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