion of our territories. Mr. Spencer Walpole has declared in his History of England that every prominent statesman of the time disliked and forbade further additions to the Company's territories ; and we have seen that frequent laws were passed to check the unfortunate propensity for fighting that was supposed to have marred the administration of the Company. Nevertheless it is historically certain that a period of unprecedented war and conquest began when the Crown superseded the Company in the supreme direction of Indian affairs. The beginning of our Indian wars on a large scale dates from 1789 ; and the period between 1786 and 1805, during which British India was ruled (with a brief interval) by the first two Parliamentary Governor-Generals, Cornwallis and Wellesley — by Governor- Generals, that is, who were appointed
v ADVANCED AND BACKWARD PEOPLES 163
by Ministers responsible to Parliament, and for party reasons — that period comprises some of our longest wars and largest acqui- sitions by conquest or cession. It stands on record that the greatest development of our dominion (up to the time of Lord Dalhousie) coincides precisely with these two Governor-General- ships. The foundations of our Indian empire were marked out in haphazard piecework fashion by merchants, the corner-stone was laid in Bengal by Clive, and the earlier stages were consoli- dated by Hastings ; but the lofty superstructure has been entirely raised by a distinguished line of Parliamentary proconsuls and generals. For the last hundred years every important annexa- tion in India has been made under the sanction and the deliberate orders of the national government of England.1
The truth is that the government of backward races by advanced races is, as Sir Alfred Lyall says, the result of " natural laws." Where there is a sufficient difference between the political development of one people and another and they come into close commercial contact with one another, it is inevitable that sooner or later the more civil- ised people should be forced partly in its own interests, partly in the interests of the backward people, partly in the interests of the outside world, to assume the task of main- taining good government in the territory concerned. The government of one people by another may be wrongly undertaken through a passion for aggression or domination. It may be unduly delayed for sentimental or theoretic reasons, just as the intervention of the State to set right the analogous evil effects of the industrial revolution was unduly delayed. But the general rule holds good that where there is a sufficient difference between the levels of civilisation of two peoples, the more civilised power will be driven in the interests of justice and humanity to step in and regulate, at any rate for a time, the effects of contact between the two. Thus it was the extravagance of the 1 Sir Alfred Lyall, British Dominion in India, pp. 230-232.
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Khedive Ismail, which induced him first to pawn his country to foreign bondholders, and then to subject his people to intolerable and unproductive oppression in order to meet the claims of his creditors, which led to the sequence of events which finally brought Egypt under British rule, despite all efforts, of Mr. Gladstone and others, to avoid it. Similar conditions have led to the steady expansion of the French Empire in Africa. No less inexorably have the United States been carried along in the same direction. No people in the world are more dedicated to the belief that every people must govern itself, and more attached to the theory that for one race to govern another is essentially and always immoral. Yet the Americans have themselves appropriated all the territory belonging to the Indians in America. They have occupied large tracts belonging to Mexico. They have annexed the Hawaiian Islands. They have been driven to make themselves responsible for good government in Cuba and for financial stability in certain central American states. They have actually assumed the task of governing the Philippines on lines very similar to those on which the English govern India. And now they are faced with the question of whether it is not their duty to restore the ele- ments of law and order in Mexico.
Great, indeed, as has been the extension of European rule in the last century, the process does not appear even yet to have ceased. One has only to look round the world to realise that there are many states — Mexico, for instance, Persia, China, Turkey, the central American republics — whose continued existence as independent sovereign states is in doubt, because their capacity to maintain a sufficiently stable and civilised Government for themselves is also in doubt. These peoples all exhibit the want of financial and political probity, the administrative incapacity and
v ADVANCED AND BACKWAKD PEOPLES 165
corruption, the failure to lift their policy above purely self- regarding and ephemeral considerations, which are the heralds of decay. No thoughtful person can desire their collapse. All progress lies in the direction of increasing rather than in that of diminishing the number of people who have reached such a point of civilisation and self-control that they are able to maintain law and order, liberty and justice for themselves. Nothing save anarchy and the disappearance of any real prospect of the internal restora- tion of that law and order which are the conditions of liberty and progress, can warrant any other people taking charge. When, however, that point has been reached, and it is clear that in the interests of the whole world intervention should take place, the problem is complicated by the fact that the civilised world includes many Great Powers, and that it is usually a difficult matter to determine which Power should intervene. Joint intervention is almost invariably dis- astrous, because it renders unity and continuity of policy impossible. Yet intervention by one Power may tend to destroy the international balance, and is therefore usually objected to by others. It therefore immediately became a question of foreign politics as well as one of the relations which should subsist between advanced and backward peoples. This subject does not come within the scope of this chapter. But the difficulties it introduces into the relations between advanced and backward peoples may be illustrated by the Anglo-Russian agreement of 1907 about Persia. That country, under the combined effects of internal demoralisation and political and commercial com- petition between British and Russians, was rapidly falling into chaos. It was vital that if these two Powers were not to quarrel, and if there was to be any hope for the integrity of Persia itself, that they should agree upon a common
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policy. The agreement of 1907, which looked like an arrangement to partition, was in fact designed, if possible, to prevent it by putting an end to competition between the two great bordering Powers by determining beforehand their respective spheres of influence in the event of the further disintegration of the Persian State, and by providing for outside assistance to the Persians in restoring law and order and sound finance. The agreement, while fulfilling its main function of preserving the peace and the integrity of Persia has not been very satisfactory in other respects. All such agreements are in their nature unsatisfactory, for they are at best but attempts to secure uniformity of dealing with a backward people by its more civilised neigh- bours. But they are at any rate better than the only alter- native other than annexation or partition, — unrestricted and unregulated competition for influence and concessions.
2. THE GOVERNMENT OF DEPENDENCIES
Intervention, however, to put an end to intolerable sufferings among a backward people, is only one half of the problem which is the subject-matter of this chapter. The second half is no less important, — the relations between an advanced and a backward people, when once the former have taken over the task of government. In this case also the governing principle is clear. The more advanced people having intervened in the interest of civilisation, liberty, and progress, must conduct the govern- ment in order to promote these same ends. And that means that not only must they maintain the elements of law and order, but in so far as they enjoy a higher civilisa- tion than their dependants, they must give them every opportunity of sharing in their own advantages and know-
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ledge. This does not imply that they should impose upon them their own culture or methods. The world will not benefit by being moulded into a single pattern. Eather will it profit by the diversity and individuality of its peoples. It means that they must preserve those elements of law; order, education, and material organisation which are the preliminary to the development of a civilised national in- dividuality, until such time as the backward people have developed the capacity to maintain these conditions for themselves.
Pure theory is as dangerous a guide in politics as it is in other walks of life; and therefore, just as the conclusion that under certain conditions it is the duty of civilised peoples to assume charge of the government of backward peoples was tested by the light of practical experience, so it will be well to examine the problems of the government of de- pendencies, in the light of the experience of the past. For this purpose there is one classic example, the British Empire. The dependent Empire has been in existence for a hundred and fifty years. It now includes 350,000,000 people, of every grade of civilisation. Its problems may therefore be taken as typical, and its methods have stood the test of time.
During the early centuries after the opening of the seas, dependencies were regarded, especially by Spain and Portugal, mainly as possessions to be exploited for the benefit of their owners. Fortunately the seventeenth - century wars left Great Britain, the most advanced and liberal of the States of Europe, supreme by sea, and therefore it fell chiefly to her lot to determine how the dependent people should be treated. As the stories of the condition of India began to filter home the conscience of the people was aroused. It soon became apparent that a commercial
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company was not to be trusted with the government of Indians, once their own government had broken down. At a very early stage therefore by North's regulating Act of 1773, and later by Pitt's East India Act of 1783, the British Government assumed some measure of control over the policy of the East India Company. During the next twelve years attention was largely concentrated by the eloquence of Burke on the question of what should be the attitude of Great Britain to the dependent peoples. By the end of the impeachment of Warren Hastings the essential principles which should guide the government of dependencies were generally understood. It was recog- nised on the one hand that India could not be abandoned to its fate, to be racked once more by internal disorder and foreign intrigue and corruption, and on the other that the Indian dependency must be primarily governed, not in the interest of England, but of its own peoples. The govern- ment of dependencies, in fact, was a trust and not an opportunity for dominion or profit. The idea of Empire had given way to that of the Commonwealth. The im- portance of this decision is well described by Lord Morley in his Life of Burke : —
Looking across the ninety years that divide us from that memorable scene (1788) in Westminster Hall, we may see that Burke had more success than at first appeared. If he did not convict the man, he overthrew a system and stamped its prin- ciples with lasting censure and shame. ... If that situation is better understood now than it was a century ago, and that duty more loftily conceived, the result is due, so far as such results can ever be due, to one man's action, apart from the influence of the deep impersonal elements of time, to the seeds of justice and humanity which were sown by Burke and his associates. . . . That Hastings was acquitted was immaterial. The lesson of his impeachment had been taught with sufficiently impressive force — the great lessons that Asiatics have rights, and that Europeans
v ADVANCED AND BACKWARD PEOPLES 169
have obligations ; that a superior race is bound to observe the highest current morality of the time in all its dealings with the subject race. Burke is entitled to our lasting reverence as the first apostle and great upholder of integrity, mercy, and honour in the relation between his country and their humble dependants.
This passage inadequately recognises, perhaps, the great work which Warren Hastings himself did for India. But it sets forth clearly the ruling idea which has ever since governed the relations between Great Britain and her dependencies. From 1783 onwards, there has been a pro- gressive increase in the control of the Government over the East India Company, and a progressive diminution of its commercial activities. In 1833 the Company was for- bidden to trade, and in 1857, after the Mutiny, it was extinguished altogether, the British Government itself assuming the whole responsibility for the welfare of the Indian peoples. In other spheres the same process has been manifest. At first the function of the British in India was confined to establishing and maintaining peace, order, and justice throughout the length and breadth of the distracted land, so that the individual might reap what he had sown, and the trader, whether foreign or native, might pursue his avocation under proper restraints. Macaulay's famous educational Minute, however, of 1835, inadequately as it appreciated Indian thought and learning, inaugurated a great change, for it marked the assumption by the British Government of the task of educating the Indian peoples in the learning and methods of the West. And since these days the activities of Government have been steadily increased. Famines have been practically overcome. The material basis of civilisation — roads, bridges, railways, postal service, telegraphs — has been laid in all save the most sparsely populated parts.
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Schools and colleges in which Western learning is taught, both in English and the vernaculars, are to be found in every part.
This is not to say that British rule has been invariably disinterested and benevolent. Blindness and self-interest have asserted themselves in the past as they assert them- selves in the present. For instance, if the rapacity and privileges of the individual foreign trader have been sup- pressed, it is at least open to question whether the in- dustrial development of India as a whole has not been sub- ordinated to the economic theories and interests of Great Britain. The record of the relations between the now self- governing dominions and Downing Street point to the fact that it is only too easy for a distant and all-powerful administration, ignorant of local conditions, and naturally over-conscious of its own point of view, to slip into policies which, if well-intentioned and just in essentials, show little regard for the inclinations or susceptibilities of the governed. Only the most constant vigilance and the most scrupulous scrutiny of motives can prevent this evil.
3. THE PROBLEM OF SELF-GOVERNMENT
Of late years a new question has arisen overshadowing in importance all others. The duties of trusteeship are not fulfilled merely by the introduction of law and order, educa- tion and material development. The only real justifica- tion for alien rule is that it should lead to the elevation of the backward people in the scale of civilisation more rapidly and at less cost of needless suffering than any other way. And that elevation is illusory unless it implies the development among them of the capacity to maintain a civilised society for themselves. The purpose of the train-
v ADVANCED AND BACKWARD PEOPLES 171
ing and education of the young is to fit them to conduct themselves as responsible members of society when of age. The purpose of the tutelage of the backward by the advanced races is exactly the same, and it will prove itself a failure unless it eventually leads to that goal. The growing demands in India and Egypt for larger measures of self-government, coiipled as they are with the clear re- cognition of the essential benefits of British rule, manifested at the outbreak of the Great War, are the strongest proof which could be given that the British Commonwealth is achieving its true function and the greatest justification for it. The desire for self-government is essentially healthy. The most hopeless situation of all is a fatalist acquiescence in things as they are. If British rule, however benevolent and well intentioned, did not produce this uneasy striving after better things, it would carry within itself its own condemnation.
None the less it is difficult to determine the answer which ought to be made to these demands. Self-govern- ment, whether in peoples or in individuals, is not a matter of political machinery or book knowledge or technical or artistic accomplishments, so much as of the development of character. Character, indeed, which means the habit of acting in accordance with the precepts of right and j ustice, truth and honour, especially in relation to others, is essential to the working of any system of self-government. Unless people can sufficiently restrain their selfish impulses, their jealousies and fanaticisms, and can recognise that their duty to their neighbour must override every considera- tion of personal profit, or sectional interest, they cannot collectively maintain a civilised government for themselves. Character, however, cannot be created from outside. It is essentially the outcome of the individual himself. But
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experience certainly shows that neither character nor the real welfare of a backward people will be created by the simple and convenient process of introducing the machinery of democracy and leaving a politically back- ward people to work it for themselves. That panacea, so popular a century ago, and still in favour with many, does not fulfil its promises. One might as well leave the conduct of school to the school children. Moreover, in a backward community only a small proportion of the people are sufficiently advanced to have any understanding of politics. Democracy involves a representative system, and that is out of the question when the vast bulk of the population is totally illiterate. In practice it is necessary to feel the way with the utmost caution, remembering always the welfare of the toiling and inarticulate masses at the bottom of the social scale. A nation which has had to assume the responsibility for maintaining good government among a backward people, cannot relinquish that responsibility until the latter have given some clear evidence of their capacity to do so in its place. And that capacity will have to be manifested not so much by ability for debate in legislative assemblies, or by success in passing examina- tions, but by actual success in responsible administration and in the uprooting of habits and customs which are repugnant to the spirit of liberty and justice. Let us take the case of India, because it is by far the most civilised non-self-governing community in the British commonwealth, and because it contains many men at least as civilised as the peoples of the West. One of the chief obstacles to political self-government in India in the near future is the existence of certain habits and practices of the Indians themselves. Democracy has its roots in certain definite qualities. It cannot flourish except where the people are bound together
v ADVANCED AND BACKWARD PEOPLES 173
by a strong sense of unity, and a vigorous spirit of mutual responsibility and service. Such a spirit cannot manifest itself while religious bitterness is as intense as it is between Mohammedan and Hindu to-day, while habits like the segregation of women in the harem are practically uni- versal, and while the barriers of caste continue to separate the people into water-tight groups largely debarred from frank and generous communication with one another. While, therefore, advance towards self-government implies a prac- tical experiment in giving Indians full responsibility in some restricted and manageable sphere of government, it also implies practical success by Indians themselves in dealing with social reform. Progress involves a gradual advance in both spheres. The progress of self-government in India, therefore, lies as much in the hands of the Indians as it does in the hands of the British. The British are committed to the principle of self-government. In proportion as the Indians have the character and the courage to strike at the evils in their own midst, that goal will be gradually and peacefully attained.
It is well to remember that the peoples responsible for the government of dependencies are trustees not for them- selves only, nor for the inhabitants only, but for all man- kind. Their function is to uphold the banner of liberty and civilisation and progress in these backward parts until their inhabitants can do so for themselves. To fail or falter in this work is to betray the trust which is laid upon them. This trust rests on all peoples governing dependencies. But it rests especially upon the British peoples, for the Common- wealth which they control, by reason of its size and the diversity of the 400,000,000 people which compose it, occupies an unique position in the polity of the world. Its fabric is the outcome of no imperial design. It exists,
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because in spite of lapses and mistakes it meets an essential human need. It establishes the relations between countless grades of human society on a basis of law, and, with all its human imperfections, it gives to all good government and internal peace as never before in the history of the world. If it were not there, chaos, tyranny, and war would inevit- ably ensue. It clearly should continue to do this work. But it is well to remember that its problems, instead of growing less are becoming more difficult. Not the least of these problems arises from the fact that a change has come over its governing authority. The control of its affairs is rapidly leaving the hands of a small aristocratic Govern- ment, the inheritors of the traditions of those who built it up, and falling into those of five democracies distributed over the face of the globe. These democracies are scarcely conscious as yet of the trust which rests upon them. But none the less the future not only of these millions but of the world itself depends on how they deal with the problems now arising before them. They cannot escape them, and they will solve them only if they deal with them with the same selfless and inflexible resolution to do what is right by all concerned which has governed the men and women who have given their lives to its service in the past, and which alone will solve the problems now looming up in the future.
4. THE IMMIGRATION PROBLEM
The problem of the relations between advanced and backward peoples is not concerned only with the establish- ment of civilised conditions among the backward people themselves. It presents itself in another form, which is yearly becoming of greater importance. The inevitable effect of the recent multiplication and cheapening of the
v ADVANCED AND BACKWAKD PEOPLES 175
means of communication has been a migration of popula- tion totally without precedent in the earlier history of the world. During the past two centuries the European peoples have overflowed to North and South America, to South Africa and to Australia, and in all these countries they have built up civilisations of varying excellence on European lines. Almost from the beginning these peoples suffered from a shortage of labour. At first they attempted to meet the labour difficulty by importing slaves from Africa, and they continued to do so until the conscience of man revolted and abolished slavery and the slave trade. But this did not stop the flow. Coloured labour was trans- ported under some system of indenture, or migrated of its own free choice, attracted by the high wages prevalent in the new lands.
It was not very long before serious difficulties arose. The immigrant labourer was accustomed to living on a lower scale of living. He was willing to accept far lower wages than the white labourer. He was outside the trade unions. He was usually of the labouring class, that is the most backward of all, and the one least susceptible of being assimilated into a civilisation on European lines. He became, therefore, a grave menace to the white labouring class, which saw their prospects of stable employment filched away by strangers, for no other reason than that they could live at a far lower standard, and could afford to accept a far lower wage. Further, the coolie labourer was accompanied or followed by the trader, and the Asiatic trader not only usually worked longer hours, but was satisfied with smaller profits than the white trader. He therefore tended to get the custom not only of his own fellows, but of the white consumer also. Thus the white trader as well as the white labourer suffered. Again, many
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of the immigrant labourers were endowed with a high degree of natural intelligence and adaptability, and were able quickly to pick up from those with whom he worked a good working knowledge of the skilled trades. They then began to offer their services in the labour market for these purposes at rates higher indeed than those paid to the coolie, but still very far below those usually paid to the white artisan. Thus the white artisan also gradually found himself displaced by the coloured immigrant. Finally, the presence of coloured labour reacted on the attitude of the white man towards labour. He began to feel that manual work was not a white man's job, and ceased to do it. That, however, did not prevent his competitor from following him into the higher fields of employment also. Thus the members of the more civilised races tended to be confined to the re- latively few directing and highly skilled positions in the hierarchy of labour, while those who were unfit for these posts, or could not find employment, sank into an ever- growing class of demoralised and indolent " poor whites," unable to compete for manual labour, regarding it as beneath their dignity, and without any means of subsist- ence at all.
It was inevitable that these evils should produce great discontent, which often manifested itself in bitter hostility to the more backward race. And if the more advanced people suffered from the presence in their midst of a large body of people behind them in the social, economic, and political scale, the backward race suffered no less, as the lynchings, discriminatory laws, and the barriers to social progress amply prove. The fact is that contact between advanced and backward peoples within the civilised world produces evils nearly as great and as difficult to cure, if not so obviously scandalous, as contact within the confines of
v ADVANCED AND BACKWARD PEOPLES 177
the uncivilised world. In the early stages it may lead to violence, penury for the poor white and the all-pervading poison of the social colour line. In the intermediate stages another complication appears in the shape of the half- breed. In the later stages the coloured population, if it obtains a vote, is exploited to corrupt political life, or else organises itself in permanent opposition to the rest of the community. The problem can no more be left unregulated in the one case than the other. In theory it might appear to be the best plan to bridge the gulf as rapidly as possible by encouraging the greatest possible intermixture of the two races and civilisations. But all experience, and the clear verdict of every new country, shows that this solution is, in fact, the worst. From every point of view it is better to maintain as great a geographical separation as possible between the masses of peoples of differing levels of civilisa- tion, while making provision for the free interchange of products, learning, and ideas, through certain denned channels.
But if the enunciation of this principle is easy, its appli- cation is extremely difficult. In practice it means that the immigration of permanent settlers, especially agriculturists, labourers, and artisans, is prohibited, while that of students, travellers, and merchants engaged in wholesale trade, is permitted under sufficient restrictions to prevent evasion of the purpose of the law. But even this leads to endless friction. Up to the present, with one exception, the restriction has been applied only against the backward races, the reason being that the problem scarcely arises in the case of the advanced peoples, because the proletariat of these peoples practically never wishes to settle in any numbers among a backward community, because it cannot compete with them owing to the lower conditions of living.
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Insomuch, therefore, as the legal prohibition only operates in one way, it arouses violent resentment among the civilised members of the backward peoples, for instance the Indian, as being an insult to their race. It arouses resentment also among those peoples who, like the Japanese, are not backward as compared with European peoples, but who are clearly differentiated from them by colour or stature or appearance, and who are excluded because for economic, religious, or political reasons they cannot assimilate them- selves with the normal types of white civilisation and remain for ever a foreign element in the body politic. The Japanese, however, have replied by applying the principle in the case of their own islands, prohibiting the settlement of Europeans except for specified purposes, and this solu- tion has been propounded in the case of India also.
The difficulties, indeed, which arise from unrestricted immigration can only be solved if we look at them from the point of view of the highest good of the world as a whole. It is then clear that the cause of progress is best served by preventing the free settlement of the proletariat of -an advanced or a backward people in a territory already occu- pied and settled by the other. The evils which have arisen where it occurs, or where the territory occupied by the two are contiguous, for instance in the case of Mexico and the United States, the poignant tragedies which follow from intermarriage or intermixture between the races widely different in appearance and civilisation, all go to prove that the policy of allotting separate territories to each, in which no permanent settlement by the other shall be allowed, and in which each race can develop on its own lines, with free access by travel and learning to the civilisations and methods of all the world, is, in the present state of the world, much the best for all concerned. But such a policy
v ADVANCED AND BACKWAED PEOPLES 179
imposes a heavy responsibility on the leading peoples of the world. It is one which can easily be abused if intolerantly or selfishly applied. All races and all peoples have an equal title to development, and a just solution of the difficulties will only be found if the ruling peoples keep this principle clearly in view.
5. CONCLUSION
The foregoing pages have been intended to give the merest sketch of the problems which arise out of the contact between peoples of different levels of civilisation. Their object has been to establish, not as a matter of theory, but as the outcome of actual experience, three general prin- ciples. The first is, that so long as there are peoples seri- ously behind the present level of the most civilised nations, commercial intercourse is bound to lead to evils which can only be ended by a more civilised people assuming charge of the government of the more backward race. The second is, that when this has been done the ruling people ought to govern the dependency as trustees for all man- kind, having as their ultimate aim the raising of the in- habitants to the level at which they can govern them- selves and share in the greater responsibilities of the world. The third is, that the joint settlement of the masses of races of widely differing levels of civilisation or colour in a single area is injurious to all, and that as far as possible they should be kept geographically segregated, while free intercommunication is provided for the superior elements in both, in order that, while retain- ing their individuality, they may gradually reach mutual understanding.
No attempt has been made to deal with the manifold practical issues which arise out of the application of these
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general principles. The full method of segregation, for instance, cannot be applied in the Southern States of America, or in South Africa, where large masses of a back- ward race are already mixed up with a large white popula- tion. Nor, as in the case of the Maories, where no serious evils have resulted from the intermingling of the two races, can the evil effects of immigration be said to be universal. The purpose of the chapter will be served if the structural elements of the problem have been laid bare.
But in conclusion two other points must be emphasised. The difficulty of the relations between backward and advanced peoples is immensely increased by the difference in colour. The fact that one man is white and another is black or brown or yellow, and that each has physical features which mark him off from the others, tends to make people judge all individuals according to the general level of the colour group to which they belong. Nothing could be more fallacious, or more productive of the bitterness and hatred which estrange. Whatever judgment we may form of the general level of these groups, large members of individuals in each of them are entitled to rank among the most civilised of men by their learning, their character, and their capacity for leading their fellows. To deny these men an equal status is unjust, and can work nothing but harm. The future peace and harmony of the world, gravely imperilled already by the bitterness of the colour line, will depend upon the maintenance of mutual confidence and understanding between the leaders of the different groups of mankind. Honesty, integrity, truth- fulness, charity, these are the tests of character and true civilisation, not the pigment of the skin or the moulding of the features. Civilised men must learn to appraise their coloured fellows by these tests and these tests alone.
v ADVANCED AND BACKWARD PEOPLES 181
The second point concerns other nations. The govern- ment of dependencies is a trust. Dependencies therefore cannot properly be treated as the preserve of the ruling Powers. All other nations have an equal title to trade and communicate with them subject to whatever restrictions are necessary to the welfare of the inhabitants. As the world is knit more closely together the principle of the open door will become of increasing importance. The responsible nation must obviously be free to impose what- ever dues on foreign commerce may be necessary to the prosperity of the dependency itself, but it clearly should not take advantage of its position of trust to take for itself privileges which it withholds from others.
The problem of the relations which should subsist be- tween the advanced and backward peoples is thus seen to be one of immense complexity. As years go by and the backward races advance it is likely to increase in urgency and in difficulty. The attitude in which the nations approach it is therefore of vital importance. At the be- ginning of this chapter it was said that the problem could only be seen in its true perspective if it was regarded from the point of view of humanity as a whole. It is only possible to repeat this advice once more at its end. Man- kind is one great family. Its members are in every stage of development, but the conduct of one section reacts con- tinuously and directly on every other. Under present conditions, the most civilised members have no option but to make themselves responsible for the maintenance of peace, order, and liberty within the earthly habitation in which all reside. The war of 1914, and the attempts of some nations to upset civilised government in many back- ward lands, show how little many of the great peoples of the earth understand the problem of human government.
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Let us hope that its outcome will be a clearer vision that human progress depends upon the material service of all nations of the cause of human unity, liberty, and peace.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
The number of books dealing directly with this subject is not great. But the number throwing light upon it is legion. The following may be regarded as the more important : —
LYALL, SIB ALFRED. Rise and Expansion of British Dominion in
India. John Murray. 5s. net. HOLDERNESS, SIR T. W. Peoples and Problems of India. (Home
University Library.) Williams & Norgate. Is. STRACHEY, SIR JOHN India, its Administration and Progress.
Macmillan. 10s. net. CROMER, EARL OF. Modern Egypt. Macmillan. Cheap ed.
7s. 6d. net.
Life of John 6. Paton, Missionary to the New Hebrides. Hodder
& Stoughton. Paper cover, 6d. Cloth, 6s. MOREL, E. D. Bed Rubber. T. Fisher Unwin. Paper, Is. net. Report on the Putumayo Atrocities. The literature on the abolition of the Slave Trade.
The Lives of the Governor-Generals of India in the " Rulers of
India " Series. Clarendon Press. 2s. 6d. net each. BUTLER, SIR W. Life of General Gordon. Macmillan. 2s. 6d. Forty-one Years in India, by Lord Roberts. Macmillan. Cheap ed.
MURPHY, EDGAR GARDNER. The Basis of Ascendancy : a discussion of certain principles of public policy involved in the development of the Southern States of America. Longmans. 6s. net.
OLIVIER, SIR SYDNEY. White Capital and Coloured Labour. Inde- pendent Labour Party. Is. 6d.
The Report of the Transvaal Indigency Commission contains a minute examination of the economic reactions of black and white labour on one another.
VI
INTEKNATIONAL RELATIONS AND THE GROWTH OF FREEDOM
1. FREEDOM AND NATIONAL LIFE
THE goal of political endeavour is freedom. Those who see the end of human effort in peace are at the best mis- taking the means for the end. In the past, freedom has often been won and kept by the sword, but in the long run it will be attained through peace. For it is in peace that those things, won perhaps in war, which are essential to human liberty grow to fulness. It is man's desire for freedom which is the key to an understanding of human institutions and the development of law and order. They exist as a barrier against his subjugation by Nature or by his fellows. Both the conquest of Nature and the sup- pression of anarchy are achieved through associated human effort and the establishment of those ordered relations which co-operation implies. Thus the history of civilisa- tion is the history of the evolution of social groups for the enlargement of the freedom of their members. Whatever freedom man has so far attained, whether by overcoming and controlling the forces of Nature or by the right to live his own life in the world of men, has been won through cor- porate action in society.
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The family, with its ordered relations between the various members of it, its protection of the young and the weak, and its sense of unity, enlarges liberty and offers opportunities for self-expression to those composing it. The city, inhabited by people with common local interests, and with common needs, through the development of many- sided municipal life, yields greater freedom to its citizens than they could win for themselves single-handed. The nation still further widens the range of human liberty. It introduces over a larger field a common rule of law and establishes controlled relations between all those dwelling within it, giving due place to the various localised and sectional units it embraces. Order reigns where otherwise anarchy might prevail. The nation recognises certain rights which must be accorded to every individual, if he is not to be at the mercy of other men ; it imposes on him certain obligations in return, which mean that the individual must recognise the rights of others. Similarly, the various social groupings within the nation — religious, political, industrial, educational, philanthropic, or what not — are enabled to fulfil their ends by the establishment of re- ciprocal relations between each other and with the nation as a whole. Partly because of this, and partly because it has a wider scope of activity and a richer life, the nation is the medium for a much fuller expression of the genius and individuality of its members than a series of smaller unrelated social groups could provide. Smaller groups within a larger group, organisations within organisa- tions allow for that variety of development and that inter- action of man with man and group with group without which true freedom is impossible. The nation, the city, the village, together with the multitude of voluntary associa- tions through which individuals seek development and the
vi THE GROWTH OF FREEDOM 185
realisation of special common ends — all of them co-ordinated and related — make life richer and fuller, and therefore freer, than it could be under less integrated forms of society.
A nation, however, is a means to freedom only so far as its members can realise themselves through its institutions. Where part of the people within a nation are members of it unwillingly, its common way of life, its laws, customs, and institutions will be hindrances to their freedom rather than means for its realisation. They will consider the law coercive and participation in the national life will be a burden. Different racial origins, different language, litera- ture, religion, and traditions — a different background — from the majority, will tend to make the minority a people apart ; in that case to force them into the same mould as their fellow-citizens means, not freedom, but thraldom. If the background is not sufficiently strongly coloured to permeate the outlook and culture of a body of people, assimilation by the dominant nationality may take place, but coercion generally breeds revolt, and sooner or later liberty will be won, if needs be by force. Many of the wars of modern times have been primarily wars of libera- tion, though even now there are millions of people in Europe deprived of the national avenue to freedom. Poland, Alsace-Lorraine, Schleswig, non-Magyar Hungary, Bohemia, Finland, and Ireland need but to be mentioned.
It does not follow, however, that every submerged people will strive for full political independence. The end may often be achieved by free partnership with other peoples within a single state organisation. Where this occurs, then as between the nations in union the frontiers of free- dom are extended. The most valuable experiment on these lines which the world has ever seen is to be found within the British Empire. A quarter of the human race,
186
comprising people of different races and religions, and at widely differing stages of political development, have found freedom within its boundaries. Between its com- ponent parts there are ordered relations, and the rule of law is supreme. Each may pursue its own life and seek its freedom in its own way without fear of hindrance and aggression from the remainder of the quarter of the world's population with which it is united.1
2. INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS
The best relations between the individual, and the city and the State, and between each of these and other forms of grouping are not to be attained without continual re- adjustment and constant reference to human experience ; and it is not surprising that they are as yet imperfect. Injustice, or the denial of freedom — industrial, social, religious, political — still exists. Nevertheless, we owe such freedom as we possess to these various groupings of people. Compared with the degree and variety of corporate action within the nation, however, the relations between States are most rudimentary. Yet the maintenance of existing freedom and the further growth of liberty rest ultimately upon the establishment of ordered relations between the sovereign Powers of the world, and between the States and the various sectional interests which cut across States.
It is clear that the organised resources of one State, uncontrolled in any way, may be a serious menace to the lives and freedom of members of another State. Indeed, the mere prospect of aggression from without may under- mine freedom within a state by imposing a policy and line
1 The relatively enlightened policy of Austria and the repressive policy of Hungary in this respect are worth comparative study.
vi THE GKOWTH OF FREEDOM 187
of action which under ordinary circumstances it would never have followed freely. Moreover, chaos amongst the States of the world, potential disorder instead of estab- lished order, anarchy instead of law, cuts short the progress of human freedom. Even the national aspect of freedom can never realise its latent possibilities in a world of unrelated and often hostile states, for the wider world rivalry and competition will react upon the corporate life within the nation, and much that would be of value to the world as a whole will come only to partial fruition. The nation loses because it has not the sympathetic atmosphere necessary for development, and the world loses because the contri- butions of the nations to the cause of liberty have no adequate channel of expression. Further, uncontrolled cos- mopolitan interests may adversely affect national develop- ment and curtail the freedom of members of national groups. Hence, the question of international relations is one of the utmost importance, not only to diplomatists but to social reformers, and indeed to every citizen whose citizenship is a reality ; on the establishment of harmonious and controlled relations between the States themselves, and between the States and growing cosmopolitan groupings and interests, depends the freedom of the world.
It has been suggested that the best way of securing unhampered development and freedom in the world is for each State to live its own life without interfering with the course of events outside its own borders. But such a policy of non-intervention cuts at the very roots of free- dom, because laissez-faire in an imperfect world results in license for the few and subjection for the many. Indivi- dualism and the laissez-faire policy inside the national community fell to pieces because it was found that the freedom of all the members of society could be secured
188 INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS vi
only by buttressing the better side of man through the establishment of common rules of action enforced by the community. Society could not allow one section of itself to fall under the power of another without endangering the freedom or restricting the liberty of the whole ; for the whole needs the active co-operation of the parts. An international policy of non-interference is fatal on the same grounds, for it is nothing more than a policy of short-sighted selfishness. It places the weak at the mercy of the strong and limits freedom in consequence, as the weak, crushed and trembling under the fear of aggres- sion, are unable to participate fully in that complex life of the world which is richer and fuller than a self-contained national life can ever be. Non-interference in the in- dustrial world worked more havoc in society as a whole than a century of tentative and spasmodic intervention has been able to sweep away. Non-intervention in international affairs is the analogue of the laissez-faire policy of a century ago with its motto of " Each for himself and the Devil take the hindmost." As in industry, so in the sphere of inter- national life, it means that the Devil takes not merely the hindmost, but most of the rest. To avow a policy of non- intervention is a declaration of voluntary outlawry and a denial of duties and responsibilities in the wider world of which nations are a part. Anarchism is not to be reached by short cuts. Men and nations alike cannot yet be relied upon to obey an inner moral law without the outward manifestation of corporate regulation and the stimulus of participation with others in a common task.
History records attempts which have been made to secure ordered relations between States through the im- position of universal dominion. It is said that Napoleon dreamed of world power in order that he might bring
vi THE GROWTH OF FREEDOM 189
liberty to the nations of the world. Even if he had been successful in extending his rule, he would not have brought liberty. His achievement might have been peace at the price of freedom. But the world rose against him as it will always rise against attempts at universal dominion.
The policy of contracting alliances as a means of con- trolling international relations is an old one, though in earlier days they signified rather the personal union of rulers. An alliance between two or more States so long as it continues does establish reciprocal relations between them, secures each from the aggression of the other, and perhaps increases their freedom by diminishing the chances of attack by other States. On the other hand, an alliance between States may prove to be a menace to the independ- ent action of other States. Further, there may be many alliances, and though the number would be less than the number of independent Powers in the world, and therefore to that extent international relations would be simplified, lack of co-ordination between the alliances, many of them probably with opposite interests, would be a serious danger. The multiplicity of alliances is not, therefore, a hopeful line of growth in the work of enlarging the realm of liberty.
The Balance of Power theory represents an advance. An alliance of powerful States may be so strong as to be able to dominate international politics. The remaining individual States would in such circumstances exist only on sufferance. Their freedom would be merely an illusion. But an equally strong alliance of some of the nations not included in the first alliance would give greater security and liberty of action for themselves and for the remaining States. An equilibrium would thus be established between two sets of Powers. England's policy in the past of maintaining the equilibrium may have served a useful purpose, but it
190 INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS vi
is not a final solution for the problem of international relations, as it could only be successful when it alone was playing at keeping the balance. In any case, however, Jkhe Balance of Power is open to obvious objections as a theory of international relations. Even apart from the tendency of each group to outbid the other in power, the resources, population, and prestige of living nations are never static. The equilibrium is, therefore, unstable, and consequently international relations reflect the instability. The international atmosphere becomes charged with float- ing suspicions and uneasiness. Innocent events are given sinister meanings. Under these circumstances national freedom droops and withers. Nor can we be sure that a Balance of Power is a net increase of freedom to the nations concerned. It is true that to regulate the relations between the members of a group is all to the good, but the existence of another equally strong group may put limitations upon the independence of the members of the first group, in so far as each nation may have to divert its strength and energy from the task of its own domestic development to the work of preparing for possible aggression and of endeavouring to counteract the influence in the world of the rival group of States. Then, also, problems which arise outside the two rival groups will be solved not on their essential merits or with regard to justice and freedom, but from the narrower view -point of sectional interests. Questions affecting members of the group will be approached from the same angle. This indeed is the vital weakness of a Balance of Power. Individuals unaided cannot be trusted unfailingly to act in accordance with the common interest ; groups of individuals will tend to satisfy their private interests and may indeed be brought together for that purpose. So also States or groups of States will push their
vi THE GKOWTH OF FREEDOM 191
immediate interests to the front, violating the interests and endangering the welfare of others in the process. The very formation of a compensating alliance is a recognition of this truth. It is because an alliance of Powers is likely to seek the ends of its members and to threaten the liberty of action of other States, that a second alliance comes into existence. The Balance of Power theory is fallacious because it bases national rights upon the power to enforce them, and does not recognise that the only sure foundation for national freedom is through the development of ordered relations in which legitimate national rights are safeguarded by the imposition of reciprocal national obligations.
At times a Concert of Europe has taken upon itself the duty of regulating the relations between particular Powers or setting the seal of its approval upon agreements made by them. It is clear that the meeting together of the different States is a valuable step, even though each State representative is there with a watching brief. The occa- sions of these meetings, unfortunately, are times when the various Powers scent danger to themselves, either through action unfavourable to them or through the possibility of events strengthening a rival. It suffers, as all concerted action by the Powers seems destined to suffer, from the tendency to preserve the status quo. The status quo is often the enemy of freedom. Had Italy and the Balkan States waited upon a Concert of Europe for sanction to seek political freedom, it is unlikely that any of them would have gained their independence. In the future, no Concert of Europe will be adequate, for the large problems upon the wise solution of which the progress and development of the world depends are extra-European ; and their very nature as world problems requires the co-operation of the United States and Japan at least among the non-European States.
192 INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS vi
3. THE INTERNATIONAL MIND
At this stage, in order to understand international rela- tions, we must return to a consideration of the smaller social groups. Society is possible only when men postpone their own interests in some degree. Society continues to exist because of the growth of public spirit, that is to say, the growth of a social as distinct from an individual point of view and the substitution of public for private ends. Society develops and realises the potentialities of its mem- bers when the relations between individuals and social groups are moralised ; in other words, when a public moral code emerges. In the wider world, the relations between part and part, and the parts and the whole, are much more complex than within a single nation. Not only does the world polity include the various States and the many- sided life within them, but individual members of different nations have sets of common interests, and multitudinous points of contact with the outside world ; the interaction of nations and the interplay of different national influences all add to the depth and wealth of life, but at the same time add to its complexity.
To facilitate lawful growth, to repress anarchical im- pulses and the tendency towards national self-aggrandise- ment, and to establish just relations between the different groups and interests in the world, is a task of considerable magnitude, calling in especial degree for public spirit. The nations of the world, however, are individualistic ; each is too apt to confine itself to matters affecting its own particular interests. Indeed, it is generally held that foreign ministers are trustees for the States they represent, and should there- fore confine themselves to serving national interests without entering upon any course of knight-errantry.
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Generous impulses and unselfish feelings have, of course, hovered over the battle-ground of international politics ; but in the main, the guiding motives of action have been national ; national security and self-protection is the first law of international life. This philosophy of the jungle was found wanting as a way of life for individuals, who slowly realised that the only way to safeguard their real interests and to guarantee essential liberties was through the rule of law and by society itself becoming the champion of rights and the upholder of obligations.
But nations — " the individuals of humanity " — partly because of the complexity of their life, the range of interests within them, and the difficulty of distilling from all these factors a clearly conceived purpose, and partly because of the higher type of public spirit required, have lagged behind in the standard of their citizenship in the world. The in- dividuals of which nations are composed have bridged the gap between the city and the State, but they have not yet leapt across the chasm between the nation and humanity. They have not, to use the phrase of Dr. Nicholas Murray Butler, developed "the international mind." Yet legitimate national rights will be safeguarded and the bounds of freedom extended only when, in the sphere of international relations, the individualistic mind is superseded by the public mind.
The enlargement of freedom within the city is the outcome of the civic spirit at work ; the growth of freedom within the State is the result of a wider national spirit. The point of view necessary for the adequate treatment of affairs concerning the life centring round the parish pump is too narrow for the settlement of the common domestic problems of a whole people. The national point of view, by its narrowness of vision and the temptation to be led by purely national considerations, must grow into a wider
o
194
attitude of mind, if international relations are to be of such a character as to serve the true ends of human society.
It may be argued that diplomatists possess " the inter- national mind," and that in their deliberations and actions they are influenced by wider considerations of world interest. It is true that those who are brought into intimate contact with the varied and complicated problems which a world of independent States presents, must necessarily approach them with a wider outlook and a fuller back- ground of knowledge than is possible to others. But the rarefied atmosphere of the diplomatic world, whilst it lends itself to the process of throwing into relief the many elements which must be considered in the establishment of orderly international relations, lacks oxygen. The diplo- matic world is out of contact with the living nations which lie behind notes, protocols, and treaties. The real criticism of modern diplomacy is that it works in vacua, far removed from the inspiring and invigorating atmosphere of national life. The importance of " the international mind " lies in the fact that it is the foundation of an enlightened public opinion. In the past such a public opinion has not existed, though there have been at times gusts of partially informed opinion.
Even in the smaller realm of the nation, the course of progress and the growth of freedom have been hampered by the lack of a steady, continuous pressure from its members. It is now recognised that public spirit is called for, not merely from leaders and officials, but from the mass of the people. Similarly in international affairs, sincerity, enthusiasm, and public spirit in ministers and diplomats lose the greater part of their value unless they are constantly being re-vitalised and strengthened by the full expression of considered opinion from those whom it is their business to represent.
v! THE GKOWTH OF FREEDOM 195
4. THE FULLER CITIZENSHIP
We are, therefore, thrown back upon the general body of citizens. In this country public interest has been absorbed in the development of our constitutional system and our industrial and social organisation, to the neglect of matters outside our own borders. The Great War was all the greater shock because it was so unexpected ; and it is typical of the British people that, when the blow fell, we were rent in twain over the solution of a constitutional problem. And now the intelligent public is somewhat ashamed of its ignorance concerning those international forces which affect the freedom and even the smallest details of the lives of the world's population. Now we stand at the parting of the ways. It is for British citizens to choose whether they will fly in the face of international tendencies and relapse into an illusory insularity, or whether they will assume the responsibilities of that wider citizenship without which international life is chaotic, full of uncontrolled conflicting forces and agencies working much harm and little good. This fuller citizenship is the completion of the citizenship of the city and the State, giving to them a richer meaning.
Mere machinery — whether judicial or political — how- ever indispensable, is insufficient in itself. The great need is for the development of a world policy based upon know- ledge and understanding, and dealing with international life as a whole. In the interests of human freedom, the peoples of the world must face three groups of problems. The first concerns the relations between the politically developed States, upon whose co-operation the solution of international problems depends. It is to these States that we must look for the evolution of those ordered relations, which lie at the base of international life, affecting not only
196 INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS vi
these States in their direct relations with one another, but necessary for the solution of the international problems falling into the other groups. The second series centres round the difficult questions arising out of the relations between races at widely differing stages of political and economic development. There are two main sides to these problems ; there is first the question of protection against exploitation, whether political or economic, and secondly, the question of developing among backward peoples those broad principles, moral, social, and political, upon which free societies must be built. Both merge into each other at many points ; on the whole, the former are concerned with immediate, and the latter with ultimate, questions. Broadly speaking, we are here faced with " the white man's burden," which hitherto has often appeared to cloak purely selfish ends, but which is the analogy in the international field of the communal protection of the young and the weak in domestic politics. The third series of problems relates to the control by the States of the world of the great cos- mopolitan interests, mainly economic in character, whose growth has been one of the most striking features of the last century. These three sets of problems overlap and cannot be kept distinct ; but broadly they are political, sociological, and economic, though all of them are closely related to international ethics. Indeed, reduced to the simplest form of expression, the task is to " moralise " international relations. To confine the issue to the problem of how to keep a single strong-headed nation in its due place, or of how to settle international disputes without recourse to war, is to miss the real significance of these questions as phases of the larger problems of human and national relationships.
The task of the citizen is, in the light of knowledge and
vi THE GKOWTH OF FEEEDOM 197
experience, to lay the spiritual foundations of a general and comprehensive policy upon which statesmen may build, and to keep in touch with the changes and developments which are continually taking place in the world, in order that the policy may not fall out of harmony with the problems it is designed to meet. But the first step is for the people of this country to get that knowledge of the problems without which there can be no wise and comprehensive policy ; and yet upon which the growth of democracy depends.
The Great War has shown that the development of a free democratic life and the growth of democratic institu- tions within a nation can never in themselves be a guarantee of the maintenance of harmonious relations without ; that measures of social reconstruction within the State, how- ever far-reaching, will not alone protect it from external influences likely to throw it into confusion or lead it into war. A nation cannot control its own domestic life if it is the sport of uncontrolled external forces. For the main- tenance of its liberty, and for the sake of the fuller national liberty to be realised only in a community of nations, it must, in association with other nations, learn to bring those forces under the sway of law.
Human freedom, moral, political, social, and industrial, realised through the home, the school, and the workshop, the trade union and the co-operative society, the club and the university, the city and the State, the Church and the world of nations, with their active interplay of influences, is no simple concept. And life is too many-sided and com- plicated for liberty to be attained through any one channel. There are no short-cuts to freedom. It is to be won only through the application of knowledge and understanding, imagination and sympathy, courage and public spirit, to every side of human life and every form of human
198 INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS vr
relationship, and not least, the international. The con- structive activity of human society grows outwards from the individual in ever-widening circles — the city, the State, the world — and back again to the individual. The fault in the past has been to neglect the broader questions touching the uttermost circle of human relations. The near future, however, will present opportunities to get rid of the policy of drift, and for a broad and comprehensive treatment of the problems of international life. " Education, the father- land, liberty, association, the family, property, and religion," says Mazzini, " all these are undying elements of human nature : they cannot be cancelled or destroyed, but every epoch has alike the right and the duty of modifying their development in harmony with the intellect of the age, the progress of science, and the altered condition of human relations. Hence democracy, informed and enlightened by these ideas, must abandon the path of negations ; useful and opportune so long as the duty before us was that of breaking asunder the chains that bound mankind to the past ; useless and barren now that our task is the conquest of the future. If it do not forsake this path, it can but doom itself to perish — as all mere reaction must perish — in anarchy and impotence."
It is difficult to suggest books dealing with the questions raised in this chapter without going very far afield.
An Introduction to the History of the Science of Politics, by Sir Frederick Pollock (Macmillan, 1906 ; 2s. 6d.), will lead readers to the works of those philosophers who have dealt with political theory. Political Thought from Spencer to To-day, by Ernest Barker (Home University Library, 1915; Is.), is particularly interesting. A Primer of Peace and War, edited by Rev. Chas. Plater for the Catholic Social Guild (King & Son, 1915 ; Is. 6d.), deals with the principles of inter- national morality from the Catholic point of view. See also The
vi THE GROWTH OF FREEDOM 199
Morality of Nations, by C. Delisle Burns (University of London Press, 1915; 5s.).
Reference should be made to The History of Freedom and Other Essays, by Lord Acton (Macmillan, 1907 ; 10s. net.). For a statement of the philosophy of national individualism see The Political Thought of Heinrich von Treitschke, by H. C. W. Davis (Constable, 1915 ; 6s.).
For international law see the books given at the end of Chapter IV., and also the Cambridge Modern History, vol. xii. (Chap. XXII., " The Modern Law of Nations and the Prevention of War," by Sir Frederick Pollock).
On the problems of international organisation raised by the European War see C. B. Buxton (Ed.), Towards a Lasting Settlement (Allen & Unwin, 1915; 2s. 6d.) ; H. N. Brailsford, The War of Steel and Gold, Part II. and Appendix (Bell ; new ed., 1915 ; 2s.).
G. Lowes Dickinson, After the War. (Fifield, 6d.)
C. E. Fayle, The Great Settlement. (Murray, 1915; 5s.)
J. A. Hobson, Towards International Government. (Allen & Unwin, 1915; 2s. 6d.)
New Statesman Supplement, July 10 and 17, 1915.
The foregoing books, for the most part, deal with only one side of international organisation, viz. the maintenance of international peace.
A further list of books will be found in The Causes of the War — What to Bead. (C.S.I.R., 6d.)
See Bibliography given at the end of the Appendix ("Note on Cosmopolitan Associations ").
APPENDIX
NOTE ON COSMOPOLITAN ASSOCIATIONS
THIS book confines its attention to international relations ; that is to say, to those problems arising between different nations, or involving states and other bodies. The latter are mainly cosmo- politan organisations, which are voluntary in character and have the avowed object of uniting individuals or societies on the basis of a common interest, irrespective of the nation to which they belong.
Nations — to use an economic term — are " vertical combina- tions " of people of different social status, different degrees of wealth, different religious and political views, etc., but with a number of fundamental common interests arising out of com- mon laws, customs, traditions, and institutions. Cosmopolitan groupings are " horizontal combinations " of people of different nations, possibly with many points of difference, but at least one strong common interest. Such associations may be permanent (e.g. an " international " trade union) or temporary (e.g. the committee of an " international " exhibition) ; they may be relatively well organised, as most of the permanent movements tend to be, or informal in character as in the case of ententes between groups of people with a common interest.
Their range is extremely wide, covering very many different forms of human interest and activity, political, religious, economic, literary, scientific, and artistic. But all of them have one thing in common ; they operate beyond the confines of a single state and, therefore, bring into closer — and friendly — relations people of different nationalities. These bonds increase the total volume of unofficial goodwill and understanding in the world, which is all to the good. But cosmopolitan associa-
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202 INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS
t ions are not a substitute for national groupings, any more than local authorities can supersede national authorities, or than co-operative societies and trade unions can supersede the national grouping.
The inherent weakness of the cosmopolitan body is its narrow- basis of membership, and all that springs from it. However important the interests which these organisations represent, they do not cover all the chief human interests and activities ; and consequently, when there is a divergence of interests, the weaker succumbs temporarily to the stronger, or a single interest to the combined weight of several. Experience has shown that on the outbreak of war all the deeply-rooted and intertwined common interests of national life prove stronger, so far as most people are concerned, than a single cosmopolitan interest, be it ever so strong.
This is not to say that cosmopolitan life is either unnecessary or valueless. In point of fact, it is extremely necessary ; its agencies contribute to that outlook which is indispensable for the growth of national policies favourable to international co-operation, because it helps in breaking down insularity and exclusiveness ; and it is extremely valuable, because its reactions strengthen national life and enrich the life of the world. A strongly-developed cosmopolitan co-operative movement, for example, would ultimately widen the outlook and sympathies of its members in different countries, and the constituent national movements would gain in strength by association with each other, whilst so far as this side of human activity was concerned there would be a measure of unification in the world.
Cosmopolitan movements can only be vigorous when they are built on firm foundations ; in general, the real basis is the national movement. Movements of " international " origin are driven back to a territorial basis. Cosmopolitan organisation implies subsidiary localised organisation. The supporters of Esperanto are grouped nationally. The " International," when it met in London in 1864, recommended the formation of national bodies. In the trade-union world the growing belief in " national guilds " is significant, and implies, at any rate, that national solidarity must precede international solidarity. In the past, the ineffectiveness of many cosmopolitan movements has been due to feeble national movements.
Of particular importance for the future are those organisations
APPENDIX 203
essentially voluntary in character, but at the same time repre- sentative of, or in close touch with, states. The International Institute of Agriculture, with its headquarters in Rome, and the International Association for Labour Legislation, with its head office in Basle, are of this kind. Both have been of value in the past, and both offer fruitful lines of future growth.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
THE " Intel-national " side of the labour movement, political and industrial, is dealt with in The Labour Year Book, 1916 (1 Victoria Street, London, S.W. Is.). See also the Annual Reports of the International Trade Union Movement, and the Annual Reports of the International Co-operative Alliance (Headquarters : St. Stephen's House, Westminster), which also publishes monthly the International Co-operative Bulletin. International Socialism as affected by the War is dealt with in Socialists and the War, by E. W. Walling (1915 ; 6s.), and International Socialism and the War, by A. W. Humphrey (King & Son, 1915; 3s. 6d.). See also Labour and the War, by G. D. H. Cole, Chapter I. (Bell & Sons, 1915; 2s.). The Peace Tear Book (Is. annually) gives particulars of international law societies, international understanding societies, international organisations for peace, etc. For a discussion of the place of " voluntary " organisa- tions within the state see Churches in the Modern State, by J. N. Figgis (Longmans, 1913; 4s. 6d.), and Church and Nation, by W. Temple (Macmillan, 1915 ; 2s. 6d.), especially Lecture II. Dr. Figgis's position should be compared with Mr. G. D. H. Cole's in The World of Labour (Bell; cheap edition, 1915; 2s.).
The International Institute of Agriculture issues a monthly bulletin, frequent reports, and a year book. The International Association for Labour Legislation (British Office, Queen Anne's Chambers, Westminster) publishes quarterly The World's Labour Laws and an annual bulletin.
Most cosmopolitan bodies, religious, social, etc., issue reports of their work. Buried in the files of daily papers, etc., are accounts of exchanges of visits between working people, journalists, munici- palities etc. of different countries.
A. G.
INDEX
Acton, Lord, 57 Aix-la-Cfaapelle, 7 Alabama, 124-5 Alexander I., 2, 3, 4, 5, 9 Alliances, 189
Holy, 2, 3, 4, 5, 33
Quadruple, 6, 7
Quintuple, 6-13
Triple, 37 Alsace, 50, 58, 185 Angell, Mr. N., 29 Arbitration, 35, 124-5, 137-8 Armament*, 88, 96, 109 Austria, 16, 17, 23. 24, 25, 45, 49, 57, 58, 59, 60, 86, 115-6, 186 n.
Backward peoples, 141 et seq. Bagdad Railway, 85, 92 ! Balance of Power, 6, 29-30, 137, 189-
191
Balfour, Mr. A. J., 137 Balkans, 17, 32, 59 Belgium, 13, 49, 57, 59, 94, 137 Bismarck, 22 et seq., 30, 49-50 Blanc, Louis, 14 Blockade, 106, 127, 131-3 Bohemia, 60, 185 Bourbons, 7 British Empire, 31, 46, 60, 82, 88, 90,
104, 143, 167 et seq., 173-4, 185-
186
Bulgaria, 102 Burke, 168
Canning, 10, 11, 12, 15 Castlereagh, 5, 8, 10 Cavour, 18-20, 23 Chaumont, 6
China, 82, 83-5, 91, 104, 164
Clive, 156, 157-9, 160-1
Coloured labour, 71, 76, 110, 145 <d
seq., 175-6
Concert of Europe, 30, 191 Concessions and concessionnaires, 71.
72, 80
Confederation of Europe, 33 Congress of Vienna, 2, 41 Continuous voyage, doctrine of, 131 Contraband, 130 et seq. CornwaUis, Lord, 161-2 Crusades, 53
Declaration of London, 138 Democracy, 170-2, 174, 183 et seq. Diplomacy, 63, 194 Dumping, 103
Economic aspects of war, 29, 95 et seq. Economic boycott, 86, 105-7 Economic league, 107-8 Economic penetration, 91-2 Egypt, 46, 47, 48, 82, 164, 171
Federal States, 60
Finland, 185
Foreign exchanges, 71-2
Foreign policy, 37 et seq., 61 et seq.,
192-3
British, 61-2, 78 et seq. democratic control of, 42, 63-4.
194, 197-8
France, 13, 19, 23, 31, 58, 85, 88, 164 Free Trade, 75, 79-80, 102 et seq.
Garibaldi, 23
Germany, 16, 22, 74, 83, 92, 97, 103, 123, 127
205
206
INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS
Gladstone, 82, 164 Oranville, 82 Greece, 57, 93, 102 Grey, Sir Edward, 30 GrotiuB, 40
Hague Conferences, 3, 30, 125 Hague Conventions, 24, 137 Hastings, Warren, 160, 168, 169 Headlam, Mr. J. W., 24 Henry the Navigator, Prince, 68 Hobson, Mr. J. A., 105, 106 Holland, 13 Huguenots, 54
Immigration, 143, 175 et seq.
Imperial Conference, 83
India, 46, 90-91, 152 et seq., 167-70,
171, 173
Industrial Revolution, 69, 70 International Finance, 78, 81, 82, 85,
88 et seq., 92, 107 International Law, 40, 53, 63, 113
et seq.
Belligerents, 126 Neutrals, 126 Peace, 135 War, 126, 127
" International mind," 193-4 International morality, 128, 196 International organisation, 34, 64,
77, 108, 110, 124 et seq., 137-8,
181, 186 et seq. International socialist movement,
75, 77 International system of exchange,
71-2 International trade, 66 et seq., 179,
181
International trade union move- ment, 75, 77 Ireland, 185 Italy, 16, 20, 23, 48, 58, 73
Japan, 83-5, 91, 178 Keen, Mr. F. N., 107
Laissez-faire, 187-8 Laybach, 9 List, 83
Lombardy, 57 Louis XIV., 45 Luxemburg, 49 Lyall, Sir A., 163
Macaulay, 169 Machiavelli, 35 Maine, Sir H., 117 Maoris, 180 Marx, Karl, 75 Mazzini, 12-13 Mercantile policy, 68, 109 Metternich, 4, 5, 7, 9 Mexico, 164, 178 Moltke, 25, 26 Morley, Lord, 168 Morocco, 82
Napoleon, 1, 44, 161, 188 Napoleon III., 17, 18, 21, 23, 25, 49-
50 Nationality, 14-15, 40, 50, 51, 56-60,
185-6, 187
Naval supremacy, 105, 136, 156 Non-intervention, 39, 40 et seq., 187-8
" Open door," 104-5, 181
Palmerston, 18, 52
Panama Canal, 70
Paton, Dr. J., 145-8
Patriotism, 53
Peace, 1, 87 et seq., 135, 183 et seq.
Persia, 164, 165-6
Philippines, 164
Phillips, Alison, 15, 29
Piedmont, 16, 23
Pitt, 62, 168
Poland and Poles, 45, 57, 60, 94, 185
Prize Court, 130
Prussia, 16, 19, 22, 24, 45, 59, 94
Racial problems, 76, 141-82, 196 Reprisals, 123 Revolutionary movements —
French Revolution, 1, 55-6
1818-1823, 9-10, 11
1830, 13
1848, 13 et seq. Rhine frontier, 45, 51 Russia, 16, 17, 18, 31, 32, 45-6, 92, 165
INDEX
207
Salisbury, Lord, 31
Schleswig-Holstein, 24, 185
Seignoboe, 19
Self-government, 170 et seq.
Serbia, 86, 93
Seton- Watson, Dr. R. W., 77, 93
Socialism, 14, 75, 77
Solidarity of labour, 75, 76, 175-6
South Africa, 179
Suez Canal, 47, 70, 82
Switzerland, 59
Tarifi restrictions, 72-4, 75, 79-80,
103
Treaties — Anglo-French, 126 Great Britain and U.S.A., 126 Treitschke, 35, 83 Trieste, 45, 93 Tripoli, 48, 81 Troppau, 9-10 Turkey and Turks, 17-18, 32, 45-6,
53, 67, 85, 86, 89, 91, 164
United States, 59, 164, 178, 179-80
Verona, 10
Vienna, Congress of, 2, 41 Treaty of, 13
Wallas, Graham, 81 Wars- American Civil, 132-3
Balkan, 86, 101-2
Boer, 31, 135
Civil, 54
Colonial, 68
Crimean, 17-19
Danish, 59
Economic effects, 95 et seq.
Franco-German, 25-7, 48-9, 56, 59, 96
International Law, 126, 127
Napoleonic, 56
Russo-Japanese, 138
Tripolitan, 81 Wellington, 5, 8, 10, 11
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