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THE MORALITY OF NATIONS
-THE MORALITY OF NATIONS
AN ESSAY ON THE THEORY OF POLITICS
BY
C. DELISLE BURNS
"Remota iustitia, quid sunt regiia nisi magna latrocinia." — De Civ. Dei, lib. iv.
Xonfcon : 1Hniv>ersit£ of XonDon press, Xt&.
AT ST. PAUL'S HOUSE, WARWICK SQUARE, E.G.
1915
PREFACE
THE situation during the past year will probably result in changing many of the political ideas by which we are governed : for any intense experi- ence has a tendency to produce new intellectual schemes, or at least to shatter the cherished idols of calmer days. We require new ideas in order to control new forces and direct them as far as we can in the course of which we approve ; and the need of such new ideas becomes urgent at a time which may be either one of reconstruction or of renewed evil.
It has become obvious that although our political situation, both in domestic and in foreign issues, is unique and new, we have only the con- ceptions of our great-grandfathers with which to master it. But the tools made for simpler tasks are inadequate for the material upon which we must now use them. To deal with the modern State as though it were the TTO^IS of Aristotle or the Leviathan of Hobbes is like .trying to face heavy guns with a Macedonian phalanx or to pierce armour-plate with a cavalier's rapier. Our intellectual weapons are obsolete.
346882
vi PREFACE
It is not my purpose, however, to establish a completely new theory of the State nor to deny the correctness of the greater part of what is embodied in our tradition ; but certain con- clusions seem to flow from the situation which has been growing up during the past fifty years. These are of interest first because some German writers have seemed to imagine that German u Kultur " has its source in the German State or that the " expansion " of this State might cause an increase of Kultur among the unenlightened. The merely controversial situation may be put aside : for it is perfectly clear that even if " Kultur " could be attained by the extension of the activities of the German State, we do not propose to endure the benevolent imposition of such compulsory enlightenment. The main point is that our ideas of the State are changing, and that German State-worship is antiquated.
It was good journalism a few months ago to accuse Treitschke and Nietzsche of poisoning the German mind ; but clearly it is Hegel, and not either of these two, whose influence in State- worship and the Kultur-Staat is most pernicious. Treitschke was a good historian who accepted his political theories ready-made from the Hegelians, and no one hated the State more than Nietzsche ; but Hegel was the official guide for the Prussian bureaucracy, and his philosophy subordinated
PREFACE vii
every portion of social life to the State. It is known that he was ignorant of science, but it is not generally admitted that he was ignorant of history. His limitations, however, are not of great importance, since it is an idea and not a man which must be attacked. And again, our own philosophy of the State in the Utilitarians is as obsolete as Hegel's. Not all false ideas were made in Germany. Even Plato and Aris- totle are inadequate for understanding the present political situation.
To all these, however, and to the commen- tators upon them, we acknowledge a debt, for we owe to them the reasoning which we must use against them. It might have been well if some of their dead theories had not been exhumed by diplomatists anxious to find reasons for what they did blindly. But many ghosts stalk the world and lead men on to battle too : such are " Evolu- tion," or " Kultur," or " inevitable conflict," or the " logic of history," or the " Balance of Power," and many more which shall be name- less. Men are still as enslaved to dead ideas as when the barbarians followed the ghost of departed Rome. But these ideas once lived, and we owe to them, if we know them in history, the ability to see the new ideas which are now abroad.
In no section of political thought, however, will there be greater changes than in that which
viii PREFACE
relates to the moral obligation of States. Mr. Asquith, quoting Mr. Gladstone, has said that England desires to " see the enthronement of this idea of Public Right as the governing idea of European policy ; as the common and precious inheritance of all lands, but superior to the pass- ing opinion of any. The foremost among the nations will be that one which, by its conduct, shall gradually engender in the minds of the others a fixed belief that it is just." Morality is established as between individuals, but it is still insecure in the relationship between States. We desire to establish it.
But what are the principles of right ? They cannot be pious opinions that a nation should keep treaties or should be honest. Such principles are too vague. They are like the old Kantian command to do one's duty. The real problem begins in the attempt to discover what is one's duty. So now the chief problem is to find out what the moral relationship between States really is.
Again, innumerable books and pamphlets have dealt with the causes of the war : and it has appeared as if these causes were all historical, as if what now happens were altogether explained by reference to what happened before. But the causes of the war were partly what men desired to happen. That is to say, principles as well as
PREFACE ix
events led us to the crisis : principles, therefore, must be considered as a corrective to the tendency of history in making events seem " inevitable." Change your ideas of what is right and half the so-called logic of history evaporates into thin air.
We must distinguish history from politics, or any subject in which moral judgments are passed. The history of events is no ground for moral judgments ; although the consequence of events may be referred to as indicating why this or that event is to be approved. The historian has, strictly speaking, no special knowledge of the science of moral judgment : he is an authority on what occurred ; but, without special training of a non-historical kind, he is no authority on what ought to have occurred or what ought not to occur. And in passing moral judgments or in the dis- cussion of principles the historian often flounders as ludicrously as the biologist who tries to write metaphysics.
We need, therefore, a criticism of inherited conceptions of the State, a review of the present moral relationship between States, and an indication of the tendencies which are transforming the whole of International Politics.
Such are the excuses I have to offer for an attempt which is perhaps too ambitious. It must be regarded as a mere essay in a subject which, despite the efforts of International Lawyers, has
x PREFACE
been too much neglected. The problems are, of course, more complicated than a statement of general principles might seem to imply ; and, no doubt, there are many mistakes in the solutions suggested. But my purpose is rather to direct attention to facts than to inculcate any doctrine about them.
I have to thank my friend, Mr. G. P. Gooch, for reading through the proofs and correcting some of my mistakes : and I have also to thank my wife, whose unblushing scepticism has made my statements more careful than they would otherwise have been.
C. DELISLE BURNS.
November 1915.
CONTENTS
CHAP. PAGE
I MORALITY AND NATIONALITY i
What is a nation ? Does nationality make any difference to moral action?
II THE STATE AND OTHER INSTITUTIONS . . 26
Institutions gradually differentiated. In early times the ' ' political " includes other purposes, not now.
III THE STATE AND OTHER STATES ... 43
The State used to be considered in isolation : and was at one time more isolated. Now all States interpenetrate.
IV THE STATE AND NATIONALITY ... 59
The State a territorial organisation. I,t brings nations together ; it does not and should not keep them apart.
V FOREIGN INTERESTS . . . . 76
What interdependence is there ? Trade, investment and ideas.
VI FOREIGN POLICY 96
How are these interests maintained and developed ? Secretariats and Embassies : the good and the evil in them.
VII ALLIANCE . . . . . .120
Special connection of some States. The moral effect of alliances : good and evil.
xii CONTENTS
CHAP. PAGE
VIII INTERNATIONAL RIVALRY . . . . 139
Independence to be maintained. But individuality of the group can be maintained by a civilised form of rivalry.
IX THE MORALITY OF NATIONS AT WAR . . 159
Even war does not destroy the whole moral relation- ship of combatants. Restrictions to the use of force.
X PEACE RELATIONS . . . . . 179
Peace not negative but positive. Modern peace a new situation.
XI NEEDS OF THE STATE . . . .196
Changing ideas of the relation of the citizen to his own State. The State needs chiefly a growth of moral responsibility.
XII THE COMITY OF NATIONS . . . .220
Tendencies towards action in common between States. New ideas of " other" States.
XIII CONCLUSION . . . . ) . .238
Social sentiment and institutions. Differentiation of function.
INDEX ....... 253
THE MORALITY OF NATIONS
CHAPTER I
MORALITY AND NATIONALITY
IT may be taken for granted that there is a moral relationship between some human indi- viduals. This is quite distinct from an economic or physical relationship. But individuals are not isolated, since groupings of all kinds exist — families, nations, states, companies, clubs and labour unions. And the moral relationship holds between all members of the same group, and between members of some different groups. It may hold between all members of all groups ; but this is not generally admitted in practice, and at any rate the moral relationship between citizens of different states seems to be somewhat different from that which holds between citizens of the same state.
Hence arises an idea of group-morality, or of a special kind of morality, as between nations or States. States are spoken of as acting rightly or wrongly, as a club or company may be supposed
2 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS
to att.1 The fact . is; .of course, that individuals sometimes act in the name and for the interests of the group to which they belong, and their action on such occasions is apt to be governed by different principles from those which are sup- posed to govern their action in their own private interest. But group-morality is not simply the governing rule of the action of representatives ; it really is in some sense the morality of all members of the group in so far as these allow action in their behalf to be of this or that kind, or in so far as they are willing to receive the benefit of actions based upon principles which they would theoretically repudiate. The morality, for example, of a company is both the morality of its representatives and that of all the active participants in the action or passive sharers of the result.
There may be some who would say that the principles governing the relations of citizen to citizen should be the same as those governing the relations of citizen to alien. But, in any case, the existence of groups must make some difference to morality ; and we may be inclined to suppose that a diplomatist, for example, may be
1 Cf. Westlake, International Law, Vol. I. p. 3. "Indi- vidual men associated in the state are moral beings, and the action of the state which they form by their association is their action, the state then must also be a moral being."
MORALITY AND NATIONALITY 3
most unselfish in his private action but cannot so readily allow the interests of those he represents to give place to others, except, of course, in cases where justice clearly demands it. Or, again, the individual may be less responsible for the action of his company or state, where the interests of many have to be considered, than he is in considering only his own interests.
The whole subject of vicarious responsibility and vicarious action is under discussion at present; and perhaps writers on Ethics have too long continued to deal with the hypothetical indi- vidual, for it seems that very few even of our " moral " acts are individual acts in the old Kantian sense. But here we shall speak only of that section of such morality which is con- nected with political life and political institutions. We need to discuss what principles do in fact govern, and what should govern the relationship of citizen to citizen and of citizen to alien. Or we may suppose that our problem is to discover what differences the existence of nationality or of States makes or ought to make to morality.
The problem is partly that which Hugo de Groot first faced. He found that jurists had considered (i) the municipal law of States, and (2) the law common to all States ; but not (3) the law governing the relationship of State to
4 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS
State. But in the spirit of his time he began1 the study of law with the discussion of morality^ and in the study and positive development of International Law he has had many successors, but in the study of International Morality almost none.2 The existence of Law, however, even if ineffective, may be taken as evidence of some sort of morality. We no longer go to the " Law of Nature " as the basis for International Law, but only to the consent of the parties, and though we have gained by the suppression of an abstract Nature we have lost something by not concerning ourselves with that morality which, in some sense or other, must be what is partly embodied in the Law.
Law is evidence for morality ; but dangerous evidence, because Law deals largely with crime or offences against morality. It is pathological. The more positive evidence for morality is the unwritten and unsystematic sentiment of approval or disapproval. There may be no Moral Code for nations in the sense of formulated principles ; but there certainly is in the minds of civilised man an "ought" and "ought not" with respect
1 De Jure Belli et Paris, proleg. Jus illud quod inter populos plures aut populorum rectores intercedit . . . attigerunt pauci, universim ac certo ordinetractavit hactenus nemo. The " temperamenta belli " in Book III are based expressly on Christianity.
2 Cf. Lawrence, International Lawy Ch. I. and. II.
MORALITY AND NATIONALITY 5
to group-action as with respect to the action of individuals. And this distinction of right and wrong and the reasons or evidence upon which it is based may be discovered by considering how far the relationship of States is moral.
For this purpose we shall have to speak first of the groups which are in relation to one another, since their nature must in some way be decided before any general conceptions of value can be reached as to the principles which do govern or should govern their action. But common speech has established the word " International " as in- dicating a particular kind of law, and it may be used as indicating also a particular kind of morality. We do not speak of " Inter-State " law, because of an inherited confusion of the nation with the State.1 For this reason we must begin by discussing the nature of a nation.
The conception of nationality which is accepted almost everywhere at present is comparatively modern, and this because the fact to which it refers is new. For although in one sense nations have existed and nationality has been recognised even in the earliest times, the meaning we give to the terms involves another sense. In this
1 Thus Westlake (loc. «'/.) says that for International Law "a nation means a state considered with reference to the persons composing it " ; but that is not the common meaning, nor is it the best for any subject but International Law.
6 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS
other sense nations are new and nationality is a new principle.1
A summary of the evidence must be given, although the full details must be left for pro- fessional historians. For here what is intended is a discussion of the events of history in view of certain principles which are not those of history. The material, however, which we have to judge is historical. We must consider the group called a nation in the events which are, as it were, the marks of its growth. And as examples of the subject-matter of which we shall have to speak, it is as well to take Germany and Italy and Belgium.
As a beginning the geographical ghost must be laid. In considering the conflict between nations, the map has so great an effect on the imagination that we tend to think of Germany or Italy as certain portions of the earth's surface. The distinction between nations is thought of as spatial, and the "country" whose growth we watch in history is carelessly identified with a geographical region. But if Germany and Italy are at war it is not clods of earth that fight, how- ever intimate the connection may be between the
1 Cf. Bluntschli's Theory of the State (English trans. 1901), Book II. Ch. IV. There he speaks of nationality ; but, as we shall see, without sufficient perception of its result on institutions.
MORALITY AND NATIONALITY 7
blood and bone which makes an army and the soil of the land to which it belongs. The geographi- cal ghost is only dangerous in so far as it tends to substitute an abstract for a concrete conception. If we give a concrete meaning, for history and not for geography, to words such as England, Germany and Italy, we must feel distinctly that ^nations are groups of men and women! The colours of the map are the colours of blood ; and where this is not true the current of common blood tends to change the boundary of States. The men and women who are of one blood, whether or not under a special form of govern- ment, tend to act together. A nation, then, is primarily a group of men and women related physically. The further explanation of the term may be left until we have watched groups of this kind in action, for it is from physical relationship that nearly all powerful nations have arisen.
Let us take then, first, the growth of modern Germany. That group of men and women which we at present call Germany may be traced back in their ancestors, for our present purpose, to the dim beginnings of European history ; but we shall not retail the well-known adventures of the German tribes, nor the vicissitudes of German towns and Principalities during the Middle Ages. It is sufficient to notice that this descent appears to be of very great importance, even to a politician like
8 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS
Prince von Biilow.1 Physical relationship, there- fore, is recognised as one of the bases of a modern nation. In the Renaissance, however, the vicissi- tudes of the Middle Ages in that part of the world were continued. The group of men and women who were the ancestors of the present German people, although physically related, were divided in language and in interests. At the end, as we may call it, of the Renaissance period, at the French Revolution, the ancestors of our present Germans were divided into eight hundred groups. Then came the Napoleonic wars, and the barriers between these groups were broken down. The conqueror could hardly have imagined i he result. He strengthened the groups by uniting them ; by removing dynastic boundaries he permitted the free circulation of blood in the race and enabled the different groups to find their common interest. But for a time the new dykes which Napoleon established kept back the rising flood ; and there were remnants, too, of the old division of the groups. From 1815 to 1830 the Germans oscillated between the separatism of their past history and the tendency towards future union. Movements in the groups of men and women during 1830 and until 1848 were resisted by officials, until at last it became evident that these movements could be used. The question 1 Cf. Imperial Germany. Home policy, p. in (ed. 1914).
MORALITY AND NATIONALITY 9
then arose as to the principle according to which the distinct groups were to be organised, and opposition appeared between the tendencies of Prussia and Austria.
The war of 1864 against Denmark for Schles- wig-Holstein did not solve the problem, for the allies fell out. The war of 1866 followed, and the grouping of Germans in the North was definitely secured by Prussia. From that year till 1871 the history moves forward along the line of increase of common sentiments and de- crease of separatism. A successful war made all the different remaining groups feel the benefits of union, and the German Empire was established. Without doubt the movement was directed by Bismarck ; but in a sense the statesman was a tool in the hands of the very force he seemed to master. The German nation was being born, and its nature was never quite grasped even by the mind which seemed to the eyes of hero-worship to have created it. A group of men and women whose ancestors were divided in interest is now content to subordinate minor purposes to the ambition which they all feel in common. That is the force which we call a nation.1
The making of Italy shows the same features, except that there was in addition an ancient
1 Jellinek. Das Recht dcs Modernen Staates (p. 115, ed. 1905). Das Wesen der Nation 1st dynamischer Natur.
io THE MORALITY OF NATIONS
political union surviving as a memory, and the struggle towards nationality necessitated conflict with a foreign government. No Rome guided German unity, in spite of the effective use by politicians of the mediaeval ghost of an Empire ; and not many Germans were under foreign domination before the German Empire existed.1 In Italy, on the other hand, more than physical relationship and kindred dialects served as a basis for the uniting of divided groups. Here, too, the Napoleonic wars made insecure the old bar- riers, and the vague sentiments of the French Revolution influenced " the people." But the new force which we call the Italian nation hardly existed until success against Austria had freed Lombardy, until Garibaldi entered Naples, or even until the downfall of Napoleon III made it possible for the North Italians to enter Rome. Here again, then, what we have to watch is the gradual perception by divided groups of men and women that they have a common interest and a common tradition. Their gospeller Mazzini was, indeed, too much aloof from immediate issues to transform the crude elements of national ambition in the way he wished. He said that a nation
1 Of course, the excuse for the war concerning Schleswig- Holstein was the existence of a German population in the Duchies, and Alsace-Lorraine was supposed to be in some sense " German," having been violently added to France in earlier times.
MORALITY AND NATIONALITY n
should claim not its own aggrandisement, but its right to serve humanity as a distinct group. The result in Italy, however, was a force with no very idealistic tendency. As a force it still continues and grows, and perhaps is seeking a direction in which to move.
Lastly, we may quote Belgium as an example of the same sort of force. In 1815 the groups inhabiting what is now Belgium were summarily combined with the groups which now make Holland. Dissatisfaction and a growing percep- tion of distinction from the Dutch led in 1830, at the time of the "July" Revolution in Paris, to risings in Liege, Louvain and Brussels. The result was the formation by European agreement of the Kingdom of the Belgians. The group had asserted their common ambition and their distinction from all other groups. They were not all of the same blood or language, but their traditions and purposes were the same. It is of interest to note that in the eighteen-sixties Napoleon III and Bismarck were bargaining in the old, futile, " pre-nation," way as to whether the Belgians should be absorbed by France. The new group, however, survived : and to such an effect that the attack of August 1914 has cemented bjf common risk diverse races into one complete nation.
Such is the evidence : and these are but recent
12 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS
examples of the new force. For much the same may be said of the coming of group-consciousness in the British Dominions over the Seas, or in France or in Russia. From such examples one may judge of the nature of what we now call a nation ; and as a force whether for co-operation or for opposition, this is what is now meant by nationality.1 We may therefore assert that a nation is, first, a group of men and women related in blood. It has been observed that in settled civilisation, where for about a century immigration has not greatly affected a group, every member will be literally a relative of every other. It takes only a few generations of intermarriage to make the duke a relative of the tramp, where social caste is not supreme. Physical formation tends to be like in the members of the group, and this would naturally lead to likeness in language, custom or desires, although we should not speak of physical likeness as the cause of these. It follows that new nations may be formed by intermarriage and that the physical relationship remains important even when it is, as in the case of England, entirely subordinated to the other elements in nationality.
1 I use " nationality " to mean the quality uniting men and women of the same nation. It is sometimes used to mean what I have called a " nation " when that group is not politically independent. Cf. Bryce, S. America, p. 424.
MORALITY AND NATIONALITY 13
A common language also seems to be usual in a nation. Other things being equal, a nation is stronger, the group is more closely knit, in pro- portion to the effectiveness and common use of a language. This again gives a special kind of likeness to the members of the group ; for men and women cannot use the same terms without forcing their desires into the same moulds or establishing the same customs. Further, the use of a common language tends to intermarriage and so reinforces the more primitive basis of nationality in blood. And it is to be noticed that a common language is not a merely physical fact. It is not the sound which makes the nation but the meaning. Thus we distinguish language from the cries of beasts and, although beasts may be physically related, they cannot form what we call a nation because of the lack of that sympathy for which language stands. Perhaps also it is necessary to distinguish a language from a dialect ; for not until dialect gives place to language does a nation appear. But this means that the range, subtlety and effectiveness of speech has increased ; for dialect differs in these points from language. Not mere intelligibility, then, makes a common language, but effective co-operation in thought upon universal issues.1
1 This does not appear in the ordinary histories of litera- ture, which treat the English language as a mere manner
i4 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS
But neither blood nor language have the importance in this matter which belongs to tradition.1 A common tradition knits a group more closely than physical relationship or common language. Men whose ancestors have fought for the same cause or used peace for the same ends are more securely united than even those of the same physical family. In fact it is a tradition of purpose attempted that gives the human " family** its most potent value. The finest element in aristocracy is the inheritance of some tradition ; and this inheritance the Middle Ages endeavoured to make possible for the lowest-born by monasti- cism, in which one entered the " family " of the founder. Tradition has bound men together even when they were hardly conscious of it ; and the most decadent results of in-breeding among " nobilities " have often been given an artificial stamina by noblesse oblige. In larger societies tradition has brought villages to fame and endowed hill-tribesmen with human dignity,
of expression with hardly an understanding of what in the subject-matter expressed is characteristic and what is interna- tional and what universal.
1 For example, the formation of the English Nation by tradition uniting men of alien blood (British, Saxon, Norman) and diverse languages shows how far back this element of Nationality may be supposed to go. There is no clearer statement of this element of Nationality than in Kenan's Qu'esf-ce qtfon nation? (Conf.faite en Sorbomie, 1882).
MORALITY AND NATIONALITY 15
so much so that we must count it one of the chief formative elements in human grouping. Thus in the case of Belgium a common purpose overrides the distinction of race and language between Walloon and Fleming ; and this is but an extreme instance of the same case which we find in the union of Breton and the Gens du Midi in France.
To define more clearly what is meant by a common tradition, there must be in the first place a common history. If it is an eventful history, a short period of common adventure will make a group of families into a nation : if not much has been risked, then many centuries will be neces- sary. Thus more was done for the development of the national force in England during the few years of risk in Elizabeth's reign than during the centuries of desultory warfare which preceded. More was done for unifying the confused grovps of Revolutionary France in the few months of risk of foreign invasion in 1792 than had been done by the ardent constitution-makers of the preceding years.
It is not enough, then, to say that men must have a common memory : for not merely the fact of a common history, but the kind of history is important. Adventure in common is more uniting than a shared commonplace : and this is the reason why war seems to be so important
1 6 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS
for the making of a nation. The advocates of war do not simply believe it to be a regrettable necessity, but they look to the risk it involves as the only means by which men can learn their common interest as a nation. Risk, and there- fore war, since this has been the chief source of danger to all primitive groups, has been the great formative cause of nationality. It not only makes men forget private interest in a common cause, but it defines more clearly the lack of common interest in an alien group.
We say, then, that tradition, as the force for national unity and the diversity of nations, has meant war : and war may still act in this way. Of that we shall speak later. It is, however, necessary to say that this by no means proves war to be essential to the realisation of nation- ality. With those who are mentally incompetent to realise any danger but the physical, and with those who are unable to grasp any but the crudest common interests or the crudest differences from others, war will always be thus effective, but we may hope that those who are more developed will not always need to be governed by the necessity for the undeveloped to be taught common interests.1
1 Of course, that war has knit men together is no excuse for planning war, as the fact that disease has taught men endurance is no excuse for increasing disease. To praise war
MORALITY AND NATIONALITY 17
There are other risks besides those of foreign conquest, as, for example, the risk of domination by a caste or a clique ; and this risk also unites men and makes nations. In the English Revolu- tion, and still more in the French Revolution, this danger is seen actively driving the most diverse men together. There is also the danger, most effective in earlier times, of disease and famine. Even the presence of a volcano will make men brothers. And there are dangers, not grasped by the majority but unconsciously effec- tive, of mental decay or moral deterioration, the fear of which is the real reason for men's willingness to support such activities as national Education.1
A tradition, however, looks forward as well as back. It implies a common purpose or a common ideal.2 The group which is united by a living tradition generally holds (i) the same sort of character the best, and (2) the same sort of life the most desirable. Yet neither the ideal character
is like praising the man who burns down his house in order to be certain of the domestic affection of those who dwell in it (cf. Graham Wallas, The Great Society}.
1 Perhaps historians will look back to the United States as an example of a nation which has not been formed by war, so much at least as earlier nations have.
2 I give the word tradition this meaning as well, because it seems that what has united in the past is this common ideal : and it is because it was an ideal that the memory of the past is so valuable.
c
1 8 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS
nor the ideal life may be yet in existence : the present circumstances in the group may only tend in the admired direction. The ideals imagined may have only a vague basis in fact, and yet they may unite as if they were established facts.
It is difficult, of course, to state in a formula the nature of the character admired In England. Nor is any statement of it to be found in treatises on Ethics. It is expressed more clearly than elsewhere in contemporary novels and drama : but to be understood the admiration must be watched in the crowd at a cricket-match, in the audience at a political meeting or in the coteries of clubs and universities. Expressing it inexactly and in a general way one might, we may suppose, contrast the character admired among us with that admired by Prussians, in so far as they do not seem to understand what we should call playing the game, and they set a value upon " dignity " which we do not. The French also differ from us in seeming to think us too solemn, while our popular superstition accuses the French of frivolity. These absurdities stand for the real distinctions in characters admired. Thus character admired unites men. They accept as desirable the existence of human beings of intelligence or sobriety or strong emotion or stern intentness.
But also the kind of life we hold desirable makes our tradition. Personal independence we
MORALITY AND NATIONALITY 19
value highly, and we are willing to risk egoism in order to secure individuality. The organisa- tion of the group is a further question which must be dealt with in defining the nature of the State ; but we may say here that all organisation is by us supposed to make the life of the indi- vidual more free ; and we think that the greater the variety of individuals, the finer the life of each in the group. This ideal is clear not only from the arguments of the great English Indi- vidualists, Mill and Sidgwick, but even from the expression of ideals in romance.
Perhaps it is not fair to summarise the Prussian ideal of life, but it appears to be clear from its expression in literature that independ- ence of the individual is by them somewhat suspected. They seem to think that a group is finer the more homogeneous the individuals are who compose it : and we do not deny that such a group is more easily governed, but they seem to think that orderly and smooth-running government is an end.
Again, the French desire generally a different kind of life from ours or the Prussian. They appear to us sometimes to tend to bureaucracy and the adoration of petty officials. To them we appear " haphazard." And other like contrasts may be found in the kinds of life desired by Italians, or Spaniards, or Japanese. Thus the kind of life desired is one of the elements of
20 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS
tradition, in so far as it unites men for a common purpose : and it is not unusual for the ignorant to suppose that there is something deficient in a kind of life which they do not desire.
Tradition, however, is most powerful when it is embodied in a characteristic form of religion. In early times the group is united and distin- guished from other groups by some form of ritual : the king is the priest and group-customs are rites.1 Sometimes a religion is enough to keep a " nation " in existence in spite of diverging language. The Jews are an example.
As civilisation develops and religion becomes more closely connected with morality, the kind of life and character admired (the moral standard) is fixed and developed by religious sanctions. Where the religious group is coterminous with the blood and language group, where the physical or intellectual relatives have the same ritual and creed, the nation is stronger. Patriotism and orthodoxy are inseparable and are, in the minds of the majority, identified. Such is the situation in most of Ireland and in Poland : and even in more complex nations there is often a tendency to reaction by the identifying of national enthusiasm with some special form of creed.2
1 The theme is well worn : cf. Frazer, Golden Bough ; Jane Harrison, Themis ; and Durkheim.
2 As, for example, in Dimnet's France herself again.
MORALITY AND NATIONALITY 21
Where the religious ritual and creed is not precisely the same throughout the whole group, as in England and in Germany, there is, neverthe- less, a certain general resemblance in the religious attitude of most citizens which is sufficient to support the distinction of the group at least from extremely distant groups such as the Japanese. But in the differentiation which follows a higher civilisation, the national differences are often quite unconnected with religious differences. In every case, however, religion seems to have an important influence on the formation of nationality. So far, then, we may go in indicating what makes a nation : but the nature of nationality may be understood also from the results it has had in the political sphere.
The result of common blood, language and tradition has generally been the establishment of common institutions, which distinguish this group from the other. And these institutions have been for many different purposes. The first, in the development of history, has been religion : in fact the nation, like the tribe or the family, has often been a religious union, long before it was a political whole. The result is national priesthood and ritual : and when nations arise at a later stage in civilisation the result is a national Church. In a developed culture educational institutions tend to be distinct and characteristic of different national groups.
22 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS
But for our present purpose the political institu- tions are the most interesting. They are of many kinds, and not all nations have contrived to establish a unique form of the highest political institution called the State.1 Sometimes the State-organisation is accepted from aliens while the regional administration remains national and distinctive. But every State is the institutional result of some national sentiment or tradition, even when the institution is imposed upon other nations. And it is now often regarded in England as desirable that there should be a closer corre- spondence than there is between the distinctions of nationality and the distinctions of political institutions.
The consciousness of nationality has produced a plan of action called Nationalism, according to which each nation should have its own supreme political organisation.2 In its exaggerated form this would mean that every nation should be a State ; and this, whether practicable or not, is
1 Since there is magic, black or white, in words, it is as well to note that State (Staat, etat, stato) means simply " established." It comes into use from the phrase " status reipublicae." Cf. a full treatment in Jellinek, op. cit., Ch. V, p. 123.
It is absurd to treat nationality as a political fact only ; it is also a religious or a cultural fact, and is only political in so far as it expresses itself in a political institution.
2 It is well to remember that this ideal is recent. The French Directorate of 1795, etc., declared a policy of "natural boundaries " which still affects German statesmen.
MORALITY AND NATIONALITY 23
of interest for our present purpose because it establishes the distinction now accepted between a nation and a State. It has been maintained that every nation should have its own Church, and in every such theory the institutional system is distinguished from the group united by blood, language and tradition.
When we turn, with this conception of nation and nationality, to discover what difference such facts make to morality we find that nationality which has not resulted in distinct States makes no difference at all. Differences of blood, language and tradition seem to make no difference to the arrangement of conflicting interest according to the same moral criteria which are used between members of the same family.
But where the political institutions differ, the moral relationships of men seem to differ. No one would maintain that the moral relationship of inhabitants of Scotland and England differs from that of one Englishman to another. Issues to be decided between Englishmen are decided in the same way as between an Englishman and a Scots- man or an Indian, allowing, of course, for peculi- arities of local law. For no one imagines that the Englishman must " expand " as against the Scotsman, or that where it is doubtful whose interests should suffer it must be decided by force of arms. Again, Slavs under Austrian rule are
24 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS
treated as rebels if they refuse to fight Slavs of Serbia ; and thus it seems that the moral attitude towards people living under different political institutions is supposed to be different from the normal, whether or not these others are of the same nation. Moral criteria, then, are accepted as between nations but not altogether between States : so that it may seem as if the differing institutions created a new moral situation or an absolutely unmoral situation.
We shall have, then, to examine into the nature of this astonishing institution called the State, which seems to have so strange an effect upon morality. We may put aside altogether the idea that the relationship between citizens of diverse states is unmoral. It has been maintained by Machiavelli ; and although Treitschke and von Billow and even Bismarck were probably not competent to think out what their writings imply, it seems to be maintained also by them. A State is not mere power nor a natural force like electri- city : or rather if anyone chooses to use the word in that sense he is not thinking of what we call the supreme political institution.1 That such institutions are related morally we take as proved
1 I need hardly say that the German tradition is opposed to Treitschke, as is apparent in Kant, Fichte and Hegel ; and in Bluntschli's The State has a moral nature (1st eln sittliches Wesen} and moral duties.
MORALITY AND NATIONALITY 25
by the existence of intercourse and the limitations of warfare ; but what precisely those moral rela- tionships are we shall have to discuss later. It is sufficient to note here that they are moral and are accepted as such by implication even in those works which seem to argue that they are not.
The fundamental issue first to be decided is as to the nature of the State. And this can only be discovered by noticing the current conceptions of it and making such corrections as the present facts seem to necessitate. The result will be not a finished philosophy of the State, but an indication of present tendencies in the morality of citizens as related to citizens of other States.
CHAPTER II
THE STATE AND OTHER INSTITUTIONS
THE question "What is a State?" has been answered in many great works ; but since new facts have come into prominence in recent years the old answers are quite inadequate. The con- ceptions which arose from Greek city life, from the Mediaeval Empire, from Renaissance Juris- prudence and even from the Nineteenth Century democracy are no longer adequate to explain what we now experience. Each is, as Bacon said of Scholastic philosophy, " subtilitati naturae longe impar " : and all must be replaced or corrected.
Summarily one may say that there have been four great conceptions of the State — not, of course, merely four ways of using the word but four ways of regarding the same fact. These are the Greek, the Mediaeval, the Renaissance and that of the Nineteenth Century. These four philosophies have some common features, since all are really theories of the same fact : and this fact in its general features may be described somewhat as follows. Institutions of many kinds exist, of which some
26
STATE AND OTHER INSTITUTIONS 27
are subordinate to others, not necessarily in im- portance but in organisation. That political organ- isation which is not subordinated to any other and which generally unites men of the same race and language is what is referred to in all theories of the State.1 Organisation, then, is fundamental to the idea of a State and not, for example, to that of a nation. But, further, I think we may say that such organisation must be conscious. In this way State organisation seems to differ from that of the family, although the distinction is perhaps only one of degree. The " democratic " State implies organisation consciously accepted or even originated by the majority of its members, whereas the despotic or oligarchic State is an organisation accepted as unquestioningly by the greater number as is the family or the tribe.
This also is common to all States, of the Greek as well as of the modern type, that they are organisations for the attainment of the common u political " good of those organised. But a political good is distinct from a religious, in- dustrial, economic, artistic or scientific good : although all these goods may have been attained
1 I take the sovereign State of International Law as the real State and not, for example, the " State " of New York : but I do not wish to imply that the State is sovereign over organisa- tions of another kind, nor even that " sovereign " implies complete independence.
28 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS
in the past by the use of one institution. I shall endeavour to show in what follows that the State is not now for the purpose of an undefined or unlimited common good, but only for the common good of a certain kind : and I shall suppose that political good is a civilised life which may pro- vide opportunity for varied interests or activities. The political good, then, does not include the whole of " the good life," as it would to Aristotle or to any Greek, but may be regarded as the necessary condition for attaining the artistic, scientific or religious good. The general will is now organ- ised for different purposes in different ways : or we may be more exact and say that there are different general wills even " in the same person/' But the State is always in all philosophies re- garded as at least the sovereign organisation for the attainment of political common good?- No doubt much more may be included in all past philosophies, but this is all that it is necessary for us to assume as common in order to show the deficiencies of our inherited conceptions.
Allowing, therefore, for the common features of all " States " in all civilised periods, there are
1 It will be understood that " sovereign " here means only highest of all institutions (of the same group) which are of the same political order. The State is thus " sovereign " over a municipality which exists for departmental order and liberty : and is not sovereign over institutions which exist for other purposes.
STATE AND OTHER INSTITUTIONS 29
nevertheless great differences between the modern State and all supreme political institutions of earlier times. But these earlier institutions were the evidence for our inherited theories of the State. It would not then be strange if such theories seemed inadequate for dealing with present prob- lems. Indeed, although there is something common to the modern State and the political institutions of earlier times, there is much that makes the old conceptions difficult to apply to the present situa- tion. In the first place, the present meaning of politics indicates the change, since we now dis- tinguish politics from religion, education or culture. But it is only in recent times that institutions for entirely different purposes have been recognised to exist independently of the State. Churches did not exist in Aristotle's time, international scientific associations were not of much impor- tance in Hobbes's day, and trade unions were negligible in Hegel's day. Now a civilised man belongs to more than one institution, and the different institutions are used for en- tirely different purposes.1 We must therefore point out the peculiarities of the earlier political institutions in the four great periods of political
1 " When a body of men . . . bind themselves to act together for any purpose . . . they create a body which by no fiction of law but by the very nature of things differs from the individuals composing it." Dicey, quoted in Maitland (Coll. Papers, III. Body Pol.).
3o THE MORALITY OF NATIONS
thought, especially with respect to the purposes for which political institutions were supposed to exist. They have either included much more than we expect of the State or they have implied a sharing of social functions with other institutions which is impossible now.
(A) The Greek polls. The modern State is so essentially different from the Greek City-State that it will not be necessary to go through all the distinctions. But we must notice that polls stands for an institution supplying nearly all the needs of civilised life — religion, politics, music, painting, and part of education. Naturally such an institution is absolute, and its maintenance is the necessity of any civilised life whatever. But no such institution exists now. The theories about it are too vague : for as metaphysics or <c philosophy " once meant what is now divided into astronomy, physics and logic, so " politics " once meant what is now divided up into different studies of social structure. Thus Aristotle on " politics" discusses flute-playing and Plato poetry : for the polls, which no longer exists, was the object of their study. Now, as politics no longer deals with the polls, so the word <c State " does not generally stand now for what supplies our religious, intellectual or artistic needs, and perhaps not even for an institution supplying our food and cloth- ing, although to the modern mind economics
STATE AND OTHER INSTITUTIONS 31
and politics are not clearly distinguished. So that whatever the institution may be which we call a State, the conceptions due to the absolutism and universalism of the polis do not apply to it. Those ideas of Plato and Aristotle which imply that there is one institution supplying all civilised needs are simply obsolete. The Roman " urbs " was in a sense new, especially when it became an tc orbs " ; and there existed also Cc collegia " which embodied other purposes than the political ; but the old theory of the omnipotent polis which supplied the whole of civilised life still seemed to be sufficient.
(B) The Mediaeval Regnum. On the downfall of Rome new institutions came into prominence. One, called the Church, was non-racial, and aimed at being Cosmopolitan : it supplied artistic and educational as well as religious needs. There were also the feeble Empire and many half- independent organisations for supplying political needs, particularly order ^ directed and sometimes established by warriors. These came into con- tinual conflict, as to the limits of their functioning, with the universal Church. They were called generally regna ; but no such institution now exists. The conceptions due to mediaeval king- ship, as keeping order and having no direct interest in education or culture, are obsolete. The Greek-Roman conception included too much
32 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS
in politics, the mediaeval excluded too much from it. The relation to the only other type of institu- tion, the Church, was too simple to apply to our modern situation ',l and other institutions, gilds and universities seemed to exist at the pleasure of the King or the Pope.
(C) The Renaissance Sovereign State. The medi- aeval struggle practically ended in the defeat of the Church, and the old regna put on the sacredness of their opponent. The new institu- tion was in some sense a reaction towards the polls, in so far as the State then claimed to be supreme over religion. But no State con- trived to become a Church; and men united for political purposes were quite divided for religious or artistic or cultural purposes. The State as a political institution, however, was regarded as more important than any other institution, and every other association or institution for civilised life seemed to owe its existence to this Leviathan. As opposed to egoistic individualism there seemed to be only one social bond, that of citizenship ; so that the only loyalty was patriotism, and the only institution for which a man should give his life was, not church or university, but the State, identified in practice with the King.
1 Largely because the " Church " included too much among its purposes for it to be regarded as equivalent to any single institution now existing.
STATE AND OTHER INSTITUTIONS 33
(D) The Nineteenth Century. The French Revo- lution disturbed the Renaissance situation but resulted in little change of the current political conceptions. For the continued growth of new institutions was hardly marked in the new theories of the State. The new political institutions were practically national ; and affection based upon blood, language or tradition, being directed to the maintenance of the State, exalted the State still more as compared with Church, economic unions or cultured societies. Mediaevalists pro- tested against the Erastianism, but the position of superiority to all other institutions was granted to the State grudgingly in England and gladly in France, Germany and Italy. Even in England the suspicion of the omnipotent State, which can be felt in the Utilitarians, was expressed as though the opposite to State-worship could only be an isolating Individualism. There was no word of other social bonds. The new situation had led to a correction of Greek " politics," Mediaeval simplicity and Renaissance absolutism ; but a further change due to industrialism and the closer contact of nations was to make political theory even of the nineteenth century hopelessly inade- quate. The world changed too quickly for the slowly moving wits of the philosophers.
Present Political Theory. In theory the modern State still continues to be a mixture of Greek
34 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS
iS) Mediaeval regnum and Renaissance " sove- reign " ; but in fact the modern State gener- ally does not supply religion or food and clothing, even if it makes the supply of such needs possible by law and order. The theory of politics still continues to deal with issues which no practical politician would dare to touch ; whereas in fact men treat politics as being concerned supremely with the State, and in this with one only of their common interests. A man who belonged to a State only and not to a Church or an academy or a company or an artistic society or a trade union, would not be conceived to be a whole man. Clearly, then, one man may belong to many insti- tutions for many different purposes, and the State is one among these ; but only superior to others if the purposes of citizenship are more valuable to us than other purposes, or if we get more of what we value by belonging to the State than we get by belonging to any other institution. But the State is still regarded as sacred by many who have given up the sacredness of kings. And perhaps the theological unorthodoxy of the nine- teenth century will have to be followed by political unorthodoxy in the twentieth. For we are now aware of the genesis of the State, and no longer regard it as descended from heaven. Facts force themselves on our notice, while we still strive to
STATE AND OTHER INSTITUTIONS 35
believe in a confused medley of the observations of dead thinkers.
Of all the obsolete conceptions of the State the Hegelian is, perhaps, the most obsolete, in regard to the purposes for which social organisation is supposed to exist. The State is made into an absolute institution, including and transcending all others ; and with such a conception it is natural to conclude that " Kultur " in its widest sense, and everything which makes life civilised, is due to the wonderful State. The last absurdity is reached when this mysterious and all-powerful organisation is identified with Prussian bureau- cracy. But happily no Hegelian State exists ; for even German " Kultur " is not dependent upon the German State alone. The State being one of many institutions, it is well to recognise that its position with regard to other institutions is not that of inclusion or transcendence. A citizen may belong to a Church which counts among its members citizens of other States than his ; or he may belong to a company of scholars much more closely in contact than are the citizens of any State ; or he may belong to a non-national capitalist com- pany or a labour union. To each of these insti- tutions he belongs for a special purpose ; each he maintains for a special gain which he expects from it. And even when, as in the case of some
36 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS
Nonconformist religious bodies or some trade unions, all the members are citizens of one State, it does not follow that the common citizenship has anything to do with the membership of the other institutions.
When one man belongs to many institutions the institutions may indeed be unified, but their distinction is not obliterated : just as when one man eats a dinner and hears a symphony, the dinner and the symphony remain distinct. Again, when a man uses many institutions, one insti- tution need not be " superior " to the other, in sense of including the other.1 The value of this institution may be greater than the value of that, as we value more what we derive from this than what we derive from that : but it does not appear to be obvious that the State is necessarily and in every instance more valuable than any other. And further, if we do make estimates of the value of what we get from different institutions, it does not follow that there is, or should be, any institution which is " sovereign " over all. When many " goods " are compared, there is, of course, an absolute good : but the absolute good is different in kind — it is not one among many,
1 The general thesis is worked out by Mainland, following Gierke (Pol. Theory in the Middle Ages) ; also in Figgis, The Church In the Modern State, the independence of religious association is asserted. In Guild Socialism the same kind of thesis is com- bined with what seems an antiquated view of a federal state.
STATE AND OTHER INSTITUTIONS 37
it is a universal and can never be a particular. Good dinners, good literature, good music, good order and freedom are all "goods" necessary in the civilised life ; but one could not attain this life by sacrificing all such u goods " and aiming at "the good." When we say, then, that the State is not sovereign over all other institutions, we do not imply that the Church or any other institution is sovereign. Modern life is an orderly democracy of varied interests ; and the relation of the institutions which supply those interests is therefore democratic. The distinction of value between the purposes for which institu- tions exist may indeed subordinate one institution to another when there is conflict ; but normally they exist side by side in co-ordination which is not subordination to anything but the law of their own existence.
The State, by contrast with other institutions, may be regarded as providing the opportunity for the enjoyment of those " goods " which other institutions supply ; but no special form of State must, as we shall see, be therefore supposed to be the necessary means for other institutional ends.1 Law and government in general are the
1 The State is the highest institution for a political purpose, but not the only institution even for this. Subordinate to it are municipal councils, provincial governments, etc. Of course, it is sovereign over these.
38 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS
means of State-action ; and the purpose is order and liberty — as much order as does not involve tyranny, and as much liberty as does not in- volve license. But the State does not provide art or science or religion in modern times, although none of these could exist without order and liberty. The State is one among many institutions which seem to be necessary for the civilised life, and political theory must therefore explain its relation to these. This, however, is not necessary for my present purpose, if it is clear that the relationship will be based upon the purposes for which the different institutions exist. It may be held that although the State does not, it should provide all the needs of civilised life ; but this form of Socialism seems to be as obsolete as Prussian despotism.1 The refutation of it is to be found in the historical law of the differentiation of function in institutions ; and we take this law as the general statement indi- cating the characteristic purpose of the modern State. To take a non-controversial example : the mediaeval Church supplied music, painting, drama and even, in early times, dancing, as well as what we now call religion and morality. The Church building of the mediaeval town represents
1 It is, indeed, of German manufacture. State Socialism has direct affinities with the Hegelian State-philosophy, and that again with Prussian administration.
STATE AND OTHER INSTITUTIONS 39
in its singleness the many different buildings which we now call the concert-hall, the art- gallery, the museum, the theatre and sometimes, as in the festa asinariay the music-hall. On the plan of a mediaeval city one finds no theatres or art-galleries : not because the needs now supplied in such buildings were not felt, but because one institution supplied them all. Since the Renais- sance, however, learning and art have been supplied by new institutions, and the Church has been more and more limited in its function ; but it has gained by that limitation in definiteness and in effectiveness so far as religion is con- cerned. And the same may be argued of the modern State : for we by no means accept the Spencerian idea that the limitation of State function means that the State does less than it did. Although the function of the State is strictly political, its sphere of action now is much greater than in the days when one institution provided both the political and the other needs of civilised life. The limitation of State function does not, by any means, degrade the State, as the limitation of the functions of a Church does not degrade the Church. We give more, and we expect more of the modern State ; and, indeed, we receive more than even the Athenians did, for specialisation of the institution has increased its power and the range of its effectiveness.
40 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS
Spencer made the mistake of supposing that if the individual had greater freedom, the State must be restricted ; or if civilised needs were supplied by other institutions, the State must become less powerful. But such an idea implies that there is a fixed amount of shared power, such that if one institution gains the other must lose ; or that there is a strictly bounded sphere of action within which all distribution of function must take place : whereas, in fact, power increases and the sphere of institutional activity is always expand- ing. So that, although there are many more institutions than there once were, each does more than any single comprehensive institution did in the past ; and also — but this is a different issue — although the individual is " freer," the State, so far from being restricted, is more and more active. Indeed, its power is not merely correc- tive, it has even become directive. The limitation or specialisation of function is therefore by no means a restriction of power.
When we consider not the English State only, but each civilised State in turn, we see every- where how much more the State has still to do than it has ever yet done, quite apart from the changes in the relationship of State to State which, as we shall see later, are a basis for more action. We have a long way to go in extending liberty. Men are not free who are born under-fed and
STATE AND OTHER INSTITUTIONS 41
brought up in surroundings which are physically cramping or intellectually barren. And where one man is not free, the whole society to which he belongs is not free, since its development is restricted by the restriction of its citizen. The State, therefore, must extend its activities in this direction. And, again, order is not yet estab- lished among the new economic forces which industrialism has created ; for competition is leading to monopoly and monopoly to discontent and disorder. Supply and demand are hopelessly confused, for there is a glut of some articles and a scarcity of others. The relation of classes also is not orderly, since the law is often at the mercy of caprice and the poor man often appeals in vain. All this, then, is also material for State action. So that when we say that the practical politician is not directly concerned with religion or art, we do not mean that there is less to be done. On the contrary, there is much more to be done than such politicians imagine.
Again, we are but on the frontiers of the problem which arises out of the control by the State, not of individuals, but of organised groups. Institutions which exist for other purposes than the maintenance of law and order have to submit to regulation for the sake of law and order. Thus a Church may not be a department of State, but it must be prevented from persecuting ;
42 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS
a trade union may not exist for the benefit of those who do not belong to it, but it must be prevented from injuring them ; a trust or company may not owe its existence to the State, but its action must be limited in the interest of the body of citizens. Indeed, the problems of modern political theory are innumerable although the State is not any longer what it was for our grandfathers. The massing of inhabitants in great cities, the manufacture for a world market, the diversification of modern interests, the subtleties of modern finance, have all gone to produce the new situation. And in that complexity we must distinguish the different groupings of men and the diverse institutions which men use in common for different purposes. One institution has inherited the religious, another the cultural, another the economic, and another the political purpose of the old Greek polis. And the various changes of history have caused a continual redistribution of function until at last we have arrived at the twentieth century — which is not, of course, the end of time.
But whatever the State may be ultimately proved to be, it is clear that it is not, with respect to other institutions for civilised life, what our traditional philosophy has imagined it to be.
CHAPTER III
THE STATE AND OTHER STATES
NOT only by contrast with institutions used for other than political purposes is our State different from the political institutions of the past, but also by reference to its relationship with other States. Supreme political institutions may be said to be of the same order ; and it is in this purely political sphere also that the modern State differs from Trfais and regnum and " sovereign." Its relationship to other institu- tions of the same order is absolutely vital to its nature ; so that it is utterly impossible to regard the modern State as isolated. But the inherited theory of the State implies, even when it does not express, the idea that "foreign relations "are a matter for an appendix or a short chapter, while the " essence " of the State is discussed under the heading of law and government. Obviously the isolation of the State for purposes of discussion is largely due to the importance of the problem regarding the relationship between the group (nation, families,
43
44 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS
etc.) and the institutions of the group. In modern times the importance of understanding this relationship has not diminished. There is much thought of nationality and group character : and, of course, political institutions are of great importance for maintaining and developing this. Internal or domestic political problems are not any less important : but, admitting this, we may nevertheless maintain that no State can be under- stood at all if it is, even by implication, imagined to be the only State in existence.
Let us, then, put aside, for the present, the question of nationality and consider first the false philosophical isolation of the State.
To the most cursory view of the facts it is obvious that the State, our present organisation for political life, is normally and continuously in contact with other States. The sending of occasional embassies has given place not only to continued diplomatic intercourse but to the most intricate business of the consular service. State organisation is changed in one place because of some method adopted in some other States, as, for example, the influence of " foreign systems " may be seen in English official education. Or again, English parliamentary institutions cause a modification of those in other States. The existence of a military system in Germany makes it necessary for France to adopt the same system.
THE STATE AND OTHER STATES 45
And the interrelation is not always in the direction of assimilating institutions : for con- tinuous economic intercourse makes the German State resist the growth of industry for the promotion of agriculture,1 while in the United States industry is more and more protected against "high finance." In the progress of economic differentiation one group tends to become predominantly industrial, another pre- dominantly agricultural, and so on : the institu- tions of the two groups tend, therefore, to differ more and more. But they differ because of their interdependence. This interdependence, then, is of importance in considering the nature of the State.
When, however, we turn to the traditional philosophy of the State we find no recognition of such facts ; partly, as we must allow, because the prominence of this interdependence is a new fact which has not been so noticeable in the past, but partly because of the concentration of atten- tion upon other facts. If we follow the line of history farther and farther back into the past, the philosophical theory of the State is seen to be more and more inadequate to explain present facts.
The Hegelian State lives and develops by absorbing its own vitals ; but the metaphysical 1 Cp. von Bulow, Imperial Germany, p. 208.
46 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS
dogmatism of the " Philosophy of Mind " is no worse than the economic dogmatism of Karl Marx. He sees the State in isolation as a changing series of relations between citizens ; and he barely recognises the transference of capital across boundaries or the interchange of industry which was to make of his State Socialism an obsolete ideal. To Spencer and even to Mill and Sidgwick " the State " is the English Government, having an occasional and unimportant contact with mere foreigners. Hence, as Hegel and Marx say, the nature of the State is to centralise, Mill and Spencer say the nature of the State is to decentralise ; and it does not dawn upon either party that one State centralises and the other decentralises because there is a continuous interrelation between them. It is true that the inter-State life was not so great in the early nineteenth century as it now is ; but a philosopher should not require to be hit on the head before he observes a new fact.
If we go farther back in history we find that the philosophy preceding that of the nineteenth century did recognise the existence of many States. The Renaissance idea of equal sovereign States was an attempt to understand the fact of distinct organisations. Here again, however, only one type of State is considered — the monarchical ;
THE STATE AND OTHER STATES 47
for although a grudging acknowledgment is made by Grotius and by Bodin of republican forms, the tendency for institutions to diverge is not referred to in their final conclusions as to Sovereignty. And this means that the existence of States of entirely diverse kinds is not sufficiently discussed. But more vital still for my present purpose is the Renaissance conception of the almost accidental relationship between States. An organisation which is supposed occasionally, by some diplomatic meeting or agreement or by a declaration of war, to be really influenced by another organisation, is not such an organisation as we know now to be continuously and normally part of a complex organism. Further, " Sovereignty," so far as it was referred to external powers of the State, involved the idea of opposition. Independence was so conceived as if it could not co-exist with interdependence. One State, to the mind of the Renaissance, was as disconnected from another as is the earth from the moon. It might be drawn in the orbit of another, or at certain times move together with another ; but it had definite boundaries and therefore definite divisions from all others. To our minds one State is only so distinct from another as one limb is distinct from another of the same body : and the " interests " of one State are obviously no longer confined within the boundaries of the lands over which
48 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS
the law and government of that State is established.
Yet farther back, in the Middle Ages, even the Renaissance distinction of organisations is obscured in the magnificent hypothesis of a single civilised Europe. This hypothesis and the Roman idea of a single World-State, outside of which there is politically nothing, separate our world from theirs completely. But Renaissance Sovereignty and the nineteenth- century isolation of the State are direct results of the Roman fact and the mediaeval dream. A State can only be " sovereign " when there is only one State in existence : hence the difficulties which arise in the books on International Law as to the " limits to sovereignty." The Renaissance took the quality which belonged to the Roman Empire and conferred it illogically upon several States. And to the mediaeval dream we must look for the source of that " theocracy " which is conferred upon the State in all forms of nineteenth-century philosophy.
Finally, in the Greek conception of the State which still influences modern thought,' the State is completely isolated. For Plato in the Republic there is only one State which, by means of its warrior-guardians, comes into occasional conflict with shadowy opponents who are not even given any definite aims or organisation of their own.
THE STATE AND OTHER STATES 49
There is not the slightest hint of two such Republics in existence : and since that is unim- portant, the State goes on its own way quite without reference to the groupings or organisa- tions of the rest of humanity. In the Laws Plato acknowledges that peace and not war must be the normal purpose of state-organisation ; and that only seems to make matters worse. War had at least introduced the idea of other groups occasionally influencing " the " State ; but peace seems to involve no interrelation at all. Travellers may indeed come from abroad : we may learn from foreigners, and hints may be given by different actual States as to the method of organisation in the State, but the State is conceived as isolated.
Aristotle, it might be imagined, with his inductive method, should have grasped the fact that state-organisation was not isolated. He knows of many diverse forms of organisation, and is even said to have collected evidence from many more constitutions than are referred to in the Politics. But for him also there is only one State, when he is discussing any one specimen. He knows many organisations, but each in isola- tion ; and he hardly allows for more than an occasional alliance or a war. Trade is a dangerous experiment largely because it seems to violate the perfect self-sufficiency of the State.
50 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS
Now it is obvious that these theories, until and after the Renaissance, represented facts much more closely than they do now. The Greek State was almost isolated : not so isolated in fact as our reading of the philosophers would lead us to imagine ; and we should remember that the official relations between States are never quite all the interconnections which exist. But on the whole we may assert that the course of history has brought groups always closer together and that interdependence has followed on contact. The later the philosophy, therefore, the more inade- quately does it represent facts so long as the State is considered to be isolated. Plato and Aristotle are more inadequate than Hegel and Spencer for the understanding of present facts ; but Hegel and Spencer were more mistaken as to their own contemporary facts than were Plato and Aristotle.
Present facts, then, demand the recognition of continuous and normal interdependence of States. The nature of the State is to be under- stood, at least in part, from its relations with other States : and all philosophies which even imply that the State is isolated are out of date.
Indeed, one may say that the modern State must be understood by this external reference. In the same sense the individual cannot be under- stood in isolation, but only by continual reference to society or to his relations with other individuals.
THE STATE AND OTHER STATES 51
The individual, in our sense of the word, does not exist prior to society ; but the contrary rather is true. For the change which we call progress is marked by the appearance of the unique and differentiated " person," after the long period in which the group so overshadows all action and thought that the personality can hardly be said to exist at all. So also the modern States arise after the vague groupings of Feudalism and Mediae valism (whether Western or Eastern) ; and each arises only in close contact with other individualised or distinct States, in definite relation to it. In that sense the modern State is a new fact, and the observations of Plato, Bodin, Hegel and Sidgwick do not refer to it. But we have preferred to be more polite and to say only that some elements in the fact have not been considered. Even the self-regarding or internal organisation of the State is naturally posterior and even logically dependent upon its relations with other States.1 Thus Hegel should have recognised that his ideal bureaucracy was due to the contact with France ; and Spencer should have seen that his view of* governmental " interference " was due to the industrial superiority of England in contact with the Continent.
The relations of State with State, then, are
1 It is seen by Sidgwick that taxation for " defence " makes a vast difference to the internal economy of a State.
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absolutely vital in the discussion of the nature of the State. What those relations are in detail we shall see later. Obviously the relation most prominent in early State history is that of pure opposition or war. Thus to many war is of the essence of the State. But it is doubtful, to say the least of it, whether even in the earliest times the less prominent and less obtrusive relations of peace are not more genuinely effective in creating the State. Historians have neglected the unobtru- sive and have made what was striking into what was most real ; but even they have not been able to explain the situation as it is at present except by grudging references to non-warlike influence of State on State. Whatever the relations are, or have been, between States, it is clear that a reference to them will profoundly modify the current conception of the State.
In the first place, it will follow that State systems tend to assimilate but also to differ : to differ in some elements and to assimilate in others. The isolation of the State or a grudging reference to external relations results in a too great emphasis on assimilation. Thus Herbert Spencer senten- tiously announces that State action is gradually restricted with the progress of civilisation, depend- ing, in fact, upon a partial statement of what was occurring in England in a short and exceptional period of history. Had he seen the influences
THE STATE AND OTHER STATES 53
passing from Germany or France he would have perceived that even the English State was soon to be compelled to take over more and more the direction of private enterprise, if for no other reason, at least in order to stand even with the centralising tendency of France and Germany.
Hegel, on the contrary, in the manner of his own Absolute, declares to a credulous Germany that the State is absolute. But if he had seen the influences passing from England he would have allowed for the freer play of individuality as one of the results of State organisation.
Political interdependence, which had really always existed and grew very rapidly in the nineteenth century, has now become obvious. International Law has established itself as a science ; capital and industry pass across State boundaries ; and a shock, whether to credit or to secure government, in one State immediately affects all others. But philosophy lags behind. No new conception of the State has developed out of these new facts ; and, since philosophy affects common life more than the practical man cares to admit, the lack of a new philosophy involves the handling of new situations with the primitive or clumsy conceptions of Plato or Hegel.
When the interdependence of States is recog- nised it will follow that the philosophical idea of the State will no longer be that of a single,
54 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS
self-sufficient organism, but rather that of a functioning organ in a grouping more or less organised. The relations of the citizens will not be confined to the boundaries of their State but, through their State, even in the political sphere, they will be seen to be in continuous contact with citizens of other States. And further, the state- organisation itself will be seen to differ progres- sively from that of other organisations with which it is in contact, in proportion as the differentiation of economic function or of religious ideal develops in this or that State.
It is to be understood that such conscious interdependence is not yet established. The current phrases of politics, whether practical or theoretical, indicate no very new conception of the State or of the relationship between States. To the mind of the average citizen the word State does not normally indicate any reference to his relationship with citizens of other States, although in crises the fact that he is so related by his State is forced upon his attention. The intimate relationship which he then recognises of his State with other States, existed before he recognised it and influenced his own action with- out his being conscious of it.1 An antiquated theory implying the isolation of the State, ob- scured his view of modern facts : but the new
1 e. g. in his payment of taxes for Navy and Army, etc.
THE STATE AND OTHER STATES 55
contact was increasing, and gradually it has forced itself upon our attention.
The result of the new situation, acting upon ordinary life and not being recognised for what it is, has been disastrous. In the first place, facts unrecognised have been left ungoverned. So long as we neglect what we may call a natural force we are at its mercy : when we recognise it for what it is we may contrive to turn it to our own advantage. By such advances do we "master the lightning." The State has been considered and criticised from the point of view of law and government concerning its own citizens : and the results of criticism have been improvements, for example, in criminal law or in local administration. An institution conceived to exist for a certain purpose has been found to be not fulfilling that purpose well, and new methods have been suggested or tried. This, however, was due to a concentration upon the internal purposes of the State ; which involved a neglect or a complete subordination of the other elements in the same institution.
We do not maintain that the State was an institution originally devised for bringing groups politically into contact. The historical origin of the present situation is another question. The obvious fact is that the institution does now bring groups into continuous and normal contact, and it
5 6 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS
is now used for that purpose. But the use of the State for what we call " foreign " relations has not been adequately considered, since it has made no real difference to our conception of what the State is. Being conceived as essentially isolated, it is almost impossible by means of an appendix or an occasional hint to correct the original assumption : and the tacit assumption has been that the modern State is a TTOX^ or a regnum or a "sovereign"; whereas in fact the situation has changed.
Here, then, is a political institution essentially in contact with other institutions of the same order ; whose internal structure is continually affected by that contact ; . whose utility to the group of which it is the highest political institu- tion is due to the fact that it relates them to other groups so organised ; whose history and character is modified and sometimes developed by long periods of amity and occasional, less important, episodes of war. But that contact has been left to be governed by the play of any accidental or natural forces which might supervene, to be violently transformed by unreasoned passion, to be crudely used for selfish ends. The wonder is that foreign policy in the civilised modern States has not been still more blind and unprincipled than it has. For where reason has not entered, passion fills the void.
THE STATE AND OTHER STATES 57
The dangerous effects of an obsolete idea being used to master a modern situation may be avoided. It does not follow that evil practical results must necessarily occur. The second and more general reason, then, for supposing that it is important to recognise the non-isolation of the State is that such results might follow even if they have not so far followed. For this reason, quite apart from immediate and obvious difficulties, it is useful to examine the State from a new point of view.
First, then, we must discover what kind of interdependence has come into existence ; for Grotius knew that States needed one another, and the need, to his mind, was for alliance against foes, keeping off famine or resisting revolution. But our interdependence is some- what more subtle. And next, before we proceed in detail to show how the new situation has changed the idea of the State, we may indicate here the general features of the change. Foreign policy will no longer seem to be a subsidiary interest of citizens. The action of their State with respect to foreign States will seem to be of vital importance in everyday politics.
Further, the purpose of the State with respect to foreign States will be seen to be not that of mere opposition or exclusiveness. The character- istic individuality of each State will be seen to be
5 8 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS
best attained by contact with other States. And lastly, the State itself will be seen to be other than an armed band, since all that is of value in its law and government will be perceived to have been attained not through war but in spite of war. Whether any institution can ever embody the new attitude which is growing up in the contact of States, whether Comity will ever lead to Con- cert, may be left undecided ; since whatever the future may bring forth, the present is sufficiently different from the past to demand our closest attention.
CHAPTER IV
THE STATE AND NATIONALITY
OF all the institutions and organisations by which we attain to the civilised life the State may seem to be the most fundamental, because of its connection with nationality. Churches even claiming to be national pass beyond any one nationality ; economic or cultural associations make no appeal to distinctions of blood, language and tradition. But the law and government under which the civilised man lives seem to represent that fundamental difference which he generally regards as his nationality. This is not, however, the situation with respect to more than half the civilised world. Not all men living under law and government recognise in that system the expression of their own nationality. In the United States, the new nationality being still formless, the political institutions are regarded in a more abstract way, as essentially good, not as traditionally valuable. In Ireland, India, Egypt, Finland, Poland, the southern portions of Austria-Hungary, in French, German, or
59
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Italian parts of Africa and Asia, men live more or less contentedly under a law and government which is, whether good or bad, certainly not national. And when war breaks out the English- man fights, as he knows, not merely for an institution but for that tradition which he calls England : and yet on the same side fight the Irish and the Indians, as the Algerians fight for <£ France " and " Italia Irridenta " for Austria. Although some fight for the nation, all fight for the State. The fundamental nature of the State, then, must be discovered in part from this contrast.
If we seek an explanation of all this in the traditional conceptions of the State, we are left somewhat unsatisfied. Our idea of political in- stitutions is, of course, due to the thought of our ancestors on their own institutions ; and our state is, no doubt, in part the effect of what were their supreme political organisations. But there has been in the past no clear distinction between nationality and citizenship. This was due, per- haps, to the nature of the TTOX^, or the Roman civitas^ or the Mediaeval regnum^ or the Renais- sance sovereign State. And where no distinction was conscious, no consideration could be given to the influence of nationality on government, or of government on nationality. We make no complaint against our authorities. The modern
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State, however, depends upon the contact between nationality and State, between the tradition of a group and its political institutions.
It may be said that the fact of nationality makes no difference to the idea of the State ; the State is a political organisation, whether it be the organisation of Frenchmen or Englishmen. And, of course, we do not deny that there must be some likeness between all organisations which we call States. But we contend that, because the fact of nationality has been inadequately con- sidered, the likeness between States has been exaggerated ; or, to put the same statement in another form, certain elements have been sup- posed to be essential to the idea of the State which were only essential to the organisation adopted by one nation. That is to say, the characteristics of nationality have been taken for the characteristics of state-organisation.
One example of this may be found in the common confusion of patriotism with loyalty. The difference of words really indicates a dis- tinction in the emotions, for patriotism is more passionate and loyalty more intellectual ; and, again, patriotism is restricted by reference to one object only, one's national group ; but loyalty may be used with respect to one's club or trade- association as well as to the Government under which one lives. Thus, through confusing the
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two emotions, we may be led to confuse the two objects to which they generally refer.
In the development of the theory of the State the confusion leads, in the first place, with Plato, to the conception of physical relationship of citizens as fundamental to state organisation. With Aristotle the State must be an organisation of a number so restricted that each is known to the other. That is to say, the conception had not yet arisen that conscious allegiance to a system of law and government, and not birth, was what made a citizen. Hence the two theories of citizen- ship which confuse International Law : sometimes citizenship is due to birth and is inalienable, but sometimes it is due to free choice and may be changed. Sometimes both theories are worked with, illogically, at the same time in the same State.
The Roman Empire practically and the medi- aeval Empire theoretically, subordinated or neg- lected the national grouping. And, in the later Middle Ages, being a subject was no more due to conscious choice than was membership of the universal Church. By birth everyone was a Christian, by birth a subject. And when, in the Renaissance, distinct States were recognised, racial or national differences were still regarded as negligible. Even in religion the character- istics of the national group were not in theory acknowledged, for the divergence of religions was
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that of distinct rulers, not of races. The Augs- burg " cuius regio, eius religio " does not mean " there shall be national churches," but " the religion of the district shall be that of the man who rules the district."
Again, in the German theories of the State the fact of national grouping was neglected, so that the peculiarities of the German character are made the grounds for universal laws of state- organisation ; l and Marx, in the true Hegelian manner, omits what his theory cannot explain — that national sentiment is stronger than economic common interest. When, therefore, the old idea of the State is corrected by reference to the modern fact of nationality, it is seen (i) that citizenship is more conscious and nationality more emotional, and (2) that the resulting organisation may owe its features, not to the essence of the State, but to national character.
The relation between nationality and state- organisation has been vaguely recognised by Mill,2 by Sidgwick 3 and by Bluntschli ; 4 but
1 As Kant's Categorical Imperative is a German pastor, so Hegel's Absolute is a German official. The transcending of the individual is German, not human.
2 Representative Government, Ch. XVI.
3 Elements of Politics, Ch. XIV. The " ought to be " of pure Nationalism is corrected by Sidgwick's fear of revolution, but no justification is attempted of an Imperial State, /. e. one in which there are many nations.
4 Theory of the State, Bk. II. Ch. IV.
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no further correction in the old idea of the State is made than is involved in the ideas that, as far as possible, the national group ought to have a state-organisation of its own. It is seen that where national patriotism does not coincide with State loyalty the established situation tends to be unsafe, whether (as in Germany or Italy before 1860) many states divide one nation or (as in the Austrian Empire) many nations divide one State ; and, so far, there is a distinct gain in the recognition of important facts.
We omit, for the present, the discussion of Empires, but it seems that there is no reason why the same system of law and government should not be for the good of more than one nation. And if the good of the separate nation- alities, in so far as it is common, is attained by the same system, there is no adequate reason for supposing that Nationalism is the only principle of state-organisation. In any case, the import- ance of the nation would have to be recognised as a fact.
Now, the situation has changed considerably since the last of the great theories of the State was made ; and the importance of nationality, both as affecting the State and as affected by the State, is comparatively new. The new elements in the political situation must, therefore, be given prominence. What relation, in present fact, has
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nationality to the State ? It has one relation which has almost everywhere been recognised, so long as the importance of nationality has been known ; but it has some other relations which have been very imperfectly, if at all, perceived. The first and fundamental relation of nationality to the State is expressed in the idea that the State is a territorial organisation. The other relations concern the contact of nationalities in and through state-systems. This second class of relations has not been considered by theorists or by practical politicians, largely because of the false conceptual isolation of States, of which we have spoken. The importance of nationality has been conceived to be sufficiently recognised when each State has been seen to be the expression of some nation- ality. The second issue, the contact between nations, has been left unconsidered. This second, then, we must put aside for the present, until we have summarily expressed the accepted idea as to the intimate relationship of one State with one nation.
The State is the highest political institution. Its contrasts and contacts with other institutions have been described. Here it is only necessary to say that the State represents not the common interests of those who are intellectual, or musical, or religious, but chiefly the common interest of those who live in the same district. That district
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is small when communication is difficult or organisation ineffective (city-states) ; it is larger when the citizen gives place to the subject, making government easier (Mediaeval regna and Renais- sance sovereign States) ; and it is larger still when geographical obstacles are overcome by science (modern States). But always the system of law and government has some reference to the land. Hence the idea of territorial sovereignty. Now that which limits effective political organisation is one of the causes of distinct nationality, geographi- cal environment. Therefore, whereas the common interests of the cultured, or the musical, or the religious, or the " workman," may be represented by what are called " international " institutions, the common interests of those who live together are represented by national institutions. Indeed, the so-called international institutions are really non-national, since for their purposes the distinc- tion of an Englishman from a Frenchman may be neglected.
For political purposes, however, these distinc- tions cannot be neglected. How then are they or should they be reflected in the State ? To the idea of Nationalism we have already referred. It is recognised that national character ought to be represented in some way in political organisation. Extreme Nationalism might imply that each nation should be a separate "sovereign" State; but a
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moderate form of the ideal would not be opposed to an Imperialism which, within one system of law and government, allowed for distinct interests of different nationalities. It remains reasonable, therefore, to suppose that the supreme political organisation should either have within its frontiers only one nation or that, if it has more, the separate local interests should be preserved. Whatever the ideal, however, the facts imply the recogni- tion that the State sometimes is national (Holland, Denmark, etc.) and sometimes is not national. But all the greater modern States are not national, in the sense that within the same state-system different nationalities continue to exist. There is no Great Power at present which has not under the same law and government peoples of different blood, language and tradition. And within such boundaries these distinct peoples, willingly or un- willingly, are related to one another morally, and never as merely opposing forces. All this is recognised.
We turn now to the effect of state-organisation or nationality. Two different, and perhaps com- plementary, movements have been developing since the Napoleonic wars. One is towards Imperialism ; the other towards regionalism or Nationalism. The first is to be seen in the increase of territory and population under the same law and government (England in Egypt, India, etc. ;
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Germany in South-West Africa, the Cameroons, etc. ; France in Tunis and Algeria ; the United States in the Philippines). The second tendency may be found in the increase of distinct national sentiment among the Finns, the Poles, the Slavs, the Irish or the Indians. This second tendency has developed with developing democracy, while the extending of territory has led to the rule of the few. In either case the peculiar importance of nationality, either as a democratic basis for government or as an obstacle to specialist or oligarchic government, has been frequently recognised.
Now the peculiar fact, not sufficiently recog- nised, is that it is precisely within the vast Empire-states that the sense of nationality has been most consciously developed. Nationalism is the gospel not of small States, but of sections of large States ; and it has generally expressed the vague feeling that the national character was not embodied in the established system. Hence it has been disruptive so far as practical politics is concerned. It aimed at the dissolution of existing state-systems and their rearrangement upon a purely national basis. On the other hand, Imperialism, based upon the proved advan- tage which comes from an identity of law and government established over vast territories, set itself rather to oppose the ambitions of National-
THE STATE AND NATIONALITY 69
ism. If Nationalism was destructive of inherited state-systems. Imperialism tended to destroy nationality in the name of the State. And both really implied the acceptance of the same idea of the State ; although to one the State was abhorrent and to the other sacred, in particular instances. Hence it was, and is, that Nationalism when the nation is weak so readily turns into Imperialism when the nation is strong.
In all this both Nationalism and Imperialism have implied the acceptance of an antiquated, and by no means valid, conception that the purpose of state-organisation was to oppose nations one to the other. Nationalism would keep them apart, Im- perialism would suppress one by means of the other. But nations, we must remember, are groups of men and women, not land or territory ; States arise because these groups are separated by land or territory ; and it by no means follows that States must perpetuate the situation out of which they arise in a sphere in which territory has no meaning.1 If we only make the bold assump- tion that state-organisation, based as it is on
1 That is the political or moral sphere. The argument is parallel to that in Rousseau's Social Contract. There it is said that the State is to correct physical inequality, giving political equality in order to discover moral inequality. So here, in foreign policy, the -State is to correct physical division by pro- viding political contact, to secure moral development of the group character.
yo THE MORALITY OF NATIONS
nationality, exists for bringing groups into contact in spite of local division, we shall arrive at a new conception of the State.1
But how are the organised groups brought into contact ? The answer must refer to the distinction between Empires and national States. Within Empires the different national groups are under the same system of law and government. The evil tradition of military Empires has affected some modern Empires, so that the system of law and government is directly aimed at the suppres- sion of national differences. The German Empire has led to the attempt to suppress Polish nation- ality ; the Russian Empire has attempted to suppress Finnish. The British Empire has not consciously oppressed nationality, although the tradition of the past hangs about the minds of some of its administrators. In any case, there is no reason, in the abstract, why the use of the same law and government should lead to a sup- pression of national character ; and if it does not, then the state-system would lead to many nation- alities living in contact without recourse to war or without even the desire for war. The contact is so far moral. And further, if the state- system allows for local government, the distinct nationali-
1 Civilisation develops by this contact : where there is no contact development is slow, as with Incas and Aztecs in America. Cf. Bryce, South America, p. 574.
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ties will develop distinct individualities while they are in contact one with the other. The very con- tact, as in the case of persons, will lead each group to a perception of what is really valuable in its own character and tradition. So that the state- system, in this case, develops nationality by amicable contact.1
As for the contact between national States and the contact of Empires as wholes with respect to foreign States, the same principle holds good. In fact men living under different systems of law and government are brought into contact by those systems. Every State has a Foreign Office with a continuous business. In theory, the citizen, whether of distinct nationality or not, is brought into contact with citizens of other States, through his own State.
And contact is not supposed to destroy dis- tinctiveness. The Foreign Office is believed to represent amicably the distinct interests of a separate State ; and although in war national differences of language, custom or tradition, are used for raising antagonism, these differences are (i) not allowed to be noticed when they exist as between allies or within Empires, and (2) are not supposed to justify eternal war although they
1 This is just as truly a reason for the development of Nationalism within Empires, as the other reason is, — the oppression of one nationality by another.
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do not end when peace breaks out. During periods of peace this distinction of nationalities marked by the boundaries of States is preserved by amicable contact. One further step only need be made. Let us say that States exist for the development of national distinctions either (i) within the State, or (2) outside the State, by direct, continuous and amicable contact ; and the old idea of the necessary opposition between States breaks down.1 All opposition is for the purpose of characteristic development, which is normally attained otherwise. The State, then, so far from being an institution which demoralises the contact between distinct national groups, is an institution for relating morally, for political purposes, (i) members of the same national group, (2) members of distinct national groups within one Empire, and (3) members of groups under different States. And this is not pious aspiration, but a statement of fact neglected in the modern theory of the State. This contact between nations, however, maintained and de- veloped through state-systems, will have an effect
1 It follows that any State which is forced by circumstances into war, fights not because of the nature of the State, but in spite of the nature of the State. It is so forced because it has not adequately perfomed the functions of a State. T. H. Green (Princ. of Pol. Obligation, § 167) comes to this conclusion from slightly different premises.
THE STATE AND NATIONALITY 73
upon the institutions of political life.1 Isolation would have one kind of result : contact has another. This, therefore, is the further addition we must make to the accepted ideas with respect to state-organisations which in any way represent nationality. If the State is naturally the political organisation of a national group in the sense of representing the national character and tradition,2 then States will tend to differ in certain features of their law and government. The assimilating tendency, due to intercourse, will continue ; but along with this will go a progressive differentiation in certain laws and in certain methods of govern-
1 That is to say, all the political institutions, not the State only. Within the State, when many nations are within the same State (Empires), the subordinate political institutions (municipalities, provincial governments, etc.) will be affected by contact both to differ in some points and to assimilate in others. When the State has only one nationality (not an Empire) the subordinate political institutions will generally be affected, not directly, but indirectly through the effect of other States upon the state-system under which they are. But even in this case municipalities (subordinate political institutions) sometimes come into contact and affect one another indepen- dently of the States : an example may be found in the visits of London aldermen to Paris, etc. The general thesis is obvious. Nearly all institutions have been considered too much in their relationship to their own members ; whereas they are really used for and their character is influenced by bringing their members into contact with the members of other institutions of the same order.
2 That is, either by a separate state-system for each nation, or by allowing for the representation of distinct national character within one system.
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ment. An example of the same double tendency may be found among the individuals of any progressive community. Certain elements in civilised life tend to assimilate — clothes, language, social convention ; but certain other elements — belief, knowledge, occupation, tend to be more and more different. It will be found that in state-organisation, although laws of contract, etc., tend to assimilate across the boundaries of nationality, yet laws of inheritance, education, or religion tend to become more and more reflections of distinct national character and, therefore, to differ.
If this is true, then our conception of the State must be corrected so that the growth of national sentiment shall be recognised as dif- ferentiating organisations ; and, therefore, the State in general will not be considered as neces- sarily and essentially either socialistic or non- interfering. The tendencies in either direction will be seen to be due to national character and not to the nature of the State : and of the State in general we shall say less, in proportion as we recognise that many different organisations may be equally good for the political good of different national groups.
This will not mean that the community of nations will be destroyed, or that the likeness between races will be made impossible : even
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organisations may become more alike. But this will only be one side of the facts. The old opposition between individual growth and social organisation, between national distinctions and cosmopolitanism is due to an entirely false and quite unconscious idea that there is a given quantity of rights ; so that if the individual gains more the society must lose, or if society gains the individual must lose : or, again, to the idea that there is a given inexpansible sphere of action, so that if the nation becomes more distinctive the human race must be more divided.
Both suppositions are opposed to facts : for it is obvious that rights increase and duties are more various, and that the sphere of human action in separate groups and in the whole race is growing rapidly. We have, therefore, to allow in our theory of the State for progressive dif- ferentiation even of state-institutions. In what directions States will differ and in what assimilate we cannot here establish ; but probably the example of individuals will indicate. In what are usually called " external " matters assimilation, and in internal matters differentiation will occur ; and, according to the first part of our argument, " internal " matters cannot mean what the nine- teenth century used to oppose to " foreign " affairs, but, rather, matters of education, religion, and conduct.
CHAPTER V
FOREIGN INTERESTS
IT follows from what has been so far said that, since the nature of the modern State is to be seen (i) in its contact with other institutions, and (2) in its contact with other States, we shall have now to discuss the economic or intellectual relations between the different groupings of men, and to see these mainly from the point of view of what we have called the supreme political institution.
The relation between States, as it is at present in normal times, is the result of a process which has been very much accelerated during the last fifty years. Since there is no chasm dividing the changes of human history, we may believe that the situation into which we have been born is the result of the whole of the past ; and yet it would not be untrue to say that the difference between our world and our grandfather's is immeasurably greater than the difference between our grand- father's world and^hat even of the ancient Assyrians. From tr^^kpint, then, we may begin, since the argumejj^epends on the fact that we
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are in a situation so new as to make obsolete or, at any rate, hopelessly inadequate the conceptions of nearly all the past.
In two ways this situation is new. First, the relations between States are absolutely normal and continuous, and affect no longer only a small class in each, but practically all the citizens ; and, secondly, these relations are world-wide. Before, however, we discuss in detail what these relations actually are, it may be as well to show in what sense the fact of continuous relationship is new.
The rapidity of communication, its ease and its frequency, are recognised causes of inter- dependence between men. But communication has been in the main not very different, until about 1850, from the very earliest times of which we have any record. At different times, as in the great transient Empires of the past, the excellence of roads or the effectiveness of organisation has made communication for a short period more rapid and frequent. The Roman cursus publicus may stand for a type of what could be done ; and in quasi-modern times it is known that stage-coaches left London for the West in the eighteenth century at the rate of one every two minutes of the day. But quite apart from the fact that such advances were transitory episodes in a long darkness of ^Bition both between States and between group^taitizens in the same
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State, it was at best the horse and the road upon which men depended for mastering the limitations of space and time. In times of peace a letter or a piece of merchandise travelled not much more quickly in eighteenth-century Europe than it had travelled in ancient Assyria. In war time Napoleon moved his troops not much more quickly than did Assur-bani-pal. And if one refers to the sea, the similarity of the whole past before 1850 is still more remarkable. Sailing to China was not very different in 1815 from doubling the Cape with Vasco de Gama or trading between Tyre and Cadiz with the Phoenicians. Nelson watching outside Toulon was not much freer from wind and wave than was the expedition of Scipio Africanus.
There were, of course, changes, but nothing comparable for effect with the change since 1850. In half a century our rate of travel on land is ten times increased, and that on sea five times ; not to speak of the possibilities, as yet barely developed, of the air. We need not go further into detail, since the transformation of society due to rapidity and ease of communication is well known. We move troops in war more quickly, and in peace we move merchandise more easily ; and along with this ease and speed has gone the frequency of communication. This, more even than the rate of travel, has made States inter-
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dependent ; for although the communication between New York and Liverpool, for example, is very rapid only for a favoured few in the great liners, yet the immense quantity of the slower shipping makes the relationship between divided groups quite continuous.
This continuousness has become normal. States which hitherto came into contact by some slight interchange of trade now are affected every day, in normal times, by vast quantities of import and export ; and although the volume of business within each State has, of course, increased rapidly in recent years, proportionately to this the increase of " foreign " business has been much greater. So that the very life of each group seems to depend upon the activities of other state-groups to an extent hardly yet recognised in our practical diplomacy and not at all recognised in our current conceptions of "foreign policy." But such normal and continuous intercourse, even if not officially recognised or promoted, must affect the institu- tions of the groups related : and from the nature of these relations we shall be able partly to judge the probable effect on the institutions. An acci- dental and occasional intercourse might make men only more desperately alien to one another ; a normal and continuous intercourse might create sympathy without destroying distinctions.
The second great feature of our present situa-
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tion is that it is world-wide. For the first time in history during the last fifty years world-politics has been a reality : and we mean by that, not merely the ambitious dreams of world-domination, but the simple fact that nothing can happen politically in any part of the world without its effects being immediately felt in every other part. The surface of the earth now holds no race which is not somehow connected with every other. But, even in Napoleon's time, although, no doubt, Austerlitz made some difference to Egypt and perhaps India, China and Japan were not affected, and Australia was practically not on the ma£. And the farther back we go into the past, the more isolated is whatever civilisation we choose to study ; so that the Romans, for example, or the Chinese could afford to disregard the exist- ence of humanity outside the borders of their State. Now, not only is the State continually in contact with other States, but the effect of that contact spreads at once to the farthest corners of the earth.
This world-politics is not, of course, new, if we are to refer to popular talk or even to practical finance, trade and diplomacy. The situation has been recognised to exist in what we may call a practical' way ; the trouble is that the " practical " men have been dealing with it according to theories which arose in a very different world.
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The fault is not theirs. When they speak of cc a place in the sun," or " the flag of England," they do not recognise that they are talking theory; and there has been no new theory at all com- mensurate in importance with the vital changes which have taken place in fact. The newness of the situation, therefore, is chiefly noticeable from the point of view of theory, if by that we mean our understanding of it. For popular speech, finance and diplomacy have contributed almost nothing to new conceptions for the management of the new facts. But if the new- ness is noteworthy for the purpose of theory, that does not imply any purely academic interest. A theory is desperately practical when it is a tool for the attainment of purposes or the control of forces which we must achieve or perish. This generation, however, has the dangerous and honourable task of making new intellectual tools by which to master the new material. Former generations had tool-theories for a politics which was not in fact world-wide : coming generations will have become accustomed to world-politics. The position, therefore, of this generation is unique. We have to face the fact, for example, that there is no place any longer for " expansion " in the old sense. It must therefore either cease or change its meaning. And we have to grasp the idea that, until communication is opened with
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Mars or with the Man in the Moon there can be no further " external " social forces working upon States. Change must hereafter come from within some group : and although new groups will arise, since the whole human earth is explored, we shall not suddenly be faced by fully-developed groups as Europe was faced in the nineteenth century by the Yellow Races.
The change has affected every State, partly through the many new world-institutions which have come into existence and partly, in a direct manner, by the political effect of continuous political interaction with other States. As for institutions other than political, there are several religious bodies now of which the members are in close contact but belong to different States. Institutional religion, however, even when inter- national, is not very powerful nowadays. The mind of the time is economic. But along with the religious world-institutions we must count scientific and artistic societies. These, too, are now in a position never before known to history : they count their members among men of every State. And there are also the powerful economic institutions called Companies, whether industrial or financial, of which the members are taken from any State. Of these the great Armament Firms are most interesting ; since they are the sources of income to citizens of a State against which
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they rouse hostility in order to gain income. That is to say, certain gentlemen, for example, of English citizenship may be making money by supplying the armies or navies which fight against England with the appliances for destroying Eng- lishmen. German genius and German finance supplied some of the appliances which are used by the Russians for invading Germany. French guns, made under the auspices of the name of Schneider, are used by Turks against the allies of France.
And not only Armament Firms but also Finance " is in every country, like the Church in the Middle Ages, an illustrious stranger." So that however we are taxed, we may be sure that part of it goes into the pockets of citizens of that State which we are being taxed to oppose. It is not difficult to see how different the modern State must really be from the State our grand- fathers knew, now that it is influenced by these complex and novel forces. The intricate tangle of half-understood appetites, of world-wide money- making and vague idealisms, of ancient shibbo- leths and modern political black-magic, is difficult enough to grasp. And yet we still hear the old cries "inevitable conflict," "balance of power," "arbitrament of the sword " — just as though we really knew all that the State is and all that it needs.
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It is impossible here to do more than give in briefest outline some features of the world- civilisation as it now exists : and for this purpose it will not be necessary to separate the influences of other institutions from those of the State ; but we shall have our attention chiefly bent towards the result of all the various modern contacts upon the existing political institutions. By this means we shall perhaps see in what direction to look in order to discover what the modern State is and what are its real interests.
We may divide the relations between organised groups into three : those of trade, of investment and of non-material interest.
As for trade, it is well known that no civilised State at present is isolated or independent. Either its citizens depend for food upon the activities of " foreigners," or they sell food to foreigners : or again, they export or import the materials of industry. It is recognised as a fact, whether it be judged good or bad, that highly organised nations are not economic wholes ; and it would naturally follow that they are not political wholes, except in the belated dreams of those who still continue to speak of the sovereign State.
The non-independence of England may be found crudely expressed in the statistics of the Board of Trade. We may take as an example of the change from a normal to an abnormal situa-
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tion the contrast between the trade in September
1913 and September 1914, when the readjustment to war conditions had not yet been completed.
To cite articles of food first, in September 1913 we had £24,407 worth of wheat from Russia ; in September 1914 only £11,927 worth. In wheat-meal and flour we had in September 1913, from Germany £19,659, from Belgium £1,303, from France £8,297, from Austria Hungary £5,064, and from Argentine £5,333 ; from all which countries in September 1914 we had absolutely none. The changes in respect to eggs are also striking. In September 1913 we had from Russia £541,777 worth ; in September
1914 absolutely none. The figures for all countries give our import of eggs in September
1913 as worth £910,557 ; and in September
1914 as worth £38I>351- What, then, are the interests of the English State as calculated in eggs ?
In export our supply of the needs of other groups is, of course, a source of income for ourselves ; but we may suppose that what we have sold has been of some value to the buyers. Cotton cc piece-goods " sent to Germany in September 1913 was worth £55,470. In September 1914 we sent none. To Switzerland, in September 1913, what we sent of the same article was worth £112,647; and although we were not at war with that country, in September
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1914 we sent absolutely none. War has destroyed the normal interdependence even of neutral nations.
Materials for industry suffered the same change. In September 1913 we sold textile machinery to our ally France which was worth £60,621, in September 1914 absolutely none. The whole of our export of this in the Septembers of the two years compares thus : for September 1913, £643,480: for September 1914, £213,841. But in this matter we must allow for the trans- ference of power in engineering from construction to destruction : it takes as much time and labour to make good shells as would be represented by £400,000 a month, so that the energy expended is not less though the direction of it is different.
These figures are taken at random from the innumerable statistics of the Board of Trade. They indicate that England is clearly not any longer independent, in the old Renaissance sense of sovereignty, any more at least than Yorkshire is independent. But if the interests of the State are the interests of the citizens, some new con- ception must arise out of the interdependence of the citizens of all States. Such interdepend- ence as we have so far noticed has regard to food and clothing : and we by no means argue that our interest in foreign eggs is our only or our chief interest. It may be necessary to sacri-
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fice economic interest : but at least we should recognise what it is.
In the second place, like trade. Capital also has destroyed the old isolation of States.1 As things stand at present it is calculated that the amount of Capital owned by inhabitants of the United Kingdom which is earning money out- side these islands is £3,500,000,000. Similarly, inhabitants of France are dependent on Capital invested outside France to the extent of £1,600,000,000, and inhabitants of Germany are dependent upon the investment outside Germany of £8oo,ooo,ooo.2 The annual report of the Public Trustee (published April 7, 1915) implies that property of Germans and Austrians in England and Wales alone amounts to over £ioo,ooo,ooo.3 So that it is now impossible to suppose that the financial interest of the citizen is confined to the development of the country over which his State is established.
1 On this rests the chief argument of Mr. Norman Angell's Great Illusion. His economic statements may be disputed in detail, but not the fact that the banking situation has affected politics. Mr. Angell does not, however, seem to make clear the distinction between economics and politics.
2 Hobson, Export of Capital, p. 163.
3 Registered German-Austrian property is —
Held on behalf of " enemies " . . £54,000,000 Capital in partnership . . . 1,600,000
Capital in companies . . . 29,000,000
Total .
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The rapidity in the growth of this situation is one of its most remarkable features : since in 1827, even after the great boom in foreign invest- ment following the reconstruction of Europe when "peace broke out," there was only ,£93,000,000 of English money invested outside of the United Kingdom.1 Other countries were slow to come into the field as competitors in investment outside their own boundaries ; but the rate of growth has been so rapid that nearly every civilised country now has " interests " in all parts of the world, and the process would normally be accelerated as new countries are developed.
In the various economic relationships between States we must allow for the existence of creditor and debtor States,2 as well as for Great Powers, and small States. Diplomacy of the rule-of- thumb and selfseeking Finance already know it. Russia, for example, is a debtor State, as we may see by reading the " Russian Supplements" to the Times, which are published apparently to tell us what our ally really is. There is little reference in it to Russian literature or Russian art, and
1 Hobson, p. 105.
2 For political results, cf. the influences in the creation of the Chinese Republic in C. W. Eliot's Some Roads towards Peace (p. 10). Capital cannot exist under despotic govern- ment (p. 15). The whole report (published by the Carnegie Endowment at Washington) is a good study of Peace Relations.
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hardly any to Russian military force ; none, naturally, to Russian political ideas ; but great stress is put upon the possibilities for Capital in Russia. France, on the contrary, is a creditor State, as her position in alliance with Russia proves. She must follow to secure her income.
All this, perhaps, is brutal economics, but the political structure, even as to domestic affairs, in each group is vitally affected by such facts as these. We cannot speak of the function of law and government without reference to the economic forces which may subserve, but may also subvert, our ideals.
What conception of the relation between States results from all this ? Certainly not the concep- tion of sovereignty, which means that each State has no interests outside or expects no other State to have interests within its boundaries. The little hedge of frontiers is somewhat obsolete, since it is clear that States interpenetrate. And an inter- penetration even of the purely economic kind must certainly have political effects, for, as we shall see, the creditor State is often compelled to political action in behalf of its debtor : and the influence of foreign Capital has more than once made a difference to a revolution or a popular movement.
But the interdependence of economics, even .though it is vital for political life, is not the
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whole of the present situation. Every civilised State has " interest " in the health, general well- being, education and individual development of its citizens. These may be called non-material interests.,/ We put aside for the present the other non-material interests, independence and " prestige," which are more commonly considered, since these are not new, although their meaning is somewhat changed.
In the third place, then, the non-material interests of organised groups are, in a sense, well known ; and, in a more definite sense, absolutely neglected. Of these one cannot quote statistics. Even a Foreign Office with prejudices in favour of "prestige" cannot put down upon papef exactly how one group of men and women depends on another for other goods than food and clothing. But the importance of the fact will be recognised if one suggests that the discoveries of Pasteur might have been restricted to France, or those of Lister to England. Let us imagine what an advantage it would be to England in war, and even in industry, if a septic treatment had been kept for Englishmen. How much of the import of non-material goods we can do without may perhaps depend on our civilisation ;/so that we may not presume to say that England would have lost much if the work of Mommsen or Harnack had been protected so effectually as to
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have helped Germans only. We may not presume to count it a gain to the State that Kreisler has been able to play in England. But, speaking with bated breath outside the sacred circle of economics, there is a non-material interdependence of States.
This interchange of ideas across frontiers was very far advanced even before our ease of com- munication was attained. In the Greek world ideas spread from city to city, and Rome carried Greek thought into far countries : but our modern cosmopolitanism of ideas really began in the Middle Ages. It is well known that in spite of bad roads and feudal anarchy, scholarship, medicine, law, art and religion were able to pass from country to country. A common language did more, perhaps, for the interchange of ideas than even railways and steamboats have done. In any case scholars and men of ideas travelled ; and at Salerno Englishmen might learn medicine, at Bologna law, or at Paris science and theology. So Italians might learn philosophy at Oxford or anatomy at Montpellier. So also the different groups felt the religious impulse originating with the Italian St. Francis or the Spaniard St. Dominic or, slightly later, the Englishman Wyclif. This is not the place to describe what have been the vicissitudes and further developments of the interdependence of groups so far as ideas are concerned. It is sufficient if it be clear that this
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interdependence has been obvious for a longer time than that of trade and investment.1
The newness of the present situation, however, is not altogether disproved by these facts ; for there is no learned caste now, and all ideas spread more universally within every group ; and again, the store of such ideas is vastly increased since the mediaeval scholar could attain the limits of practically all the knowledge of his day. Finally, not Europe merely but the whole earth is now bound together by common knowledge and a common appreciation of the Arts. So that we are no longer provincial in our culture, as we are no longer limited in our markets.
In the classification of those ideas which pass across frontiers and continually modify even political institutions we may begin with practical scientific ideas. In medicine and surgery Pasteur, Lister and Ehrlich represent contributions of three different groups to all others. Radium was happily not " protected." And outside the purview of the average citizen are the continual, priceless but unpriced, imports from foreigners in the cure of disease, in sanitation, in surgery and in preventive medicine. Without such inter-
1 Hobbes (Leviathan, II., Ch. 29) fears this interchange of ideas — naturally, for it disproves most of his theory of Sovereignty. Cf. The Unity of Western Civilization : Essays collected by F. S. Marvin. Ch. XI. Common Ideals of Social Reform, by C. D. Burns.
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change the modern State would not be what it is. As for scientific ideas in manufacture, the conception that they should not be exported was at one time acted upon in England. In 1774 an Act was passed to prevent spinning machinery from being exported. Skilled artisans were for- bidden to leave the country. In 1823 *ca large seizure of cotton machinery occurred in London."1 The effort was never very effective, and it was found that when the protection was removed and English scientific ideas were allowed to benefit other groups, the demand for English machinery made England wealthier than she could possibly have been if she had kept her ideas to herself. In brewing and in chemical works the import of " foreign " ideas has been recognised to have increased English resources : and, even were it possible, it would be unwise, according to popular conceptions, to keep technical science within State boundaries. But the issue is by no means faced. There is an obvious cash value in this sort of ideas, and thus it attracts the lower type of intel- ligence. Naturally, therefore, there will always be a tendency to secrete technical processes ; although, so far, physicians and surgeons have not kept to themselves their scientific ideas, in spite of their financial value.
But not only in medicine and practical science 1 Hobson, loc. cif., p. 107 se$.
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is the interchange of ideas proceeding. In ideas as to social structure there is an interdependence. We may count these as municipal or political. For example, we in the United Kingdom have used ideas applied first in German cities : " town- planning" is derived in part from the German idea of the city beautiful.1 Municipal control of traffic and municipal supplies are ideas which have crossed frontiers. Political ideas such as that of National Insurance are used in one State and copied in another. Income tax is an idea which seems to spread.
We may perhaps count representative Parlia- mentary Government as an export of ours : and perhaps Cabinet Government is in part due to an import of ideas. In Education we send Com- missioners abroad to bring us ideas : and we receive many more which do not come through official channels. So also other nations discover whatever value there may be in our Public Schools.
And outside the sphere in which the average citizen lives there is a no less important inter- change of ideas of a more refined sort, which sooner or later transform the attitude of humanity. Scholarship so disregards state-boundaries that English and French historians can make con-
1 The great example is in Frankfort. Cf. the general treat- ment in Municipal Government in Great Britain (1897) and Municipal Government in Continental Europe (1898), by A. Shaw.
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elusions from evidence collected by Germans ; or Danes and Dutchmen can comment upon English Literature. In the larger field of scholarship, which concerns our knowledge of the world we inhabit in its most general features, there has been no attempt yet to u protect " Darwin or to exclude Weismann. Such are a few examples of the close interdependence which has been developing not only between the nations of Europe but of the whole world. All this has transformed civilised life, and it must have had its influence upon those institutions, the States, which exist for the protection of such life.
But if States are thus normally and continuously / in contact, by trade, investment and ideas, and if their organisation or action is affected by this interdependence, our conceptions of the interests of the State must change, and following upon that, perhaps our very conception of what the State is. At least it is clear that the " interest " of a modern State cannot be rendered in the terms of Greek, Mediaeval, Renaissance or even nineteenth-century politics. The intimate and world-wide relationship of States in the midst of innumerable diverse institutions is practically new : and we must in some way contrive to master it, unless we are to leave ourselves to the mercy of natural forces the results of which we might by no means approve.
CHAPTER VI
FOREIGN POLICY
IF these are the organised groups and such their interconnection, how are the relations between them to be arranged ?
The interests of each organised group are to be maintained and developed : and the morality of nations is concerned with such development, just as the morality of individuals must consider the interests of individuals. Economics may seem to be unconnected with morality ; and we should admit that they are distinct from it, since a man may be wealthy or cunning and yet not moral. But morality among individuals involves some reference to material well-being, for it is useless to consider the height of virtue if the possibility of bare life is not secured. A great part of ethical theory is rendered futile by elaborate discussion of free will without any reference to economic conditions in which all men live : and economics itself is often barren of interest because of the exclusion of moral issues. Now in the case of the States, however high our ideals, no one is likely at present to forget the economic interests
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involved : but here we must suppose them to be subordinated to some kind of morality. Foreign policy, then, is to be considered not so much with a view to the recording of facts, but with regard to the principles upon which it may be supposed to be based. And first, since bare life must be secured, foreign policy is for the maintenance of the material interests of the State. Diplomacy is much concerned with commercial treaties and the arrangement of loans, which are presumably for the benefit of all the States concerned.
There is also the interest involved in indepen- dence, since it is implied in what has so far been said that foreign domination is unendurable to any organised nation. The most peaceful policy must, none the less, be one which promotes and develops the characteristic differences of the State from other States. The purpose of foreign policy is, then, also to forestall any movements which might diminish national independence, not only those of a warlike nature; just as a man's relationship to his fellows must not be allowed to cause a loss of the man's individuality. There is a point in the art of life, which is the practice of morality, at which it becomes necessary to take measures for self-defence — not only against mere danger to life and limb but also against danger to in- dividuality and character. In a sense this is of more importance than economic interest, since it H
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is more valuable to be able to do what we like than to have a sufficient income : but one cannot really exist without the other. Foreign policy, then, does not treat the State as merely a financial association. It expresses other interests than wealth in manoeuvring for national character and independence.
It is often said that self-preservation is the basis of all moral action, and that may be argued : but it is sometimes said that self-preservation is the highest law, and that is false. Even for the State self-preservation is not the highest law, if by that it is meant that the State may do anything in order to preserve its existence. Such a state- ment would imply either that the State is above morality or that morality has nothing to do with actions done in behalf of the State.1
This error lies at the root of Treitzschke's over- estimation of the status of an army in a civilised State. He goes so far as to say that for the preservation of a certain kind of organisation all and every means is justifiable. It is not "the people " who must be protected, since their blood does not change if the forms of govern- ment change, but " the State." This involves that an armed force is of predominant importance in the State ; — as if the State had no higher purpose than its own security. Its interests, 1 Cf. Machiavelli : Discorsi, iv.
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however, demand a policy which, within moral limits, gives it independence.
But the interests involved are not all economic and military. The interchange of ideas, the de- velopment of character by contact, the exchanging of medicinal discoveries or educational plans- all these are also interests of every State which aims at civilised life, and foreign policy should subserve these. Thus our ambassador in Berlin reminded Herr von Bethman-Hollweg that if England neglected her treaty-obligation to Belgium her credit would be destroyed. Sir Edward Grey and Mr. Asquith also said publicly that our national reputation was at stake. But this can only mean that a State has other interests than the economic or the military, and interests other than mere independence.
How are these interests at present expressed and what attempts are made to develop them ? It becomes necessary for an answer to look into the diplomatic system : but this need only be done here in the most summary fashion.
The general features of the system are two : Secretariats and Embassies.
Secretariats vary in character in different States. They are sometimes the agencies of autocratic government and sometimes representative of the popular will : and all bear marks of their growth as results of the Renaissance state-system.
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But for our purpose here it makes no difference to whom the Secretaries are responsible, if they are supposed to act in the interest of the whole State. What is of more interest is to discover what moral attitude is implied with respect to other States ; and this will naturally change slightly with the intellectual standing of the representa- tive officials, or with the activity among the citizens in general in managing their officials. The whole system of continuous communication, however, carries with it certain fundamental amenities, and it would be impossible now, as it was in the Middle Ages, for any State to do without special officers for intercourse with other States.
A Foreign Secretary is generally supposed to promote friendly relations in normal times, and with most countries if not with all. The State for which he acts and other States to which he speaks are generally taken to be in moral relation- ship such that the ordinary difficulties of com- merce, crime or " incidents," may be arranged according to principles of morality rather than the mere appeal to force.
We may now pass to the consideration of Embassies. The Ambassadorial system was prac- tically contemporaneous in growth with the idea of suzerainty as established in the Renaissance.
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Louis XI (1461-1483) of France is counted the first to keep permanent agents at foreign courts,1 but they were regarded by both sides as spies. The attitude, however, quickly changed with the appointment of chivalrous gentlemen, until in our day the office of an Ambassador is generally regarded as friendly to the State to which he is accredited. The social amenities are no small matter in the creation of a moral attitude ; and civilised States generally recognise some moral bond between them. The rupture of diplomatic relations with Serbia after the murder of King Alexander, in June 1 903,2 was intended to show moral disapprobation. All the great powers with- drew their representatives ; and Great Britain only renewed diplomatic intercourse in 1906. Thus, even though no clear moral code may be established in the intercourse between States, it is generally taken for granted that the relation- ship is in some way moral.
The immunities of person and property which are spoken of in Internationa] Law are simply conditions of free intercourse. They are them- selves indications of the progress we have made since (i) occasional intercourse could be arranged by special envoys, and (2) since States could afford to regard all foreigners as prospective enemies.
From this system, combined with the more 1 Lawrence, International Law, par. 121. 2 Ibid., par. 125.
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modern growth of the Consular System, has arisen a vast amount of business between States, some of it simply solutions of incidental difficulties, and some producing more permanent arrangements on general issues.
These arrangements are Treaties, and their many kinds are discussed by international lawyers. But since scientific international law is not based upon any supposed law of Nature, but only on the consent of the States which make the treaties, their binding force in law is practically indefinable.1 It is seen that States must keep their promises ; but it is also admitted that no treaty holds in all circumstances. Morality is not unfairly indicated thus : " On the one hand good faith is a duty incumbent on States as well as individuals, and on the other no age can be so wise and good as to make its treaties the rules for all time."2
[n 1878, by the Treaty of Berlin, Bosnia and Herzegovina were given to Austria to u occupy and administer." That treaty was regarded by Austria in 1908 as out of date : and, indeed, circumstances had changed. In October of that year she therefore extended her sovereignty over
1 Lawrence, § 132. When and under what conditions it is justifiable to disregard a treaty is a question of morality rather than of law.
2 Ibid., § I34.
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the provinces, and later, by diplomatic despatches, the new situation was acknowledged.1
It is unnecessary to speak of the breaking of the treaty regarding Belgium by Germany in August 1914, since so much has already been written on that point. It is sufficient to note that the real moral issue was not whether treaties in general bind, but whether the circumstances in this instance had been contemplated by the treaty-makers : and it is quite clear that they had. The treaty was therefore morally binding.
All these moral problems seem to be suggested by the method adopted in Foreign Policy ; but we cannot let the matter rest there, for, whatever the purpose, the system seems to need criticism. It has its good and its bad qualities, not only with respect to economic effectiveness or the other results which are expected to flow from it, but also in regard to morality.
The present system has undoubted advantages, and any sound political judgment must admit from the evidence that useful work has been done by it. National interest has really been considered both of the economic-military and of the non-material kind. This is true not only of England, but of most civilised countries.
One cannot deny that Bismarck's policy was really a development of the interests of Prussia
1 Holland, European Concert in the Eastern Question, p. 292.
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as a whole, although doubt may exist as to his success in maintaining the true interests of other German States. The political impoverishment of Bavaria and other smaller groups, such as Hanover, is hardly compensated even if they have increased their economic wealth ; and it would in the end be evil for the Germans in general if they sacrificed political liberty to Prussia and received in return only a wage.
The diplomacy of Cavour, antiquated in many respects, was in the main an establishment of the true interest of all Italians even outside Piedmont. The diplomacy of Thiers, in the formation of the third Republic, was in the best interests of France as a whole.
With respect to our own Foreign Policy there is great disagreement as to whether the true interests of the majority in the British Isles were developed by Palmerston or Disraeli. But at least as much good as evil has been done by the diplomatic system. There is a tendency to disregard the smooth working of a system for many years and to judge it only by an occasional lapse : and this tendency must be corrected as well as the tendency to regard the established system as sacred.
Apart, however, from historical facts and moral judgments passed upon them, it is possible to observe certain features of the system which are
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valuable. The evidence for a judgment of the system is, of course, the nature of the separate judgments passed upon actions in the past directed by its officials : but the system may be judged as a whole in so far as it is an organisation with a purpose. The purpose, then, seems to have been and to be successfully accomplished when the following features of the system have been brought into play —
Specialist Knowledge. — The officials, aided by tradition, have used special knowledge of foreign countries which is not in the hands of the ordinary voter or even of the average politician. The great deficiency in all government is not lack of good intention, but lack of knowledge. Men are generally willing to do what is right not merely for themselves, but for their group or even for all humanity, but they do not know what it is right to do. It follows that any system which can preserve and increase special knowledge on any of the issues with which political action is concerned is, so far, good. The benevolent and uninformed amateur is dangerous in morality even of a private kind, and in the complexity of international business it requires special knowledge of the facts even to apply moral criteria to them.
Mazzini, for example, was a greater man than Cavour, but Cavour had special knowledge which was lacking to the well-intentioned Mazzini.
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One cannot fairly say what would have happened if Mazzini had been in touch with diplomatists as Cavour was ; but, probably, if he had been, Italy would not now be united. An ethical theorist unrivalled in his knowledge of general principles may be unable to deal with the seemingly trivial complexities of domestic life, and a political idealist may not be aware of the amount of primi- tive savagery and low cunning which still exists. Security against Popular Outbursts. — A second, advantage of the official system is that it can resist any too sudden or violent outburst of political passion. The voice of " the people " is very often nowadays only the voice of the city crowd, faintly re-echoed, if echoed at all, in the smaller towns. Sometimes also the noise is that of a few editors of newspapers : and a nation would hardly have its true interests developed if it were committed to action whenever or as soon as such clamour arose. We have instances in which the " democratic control " of foreign policy might be shown to be more dangerous than that of the officials. Thus in 1863 our diplomacy did not commit us to the action demanded by many public meetings at the time of the Prussian attack on the Danish Duchies. The English public were much excited by the addresses of Kossuth in 1848, and Austria appears to have feared that England would go to war in behalf of
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the Hungarians : but the Cabinet was able to keep away from danger in spite of the delicate situation created by the personal sympathies of Lord Palmerston. So also, perhaps, we may imagine that, although the war of 1870 was engineered by Gramont and Bismarck, the popular clamour in Paris and Berlin would have committed the nations to war long before, if it had not been for the diplomatic system. Whether the delay was good for France may be doubtful ; but it was certainly good for Prussia.
Continuous Attention and Quick Decision. — In the method of working, also, the diplomatic system appears to have advantages : for specialists can devote a continuous attention to the issues which would be impossible for the average politician. Palmerston is said to have declared that the business of the Foreign Office needed continuous labour.1 The cursory attention which the Govern- ments of all countries, involved as they are in efforts for social reform or oppression, in adminis- tration and in law-making, could devote to the relations with Foreign States would be still more inadequate now than it was in the nineteenth century, since, as we have said, the connections of all States are more intimate. A further need in dealing with foreign interests is quick decision. This may not be always the case, but the relation- 1 Sidney Low, Governance of England, p. 252.
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ship between alien peoples tends to pass through periods of crisis which are much more sharp and sudden than in the case of social unrest within the State. This fact is marked by the greater frequency of wars as compared with revolutions, and it is due largely to the ignorance which geneVally prevails as to the intentions or the power of " foreigners." Where ignorance is common, panic is frequent. Passion tends to fill those spaces of the mind which are left empty in the progress of education : emotion rushes in, like blood to the head, and eventually swamps even the limited drained land of reason. Thus patriotism seems in moments of crisis to repudiate all calm thought.
Now this involves the necessity for decided action in crises, either to direct, to subdue, or to use the popular feeling. Hence it was that Palmerston, himself perhaps too hasty, objected to the slow methods of the Prince Consort : and often in a crisis, decided action, quickly taken, has really maintained the interest of the nation where the slower methods of parliamentary debate and still more of a popular referendum would have dangerously imperilled not only our military effectiveness but also our reputation.1
1 It may be agreed that the decision to go to war on the ground of Belgian Neutrality was thus well made, and that we could not possibly have put the question to the vote.
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So far, then, we may count the diplomatic system valuable ; but it has very great deficiencies also, and perhaps more in continental countries than in England. In the first place, the system bears the marks of its birth in a time when the State was not what it now is.1 The system is hampered by its inheritance.
But it is not simply that an old organisation deals with an entirely new situation. The organisation which was once used in one way might very easily be applied to other activities ; and of this we have had many examples, especially in English government. Thus the Committee of the Privy Council, which was called the Cabinet, has become a governing body. So also we use the old system of Secretariat and Embassy for dealing with the new relationship between States. But quite apart from the disadvantages in the structure of the organisation, the actual working of such a system carries with it an inheritance of ideas.
" What can be done and what cannot be done " is often a sacred gospel to officials, although the only meaning in the words is
1 See "Foreign Policy in Middle Ages," in Stubbs' Lectures on English History y p. 354 sej.9 publ. 1906. It is amusing to read that Germany and England are always united in Foreign Policy, because they are " non-aggressive nations " which love " order and peace." France is " aggressive, unscrupulous, false," p. 371.
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" What has been done and what has not." l Every established institution, as the price of preserving a valuable inheritance, tends to " pilfer the present for the beggar past." The methods of secret interview, of pompous despatches and of court functions, valuable as they may be in preserving the personal contact, the polite man- ners, and the decorative dresses of a vanished civilisation, are paid for too highly if they involve the transfer of attention and timely labour from the task of understanding or expressing national interests.
And as for actual guiding ideas, first, the principle of Balance of Power* belongs to the Renaissance situation, where the relationship of States was not so intimate and continuous, in economics and ideas, as it is to-day. It is not a false principle if applied to the situation out of which it arose ; but that situation has simply disappeared. It continues to exist as a ghost
1 Cf. letter of Sir R. Morier to Sir W. White, March 21, 1877. " The abiding fact ... is the absolute and uncon- ditional ineptitude of our International machinery. . . . The departmental people at the F. O. are the worst offenders. Their hatred of anything that rises above routine or carries with it the promise of a policy would be amusing if one could look at it with indifferent eyes." — Life of Sir W. White, by by H. S. Edwards, 1902.
2 This can only mean in theory that States may be treated as units, to be put together or taken apart as economic or military power changes in each. In practice it is the attempt to overbalance military force in our favour.
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in the corridors of the Foreign Office, and in the portfolios of Imperial Chancellors. It was the primitive method of securing independence of governmental development. Next there is a primitive conception of natural enmity to foreigners which remains in some at least of the Secretariats. Treitzschke calls this a "veiled hostility," and since warfare, according to him, justifies every kind of deceit or trick, it follows that during times of so-called peace any State may deceive or trick its neighbours ; and not only States which pro- fess the Machiavellian immorality suffer from the tendency to treat foreigners as naturally to be deceived.
The conception which began as that of an Ambassador being a spy in a foreign country continues in so far as the Ambassador may use his privileges to inform his Government of any weakness among their neighbours ; and it would be interesting to know what connection there is between the Secret Service which every civilised State seems to use, and the privileged repre- sentative of that State in the very heart of a foreign country.
And even more prominently the atmosphere of obsolete ideas hangs round the official concep- tion of national interest. The Secretariats and Embassies have not yet grasped the economic interdependence of recent years among all great
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nations. They still seem to imagine that the " interests " of the nation are confined to the boundaries over which their State is supreme. Of course, there is an immense amount of com- mercial and financial business transacted through Embassies and Consulates. That is a good point in the system. What is wrong seems to be the intellectual inability to grasp that one State benefits by increasing wealth in another.
There is also the antiquated tendency to suppose that foreign conquest is to the " interest " of the nation ; although we suppose that ghost is more or less laid, except in the minds of army officers who venture into print.
And, finally, there is a complete absence of any clear conception that the interest of a nation must be treated, for practical purposes, as the interest of the majority. There is no real calculation among Secretaries of State or Ambassadors as to the results of their action upon the lives and fortunes of the proletariat ; so that the " interest " repre- sented is often only the interest of a small clique or of the governing class. The whole body, perhaps, benefits by the increasing wealth of the few ; but it would be interesting to examine diplomatists on the social situation of the countries which they are supposed to represent. At most they seem to be aware vaguely of " labour unrest," or of discontented people who object to the partial
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starvation which they might endure for the sake of their beloved country and patriotically say nothing.
But if the interest represented in diplomacy is to be the interest of the majority, knowledge of such interest must exist among the officials : the diplomatic caste is, however, economically divided from the mass, from the trading class and even from the intellectuals in almost every nation.1 Or, if the interests of these classes are admitted, they are known only from blue books or treatises and not by personal contact. The result is neglect of the consideration of the interest of the vast majority in every nation.
Finally, in no department of government is the practice of despotism more prominent than in diplomacy. By despotism we mean the govern- ment of others, even, in the case of beneficent despotism, for the good of others, in spite of their wishes or without reference to their wishes. And the objection against such a method is not made on the ground that Foreign Ministers are evil-
1 The professors and editors used by the United States are, I suppose, less divided ; but elsewhere the diplomatists are allied to the military and land-owning classes only and neither " trade " nor " labour " are closely present to their minds. The proof of this is to be found in the establishment of the Consular system to correct the deficiencies of Renaissance "aristocracy" in Embassies. And even in the case of the United States, personal wealth being often necessary, the choice of ambassadors is restricted. I
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minded or intend to do wrong, but on the ground that they do not know as much as " the people " do what the people need. " Les hommes droits et simples sont difficiles a tromper " : 1 and again, " the many, of whom each is but an ordinary person, when they meet together are likely to be better than the few good." 2 Thus the objection against despotism is an objection not against clever tyranny but against benevolent incom- petence.
In a monarchical State the interest of the monarch is chiefly considered, even if it is believed that that interest involves as a result the interests of "the people." And in such a State the person whose interest is primarily considered is definitely consulted. Queen Victoria apparently conceived Foreign Policy altogether in terms of Kings and Queens : but already the world had moved away from that Renaissance situation. With us "the people," whose interest is supposed to be fore- most, are not consulted. This is really due to the historic origin of Secretariats, but a modern excuse is given for it by saying that to consult the people involves publicity. This puts our Secretary at a disadvantage of showing his hand^ which he cannot do without losing in the contest between national interests. But this again implies an interesting moral problem. Are you justified in cheating
1 Rousseau, Contrat Social. 2 Arist., Pol., izSib.
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your grocer if "you think he is likely to cheat you ? Or why should there be any secrecy if there is nothing being done of which the nation might be ashamed or to which foreign nations might reasonably object ?
A clear example of the disadvantages of the present system is to be found in the Reminiscences of Prince Bismarck. It is at first difficult to discover what he imagined the principles of foreign policy to be : but it appears that he accepted the idea that it should be the development of Prussia's interests, and, through this, a development of German interests. He did not go further. The interests of those not German in blood or language were no business of his ; and he implies that they must be opposed to the interests for which he was to act.1 Prussian-German interests, however, he conceived in the most obsolete way. " Real- politik " is generally the politics of our great- grandfathers, and what are called " facts " are generally the illusions of a still earlier age. Prince Bismarck modelled his policy on that of Frederick the Great.2 He would use modern guns but not modern ideas. He accepts the description of State-
1 Bismarck, the Man and the Stafesman, English trans., Vol. II, ch. xxi, p. 56. "I took it as assured that war with France would necessarily have to be waged on the road to our further national development." The purpose of the war («V., p. 291) was "autonomous political life."
2 Ibid., Vol. II, ch. xii.
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relationship given in Hobbes :l and as for " national interest," it seems to be chiefly keeping things as they are, which is naturally the view of the well- fed and well-clothed who have also the social "position" they want. He treats all expression of dissatisfaction with the established system as a pernicious tendency which must be condoned only in order to fit the whole group for foreign war. He mistakes his idiosyncrasy for a permanent feature of German character.2
But Bismarck is not the only specimen of the blind guide, or of the specialist whose knowledge is that of his grandfathers. The system which perpetuates such guidance in so many civilised States must certainly be somewhat deficient.
We have so far discussed the advantages and disadvantages of the system ; but a word must be said concerning the principles on which the system seems to have been managed. It is impossible to make accusations against contemporaries, for we have not all the evidence ; but it is abundantly clear that in the past the principles of diplomacy have not been moral. The very ancient and
1 " Upon foreign politics . . . my views . . . were taken from the standpoint of a Prussian officer" (Id., p. 3).
2 Ibid., Ch. XIII, p. 314. "Never, not even at Frankfort, did I doubt that the key to German politics was to be found in princes and dynasties, not in publicists, whether in parlia- ment and the press or on the barricades." " German patriotism needs to hang on the peg of dependence upon a dynasty" (P- 3i6).
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Machiavellian method we may omit, although it has undoubtedly vitiated the tradition even until our own day. But in comparatively recent times and as between modern States, diplomacy has been often based upon lying, studied deceit and unblushing theft.
The point is that the relationship of the citizens of one State to those of another cannot possibly be moral so long as their representatives are either strong enough or are allowed to use immoral means for the attainment of what is conceived to be a national purpose. Yet we know that Lord Beaconsfield in 1878 obtained Cyprus by under- hand means ; that a Prussian King and his statesmen betrayed a trust to obtain their share of Poland. And of all the hopelessly immoral methods those of Austrian diplomacy seem to be crudest, for the annexation of Bosnia was excused by the deliberate forgery of documents in the Austrian legation at Belgrade.1
We are not throwing stones at diplomatists. What seems to us more important is that ^ the majority of citizens in the several States which
1 As an instance of " diplomacy " this deserves a fuller record. It was proved in the Friedjung Trial (Dec. 1909) that the historian Dr. Friedjung had been supplied with documents forged in the Austrian Legation under Count Forgach and the Foreign Minister Count Aehrenthal. Forgach was promoted to Vienna. The forged documents were the only grounds for Austrian action. (Cf. Dr. Seton-Watson in The War and Democracy, Ch. IV, p. 150.)
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benefited financially by immoral practice did not protest or even refuse to receive the property stolen in their behalf. Morality remains at a low stage of development so long as men, who might avoid lying or stealing for themselves, are perfectly willing to benefit by such deeds done by others. And this is not merely a political but also an economic issue. The State is not a trading com- pany ; but even if it were, the position would be no better. It makes no difference that business is often conducted on the same Machiavellian principles as diplomacy. The principles are im- moral. And our much-abused diplomatists are very often angels of light by comparison with some peace-loving business men who continue to raise private fortunes by acting upon principles which they affect to disapprove of when they read Machiavelli or diplomatic despatches.
Further, as we shall argue later, the principle that foreign policy should be a maintenance and development of the interest of the State must be subservient to the general principle of morality that such development should not injure any other.1 The principle is implied in what we have
1 Sedgwick, Elements, Ch. XVIII. " For a State, as for an individual, the ultimate end and standard of conduct is the happiness of all who are affected by its actions. ... In excep- tional cases where the interest of the p^rt conflicts with the interests of the whole, the interest of the part — be it individual
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already said as to the moral character of the State ; but how it can be applied will be seen when we consider the latest tendencies towards the Comity of Nations.
There is a general principle which seems to arise from such consideration of the system by which Foreign Policy is managed. It is the expression of a need in the developing morality of nations. The increase of popular power over law and government should be accompanied by an increase of knowledge among all citizens of the foreign interests of their group and of the method by which such interests are developed. We must rid ourselves of the barbaric ignorance of foreign peoples which is our inheritance from the time when peoples were separated by geographical features or economic structure. The man of the Middle Ages, by comparison with ourselves, could well afford to neglect the habits and customs of foreigners ; he could with difficulty communicate with them, and he traded with them hardly at all ; but if the minds of our diplomatists seem to belong to the Renaissance, those of " the people " seem to be mediaeval, and the next step forward in making diplomacy more moral must be an increase in the political knowledge of citizens.
or State — must necessarily give way. On this point of principle no compromise is possible, no hesitation admissible, no appeal to experience relevant."
CHAPTER VII
ALLIANCE
THE results of Foreign Policy, so far as they are permanent in the progress of International Morality, are generally of two opposite kinds. There is, first, the promotion of alliance between States, and secondly, the continuance of inter- state rivalry. This second result may seem to be not moral ; but it is clearly a part of morality to develop distinctions of group-character, as of individuality, and not only to work upon the principle of common interest. We shall, how- ever, leave this issue for the present, and speak of alliance. It must be understood that the dis- cussion does not involve any plan for a Concert of the whole civilised world. We must begin at the beginning. There are, in fact, a few States which are acting together for common purposes, however transitory and limited : and this fact is important for a judgment upon the international situation. For alliance has sometimes moral causes or moral purposes, and nearly always moral results. We should not be deceived by
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the purely economic theory, whatever its basis in fact. It is true, of course, that a new distinc- tion has come into prominence in recent times, that of debtor and creditor States.1 We cannot any longer be content with the old theory of equality of sovereign States or even with the newer dis- tinction between the " Great Powers " and other States.2 There is the new fact of an economic relationship between citizens or companies of citizens in one State with citizens of another, due to the lending of money.
We have seen that investment tends to disregard State frontiers : but there is a further important fact — that it tends to follow lines partly laid down by foreign policy in the interest of military or non-material security ; and follow- ing these lines it tends to secure a friendship which military reasons alone might be insufficient to make permanent. The standard example is the relationship of Russia and France. French citizens lend money to Russian business ; and foreign policy assists this, at first perhaps with an anti-German intention. But the money once lent is a sufficient reason for the desire of France that Russia should develop successfully.
In the same way our financiers played their part, in the beginning of the war, by the attention
1 Brailsford, War of Steel and Gold, p. 221.
2 Cf. Lawrence, Part II, ch. iv, p. 268.
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which was directed to the possibilities of lucrative investment in Russia.1 But if such investment takes place, it will bind us to Russia far more effectively than any common action in war.
The creditor-debtor relationship in foreign policy, however, -may not always result in alliance, when the debtor State is very much inferior in military or economic power. For example, the presence of British capital in the Transvaal before the Boer War put the Transvaal Government in a difficult political position. In the same sense, Mexico and China are debtor-States which tend to become subordinated politically because of the superior military or economic power of their creditors.
Thus we have to allow not merely for the interdependence of all States, but for the closer interdependence of some States and the creation of larger economic and political groups out of two or more States. The cc Balance of Power " alliances of the past, transitory and often for warlike purposes only, are being transformed or replaced by a new form of alliance which, what- ever it excludes, binds more effectively and for longer periods the States which it includes.
1 The best example of this is to be found in the Times Russian Supplement (published January 1915), of which the whole point was the excellence of Russia as a field for British capital.
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The whole problem is new. It is vital to foreign policy : but it has no solution in the language and thought of Renaissance diplomacy or our antiquated conceptions of the State. What is the relation between the State as a political institution and a financial company of its citizens who may have interests in foreign countries ? On the one hand, is the State committed to act in order to collect debts for a few powerful citizens, and, on the other hand, should not the State hesitate to act if action would imperil such interests in foreign lands ? These, however, are problems for the practical politicians : perhaps no general principles are established ; and yet from such problems arises one of the important issues in the moral relationship between States.
At one time the State was regarded as a kind of Church, and wars were fought for religion : now the State tends to be considered as a sort of financial company. But even if the relationship which holds together modern States is at first economic, the result is often of importance morally. The merely financial common interest tends to produce a moral sentiment of sympathy : and such also is the general effect of a merely military agreement. The important point for our present purpose is the result upon the minds of the average citizens in the allied or interdependent States. It makes no difference that the majority
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are quite unaware of the reason for their senti- ment of friendliness : nor does it matter that such sentiment is often created by newspapers in the pay of financiers. In a sense, a sentiment of friendliness so formed may be easily destroyed ; and, as we shall see, the Italians could not forget an ancient grudge even though diplomacy seemed to commit them to the Triple Alliance. But sentiments of friendliness are interesting because they prove that there is no insuperable obstacle to intimacy between any nations whatever. And, at least for the few years during which they are active, they give promise of common action between diverse peoples on general principles.
Now, therefore, we may examine the alliances of recent history and, in tracing their growth, enquire if any general principles can be found which govern the friendship of States.
The situation in international politics was until recently governed by the groupings of —
1. The Triple Alliance,
2. The Triple Entente.
The first may be held to have disappeared, since Italy stood out of the war at the begin- ning. Nevertheless, it may be worth while to say how the situation just preceding the war came into existence.
It seems reasonable that Germany and Austria should be allied against France, or, at least, for
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the defence of common interests. The ruling peoples in both empires are Teutonic, and the history of their ancestors binds them to a sort of affection.
Also they may both be held to have a common cause against Pan-Slavism in Russia or in the Balkans. In fact, it was the Balkan War, and the fear of a Slav preponderance of power in Eastern Europe, which probably moved the Berlin diplomats to force on a war between Austria and Serbia.1
But even the Teutonic peoples have not for very long been allied officially. Prussia main- tained a traditional friendship for Russia during the greater part of Bismarck's power. But the current of affairs bringing Russia and France together after the Prussian success of 1866, Bismarck began to secure his position by friend- ship with Austria. In 1879 a treaty was signed between the new German Empire and the Aus- trian Empire which was the beginning of the Triple Alliance.2
The third party of the alliance was Italy, in spite of the fact that Italian opposition to Austria had by no means ceased. But in 1881 France declared Tunis her protectorate, and the Italian people were much incensed by it. Old passions flamed up, and the memory of Italian provinces 1 Correspondence i etc. 2 Bismarck, II, 257.
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(Savoy and Nice) which had been given over to France, served to make the Italian Government able to enter into special arrangements with Austria and Germany. The Triple Alliance was probably in existence as early as October 1881. The terms were like those agreed upon between Austria and Germany : that each Government should aid in the event of the other being attacked. It was a purely defensive alliance ; and Italy was, to all appearance, in exactly the same position as Austria with respect to Germany. If the present war is not purely " defensive," there is no more " treaty reason " for Austria's aid being given to Germany than there is for Italy's. On paper, it would seem that what Italy views as not defensive is viewed by the other two parties to the alliance as defensive ; but in fact it is not a treaty which keeps Vienna and Berlin so closely together. The terms of the treaty may have been exactly the same for all three parties : but two of the three are united by blood and tradition. The real reason for Italy's neu- trality is not because the war of her late allies is regarded as aggressive, but because the treaty obligations entered into in 1881, in a fit of anti- French policy, have not been sufficient to destroy the long tradition of Italian sentiment directed against the Austrian Government.
The Triple Alliance was formed by a defensive
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policy against France, and has gradually been turned, owing to events in the Balkans, against Russia. As an expression in diplomatic form of the real interests of two groups or Governments it is a reasonable and, in part, a beneficent in- fluence in so far as it has cemented the friend- ship of Berlin and Vienna, and closed, perhaps finally, the disputes as to predominance among the German States ; but as to the interests of the third group or Government (Italy), it is diffi- cult to see how the alliance subserved any real good except as providing a transitory pause to the anti-Austrian feeling in Italy.
The history of the Franco-Russian alliance is even stranger than that of the Triple Alliance. We need not go back to Napoleonic times to find out how completely the tradition of France differs from that of Russia. Politically France has been the great experimenter in methods of government, while Russia has been continuously opposed to all such changes.
In March 1854 France declared war against Russia, since at that time it was conceived to be necessary to restrict the growth of Russian power at the expense of Turkey. The war ended with no very great feeling on either side.
There had been a faint sympathy between Russia and the French Empire in the promotion of nationality in the Balkans, following on the
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Treaty of Paris (March 1856). Russia desired to see the Balkan people free of Turkish rule because of their blood, and Napoleon III had a sentimental regard for the principle of nationality. This tendency for two Empires to come together almost produced an entente in 1861 and 1862; but in 1863 the Poles rose against Russia. French sympathy, even that of the Emperor, was on the side of the national movement, and the Russian Government only wanted to remain as it was.
In 1866 Russia was friendly with Prussia rather than with the French Empire, and in 1871 Bismarck was able to buy off any possible Russian interference with the success of Prussian arms by acting in the interest of the Russian repudiation of the Treaty of Paris. Republican France of 1872 and the following years was opposed by Russian autocracy in the League of the three Emperors, and it was not until the reopening of the whole Eastern question and after the anti-Slav policy of the Teutonic powers was revealed at Berlin in 1878, that Russia was drawn again towards France. The common interest was un- doubtedly opposition to the growth of Teutonic influence in Europe, and the result was an alliance which was begun in July 1891. France gave Russia a large loan and freedom of action in the East, and Russia gave France some security against a renewal of 1870.
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The entry of England into full alliance with France and Russia cannot yet be fully explained, since the necessary documents are not yet public. Officially we were not allied until August 1914, on the outbreak of war ; but the Entente Cordiale, whatever that means, had been followed by a rapprochement with Russia. We acted in concert with Russia in the suppression of some Persian developments, and the future will reveal whether we stood in this case for an order which did not suppress national liberties. We are, however, now committed to a full alliance, and the most prominent moral result is the general sentiment of friendliness and admiration of the allies, each for the other.
Alliance is of immense importance in interna- tional morality. Indeed, nothing in recent years has been so directly a force in the direction of peace as the present war in so far as it is waged by Allies. We have seen that German States may be reason- ably supposed to have common interests, not only in the economic sense but also in the main- tenance of a special type of government. Thus two great nations, the German and Austrian, are agreed not to fight each other. They are not likely to forget the common experiences of danger or of success.
But far more important is the situation on the side of those whom we call pre-eminently "the
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Allies." The popular voice in newspapers has rightly given prominence to the important fact that such different races as the English, French, Russian, Belgian and Japanese are all fighting on the same side. For to fight together means at least not to fight one another, and that fact is important.
Nations of very different government and tradition can then be induced to act together at least for a short time : and if they act together in war, why should they not in peace ? But this means that the crude conception of nations as necessarily individualistic competitors is obsolete, for co-operation is possible among very many. And even if this co-operation is transient and only for the primitive need of military effective- ness, even if in a few years we were at war with any of our present allies, the months or years of alliance will have done something towards breaking down the wall of ignorance and barbaric hostility to foreigners which are the fruitful sources of all war.
For, let us consider the result of our alliance in other ways than its military effectiveness. We have learnt for years, from the " Entente Cordiale," to appreciate the French character and the French point of view. A French invasion of England is to the present generation absolutely unthink- able. Our soldiers may learn to admire their
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French comrades, and already there is some effort among them to understand the French language. They are proud to receive French medals as a reward for gallantry, and they and all England feel desperately concerned in the security of North-eastern France. Such a sympathetic under- standing between two such different nations, even if it were only forcible in the moment of danger, is nevertheless more valuable than any treaty or covenant between Governments. For it is national sympathy and not merely a soldier's emotion.
Next, as to Russia, it seems already unkind to refer to our hostility in the Crimean War, and we desire nothing better now than the Russian occupation of Constantinople, which our forefathers fought to prevent. This is not mere inconsistency, for the situation has changed. And already we are learning as a people to appreciate Russian opera, Russian dancing and Russian literature. The Russian character has become more known to us, even the geography of Russia has its interests, and we no longer neglect the virtues of a people which has done and may yet do so much for civilisation at large.
Doubtless a great part of this popular senti- ment for " our allies " is the superficial friend- liness of mariners adrift in the same boat ; but however superficial, it is a promise of a time
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when very different races will learn to appreciate the standpoint of other races, and when the popular voice will not condemn every foreign habit as barbarous and every foreign government as tyranny. It is interesting to notice that those who speak of a " natural " distaste for foreigners also make a distinction between foreigners ; so that some foreigners are now regarded as bar- barous, false and aggressive, and others as amiably different from ourselves. But apparently a few years suffice to transform this natural distaste, so that those who were aggressive fifty years ago are now believed to be kindly, and those who were peaceful then are now ambitious of conquest. It is obvious that this " natural " distaste is simply another instance of how we are governed by illusions in political thinking. Thus with any historical perspective we learn much from the present alliance of England, Russia, France, Belgium, Serbia and Japan.
More important still for international morality is the fact that the present Alliance shows how force may be exerted in the maintenance of law and order without the existence of any one "World-dominion," Rome in old days dictated peace to the world ; England dictates peace to India ; and in these cases law and order depend upon the predominance of one State. But if the Allies win the present war, peace will be dictated
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not by any one, but by a large group of very different States : it follows that it will be a peace in which a great number of different interests will be preserved. And, still further, it follows that International Law will be maintained not by the will of one World-power, but by agreement between many equals.
The principle of independent development contained in the legal conception of sovereignty has so far been effective in securing the right of each separate state-group. The Renaissance con- ception had its value. But States have not, in fact, kept a splendid isolation ; it has been found ever since there were any sovereign States that alliance was necessary and valuable. And we look forward to a further extension of the principle of alliance, although at first sight it might seem to hamper the full independence of a sovereign State to avoid any " individual " action. Thus the mutual pledge of the three Govern- ments of Russia, France, and England not to enter into a separate peace may be extended to cover common action for many years after the War.
If States are not isolated, it is because of real or supposed interests which they have in common, whether those interests are purely economic or military or non-material. The new commerce and the new finance destroyed the more personal
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and accidental alliances of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. For modern alliance is of a different and more enduring kind. It carries with it economic bonds and the growth of popular sentiment.
But the interests of the group are the ultimate interests of all the individuals : and, again, the national group is subdivided into smaller groups. Clearly, alliance should not be for the benefit of one small group among many ; unless in helping that group it also helps the others. The tendency, however, to refuse to begin with small gains in order to wait until every one can be directly helped, is like a vague cosmopolitanism which will not begin with the actual friendliness of two or more nations.
Alliance, nevertheless, may not be altogether good in its moral results. We may pay too highly for success in war or in investment, if we allow the restriction of liberty even among other peoples. It is sometimes implied that other peoples must look after themselves : political and national laissez-faire is advocated even by those who see that as between fellow-citizens laissez-faire is obsolete. But lest it may seem as if the interest in the liberty of other peoples is mere sentimentalism, we must repeat what should by now be obvious, that the State which aids or
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allows the extinction of liberty in other States has become tyrannical ; and the direct effect is tyranny within the tyrannical State. The taste for tyranny cannot be satisfied with practice upon foreigners or "natives."
We may then pass to definite instances either of the moral ineffectiveness of alliance, or of its pernicious moral effects.
Alliances are made by established Governments, not by peoples. Sometimes the Governments consider the interest of the governed ; but some- times only the interest of the established system is considered, or even if the interest of the people is considered by the officials, it is misunderstood. Thus alliance may be made for the suppression of popular liberty by combining the force of two or more bodies of officials ; and it matters nothing that the officials conscientiously believe the sup- pression of popular liberty to be good for the people. The maintenance of a system which the majority wish to change may be good for that majority : but the majority are less likely to be wrong about that than are the officials who are the system.
In 1854 we assisted Turkey against Russia. The alliance was strange, since many in England held that nothing could be worse than Turkish rule : but the English people, incurably optimistic
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as to the character of their friends of the moment, apparently hoped great things from the influence of England's friendship over Turkish rulers. In 1867 the Sultan of Turkey visited England, and was received not only with official greetings, but with popular enthusiasm. It was supposed by many that the effect of such a welcome would be to make the Sultan reform his manner of rule ; and, of course, no such result followed.1 But, whatever sane statesmen may have thought, a great number of Englishmen really seem to hope that English friendship for foreign Governments will affect these Governments in a manner of which we should approve.
It is said by Germany that England's alliance with Russia is in the interest of barbarism, and we regard that as a charge to be refuted. For even if it were to our interest to ally ourselves with a barbaric power, we could hardly believe it moral to assist in the suppression of civilised life : and, in fact, it could hardly be to the higher interest of any civilised nation to increase the power of barbarism in the world. But, clearly, it is not simply because of our interest that we regard it as just to ally ourselves with Russia :
1 The best record ot work done upon the principle of friendly influence as a ground for reform in foreign States is to be found in the life of Lord Stratford de Redcliffe (Life, by S. Lane-Poole).
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not any means is justified in the attempt to maintain the interests of England. So that it is usually urged that the alliance may have a good effect in assisting the forces within Russia itself of which we approve ; and this means that we regard the alliance as useful for the promotion not merely of England's financial or military interests, but also for those non-material interests which every self-respecting nation must consider — local independence, popular happiness, and the rest. The alliance would be morally justified if it secured the independence of Serbia without imperilling the liberties of the Russian, Finnish, Polish, or Jewish people.
The argument, therefore, runs in this way. Alliance may have many different causes or purposes : but it invariably has important and good moral effects, at least as between the allies. Such effects are greater in modern times than they have been hitherto, because of the greater consciousness of the mass of men and the closer contact due to swift and frequent communication. Upon alliance, then, we may rely not merely for securing a new moral attitude in any one nation towards foreigners, but also for the common action of diverse States in matters of principle. Alliance may have evil effects upon certain sections of the States allied, or upon small or weak States not in the alliance. These effects
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must be considered and prevented : not only because they injure others, but also because even the good effects upon the allied States will be insecure or absolutely destroyed by the common support of evil.
CHAPTER VIII
INTERNATIONAL RIVALRY
THE relation of States to one another, even if it be considered with a view to morality rather than for the purpose of merely recording facts, must be acknowledged to depend very much upon the opposition of interests. With the best will in the world, the average man feels that the ideals of cosmopolitanism do not sufficiently allow for divergent claims of different groups. Ab- stractly it may be certain that what is for the good of the whole of humanity must be for the good of each and every group of men and women ; but if it is difficult to find the true interest even of a small group on any wide issue, it must be almost impossible, especially by abstract consider- ation, to discover what is really for the good of all human beings. And in any case it is more likely that we shall promote the general interest by developing the interest of separate groups than that we shall help the smaller group by attempt- ing to act upon some vague general principle. For the intelligent pursuit by each State of its
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own interest will be the most practical method of attaining the true interest of each ; and yet such pursuit seems to lead inevitably to the attack upon the interest of other States. At all costs, however, we feel that the character of each State should be preserved by that State.
It is our purpose, then, to discover how far the rivalry and opposition between States is valuable and how far it is not. The ultimate criterion must be again the amount of civilised life which is derived by individuals from such rivalry ; since it is misleading here as elsewhere to speak of States as large persons, or to speak of the contact between States as a sort of Individualism. It is the interest of a definite group of men and women which seems opposed to that of another group. And first we must refer to the astonishing psycho- logical variety in the attitude of nations to one another. For the general attitude of a people reflects at least a vague feeling as to who their rivals really are ; and the result has generally been rapprochement with some other group.
There always have been transferences of national affection, based not upon common blood or tradi- tion but upon supposed common interests ; but never yet has any affection or national sympathy been without some suggestion of a common enemy. The most primitive form of union is based upon common hostility, and the emotional
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adventures of every people appear in history as a record of changing rivalries.1
The differences of national feeling in Prussia, for example, have been remarkable in recent years. In 1853, just before the Crimean War, Prussia was supposed to be in agreement with England and France against Russia ; and during that year Prussia was a signatory to notes which Russia rejected. But the general tendency of feeling in Prussia was by no means anti-Russian. Both the King and Bismarck were more than inclined to support Russia. The rising of the Poles in 1863 gave Bismarck the opportunity of going further than abstract amity, and a Conven- tion was signed which practically amounted to armed alliance between Prussia and Russia against the subject race. Whether one can speak of national sentiments in this matter is doubtful, since the agreement of the new German power with the Slav autocracy was largely managed by Bismarck in accordance with his own conception of national interest. In any case the friendship of Prussia for Russia alarmed both the Austrians and the French so far that an attempt was made in 1867 to establish an alliance against their
1 Thus in individual morality " scandal " is useful in con- versation because the primitive basis for friendship is a common hostility to some third. So the cementing of amity between groups, by war against a common enemy, provides only primitive friendship.
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union. In 1870 the Russian friendship still continued to make Prussians think kindly of their Eastern neighbour. As late as 1884 Bis- marck was able to procure a secret treaty of the new Germany with Russia, and this remained in force until 1890 ; although national sentiment in Prussia had by that time completely transferred affection to Austria.
In much the same way we can watch the Prussian sentiment changing with respect to Austria. In 1849 tne German peoples were much agitated by their attempts to consolidate their union in spite of an obsolete dynastic system. Prussia was regarded by many as the friend of democracy, or at least of progress, as opposed to the absolutism of Austria. The Governments of Germany were in difficulties owing to popular excitement ; but a rivalry appeared none the less, and in 1850 the small German States were with Prussia against Austria, Hanover, Saxony, Bavaria, and Wiirtemberg. In July of that year the Prussians, under vague threats from Russia and Austria, were made to feel that their predominance among Germans was definitely opposed by Austria. A league was actually formed by Austria, Bavaria and Wiirtemberg against Prussia (Oct. 1 1, 1850) ; but by 1 86 1 the Prussians had become deliberal- ised and the Austrians were playing with the principles of popular government. In 1862
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Bismarck was called upon by King William of Prussia to give force to the new anti-liberal regime. At once he took up the solving of the German problem by " blood and iron " ; but first German sentiment was stirred by the affair of the Danish Duchies. The diplomatic subtleties of Bismarck do not concern us here. It is sufficient to say that Austria and Prussia found themselves at one in 1864. It was an accidental difficulty for Austria, the Magyar disturbances and Italian sentiment in Venetia, which led to her alliance with her German rival ; and Prussians seem all along to have suspected the ultimate designs of their ally. Feeling against Bismarck and Prussia ran high in Germany, and in Prussia there was still a certain suspicion of the high-handed absolutism of the Chancellor. He continued, however, to take advantage of Austrian difficulties at home and of German disunion to take over the Duchy of Schleswig.1
In 1866 Prussian hostility to Austria resulted in open war. But Bismarck, and perhaps the Prussian Conservatives, did not want the ruin of a kindred nation. It was sufficient, as it seemed, for Prussian interests if predominance in Northern Germany was secured. So that the hostility to Austria was transformed into an affection, which grew steadily after the peace of July 1866. 1 Convention of Gastein, August 1865.
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Prussian hostility to France is an old inheritance since Napoleon I roused the national spirit by his success; but by the war of 1870 the Prussians seem to have convinced themselves that France was decadent in military power. The enmity involved in their conception of <c interest " was therefore transferred to England. Since the success of the naval scheme in 1900 their sense of rivalry has implied an opposition to English naval power, which they felt as an unwarrantable world-domination hostile to German development. As the militarism of Prussia seems to us a danger to European independence, although to the Prus- sians it seems a bare necessity of their position, so the naval power of England seems to them a menace to the weaker nations, although to us it seems a bare necessity of our life on an island.
The hostilities of emotion through which England has passed in recent years provide the same kind of evidence. It is not a matter of open war. The sense of national rivalry may not break out into war, and may be all the more obstructive when it does not. Thus France was our " natural enemy " for most of the Renaissance and until the downfall of Napoleon.1 In 1852
1 It is impossible to begin national hostility before that. The mediaeval wars were not " national," and our kings were kings of" France." But Stubbs (vide supra, p. 109) preserves the Napoleonic-Wars attitude in his misinterpretation of mediaeval " foreign " policy.
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our first Volunteer Movement originated in fear of invasion by the French. Two years after we were allied with the French in the Crimean War against Russia. For many years about this period Russia was our " natural enemy " ; and it was " proved " that the two Imperial powers in Asia could not fail to be hostile. France meantime had come into the Russian orbit, and in 1898 our " natural " hostility to France showed itself in connection with the Fashoda episode. A very few years after, the Entente Cordiale bound us to France, and we then began friendly arrangements with Russia. Thus in 1900 our " natural " enemy was Germany ; and it was proved not merely that it was for the moment a convenience to be friendly to France, but that the advanced demo- cratic peoples of France and England were "naturally" to be allied.1
All this shows that there is a sense of rivalry between organised nations which, whether it leads to war or not, is of immense political importance. For on it are based the vast expenditure on arma- ment,2 the panics which disturb industry and the
1 I need not refer to the popular expression of political rivalry, although it is effective in the formation of general sentiment. German table-manners and domestic life are abhorrent to us now as were French manners and " frivolity " in Nelson's time.
2 How impossible it is to consider the nature of the State with only a passing reference to " external " relations is seen
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transference, especially where there is compulsory military service, of countless energies to the mere waiting for war.
What, then, is the real basis of international rivalry ? It is unlikely that rivalry is based only on illusions, although the particular forms which it takes at certain times are supported by illusion. Let us therefore examine, first, the current " ex- planations " of rivalry in which the change of rivals is admitted, for we cannot count as reason- able the idea that any rivalry is eternal or funda- mental or natural. It is only a rivalry based upon a definite situation which can be worth explaining.
The " inevitable causes " of rivalry usually referred to are (i) natural expansion and (2) Evolution. But what is natural expansion ? We connect it with colonies and " a place in the sun." It is held to be " natural " that a country with a high birth-rate should expand: and ex- panding generally is allowed to mean the extension of a state-system.1 This must be dealt with
from the fact that taxation based on rivalry (for " defence ") in every civilised country exceeds taxation for " all internal functions taken together" (Sidgwick, Elements of 'Politics, Ch. XV. par. i, note).
1 It is interesting that this " reason " for expansion is new. The same idea was supported originally by quite a different "reason/' which still affected Neitzsche. The original "reason" is to be found in Machiavelli, that it is the nature of the State to expand (Disc. I. 6, la necessita la conducesse ad ampliare) ; and the evidence for that is Livy's rendering of Roman history !
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abruptly. It cannot follow that, because within the frontiers of a modern State there are now more inhabitants than there were, the frontiers should be enlarged. For, in the first place, no State has developed fully the land or resources within its frontiers, and until this is done there is no valid reason for demanding more. If there is distress within the frontiers, it is not due to the compression of the inhabitants. The implied metaphor is childish and futile. One would imagine inhabitants to be so thick that they jostled one another. Distress is due to neglect of resources and maldistribution of wealth, not to lack of land. And, secondly, if there are too many inhabitants within the frontiers they can easily cross any frontier without the extension of their own state-system. Against this it is urged that they are u lost to the State " : by which it is meant that they cannot be taxed or made to serve in the army ; and that is no reason for expanding the State to the detriment of other States. It may, however, be urged that the " surplus popu- lation " does not wish to part with its own insti- tutions ; and that would be a reasonable ground for their retaining their own law and government.1
1 Either by not naturalising themselves in the new country or by transforming the institutions of the new country in the direction they desire. But the whole idea implied in the word " surplus " is absolute nonsense.
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But even that would not excuse the conquest of new lands ; for it is quite reasonable to say that the surplus population must sacrifice either its prospects of wealth or its continuance with the same law and government. The man who is not willing to sacrifice prospects of greater wealth for active citizenship in his old State does not value his citizenship as much as his income ; and the man who values his citizenship so highly as to want his State to expand over him wherever he goes, might reasonably sacrifice a large income to what he values so highly.
The whole idea of expanding by conquest of colonies is based upon bad history and obsolete politics.1 England did not conquer colonies in order to find room for surplus population, and the period is long since gone when vast open spaces could be cc possessed " by conquerors. The surface of the earth is now politically a whole with no edges or fringes.2
1 As a fruitful source of war the acquisition of seaports in the East for trading purposes is one of the most important (cf. C. W. Eliot, Some Roads Towards Peace, p. 18).
2 Prussian policy still bears the mark of a rather primitive stage of thought. I do not think that it is simply the state of war which makes us suspect the Prussian diplomatists of ambitions in the direction of foreign conquest. They have learnt, indeed, that such conquest is impossible or in some way undesirable on the continent of Europe : the difficulty of treating a group of men and women in Alsace-Lorraine as conquered property has become evident. But they still seem
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But, undoubtedly, if expansion means the taking over of " spheres of influence " or the superseding
to imagine that colonies should be captured by the strongest power. Thus they confessed aggressive intentions with respect to the French colonies.
They appear to imagine that nations inhabiting or govern- ing much land should be regarded as natural enemies of nations with less. They seem to think that England " owns " Canada or Australia and that the ownership can be changed by a successful war. But Canada and Australia are not patches of land, they are groups of men and women who are in no sense owned by the inhabitants of England. Even if they were under the direct government of London officials, they could not be counted as property any more than Yorkshiremen, who are not owned by the offices in Whitehall which collect taxes or take measures for the military defence of Yorkshire. I do not know whether Bavaria seems to be a Prussian possession.
As to colonies which are really inhabited by what we may call subject races, there may seem to be more ground for the Prussian idea, since even in England there is much careless language about " our possessions." But in practice, even in such cases, we do not treat native races as property.
Such races are ruled by English system of law and govern- ment for their good and often with the acquiescence of the majority of the governed. They are not held down by military force, nor are they in any sense " possessed " by the English State, even though there may be many evil deeds of dispossession and tyranny on the part of individual Englishmen.
As a matter of fact the surplus population of Germany has gone largely to South America and to the United States. It has not gone to the German " possessions " in Africa or in the East Indies. And has Germany lost anything by this move- ment ? She gained the immense development of her Atlantic trade, which grew quite independently of the strength of the German Navy or the extent of the German state-system. Even the diplomatists have never said that the growth of such
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of a more primitive by a more developed state- system, then, whether it should occur or not, it is occurring and is a real basis for rivalry and a fruitful cause of war.1 In Africa and farther Asia there is a contact of European States as rivals over the decrepit bodies of native Governments ; and we may see a like situation later in some parts of South America. Why, then, it may be asked, does one State feel that this sort of expansion on the part of another is to be opposed ? First, because States tend to restrict trade in their own interest in countries over which they expand. The conception of restricting trade is based upon the false economics which aims at impoverishing a prospective buyer.2 When that is no longer used, expansion will not involve rivalry. And, secondly, the State " expanding " does undoubtedly aim at military advantage ; but when the test of value among States is no longer savage this kind of expansion will cease. The conclusion is not, of
wealth was due to the Navy : the existence of the wealth was made an excuse for the Navy, and it has never been shown that the power of the Navy increased the wealth of Hamburg.
Germany has also gained a solid body of friends in America in the company of her sons who have lived there for many years.
1 See Eliot's report to the Carnegie Endowment on the influence of Western ports in China, etc. Also P. S. Reinsch, World Politics at the end of the 'Nineteenth Century as Influenced by the Oriental Situation , 1 900.
2 Cf. the French " expansion " into Morocco and the secret Conventions of 1 904.
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course, that there is no reasonable rivalry of the physical kind, but only that such rivalry is not natural or inevitable, being simply due to the undeveloped state of international feeling, which again is due to the primitive ideas of government and political institutions.1
As for " Evolution," the word is a sort of political " black magic." It means nothing and excuses everything. Even if races were in conflict for survival, as individuals were once imagined to be, there is another and a better conflict than the conflict of brute force. In defiance of Nature, we men apply to individuals the test of character and not that of physical force or low cunning. And if we applied the same sort of test to groups, it would not follow that a State should be hostile to another either because of having more or because of having fewer citizens. Quality, not quantity, is what we hold best. A small State of fine citizens is " better " than a large State of fools. But " Evolution " in such a case is nonsense. " Survival of the fittest " is an obsolete charm. When we ask " who are the fittest ? " we are told " those who survive " ; and when we ask " who survive ? " we are told " the fittest " ! Obviously,
1 I disagree with Sidgwick here. His conception that the guiding policy of States with respect to each other should be non-interference is undeveloped Individualism wrongly applied. No one now believes that non-interference is the basic principle in realising even the individuality of persons.
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then, evolution is neither a justification nor a decent excuse for national rivalries : for even if " Nature " tries races in this way, a proposition by no means proved, we must confess that the process leaves us without any enthusiasm ; and a moral politics cannot be based on mere adoration of natural processes.
Such are the alleged causes of national rivalry. What are the real causes ? First, there are the sinister and unmentioned causes. States are often persuaded into mutual hostility by financiers for increase in armament trade or for exploiting natives,1 or by newspapers for copy or sensation ; 2 or peoples are engineered into hostility by a Government which feels insecure.3 All these are causes of dangerous rivalries, and they must be dragged out into the open if we are to distinguish the reasonable and the natural from the artificial contrivances of private greed or personal ambition.
There is, however, a reasonable ground for rivalry. If States are to remain distinct and
1 Cf. The War Traders, by E. H. Porris, where the details are given of faked information being used by armament firms to induce Governments to spend more on arms.
2 The Hearst papers are known to have engineered the Spanish-American War.
3 Napoleon III was eager to maintain military prestige when his administration was causing discontent. Bismarck, in his Reminiscences, seems to imply that hostility to France was useful to him for the same purpose — avoiding internal reform, Russia has often played the same game.
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systems of law and government may continue to differ, for the advantage of all humanity, the independence of state-development must be secured. We have spoken of this above as one of the guiding conceptions of foreign policy. It is the reasonable basis underlying the obsolete methods of a Balance of Power. It is true that no one State can be allowed to predominate over all others : it is true that each State must take measures to secure independent development ; and it is true that possible danger to such development comes now from one State, now from another. The changes in rivalry which we have noticed above are not unreasonable : it was not foolish for England to be afraid of Napoleon III in December 1851, or of Prussian militarism in 1914.
There is rivalry, and so long as States are conceived as " armed bands," the rivalry will take a military form. Politically it is not possible to disarm. That is obvious. But we do not here depend only upon the wrinkled and dotard past, which hobbles upon the political stage. We bow to it and pass on. For there is a new form of rivalry gradually being sub- stituted in the minds of citizens for the primitive rivalry of physical force.
Individuals do not now think it necessary to preserve their individuality by strengthening their
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muscles. Indeed, individuality is more prominent when physical rivalry is set aside : the primitive, who are able to defend themselves from each other, are more like one another than the civilised who have not learnt " self-defence." 1 It is true that the new kind of rivalry is only possible be- cause force is exerted by the State to prevent the old kind from being used. But the point is that the abolition of the use of private force has not resulted in less but in more individuality. One savage is more like another savage in thought and action than is one civilised man like another.
In the same way military rivalry, so far from securing distinct, independent and characteristic development of each State, tends to make all States more similar. If we wish, therefore, to secure a complete individuality for our State we must contrive to use some other than the military-economic rivalry.2 The argument is that the physical form of rivalry does not effect the purpose for which alone it could be justified.
1 The psychological law would be that attention to defence inhibits characteristic development, by concentrating all force upon one purpose. That purpose being the same for all who want to defend themselves, they tend to become all like one another.
2 Hegel's argument for war thus falls to the ground. He says " individuality must create opposition and so beget an enemy" (Phil, of Right, § 324); but if that were so we should still need personal enmity for development of character. His history is simply out of date : but he wrote, of course, in 1820.
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We put aside war, then, not because we disap- prove of war, but because warfare and the prepara- tion for warfare do not result in independent development.
What other form of rivalry is possible ? The future will indicate that more fully ; but we can at present see that it is on the lines of specialisa- tion of function. Individuality of persons has been secured by specialisation of knowledge and special- isation of business. So also " individuality " of groups will be secured by developing the special function of each group in the world polity. This specialisation began with the world-situation reviewed above. England before the war was supplying some needs to the whole world, and Germany others. Russia was supplying some, and France others. This situation in times of peace would tend to develop. And not only in industry but also in ideas is there specialisation of function.1 The result upon the political institu-
1 The war has set back the development of this tendency. Every State has had to become suddenly more self-sufficing, i. e. more isolated, /'. e. more primitive. In England we have had to begin the manufacture of articles which before the war we could obtain more economically from Germany. The war- party in Germany foresaw this situation and, by way of preparing for war, set themselves to resist the civilising tendency to specialisation of function. Cf. von Billow's Imperial Germany. The author (p. 209) actually prides himself on resisting the development of German industry because it would make Germany dependent on other States.
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tions of the different groups would be inevitable, and they would come more closely into contact and organise themselves more adequately in in- dependence of one another. They would be rivals, but not in warfare.
It may not be correct to use the word rivalry in this sense. If that is so and the older meaning is the only one possible, then perhaps we shall do without any rivalry. But we continue to use the word State and nation in senses unknown to our grandfathers, and so perhaps we may use rivalry to indicate the independent development of groups organised for different purposes.
Again, it might be argued that the new and civilised rivalry cannot replace the older rivalry of force until some superior force above all the States is established ; on the ground that the individual does not use force to protect his in- dividuality only because another force, the State's, is used instead. But such an argument overlooks the fact that force used by the State is really based upon the changed attitude of individuals.
The new idea of individuality comes first, although vaguely, and then the use of physical force is given up by individuals. The conception of the relation between men changed and was no longer that of purely physical conflict : then only could the new political situation come about. And the same is true of group character or of
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national independence. A new conception of what these are must come first ; and then we may con- sider the formation of an international police force. New standards of value in the rivalry of States, not those of purely economic-military kind, must take hold of the minds of the average citizens, and then we may begin to speak of laying down arms. For if an international force were now established it would probably be used only to perpetuate the brute conflict of power which is the greatest obstacle to the progress of civilised life. We must begin, then, from some such idea as this : there is no " danger " to national de- velopment in the increase of interdependence between States, as there is no danger to personal individuality in the doctor's depending on the shoemaker for his shoes. And the sudden refusal of the shoemaker to supply the doctor probably hurts the individuality of the shoe- maker just as much as that of the doctor.1 It
1 Independence is a means to individuality of the person or the group. If characteristic development is secured, "in- dependence " may be disregarded. The old individualism obscured the issue by the emphasis on non-interference — a purely negative concept. Difference is promoted by differentia- tion of function ; but even independence, in a new sense of the word, may be said to be also promoted by the same differentiation.
A person is independent in two senses : (i) when he does everything for himself and also (2) when he does what he is capable of doing. The former (primitive) is the independence of the stone, the latter (organic) the independence of the eye.
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is the purpose of foreign policy, then, to promote the specialisation of function between States as a f means to real individuality of character. For isolation is not true independence ; or, at least, the most valuable form of independence cannot be arrived at by isolation, since isolation preserves only material independence, whereas co-operation secures independence of thought and character. One of the chief purposes of foreign policy must be the preservation and development of this in- dependence ; but it cannot be conceived any longer in terms of the Renaissance philosophy or the individualistic enlightenment. It will be seen to be in its finest and most human form when it is understood to be simply the complement or corollary of interdependence.
We are at present working in this matter with two irreconcilable hypotheses. Foreign Policy, in all States, is based at once on the old idea of rivalry and on the new. It promotes military spying and commerce ; but one or the other must cease, if we are not to continue our vicious circle of war after war.
But the eye does not lose independence because it cannot hear ; for in fact the attending to many functions causes a lessened ability to do what is most suitable and therefore most pleasant. The man who might be an artist is not more independent in life on a desert island where he has to spend most of his time killing and cooking : he has less real freedom to develop what is characteristic of him.
CHAPTER IX
THE MORALITY OF NATIONS AT WAR
AT certain crises the conflicting interests of States lead to war : and war is not an appeal to any moral criterion.1 Either the conflicting in- terests cannot be arranged according to the accepted view of moral values, or there is no accepted view according to which it may be plain to all which interest ought to give place to the other. The interests which are in conflict may be either material (economic) or non-material (independence, reputation, development, etc.) ; but even non-material interests leading to war do not make war in itself a moral relationship. For war, being conflict between groups, is essen-
1 I take it for granted that no one seriously believes that in a contest of physical force the man or men who are better morally are necessarily victorious. Such a belief would be a survival of the mediaeval Trial by battle, etc. All that is decided in war is strength (military or economic) ; and the world is not necessarily better morally because the stronger survive, except according to the confused Evolutionism of the nineteenth century, which does not distinguish a moral value from a physical, or seeks to " transcend" both in an imaginary Absolute.
*59
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tially a setting aside, for the moment and so far as the conflict is concerned, of moral criteria as to which interest should prevail. But the state of belligerency is complex, and many things occur which are not warlike acts : therefore, even when the interests of States are in conflict to such an extent that war becomes possible, the relationship of States does not cease to be moral. If war were mere conflict of brute force, then it would be the end of moral relations, at least between the belligerents ; but, in fact, it is unusual in modern times to find States in conflict of an unrestricted kind, and so long as groups of men are related otherwise than in physical conflict, their relations are in that degree moral. And not only are some moral relationships preserved between belligerent States,1 but even in the actual exercise of force a most important moral element is to be found.
The first and most important fact is that even the use of force does not generally compel or induce a civilised group to the use of unlimited force. We must, therefore, discover what the limits imposed are, and then endeavour to explain the grounds on which such limits rest. For to say that the contending parties are, at least, not supposed to go to any lengths, implies that we do not imagine that even in actual conflict the 1 In truces, exchange of prisoners, etc.
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opponents are without some moral regard for one another : they have not become purely animals or purely machines. In some ways they may be purely opponents in force or cunning ; but in some ways they remain still obedient to a moral criterion : so long, that is, as " there are some things which no fellow can do."
Of the ameliorations of war, as they are called in International Law, there are two main classes.1 Some relate to the use of force or guile as between combatants, and others relate to a distinction made in comparatively recent years between combatants and non-combatants. This is not the place to describe in detail the con- ventions of war, for our purpose is to discover what moral relationship is implied in the existence of any such conventions, and not merely to classify or to prove that such-and-such conventions exist.
It will be sufficient to give some examples of the restrictions usually supposed to be made even in the exercise of physical force. Poisoned weapons are not supposed to be used ; explosive bullets are not to be used, nor those which expand on entering the body. There are certain buildings, conveyances and persons marked with the Red Cross : these must not directly be attacked or destroyed. When a combatant is
1 See Lecture VII in Maine's International Law, and J. E. Holland, A Lecture on the Brussels Conference 0/1874, publ. 1 876. M
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wounded he must be given " quarter," and may even be cared for by those of the opposite side. Prisoners of war are not supposed to be killed. As for the distinction of combatants and non- combatants, it is a strange development in the history of warfare : at present it is usually sup- posed that only those in a recognised uniform may be directly attacked ; and these alone, on the other hand, are allowed to attack in depend- ence on the conventions covering wounded or prisoners, for if a non-uniformed assailant be captured he may be executed as a criminal.
The greater number in any civilised group — chiefly, of course, women and children — are sup- posed not to be directly attacked. They are not to be killed or enslaved. War is, therefore, now defined in International Law, not as the conflict between States but as the conflict between the armed representatives of States.
Property also is protected by certain conventions in time of war. As between belligerent States, private property on land is not to be directly destroyed or taken. Private property on the sea is not quite so well protected in the mind of the time ; and the point is, not that there are not established " conventions," but that the restriction of physical force in this matter is not supposed to be so great.
The existence of war changes the relations
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even between States which are not at war and those which are at war. Neutrality has become a very elaborate section in International Law. The belligerents are not supposed to interfere with certain Neutral rights even in the exercise of physical force against their opponents. In all this we have not merely much legal interest but the delicate moral issue as to the reason for re- strictions of force. We do not mean the power of conventions : that is no reason. The question is, Why were such conventions ever made ? Why do we suppose that even the omnipotent State should not use every force ? And if not every force, why even such force as is now used ? For nearly every argument against poisoned weapons or explosive bullets is equally valid against modern shell-fire or torpedoes. And if non- combatants are to be recognised, why would not ten combatants on either side be sufficient ? The idea is ludicrous ; but that is only because the whole conception of restricting the use of force in one way and not in another is ludicrous.
Even the limitation of force in war now admitted, however, is comparatively recent. The greater part of the limitations in the matter of weapons, so far as convention goes, is not older than the nineteenth century.1 One can hardly
1 Poisoned weapons only forbidden in 1868 by the Declaration of St. Petersburg. Treatment of wounded agreed
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imagine what happened to the wounded in Napoleonic and earlier wars. There was no Geneva convention, no Red Cross, no elaborate ambulances. The surgery was primitive, and the care of the diseases incidental to a campaign practically non-existent. On warships the situa- tion was even more terrible than on land ; but here, of course, we have made less change.
Non-combatants were not likely to fare well when a town was taken by storm, as we may judge from Wellington's remark that he had for- bidden his soldiers to sack and murder in Spain.1 The ancient privilege of conquest was revived at the taking of Pekin by the European nations : but this was generally supposed to be retaliation,2
to only in 1864, by the Geneva Convention. This was directly due to private energy in publishing descriptions of the battlefields of Solferino, etc. (1861). Holland, loc. cit., and Maine, loc. cit., p. 199.
To go further back, our Black Prince caused innumerable murders at Limoges. Henry V executed prisoners. The sack of Magdeburg is famous, in which of 25,000 only 2,000 were left when the house-to-house murdering was over. Before the " Red Cross " a black flag was used to cover the work of surgeons, etc., but it was an inadequate protection. The new Geneva convention (Red Cross) was vigorously opposed by military men as tending to lessen the effectiveness of their action (for details and proof, see Holland, loc. a'/.).
1 He announced to the people, however, that if there was any armed resistance among those not soldiers he would " totally destroy their towns and hang up all the people belonging to them."
2 Retaliation or retorsion is morally interesting, as the
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and most modern armies would not sack or murder in a city taken by storm.1 Something has been achieved in recent years, after the long- lasting brutalities of human history. Indeed, the farther we go back in history, the more unlimited is the use of available force in war : until we come to a time when the only limitation was made in the interest of the conquerors, who would not slay if they could enslave, and would not burn what they could use. But, whatever the reason, as soon as the limitation of force sets in, it becomes a habit.
We should have to go very far back indeed to find absolutely unlimited exercise of force, and in those days States could not be held to exist ; so that we may say that war as an official conflict has always implied some restriction in the use of force. Long before conventions existed there were limits imposed by general sentiment which could not be over-ridden even by conquerors except in the supremest crises. It is not usual to poison food or water, to assassinate generals, or
pain never falls on the actual culprits. In it the citizen is treated as identical with the State : what any agent of his State does, any citizen is supposed to have done. A modifica- tion of this primitive morality is necessary (Westlake, Coll. Papers, p. 259 seq.).
1 Murder and outrage were common incidents in the Balkan Wars of 1912, 1913. See Report on Balkan Wars (Carnegie Endowment).
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to do certain quite possible but nameless things which would bring a war to speedy termination. It is quite possible to think of innumerable acts which even primitive States could have done to be successful in their wars, and they have not done them. It is possible still more nowadays to imagine engines of destruction or modern subtleties which could quite easily give us the victory — but we dare not use them.1
A gradual amelioration of war has excluded the possibility of certain weapons or the prevalence of certain actions.2 We are in advance of our forefathers, at least in sentiment : since we gener- ally feel that there are some things which should not be done even when we are at war, although this feeling is always in danger of being sub- merged by a sudden access of fear. But although we may congratulate ourselves on the moral progress implied in the Red Cross and the abolition of poisoned weapons, we must also recognise that the present conventions are only
1 When war has destroyed the normal inhibitions upon which civilisation depends, there is no telling how far men may go. Poison is already used ; there are some few, not less effective, brutalities which have not yet been used in this most " civilised " war. One cannot well describe them ; but it is perfectly possible to prevent the return of the wounded to the firing line. Will calculating barbarism, using modern science, break down that inhibition too ?
2 The number of these actually excluded lessens as the present war goes on ; but there are still a few left.
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a few successful attempts surviving from the innumerable desires of idealists to keep physical force in control of moral sentiment. The record is long of the attempts to ameliorate war which have failed.
The crossbow was once forbidden, but it came into use : x the musket seemed barbarous to men who used only bows and arrows ; but it was soon common in every army. Shells were supposed to be too barbarous in 1789, but all armies now use them. The rifle, which replaced the old smooth-bore gun, was regarded as hardly to be used in civilised warfare, but it now is everywhere. Men tried to forbid the use of the bayonet ; but that too was introduced, and first made common by Frederick the Great of Prussia. Torpedoes were at first thought barbarous, but were soon adopted by all nations. So that, clearly, two forces have been at work in the making of the present situation — an ever-increasing power of destruction and a sentiment which has only been partly successful in limiting the use of that power. If the sentiment had been stronger we should not now be using the bayonet or the torpedo, and who can tell what other mechanical devices ? If the sentiment had not been so strong we should
1 Pope Innocent III forbade the use of instruments to cast stones, etc. (artem illam mortiferam et odibilem ballistariorum), at least against Christians.
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now be assassinating generals, poisoning weapons, and slaughtering the wounded.
He would indeed be a subtle historian who could explain why the civilised State is willing to use certain methods and not certain others in destroying its " enemies " : but whatever the explanation, the distinction exists, and not all the violation of this or that convention can quite put us back to the unlimited use of force. This, however, has not made much real difference to the destructiveness of war. On sea, when Nelson lay alongside his opponent and both pounded away at point-blank range there was less destruc- tion of life than when, as in the Falkland Islands battle, ships travelling at about twenty-five miles an hour sank German ships also travelling at that rate at a range of over eight miles, by firing shell in arcs so high that they could have passed over Mont Blanc. In an action between evenly matched fleets there is no reason why any one at all should survive.
On land, between dawn and sunset on March 10, 1915, at Neuve Chapelle 2,337 men anc^ 1 90 officers were killed : x and we were victorious.
1 Details in Sir John French's despatch, published April 1 5th-
Officers. Men.
Killed .... 190 2>337
Wounded .... 359 8,174
Missing .... 23 I>?28
Total . . . 572
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What the enemy lost we do not know. This is only a trivial episode in a really civilised war. In conflict with slightly less effective weapons, however, Bulgaria suffered the deaths of 44,313 men and 579 officers killed, in the two wars of 1912 and 19 13.* It is clear that they are not so civilised in the Balkans, although they assisted the civilised methods of destruction by the killing of sick and wounded.2
In destroying more than lives we are also very much advanced. When men built Rheims Cathedral or Ypres Town Hall they had not the power to destroy them except with much hard labour : now a few well-planted shells lay flat the careful work of many years.
The power of destruction is greater now than it ever has been, in spite of all conventions and
1 The whole population of Bulgaria before the wars was 4,337,516, of whom perhaps one-quarter (1,084,376) were capable of bearing arms. The losses were —
Killed. Wounded. Missing. War against Turkey —
Officers . . . 313 915 2
Men .... 29,711 52,550 3,193
War against the "Alliei" —
Officers . . . 266 816 69
Men .... 14,602 50*303 4>56o
Totals (Officers) . 579 1,731 71
„ (Men) . . 44,313 102,853 7,753
44,892 104,584 7,824
2 For all details see Report on Balkan Wars (published by the Carnegie Endowment, Washington, D.C.).
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sentiments. And there is no reason whatever why our power should not increase even more rapidly in the near future. The probability is that we shall in the next few years be able to destroy much more effectively and at a still greater distance. We may be able to prevent the return of wounded to the firing line. It would shorten wars. We may even be able to destroy whole towns at one blow. It would make victory more certain. One hardly likes to mention what may easily become possible in the near future if States really give their minds to the continuance of war.
Again, the calculus of pain is difficult to make ; but, allowing for the numbers engaged and the effectiveness of the instruments employed, it is clear that in recent wars the pain has been much increased, in spite of all our conventions and all our kindness to the wounded. That pain, more even than the deaths of many, is a legacy of warfare such that it is infinitely multiplied among our more sensitive populations. The numberless and subtle terrors which may attend on all — not merely on soldiers — from the air, from bombard- ment at fantastic distances, from chemical poisons, from skilfully manipulated disease — all this the future holds in store for us, unless perhaps the restricting sentiment which has so ineffectively limped behind our intellectual ability gains some
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new strength. That only can keep us from the use of nameless deeds : but it is a delicate growth, and can easily become callous to the death and maiming of millions. That sentiment, however, has already done something ; and it is difficult to explain why it has not done more.1
1 -fj 2A.7ris fieyaXr), It was when war was at its worst that Hugo de Groot made the world listen to his idea of limiting force ; so now, bad as things seem, the new sentiment may rise.
Compare " The Evolution of Peace " (Essay VI in T. J. Lawrence's Essays on some disputed Questions of International Law, 2nd ed. 1883). From 1880-1885 in wars between civilised nations 2,000,000 men were killed. Russell is quoted, from the Times, on the battlefield of Sedan : " Masses of coloured rags glued together with blood and brains and pinned into strange shapes by fragments of bones. Men's bodies without heads, legs without bodies, heaps of human entrails attached to red and blue cloth and disembowelled corpses in uniform." Vice of all kinds arises in the heat of war — lust, private murder, theft, hate and brutishness. Insanity is more frequent in our more civilised noises of war. No one has yet put on record the nature of the stench arising from decaying corpses in Poland and France owing to the rapidity with which civilised nations can destroy life.
Compare also Ch. XI in the Collected Papers of J. West- lake (Camb. 1914), on War: the rules of war, considered as Laws, where it is argued that the sentiment for restricting force is less in modern popular States. There is " a public impatience of any restrictions." The important German theory of necessity is stated in full. Professor Lueder is quoted (from Holtzendorf's Handbuch des Volkerrecht) as saying that " ravage, burning and devastation, even on a large scale, or of a whole neighbourhood and tract of country . . . may be practised " ; — when the " necessity " demands it or even when the resistance is " frivol." This is called Kriegsraison (as opposed
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Even if war may be supposed to be necessary or inevitable — a proposition we do not even con- descend to argue about — still, it would not follow that this or that instrument of destruction was necessary or inevitable. If a shell is an inevitable exercise of force, why is not a poisoned weapon inevitable or the murder of wounded ? We " draw the line " somewhere. Why draw it where we now do ? Indeed, when cavalry generals assert that war must be the ultimate test of the conflicting interests of States, they do not commonly define what they mean by war. War might mean very much more than it does in the exercise of the " arbitrament of the sword " ; but it might also mean very much less than it does. In which sense is it " inevitable " ? Is it inevitable that millions of men should fight ? Why not that women and children also should ?
The answer to all these problems is a simple one. It is not direct : it implies much which
to Kriegsmanier (law of war). It is clear that the judgment as to when it is necessary and when the resistance of the opposite side is " frivol " must be that of the commander. Besides that, Westlake shows that as no State goes to war except by necessity, necessity is always present to excuse any violence as soon as there is war. " But," says Westlake, " it need not be greatly feared that Professor Lueder's own Government will ever give effect to his doctrine by ordering the devastation of a whole region as an act of terrorism." This was published in July 1914. See the Bryce Report (published May 1915) on what was done in August 1914.
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cannot be put into words ; but it shows at least why the sentiment which has excluded poison has not excluded cordite.
The truth is that our intellectual progress is immense, and our moral progress ludicrously small. Our concepts governing Nature are immensely advanced since the days of Greek and Roman ; but in governing human action we are using obsolete and inadequate theories. Moral progress, however, does not consist of an increase in good intentions. The attention given to cul- tivating goodwill has indeed been one of the direct causes of our moral incompetence ; for it has involved a neglect of knowledge. And it is our moral knowledge which is deficient. We do not know what actions are right and what are wrong, and why : or at least we have made no noticeable advance upon our great-grandfather's conceptions in this matter. The old issues have not been reconsidered and new issues have not been faced. But it is moral progress only which will master and subdue our increasing ability to destroy.
So obsessed are we with Kantian Pietism in philosophy, or Hegelian confusion of everything in an Absolute, that it is even misleading to speak of moral progress. We do not mean that men should feel more virtuous or should become more saintly than their grandfathers ; we mean that men
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must leave good intentions to take care of them- selves and acquire a knowledge of moral facts by the same methods which have been successful in physical science — by direct inquiry into evidence and the making of certain and universally valid conclusions. We shall at least have to avoid taking it for granted that conflicting interest be- tween groups makes it inevitable that men should use every power in overcoming. We shall at least discuss, what many appear to take for granted, whether the State has not a higher purpose than even its own self-preservation : and perhaps it may be whispered that in the case of divided allegiance, when a man finds his duty to his State in conflict with other duties, it need not necessarily follow that his duty to his State should take precedence. All kinds of accepted moral plati- tude will have to be dragged out into the open : and we shall stand up at last in our own right to give judgment upon the State. But what solution we find for these problems will depend upon a judgment of evidence : and until we begin to understand what the evidence is, we cannot even approach a conclusion. The empty aspirations of sentimentalists are of no more moral worth than the submissions of the economists to " natural law."
The present situation, then, in the morality of nations or States has not abolished the use of physical force. Normally the citizens of different
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States trade with each other or interchange ideas, in dependence on a moral attitude not essentially different from that of fellow-citizens in the same State. But at certain times it seems impossible to maintain that attitude. Perhaps the interests of the organised groups are in conflict, perhaps one group. is aggressive, perhaps all groups are hypnotised by fear — whatever the reasons, real or imaginary, for the declaration of war — war is declared. Even that, however, does not altogether destroy the moral relationship of the combatants, since it is felt, however vaguely, that " there are some things that no fellow can do." l That is to say, we treat our enemies as something more than beasts or machines ; which implies that we continue to treat them as moral beings. This restricting sentiment is a comparatively recent growth, and its effectiveness is endangered not only by the tides of passion or fear which arise in war, but also by the unparalleled increase in intellectual power over natural forces. It is of little value that we deny ourselves the use of the crossbow if we can use the rifle ; and it will be of little value that in the future we may deny
1 It would be an interesting moral investigation to discover how far the average soldier thinks it possible to go, or how far the average citizen thinks the State can command him to go, or how far the women of a State are willing that their defenders should go. Defence would clearly be more adequate if it were more deadly.
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ourselves the use of dumdum bullets if we can use modern chemicals.
The morality of nations can only survive if we are able to subordinate our power over Nature to our knowledge of man. For the power over Nature is morally colourless. The same ability which gives us an exquisite shell might give us greater comforts in peace. Which way the ability is used depends entirely on our conceptions of the nature of man in society and of what is worth while in life. And such conceptions are not inspired or intuitive. They are the results of intellectual labour. The prime need, then, of the present is a continued and universal investigation into our moral conceptions, into the nature of citizenship, of the State and the relationship between States. We have been so obsessed with physical science that we have neglected to develop the other realms of knowledge. In material power we are immeasurably superior to our grandfathers, in political and moral thought we stumble through primaeval darkness.
In the morality of warfare, however, it is not simply a question of searching in the dark. One principle at least stands out from the facts we have considered. It is not very definite, perhaps, and appears rather as a vast figure in the darkness of our international morality, whose nature is rather guessed at than understood. But it is
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there clearly enough for all practical purposes. That principle is the basis of all convention and of all restriction of physical force.
The moral relationship of nations cannot begin with agreed conventions nor even with the en- forcement of such conventions. It must begin with a firm establishment among the citizens, at least of civilised nations, of the attitude of mind and the habit of action which alone make any conventions possible. If there is anything which stands out from the facts we have recited it is that there are innumerable acts which no civilised nation could do which are not covered by any convention. Destroy every vestige of the Hague Conferences and we should still find that warfare was not the unlimited exercise of force. There is something stronger than the sentiment of respect for wounded or for non-combatants, something which survives even when a calculat- ing brutality throws these to the winds, something which gives pause even to the conventional modern barbarian, who is barbarian by vicious argument and not by accidental impulse. It is the acquired habit of generations. Upon that alone we may rely for the security of many limitations of force which were not mentioned at the Hague ; and upon that really depends the security even of such conventions as are con- scious. For many generations, unconsciously, we
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have simply put aside as utterly impossible certain actions which were quite common in primitive times ; and some actions at least no nation would dare to do. How secure the acquired habit is, one cannot tell. A great war, great passion and great fear, endanger old inhibitions. The strain may set us back to utter barbarism. But so far we are safe : and we are safe only so long as acquired habit makes it impossible to use certain forces. The line of progress, therefore, is the securing of this habit of mind and action, in spite of all temptations to retaliate, and the deliberate increasing of the number of those acts which habit makes it impossible to do.
CHAPTER X
PEACE RELATIONS
WE may presume that, in spite of occasional wars, peace is now the normal situation between most States. That it is still an armed peace is true, but it is peace. The situation, however, needs some examination, both because (i) its nature is entirely different from any peace which preceded 1850, and because (2) ordinarily the word " peace " is supposed to mean only the negative of war. But, conceived as a Renaissance or a mediaeval cessation of hostilities, modern peace cannot be understood ; and so long as we continue to imagine war to be a time for positive action and peace only a time for doing nothing, so long will the old attractiveness of war continue. For men and women, though incurably lazy during most of life, delight in occasional fits of energy ; and peace, being conceived to deny energy, is regarded as something unworthy of the higher aspirations of man.
Sentimentalists, indeed, have made too much of peace. We are speaking here not of the
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supposed beauties or delights of peace, but of its commonplace nature. And first it is necessary to recognise that the contrast between peace and war, as it appears to the popular imagination, is a result of false history. Not only is it false to say that war is a period of activity ; it is a direct reverse of the truth. In periods of war less, not more, is done ; and preparation for war is a well-known cause of the inertia and idleness during years of peace.1 In peace much more is achieved in producing and using all the higher resources of the civilised life. And again, not merely is less done in war, but less need be done. The activities essential to the prosecution of war are comparatively simple ; but in peace there is very much to be done. How, then, it may be asked, does the morality of a nation seem to receive new impetus from war, in the devotion to unselfish ends and the self-sacrifice incidental to bearing arms ? 2 For in peace it seems that men seek only their own private interests and do nothing for the State : or parties pursue their programmes without subordination to a higher loyalty. But in
1 Thus Bacon says, " warlike nations are lazy." Essay on Empire.
2 The misrepresentation ot war is largely due to the ignor- ance of professed philosophers. Hegel makes the army the highest essence of the State, and he says, " The military class is the class of universality," which, besides being an obscure compliment, is also false (Phil, of Right, § 327).
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\var all. this is changed. Therefore war is some- times said to be a moral tonic, in so far as it rouses men to unselfishness or the facing of danger : peace seems to mean inertia or egoistic activity. We cannot deny the truth of this, but the reason for it is instructive. That reason is the undeveloped political imagination. The needs of peace are more pressing, more various and more exalting than those of war ; but few are able even to see them. The moral perception is obscured by conventional ideas ; and indeed the senti- mentalism of the advocates of peace is as nothing by comparison with the sentimentalism of those who accept the ancient idea that the finest service of the community is the bearing of arms. There are opportunities enough for unselfishness, public service, and even danger or death, in the service of the State in times of peace ; but few see them : and this because we do not really consider what we mean by peace, but leave it to mean only cc not war." We do not see that modern peace is not anything specially virtuous or sanctimonious, but only an opportunity for a life of full and varied activity. That the opportunity has not been used by very many may be true : it may even be true that such opportunity will never be used. We cannot tell. But it is nothing against an opportunity of this kind that men are too undeveloped to use it : just as it is
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nothing against wealth that those who possess it seem to find time hanging on their hands. A subtler imaginative development uses great opportunities more fully and makes much even of very limited means. So it is with the vast majority of the so-called civilised : their con- ceptions of what is enjoyable are indications of the undeveloped imagination. Men do not lack leisure so much as they lack knowledge of what to do with it if they have it. Put a savage in a theatre or a library and he will be " bored " until he can scalp some one : give the semi- civilised peace and they will long for war. The reason is that they cannot see what may be done unless what is to be done is very simple and obvious. It is their understanding of peace itself which is at fault.1
What, then, is modern peace ? The answer is to be found partly, as we have already said, in the complex interchange of goods and ideas under the influence of the various ^institutions other than States, which in modern times have become international. This has affected the political situation so as to make it more difficult
1 " Till all the methods have been exhausted by which Nature can be brought into the services of man, till society is so organised that every one's capacities have free scope for their development, there is no need to resort to war for a field in which patriotism may display itself" (Green, Principles of Pol. ObL, §171).
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for the State to pass either from peace to war or from war to peace. It is said of organisms that the higher or more complex they become, the more difficult is any structural rearrangement to meet a new environment. And however that may be, the complex institution is certainly less adaptable. It is easier for Serbia to pass either from peace to war or from war to peace than it is for England. There is less dislocation in an agricultural than in an industrial country, and in proportion as the occupations of peace become more diverse and more specialised, in that pro- portion the State suffers by declaring war. For modern peace is the condition or opportunity for the exercise of very complex interdependent functions, political, industrial and cultural ; and the peace which preceded the Napoleonic wars was, therefore, quite different from the peace which preceded the present war, at least as re- gards the more developed States. It must be recognised, therefore, that the very necessities of modern life make peace so full of diverse activities that war becomes more and more dangerous to civilised life as civilised life becomes more complex.
But not only industrial complexity separates modern from ancient peace. It was, or will be, a new intellectual period.
The peace preceding this war, at least as
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between States which we have called " modern," had lasted from 1871 to 1914. That alone would be sufficient to prove it a unique phenomenon in European history ; and during those years the mental and bodily activities of European men and women were habituated to the situation. So consolidated had the peace become that even modern war could not set back belligerents to the state of complete severance which supervened in wars of the non-modern period. For example, in 1904, in the midst of the Russo-Japanese war, Russians and Japanese met at the Scientific Congress at St. Louis, U.S.A.1 It would not be difficult to quote examples of the same sort even in the present embittered hostility.2
During the period 1871-1914 populations in- creased, wealth not only increased but was more subtly and effectively organised according to the principles of the joint-stock company, the mastery over Nature and the supply of human needs developed immensely ; and in the purely political sphere every nation became more conscious of
1 Reinsch, Intern. Unions, p. 185. The same sort of meeting occurred in the wars of the eighteenth century, but those were dynastic non-popular wars, when feeling did not run very high.
2 Through the bureaux for communicating with prisoners of war, and contacts of persons in neutral countries, communi- cation is not stopped as it used to be. We even hear what is officially announced to the citizens of the opposing States.
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its special character and every State moved towards democratic forms of government.
The conclusion as regards morality is some- what subtle. All the various functionings of modern peace are really services of the com- munity as valuable at least as military service in time of war. In a sense they are not u serving the State " ; for, as we have seen, " the State " is not the only organisation for the civilised life ; but they are not therefore selfish or egoistic occupations. The idea that what is not done " for the State " is done for yourself is due to the old universalism of " the State," and the lack of any theory as to other social bonds besides that of citizenship. Even the Socialists have been misled by obsolete ideas. They have tried to redeem peace by making all occupations state- services ; but in that they have accepted the antiquated conception of the State. Their pur- pose, however, was reasonable. They saw that we suffer from lack of social perceptiveness, and they emphasised the social causes and the social results of all action.
It is obvious, however, that the business man, or the engineer, or the writer, has generally no conception of " service " ; and a higher moral per- ception is, perhaps, needed in the carrying out of the various social functions during modern peace. But the point now is that, whether they
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know it or not, those who perform such functions are really " serving the community," and it makes no difference whatever that they make their own living by it. Nor would making livings by such service destroy the moral quality of it, if it were consciously service. As a mere economic necessity it is not moral ; but as a conscious fulfilling of social function the special- isation of modern peace is moral. And perhaps this is more commonly recognised than is be- lieved. Nothing is more remarkable in the period preceding 1914 than the growth of the social conscience, the emotional perception of disease and poverty, not as mere opportunities for benevolence, but as the result of social forces and as causes of social decay. And this conscience is not confined within the boundaries of States. Those who feel any social evils are likely to sympathise with the citizens of other States who feel the same evils. A common suffering sub- ordinates to sympathy distinctions of law and government, and with this fact the statesman of the future will have to reckon.
The true nature of modern peace, however, can best be seen in the direct influence of States upon one another. The agreement between States on certain methods of arranging life within their own borders is one of the most interesting features of the late nineteenth and early twentieth
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centuries. Fortunately this has been worked out in detail, and we need not repeat here the results of the investigations of Professor Reinsch.1
He counts and gives details of twenty-eight different agreements between States, no one of which was in existence before the middle of the nineteenth century. These comprise agreements on methods of communication, regulation of trade, of prisons, of sanitation, of police (fisheries police and suppression of slavery) besides scientific common work. The point is that this has been done besides whatever is due to private enterprise or voluntary associations. The States themselves have assimilated their institutions or have intro- duced new methods in common ; and this, not because of any sentimental regard for co-op'era- tion, but simply because in practical politics it
1 Public International Unions, by P. S. Reinsch, 1911. The list includes the International Unions for (i) Telegraphs, (2) Wireless, (3) Postage, (4.) Railway Freight, (5) Auto- mobiles, (6) Navigation ; the Agreements on (7) the Metric System, (8) Industrial and Literary Property, (9) the Publica- tion of Customs Tariffs, (10) Protection of Labourers, (il) Sugar, (12) Agriculture, (13) Insurance, (14) Prisons, (15) Sanitation, (16) Pan-American Sanitation, (17) Opium, (18) Geneva Convention, (19) Fisheries Police, (20) Pro- tection of Submarine Cables, (21) African Slave Trade and Liquor Traffic, (22) White Slave Traffic, (23) South American Police. And there are the following scientific Unions : (24) Geodetic Association, (25) Electro-technical Commission, (26) Seismological Union, (27) Union for the Exploration of the Sea, (28) Pan-American Scientific Union.
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saves time and money. Thus, the very institutions which according to the ancient hypothesis were self-sufficing and complete in themselves, have not only been influenced by the other interests of civilised life outside the region of politics, but in a strictly political sense and in direct depend- ence upon other States, have adopted governmental action together. No more glaring contradiction could be given to the whole of the ancient idea of the State. It is to be noticed that this is direct peace policy, and not any mere alliance for war or for avoiding war.1 The States have preserved their independence and have acted together. They have even accepted common institutional arrange- ments (postage, telegraph, etc.), and their char- acteristics have not been obliterated. And all that has been done while the theorists of expansion and prestige and " vital interests " slept or kept their one eye upon possible war.
But we can only calculate prospects of the future by reference to actual achievement. A peace policy in terms perhaps of the mere avoid- ance of war but really with a new spirit, is embodied in the Treaty between the United Kingdom and the United States of America signed on September 15, 1914. It provides that
1 Nearly all these Unions or Agreements were originally suggested or contrived by private citizens who used their influence upon officials.
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" all disputes between them, of any nature what- soever, other than disputes the settlement of which is provided for and, in fact, achieved under existing agreements between the High Contracting Parties, shall, when diplomatic methods of adjust- ment have failed, be referred for investigation and report to a permanent International Commission . . . and they agree not to declare war or begin hostilities during such investigation and before the report is submitted."1 'The security for such a policy is not in the signatures, but in the new attitude which such an agreement indicates. And such an attitude is the result of the years of peace. Since the nineteenth century about one hundred disputes have been decided by arbitration. Arbi- tration agreements of a limited kind have been entered into by the United Kingdom with twelve other States ;2 and in the two years 1913, 1914, the United States of America entered into Peace Commission Treaties with eighteen different States, chiefly on the American continent.3
These are only a few indications of the new relationship between States ; and from them alone it would be obvious that the word State refers to
1 Treaty, Art. I.
2 Par/. Papers, Misc. No. 9 (1909), Cd. 4870.
3 Salvador, Guatemala, Panama, Honduras, Nicaragua, Netherlands, Bolivia, Portugal, Persia, Denmark, Switzerland, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Venezuela, Great Britain, France, Spain, China.
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something very different from the partly isolated and mutually suspicious governments of the early nineteenth century. The institutions themselves are transformed. From such a transformation one may judge of the intangible but more im- portant change which has taken place in the sentiments of civilised men and women ; and although the change in actual politics seems to be small, that change is already having its effect on the sentiments even of the unthinking.
We may turn now to the problem which is more fundamental in the study of morality. What course of action is to be adopted on the part of institutions so variously related ? It is generally agreed that a peace policy is the only one reasonable ; and we need not trouble to argue with those who advocate, if any do, a policy of war or of aggression. But while diplomatists and statesmen proclaim their ad- hesion to a peace policy, no one seems to inquire what such a policy would be. And we may be bold enougl^ to say that, whatever may be true in future/'there certainly has never yet been a peace policy. For the avoidance of war is not a peace policy.
In private as well as in public morality we are hampered by an obsolete conception of what morality is. We have inherited, among other mistakes, the idea that there is some " command "
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implied in the moral " ought " — but that is a general issue in Ethics which it would be out of place to discuss here. Along with the idea of command, however, has gone the use of negatives. We have been supposed to know from "the moral law " what we should not do. The Mosaic code reasonably, considering its date, was chiefly insistent on the avoidance of certain actions — swearing, coveting, killing, adultery. Morality consisted, as it then seemed, in not doing these ; and although there was a half-hearted command to do something in loving your parents, this seemed an exception in a rule of life which was an inculcation of avoidances. Such, of course, morality is, in a primitive state of society. Taboo is the first law ; and society depends upon inhibi- tions. But by an accident of history this ancient type of law became the embodiment of morality, even when the whole structure of society had changed. Life, therefore, became an obstacle race. The moral man was he who did not do things. The good life was a successful avoidance. It is clear that this is a conception of morality belonging to a primitive time. Civilised morality, as Plato and Aristotle knew, is a doing of actions, not an avoiding. It is positive and not negative. And moral knowledge consists in knowing what to do, not what to avoid ; for life is not an obstacle race, but a fine art. The moral man is
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he who acts, not he who avoids action. The moral life is varied and complex activity, not the successful escape from temptation.
The most pernicious effect, then, of the older conception of morality was that " moral instruc- tion " definitely became an instruction in immorality. The knowledge of what not to do involved explain- ing to children the meaning of vice ; for if your commands contain words like " adultery," " theft " and the rest, unless you are to leave them mere sounds, you must explain to your pupils their full meaning. But this involves impressing ideas of vice upon the mind.
This is all criticism of morality in general, and its importance will depend upon the development of the same theme in elaborating an art of life for individuals. That is another issue. / The same obsolete system, however, has been in vogue in group-morality. We have been made to feel, feebly enough, what we must not do, and no one has considered what we should do. The State in contact with other States should avoid this and that ; but no one has said how the State should act positively in the relation to other States.
Thus there never has been a peace policy because there has been no conscious official activity in the complexities of peace. The policy of avoid- ing war has been the highest imagined ; and it has had the same effect as the inculcation of
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avoidances in private morality. For the idea of avoiding an action tends to concentrate the mind upon that very action. The real thought is given to the obstacle, and successful policy seems to be a mere avoidance of it. Hence every one under- stands how great a benefit the State may derive from war, in the knitting together of its citizens ; and no one has ever considered that citizens might be more closely knit in times of peace. For war has been considered at least to be action ; but peace only a time in which not to do what you do in war. Hence also the peace of 1871 to 1914 has been an armed peace ; and the ancient lie has survived that one may secure peace by preparing for war. While the current of events has steadily transformed society and, with it, its political insti- tutions, the official mind was still obsessed with the primitive idea of group- morality. Policy was negative ; and the danger of war filled the minds of statesmen who might have turned attention to new and positive action. With a new conception of group-morality, however, we should regard it as our first task to discover what the State should do in times of peace with respect to other States. Something is, as we have seen, already done ; but it is unconscious and hardly part of a settled policy. A real peace policy would involve the increase of official activity in the name of the State and for the benefit of all the citizens, in the direction of
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benefiting other States and gaining their trust. It is perfectly well known that some States tend at certain times to hostile feeling. A peace policy would involve action in order to correct that, on the part of the State which is regarded as hostile. And also perhaps, even if the hostility is between two neighbouring States, a peace policy would suggest conciliatory action on the part of some third. This is not Utopian, nor is it some heroic morality to which the average citizens could not rise. It could probably be shown, if we had all the documents, that such a policy has at least fitfully been pursued by some statesmen.
In any case, the present situation, even in spite of a great war, is so different from that of our grandfathers that we must conceive the moral relationship of States differently and, with a new view of what is done and what can be done in peace, the policy of every State will change. Our conclusion must certainly be that one of the changes of recent years is the change in the meaning of peace.1 War also has changed, as
1 Lest the idea of a peace policy should seem new, it is well to be reminded that ever since the early years of Christianity there have been some who stood out against the preparation for war (cf. E. Nys, Les Origines du droit internationeL Bruxelles, Paris, 1894, Ch. Ill, "Christianity and War," and Ch. XVII, " Les Irenistes"). The Friars attempted to preach in this sense ; and a society, the Fratres Pacis, spread through France in the twelfth century to protest against the continual mediaeval wars. At the Renaissance Colet preached directly against
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we have seen, and to write history or to give ethical judgments which confounded, because of a mere similarity of name, the events of the Hundred Years War with the events of the last few months would be like confusing the Mill on the Floss with Mill on Liberty. The word " war " has absolutely changed its meaning.1 And so has "peace." The new situation has given to the complex relationship between States which we call peace a colour which was impossible in our grandfathers' time. It is as different from their peace as our finance is different from theirs.
Henry VIIPs war policy. More, in the Utopia, Erasmus and the other humanists, all protested in the same sense. In later times the protests were even more frequent, but the historians have commonly neglected them.
1 For the change in the meaning of war, see Hobhouse, Morals in Evolution, Pt. I. ch. vi. New Edition, 1915.
CHAPTER XI
NEEDS OF THE STATE
STATES are organised groups, and such groups are related morally one to another. Such state- ments do not go beyond the actual facts admitted by every one nowadays. But the relations have affected the modern State so that even with respect to one's fellow-citizens the attitude of many is somewhat different from what it was in the past. There is a modern tendency, due in part to the new situation, which is of extreme importance for the future. It concerns, first, the bond by which the modern citizen feels himself held within his own State ; and, next, the relationship in which the few at least in every State feel themselves to be with respect to the citizens of other States.
This is not the place to discuss the appearance of what has been called the social conscience in matters of social reform. But it is recognised on every hand that, whatever the distresses of the present, the emotional atmosphere with regard to this has been transformed within the last hundred years. It has always been recognised that a
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complex social organisation is accompanied by much poverty and disease. Attempts have often been made to deal with these, and generally on the ground of benevolence or charity. But the modern social conscience is the indefinite feeling of discontent even with the partial success of charity. It is now felt that social distress exists because of forces which can and must be controlled. Prevention, not cure, is our purpose. Charity implies that the recipient has no right to what he gets ; but now we believe that poverty and disease imply disregarded rights. We now feel that the social organism is real and that individuals are not atomic. We seek the re-establishment of human association in place of or beside the merely economic and legal. Contract took the place of Status. Now Co-operation takes the place of Contract. The whole community suffers from the disease and poverty of some ; and the State must conquer such evils or decay. Social reform, development of national resources, education, protection of the weak — all these are matters of pressing importance.
All these, then, may be " needs of the State/' But here our subject must be allowed to limit the discussion of these needs to such as regard immediately the foreign relations of the State. Since the State is not isolated, it has needs other than those of domestic or internal reform. The
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other needs arise from the situation created by contact with foreign States ; and they are supposed to be represented and supplied in our foreign policy. And further, such needs are our needs— not the needs of a government. Our honour, our interests and our obligations are supposed to govern foreign policy : and the same might be said of the citizens of every civilised State. Their needs also are recognised by their representatives in contact with foreigners. But this is new.
It would not require much reference to ancient texts to show that foreign policy was once sup- posed to represent not the needs of the governed but rather those of the government. Napoleon III is believed to have been at least not unwilling to undertake war in order to secure his rule in France. But now in every country war or peace is supposed to be contrived in the interests of the whole group of the citizens. For their sake what is done had to be done.
And when the result of our foreign policy is war, the cry is " Your king and country need you." It may be supposed that the need has existed before : or shall we say that king and country can get on very well without us until there is a war ? And if king and country need us in time of peace, why has it never been said ? Are the citizens not needed by the Government for any common action in times of peace ? Or are they
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only sources of income to the Services ? However that may be, the need is at last acknowledged — that the State cannot exist without entire depend- ence on its citizens. And what is needed ? Military service and whatever in engineering or manufacture is subservient to this : in a time of crisis such is really the need. But even the non- warlike employment of citizens is now recognised as a need of the State. Education must go on and the provision of food and clothing : and all this not for supplying individuals who pay or for maintaining individuals who work, but " for the State." This surely involves a change of attitude at least for the moment : and even if it cannot last, its effects will endure.
But to say that the king and the country need us will obscure the issue, if we do not understand that the need is reciprocal. King and country need us as we need king and country. What is endangered is the institution under which we live, which we fight for because we need it. We need it to make life endurable or pleasant, or because we think that there is more hope for our future in our institution than in others. It is quite clear that in every civilised nation the conscious citizen values his political institutions and is willing to do anything which may be necessary for preserving them. And the danger from foreign aggression only makes the value of our own system more
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obvious. The special need being admitted and acted upon, we are driven to consider the more general issue. If these are the needs of the State at present, what are its needs in normal times with respect to foreign nations ? And as soon as we ask, the usual host of antiquated and obsolete conceptions appear to answer. The felt needs are not all the real needs ; and the real needs are often misrepresented by the same limited conception of the State with which we have dealt above. We must, therefore, first examine the rektionship of the citizen to his State, in so far as he may feel his need supplied by the State for his contact with foreigners. We must discover what governing conception makes him support his State in this or that action with respect to foreign States.
The need with respect to foreign States has always been conceived in terms of opposition. The chief need felt normally by the mass of citizens is the need of independence : this has been consciously accepted even when other needs have really been supplied. So that the average citizen feels his State with regard to foreign States to be chiefly a defence : hence in action for his State, in contact with other States, he feels that the chief need is military. But other needs have existed, and have actually been supplied, without impressing the mind so as to correct or modify the older view of international relation-
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ship. We have always needed, although we have not always wanted, honesty in our dealing with foreigners, suggestions from foreigners in ideas of reform, and goods of foreigners for the amen- ities of life. These are, however, unnoticed and unconscious needs. What is conscious is our need of independence, leading directly through a normal attitude of pure opposition, to such crises as produce war in generation after gener- ation. For these wars have all been effects, at least in part, of the governing conception of what our State needs and what it is. The situation is not very different in the various civilised countries, but we may make our argument more pointed by confining attention to England. What do we think England is ? What, in fact, have we been taught she is ? The answer is to be found in the established conventions of history.
History is supposed to be the source of patriot- ism, in the sense that from it one may derive some rational idea of what is meant by " King and Country." From history we are supposed to learn what has made England what she is. The theme of the story is the growth of the inheritance into which we have been born ; and if there is any moral judgment implied, as well as mere record of fact, we are supposed to see in history the good and the bad gradually evolving into a better state of things. In the course of
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this evolution the modern State has appeared ; and we are supposed to find in history an explan- ation of the institutions under which we live, which we desire to maintain and, at times of crises, are called upon to defend. What sort of State, then, do we find in the established history ?
History has been for generations the mere record of conflict — wars and rumours of wars, and the marriages of kings. We may put aside for the moment the fact that such a record is no explanation of how we come to be as we now are, and we may acknowledge that history in recent times has been by no means altogether a mere list of exceptional events. It is true that historians have, after many generations of mediaeval chronicling, contrived to mention how common men lived and how most men thought in the past. History is not the crude journalism which it once was ; but the crudities of the old history hang about the meaning we give to the name of England. For the "history" of Eng- land's foreign relations is only a record of conflict, or at most an occasional reference to a dynastic alliance. We cannot possibly avoid the conclusion that such foreign relations are in the essence of things.
Undoubtedly the current conception of the State, as in pure opposition to foreign States, is
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due in part to the idea that the history of Eng- land's foreign relations is to be found in the records of war, or in trivial personal alliances between unintelligent princelings and passive brides. And even the modern historians, while they are no longer date-and-fact journalists, remain provincial in the restriction of their theme. There is very little, if any, acknowledg- ment of the influence of the relations of England with foreign countries in the development of even English thought and habits. The two causes — the mistakes of the old history and the limitations of the new — combine to prevent us rising to a new conception of the needs of the State. For, first, " England " is supposed to be concerned primarily in such adventures as Crecy and Agincourt. Plans of battles, not plans of towns, are the illustrations of text-books ; armed men, not scholars or traders, are the English of the past. Now, quite apart from the fact that " England," the modern State, was not in exist- ence and that " the enemy " in mediaeval times were certainly not great national groups — apart from the fact that the whole conception of organ- ised groups in opposition is an anachronism when applied to the Middle Ages — clearly England did not mainly come into contact with the non- English in the adventures of war. Crecy and Agincourt and the rest are merely chance episodes
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in the steady current of international growth. So that the foreign relations of England must be looked for in the cosmopolitanism of scholars, of professional classes, of traders and of travellers. Men went from England to learn law in Bologna, or medicine at Montpellier, or science in Paris. Germans, French and Italians came to learn from us at Oxford. There was the cosmopolitanism of trade also. New methods came to us from the Flemings and the Lombards. Fashions came from France and Italy. So that while the official attitude to foreign rulers may have been that of mere hostility, the real growth of England was dependent on continual interdependence. The history, therefore, which relegates all this to an appendix or a short chapter, and dilates upon campaigns and dynastic marriages, is simply false to fact. It is not true that England came to be what she is through battles, or that English institutions are worth defending because of op- position to foreigners. Indeed, this very State which needs us has owed much to foreign political thought and practice.
But the misreading of historical fact is not due to the date-and-fact historians only, who remained mediaeval in their attitude because their sources were mediaeval. It is due also to the limita- tions of the new historical school. Custom and language cannot be studied provincially. The
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language of England is what it is not simply because of our developed method of expression from " Beowulf " to Meredith, but also because of the matter with which English has been concerned. Now that English contains new subjects, covers a vaster field, and, in fact, is a language and not merely a dialect, is due to the intimacy of the in- terdependence between English and non-English thinkers.
The history of English thought and custom cannot be rendered with merely occasional refer- ences to "the Continent," any more than the history of thought and custom in York could be rendered without reference to the developments which were taking place outside York. English institutions, then, and English thought are worth defending and developing, not in spite of foreign- ers but because of what we owe to foreigners. The battles of England have kept back the English State : the years of unnoticed and peaceful con- tact have helped it to grow. But these years and these influences passing from State to State, are either unnoticed or are subordinated to the exceptional. The result is that we still think of the needs of the State in regard to foreign States, either in the terms of pure opposition or in the terms of occasional and accidental exchange. Hence the needs of the State in foreign affairs seem to be military organisation or, at best, an
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occasional expedition for inquiry into the habits of interesting strangers. And the acquired atti- tude of the average citizen regarding his State as a defence against such strangers is due, in great part, to the misrepresentation of fact in journalistic history and to the misinterpretation of comparative values by the newer school.1
Our present attitude is embodied in our institu- tions. For our recognised needs with respect to foreign States we have three great Government offices : the War Office, the Admiralty and the Foreign Office. The guiding conception in all three is that of pure opposition. Of the War Office and the Admiralty that is obvious. Defence and, because " the best defensive is an offensive," also direct hostility, is the pur- pose of these two. Of course they do not exist for aggression. In no country are such offices for anything but pure defence ; and the elaborate organisation of armaments is only for the purpose of maintaining our threatened independence. So the citizens of any civilised country would say of their own War Offices. But who is likely to interfere with independence ?
1 As far as one can gather from Treitschke the influence of obsolete history has been very great in limiting the German conception of what has made Germany worth defending. Ger- many even more than England owes much to " foreigners " : all her culture is due to such interdependence and has been obstructed by war.
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Foreign States. Why should they ? That no one has been able to explain, and therefore it is said to be inevitable. That is to say, it is regarded as the nature of a foreign State to interfere with the independence of our State. States are in opposition inevitably because they " expand " or because of spheres of influence and all the rest of that fantastic mythology which grows out of an obsolete conception of what the State is. Upon all that is based the importance of War Offices. There is no Peace Office.
But if the real foreign interests of the State are such as we have outlined in an earlier chapter, and if the needs of the State are to be judged by reference to them, there is no reason why there should not be a Peace Office. Only tradition is against it, and only obsolete conceptions prevent us seeing that the needs of a modern civilised State in foreign affairs are such that deliberate and official maintenance or development of inter- change should not be left to private enterprise. At present war is officially prepared for and carried on : peace is not public business.1 It may be said that peace, being normal, may be left to take care of itself, or at least without
1 Another sign of the same attitude is in the training of princes. Machiavelli (Principe, Ch. XIV) says that "War is the only profession worthy of a prince," and even in the twentieth century who ever heard of a prince being trained as an economist or engineer I
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official maintenance by a Government Office. But, in the first place, that plan has been tried and has failed ; and secondly, if prevention is better than cure, and it is better worth while to preserve health than to cure disease, surely the official and organised development of the interdependence of States should begin.
The Foreign Office, however, it may be said, does not exist merely for opposition. It is in fact the source of our official alliances, and is continually in communication with other Govern- ments. It may be said to take a less hostile view of foreign States than is usual in the War Office and Admiralty. But, we must observe, even the War Office and Admiralty have no objection to alliances. In fact, apparently without any governmental sanction, our War Office went so far a few years ago as to secure our entente with France by military agreements ; and, indeed, the War Office has always developed alliances — with a view to possible conflict.
The Admiralty is of a more independent turn of mind ; but the Admiralty also counts upon certain friendliness on the part of some nations when ships are being counted against Germany. The interest in alliances is not peculiar to the Foreign Office, it may co-exist with the obsolete view of foreign relations. And, further, the Foreign Office is very closely in contact with the
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War Office and Admiralty, more closely in fact than it is even with the Cabinet. Whether the Fleet is ready has often made a difference to the manner of the Foreign Office : so that a cynic might be inclined to say that the Foreign Offices in every civilised State are mere departments of the War Offices.
It is true, nevertheless, that the Foreign Office and the Diplomatic and Consular Service do develop the interdependence of States in time of peace. In so far as this is so the Foreign Office may be our future Peace Office ; but, as we have seen, its interests are certainly not yet confined to the maintenance of peace, and much of its usefulness in this direction is hampered by the tradition of diplomacy which it represents. It is saturated with that false history of the State of which we have already spoken, and even with the best will in the world its present organisation is not likely to embody any definite peace policy.
The conclusion is inevitable. There is no official organisation for the maintenance or de- velopment of those interests of the State which are not based upon mere opposition to other States. The reason is the current and obsolete conception of the State and its needs.
But what, in positive terms, are the needs of the State ? We may learn in part from a truer conception of the past. The wealth and well-
p
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being, the moral and intellectual life of the Eng- lish have grown in continuous interchange with foreigners ; and if such are the needs of the State with respect to other States, the first neces- sity is a new conception of foreign policy. And that this may be permanent, a new institution will have to be established or an old one absolutely transformed.
But the more fundamental need is, of course, a change of attitude among the citizens. A mere institution will be valueless unless it is the result of a new sentiment ; and the sentiment will have to be very much more widespread and powerful than it is before it gives birth to an institution. Such a sentiment must first transform the relation of the citizens to the institutions under which they live. They must feel in some new way the needs of the State or their own need of a State.
We can, however, be more precise still as to the change of attitude. Sometimes the democratic control of foreign policy is said to be the solution of our present difficulties. The people in every group are said to be likely to arrange difficulties more amicably than the diplomatists : at any rate we may accept completely the statements that " the people " are likely to recognise the incon- veniences of war more than the diplomatists. For these f<»w may have to do without their footmen, but the people do without bread ; and
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one is more likely to be careful about a possible lack of food than about a mere deficiency in domestic service.
But the democratic control of foreign policy \ will be as futile as any other if the people accept the old conception of the State. That conception will certainly be put before them as soon as they are able to exercise any real power, as soon as they show any interest at all, in foreign policy. Wiseacres are always ready to tell the people the thoughts of their grandfathers ; and, as to being believed, the proportion of fools among " the people " is probably not lower than among the " upper " classes. But changes have been made before in the accepted beliefs, and perhaps a change may yet be made in the conception which the average citizen has of his own State.
This fundamental change of attitude is occurring. Men feel themselves bound together in the State by other than economic or legal bonds. They rise with at least a momentary enthusiasm in every country to the cry " Your country needs you." Differences are for the moment sunk : private or clique interests are for the moment subordinated to the general good, and that not for pay or what any one may make out- of it, nor because of any legal contract between^citizens.
The bond is clearly emotional/ Our fellow citizens are regarded as living men and women,
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not as machines or as types. Less is said about " the working man " of drawing-room fiction or of the " wicked capitalist " of popular rhetoric ; and all are recognised as human. The State, then, is an institution which lives in the conscious emotion of its citizens : it is not an economic nor a legal union.
But this means that we are recovering from one of the chief deficiencies in the representative system of government. The vast size of modern States has had the effect, first, of producing an extreme of delegated power, and, secondly, an extreme lack of interest among the great body of citizens. The delegation of power meant the dehumanising of state-functions. The imagina- tion was not able to grasp the common interests of the vaster groups as it could when, for example, in Athens every citizen knew every other and soon heard from his neighbour of the effects upon this neighbour of any new law.1 Now we cry to one another across the chasm of vastness which is not at all bridged by the institutions which are supposed to hold us together.
The situation, however, is being transformed. The mechanical inventions which have made it
1 Aristotle was perfectly right in the purpose for which he suggested a limitation in the number of citizens, although we may yet attain that purpose without such limiting. He knew that citizens must be persons to one another, not mere units or machines.
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possible for such vast States to exist may yet, by giving us rapid and widespread communication, enable us to master the machine of government, and to humanise the relation of men by bringing them more closely into contact. Even in normal times there is really a closer contact between the inhabitants of vast Empires now than there was in the much smaller States of Renaissance Europe. And, next, the crisis of war has awakened interest in the common affairs of the group among the mass of citizens. The vastness of the issues, or the remoteness of their connection with one's food and clothing in times of peace, led us to give more and more the judgment and the action into the hands of a few specialists who would represent and look after our interests. But the crisis has taught many that a mistake in diplomatic policy may directly affect one's food. The result is that the action of the State, its interests, honour and obligations, are now felt to be a subject for every citizen's immediate and continuous dis- cussion. We put out our hands to master the machine we have created and have allowed to run its course until it came near to the precipice. Now no plea of inevitableness or necessity will prevent our feeling that the human needs are supreme over the existence of the mere institution. The immense increase in intellectual power and the mastery over Nature has often been referred
2i4 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS
to, as it is to be seen either in the modern loco- motive or spinning-machine, or in the exquisitely constructed shells which destroy so effectively. But forces of another kind have also increased. The banding together of great numbers in cities and States has given us social force so great that the group-force of Athens or Rome, or even Revolutionary Paris, becomes trifling by com- parison. The moving together of the vast armies of the last few months is but a sign of the amount of social force which can now be directed to the supply of certain needs. It is true that one cannot imagine yet the raising of such an army for any purpose but conflict : and yet abstractly it is possible that we could now mass millions of men together for the destruction of hideous slums, for the building of cities, or the conquest of disease. The mastery of natural forces has led to the possibility of immense social force ; and so far this immense force has been used either for private manufacture or for public slaughter. But the force is there, and that is something. The human bond between us in England and the army in France is stronger than that which existed between the army at Crecy and the England of their day. Communication and rapid transit keep the more numerous group closer together than the less numerous could manage to be. But it is not altogether due to the mechanical contrivances.
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The emotional crisis is at least one cause of the common interest being perceived and the human relationship therefore being established. There has been no such human relationship between the user of coal and the coal-miner. The common needs are only felt in their crudest form.
But felt needs, however crude, based upon a human and not a merely mechanical relationship, will produce naturally a new sense of social responsibility. First, we shall have, perhaps, an end of the nonsense which pretends that the morality of individuals cannot govern the rela- tionship of States. That was all based upon the mythological and mechanical-legal State of philosophic fiction. When the relationships are humanised it will be clear that morality holds good and is of fundamentally the same nature, whether between individuals of the same insti- tution or of different institutions. Savages have been said by travellers to be immoral, on the ground that they kill or steal : but scholars now maintain that the lowest savage feels the incon- venience of stealing from men of his own group. Outside the group, of course, no such bond is recognised. The old philosophy of the non- morality of the State was a learned excuse for the savage attitude. In place of this we begin to feel that a man should have as high a moral code when acting in behalf of his group as he
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should have in acting for his own interests. We do not excuse a man for lying, cheating or murdering if he says that after all he did not do it for himself but for his wife and family. Why should we excuse him if he says he did it for his second cousins twice removed, which he calls his country ?
The attitude of officials, however, can only be transformed by the transformation of the attitude of the greater number in the group. The change must come from the citizens before it is effective with their representatives. The majority ^must be able to feel, however dimly, that they should not benefit by the actions which they would be ashamed to do in their own interests. They must object to lying, cheating or murdering by their representatives, even if they get something out of it. And before this comes about, the tendency to say a it is no business of ours " must be corrected. State-morality is of the same kind as the group-morality of trading-companies or dividend-making. But there are very few who do not turn their eyes away from the sources of their wealth. Not merely u wicked capitalists," but great numbers who do not get dividends, maintain a system, by conscious blindness, which reduces all human relationship to merely mechanical arrangement, which depends upon the transformation of great numbers of men into tools.
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This is all part of the same issue, but we must restrict our reference to the responsibility of the citizens for the actions done by others for their interests, honour or obligations. Not merely should the ultimate power be in the hands and the full information be in the minds of greater numbers, but the nature of the things done by this greater number or in their name must be governed by the ordinary rules of morality. We see no reason why the citizens should not definitely object to the lying, cheating and spying system, which is normally carried on by all civilised States in the Secret Service, for the purposes, of course, of self-defence. We need say nothing of the normal purposes of diplomacy or of the " Statesmanship " which keeps a national obligation secret from the people whom it is destined to bind until an emotional crisis makes it certain that no one will be able to object to bearing the obligation. All that has yet to be brought to reasonable limits : but we must begin with the crudest examples of the immorality which is practised in the interest of citizens. Spying is an example. It is not accounted honourable for a man to go in dis- guise into a neighbour's house in order to discover the weak points in his family affairs : but for every civilised State this is done. And it is said that we have to use the weapons of
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our adversaries to secure ourselves from their pre- datory intentions. It is not, however, regarded as moral to cheat your grocer because you suspect that he has cheated or may cheat you. And in social morality one would not allow the repre- sentative of one's family to lie systematically to neighbours in the interest of the family. How far the average man would go in preventing immorality from which he might benefit we cannot tell. Not long ago a certain company manufactured machines according to their rivals' pattern, so constructed that these imitations would break down. The consequence was that the rival machine soon had the reputation for breaking down ; and the company which so skilfully and indirectly advertised gained great wealth. But we never heard of any of the actual gainers protesting against this method. In State affairs we do not think there was any German protest against the violation of Belgian neutrality : there was practically no Belgian protest against the government of the Congo in its worst days. And in no civilised State is there yet any combined or forcible protest against immoral official actions which either we will not look at, or which we see and see only in their good results for ourselves. Examples would cut too closely in a time of
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difficulty and crisis. We may leave them for the reader to find.
The State, then, needs in normal times an organised and official maintenance and develop- ment of the inter-relation with other States, based upon a new conception of the nature of States. And it needs most of all the establish- ment and consistent maintenance of a moral attitude by its representatives and an increased moral responsibility in all its citizens.
CHAPTER XII
THE COMITY OF NATIONS
OWING to the necessity for an atmosphere of mutual trust in times of peace, for the interchange of ideas or of trade, the problem arises as to the new moral attitude of modern States : and owing to the insecurity of conventions in times of war the problem arises as to the possibility of main- taining moral relations in the face of possible defiance by one group of principles recognised by other groups. We pass then from what the citizen thinks of his own State to what he thinks of other States.
It must be noticed, to begin with, that moral restrictions to physical force are more and not less insecure as States become larger, since it is more and more difficult, so powerful is the in- stitutional machine, for the citizen even to know what is being done in his name. Governments have a very great power over the information supplied, and, in proportion as the average man is far removed from the actors in any great affair, in that proportion he is unwilling to adopt
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responsibility. So that the very complexity of modern world-politics might induce the average citizen not to think of other States at all except in times of crisis, or to leave the management of state-relationship entirely in the hands of a few. This might involve the impossibility of securing a moral relationship between States, in so far as citizens will not extend their moral imagination to cover the action of other States than their own.
There are indications, however, that States have been prepared to act together on moral issues. We may take as an example of this, first, the so-called Concert of Europe. The historical facts with regard to this phrase are well known. It is said to have been invented at a time when established Governments feared the destructive power of the French Revolution. There was then an idea that Governments should act together in suppressing what was believed to be the fundamental immorality of the Revolu- tionaries. But the idea of concerted action disappeared before the sinister diplomacy of Napoleon. Each State fought for itself, at least for a time. In 1815 the Congress of Vienna again expressed a tendency towards concerted action on certain generally accepted principles. The next step was taken in the Holy Alliance, to which England found it impossible to adhere,
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since the principles upon which concerted action was to be based were practically those of dynastic despotism if not those of theocracy.
Until about 1840 nearly all concerted action among the European States was more or less definitely aimed at France : for France was the embodiment of militarism.1 From that date, how- ever, the phrase " Concert of Europe " always connoted action with reference to south-eastern Europe : 2 and from that date onwards there was the beginning of recognition by Governments of the existence of nationality. A new principle, not that of theocracy, was becoming a basis for common action.
Greece had been established as a State in i827.3 In 1 86 1 Roumania became partly independent of Turkey, in 1862 Servia ; in 1875 Bosnia and Herzegovina revolted against Turkey. England had been committed by Disraeli to opposition during these years against the principle of nation- ality, because of the supposed English need of supporting Turkey. But at last even England,
1 By militarism I mean the subordination of all the youthful energies of the State to action for physical attack and defence.
2 For the change of attitude see Chapter I in The European Concert In the Eastern Question, by T. E. Holland. Superviison in the near East has been " systematically exercised since 1856."
3 Cf. Holland (loc. cit.y Ch. II). Greece was only recognised as a State in 1830, though the battle of Navarino practically gave her independence.
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in 1877, signed a protocol in agreement with the other Powers of the European Concert,1 warning Turkey of the general interest in "the well-being of the Christian populations." Turkey was disdainful and Russia declared war. The Congress of Powers at Berlin (July 1878) estab- lished Bulgaria, and freed Servia and Roumania from tribute to Turkey.2 The Powers seemed to be united in principle. But in spite of Con- ferences of the Powers in 1880 and 1881, the Turks did what they pleased. In 1897 British and French warships in the name of European principle bombarded Christian villages in Crete to support the Turks : but they intervened in May of that year to save Greece. Massacres in 1896 and 1897 were lefr unpunished by the Powers, but each Power sought to invoke common principle as a cover for private gain.
What is of interest here is not the actual ineffectiveness of the European Concert. It pro- posed much and did little. The performers of
1 The signatories were Great Britain, Germany, Austria, France, Italy, Russia and Turkey. Cf. Holland, p. 277.
2 At this date there are counted six Great Powers acting together. The Russian diplomacy compares well throughout these years with that of Lord Beaconsfield. No principle seems to have guided the latter except an extended selfishness : and he all but wrecked even the little the European Concert could do. In spite of him, however, the Great Powers held together at least in principle. His most immoral act in our behalf took place in 1878, in the Cyprus Convention.
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the Concert had each an axe to grind, and an axe is an unmusical instrument. The result was discord. But the vague feeling remained that civilised States could act together on certain general principles, without alliance and without the stimulus of war directed against themselves. The inherited immorality of Renaissance diplo- macy prevented any common principle being established; and common action was never done for an unselfish end. But the growth of social morality was transforming even the Concert of Europe and sickening even diplomatists with the extended egoism of " foreign " policy.
Such feelings had a still more interesting embodi- ment in the Hague Conference of 1899. At that first Conference twenty-six different States were represented and the Concert of Europe was seen to be transformed into a Council of the World. At the Conference in 1907 forty-four different States were represented. A Tribunal was estab- lished by sixteen Powers at the Hague in July 1899 ; at which representatives of forty-four nations are entitled to sit. At this court since 1902 about twelve cases have been decided, which in former days might easily have been reasons for warfare.
A further example of the same tendency to concerted action upon agreed principles may be seen in the Partition of Africa. Division had
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begun by the entry of France into Tunis and the military occupation of Egypt in 1882 by the British. German East Africa was established in 1884. An agreement was signed between Great Britain and Germany in November 1886, followed by minor agreements and the greatest in 1890. Bismarck had by this time lost power and was not able to engineer anti-English feeling in Germany. By the 1890 agreement Germany received Heligoland and Great Britain the Zan- zibar Protectorate : but most important for our present argument was the settlement of frontier disputes, especially as regards Uganda. With France we signed agreements in 1898 and 1904 : and the whole situation has shown the possibility of peaceful arrangements between those who might have been led into war, if the danger had not been foreseen and avoided.
The French, Portuguese and Italians have large amounts of African land under their control, and, whatever may be said of the exploiting of natives, at least there has been very little bloodshed of the official and traditional kind. It has been remarked that the gain is immense if we compare this method with the long-continued contest in the Partition of America. For, in effect, civilised States foresaw the possibilities of future conflict in Africa and avoided at least one cause of conflict by agreeing upon boundaries without fighting to
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discover where they should be. The result was such as this : the British in East Africa actually were lent a steamer and arms by the Germans in order to suppress marauding tribes, and the Germans received help from the British.1
Such events have led some to suppose that there might be continuous concerted action be- tween civilised States on certain general principles. It is imagined that there might even be a sort of international police force, to do for criminal States what the policeman does for the private criminal. It is said that International Law, and perhaps even international morality, needs a " sanction," and clearly no sanction is possible until delinquent States can be punished. Undoubtedly such a force would be desirable. But law is not based upon force. Law gives force its direction.
Even within every State law is not dependent upon force, but force upon law. For although force may be required to coerce criminals, it is not so required in order to make the majority " keep the law." Law is dependent for its effectiveness much more upon acquired habit than upon force ; and in fact this acquired habit is such that it never enters the head of the ordinary man that he might steal or murder. This habit is itself based upon a kind of half-reasoned sentiment which is the very life-blood of civilised society. But if this is 1 Especially in the revolt of natives in 1888.
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so within the State, the same must be the situation as between citizens of different States. Force may come after to maintain the law, law may come after to express the habit, but the half-reasoned sentiment must come first. For some time before it becomes fixed in a habitual attitude or group of actions this sentiment may be fitful and insecure ; but it is already in existence among the few, and it may spread not only in spite of war but even through war. It is the natural result of human contact, and war has brought great numbers together, even in opposition, who could not have met " foreigners " in our clumsily arranged peace.
The half-reasoned sentiment is one of funda- mental trust in citizens of other States, and as a confirmed attitude it may be the real force in that international courtesy which goes beyond mere law and even beyond the strict conceptions of national duty.
But this true Comity of Nations can only be established upon a basis of acquired habit among the inhabitants of different civilised groups — a habit of thought and action which would simply make the relationship human across the frontiers of States, and might not even imply a continual interchange of views and goods. It is a matter of attitude, or the establishment of a hypothesis which might perhaps underlie all the superficial economic or political interchange. For even
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within our vast States of modern times the actual interchange between citizens is not in fact very great ; but the hypothesis governs all our actions that, whenever there is need, this basal human relationship is there to be depended upon. So even in our great modern cities one never knows many of the people living in the same street ; but an attitude of mind in all the inhabitants is established, so that we do not expect to be stabbed in the back by our neighbour. One may never have said a word to the inhabitant of the house next door, but our hypothesis of civilised life makes us all act as though a human relationship were there all the time.1 So also with nations, there may be no need of actual contact with foreign races, when we have at last discovered we have nothing to fear from them, in order that we shall feel how absolutely we can depend upon the human relationship surviving all the conflicts of State interests, all the governmental quarrels and all the financially engineered panics.
We seem to speak of Utopia when such an attitude is explained. Idealists sigh for the
1 The human relationship to be relied on comes out, of course, chiefly in common danger or in sympathy, as when our neighbour's house is on fire. So among nations an earth- quake in a foreign land soon proves the existence of a human relationship. In such moments the mere governmental insti- tutions are subordinated and yet not neglected ; but to make such subordination more permanent should not be very difficult.
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Comity of Nations. But it is already in existence. It is only the Comity of States which seems im- possible : for distinct nationality is no bar to comity. In the United States, for example, Ger- mans and English and Turks and Greeks and Russians and Austrians find it possible to enter into moral relationship despite diversity of race.1 In Canada French-born citizens are friendly with English ; and now, in this war, even Indians appear to have entered into an emotional comity with Englishmen. It is not race, language or tradition which is a bar to comity ; not religion, education or trade, but only one institution — the State. We have already shown what fantastic ideas concerning the State are generally current, and perhaps the impossibility of a comity between Governments is due in part to the false ideas upon which Governments live. But when we have destroyed even the absolutism and isolation of the theoretical State, there may still remain the idea that the State must, sooner or later, declare war.
It is worth while to ask whether this is essential to the State or only a transitory effect of past history, or perhaps only the result of a false idea
1 In the War of Greece against Turkey (1913), Greeks and Turks who had been working together in the United States returned to Europe in the same ships ; and on landing, Greeks at Athens and Turks at Constantinople, marched to fight one another.
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as to what the State is. At first sight it is strange that only one institution among all should find it impossible to decide some of its disputes with other institutions of the same kind upon moral grounds. These institutions only are still reduced to physical conflict.
It is not simply" because the moral criteria by which we may decide how conflicting interests ought to be arranged are not clear. It is not necessary to fight, if we cannot decide the justice of a case. The moral criteria, for example, are by no means clear when there is a conflict of interest between a capitalist company and a trade union ; but we have not yet adopted the " appeal to arms " for such a dispute.1 Even if no decision can be reached and no power above each is able to enforce a decision, we do not so far find it necessary to " declare war." Nor do we any longer " declare war " because another group of men and women differs from us in religion. We see that religious institutions may
1 There may be revolutionaries who really mean what the phrase class-war seems to mean ; and, I confess, I see no logical objection to physical conflict of other institutions if the physical conflict of States is regarded as reasonable. It is sup- posed that killing in war is not the act of the individual ; but it would not be the act of the individual if his trade union directed him to kill. This is not abstract speculation. A capitalist company in West Virginia has actually directed its officers to shoot down strikers, and it was done. Not the State, as in England, but another institution has used arms.
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arrange differences without an appeal even to the God of battles. We do not fight if universities disagree, or scientific or artistic societies. All other institutions arrange their differences upon some plan which omits even the possibility of war ; and no other institution arms its members in case of aggression by other like institutions — but the State only is armed and " appeals " to arms. This is fact, and it is useless to say that the State ought not to go to war. The first need is to discover why it does go to war, even occasionally. And this is in part due to what the average citizen thinks of other States : for he is not armed because of the nature of his State, but because of what he believes to be the nature of some other.
The obstacles to the establishment of a new moral attitude across the boundaries of States are chiefly in the imagination. Here also we are hampered by inherited superstitions, which may once have represented facts, but do so no longer. The reason why the State " must appeal to arms " is not because of the lack of a superior power, nor because of " natural expansion," but simply because of what "that other" State is commonly supposed to be : and the common supposition makes the State actually to be such, although another idea might transform it.
The view taken of a State from the outside has never adequately been considered. Plato never
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thought of his ideal commonwealth from the point-of-view of those who did not belong to it : and at the end of political theorising our thinkers never put themselves in the position of those who do not belong to this or that State. But no object of study can be understood by such a method of " introspection " only. We must con- sider what the average man thinks of States not his own.1 Every man, except the philosopher, is usually aware that other States do or design certain actions, and it is in view of these that he acts in behalf of his own State./ For " the State " to him means that organised group over there, as he means by a " man " not himself only but other people.
And when we consider any State from the out- side what do we see ? We see first the astonishing fact that whereas every other civilised institution does not expect physical aggression upon its members, the State alone is armed. No civilised
1 The psychological argument should be clear. We come to conclusions about ourselves because of what we think of others ; just as much as we interpret the expressions of others by inner experiences of our own. Avenarius even held that our soul-body hypothesis was really due to our theory for explaining other people ; which we then applied to ourselves. I argue, then, that the nature of the State is understood by the average man from his observation of other States (of which he knows almost nothing), which is then applied to his own. Philosophers, not noticing this, have left the mistakes uncorrected.
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State is confessedly, and viewed from within, ag- gressive ; for even if its guides inculcate aggres- sion, its own people are never asked to fight for anything but self-defen5e. "But viewed from out- side, the State being obviously armed and " we " being as obviously not, aggressive, the armament must be to attack us,/ If there is need of defence there must be evidence of intended aggression. So that every citizen looking at another State expects to be attacked — for what purpose is not very clear : but it is necessary to prepare to defend himself. Men do not prepare to fight for their Church or university or trade union, whatever of value they may .derive from such institutions. They are called on to fight only for their State. They may be even fighting against members of their Church or their trade union ; but it is conceived that it is their duty none the less. And it is their duty, until — until men begin to perceive that the arming of all States for pure self-defence against other States which protest that they only desire self-defence, is perilously like low comedy. But indeed, the truth is that the State, viewed from the outside, is still an armed band. Another State than ours is aggressive : there is evidence to prove it. Ours, therefore, must be defensive, that is to say " armed ;" and that provides evidence for other States to regard ours as aggressive ; and so the illusion grows as to the nature of the State. A
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man, being frightened, may do something by which he frightens himself still more or gives himself good ground for fear. Illusion makes you jump : your jump makes you hit your head, and hitting your head is a proof that there was danger !
Let us put it concretely. Here is an alien citizen who belongs to a Church which is not mine, a trade not mine, or a cultural society not mine. I do not expect him to attack me as a Lutheran, or as an engineer, or as a graduate of Harvard ; but as a good citizen I suspect him. I really think that force would be out of place in the attempt to make me a Lutheran or an engineer or a Harvard man, although I might be made any of these by some other means ; but I think force would be not unlikely to be used in the attempt to make me accept some other person's political institutions.
And I am probably right. He stands armed : and where one State is armed all States will be armed. If one Church were armed, all would be. Why, then, is even one State armed ? Because of the nature of the State ? No. Only because in political imagination we are still in the early Middle Ages, or perhaps even the Dark Ages. We continue to say the State is what it is not.
For some centuries men believed that the earth was the centre of the universe. And when some few said it was not, many were greatly pained at
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the apparent insolence, and the established guides elaborately " proved " that it was. But the sky did not fall when the new belief was everywhere accepted : and/perhaps nothing very dreadful would happen if we began to act as if the State were no more an armed band than any other of the many institutions we use. And by such action we do not mean the laying down of our arms, but the believing in the protestation of our neighbours that they are not aggressive, and leaving it to them to prevent their guides leading them into aggression. It would be a dangerous policy, but the sky would not fall. As for dis- armament or even the restriction of armament, that is a problem for practical politics, and it is almost as important. Of course, if you give a man murderous weapons, he may be inclined to use them : but the civilised man has acquired a habit of mind which would make the use of them very unlikely. The fundamental problem, there- fore, is the transformation of the imaginative out- look, not the taking away of murderous weapons. It seems to be true that one State cannot begin. The same argument would show that we could never have reached our normal disarmament of individuals within the State. But what produced the change was not the law or police. Gradually men began to perceive that there was no need of arms, that criminals were few, and that a friendly
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attitude towards other men led to no alarming consequences. Comity took the place of armed peace : and we may suppose some one or some few must have begun it. The change did not take place by the laying down of arms, but by the transformation of sentiment among those who still bore arms, until arms were subordinated and eventually forgotten. Meantime, no external change could perhaps be noted, and all men seemed to live in accordance with the inherited illusions which were really believed in only by a few.
Living among madmen who agree, it is best to agree with them; unless, perhaps, there is some cure for their madness, or unless the majority are not really mad but are simply persuaded to believe in the illusions of the few who are. We are enslaved by the black magic of dead words, and we can only be rescued by the white magic of some new word. But that is the office of poets. The task of analytical philosophy is done when the current hypotheses have been examined.
When, however, the mistaken results of the primitive view of the State from the outside are corrected there is no reason why a permanent comity of organised nations should not be estab- lished. For then the citizen will consider other States not as possible aggressors but as moral equals of his own. He will, that is to say, believe
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the protestation of other citizens that they arm only for defence, and, knowing that he himself is not aggressive, he will either lay down his own arms or perhaps preserve them as a decorative symbol of the past.
For already a certain amount of mutual trust has been established by the years of peaceful commerce, and no one who is really aware of the interdependence of all institutions can go back to the savage suspicion of foreigners. Such trust between citizens of diverse States has not been more abused than trust between citizens of the same State. It ma^y be betrayed in a few in- stances : but the world has held together. When, therefore, we point to a permanent comity even between States we are not speaking of Utopia, but are seeking to develop a movement which has already begun. Nor will even diplomatic subtle- ties be able to keep us back : for trust between the citizens of diverse States is trust between the States, and the official Governments will soon have to submit to the new situation.
CHAPTER XIII
CONCLUSION
THERE are some general principles which seem to follow from the argument we have so far developed. One has reference to the relation between institutions and social sentiments, another relates to the assimilation and differentiation of institutions. By a social sentiment we mean a half-emotional, half-reasoned habit of action, which may imply an established attitude, but is very often not conscious until there is a crisis, — either danger or a new and strange experience. Such social sentiments are family affection, club or college loyalty, patriotism, human sympathy felt, without regard to frontiers, at the news of an earthquake, and innumerable vaguer habits of action or inhibition expressed in such phrases as " women and children first," " noblesse oblige," " the things no fellow can do."
It has been seen that an institution generally follows upon a social sentiment and, being estab- lished, transforms the sentiment. Thus the Church or the State follows upon habits of action
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CONCLUSION 239
or inhibition ; and, although when established they maintain or develop, they do not create such habits. Law and government did not create civilisation ; but civilisation created law and government. This alone will explain why law maintains one action and forbids another.
It is not necessary here to go back to the possible origins of the State. We have dealt in an earlier chapter with the progressive differentia- tion of functions and their distribution among many different institutions as life becomes more civilised. What is now of interest is -to mark the interplay between free sentiment and established institutions. For this is fundamental to the group-morality of which we have been speaking. The organisations or institutions which unite or divide men, which may or may not make immense differences in their moral attitude — these both maintain social sentiment and are maintained by it. When such sentiments change they may trans- form the institutions ; but they may, on the other hand, not be strong enough, and may themselves be transformed by the established tradition. Moral progress depends upon such transformations.
Let us, however, first consider the interplay of sentiment and institution in the case of individuals of any one group. For the same law will, no doubt, with some modification, be applicable to organised groups.
24o THE MORALITY OF NATIONS
Sentiment maintains institutions. Social feeling combined with habitual action or inhibition is the real guarantee for the continued existence of any form of organisation ; and although a traditional institution may exist for many commonplace years without any appeal to such sentiment, a time of crisis will soon prove whether or not the life-blood is flowing still in the old body. In the religious sphere, perhaps English Monasticism in the six- teenth century was an example of this. The royal power would not have sufficed to suppress the monasteries unless these had already lost their hold upon the popular imagination. In the political sphere, the kingship in France in 1791 is an instance of the same kind. For some time the Revolution was an appeal to the king against <c wicked advisers " : and although the ancien regime of land-owning was hated, the king re- tained the affection of the people. Had Mirabeau lived, the sentiment might have transformed the institution. As it was, the sentiment was alienated and the bloodless body of royalty fell.
Hence it is that education is given so important a place in the TTO'XJS of Plato and Aristotle. In Plato it becomes the chief business of the magis- trate : 1 and in the Laws the State is not secure till the ministry for education is higher in rank than the ministry for war. Aristotle is even 1 Statesman, 306 seq.
CONCLUSION 241
more clear. The importance of the formation of social sentiment is the ground for the treat- ment of education at the end of the Politics ; l and education in this sense is said to be the one security against revolutions.2 The stability of the State is seen to depend upon the social sentiment of the citizens.
Institutions maintain sentiment and habits of mind or action. For all men most of the time and most men all of the time are so institution- alised that if by some impossible freak one could remove the institutions, they would feel that part of themselves was gone. No one who has not lived on the fringe of civilisation, where institu- tions are less omnipresent, can understand how much of ordinary thought and action is simply the expression of an established institution. This is more recognised in literature than in Ethical theory. " Few men realise that their life, the very essence of their character, their capabilities and their audacities, are only the expression of their belief in the safety of their surroundings. Their courage, their composure, their confidence ; their emotions and principles ; every great and every insignificant thought belongs not to the individual but to the crowd : to the crowd that believes blindly in the irresistible force of its institutions and of its morals, in the power of its
1 Po!., \wjzseq. 2 Pol.9 13103.
242 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS
police and of its opinion. But the contact with pure unmitigated savagery, with primitive nature and primitive man, brings sudden and profound trouble into the heart. . . . To the negation of the habitual, which is safe, there is added the affirmation of the unusual, which is dangerous ; a suggestion of things vague, uncontrollable and repulsive, whose discomposing intrusion excites the imagination and tries the civilised nerves of the foolish and the wise alike." l
Doubtless even the fully moralised man who never thinks of stealing or murdering owes the current direction of his thought in part to the Law ; and for the great majority, who never think out the reasons for action or for inhibitions, the Law is, perhaps unconsciously, the guide. The moral man is ahead of the Law, the non- moral behind it.
Further, a group consists of men and women of many different ages. It seems probable that social sentiment is regarded as stronger by the young and may be stronger for the young ; and institutions are thought of chiefly by the old, and they may indeed be more important for the old. The change in Plato is striking. In the Republic he relies almost entirely upon sentiment embodied in very vague laws, in the Statesman the two are almost equal, in the Laws he relies almost entirely 1 Joseph Conrad, An Outpost of Progress.
CONCLUSION 243
upon detailed regulations. And this follows from the tendency of the young to admire change and of the old to admire stability, of the young to subordinate traditional habit to feeling and of the old to subordinate feeling to habit.
But sentiments change. We may cite as an instance the change of attitude since the eighteenth century between husband and wife or parent and child, although one cannot tell how many people in how many nations have really adopted the new attitude. At any rate some, and those not the least important, since they are generally the trans- formers of institutions, no longer treat man and woman as merely male and female : and it is recognised by these also that the rights of children and the duties of parents are far more important than the duties of children and the rights of parents": But even if the sentiment has changed, there is no register of the change in institutions. We go on with our old marriage and divorce laws and our old educational systems. The natural result of a change of sentiment would be a gradual transformation of institutions, for although a few may live for a little according to some ideas which have not been made into laws, the many will not change unless they are changed. And most men can more easily be reached from the outside : that is to say, they will adopt a new method of walking when a new kind of road is
244 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS
made, but they will not be able to maintain a new habit without a new law. Now one of the most interesting facts in the development of morality is that the " sanction " of law has become less and less violent. We no longer mutilate or brand offenders, but the morality of individuals is not lower. So that the amount of force required as sanction is considerably less as civilisation pro- gresses. And this is of immense importance to the question of a sanction for international moral- ity ; for it would seem that the force required as sanction in this highly developed situation is very small indeed. Institutions change because of changing sentiment ; but the institutional change is subtler and less noticeable the higher the development of sentiment becomes.1
When we turn to the morality of nations or of citizens as related to citizens of other States, we find that the present situation is one of transition between a barely organised relationship and an international institution such as might embody and develop a comparatively recent social senti- ment. No such institution may come into existence, at least of so positive and powerful a kind as the States of the world. The tendency towards the new embodiment of social sentiment
1 The reform of political corruption in England since the eighteenth century is an example of a changing sentiment subtly affecting an institution.
CONCLUSION 245
may be frustrated either by turning it in other directions or by absorbing it in the older institu- tions : and nothing more definite may appear than a Hague Tribunal or a council of Conciliation. Very obviously the social sentiment of a few is, so far, in advance of the established practice in the relationship of States.1 This, however, will be ineffective unless it can be embodied in some definite institutional change. It is useless to prophesy. Perhaps the States of the world, by warlike alliance, by recurrent war and by the consequent return towards barbaric isolation, will approximate to the hideous imaginings of the philosophers ; but perhaps they will change in the direction in which other institutions have de- veloped, and arrange their differences otherwise than by war. Whichever the future holds in store for our children, it is as well for us now to recog- nise the modifications which changing events have already made in the nature of the highest political institutions, so as not to be entrapped in the subtleties of our forefathers : and it is as well also to acknowledge that our institutions are still changing more rapidly than the concepts by which we manage them.
1 It is quite possible that the advanced social sentiment is more widespread than is usually thought. The voice of the newspapers is generally the ghostly voice of a past age which is thought by editors to represent what is generally accepted.
246 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS
The State is not as bad as the philosophers have imagined it to be. It is not an isolated armed band. But it is not as good as it might be. There is much room for a modification of political institutions by new sentiments. In the contriving of new institutional schemes, however, whether for changing the State itself or its relation to other States, we should not lose sight of the social senti- ment which changes and may be changed, so subtly that the gods of one generation may be the devils of the next.
With regard to the assimilation and differen- tiation of institutions of the same order, when they are in continuous contact, there appears to be an assimilation in externals and a differentiation of internal character. This, as we have seen, is the rule for individuals. We are more alike than our grandfathers were in clothes and speech, but less alike than they were in creeds and thought. This diversification is due to the greater diversity of occupation in modern times. And in institu- tions also there seems to be the same distinc- tion between external administration and internal character.
For example, in religious institutions, ever since the old social exclusiveness broke down, there has been an increasing assimilation between the Church of Rome in England and the English Church. Each has adopted some of the external features of
CONCLUSION 247
the other. But, on the other hand, each has become more conscious of whatever is distinctive in its spirit or inner character. And the conscious- ness of distinct character has led each to be more friendly to the other. In the same way municipal administration has become more alike in different towns, but the character of the towns has been diversified owing to the varieties of industry ; #nd this diversity has bound the towns together, where- as their old similarity caused separation. The supreme political institution, in contact with others of the same order, shows the same development. States are more like one another in military organisation, in police supervision and in their relations to trade than they were when contact was not normal and continuous. Even their legislative methods seem to become more alike : and in government — monarchies approximate to republics and republics to monarchies.
On the other hand, there is no sign that the assimilation of institutions in these points is oblit- erating the distinction between States ; and not merely are the States distinct, but they differ. At first sight similarity of law and even parliamentary institutions might seem to make it a matter of indifference under what government one lived ; and such indifference would be natural in a semi- savage or a loafer ; but our keenness of perception has increased and the really civilised man is able to
248 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS
notice a difference of " atmosphere " even when the externals of two States are very much alike. We belong to one State or another because of this indefinable " atmosphere." Even if French law and government became more like English than it is now, France would not be England, not only because of distinct language but politically also. And the political diversity would, in part at least, be' due to the difference in occupation or in products which a difference of climate or soil might make necessary.
Whatever the institution may be which comes out of the growing sentiment of comity between all nations, it will certainly not be a State. There could not be a World-State. In the first place, the constituent elements of this institution will not be individuals but groups. The political equality of all distinct state-groups will be the basis of associationy/and thus a new sense will be given to Renaissance Sovereignty.
The States of the world would then be bound together not only by their similarity in methods of government, but also by their diversity of character. The economic interdependence would be, as we have already seen, more complete as material inventions become more numerous. But there would also be the new and more civilised comity of nations of different characters, since the savage dislikes what is different from
CONCLUSION 249
himself but the civilised man is attracted by diversity.
Again, it is sometimes said that as " England " has resulted from subordination of the local in- terests of Yorkshire, Devonshire, London and the rest, so the separate States will be subordinated to some vaster institution. But the metaphor is mis- leading. The new process cannot be the same as the earlier process in any essential points : for, first, Yorkshire and the rest never had a fully developed political life of their own. And even the analogy of England and Scotland or Prussia and Bavaria will not do. For the component elements in what is now a larger whole were not, before the union, modern States in a complex of world-politics. The new situation has arisen since any subordination of parts of which we have evidence in history. The elements, then, in the new Union are unique in kind, and their unity cannot be modelled upon the unions of the past. The new Union of the States of the world may very well be " looser " institutionally and stronger sentimentally. That is to say, in this matter we may perhaps have reached a stage when we can produce an institution as different from even the modern State as that is different from the Greek TTO?U£ ; an institution which would hold together rather because of the changed social sentiment in citizens of diverse States than
250 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS
because of the amount of force by which it can be supported.
Perhaps this is not practical politics, but perhaps also what seems the veriest dream of idealists may, after all, be practical politics. If there is one proposition which it is safe to deny it is the creed of those who pride themselves on being practical, that what has occurred will occur, or that nothing can be done but what has been done. One may imagine the Renaissance diplomatist proving that what now commonly exists could not possibly come to be ; as mathematicians once proved flying to be impossible. The future is open. And the most skilful statesman will be he who is able to apply some new hypothesis and discover truths in the relationship of States of which we have not the faintest suspicion. The practical morality of nations may be as different in a few years' time as the conceptions of the few in many nations now are from those of the unthinking majority.
The result will not be a formula or a code : for even if International Law becomes more and more exact or extensive, international morality will never be quite completely expressed in it. The expressions of the Law will perhaps be somewhat in advance of the morality of some States, but they will always be inadequate to render the full meaning of the moral sentiments
CONCLUSION 251
of others. And within every State there will always be many who take their morality from the law and a few who make the law by their morality. For the morality of nations no less than that of individuals is a continually developing art of life.
INDEX
ALLIANCE, 120 Ambassadors, 100 Arbitration, 189 Aristotle, 62, 240 Armament Firms, 82
Balance of Power, no, 122 Beaconsfield, 117 Belgium, 6, n, 103 Berlin Treaty, 102 Bismarck, n, 107, 115, 141,
142
Bluntschli, 63 Board of Trade, 84 Bodin, 47 Bologna, 91 Bulgaria, 169
Cabinet, 109 Cabinet Government, 94 Capital, 87
Communication, 77, 78 Concert of Europe, 221 Conventions, 160 Creditor States, 88 Crimean War, 141
Darwin,:95 Debtor States, 88 Denmark, 9 Diplomacy, 99 Disraeli, 117
Education, 94, 240 Ehrlich, 92 Eliot, 88
Embassies, 100 Empires, 70, 71 Entente, 129 Expansion, 81, 146
Falkland Islands, 168 Fashoda Episode, 145 Finance, 83 Foreign Office, 71 Foreign Policy, 96
German Empire, 9
German Militarism, 144
Germany, 6, 144
Greek Polis, 30
Green, 182
Grotius, 47, 57
Group Morality, I, 2, 210, 217
Hague, 224 Harnack, 9 Hegel, 46, 50, 51, 53 History, 201 Hobbes, 92 Hugo de Groot, 3
Imperialism, 67, 69 Innocent III, 167 International Rivalry, 139
Law, 161
Italy, 6
Kultur, 35
Law, 4, 242 Lawrence, 101, 171
253
INDEX
Liberty, 38 Lister, 90 Louis XI, 100 Loyalty, 61
Machiavelli, 146, 207 Marx, 46, 63 Mazzini, 10, 105 Mediaeval Regnum, 31, 34 Mill, 46, 63 Mommsen, 90 Montpellier, 91 Morality, 191, 192 Municipal control, 94
National Insurance, 94 Nationalism, 66, 67, 68, 69 Nationality, 5, 6, 229 Nations, 5, 6, 12, 13 Napoleon III, II Napoleonic Wars, 8 Neutrality, 163 Nineteenth Century State, 26 Non-combatants, 164
Order, 38 Oxford, 91
Palmerston, 108
Paris, 91
Parliamentary Government, 94
Pasteur, 90
Patriotism, 61
Plato, 48, 49, So, 242
Property, 162
Prussia, 141
Radium, 92
Red Cross, 161, 166
Regionalism, 67, 68, 69 Renaissance State, 26 Sovereign State, 32
St. Dominic, 91
St. Francis, 91
Salerno, 91
Serbia, 101
Sidgwick, 46, 63, 118
Slavs, 24
Socialists, 185
Specialisation of function, 155
Spencer, 30, 46, 52
State organisation, 67
Statistics (Board of Trade),
85-88 Stubbs, 109
Town planning, 94
Trade, 84
Treaties, 102
Treaty with U.S.A. (1914), 188
Treitschke, 98
Triple Alliance, 124
United States, 113, 188
Victoria, 114
Volunteer Movement} 145
Von Biilow, 8
War, 1 6, 159,232 Weapons, 167 Weismann, 95 World-politics, 80, 132- Wyclif, 91
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