:OJ
AN INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY
OF INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS
MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED
LONDON • BOMBAY • CALCUTTA
MELBOURNE
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
NEW YORK • BOSTON • CHICAGO
DALLAS • SAN FRANCISCO
THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, LTD.
TORONTO
AN INTRODUCTION
TO THE STUDY OF
INTERNATIONAL
RELATIONS &
BY
A. J. GRANT J. D. I. HUGHES
ARTHUR GREENWOOD P. H. KERR
AND
F. F. URQUHART
MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED
ST. MARTIN'S STREET, LONDON
1916
COPYRIGHT
First Edition, April 1916
Reprinted June 1916
JX
PREFACE
THE Essays that constitute this volume were written at
the suggestion of the Council for the Study of International
Relations. The Council found itself hampered in beginning
its work by the lack of books on international relations
suitable for use in study circles and classes ; and it wishes
to acknowledge its great indebtedness to the contributors
for providing it with a general text-book at short notice,
in spite of the pressure of much other work. It is hoped
that the book will be found of value to all who realise the
importance of the study of international problems. It
should be pointed out that the Council for the Study of
International Relations exists solely to encourage and
assist the study of international relations from all points of
views ; the books and pamphlets which it publishes or
recommends are selected with that object alone in view,
and the Council is not to be regarded as necessarily sharing
the views set forth in them.
"Remota justitia quid sunt regna nisi magna
latrocinia ? " — ST. AUGUSTINE.
(Without justice, what are states but great
robber-bands ?)
VI
CONTENTS
WAR AND PEACE SINCE 1815
By A. J. GRANT, M.A.,
Professor of History in the University of Leeds.
PAGE
1. EARLY EFFORTS TO SECURE EUROPEAN UNITY . . 1
2. THE REVOLUTIONS OF 1848 AND THE NEW FORCES IN
EUROPE ........ 13
3. CAVOUR, NAPOLEON III., AND BISMARCK . . .17
4. HOPES AND FEARS SINCE 1871 . . . . .27
5. THE PAST AND THE FUTURE ..... 33
II
THE CAUSES OF MODERN WARS
By F. F. URQUHART, M.A.,
Fellow and Tutor of Balliol College, Oxford.
1. THE IDEAL OF A " STATIC " WORLD . . . .37
2. WARS OF CONQUEST ....... 43
3. WARS OF PRINCIPLE ...... 52
4. THE NECESSITY OF A FOREIGN POLICY . . .61
III
INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC RELATIONS
By ARTHUR GREENWOOD, B.Sc.,
Late Lecturer in Economics in the University of Leeds.
1. THE GROWTH OF INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC RELATIONS . 66
2. ECONOMICS AND POLITICS ...... 77
3. ECONOMIC INFLUENCES AND WAR . . . .94
4. INTERNATIONAL ECONOMICS AND THE FUTURE . . 102
vii
viii INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS
IV
INTERNATIONAL LAW
By J. D. I. HUGHES, B.A.
i-Ar,i:
INTRODUCTION . . . . . . .113
1. Is INTERNATIONAL LAW REALLY A SPECIES OF LAW T 114
2. THE SCOPE AND CONTENT OF INTERNATIONAL LAW . 134
3. THE PRESENT POSITION OF INTERNATIONAL LAW , 135
POLITICAL RELATIONS BETWEEN ADVANCED AND
BACKWARD PEOPLES
By P. H. KEHR, M.A., Editor of The Round Table.
1. THE NECESSITY FOR EMPIRE ..... 141
(a) THE RESULTS OF COMMERCIAL INTERCOURSE . . 143
(6) RESULTS AMONG SAVAGES ..... 145
(c) RESULTS AMONG MORE CIVILISED PEOPLES . .152
2. THE GOVERNMENT OF DEPENDENCIES . . . .166
3. THE PROBLEM OF SELF-GOVERNMENT . . 170
4. THE IMMIGRATION PROBLEM . ... 174
5. CONCLUSION . 179
By ARTHUR GREENWOOD
1. FREEDOM AND NATIONAL LIFE ..... 183
2. INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS . . . . .186
3. THE INTERNATIONAL Mnro .... 192
4. THE FULLER CITIZENSHIP . . . . . .195
APPENDIX
NOTB ON COSMOPOLITAN ASSOCIATIONS, BY A. G. . .201
INDEX 205
WAR AND PEACE SINCE 1815
1. EARLY EFFORTS TO SECURE EUROPEAN UNITY
THE cry that was raised at the beginning of the present
European struggle — that this must be a war to end war,
and that on the conclusion of peace the system of isolated
and individual states must give place to some sort of
European confederation — had a familiar sound to the
student of history. The great war of the French Revolution
against Europe was prefaced by a declaration of the brother-
hood of peoples and of the determination of France to wage
no war of conquest. The message of the Revolution to
Wordsworth was, "Wars shall cease: Did ye not hear that
conquest is abjured ? " Napoleon had visions, not altogether
unlike those that now have their home in Berlin, of a Europe,
rational, prosperous, and peaceful under the presidency of
the superior civilisation of France. And when the system of
coalitions began to grow up against the power of Napoleon,
it was not only the overthrow of his power that the Allies
contemplated : they thought they saw through the battle-
smoke a settled order in Europe, and a condition of per-
manent peace.
The circumstances after the battle of Waterloo seemed
1 B
2 INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS i
particularly favourable to the realisation of such schemes.
Europe had not been fighting against France, but against
Napoleon ; and when once Napoleon was overthrown there
was little difficulty in allowing the new France of the
restored Bourbons to join the great Powers of Europe on
equal and friendly terms. The long period of war, and
what seemed to that fortunate age its unsurpassable suffer-
ings and horrors, predisposed even politicians and diplo-
matists to a search after the way of Peace. When the
Congress of Vienna met, Gentz, its secretary, tells us that
" men promised themselves an all-embracing reform of the
political system of Europe, and guarantees for universal
peace." But he has to admit, a few sentences later, that
" The Congress resulted in ... no act of a higher nature,
no great measure for public order or for the general good,
which might compensate humanity for its long sufferings
or pacify it for the future."
It is only too painfully evident that the expected pacifi-
cation did not come. But there were sincere efforts made
to work towards the desired goal. These efforts have lately
been made the subject of an interesting and suggestive
volume by Mr. Alison Phillips,1 and they deserve the careful
study of those who, like the present writer, still cherish the
ideal of a pacific and international organisation of Europe.
There were two distinct lines of effort, though these were
confounded in the public mind, and are often confounded
in the short histories of that period.
There was first the Holy Alliance — the product of the
imagination and the faith of the Czar Alexander I. In all
European history it may be questioned whether there is
1 The Confederation of Europe, A Study of the European Alliance,
1815-1823, as an Experiment in the International Organisation of
Peace.
i WAR AND PEACE SINCE 1815 3
any line of rulers whose characters and policies so well
deserve study as the Czars of Russia since Peter the Great,
and indeed since Ivan the Terrible. In their history there
is, what the history of most royal houses presents us with,
ambition without scruple, vice and crime raised to an
unexampled height by the unexampled opportunities of
an autocratic throne, the passion for conquest, and the
dizziness of supreme power. But the distinguishing feature
of the Czars is their recurring idealisms and the enthusiasm
with which they have occasionally turned towards a policy
that should rest on religious principles and establish peace.
It seemed strange to many that the proposal of the Hague
Conference should come from Russia, but it was quite
in keeping with the traditions of the royal house of
Russia. The strength and the weakness of the Czars were
excellently exemplified in Alexander I. after the battle of
Waterloo. The strong vein of mystic pietism, which was
always in him, had recently been strengthened by his inter-
views with the Baroness von Krudener, and it was under the
influence of Bible-readings and prayer that he produced
his project of the Holy Alliance, which received the
support of the Emperor of Austria and the King of Prussia.
We read it after the lapse of just a century (it was published
in March 1816, but was produced and accepted in the
previous autumn) with laughter for its absurd and dangerous
idealism, or tears for the failure of its vain hopes. But it
is a document of first-rate importance for our present
inquiry, and some of its clauses must be quoted. It
begins :
" In the name of the most Holy and Indivisible Trinity
Their Majesties the Emperor of Austria, the King of
Prussia and the Emperor of Russia . . . solemnly declare
that the present Act has no other object than to publish in
4 INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS i
the face of the whole world their fixed resolution both in
the administration of their respective states and in their
political relations with every other government, to take for
their sole guide the precepts of that Holy Religion, namely,
the precepts of Justice, Christian Charity and Peace, which,
far from being applicable only to private concerns, must
have an immediate influence upon the counsels of Princes
and guide all their steps, as being the only means of con-
solidating human institutions and remedying their imper-
fections. In consequence their Majesties have agreed on
the following articles." Three articles follow. The first
declares that the " Three contracting monarchs will remain
united by the bonds of a true and indissoluble fraternity,"
and " regarding themselves towards their subjects and
armies as fathers of families . . . will lead them to pro-
tect Religion, Peace and Justice." The second article
declares that " the Christian world of which the contracting
monarchs and their peoples form part has in reality no other
sovereign than Him to whom alone power really belongs,"
and they therefore " recommend to their people to strengthen
themselves every day more and more in the principles and
exercise of the duties which the Divine Saviour has taught
to mankind." The third article declares that they are
anxious to admit other Powers to the same compact.
Perhaps no politician in Europe took this quite seriously
except the Czar himself. Metternich, the great Austrian
diplomatist and statesman, who for the next thirty years
was to share with Alexander I. the chief influence in Europe,
declared that it was a " loud-sounding nothing." The Pope
did not like this appeal to a vague something called Chris-
tianity, signed by " a Catholic, a schismatic, and a heretic."
The other signatories had given their adhesion out of
deference to Alexander. England never gave in her
adhesion. Wellington and Castlereagh exercised the chief
influence on British foreign policy at this period, and the
Czar's mystic idealism found no echo in their definite and
positive minds ; and their practical knowledge of affairs
made them frightened of vague general principles, even of
the noblest kind, when there was no indication of the sense
in which they were to be interpreted, or of the precise aims
that they were intended to subserve. Castlereagh wrote a
little later : " The problem of a universal alliance for the
peace and happiness of the world has always been one of
speculation and hope, but it has never yet been reduced to
practice and, if an opinion may be hazarded from its diffi-
culty, it never can."
The Czar's schemes failed. Europe was soon to be
guided by statesmen who rejected the idea that Christian
morality, or morality of any kind, was binding upon those
who acted on behalf of States ; and Bismarck and Cavour
have left memories, admired, honoured, and imitated, far
beyond that of Czar Alexander I. But our judgment of
the past is constantly being altered by our fresh experiences
in the present, and, at an hour when the successors of the
three signatories of the Holy Alliance are acting in a manner
so definitely opposed to its precepts, we may well ask our-
selves whether a more sympathetic acceptance of its main
aims might not have led to something better. No one now
believes that the Czar was a hypocrite, covering with pious
and humanitarian phrases designs against the constitutional
development of the States of Western Europe or the in-
tegrity of the dominions of the Sultan. However unwise
the form, here was a great Power anxious to establish the
principles on which a united and peaceful Europe might
be based. Metternich eluded the proposal with cynicism
and hypocrisy. Castlereagh met it with cold criticism,
6 INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS i
which was well-intentioned and honourable ; for recent
inquiries have quite effaced the picture, once so popular, of
Castlereagh as the arch-conspirator against the liberties
of England and of Europe. But if the Czar had found in
England support, however sober and however critical, was
it impossible that great good might have followed ?
At the same time that Alexander I. was developing his
project of the Holy Alliance, the more practical statesmen
of Europe were busy with a more limited scheme. In 1814
the four great Powers, who were in alliance against Napoleon
— Britain, Russia, Prussia, Austria — had entered into an
alliance at Chaumont. Its immediate object was the
pursuit of the great enemy, whose forces had already been
broken at Leipzig, but the signatories desired also to regulate
their relations to one another, when victory had fully come,
and to secure the peace of Europe. With these ends in
view, they aimed at the establishment of a permanent
alliance. The sixteenth article reads : " The present treaty
of alliance having for its object the maintenance of the
Balance of Europe, to secure the repose and independence
of the Powers, and to prevent the invasions which for so
many years have devastated the world, the High Contracting
Parties have agreed among themselves to extend its dura-
tion for 20 years." Here then was the basis of the actual
work done during the next few years for the maintenance
of a United Europe. A quadruple alliance was established,
which would soon develop into a quintuple alliance by the
inclusion of France : it was to last for twenty years, and
there were hopes that it might develop into a permanent
feature of European life.
It may be questioned whether the League ever did any
good. Undreamed-of difficulties rose across its path, and
it was quite unable to surmount them. It perished in a
i WAR AND PEACE SINCE 1815 7
few years, and its end has usually been regarded as a
triumph for Great Britain and for liberal ideas. Let us
briefly trace the chief stages in its history before considering
the causes of its failure. The special mission of the
Quadruple Alliance was to watch the revolutionary tend-
encies of France and to prevent another outburst from
that quarter. Its first Conference was called at Aix-la-
Chapelle in September 1818. Some thorny questions were
successfully dealt with. The claim of the restored Bourbon
monarchy to form the fifth member of the Alliance was
considered and accepted. Arrangements were made for the
reduction of the army of occupation in France. But already
at this, the first meeting of the Alliance, difficulties of a
serious kind and irreconcilable differences of opinion began
to appear. The Czar wished to develop with all rapidity
the Quadruple (now Quintuple) Alliance into a permanent
organisation for the direction of European affairs, and
further to pledge the organisation to maintain the Govern-
ments then established in Europe. He did not himself aim
at the repression of all constitutional movements ; he was
still liberal in his ideas, and was regarded at Vienna as a
dangerous revolutionary. He hoped that if the Govern-
ments of Europe received from the Alliance a guarantee of
their stability they would feel that it was safe to grant their
peoples certain constitutional liberties. Europe, in his
idea, was to be organised in favour of a sort of liberal con-
servatism. Metternich hastened to underline the conser-
vative part of the scheme ; he regarded it as a definite
" triumph for the cabinets that have never tampered with
the spirit of innovation." He hastened to welcome it as
a guarantee of the established order of things in every State
" to change which would be a crime." English statesmen,
who were still conscious that the established order rested
8 INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS i
on the Revolution of 1688, were bound to receive the pro-
posal in a different spirit. Wellington and Castlereagh
declared that they were dismayed " by the abstractions and
sweeping generalities in which the declaration was con-
ceived." They invited further " conversations," and in the
end Castlereagh administered a douche of cold water.
Though he was a Tory and represented a Tory Government,
he could not pledge Great Britain to suppress all efforts that
threatened the established political order. The following
wise and just sentences deserve to be quoted : " The idea of
a solidary alliance by which each state shall be bound to
support the state of succession, government and possession
within all other states from violence and attack . . . must
be understood as morally implying the previous establish-
ment of such a system of general government as may secure
and enforce upon all kings and nations an internal system
of peace and justice. Till the mode of constructing such a
system shall be devised the consequence is inadmissible, as
nothing would be more immoral or more prejudicial to the
character of governments generally than the idea that their
force was collectively to be prostituted to the support of
established power without any consideration of the extent
to which it was abused." This protest was sufficient. No
advance was made towards the organisation of a Govern-
ment for Europe. The Declaration, which communicated
to Europe the results of the Conference, confined itself to
generalities which seem an echo of the Holy Alliance. The
sovereigns " who have formed this august union . . . have
consummated the work to which they were called. . . .
They solemnly acknowledge that their duties towards God
and the peoples whom they govern make it peremptory in
them to give to the world ... an example of justice, of
concord, and of moderation, etc. etc." The Great Powers
i WAK AND PEACE SINCE 1815 9
promised to meet together again ; and were pledged to
little besides.
Before their next meeting the liberal and revolutionary
movements which the Czar had foreseen and endeavoured to
control had begun to manifest themselves. During the next
five years (1818-1823) there were risings of various kinds
in Spain, Portugal, Naples, Sardinia, Greece. The Czar's
liberalism began to evaporate before the hot breath of
Revolution : Metternich's desire to support the established
order was as strong as it had always been. Both saw in the
Great Alliance a valuable engine against the new move-
ments, if only it could be put into motion against them.
A conference was called at Troppau to deal with the
Spanish and Neapolitan question. The detached attitude
of Great Britain was manifested by the fact that no pleni-
potentiary was sent, Lord Stewart, the British Ambassador
at Vienna, watching the proceedings for the Home Govern-
ment. Russia, Prussia, and Austria debated first in private,
and then issued in a famous document the following state-
ment of their aims : " States which have undergone a change
of government due to re volution, the results of which threaten
other States, ipso facto cease to be members of the European
Alliance. ... If immediate danger threatens other States
the Powers bind themselves, by peaceful means, or if need be
by arms, to bring back the guilty State into the bosom of
the Alliance." Great Britain protested, politely but firmly,
against the fundamental principles of the protocol, namely ;
" that of rendering the Powers of the Alliance applicable to
the internal transactions of independent States." The
Conference moved from Troppau to Laybach, and there ,
dealt finally with the Neapolitan question. The constitu-
tional and revolutionary movement in Naples was to be
suppressed by an Austrian army, and Great Britain made no
10 INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS i
protest ; but the English representative protested, firmly
and successfully, against an attempt to revive the Czar's
plan, and to issue to the world the principles of the Troppau
Declaration. The union of the Great Powers had not been
formally broken, but the attitude of Great Britain and of
France had made the concert little more than an empty
name.
4. In 1822 the Congress of Verona was held. It was the
last occasion on which the Great Alliance gave signs of life.
The revolutionary leaven had not ceased to work since the
meeting at Laybach. There was a revolutionary move-
ment in Spain, and there was at stake in it not only the
future of the Spanish monarchy in Europe, but also the
future of the Spanish colonies in South America. In the
south of the Balkan Peninsula the insurrection had broken
out which was never to cease until free Greece had joined
the European State system. Here were great questions
likely to tax all the strength of the Alliance at its strongest. ^
The Alliance was far from strong ; the five Great Powers
could hardly be said to be allied at all. There was instead
a practical Alliance of the three Eastern Powers — Russia,
Prussia, and Austria ; while the two constitutional Powers
of the West^— Great Britain and France — stood aloof, critical
and almost hostile. The Congress at Verona was not
wanting in splendour. The crowned heads of Russia,
Austria, and Prussia were there, and princelings in plenty ;
Great Britain was represented by Wellington, whose
presence and authority in Europe were almost more than
royal. But there was no internal strength or unity corre-
sponding to this outward display.
Castlereagh no longer guided the foreign policy of Great
Britain ; a strange act of suicide had removed that misjudged
statesman. Canning had taken his place and continued
i WAR AND PEACE SINCE 1815 11
the main line of his policy with much greater power of
epigram and mordant phrase, but less sureness of judgment.
It was the Spanish question which chiefly engaged the
attention of the delegates. France was prepared to inter-
fere there, as Austria had interfered in Naples, if she could
count on the support of the other Great Powers. Russia,
Austria, and Prussia were ready to give their support.
Would Great Britain go along with them ? She had helped
the Spaniards in the Peninsular War to free themselves from
the despotism of Napoleon ; would she now co-operate
with France to force them under a detested yoke ? Welling-
ton, acting on the instructions of Canning, definitely refused.
Great Britain was breaking no engagement. She had
always protested against the idea of the intervention of the
Alliance in the internal affairs of independent nations. It
was, as Mr. Alison Phillips says, " the Allies that had moved
away from Great Britain, which had merely adhered to her
course." She had refused to co-operate at Troppau and at
Laybach ; but there had been no such definite break as
this. Wellington's action was the death-blow of the
Great Alliance, which never met again. Canning's subse-
quent action made it clear that any restoration of the
Alliance was impossible ; for he recognised the independence
of the American colonies of Spain, and he gave diplomatic
assistance to the Greek insurgents. The Great Alliance was
dead.
It seemed a welcome result to Canning. " Things are
getting back to a wholesome state again," he wrote. "Every
nation for itself and God for us all. The time for Areopaguses
and the like of that is gone by." And English opinion
generally echoed these sentiments.
The directjcause of the failure of the Gra^t AJlmnrp is
plain. Those who exercised the chief influence in its councils
12 INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS i
— the Czar Alexander especially — were not content to use
it merely as an instrument for maintaining peace ; they
wished also to restrain the constitutional life of each State
within narrow limits. The French Revolution was on
their nerves. There was a movement which began by being
purely domestic in its aims and which had declared at the
outset the most pacific intentions ; but before it was done
with it had set all Europe ablaze. There had been a meeting
of the rulers of Prussia and Austria in 1792, in which they
had declared that the restoration of order in France was a
matter that interested all Europe. Then, too, it was largely
the refusal of Great Britain to co-operate that had pre-
vented an active interference. But if that interference had
been active and successful, what catastrophes it would have
saved ! Napoleon might have lived and died as an obscure
officer of artillery.
There was good reason then for the apprehension of
Russia and Austria that internal revolutions might trouble
the peace of Europe. Yet few will think that it would
have been well if the French Revolution had been crushed ;
and hardly any one will wish that Canning had not recog-
nised the independence of the South American republics,
" calling into existence a new world to redress the balance
of the old," or had not co-operated with the Greeks in their
struggle for freedom.
But in 1915 it is not so easy as it once was to feel en-
thusiasm for the destruction of an organisation which might
perhaps have grown intoaworkable international institution.
Liberty, indeed, is of such great worth that all may fairly be
risked for her. But was there no via media possible ? no
compromise ? Could not the Alliance have been called back
by tact and diplomacy to its legitimate task of safeguarding
the peace of Europe ? Perhaps not ; but we are just now
i WAR AND PEACE SINCE 1815 13
more impressed by the dangers of national anarchy than by
the charms of national independence. " Every nation for
itself and God for us all," said Canning. With the cry of
Belgium in our ears we are inclined to rewrite it, " Every
nation for itself, and the Devil take the weakest."
2. THE REVOLUTIONS OF 1848, AND THE NEW FORCES
IN EUROPE
The dissolution of the Great Alliance left the Great
Powers without any common principles or organisation.
During the next quarter of a century the European world
spun rapidly away from the restricted orbit in which
Alexander of Russia had wanted to confine it. The Treaty
of Vienna went by the board. Greece gained her independ-
ence, and Alexander's successor co-operated powerfully
in the winning of it. The well-intentioned but mechanical
union of Holland and Belgium was broken by the revolu-
tion of 1830, and Belgium gained her independence and
a European guarantee. What glorious progress she made
in her independence and how shamefully the guarantee was
broken by Germany is now known to all the world. The
" July revolution " in Paris sent the Bourbons on their
travels again, and placed the Orleanist dynasty on a throne
that rested on the will of the people. France showed in
that movement that she could manage a revolution almost
as peacefully as England had managed hers in 1688 ;
but it was none the less a decisive breach in the principles
of legitimacy. But the July revolution did not provide
so permanent a settlement for France as the great Whig
revolution had done for England. Dangerous stuff was
fermenting in France, and not only in France but to a
greater or less extent in every country in Europe. In
14 INTEKNATIONAL RELATIONS i
France imperialism was born again. In Europe generally
socialism and nationalism stepped into the arena.
The origins of socialism may be sought for, and perhaps
found, centuries and even millenniums before 1848 ; but it
was during the revolutions of that year that it first came to
be known as a serious force with which the States of Europe
would have to reckon. It spoke of peace, aimed at
peace, consciously strove for peace, but was destined to
act, at any rate indirectly, as a cause of strife. And of
socialism nothing further need be said here. Yet it would
be well if the " ideas of 1848 " were as carefully studied
and as generally known as the " ideas of 1789." Voltaire,
Montesquieu, Diderot, Rousseau have passed into the
general consciousness, and I do not challenge their im-
portance ; but Saint Simon, Fourier, Comte, and Louis
Blanc are closer to our own problems, and a critical study
of their ideas would cast much light on the path that lies
before us. Enough that France dreamed again her glorious
dream of the destruction of all oppression and poverty.
She was again " on the top of golden hours," and there were
many in other countries to share her enthusiasm.
Louis Blanc was the great missionary of socialism. No
name is so intimately associated with the new gospel of
nationalism, though Mazzini caught the ear of Europe as
no one else did. Much has been written about nationalism
of late ; for the war which has stimulated thought on so
many subjects has made it especially necessary to analyse
the meaning of nationalism and bring to the test its claim
to provide a basis on which Europe may rest in peace and
fraternity. It remains a great and vital principle in Europe,
and the Allies are pledged to use their victory to extend its
application. But the enthusiastic hopes of Mazzini are
not held now. " To re-make the map of Europe, and to
i WAR AND PEACE SINCE 1815 15
rearrange the peoples in accordance with the special mission
assigned to each of them by geographical, ethnical, and
historical conditions — this is the first essential step for all."
So wrote Mazzini in 1832. It has proved a long and difficult
step ; and it seems clear that States will have to be formed
in some cases without making it. And when the national
State is formed it is by no means certain that it will be
peaceful and fraternal to all others. The present hour
makes it clear that a nationality can be as ambitious and
as despotic as a dynastic ruler. National self-consciousness
lies somewhere near the basis of most of the most bitter
wars of the world. Canning declared : " Our business is to
preserve the peace of the world and therefore the inde-
pendence of the several nations which compose it." But
Mr. Alison Phillips, the admiring historian of Canning's
period, writes : " The principle of nationality was to become
the main obstacle to any realisation of the vision of per-
petual peace." It may be noted, too, that it presents us
with a cause for war, which it would be peculiarly difficult
to avoid by arbitration. For arbitration can hardly deal
with anything but quarrels between State and State ; and
nationalist movements cut right across State boundaries
and, on the basis of a new principle unrecognised by inter-
national law, claim to rearrange the frontiers or to create
new States. It is clear, too, that there must be States which
do not correspond with the boundaries of any one nation-
ality ; and a pressing problem is how to harmonise such
States with liberty and the satisfaction of national feeling.
Switzerland, Canada, and South Africa show us that the
problem is not insoluble, and most examples point to some
form of federalism as the clue to the solution.
Imperialism, socialism, nationalism — these were the chief
factors that produced the revolutions of 1848. The changes
16 INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS i
were as great and much more general than those of the first
French Revolution. All Europe, except Great Britain and
Russia, seemed thrown into the melting-pot. In many of
the capitals of Europe — and especially in Berlin, Vienna,
and Paris — crowned heads saw their power and even their
lives threatened by the revolution, and fled for safety to a
foreign country or to the shelter of the armies. There were
some who seriously thought that monarchy was at an end,
and that the future form of government would everywhere
be republican. Then came reaction and disappointment.
It was from Vienna that perhaps the greatest impulse to
revolution had gone forth, and the overthrow of Metternich
had been the signal for risings in Italy, Germany, and
Hungary. And when reaction triumphed in Vienna the
revolution was threatened and subsequently crushed in
these three districts. The Italian forces, which had so
joyously entered Milan and so gloriously fought there, were
shattered, and Piedmont with difficulty maintained her
constitutional liberties. The King of Prussia found that
his sword was not broken, that his armies would still obey
the word of command ; and it was by the military that the
Assembly was dispersed. A constitution given by royal
grace granted little but the name of constitutional life.
Reaction, triumphant in Berlin, destroyed the hopes of
German liberalism which once seemed so near to success.
The Prussian King rejected the crown of United Germany
which was offered to him, just because it was offered to him
by the people. In Hungary, Magyar nationalism had been
confronted by the nationalism of the smaller peoples.
Russian armies came to the help of the Emperor Francis
Joseph (it seems incredible that he still reigns at Vienna !)
and Kossuth fled. In France the revolution triumphed ;
the second republic was declared. France had long before
i WAR AND PEACE SINCE 1815 17
that been a fully self-conscious nation. It was the hopes
and fears of socialism (using the word in the widest sense)
which gave the chance to Napoleon. He was carried on a
great wave of imperialist sentiment to the presidency of the
Republic, and then in 1852 to the imperial title.
It is not my purpose to give a narrative of European
history, but simply to trace the conditions under which
peace has been kept or broken during the past century.
And from this point of view it is remarkable that the bundle
of crises of 1848 produced no international war. There was
civic strife in many parts of Europe. The Russian armies
entered the Austrian dominions, but it was in support of
the Government. A crisis which might have deluged Europe
in blood passed with unexpectedly little disturbance. It
seemed to show that the European system was really grow-
ing more stable, and that the peace tendencies were
actually so strong that even without organisation they
sufficed to prevent the outbreak of war. But an era of
great wars was soon to arrive.
3. CAVOUR, NAPOLEON III., AND BISMARCK
The peace between the Great European Powers had been
unstable and precarious, but there was no actual outbreak
of war between them from 1815 to 1854. Then there came
from the Balkans, which have so often been the storm-centre
of Europe, the quarrel which produced the Crimean War.
There is nothing very novel or characteristic of the nine-
teenth century in that war or its causes ; it is rather, as
a French historian has called it, a war of the eighteenth
century strayed into the nineteenth. The motives of the
different combatants are plain, and none of them very
laudable. The decaying power of Turkey lay right across
C
18 INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS i
the path of Russia's ambition, and Russia had long claimed
treaty rights of interference on behalf of the Christian
subjects of the Sultan. She took her relation to the
Christians seriously ; we have no right to accuse her of
hypocrisy in the matter. But we are not unjust if we
regard Russia's desire to secure control of the Dardanelles,
where the Turk might at any time throttle the chief channel
by which the trade of Russia had access to the Mediter-
ranean, as the chief motive of her hostilities. Great Britain,
under the influence of Palmerston's ideas, saw every move-
ment of Russia with jealous eyes, and thought that Britain's
interest lay in the support of the power of Turkey, of whose
reform Englishmen had not yet despaired. France had for
long been regarded as the protector of the Catholics of the
East, and had just grounds of jealousy of the advance of
Russia. But the exigencies of the position of Napoleon III.
counted for more than the needs of the Christians of the
East. His name had been his fortune, and it was in a great
measure his evil destiny. A Napoleon raised by revolution
to the throne of France had no justification unless he gave
to his subjects military glory, nor would his throne be safe
on any other condition. Success in some great military
adventure was the law of his political existence. So France
and England forgot their old enmity and joined together for
a war which it was expected would be of short duration.
Before the war was over their troops were joined by a con-
tingent from the King of Sardinia, whose interest in the
future of Turkey and the freedom of the Dardanelles was
but small, but who, under the guidance of his great diplo-
matist Cavour, desired to accustom Europe to think of him
as a Power to be reckoned with. But the men who fought
so bravely and suffered so terribly during the bitter winter
in the trenches before Sebastopol must have found it hard
i WAR AND PEACE SINCE 1815 19
to say what they were fighting for, and at this moment when
Russians, French, English, and Italians are fighting to break
open the barrier of the Dardanelles the Crimean policy of
the French and English is harder than ever to justify.
When at last the war came to an end that settled nothing,
men hoped for a long era of peace. But one war followed
another during the next fifteen years, and never again down
to our own time has the relation of the Great Powers been
at the best anything but one of jealous watchfulness. Italy
fought two important wars during the next fifteen years ;
Prussia three ; France one. The relationship of the Great
Powers was throughout unstable.
Seignobos, at the end of his invaluable History of Con-
temporary Europe, passes from his precise, impartial, and
unemotional narrative to give us a glimpse of his philosophy
of history. And his philosophy is a negation of all philo-
sophy. It is chance that reigns, having expelled not only
God but Law ! " There is a natural tendency," he writes,
" to attribute great effects to great causes and to explain
the political evolution of Europe by reference to profound
and permanent forces, of wider scope than the actions of
individuals. But the history of the nineteenth century
cannot be brought into harmony with such a conception."
He goes on to declare how large a part has been played by
accident, and how vast has been the influence of individuals.
I hope that we shall not find ourselves forced to abandon
the idea of great causes in history, and that we shall still be
able to find a purpose and an aim in the history of humanity.
But certainly for this epoch (1856 to 1871) the influence of
individuals was immense. Can any one conjecture what
Italy, Germany, and France would be to-day if Cavour,
Bismarck, and Napoleon III. had never been born ?
As we study their careers and penetrate their ideas, we
20 INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS i
cannot wonder that a period of wars set in. For these men
— the three foremost actors on the European stage — for
different reasons found that the end they pursued could only
be gained by war, and for a large part of their political
careers were so far from trying to maintain peace and the
equilibrium of Europe, that they watched for some oppor-
tunity of throwing Europe into the disorder of a great war.
Cavour's reputation has grown steadily since his death.
All the world now recognises his unselfish patriotism and the
passionate zeal for the Italian cause that was hidden beneath
his reserved manners and his rather dull appearance. In
the game of diplomacy he had amazing skill and finesse,
and his success is the more remarkable because he was not,
like Richelieu and Bismarck, supported by the overwhelm-
ing strength of an army. Most Englishmen think of the
achievement of Italian liberty and unity as the greatest and
best thing that happened in the nineteenth century, and
we are not likely to think less highly of it when the soldiers
of Italy are fighting in alliance with those of France and
England in defence of the liberties of the world. And yet
— and yet — Cavour knew that his great goal could only be
reached by war, and that Piedmont by herself was not
strong enough to challenge the whole might of Austria.
He sought eagerly for means that should embroil France
with Austria ; stooped to treachery and fraud in pursuit
of his ends ; connived at an attack upon Neapolitan terri-
tory without declaration of war or even any statement of
grievances ; and invaded the Papal territory upon a pretext
that could deceive no one and was not intended to do so.
If he could have been told in 1856 that Europe would enjoy
peace for the next twenty years, he would have regarded
that as the death-knell of his highest hopes.
Napoleon III. awaits an English biographer who shall
i WAR AND PEACE SINCE 1815 21
present the man and his policy to the world with sufficient
insight and knowledge. In France, De la Gorce's fine work
gives us a fascinating picture of the man and his times. He
had great talents, but his name was more powerful in pro-
moting his advance than his talents. The memories of
the great days of the great Napoleon seemed all the brighter
because of the dull rule of Louis Philippe, and all the suffer-
ing and the failure had grown dim in men's minds. Then
came the revolution, the socialist experiments which per-
haps had never been intended to succeed, the outbreak of
violence ; and the second Napoleon (though history calls
him the third) rose, by much the same steps as the first
Napoleon had trod in 1799, to the Presidency and then to
the Empire of France. He was a man of ideas, and some of
them were good ones ; he dreamed dreams which have some
of them come true. One may conjecture that he would
have made a great reputation for himself as a professor at
the Sorbonne or as a Parisian journalist. But he was not of
the stuff of which great rulers are made, especially such as
have won their way to the throne in time of revolution. He
had no natural liking for war, such was the opinion of
Bismarck himself ; and indeed his talents did not lie that
way. But his position was one that could hardly be main-
tained in an atmosphere of peace. The first Napoleon
found that unless he dazzled the eyes of France with recur-
rent victories men's minds turned again to the watchwords
of the Revolution ; they began to speak of liberty and
equality again ; the Republic renewed its attractions. And
so it was with Napoleon III. France had not raised him
to the imperial power that he should use it in the spirit of
Louis Philippe ; he would not be able to satisfy her with
commercial progress, better organisation, and an honoured
place in the commonwealth of Europe. His position forced
22 INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS i
him on to military adventures. To strengthen his unstable
throne and to secure the succession to his son, he was pushed
on to one enterprise after the other — to the Crimea, to
Italy, to Mexico, to Sedan.
If Napoleon III. was an unsettling force in Europe,
Bismarck's influence made constantly for war. We know
him well, and he is not difficult to know. Not only the
researches of historians, but his speeches, and above all his
Reflections and Reminiscences, reveal the man to us. The
contrast with Napoleon III. could not be more complete.
The element of charlatanry which vitiates all Napoleon's
qualities is entirely absent in Bismarck ; he is of one
material throughout, and that material is granite. He was
a great orator though he despised oratory, and wrote with
wonderful effectiveness, though he never aspired to dis-
tinction in literature. If we compare him with contem-
porary statesmen, it is the concentration of his efforts on
one purpose that marks him out from them, with the excep-
tion, perhaps, of Cavour. He concerns himself little if at all
with art and thought ; humanity, in both senses of the word,
was hardly to be found in his vocabulary. He was really
and deeply religious, and it would be interesting to analyse
the character of his religion ; it is the " good Prussian God "
that he believes in. He was devoted to one object only —
the glorification of the Prussian State and of Germany only
in so far as it could be absorbed into Prussia. But for
the purposes of this chapter it is only necessary to insist
that this man of genius (few will deny him the title) was as
far as possible from thinking of the maintenance of the
peace of Europe as a chief end of his efforts. He did not
desire war for its own sake, though nowhere does he speak
with any dread of its consequences. But the object after
which he strove continually — the greatness of Prussia —
i WAR AND PEACE SINCE 1815 23
could best, he thought, be reached through war, and a great
part of his statesmanship was devoted to the choosing of the
proper occasion to make war. For the ideals of Western
Europe, for self-government, public opinion, the free de-
velopment of the individual, for progress, the fraternity of
peoples, internationalism in all its forms, he had nothing
but contempt. He specially disliked in English liberalism
the view championed by Bright and Gladstone, that the
laws of morality were applicable to politics. Democracy
was for him the enemy, to be crushed, or, where that was
impossible, to be humoured by meaningless concessions :
" I look for Prussia's honour," he wrote, " in Prussia's
abstinence, before all things, from every shameful union with
democracy."
When three such statesmen exercised a preponderant
influence on the destinies of Europe, it is needless to regard
the wars of the third quarter of the century as something
mysterious and inexplicable. Wars came because they
were willed, not by the peoples, but by statesmen and
governing classes.
Five wars fill these sixteen years. Of the Crimean
War we have already spoken. In 1859 Cavour secured a
war between Piedmont (Sardinia) and Austria, and gained
the support of France. Victory came to the allied armies,
and Cavour seemed within reach of his goal. Then Napoleon
III. made peace with Austria behind the back of his ally.
History still discusses his motives, and threatening move-
ments of the armies of Prussia probably formed the chief.
Cavour saw in the retirement of Napoleon the ruin of his
hopes, but the spontaneous movement of central Italy
compensated for the withdrawal of the French armies ;
Garibaldi's amazing adventure won Sicily and Naples for
the cause of Italy ; the unprovoked invasion of the Papal
24 INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS i
States completed the work. Dante and Machiavelli would
both have welcomed the result, but Machiavelli alone
would have approved the means.
Next came the war over the duchies of Schleswig-
Holstein. It was a question where a just and fair solution
would have been difficult even for the best-intentioned
diplomacy, for the relation of the duchies to the crown
of Denmark on the one side, and to Germany on the other,
presented an almost inextricable tangle. No power, not
even Great Britain, comes very well out of the story. The
diet at Frankfort raised a weak and querulous voice in
favour of a solution of the question by an appeal to the
principles of Justice. Any such parliamentary action
was pushed aside by the military powers of Prussia and
Austria. It is of importance to notice that Bismarck's
own position was most seriously threatened at the time.
Let readers go to Mr. Headlam's Bismarck for an admirable
account of the constitutional struggle of this time.
Bismarck himself tells us : " Some progressive journals
hoped to see me picking oakum for the benefit of the State ;
and the House of Deputies declared by 274 to 45 that
ministers were responsible with their persons and fortunes
for unconstitutional expenditure." Bismarck has said scorn-
fully of Napoleon III. that his wars were prompted by his
political troubles at home. But Bismarck was himself saved
from overthrow in the great crises of his career by turning
public attention to war and intoxicating the people with
victory.
The Danish duchies were occupied, in spite of the pathetic
heroism of the Danes, by the two Great Powers, who then fell
to blows with regard to the division of the spoil. Hence
arose Bismarck's second war — the Seven Weeks' War with
Austria. For a short time Prussia seemed upon the razor-
i WAK AND PEACE SINCE 1815 25
edge of fate. Then came complete victory, and when the
battle of Sadowa had been fought and won, it was Bis-
marck who, single-handed, arranged the terms of peace.
His diplomatic talents never showed to greater advantage
than at this crisis. Against the opinion of the King and his
military advisers he insisted on favourable terms being
granted to Austria and the South German States ; and
dragged back Moltke, who was panting for more righting
and conquering.
It was not humanity that controlled his action, but the
vision of another war to come. He wished to secure the
neutrality of Austria and the alliance of the German States
for the war with France, which he foresaw. A war with
France, Bismarck said, lay " in the logic of history " ; and
again, " I took it as assured that war with France would
necessarily have to be waged on the road to our further
national development " ; and yet again, " I did not doubt
that a Franco-German war must take place before the
construction of a united Germany could be realised."
Bismarck is not often guilty of cant, but this of the " logic
of history " comes perilously near it. Like Edmund in
King Lear, " he puts his own disposition to the credit of a
star." Does the phrase mean much more than this — that
Bismarck saw that German union could only be accom-
plished if the States of the South were mesmerised by war
and victory into acceptance of the dominion of Prussia ?
Certainly he never made the least attempt to discover
whether the " logic of history " were not capable of a peace-
ful interpretation.
The situation in France lent itself to Bismarck's schemes.
Napoleon's schemes did not prosper. His mind was losing,
partly perhaps through illness, its old alertness and elas-
ticity. The birth of the Prince Imperial made his parents
26 INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS i
cling more passionately to power, but had not really
strengthened the dynasty. Opposition showed itself and
was only partly quelled by the grant of more liberal in-
stitutions. A good war and a good victory suggested itself
as the one remedy, and if Napoleon did not approve he did
not actively oppose. The diplomatic exchanges that pre-
ceded the war cannot be examined ; but it is worth while
re-emphasising the fact that the desired war had nearly
failed to break out. If we misrepresent Bismarck here it
is at least his own fault. He has told us through half a
dozen channels that the Franco-German War would not
have come when it did and as it did if he had not forced
it upon the nation. In his Reminiscences (ii. p. 95) he has
told us how he believed peace inevitable in consequence
of the turn which had been taken by the negotiations with
France, and had decided in consequence to resign. Then
came a telegram from the King at Ems giving the account
of his interview with Benedetti, the French envoy, which
he believed to have ended peacefully and satisfactorily.
Bismarck read the telegram to Moltke and Roon, who were
dining with him ; it seemed to them to mean peace, and
" their dejection was so great that they turned away from
food and drink." Bismarck had been instructed to com-
municate the news to the press in whatever way he thought
best ; and he prepared a message which suggested, without
asserting, that Benedetti's interview with the King had been
a stormy one and had ended in a rupture. This version
was greeted by Moltke with the words, " Now it has a
different ring ; it sounded before like a parley, now it is like
a flourish in answer to a challenge." And Roon exclaimed,
" Our old God lives still and will not let us perish in dis-
grace." The message thus prepared was sent to the papers.
The inflammable feelings of Germany and of France blazed
i WAR AND PEACE SINCE 1815 27
up at its touch. The war came and produced the results that
Bismarck desired — victory and the union of Germany under
the leadership of Prussia. It is a far cry from the senti-
mental phrases of the Holy Alliance to the scene at Berlin ;
but Roon's morals and theology are no improvement on the
Czar Alexander's.
The moderation of 1866 found no place in the Treaty of
Frankfurt which marked the close of the Franco-German
War. Alsace and Lorraine were torn from France without
any consideration of the wishes of the inhabitants. A
huge war indemnity was to be paid and an army of occu-
pation was to be maintained until the money was forth-
coming. Such a settlement made any reconciliation between
France and Germany almost impossible. Nor did the
authorities of Germany desire a reconciliation. The per-
manent hostility of France has been a useful force for the
maintenance of the German constitution which, created
by war, has always seemed to exist for war, and would
certainly have become liable to fundamental change in an
atmosphere of settled peace.
•
4. HOPES AND FEARS SINCE 1871
After the Treaty of Frankfurt the land had rest for more
than forty years. From 1871 until July 1914 there was no
conflict among the Great Powers of Europe. That is a
remarkable fact. Western Europe has not been free from
war for so long since the end of the peaceful period of the
Roman Empire in the second century A.D.
When the history of those forty -three years comes to be
written they will doubtless be labelled with various titles.
From the point of view that we are considering they might
be called " The Great Disappointment " ; for those who
28 INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS i
loved peace and regarded it as the first necessity for the
progress of European civilisation began to think before the
end that the omens were favourable to their hopes, and
that, in spite of the many and great dangers, a few more
years might see some great thing done to bring the chief
States of the world together in permanent co-operation. It
may be well, while we can almost hear the guns in Flanders
and Poland and the Dardanelles, to review the grounds of
these vanished hopes.
There was the manifest need of peace. Despite the
enormous increase of wealth the problem of poverty was
urgent and seemed the one central problem of civilisation.
War would only intensify it, and could not solve any phase
of it, except for the passing moment. Assuming that reason
guides in the long run the actions of mankind, it seemed
incredible that Europe should plunge into that abyss in
which she now agonises.
Then there was the general increase in popular control
over the actions of the State, the democratic and labour
movement in its varying forms. Hatred of militarism was
a common feature of all these movements, however widely
they differed in other respects.
Further, the unity and solidarity of civilisation had
grown clearer and clearer. To the historian of progress it
was plain that Europe was a real unity which transcended
the particular nations ; and in England and France at any
rate it had become a commonplace to say that from the
point of view of culture national frontiers were almost
negligible. The great Germans of a past age had contri-
buted to this feeling. Goethe and Beethoven were on our
side. Music seemed the real universal language by which
what is best in each nation can hold communion without
any sense of separation.
i WAK AND PEACE SINCE 1815 29
Labour and capital — those unreconciled antagonists —
seemed each to contribute to the victory of the international
idea. Both spread their organisations over all civilised
countries irrespectively of language, race, or State. Mr.
Norman Angell's widely read pamphlet The Great Illusion
was interpreted as meaning that the economic interdepend-
ence of States was so great that war was henceforth nearly
an impossibility.
It seemed, too, to many of us (it is well to confess our
blindness, if indeed we were blind) that the heart of Europe
was turning to peace. France seemed to be forgetting her
dreams of revenge ; in England any statesman who dared
to speak of war as anything but a great evil would have had
to disappear from public life, and the individual voices who
spoke in praise of the " glorious game of war " were few
and seemed to be losing influence. The dangerous and war-
like temper of much German thought was known, though
not so well known as it now is ; but from individual Germans
and from important groups came manifestations of peaceful
aims which were certainly sincere.
These hopes were not the dreams of pacifists alone.
Mr. Alison Phillips ended his well-known Handbook of
Modern Europe (published in 1901) with an expression of
hope that the nations of Europe might, " in spite of count-
less jealousies and misunderstandings, grow in time to
realise their unity in all that constitutes a nation : in their
common origins, their common traditions, their common
interests."
In addition to these general tendencies efforts were made,
of a tentative kind, to give Europe principles and organisa-
tions on which she might base a peaceful existence. The
principle of " Balance of Power " is insufficient and often
dangerous to peace, but since the sixteenth century it has
30 INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS i
given Europe an ideal that has not been altogether without
value. And though the Great Powers have not tried again
the experiment that failed in the Holy Alliance and in the
Treaty of Chaumont, they have often come together to
consider the measures that should be taken to meet a
European crisis. It seemed possible that out of this vague
Concert of Europe there might be developed some more
permanent organisation for the guardianship of the peace
of Europe. Sir Edward Grey gave utterance to such a
hope just before the outbreak of the present war. Most
important and most hopeful of all was the establishment of
the Conference at the Hague on the initiative of the Czar in
1899, when the delegates of twenty-six States met together
to try to find the road to peace. The failure of the Hague
movement has been loudly proclaimed. Certainly it did
not reduce armaments ; too obviously it did not secure
peace ; but it provided a permanent machinery for arbitra-
tion, which has been extensively used. When the flood of
war recedes the Hague tribunal will assuredly be left stand-
ing, and it will probably form the centre and starting-point
of the efforts towards peace and internationalism in the
future.
On the other hand, the thunder-stroke of July 1914 only
appeared to come out of a clear sky to those who had not
been watching the clouds. The atmosphere had never been
peaceful since 1871.
There had been first the competition in armaments. For
this the Treaty of Frankfurt was chiefly responsible.
Bismarck, as we have seen, had made no effort to conciliate
France ; rather, and in this he represented the mind of
Germany, he aimed at her humiliation. Moreover, the war,
with its hurricane attack, had shown how terrible were the
dangers of unpreparedness, and that a war might be irre-
i WAK AND PEACE SINCE 1815 31
trievably lost in the first few days of it. So army bill
followed army bill ; universal military service was adopted
all over the Continent. Competition in navies followed later,
but became quite as serious. Some said, and perhaps
believed, that all this made for peace, that war had become
so terrible that it would not be waged. A popular politician
in England once affirmed that the conscience of mankind
had grown so sensitive that it would soon be as impossible
for a commander to give the order for torpedoing the enemy's
vessel as it would be for him to revert to cannibalism. It
is now clear that armaments are made to be used, and when
made are very likely to be used.
Then colonial rivalries came to increase resentments that
had their origins in Europe. Great Britain became in-
creasingly conscious of her colonial possessions, and the
sentiment of imperialism, though it struggled into life with
difficulty, became extremely strong and sometimes danger-
ous. France built up a great African colonial empire.
Germany was later in the field, but threw herself with
characteristic force and thoroughness into the task of
winning and organising colonies. There was much friction
between Russia and Great Britain on account of rival claims
in Asia. Africa seemed even more likely to prove the cause
of a great European conflict, but the difficulty was tem-
porarily overcome by the partition of Africa among the
European Powers, which was largely engineered by Lord
Salisbury. But colonial rivalries and the passion for
acquisition still remained. When Great Britain was engaged
in the Boer War the opinion of the civilised world was
ranged against her. That the danger passed without war
seemed to some to show that the European State system
was more stable than many had imagined. But it was not-
after all from this source that the great conflagration came.
32 INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS i
While the Great Powers of Europe were at peace, though
hardly peaceful, the Balkan Peninsula was the cause of
constant disquiet. Hopes founded on the possibility of
the Turks reforming themselves hardly survived the
Crimean War. Turkish rule in the Peninsula was what it
had always been, the military rule of an alien minority,
which made no effort to conciliate the subject populations.
The hopes of the non-Turkish and Christian populations
rose higher and gave rise to movements which proved in
the end successful. It would serve no good purpose here
to follow the course of Balkan history since 1871. There
was war there on three occasions before the outbreak of the
present conflict : in 1876-77, when a Russian army marching
to the assistance of the Bulgarians arrived at the gates of
Constantinople, only to be turned back from final victory by
the action of the British Government; in 1897, when a
frontier quarrel led to a war between Greece and Turkey,
which would have had more serious consequences for Greece
if it had not been for the intervention of Europe ; and
again two years ago (1913), when the Balkan League nearly
swept the Turks from Europe and then fell to pieces and civil
war in the hour of victory. There was some comfort for the
lovers of peace in these wars, in that the war was in each
instance kept from kindling a European conflagration. If
peace were prolonged it was thought that there would be
greater and greater unwillingness to disturb it, and the folly
of the expenditure on armaments that were never to be
used would at last be forced on the minds of statesmen.
Then came the thunderclap of 1914.
So of all mortals under heaven's wide cope
We were most hopeless that had once most hope,
And most beliefless who had most believed.
i WAE AND PEACE SINCE 1815 33
5. THE PAST AND THE FUTURE
We examined at the beginning of this paper the failure
of the Holy Alliance and the schemes for the Confederation
of Europe which followed the battle of Waterloo ; and we
saw that the failure of those schemes was largely to be
ascribed to the fact that the statesmen of Europe did not
realise that states grew, and that their social and political
structure inevitably changed with time. Can we see any
such general cause for the failure of the hope that grew
again after 1871 ? The attempt is at least worth making.
There are many who would ascribe it to the inherent
defects of human nature. A politician of the Elizabethan
age, in speaking of the conditioti of Ireland and the failure
of all the schemes (very bad schemes they were) for its
better government, summed up his opinion by saying, " The
true cause of the trouble is the Devil, who will not have Ire-
land to be reformed." A similar philosophy of despair has
been on the lips of many of us during the past year. " Man,"
it has been said, " is not good enough to make the best of.
Neither head nor heart is sound. He cannot will peace
steadily, and when he wills it cannot pursue it by the right
methods." The States of Europe seem then doomed to the
fate of the great crowd of sinners in the Fourth Circle of
Dante's Inferno, who perpetually roll great weights along
with all the force of their bodies, until they strike against
others, who half-blindly are pushing similar weights, when,
after a savage altercation they turn round, soon to strike
against other opponents, and so suffer eternally in meaning-
less and profitless effort and conflict.
Such pessimism is not reasonable even in this dark hour.
The catastrophe indeed has no parallel in history since the
barbarians of the north trampled down the civilisation of
34 INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS i
the Roman Empire ; but even so the forces that were
drawing Europe together will not cease to work. The in-
tellectual and moral unity of Europe remains a fact. Hope
is a duty, but it must also find something tangible to which
it may cling, and such support is not wanting. All history
may be interpreted as an effort after unity and peaceful
intercourse among men. Nor need we be discouraged by
the fact that from the beginning of recorded history efforts
to secure unity and peace have ended in failure. For
though no complete or final victory has been gained, a real
advance has been made. And the persistent and recurrent
efforts even in the darkest periods may be regarded as the
best prophecy of victory. After the War all opinions and
all organisations will be revised in the light of the test
afforded by this crisis. And to the writer of this chapter one
thing seems clear. The problem of international organisa-
tion will have to be resolutely faced. The independent
and self -determining State has many attractions and many
advantages ; but we see where it leads us. The spon-
taneous trend towards human unity is real and strong,
but it has to be supplemented by conscious effort, and it must
find support and expression in permanent organisations.
The organisation and development of the State has been
attended with loss as well as gain to the individuals and
groups contained within it ; but the gain has enormously
outweighed the loss. What has been lost in independence
and egotistic self-consciousness has been repaid over and
over again in order, peace, and the sense of belonging to a
great whole. The State and the nation would similarly gain
enormously by recognising their subordination to Europe,
or even to a human unity greater than Europe, and by
allowing nationalist and imperialist aims to be modified
and overruled by the claims of humanity. The first and
i WAK AND PEACE SINCE 1815 35
immediate enemy is that doctrine, specially represented
by Germany, but lurking really in the minds of many who
denounce the doctrine of Treitschke and Machiavelli, that
the State is an end in itself, that private morality cannot or
ought not to be brought into connection with public morality,
and that nothing can be imagined higher than the State.
But even when that form of madness has given way to a
higher and saner view of history and society, there can be
no guarantee of international peace except by international
institutions. It is easy to say that they have often been
tried and they have always failed. Their success has been
temporary and limited, but we look back now with better
appreciation to the Catholic Church of the Middle Ages,
and to the Holy Eoman Empire, as to great and noble efforts
in the right direction. The dreams of Henry of Navarre,
of Leibnitz, of Saint Pierre were Utopian. But we may take
courage from the War which has realised so many scientific
nightmares to believe that dreams may also come true in
the domain of political and social organisation. It is the
great sin of Germany that she has made all international
organisation so much more difficult than it seemed some
years ago. But the effort must begin again with a clearer
realisation of the goal we are aiming at : Europe must be
provided not merely with a permanent court for arbitration,
good as that is, and capable of indefinite expansion. In
whatever form there must be a European directorate.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
A bibliography of this chapter is not really possible, for it touches
on the whole century since the battle of Waterloo. I have expressed
my debt for the first pages to Alison Phillips, Confederation of Europe,
A Study of the European Alliance 1815-1823. Of the many histories
of the nineteenth century I should like specially to recommend
36 INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS
C. A. Fyffe's Modern Europe (Cassell, 10s. 6d.) and W. Alison Phillips's
Modern Europe (Rivington, 6s.), the first distinguished by great vigour
and clearness of exposition and by warm sympathy with liberal and
humane movements: the second full, accurate, and impartial. J. A. R.
Marriott's Remaking of Modern Europe, 1789-1878 (Methucn, 2s. 6d.)
is short, but clear and stimulating. For the study of the political
development of the European states, C. Seignobos, Political History
of Contemporary Europe (Heinemann, 6s.) is essential; but in it
political change is isolated from all the forces that have influenced it,
from industry, thought, and even from war. The Cambridge Modern
History, vols. x., xi., and xii., is a useful work of reference.
For Bismarck, who dominates the diplomacy of the century, we
have the excellent biography of J. W. Headlam (Putnam, 6s.); but
Bismarck's own Reflections and Recollections is a book essential to any
criticism of his policy. For Cavour and Italy, Bolton King's History
of Italian Unity (Nisbet, 24s.) and Stillman, Union of Italy (Cam-
bridge, 4s. 6d.), are of great use. Cavour's own Letters (untranslated)
are the great mine of information. Books on modern France in
English are curiously few. The chapters in Jarvis's Studentf' France
(Murray, 7s. 6d. ) are useful : also Lebon's Modern France (Unwin, 5s.) :
chapters in the Cambridge Modern History and an Essay of Lord
Acton's in Historical Essays and Studies the " Causes of the War of
1870." The Bibliography published by the Council for the Study of
International Relations (The Causes of the War : What to Read (6d.))
is of great value for the purposes of this chapter.
II
THE CAUSES OF MODERN WARS
1. THE IDEAL OF A " STATIC " WOULD
MANY philosophers, both kindly and cynical, have been
impressed by the degree to which men are influenced by the
words they use. Thought and language are inextricably
linked together, and the word which should be the expres-
sion of the thought is often its master. Thus the word
" Foreign " has done much to diminish both the interest
which British people should have felt in the conduct of
their country towards other countries and their sense of
responsibility for that conduct. " Foreign policy " sounded
something which had to do with other states, something
unknown and more or less unknowable as far as ordinary
folk were concerned ; it was the sphere of the aristocratic
or bureaucratic diplomatist, or at best of the Parliamentary
or journalistic specialist. It was full of problems that
could not be even understood without some knowledge of
foreign geography, foreign history, and, to some extent,
foreign languages. Even with such an equipment the
inquiry might be baffled by the secrecy of diplomatic
methods. There might be treaties on which the peace of
the world depended, and yet they remained secret. To
this day the full terms of the Triple Alliance have not been
37
38 INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS n
made public . In a word the whole thing was " Continental , ' '
not British ; and British people were inclined to pass it by
and to absorb themselves in political or social questions
with which they were familiar. The very fact that of recent
years an effort, on the whole successful, had been made to
keep foreign affairs out of party politics, whilst it is, perhaps,
the severest judgment that could be passed on the Party
System, has tended to deepen the prevailing ignorance.
It may be argued that frank ignorance is better than the
kind of knowledge which is derived from a general election.
Still the ignorance was there, and with it perhaps even more
dislike and suspicion. Men, for instance, who were devoted
to the social and economic problems amid which they lived,
and which they could see and touch, grew impatient of
far-away questions which appeared to lie at the mercy of
diplomatists, men whom they profoundly distrusted ; and
their impatience was not lessened when politicians with
whom they disagreed intruded, as they would put it, into
home politics arguments derived from our foreign relations.
The war was a rude awakening. No man can now
afford to neglect foreign politics. They have come terribly
home to all of us, and there can be little doubt about the
immediate task. Yet when the men who have all through
distrusted diplomacy and all its methods begin to inquire
into the past and to think of the future, they often ask
themselves if a more democratic system might not simplify
foreign relations almost beyond recognition. They know
that they themselves, in the past, wished nothing but good
to other peoples, and they cannot conceive that, under
normal conditions, the people in other states should wish
them any harm. If only the intrigues of ambitious govern-
ments and the greed of bondholders could be controlled,
and if countries could be kept clear of entanglements and
n THE CAUSES OF MODERN WARS 39
alliances, secret or avowed, international relations could
be established on a permanent basis of non-intervention.
Peace is so obviously the interest of a people that it is
unbelievable that any should want to go to war. War
must come from smaller bodies within a nation who may
expect some profit from it. If Governments were really
representative of the people and controlled by them, states
would soon settle down into a static condition in which each
respected the independence of the others. This principle
and practice of non-interference would not prevent all
possible disputes ; there are still, for one thing, debatable
lands, but it would solve the great majority of international
questions, those, especially, which stir men's blood and
awake national antagonisms. Other questions could be
left to Hague Courts or arbitration. Treaties and alliances,
with all their provocative tendencies, would be unnecessary ;
nations would not have to place themselves in one or other
of rival groups, and the ghastly competition in armies and
armaments would Cease. Isolation of this kind would not
separate nations. On the contrary it would form the only
secure basis on which to establish a union of peoples.
Commercial and other dealings and every form of neigh-
bourly office would develop, and something might be done
to fill up the chasms which have been dug between the
nationalities of the world. Such a state of affairs reads
like a dream, an impossible millennium ; yet it seems to
require for its realisation merely a democratic control of
foreign policy, and then little more than the negative
virtue of non-interference, of minding one's own business ;
a virtue which seems easy enough to men who have never
had the least wish to interfere with any foreign nation.
Let it be said at once that this conception of a static
relation between nations was the foundation on which the
40 INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS n
traditional system of International Law was built up.
That system, as we find it elaborated three centuries ago
in the great legal treatise of Hugo Grotius, was accepted
as an ideal, however flagrantly it may have been violated
in practice, till the middle of the last century. It treated
States as corporate persons ; they were all, great or small,
equal in rights ; they were all independent ; only special
treaty-rights would justify one State in interfering with the
internal affairs or the independence of another. This
doctrine still remains for most men the cardinal principle
of international morals, but it has been obscured and
complicated by the principle of Nationality according to
which the rights of the " nation," often an uncertain
quantity, over-ride those of the " State," a determinate
political unit. But though there will always be difficulties
of interpretation and difficulties in applying principles to
practice, the essential point is the conviction that the
moral law is binding on men whether they act singly or
whether they act in masses, that there is a right and a
wrong in State action, and that in all cases the action of
the State should be capable of justification on some general
principle. This is the foundation of all International Law,
that is not merely a matter of convenience, and it is this
which gives a dignity to that static community of States
referred to above. The best reason for not interfering with
your neighbour is respect for his rights and his independence.
Common sense, therefore, law and morals appear for once
to agree.
Yet in spite of all that can be said in favour of the
apparently simple policy of non-intervention it is, as a
matter of fact, so pathetically far from the present reality
that it seems almost childish to discuss it. Nor indeed
can this grim contrast between the real and the ideal be
ii THE CAUSES OF MODEKN WAKS 41
explained by saying that in each country the popular wish
for peace and goodwill has not been able to express itself in
the action of the Government. The solution is not so simple.
To begin with it is not at all certain that absolute stability
in the relations between States is in itself desirable. This
world is not a " static " world. Our apparent state of rest
is often but the resultant of conflicting forces. However
much sanctity we may allow to the claims of stability and
tradition, we must also make provision for change, for new
conditions. There may be a danger of what Lord Acton
called " the tyranny of the dead over the living." We can
see now that it would have been absurd to stereotype the
territorial divisions of the Europe of the Congress of Vienna
in 1815, and to our descendants the Europe of 1913 will
doubtless look equally capable of improvement. Again
the doctrine of non-intervention has its limitations. It is
probably the safest of all the general principles regulating
the relations between States, and yet, as we shall see, when-
ever there has been some big movement afoot, whenever
ideas, things of the spirit, have exercised more than common
influence over men's actions, these material frontiers of
States have been but flimsy barriers, and the bonds of a
common faith or a common enthusiasm have proved
stronger than political ties. Such movements may have
been often enough revolutionary, arrogant, contemptuous
of the rights of others, but not always. They have also
been the result of good will towards the oppressed, for
there is occasion sometimes, though perhaps rarely, for
national knight-errantry.
Even were we to agree that the static system is always
and altogether desirable, it is certainly not likely to survive
for long by the mere good will of the countries composing
it. A dynamic force is certain to break into the static
42 INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS u
calm, a force which comes from human will, from a country
that for some reason or other is discontented with the
status quo. There have at all times been countries with
unsatisfied desires, countries with appetites or ideals for
which they were prepared to fight. Let it be admitted
that in some cases these are the appetites of a government
or a governing class, and that with a more democratic
constitution they would be kept under control ; still it will
be long before all the great states of Europe have demo-
cratic governments, and it would be folly to attempt to
construct an ideal Europe on the supposition that demo-
cracies are to prevail universally. It is much more
important, however, to notice that as a rule wars have been
" popular," that the dynamic force has come, if not from
the whole nation, at least from an active and widespread
minority, without protest from the rest ; and this, after
all, is what is usually meant by a " national " movement.
Look into all the great movements of history whether
religious, political, or national, and you will find that they
are the acts of minorities. The majority is, perhaps neces-
sarily, passive, though it may be consenting. It is then
the object of this chapter to point out the dynamic forces
that have produced wars during the recent history of
Europe ; not that it is possible to draw exact conclusions
from a summary historical survey, but because it is our
only means of getting to understand how nations act,
what motives are apt to influence them. We get to know
our fellow-men by the experience we have of ourselves
and of those around us. It is not necessary to study history
in order to know men, though history may often show us
unexpected sides of human character. In dealing with
nations, however, the scale is so much greater that we have
to take a wider sweep, to cover a longer time as well as
n THE CAUSES OF MODERN WARS 43
a greater space ; and, indeed, unless we are somewhat
withdrawn from the events we cannot rightly judge them.
2. WARS OF CONQUEST
There is something antique and barbarous about the
very name, " Wars of Conquest." It suggests at once —
old, unhappy, far-off things
And battles long ago,
and the frankest conquerors are the famous men of the
East and of antiquity, men as different from one another as
Alexander and Attila, but with this in common that they
made no pretence at disguising what we might almost call
their " cosmic " appetites under any of the specious phrases
which have been common in later ages. Yet even these
classic conquerors, though they appear to be inspired merely
by love of power, of territory, or of spoil, have often enough
been the expression of some national movement or some
racial passion. They did not drag after them to victory
an unwilling people. The passions which blazed in Attila
must have burnt more moderately in the poorest Hun
camp-follower. Who can tell what obscure stirrings among
the tribes of Central Asia, or even farther East amongst the
herdsmen of Tartary, may not have started on their careers
of bloodshed . and conquest a Genghis Khan or a Timur ?
There have been conquering nations as well as individual
conquerors. The Northmen, those accomplished ninth-
century artists of destruction, threw themselves spon-
taneously on the doomed Carolingian empire ; and the
impulse that scattered the Englishmen of Elizabeth's day
over the high seas of the world was as national and as
popular as any movement for constitutional reform or social
improvement. Napoleon, of conquerors one of the most
44 INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS n
selfish, though probably less so than in his cynical moments
he professed to be, Napoleon would have been impossible
without the Revolution. The story of his victories is
incomprehensible unless we realise that the soldier of the
Grand Army, even while he was treading down the peoples
of Europe, still looked on himself as a kind of missionary
of Reason among foolishly unreasonable men, not as a
conquering Frenchman among vanquished foreigners.
The spirit that inspired him was mainly revolutionary, not
patriotic, and hence it was long before it inspired a counter
patriotic spirit in his German or Italian victims.
In modern times wars of conquest do not wear the frank
and open, if brutal, faces they wore of old. They are half
concealed under such phrases as " economic necessity,"
" natural " or " military frontiers," " racial " or " religious
sympathies," " national aspirations." No doubt these
phrases do represent claims which have to be taken into
account. The motives of men are complicated and various ;
still more various are the motives of nations, and it would
be absurd to write down as hypocrites the people who
appeal to these motives of action. It is, however, most
important that we should be on our guard against the old
freebooting instincts, the love of power and territory and
wealth. These forms of political appetite do not become
more respectable by being transferred from an eighteenth-
century monarch to a nineteenth- or twentieth-century
nation, but they may become more difficult to detect. It
might, therefore, be an aid to clearness of thought to inquire
how far recent wars can be classed under the heading of
Wars of Conquest.
The plea of geographical necessity, or geographical
" right " has often been used to justify wars of aggression.
The most classic instance is the conviction, so often current
ii THE CAUSES OF MODEEN WAES 45
in France, that the Khine is the " natural frontier " of the
country. " It is an idea based on the totally false assump-
tion that a great river is a good frontier. Even if that
assumption were correct it is hard to see how a war with
such an object can be anything other than a war of conquest.
The " Rhine frontier " cry was, therefore, both bad Inter-
national Law and bad geography, yet it has at times found
great favour in France among all classes and parties, from
Louis XIV. to the leaders and rank and file of the Revolu-
tion. A much better geographical plea can be made for an
inland country which is anxious to secure a port on the
open sea. It is very natural that a country like Russia
should wish to command the " gates of her house," the
Bosphorus and the Dardanelles ; it is still more natural
that Austria should not wish to be cut off from the Adriatic
by the loss of Trieste. But a desire, however strong, does
not make a " right." In the eighteenth century the Kings
of Prussia were very anxious to bind their scattered pro-
vinces together into a continuous state ; in order to do so
they had to annex a part of Poland. This Prussian " geo-
graphical necessity " hardly justifies the First Partition
of Poland. A " geographical " war, then, would seem to
be a war of conquest, at least in so far as it is no more than
geographical. In practice there will be other motives
involved, and the long-standing hostility of Russia to
Turkey is a good illustration of the manner in which different
sections of a population may act from different motives.
Since Waterloo Russia has on three different occasions
made war on Turkey. The Government, the official class,
and probably all the upper classes, were influenced mainly
by the wish ultimately to secure Constantinople and the
commanding position which that conquest would give
Russia in the East. To the Russian people the Turkish
46 INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS 11
War was almost a crusade, a religious war, a part of the
struggle between the Cross and the Crescent. In more
recent times sympathy with the Christian population of
Turkey has influenced the minds of the educated classes,
though this motive was probably combined with the wish
to extend the power of Russia.
To qualify the Russian acquisitions from Turkey as
wars of conquest, and yet to say nothing of the enormous
and apparently continuous extension of the British Empire
in the East will be thought, perhaps, a gross piece of pro-
verbial British hypocrisy. To many of our foreign critics,
and to some even of our foreign friends, the growth of our
Indian Empire is a standard example of a policy of conquest
deliberately planned, untiringly and successfully carried
out. To India we have now added Egypt, where we have
come as the successors to many previous conquerors,
Persian, Macedonian, or Arab, and with as little right as
they. The results of our national policy are writ large on
the face of the globe, our critics will say, what can be gained
by a wearisome scrutiny of the process by which the Empire
has been won ? Yet those who have taken the trouble
to scrutinise have generally come to a different conclusion.
Some of these are explained in another chapter where the
relations between " advanced " and " backward " races are
discussed.
No one would attempt to defend all that the Company
or the English Government have done in India. There have
been at times high-handed action and a disregard of the
rights and customs of the people, but rarely indeed has
there been a policy of conquest. In Egypt again it is easy
to find fault with what we have done. There was at one
time, for instance, too much anxiety about the interests of
bondholders both English and French, yet there as else-
ii THE CAUSES OF MODERN WAES 47
where European administration has been introduced largely
in order to protect the country from the hopeless confusion
which resulted from the haphazard introduction of the
European credit system and of Levantine officials into an
Oriental country. Perhaps ultimate European control was
inevitable once the doors were thrown open as wide as they
were in the middle of the nineteenth century, to European
capital. The hunger of the Khedive Ismail for loans was
at first only surpassed by the anxiety of the European
capitalists to lend. By his efforts to develop the country on
Western lines and by the digging of the Suez Canal, he placed
Egypt in that dangerous borderland between East and West,
and the problems of finance and administration became more
and more difficult. British policy in the Nile Valley during
the 'seventies and 'eighties is open to a number of criticisms,
but nothing could be more unlike a deliberate scheme to
get possession of the country. Never was there a policy
so unforeseeing. The English Ministers seemed to stumble
blindly after the events. What they expected to be a
peaceful " Demonstration " at Alexandria turned into a
bombardment ; this necessitated a landing to protect
the town. The landing resulted in an Expedition and a
regular campaign. Victory led to what was certainly
intended to be a brief occupation, and the brief occupation
passed into an indefinite one. Finally a Protectorate has
recently succeeded the " occupation." None of these
stages seem to have been foreseen by the Government at
home ; each was brought about by events over which it
had no control, but which might in most instances have
been expected. If a study of Egyptian history absolves the
English government of any Machiavellian policy it is at
the expense of its intelligence ; and it is a striking contrast
to turn from the tentative, disconnected policy of the
48 INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS n
English Government, to that firm yet sympathetic adminis-
trative work which has transformed Egypt.
It is interesting to compare the long meanderings of the
Egyptian question with the rapid action of Italy in Tripoli.
The Turks, realising no doubt the difficulties of an Oriental
Government in a country where East mingles with West,
endeavoured to keep Tripoli a purely Oriental province,
even though that meant sacrificing its economic develop-
ment. This did not, however, protect them from the very
deliberate attack of Italy, and it is difficult to see in the
" Lybian War " anything but a simple War of Conquest.
The Italians, indeed, hardly troubled to dispute this, though
they gave as their excuse " economic necessity," the want,
that is to say, of a country in which the surplus population
of Southern Italy may find a home. Should Tripoli turn
out to be a country of great possibilities, smothered hitherto
by bad government, it may be possible to find some justifica-
tion for the Italian attack, though " the duty of develop-
ment " is one of the most difficult problems of International
Law. In any case the invasion of Tripoli was thoroughly
popular in Italy. It was in a sense forced on a hesitating
Government by a fairly widespread agitation, and was
taken up enthusiastically in all classes of the nation.
No war of recent history has for us anything like the
poignant interest of the Franco -German War of 1870.
Though it was fought nearly half a century ago it appears
to us now almost as the Prologue to the great tragic drama
which is being enacted on a stage so vast that, as far as
Europe is concerned, there is little room left for the few
anxious spectators. How is that war to be judged ? Was
it a war for power or principle ? It is essential that some
answer to this insistent question should be attempted.
We know now the inner history of the events which led
ii THE CAUSES OF MODERN WARS 49
up to the actual outbreak of hostilities, and over those
tragic days looms the giant and sinister figure of Bismarck.
He alone had a clear vision of the events that were happen-
ing. Compared to him the other actors are like men
shouting and fighting in a mist. In a moment of self-
revelation Napoleon III. once said to Bismarck, " We must
not make events, we must let them come." That was not
Bismarck's habit. His was a more Satanic temper. He
not only contrived the snare into which the French Emperor
and nation fell ; at the last moment he pushed his victims
in. He must bear, therefore, the greater part of the blame.
Yet even a Bismarck could not set two great nations at
war about a Hohenzollern candidature which had been
abandoned unless he had the help of accomplices ; and
unfortunately he had the help of many.
On the one hand, there were many Frenchmen, and they
were to be found in all political parties, who regretted the
predominance which Prussia had secured by the defeat of
Austria in 1866, and who saw in the growing consolidation
of Northern Germany a menace to France. There were
others who thought that the predominance of Prussia
should be " compensated " by a territorial addition to
France, and amongst them unfortunately was the Emperor,
Napoleon III. On several occasions during the interval
between 1866 and 1870, Napoleon ha'd endeavoured to
secure such compensation. Now it was a piece of German
territory on the left bank of the Rhine, now it was Belgium,
now Luxemburg. These efforts had fortunately failed,
and with the advent of a constitutional Government at the
beginning of 1870, they seem to have been given up for good;
but they had naturally contributed to encourage in Germany
the conviction that France had taken up the arrogant posi-
tion that nothing could happen in Europe without her leave,
50 INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS n
and that she would not allow Germany to become a united
country without her intervention. Though Napoleon III.'s
" compensation " policy had come to an end, it was still
very recent, and among the French there was a sensitive-
ness and a military self-confidence which Bismarck was
able to excite to a fever-heat by secretly pushing on the
Hohenzollern marriage scheme. Such, indeed, was the
state of excitement in Paris that even well-informed
neutrals thought that the French were responsible for the
war. But Bismarck had also got his accomplices nearer
home. There were Germans who had been educated in
the later developments of the Nationality doctrine, and
who conceived that ethnography gave them a " right " to
force Alsace back into the German nation ; there were others
who nourished a bitter, historic anger, who hungered to
avenge the ancient spoliations of the French, the ravages
of Louvois, the invasions of Napoleon. Most of all there
were the men of Bismarck's own temper, the military chiefs
who had from the first seen in a war with France the in-
evitable sequel of the Austrian war as the only way of
giving to Prussia the control of Germany, and to Germany
a commanding position in Europe. War, in the bad
philosophy of these men, was not a contingency which
might have to be faced, not the tragic but sole-remaining
defence of the cause of justice and their own independence ;
it was to them a national weapon as legitimate as industrial
enterprise or commercial expansion, and far more honour-
able. They prepared for it, therefore, with a cold intensity
of conviction which made the future contest in all its
details almost more real to their minds than the preliminary
period of preparation. Yet Bismarck and his allies were not
Germany. It was only through the most elaborate use of
the press, and by taking advantage of the folly of the French,
n THE CAUSES OF MODERN WARS 51
that he was able to bring about the final catastrophe.
It is hard, therefore, to classify the war of 1870. There
was a good deal of the spirit of conquest about it. Many
Germans coveted French provinces, and the old fatal
fascination of the Rhine frontier had not lost all its power
over the French. But it was a war for power rather than
for territory, and the men who set the snare must bear
more of the blame than those who rushed blindly in.
Neither side had any real sense of the gravity and dignity
of war. Neither French nor Germans saw in it an act of
justice ; neither attempted to formulate a plea founded on
the general principles which should direct human conduct.
Indeed, any sober consideration of the point on which the
peace of the world was hanging, a Spanish marriage which
had never taken place, should have been followed by a
burst of Homeric laughter. Unfortunately neither sobriety
nor humour was to be found on either side. Both east and
west of the Rhine there was passion : on the west it was
blind, incoherent, mutable ; on the east, behind the popular
passion there were hands that guided and eyes that saw.
This rapid survey of the motives behind some recent wars
seems to show that the spirit of conquest is far from dead
in the modern world. It may not appear in the dramatic
shape of an Alexander or a Napoleon, but it is there just
as surely though in company with other spirits of a more
respectable character, or at least of a better reputation —
the spirit of Nationality, for instance. The wish for terri-
tory, the wish for power, the wish for the means of wealth :
it will be long before they are exorcised from the minds of
men ; and when they reach a certain degree of intensity
they break through all frontiers. Nor do they appear to
be confined to governments and bureaucracies, or to the
small cliques who may expect to make a direct profit out
52 INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS n
of war. In the eighteenth century it was much easier for
the interests or ambitions of princes and peoples to be
distinct, but in the nineteenth century, with the growth of
unified states, the spread of democratic ideas and the great
increase in the power of the press, wars have become far
more national. The initiative may have come from the
governments, but they have often had as little difficulty as
Alexander in getting their people to follow. There was one
occasion in our own history, it was in 1857, when the House
of Commons revolted against a government on account of
one of the most unjustifiable of our little nineteenth century
wars, but Lord Palmerston was brought back triumphantly
by a general election within a month. Nor can it be said
that the present war, with all that led up to it and all its
ramifications in the south of Europe, is a very hopeful sign
for the future. It will be long before national aspirations
and national antagonisms are guided solely by principle.
Nationalities have proved as self-assertive and as acquisitive
as the old kings, and in drawing practical conclusions it
would be sheer folly to assume that wars of conquest are
entirely things of the past.
3. WARS OF PRINCIPLE
Throughout history, as far as we know it, men have been
prepared to sacrifice the comforts of peace and life itself for
an " idea." By this is meant something more than the
mere interests of their own country. An isolated robber
fights for his own interest ; the member of a robber band
fights for the band, but his own personal advantage is very
closely bound up with it. The larger the society to which
a man belongs, the less selfish does his action on its behalf
become. But unselfishness is not enough to justify an act.
ii THE CAUSES OF MODEEN WAES 53
There is a lightness or a wrongness in the acts themselves,
and if a society is engaged in doing something unjust, the
individual member of it, though in a low sense of the word
he is acting " patriotically," cannot be said to be acting
on principle. " Patriotism is not enough." If it were,
each side in every war would be in the " right," the
word right would in fact lose its meaning, and war would
be removed from the moral order altogether and reduced
to the level of a fight between packs of highly intelligent
wolves. Principle must, therefore, be something of universal
application, some standard by which both sides can be
judged, some form of the moral law. Of such principles
the most simple is the right of self-defence. One country
may clearly defend itself from the unprovoked attack of
another : both the conscience and the romance of the human
race have glorified a death in defence of hearth and home.
It may happen, on the other hand, that sufficient provoca-
tion has been given to justify the aggressor, and it is the
high duty of International Law to lay down, as far as pos-
sible, the general principles which would justify a state in
beginning a war : a duty difficult to carry out, but the
most vital to the wellbeing of the world. Assuming, how-
ever, that there has been no real provocation, the country
that defends itself is fighting not only for its own independ-
ence but also to prevent the triumph of brute force amongst
the members of the community of states, and it would be
difficult to find a nobler cause.
The phrase " Wars of Principle " is generally used, how-
ever, in a different sense : it is used to signify a war for a
cause which is not merely that of a country. The Crusades
are a proverbial type of such a war. From the point of
view of Christendom as a whole they were wars of self-
defence, but the Turks did not threaten the west of Europe,
54 INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS n
and, though the motives of individual Crusaders were as
varied as their characters, the general cause, that of recover-
ing or protecting from the Moslem the Holy Places sanctified
by the life and death of Our Lord, had about it no spark
of personal or national selfishness. The Wars of Religion
of the sixteenth century were in another sense Wars of
Principle. Religious and political motives were intermingled
to a degree, which is the despair of the historian who
attempts to disentangle the threads, yet in the main they
were the work of men who believed that they should sacrifice
political loyalty to religion. In nearly every country in
Europe there was a minority, usually, though not always,
persecuted, which claimed the right to rebel and even to
call in foreign assistance. Thus for a brief period the
French Huguenots entered into an alliance with England
and even handed over Havre to Queen Elizabeth. These
wars were often enough disgraced by great ferocity, by per-
secutions, massacres and assassinations. The strength of
religion in good men is the measure of the bitterness it can
cause and the evil it can do when perverted into fanaticism.
For all their cruelty, however, there is an undeniable dignity
about the War of Religion which Wars of Conquest, or for
economic advantages, can hardly claim. They were also,
like the Crusades, intensely democratic. It is amongst the
rank and file of an army that the religious motive will, as
a rule, be most unalloyed. A good example is our own
Civil War, for, on one side at least, it was a war of religion.
The opposition to Charles I. was constitutional in form but
its heart was religious. It was religion which turned opposi-
tion into rebellion, and it was religion too which was the
soul of Cromwell's wonderful Puritan army.
The Great Rebellion was the last of the Wars of Religion.
On the Continent they had already changed into political
ii THE CAUSES OF MODEEN WARS 55
wars, wars of conquest or partition, and such remained the
character of European hostilities down to the French
Revolution. There was not much of the Crusader
about Louis XIV. or Frederick the Great. With the
Revolution, however, we get a new chapter in the history
of enthusiasm. English constitutional movements have
generally been caused by specific grievances and directed to-
wards definite reforms, such, for instance, as the extension of
the franchise. They have not been statements of general
principle. They have been attempts to solve our own
particular problems ; and with us periods of constitutional
crisis have nearly always been periods of self-absorption
and isolation from continental questions. That is not the
way of the French, a people whose peculiar mission it is to
express the ideas that at any given time are floating about
in the world. With them constitutional movements
become transformed into spiritual forces, into doctrines
with a universal appeal. Thus, since the days of Burke
it has been a commonplace to compare the French Revolu-
tion to a religious movement. It was the enthusiastic
assertion of a number of ideas and doctrines for which it is
impossible to find a simple formula, but the most important
of which was the principle of equality. In the first generous
outburst of optimism Frenchmen thought that the Revolu-
tion would inaugurate a period of universal peace ; but in-
stead of peace it proved to be a sword. The Revolution was
soon to have its fanatics as Religion had had. Indeed the
Jacobin is perhaps the most accomplished type of the
fanatic, the hard man in whom pride has dried up the springs
of human kindness, who is incapable of seeing men as they
really are and to whom all opposition is wickedness which
should be hated and punished. The development of
Revolutionary fanaticism and the undoubted provocations
56 INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS n
of Prussia and Austria produced the Revolutionary War.
It was not to be expected that the Terror, so pitiless at
home, would be tolerant abroad, and inoffensive nations,
like the Dutch or the Swiss, found in Revolutionary France
a more arrogant neighbour than ever the Bourbon kings had
been. It is impossible to draw a hard and fast line between
the wars of the Revolution and those of Napoleon. The
Emperor did but carry out with far greater efficiency and
success the policy inaugurated by the Republic, and, how-
ever selfish his own motives may have been, the spirit that
inspired the Frenchmen who fought and died for him in the
rough places of Spain or the snows of Russia was Revolu-
tionary and cosmopolitan, not national. To be propa-
gandist, aggressive, military long remained a characteristic
of French constitutional movements, and both in 1830 and
1848 it was with some difficulty that the extremists could
be prevented from throwing themselves on Germany and
inaugurating a new Revolutionary war. Even during the
Franco-German War of 1870-71, there were men who thought
that the country could be saved at the last moment by a
return to the methods of 1793, but they had the great
mass and the renewed seriousness of the country against
them, and to-day nothing can be further removed from
Revolutionary fanaticism or frenzy than the quiet and
impressive courage with which the French people have met
the invader.
Though the Revolutionary fire was still smouldering one
principle of international action came by degrees in the
nineteenth century to dominate all others, the Principle of
Nationality ; and with it most of the wars of the century
have at least been connected. To write its history would
mean writing the history of Europe since the fall of the
Roman Empire, but in its modern form the Principle of
n THE CAUSES OF MODERN WARS 57
Nationality was born with the partition of Poland.
" Thenceforward," in Lord Acton's words, " there was a
nation demanding to be united in a State — a soul, as it were,
wandering in search of a body in which to begin life over
again," and it is amongst the Poles that the cause of
Nationality has been sanctified by the purest and most
passionate self-sacrifice. The French Revolution nourished
the Principle first of all by dissolving the identity which the
Reformation period had established between the Sovereign
and the State, and secondly by arousing, mostly when it was
in its Napoleonic stage, the national spirit of the countries
it oppressed : to quote Lord Acton again : " Napoleon
called a new power into existence by attacking nationality
in Russia, by delivering it in Italy, by governing in defiance
of it Germany and Spain." The War of Liberation against
Napoleon was an outburst of national feeling. In its earlier
and simpler forms, then, the Principle of Nationality is
hardly to be distinguished from the right of self-defence,
but in time it began to make new claims less easy to reconcile
with the accepted principles of the Law of Nations. It was
urged that a population which had through race, language
or past history an identity of its own, had a right to an
independent political existence, and this whether it was
oppressed or not, and in spite of traditional allegiances or
the terms of treaties. Thus the Greeks rebelled against the
Turks more from a consciousness of their own strength than
from any violence of oppression. Though the Belgians
had many grievances against the Dutch Government that
had been set over them, Belgian independence was really
due to the fact that the country had a national identity
which had a right to be recognised politically. The Austrian
rule in Lombardy was over a century old, and the Austrian
provinces were probably the best administered in Italy
58 INTEKNATIONAL RELATIONS n
before 1848, but that did not prevent a widespread feeling
that the foreigners should be driven out.
A further stage was reached when to the idea of inde-
pendence was added that of unity. It seemed, indeed,
natural that people of the same " nationality " should be
formed into one united state, and the stories of Italian and
German unity are the most characteristic features in the
annals of the nineteenth century. Yet there was an un-
fortunate ambiguity about the term " Nationality." To
some the most essential of the elements which go to make up
a " nation " was the enduring will of the people to have an
independent and united political existence. Race, language,
religion, traditions, these were important only in so far as
they helped to produce the common will. When we are
dealing with intelligent and free human beings their will is
what matters, and " nationality " must be the expression
of that will. Thus Alsace did not belong to the German
nationality in 1870, because in spite of race and language
the Alsatians willed determinedly to remain French. To
others the claims of race and language seemed so command-
ing that they were prepared to override the will of a minority
which should attempt to hold out against them. The
Italian patriots put the cause of Italian unity above the
long-established rights of the hitherto independent Italian
states, and the German extremists were ready to bring
Alsace by force into Germany. Thus the Principle of
Nationality was in a sense a new gospel with new ideas of
right and wrong in national affairs, and it is not surprising
that to the conservatives of the day it should seem a revolu-
tionary force and the cause of wars which were partially
wars of opinion. The war of 1859, in which France defeated
Austria, drove her out of Lombardy, and broke her power in
Italy, is the war which is most directly derived from the
n THE CAUSES OF MODEEN WAES 59
Principle, but the Danish war of 1864, the Prusso-Austrian
War of 1866, and the Franco-German War of 1870 are all
connected with the Nationality problem. They were stages
in the construction of German unity.
Nationality continues to exert at the present day an
immense power over men's minds, and that not only in the
Austrian Empire and the Balkan Peninsula. Differences of
language tend to become everywhere the basis of political
partisanship. Old languages are revived, long-forgotten racial
distinctions rediscovered. The efforts of the map-makers
can hardly keep pace with the movement, and the ethno-
graphic map of Europe is becoming more and more of a
motley. Little countries like Belgium and Switzerland,
where the motives for union seem so strong, are beginning
to surrender to racialism, and the United States to reflect
the racial antagonisms of Europe. It cannot be denied, too,
that the Principle has changed in character with its success.
In its early days it expressed the cry of an oppressed people.
It nerved the Poles to resist the three robber states, and
heartened men who were struggling to preserve their own
language, to live their own lives, and stand upon the ancient
ways. With success it has become allied with national
pride, and with the wish to acquire power and territory.
Nor when they are powerful are modern nationalities very
tender towards weaker peoples. The Germans have shown
little inclination to give independence to the Slavs within
their borders. This is not the place to pursue the fascinating
subject of the future of the National Principle, but it must
at least be pointed out that it cannot provide a final solution
of international problems. If a population of a certain
race and language find it impossible to live under the same
political system as others of a different race and language,
it is no doubt best not to force them to do so, and this is
60 INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS n
especially the case when there is political oppression. But
this process cannot be carried out indefinitely ; there are
races and subdivisions of races, there are languages and
dialects ; there are many districts where it would be im-
possible to establish a homogeneous race without wholesale
massacre or deportation. What is much more important,
it is essential for the great cause of peace and unity that
men should learn to understand and tolerate one another.
Surely it is obvious that both Englishmen and Irishmen in
the United Kingdom, English and French in Canada,
English and Dutch at the Cape, will all be the better men
if they can acquire sufficient broadmindedness and sufficient
mutual goodwill to be able to live together under the same
political institutions. To identify racial and political
borders may be and very often is the only means of securing
peace and order, but it must tend to deepen political
divisions and to strengthen national antagonisms. Men
begin to use a dangerous language about a " French soul "
or a " German soul," as if the differences between countries
were things admirable in themselves and to be encouraged.
There is more hope for future peace in Federal States, such
as the British, the Austrian, and possibly in the future the
Russian Empires, than in great centralised racially homo-
geneous states, for a Federation endeavours by free in-
stitutions to bind men together. Even the Austrian Empire,
though it failed with the Southern Slavs, had the great merit
of keeping together in tolerable friendliness men of the
German, Bohemian, and Polish races.
For the moment, however, Nationality remains one of
the great forces making for movement and change in the
political world. It is in direct opposition to any static
condition of international affairs. Like other political
ideals it is to be found in all classes, but particularly amongst
n THE CAUSES OF MODEKN WAES 61
the more democratic sections of the community. Political
leaders, like the crusading chiefs, may be moved by ambition
or influenced by motives of expediency : it is among the
rank and file that the whole-hearted, uncompromising
idealist will be found.
4. THE NECESSITY OF A FOREIGN POLICY
This attempt to get some general view of the motives
behind modern wars seems at least to show that there are
many dynamic forces abroad. There are, indeed, others
which fortunately have not yet led to warfare, the colour
question for example, an extreme case of the Nationality
Principle. So many and so powerful are these dynamic
forces that the mere suggestion of a static arrangement of
nations could hardly be made anywhere except in England.
In other countries there is much less satisfaction with the
status quo. It is not difficult to see why there should be
this difference. England, in the first place, has no serious
territorial ambitions, and secondly, Englishmen expect
much less from the State than do the inhabitants of Con-
tinental countries. We have a very great place in the sun.
Our insular position has not only saved us from invasion,
it has done us the benefit, almost equally great, of freeing
us from Continental ambitions. In the world at large
our problems, and they are very serious ones, consist in
th.e difficulties of uniting and governing the different parts
of the Empire. We have outlets for our trade, Dominions
and dependencies that produce raw material, undeveloped
land partially occupied by our own kinsfolk for our emigrants.
Territorially we are a " sated " people. It is not surprising,
perhaps, that we have aroused the jealousy of less fortunate
nations. Then, again, much of this national success has
62 INTEKNATIONAL RELATIONS n
been due not to government action but to individual enter-
prise. Our possessions over seas, at any rate during the
last hundred years, have been won more by the energy of
our colonists and traders and the activity of our industrial
production than by war or government action. We hardly
knew ourselves what we were doing, and the other European
states did not realise till near the end of the nineteenth
century how important colonial expansion would be in the
future. Thus our Empire was able to grow with very little
opposition from rival European military states. It had
not always been so. We had plenty of rivals in the past,
and Englishmen of the sixteenth century looked to Queen
Elizabeth to help them to defeat the Spanish attempt to
keep the monopoly of the American trade, as their descend-
ants two hundred years later looked to Pitt to prevent
France from securing the vast unoccupied spaces of North
America. Pitt indeed did the work so thoroughly that
from his day to our own we have been practically without a
rival on the high seas. What Englishmen expected of Pitt
in the eighteenth century other countries expect of their
governments to-day, help and direction in achieving their
" national aspirations " — not necessarily by war, but at
least by management and diplomacy.
It need hardly be pointed out that if we abandon the
ideal of a static world some kind of Foreign Policy becomes
essential. If even one important state is of a predatory
disposition others must combine to resist it, and such
alliances are not always easy to maintain. If, on the other
hand, some change in the territorial or other arrangements
of states and their dependencies becomes advisable, such
a change should be carried out by reasonable means, by
friendly discussion, according to accepted principles. It
should be the result of reason, not of chance or violence.
n THE CAUSES OF MODERN WARS 63
Diplomacy can be directed by justice as well as by
injustice. It has a bad name probably because the
diplomats who thought merely of their country's material
interests, who were engaged in some elaborate and
unworthy intrigue, have often been more able and more
active than the defenders of the right. Nothing has
done more to promote the success of injustice than the
idea that good intentions are an equivalent for knowledge
and capacity. The simplicity of the dove and the wisdom
of the serpent are not incompatible, and wisdom requires
knowledge and experience. But besides a knowledge of
the conditions of other countries and of the relations be-
tween them, of the facts in other words, a knowledge and
a sense of law is also necessary. When honest men are
engaged in private affairs a sense of law and moral principle
may be presumed. This is unfortunately not always the
case in international affairs. The principles of Inter-
national Law have been so obscured by persistent and
successful violations of them, by the introduction of new
ideas, by the absence of any generally accepted guide,
that a statesman may find it easier to follow what may
seem the clear voice of interest than the possibly uncertain
utterances of moral principle. It is here that the people
should help. The more widely international problems are
understood the better for every reason ; but in knowledge
of facts the professional will always have an advantage, and
in moments of crisis secrecy is inevitable. The publication
of despatches might indeed easily precipitate the hostilities
which it is the effort of honest diplomacy to prevent. In
matters of principle it is otherwise. The man who is not
absorbed in the detail of negotiation will find it easier to
keep before bis mind general principles of right action. He
is not oppressed by the terrible responsibility for national
64 INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS n
success or failure, but he is responsible, as every man in a
free state must be to some extent, for his country's right
conduct. A public opinion well informed on the general
position of foreign affairs, enlightened by much more
definite ideas than we have now of right and wrong in
international dealings, and above all keenly alive to the
overwhelming importance of this aspect of state action,
should be the essential background to diplomacy. It will
support a minister who is prepared to take risks in order
to make sure that he is in the right ; it will call him severely
to account if he acts dishonestly ; it will insist that before
the country is involved in war every other means should
be attempted and every possible piece of evidence pro-
duced which the national conscience may require. Justice
is inseparable from judgment, and judgment means the
possession of principles of law and the examination of
evidence. It is particularly in these moral questions that
the judgment of the great working classes is soundest ; it
is in these that their influence can and should be exerted.
The future may see some day the establishment of an
international system of states and of a body capable of
applying and enforcing international law, but there are
many difficulties and dangers in that path. Our immediate
duty is at any rate to set our own house in order, and by
our example to help to secure the principle that in inter-
national relations, as in all human action, the moral issue
should predominate.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Some historical books will be found in the bibliography
after Chapter I., and those on International Law in that after
Chapter IV. Unfortunately, modern treatises on International Law
are as a rule very unsatisfactory and incomplete on the fundamental
ii THE CAUSES OF MODERN WARS 65
question, " What constitutes a just war ? " They concern themselves
more with positive international enactments than with the discussion
of the genera] principles of the Law of Nations. Some writers, who
seem to find it difficult to accept a moral system independent of
the State, found international morals on a kind of quasi-State of
states. This appears to be Mr. Delisle Burns' s point of view in his
Morality of Nations (University of London Press, 5s. net). The
more traditional system, that of basing international morals on the
" Natural Law," is employed in the Primer of Peace and War, edited
by the Rev. C. Plater, and published by the Catholic Social Guild
through King & Son (Is. 6d.). It is a very courageous attempt to
deal in a short compass with fundamental questions. A great deal
has been written about " Nationality " (cf. the useful bibliography
under the heading " Nationalism " in The Causes of the War : What
to Read, published by the Council for the Study of International
Relations), but there does not appear to be any substantial work
dealing with the different phases of the movement. An interesting
study of it, written in 1862, from a more or less adverse point of view,
will be found in the Essay on " Nationality " in Lord Acton's History
of Freedom and Other Essays.
Ill
INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC RELATIONS
1. THE GROWTH OP INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC RELATIONS
INTIMATE economic relations on a large scale between
people in different countries are a product of the modern
world. In the early Middle Ages trade was for the most
part local in character. Many physical obstacles in the
way of the transportation of goods had not been overcome.
The pack-horse was unable to carry great burdens ; wheeled
vehicles oftentimes could make little progress on account
of the condition of the roads ; bridges were by no
means common ; the system of tolls on both roads and
bridges in very many places degenerated into a means of
extortion. The sea had not really been conquered, and
the slave, who required a considerable space for his accom-
modation compared with the amount of goods that he
could propel, was but a feeble motive force, so that overseas
trade was for long largely in goods of small bulk and high
value. Even in times of peace, where government was
weak, land carriage was far from safe, the feudal lords
themselves in some cases lending their aid to highway
robbery, whilst on the seas the merchant was at the mercy
of pirates. Brigandage and piracy rendered trading highly
speculative, and the merchant, to cover his risks, extracted
high prices, which naturally hindered large sales. The
66
ni INTEENATIONAL ECONOMIC RELATIONS 67
modern commercial spirit was unborn, and both Church
and State hedged trading round with restrictions intended
to safeguard public morality.
In the course of the Middle Ages, however, great trading
cities arose, whose ships were to be found in every important
port in Europe, bringing from other lands articles of luxury,
the staple commodities being for the most part produced
at home. The galleys of the Middle Ages bore, not grain
and coal and machinery, but precious stones, perfumes and
spices, silks, fine brocades and furs, though as time wore on
woollen and linen goods, leather, metals, and foodstuffs
came to play an increasing part in the traffic between
different countries. But broadly speaking, in mediaeval
times the nations were much more economically self-
contained than they have since become. Economic life
had a simplicity which it has since lost, and though in
some ways highly organised, it was yet primitive in the
sense that life was tolerable without the use of produce
brought from distant lands.
The centralised monarchies of Western Europe, whose
rise closed the Middle Ages, systematised the economic
tendencies of the times, and gradually developed conscious
national policies aimed at national development and welfare,
and working through restrictions and protection. This
period, roughly the end of the fifteenth century, marks the
beginning of the modern economic age through the rapid
enlargement of the known world. The extension of
Turkish power in Asia Minor and the invasion of the Balkan
Peninsula seriously hampered the caravan trade between
the East and the West, for the Turks were not traders.
Indeed, the warrior Turks slammed the gate to the Golden
Orient in the face of the merchant princes of the West.
Anxious to retain this lucrative Eastern trade, they looked
68
to the possibility of finding a sea route. This economic
impulse, together with the improvements in high seas
navigation and the spirit of discovery fostered and aided by
Prince Henry the Navigator of Portugal, led to adventurous
voyages which during the fifteenth century opened both
the East and the West. A procession of sailors felt their
way down the coast of Africa, passing the Equator, rounding
the Cape, and ultimately reaching India and the East
Indian Islands. Other sailors seeking the East by a
Western route stumbled on the New World. In the light
of the political philosophy of the sixteenth and succeeding
centuries, these vast territories with their wealth of produce
were looked upon as means to national wealth and power.
Trading companies, anxious to embark on this doubly
lucrative trade of exchanging commodities of little Western
value for produce in great demand to be sold to the peoples
of the Old World, sought monopolies from their rulers.
States regarded their " colonies " as private preserves, as
markets for their goods, and sources of supply for valuable
merchandise. The economic factor began to play a much
greater part in high politics and to complicate the play of
motives. The wars of the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries were largely colonial and commercial in their
origin, whatever their immediate pretext. This was the
period of struggle for colonial empires, not merely because
territory increased national prestige, but because posses-
sions were regarded as a possible source of wealth, which
was one of the elements of national power.
It was this same mercantile policy which led England to
encourage exports and discourage most imports, to regard
agriculture as one of the foundations of national welfare,
and to watch with approval the growth of English shipping.
Our economic policy, in common with that of our neighbours,
in INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC RELATIONS 69
was intensely national. And though foreign trade grew
in volume and value, complex restrictions hampered its
development, means of transport and communication
were slow, and the methods of production inadequate to
open up the world's resources. What the discoveries of
the fifteenth century did was to bring to light potential
sources of raw materials and potential markets, the full
importance and value of which were not recognised until
it became possible to utilise them.
If the conquest of the seas and the discovery of new
lands marked one great economic epoch, the Industrial
Revolution marked another. Steam - driven machinery
during the last century and a half has gradually been
applied to one industry after another ; in recent years the
use of electricity as a motive force has made great headway.
Power-driven machinery increased enormously the pro-
ductivity of industry, and called for ever larger and larger
quantities of raw material, which as the nineteenth century
proceeded were drawn from widely dispersed sources of
supply — wool from the Antipodes and South America,
cotton from the United States and Egypt, and so forth.
The world was ransacked for mineral wealth ; new areas
were opened up for agricultural produce. The greater
output of industry implied larger markets, which were
sought in other lands. America, Asia, and Africa were
drawn into the European markets to supply the needs of
modern industry, and to share in its products.
Better means of transport and communication became
as vital as larger markets, and were intimately bound up
with the supply of both raw materials and finished products
over a large area. As the nineteenth century proceeded,
steamships of greater and greater power and increasing size
gradually ousted the sailing vessels from routes where
70 INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS m
trade was large and certain ; and what was of equal import-
ance, the service became much more frequent. Distances
have been shortened by the construction of canals, of which
by far the most important are those of Suez and Panama.
Then postal facilities improved, the telegraph and telephone
linked together buyers and sellers at a distance, and the
world became one great economic unit.1 The Industrial
Revolution was not merely a revolution in industry, but
also in commerce and finance.
The keynote of the change that it has wrought is economic
interdependence. The economic self-sufficiency of the
Middle Ages has passed away. The countries of Europe
not only rely on each other for the satisfaction of many of
their needs, but draw their supplies of food, raw materials,
and manufactured goods from distant parts of the world.
In spite of protective tariffs, a rough kind of territorial
division of labour has taken place. Far from perfect though
it may be, it has nevertheless increased the dependence of
nations on each other. In this country, for example, even
the very means of life, once produced in sufficient quantities
for home needs, and even for export, are now swept into
our markets from the ends of the earth. The enormous
growth of foreign trade during the past century is witness
of the phenomenon that nations no longer stand alone,
and that the world has become — or rather is increasingly
becoming — a single economic unit.
Capital, once viscid and sluggish in its flow, has now
become liquid, finds little obstacle in political boundaries or
natural frontiers, and pours its fertilising stream into the
undeveloped regions of the world. Even labour, notwith-
1 There are now close upon 300,000 nautical miles of submarine
cables in the world, bringing the various countries into rapid and
intimate communication with each other.
m INTEKNATIONAL ECONOMIC RELATIONS 71
standing the ties of home, of friends, and of familiar institu-
tions, has become much more mobile than early economists
would have expected. Streams of Europeans of all
nationalities have gone out to people and develop countries
beyond the seas.1 The concessionnaire, the modern Pied
Piper of Hamelin, has by the music of higher wages called
to him not only white, but also coloured labourers, with far-
reaching consequences.
Parallel with the growth of a world-wide economic
intercourse — the " cosmopolitanisation " of industry and
commerce — there has been, necessarily, the development
of a world-system of exchange, of a means of settling debts
owed, say, by a British cotton merchant to an American
exporter, and of projecting capital and credit, say, from
London to the oil-fields of Southern Russia. The bankers
and bill-brokers have supplied the means, and business can
be transacted between China and America with little more
difficulty than between London and Edinburgh. It is
clear that the complicated transactions of the modern
economic world, the transference of goods, securities,
loanable capital and credit, the payment for services
rendered, the distribution of the produce of the world's
work, require a complicated, highly organised, and delicate
mechanism if they are to be carried through smoothly and
economically. But because it is delicate and responds like
a barometer to changes in the international atmosphere, it
is the more easily disturbed by abnormal events. The rise
of modern industry, commerce, and finance has brought
us new economic problems, which need not, however, be
dealt with here. But it is worth while mentioning in
1 Between 1853 and 1912, a period of sixty years, over 12J
million emigrants of British origin left this country for places outside
Europe.
72 INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS ...
passing that even political events which do not at first
sight appear to have any intimate relations with economic
life, will disturb the foreign exchanges, and react on the
world of business. The mere rumour of war is reflected
in the sensitive nervous system of modern economic life —
the banking world ; the outbreak of war results in total
temporary paralysis, as may be seen from the events of
July and August 1914.
Although the whole trend of modern industry, commerce,
and finance has been towards closer intercourse and greater
interdependence, this movement has been hampered by the
fact that there has been no parallel development in the
direction of the political unification of the world. Economic
and political influences have intermingled in the world,
and political considerations have often worked against the
normal evolution of economic society towards greater unity.
In spite of the cosmopolitan character of great masses of
modern capital, there is some capital that is controlled solely
by members of the same state, which seeks fields for ex-
ploitation abroad, and enters into competition with capital
from other states. This would be nothing more than the
economic rivalry of individuals in a competitive system, if
it were not that often either open or tacit support is given
to the prospective concessionnaires by the states of which
they are members.
Further, the imposition of tariff restrictions has impeded
the full play of the economic forces making for the inter-
dependence of peoples, in so far as they have prevented
the growth of the world division of labour which lies at the
roots of interdependence. It is argued that a tax on the
importation of a commodity into a country keeps out a
supply which would otherwise have entered it, and in its
place home-produced commodities are bought which were
not sold before, because they were either inferior in quality
or higher in price than those imported. Hence, part of the
consumers of the world are living on commodities produced
with less efficiency than the remainder of the world's supply.
Moreover, commodities enjoying a bounty on' export are
enabled to make their way into foreign markets, which they
were not able to supply on their merits without the aid
of such bounty ; again, there may be economic loss on
the whole. It must be remembered, also, that the fiscal
system of a country is usually the result of other than merely
economic considerations. A state may impede the free
interchange of some commodities in order deliberately
to restrict their consumption because their use may be
deleterious, though naturally revenue is one object of the
taxation. More important than this is the use of its fiscal
system by a state as a means of obtaining its own economic
advantage. The argument may be put in this way. " It
is true that artificial barriers to trade are injurious to the
world as a whole, but we may impose them in such a way
that they will yield us a greater advantage than the share
of advantage we should get from free economic intercourse."
And for a time it is conceivable that, though the whole world
may lose, a single nation may gain by such a policy. But
more important still is the use of tariffs and bounties in
order to bring about all-round economic development with
a view to minimising a state's dependence on the people
of other states. So long as wars are a possibility, so long
are states likely to consider the danger of economic inter-
dependence in the event of hostilities. One great gain
which the world will reap from the cessation of wars will
be found in the further unification of economic society by
the abandonment of tariff restrictions imposed in the main
for military reasons. Few nations are prepared to face the
74 INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS m
possibility of starvation in time of war. This country has
adopted an alternative policy of depending on naval
power to keep open trade routes. The German Empire,
on the other hand, has adopted a policy of maintaining
agricultural efficiency. In the words of Prince von Billow,
" economic policy must foster peaceful development ; but
it must keep in view the possibility of war, and, for this
reason above all, must be agrarian in the best sense of the
word." l Further, if one state becomes the predominant
source of supply for a commodity, and a trust is formed,
the whole world then lies at the mercy of a single compact
economic unit. Twenty years ago, when this country was
very largely dependent upon American wheat, people were
afraid of a " corner," and the havoc it might work. Such
a contingency will always tend to a policy of developing
a home supply as the best safeguard. Even where con-
siderations of war do not weigh very heavily, a state may
still prefer to protect certain industries which it believes
to be necessary to the welfare of its people. It may believe,
for example, that a vigorous agricultural population, even i-f
they are less favourably situated for efficient production
than the farmers of other countries, are a national asset,
even though urban life becomes more tolerable and more
healthy. " We admit," it may say, " that there is a
material loss to our community and to the world in giving
artificial aid to our agriculturists when they might be
making machinery, but national welfare is not to be
measured in material wealth." In this case the state would
be making an economic sacrifice in the interests of what it
believed to be a greater good. But strong as national motives
of different kinds have been in seeking national ends irre-
spective of the world's material progress, they have signally
1 Imperial Germany, p. 221.
m INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC RELATIONS 75
failed to overcome the economic forces transcending political
boundaries and binding the peoples of all states together.
The increasing consolidation and unification of the
economic world has its necessary counterpart in the funda-
mental unity of the labouring classes.1 The cry of Karl
Marx, " Workers of the world, unite ! " assumed — what
few would deny — that labour in all countries has certain
common vital interests and problems. It is labour's
recognition of the " cosmopolitanisation " of the industrial
system. The solidarity of labour has been proclaimed by
the international socialist and trade union movements.
But the political systems of the world, which have
impeded the growth of economic unity, have also been the
means of bringing divisions into the international ranks
of labour. The development of industry and commerce,
bringing the produce of the nations into fuller competition
in the markets of the world, has introduced trade rivalry
on a scale hitherto unknown, and has consequently intro-
duced competition between workers of different countries,
in much the same way as capitalists with common interests
in the economic system have solidified into rival national
groups. In a Free Trade country, advocates of " Tariff
Reform " remind the workers of the " unfair competition "
due to inferior conditions of labour in other countries. Under
a protective system efforts are made to exclude the pro-
ducts of the foreign labourer, and thereby to ensure " more
work" for the native labourer. A protective tariff, therefore,
assumes that the economic interests of some labourers are
antagonistic to those of others, and is a denial in the actual
practice of the world of the principle of labour solidarity
But the cry of the unfair competition of cheap labour is
strongest where there is a wide disparity in the standards
1 See Appendix (Note on Cosmopolitan Associations).
76 INTERNATIONAL KKI.ATIONS n,
of life of the competing workers, as in the case of white
and Asiatic labour. The export of capital to tropical and
semi-tropical regions has drawn into the economic whirlpool
labour which has hitherto been outside the great vortex of
world trade. In the use of cheap yellow labour the white
workman sees a menace to the white standard of life. Hence
the demands for the exclusion of the Asiatic from the labour
market in Australia and North America, in spite of the
fact that these labourers are as much a part of the capitalist
system as their white brothers. The maintenance of the
white standard of life and all that it implies is important
for civilisation as a whole ; but to admit this is merely to
admit the clash of immediate economic interests in the
world of labour, and to deny the prospect of the real unity
of labour in the present industrial society. It illustrates
also the difficult problems the world has made for itself
through its modern development.
It is clear that whilst economic forces have tended to
break down barriers, to increase economic intercourse, and
to bring an ever larger part of the world within the scope
of these world forces, modern society has shown tendencies
towards internal disruption due to the play of individual
self-interest and of free competition. Externally, the
political system of the world has retarded the growth of
economic interdependence. Though Capital as a factor in
the industrial and commercial world has a single interest, the
capitalists who own it have their own interests which have
tended to crystallise nationally. Similarly, Labour as an
agent of production has its own interests as distinct from
those of Capital, but its solidarity has been obscured partly
by the competitive system which has set one labourer
against another, and partly, though the two may be con-
nected, by national and political influences.
in INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC RELATIONS 77
These influences, rightly or wrongly, have led to the clash
of interests between those large social groups called states ;
and nations with their vertical consolidation of all classes
have confused the issues between those simpler horizontal
combinations, across states, representing sectional interests.
The international socialist movement has never really faced
the issue between nationalism and the international economic
society ; it has asserted its international position, but
never, by resolution, denied the validity of nationalism,
nor does it appear to have attempted to reconcile the con-
flicting claims. The international trade union movement
has avoided even more the consideration of the question.
The problem of the future is to weave out of the nations of
the world a political organisation which shall control the
cosmopolitan economic society that has grown in modern
times, just as in a well-ordered state economic interests
would be subordinated to the wider social aims of the
community.1
2. ECONOMICS AND POLITICS
The deep-seated economic changes which have taken
place in the modern age have resulted in bringing economic
influences into a much more prominent place in world
affairs. This is not to say that the world of to-day has
necessarily become materialised, but only that a vastly
more powerful weapon has been placed in the hands of
individuals and communities striving to realise immaterial
ends — some probably of a low order, but nevertheless
super-economic. Internationally, economic influences have
come to play a greater part in the rivalry between nations
for power and prestige than ever before. Dr. Seton- Watson
writes of " the three dominant factors of modern life —
1 See Appendix.
78 INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS ...
religion, nationality, and economics." l Mr. Morton Fuller-
ton's analysis, though different, agrees in attributing
considerable importance to the economic factor.
Behind the fa9ade of Governments two occult powers are now
determining the destinies of the world. One of these is the
disseminated Wealth of the Democracy, canalized both by the
plutocratic oligarchy of the Bankers (la Haute Finance), whose
clients, the Modern States, great and small, are constrained to
apply to them for immense loans, and by the great manufacturers
and mining proprietors, who tend to be actuated solely by
economic interest, and who often combine in international
trusts, the operations of which are merely hampered by patriotic
questions of national policy and national honour.
The other power is the mysterious pervasive force known as
Public Opinion, which is becoming more and more conscious
of its efficacy, and, as its curiosity concerning the public weal
and concerning international facts and correlations grows more
alert, is manifesting a proportionately livelier jealousy of its
prerogatives.2
In another passage he goes so far as to assert that " the
economic necessities of a nation determine its policy." 3
A conviction of the truth that in the modern world one
of the governing influences of action is economic does not
involve acceptance of the view of " dollar diplomacy " ;
that economic advantage is sought by states as an end in
itself, or primarily as a means of enriching a certain class
within the state.
What part have economic forces and interests played
in determining foreign policy ? To put it concretely, Has
British foreign policy, for example, aimed deliberately and
exclusively at the extension of British trade and commerce ?
So far back as the Middle Ages, Edward III. used the
1 The Future of Bohemia (Nisbet, 1915, 3d.), p. 4.
2 Problems of Power, p. 1.
3 Ibid. p. 213.
in INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC RELATIONS 79
British export of wool as a diplomatic weapon ; that is to
say, as an instrument to serve the ends of national policy
At a later period, when private enterprise was establishing
trading companies and merchants were seeking for profits
abroad, the Government granted the companies monopolies,
not because the mercantile class dominated the Government
and was able to exploit the state in its own private interests,
but because the Government believed that foreign trade
was a means to national power. The mercantilist policy of
the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries was not a sur-
render of the state to the merchant community. It was
rather a conscious national policy aimed at the development
of national power and prestige, and which saw in a favour-
able " balance of trade " and the accumulation of material
wealth a means to that end. So far was this policy carried
that commercial intercourse with states which were looked
upon as " natural enemies " was discouraged ! The
capitalists — commercial and industrial — of the Industrial
Revolution period, finding this state direction and super-
vision irksome, were among those who most strongly cried
for the abolition of restrictions and for the regime of laissez-
faire. During the great agitation in the first half of the
nineteenth century for the abolition of the Corn Laws, and
of the protective system generally, opposition came from
those who felt that freedom of trade would affect them
adversely, whilst the movement was supported by those
who saw in the abolition of tariff restrictions the chances
of greater private gain. In other words, self-interest
played a great part in the controversy, and many people,
without considering their own pockets first, would naturally
found their judgment on their own industrial experience.
At the same time, the crucial question and the real issue
upon which the controversy turned was that of national
80 INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS ..,
interest — or national self-interest, if that term be preferred.
Again, when in the twentieth century Mr. Joseph Chamber-
lain revived the old controversy in a new form, and urged
the reintroduction of a " Colonial " system, enthusiastic
support came from those who controlled the industries
which were likely to profit by it, and stubborn opposition
from those who felt their economic interests threatened.
And much of the flood of argument was used to show the
free-traders on the one hand that they would be better off
under a protective tariff, and the protectionists on the other
that they were better off with the system of free imports.
But Mr. Chamberlain's motive was political, and he was
not concerned with the aggrandisement of one group of
capitalists rather than another. Rightly or wrongly, he
believed that fiscal charges were called for in what he
considered to be the best interests of the nation and the
Empire. The economic results were not to him ends in
themselves, but means for the realisation of imperial power
and prestige. The tariff was an economic instrument to
be wielded for political purposes, a weapon with which to
gain state ends in the sphere of international politics.
Similarly, in the struggle for concessions in undeveloped
regions, though there may be competition between rival
groups of capitalists actuated solely by motives of self-
interest, it does not follow that they control for their own
ends the diplomatic negotiations between states with
regard to concessions, or that the states have been prosti-
tuted to serve the purpose of a few individuals. Conces-
sions are counters in the great diplomatic game in which
states are striving for position, power, and prestige, and
for the satisfaction of their ambitions. This may not be a
high standard of conduct. The relations between states
ought, we may agree, to be based on higher motives. The
in INTEKNATIONAL ECONOMIC KELATIONS 81
point, however, is that the interests of the financier are
served, not primarily on his individual behalf, but for the
satisfaction of state aspirations. In the same way the offers
made to induce labour to emigrate to new countries have
not as their first object either the alleviation of distress or
the advancement of the economic position of a number of
individual labourers, but the development of a young state's
own resources and power.
Nevertheless, a powerful vested interest is always a
menace. Wealth is power ; and the accumulated resources
of great financiers may, indeed, sway Governments. Finan-
cial interests are well represented in the councils of the
nations, and executive power may fall into the hands of
those who, however sincere they may be, contemplate
national problems through financial spectacles. Further,
where Governments are corrupt or feeble, the financier
eager for concessions may work his will and profit thereby
with the connivance of the state, which has used its re-
sources for other than state ends. Cases of this kind are
not wanting. The part played by the Banca di Eoma in
the Tripolitan War illustrates the kind of entanglement
of finance and the State to which self-seeking private
interests may give rise.
Human motives are usually complex, and national
motives not less so. The desire to make money is no
stronger than the desire to make history. " The desire to
make history," " national prestige," etc., may appear to be
merely phrases, but, as Professor Graham Wallas l has
pointed out, a phrase may be an effective motive, even
though it is never analysed, and these things are ends in
themselves. To explain national policy, therefore, merely
1 See his treatment of political motives in Human Nature in
Politics.
82 INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS m
on the basis of financial interest is too simple a method, and
one which, by telling part of the truth and giving less than
its due to the remainder, conveys as a result a more or less
erroneous impression. For example, to explain British
policy in Egypt solely on the grounds of the private financial
interests which were at stake, is to neglect other important
factors. Financiers had encouraged for their own ends
" the rake's progress " in Egypt, and the pressure which
they exerted undoubtedly influenced the Government.
Further, British diplomacy might have been more clear-
sighted. Even so, wider questions were involved. The
British Government was a shareholder in the Suez Canal ;
the Canal was of great commercial and strategic importance.
What was at stake was several millions of national capital,
the control of an important trade route, and the highway
to the eastern parts of the Empire. There was also the
question of preventing chaos extending to other regions
and leading, perhaps, to serious widespread disturbances.
And only a cynic would suggest that the fears of Gladstone,
Granville, and others for the lives of the quarter of a million
residents in Egypt were a hypocritical pretence. Con-
sideration of these factors weighed heavily in the minds of
many who would repudiate the idea of intervention in the
interests of a horde of financiers.
In European intervention in China, the partition of
Africa, the question of Morocco — in all the great inter-
national entanglements of modern times — there is to be
seen the confused play of mixed motives, the interaction
of economic influences and political forces — the investor,
seeking for new fields to exploit, endeavouring to drive the
diplomats, the diplomats anxious for economic develop-
ments as a means to national prestige, security, and the
realisation of national ambitions.
in INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC RELATIONS 83
In no country does one see the motives behind national
policy so clearly as in Germany. The aims and actions
of the German Empire are rooted in the ideas expressed
by List and Treitschke. Industry, commerce, transport,
tariff system, foreign trade, have all been viewed as means
for the fulfilment of a national purpose. Whoever may
have gained by the way, their gains are merely means to
a greater end. And since Germany's entry into WeltpolitiJc
no country has pursued more thoroughly a policy of utilising
economic methods, not for the aggrandisement of interested
parties, but for the realisation of political ambitions.1
Now that nations are not economically self-sufficing,
even with the aid of protective tariffs, economic motives
have become more and more important in the field of
international politics, because economic insecurity means
national insecurity and the probable frustration of national
hopes. Consequently negotiations and treaties nowadays
turn largely upon commercial questions. Our own Imperial
Conference, though naturally devoting itself to matters of
Imperial defence, has found much of its time absorbed in
questions of an economic character.
The recent agreement between China and Japan illus-
trates the extent to which economic considerations enter
into modern treaties.
On May 8, 1915, after prolonged negotiations, China agreed
to certain demands made upon her by Japan. They were mainly
five in number : —
1 The importance of economic power as a basis of political power
is well illustrated in the case of the German Empire. " One of the
most important influences on the redistribution of political power in
Europe during the past forty years has been the discovery that
Germany, instead of being comparatively poor in coal, is one of the
greatest coal countries in the world." (Professor Gregory in Con-
temporary Revieio, Dec. 1915.)
84 INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS m
1. — Shantung
China agreed (1) to recognise the arrangements between
Japan and Germany (in the treaty of peace) concerning the
latter's rights in Shantung ; (2) not to cede or lease any portion
of the province ; (3) to apply to Japanese capitalists for a loan
if it is decided to build a railway connecting Cheefoo or Lungkau
with the Tsingtau-Tsinan line ; (4) to open more trade marts
in the province.
2. — South Manchuria
China agreed (1) to extend the lease of the Kwangtung pro-
vince to ninety-nine years ; (2) to give liberty of trade and move-
ment to Japanese subjects in South Manchuria ; (3) to approach
Japanese capitalists if it should require loans for construction
works in the country ; (4) to consult the Japanese Government
before engaging foreign advisers for the administration of South
Manchuria.
3. — Eastern Inner Mongolia
China agreed (1) to consult Japan before contracting any
loans for construction works in this area ; (2) to open more trade
marts.
4. — Kiau-Chau
Japan agreed that if on conclusion of the war she has the free
disposal of Kiau-Chau, she would be ready to restore it to China
on certain conditions, the principal being that Kiau-Chau Bay
should become an open port.
5. — Miscellaneous Points
China agreed (1) to allow the Han-Yeh-Siug Company to
carry on ita operations ; (2) not to grant any rights to any Power
to build military or naval establishments in Fukien.1
It would seem that the object of Japan in this Treaty
was threefold : first, to strengthen her own economic
position by obtaining a favourable outlet for her capital,
1 Statesman's Year Book, 1915, p. Ixv.
m INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC RELATIONS 85
shielded by a monopoly, and by obtaining new markets
within easy reach of her shores ; secondly, to gain political
power in China through the power of the purse ; and thirdly,
thereby to increase her prestige among the nations of the
world.
The part played by " high finance " in modern diplomacy
is well illustrated in the French loan to Turkey in 1914.
In spite of already heavy commitments in the Balkans, Paris
financiers agreed to lend £32,000,000 to the Turks. " For
this accommodation the Turkish nation have had to pay very
heavily in railway and harbour concessions, and the security
has cut deep into the independence of its Anatolian home-
land." " The loan negotiations covered the whole diplo-
matic field between France and Turkey. The status of
French subjects in Turkey was regulated to the annihilation
of Turkish ambitions of abrogating the privileged status
of foreigners. In return, Paris agreed to a 4 per cent
increase of customs duties, and a tariff instead of ad valorem
rates, as well as to various monopolies, to which London,
Vienna, and Rome had already assented. Turkey further
conceded to France the concession of the ports of Jaffa,
Haifa, and Tripoli in Syria, and of Ineboli and Eregli on the
Black Sea, as well as 1250 miles of railway construction in
Syria (Rayak-Ramleh) and in Anatolia (Samsun-Sivas-
Erzindjan, Kharput-Angora, Van-Bitlis, and Boli-Havza).
Moreover, the French abandoned the Bagdad Railway to
the Germans by surrendering the £1,400,000 Bagdad stock
held by French banks in return for rights in the 1910 loan
to Turkey." *
As economic considerations have come to play an
increasingly important part in the policy of nations, they
have also been a means of feeding the fires of national
1 Nationalism and the Near East, pp. 329-30.
86 INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS m
hostility. Economic power has become a stick with which
to belabour rival states. Serbia, for example, has been in
economic bondage to Austria-Hungary, because the latter
controlled the outlets through which Serbian products
flowed to Central Europe. The power thus placed in the
hands of the politicians of the Dual Empire was used as a
means to achieve the political subordination of the Balkan
state. This intolerable situation led Serbian policy in a
direction in harmony with her political aspirations ; and
though the Balkan League and the Balkan Wars were not
in the first place due to economic considerations, these added
to the force of other circumstances.
Another illustration of the use of the economic weapon
to obtain political ends may be drawn from the annexation
of Bosnia by Austria-Hungary in 1908. The Turks, unable
to offer effective military or diplomatic opposition, replied
by an economic boycott of the produce of the Dual Mon-
archy. So effectual was this that before long Austria was
glad to offer the Ottoman Empire compensation. It is
extremely improbable that prolonged diplomatic negotia-
tions would have led to the satisfaction of Turkish claims,
but what diplomacy could not do was accomplished by the
silent operation of economic forces through the policy of
the " general strike."
Further, a state which seeks to attain its aims through
military power, and estimates its prestige in terms of the
size and efficiency of its military and naval forces, will
endeavour to include under its flag regions supplying the
sinews of war. Notwithstanding any economic arguments
on the futility of the mere possession of territory, a state
lacking materials for the manufacture of munitions of
war will cast an eye over the disposable areas of the world
in the hope of obtaining territory which will satisfy its
in INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC RELATIONS 87
needs. Alternatively it will seek for open markets for
the purchase of them. These self-same commodities are
also the first essentials to the arts of peace. So that
in the modern world a lack of those products on which
the very life of a nation in time of war depends is likely to
reflect itself in its policy. It has been said of Germany
that " even more than an open market in which to sell
her goods, she wants an open market from which to
buy other essential products, the possession of which is
to-day a matter of life and death for her. She is scouring
the world for iron." l The need of iron and copper, tin and
zinc, oil and rubber, has been a great factor in the growth
of the concessionaire class. Both military and economic
necessity have led states into rivalry for economic pre-
dominance in the areas whence these products come. The
source of trouble is not the economic rivalry between
sovereign states themselves, but the more complicated
question of the relation between sovereign states with
regard to the undeveloped regions of the world. It would
seem, therefore, that whilst economic interdependence
makes for peace in some directions, it may be the cause of
international unrest and hostility.
The question as to whether the cosmopolitan character
of credit and capital, and the existence of great world
markets for the world's merchandise, make for peace, does
not admit of a simple answer. It is often assumed that the
greater mobility of capital in modern times, and the irriga-
tion of the world through financial channels, exercises a
pacific influence. Over the greater part of the economic
field, the close interdependence of nation and nation, of
industry and industry, of raw material and finished product,
has driven home the advantages of peace, and the dis-
1 Problems of Power, p. 214.
88 INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS in
integrating effects of war. Those who are concerned with
supplying the staple commodities of the everyday life of
the world are, in the main, interested in the preservation
of peace. And the fact that capital and credit roam at
large over the world seeking for rich pastures is a steadying
factor. On the other hand, the network of capitalists
making the paraphernalia of war, and exercising in subtle
ways a constant pressure upon Governments, is an ugly
menace to the world's peace. This influence is an ever-
present irritant in a world of sore places. Granting that the
armament firms are interested in war scares rather than
wars, a mere scare may be sufficient to set into motion
well-nigh uncontrollable forces making for war. Moreover,
though it is true that a vast amount of the world's capital
is cosmopolitan, there is, as we have seen, a volume of capital
which is national in character, and which, in search of foreign
outlets, operates often with the military and naval resources
of states behind it, being, as it were, a medium for the in-
crease of national prestige. It is worth remarking that the
British capitalist prefers investments under British govern-
ment, and though a considerable amount of British capital
is invested outside the British Empire, most of this is under
the jurisdiction of states (e.g. U.S.A.) over which the British
Government can exercise no influence. The French
Foreign Office exercises a limited control over the flow of
French capital, by requiring the Foreign Minister's sanction
before stocks or shares can be bought and sold on the Paris
Exchange. As France is, after Great Britain, the chief
capital-exporting country in the world, this provision has
proved a useful diplomatic weapon on more than one
occasion.
Then also capital lent to a state, which uses it directly
or indirectly for strengthening its military power, or for
in INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC RELATIONS 89
purposes which other states believe to be inimical to their
interests, may be a means of exciting hostility leading to
bad blood, if not to a breach of the peace. The possession
of loanable capital by the citizens of a state may be used
by it as a diplomatic instrument, complicating international
relations, if not actually endangering peace, and introducing
an influence tending to the settlement of issues on grounds
other than those of justice. A state with money to lend
may use the power it wields to gain ends antagonistic to
the interests of other states. A state which has borrowed
money may find in the lending state a friend who will either
condone its actions,1 or a mentor who will insist on the
maintenance of conditions which will safeguard the loan.
It is certain that the possession of Turkish bonds led many
people in this country to approve a kindly policy towards
the Ottoman Empire, and vested interests, blind to wider
impersonal considerations, supported intervention in Egypt
from pecuniary motives. War loans raised abroad are
likely to prolong wars which the economic exhaustion of
belligerent resources might otherwise have brought to an
end ; whilst a great part of the sums so raised only go to
strengthen the position of the armament dealers, either
through an agreement to take part of the loan in munitions,
or in order to pay for war materials already bought.
In weak and backward states the invasion of foreign
capital is often the first step to political tutelage and
international jealousy. Important industrial and com-
mercial interests closely affecting the welfare of other
states may be imperilled by internal disorder in a country
which the latter may find itself unable to suppress. The
1 The alliance between Russia and France is in part at least an
alliance between a debtor and a creditor state for their mutual
advantage.
90 INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS m
usual end is that law and order are restored by external aid,
but at the expense of some loss of the country's political
independence. It is clear, therefore, without pursuing
further the complicated effects of the entry of economic
influences into politics, that the very factors of modern life
which have brought people more closely together, may also
be forces harnessed to plough up misunderstandings rather
than to aid understanding. According to an American
writer, " among the Western peoples the most probable
future causes of war, in addition to national antipathies,
will be clashing commercial or industrial interests, contests
for new markets and fresh opportunities for profitable in-
vestments of capital, and possibly, extensive migrations
of labourers." x
The intimate connection between economics and politics
is recognised in the largely untrue but widely accepted
dictum that " trade follows the flag." In the earlier days
of colonial development it could be said with some truth,
but in recent times there are many instances to show that
the flag follows trade. The days of military conquest have
been succeeded by the period of economic conquest with its
frequent consequence, political possession. The normal
evolution appears to be trade, administration, possession.
This process has gone on both unconsciously and consciously.
In India, for example, the flag followed trade, though the
process took two and a half centuries to complete from the
establishment of the East India Company to the declaration
of Queen Victoria as Empress of India after the Indian
upheaval. In this case the grant of a charter to the
British East India Company was not the first step in a
deliberate policy of territorial expansion.
1 Some Roads towards Peace, by C. W. Eliot (Carnegie Endowment
for International Peace), p. 14.
in INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC RELATIONS 91
Briefly, trade in India was seen to be impossible without
law and order. Internal disorder in the country drove the
Company to protect itself by gradually developing a system
of administration, the Company taking upon itself important
functions of government and becoming a quasi-state,
which, owing to its very nature as a business concern, could
not be relied upon to exercise its powers wisely. It was
therefore an anomaly to which there was only one end —
absorption as a definite part of the State controlling the
Company. On this point it may be said that government
by chartered company can never be more than temporary,
and is a doubtful expedient from the point of view of
political science, whatever may be said of the efficiency of
the chartered company as an engine of economic exploita-
tion.
The history of external interference in China is as yet
but in its early stages, commercial rather than political, but
in recent years the feeling has grown that commercial
rivalry in the Far East was the prelude to political partition.
The integrity of China, words often on the lips of diplomats,
will only be preserved through the fear of each of the
Powers, that others may get more than a due share of the
lion's skin, or through the operation of a new spirit in
international politics. It is said that Japan has designs
upon China, and, if so, there is little doubt that the treaty
quoted above is intended as a step along the way. " The
foreign financial control of Macedonia, Crete, and Egypt,"
says a recent writer, " was the beginning of the end of
Ottoman rule there ; and foreign control of Armenia and
Syria will have the same result." x
" Economic penetration " is nowadays considered as a
powerful instrument for the realisation of Chauvinist
1 Nationalism and War in the Near East, p. 332.
92
ambitions. Commercial predominance in an area unclaimed
by a great Power easily becomes political suzerainty when
the time is ripe, or the issue is forced in the diplomatic
world. Germany's deliberately pursued policy of " peaceful
penetration " in the Balkan Peninsula was an integral part
of her general foreign policy in the Near East, and appears,
to judge by the Pan-Germans, to have been regarded as the
first step towards the establishment of colonial possessions
in Asia Minor. The policy of economic penetration may,
however, be frustrated by the growth of national and demo-
cratic movements. Because Russia, by means of the Russian
Railway, gained control in Manchuria, it does not follow that
the Bagdad Railway will also achieve a similar end. Half
a century ago Austria, by the construction of the Oriental
Railway to Constantinople, secured a measure of economic
control over the Balkans, which led to no real political
control owing to the rise of national movements and the
diplomatic support given to them by other Powers. It
is clear, therefore, that though a policy of economic penetra-
tion may pave the way for political penetration, political
forces may act as a barrier to schemes of foreign exploita-
tion, though those who mould these forces may fall into the
grip of other Powers through the poverty of their own
resources, as has happened in the Balkans, where certain
of the states became financially indebted to Paris. Though
in Africa " trade followed the flag," modern developments
also proceeded in the opposite direction through the
discovery of the policy of economic penetration. The
modern state seeks to control economic forces more than it
thought to do, or was even able to do, a century ago. In
these circumstances it is evident that the industrial revolu-
tion and its economic consequences have not made only in
the direction of peace.
m INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC RELATIONS 93
How far economic questions are involved in the relations
between states may perhaps be best seen in a brief considera-
tion of the issues to be faced at the end of the Great War.
The statement of Dr. Seton-Watson, a publicist who will
not be suspected of underestimating the importance of other
issues, may well be quoted in full :
If Nationality is to be the dominant factor in the future
settlement of Europe, two other vital factors — economics and
religion — must on no account be neglected, unless we are to
court disaster. The geographical configuration of the Continent
and the distribution of the various races renders some inter-
national arrangement of a commercial nature an almost essential
postulate of future peace. The free navigation of the Dardanelles
and the Bosphorus is in a special category of its own, and lies
in the interests of every nation in Europe without exception. If
Italy should succeed in establishing her claim to Trieste, she must,
alike in her own interests and in those of European peace, convert
the city into a free port for all commerce. Its inclusion in the
Italian tariff system would rapidly reduce a nourishing port to
ruin and create an intolerable situation for its entire hinterland,
besides acting as a direct challenge to Germany to upset the
settlement at the earliest possible date ; whereas its proclamation
as a free port would give full scope to every legitimate aspiration
of German commerce in the eastern Mediterranean. In the
same way, if Fiume should become the port of the new Serbo-
Croat state, some satisfactory arrangement must be made for
the free access of Hungarian and Bohemian commerce to the
sea. From such an arrangement each of the three states would
derive great benefits, and its triangular nature would be its most
effective guarantee. A similar experiment has already been
successfully tried at the harbour of Salonica, where Serbia
possesses a special zone of her own, exempt from Greek customs
dues. It is to be hoped that Greece will voluntarily cede Kavala
in return for valuable territorial expansion elsewhere ; but
failing that, a free port and special tariff concessions for the
future Struma valley railway ought to be assured to Bulgaria.
Finally, in the north of Europe similar adjustments would be
necessary. If, as all but a few reactionaries hope and believe,
this war should bring at least a partial atonement for that
94 INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS in
greatest of political crimes, the partition of Poland, then the
river system of the Vistula will resume its old importance as a
geographical unit, and the new Poland must inevitably obtain
its outlet to the sea. The only possible way of ending the
secular feud of Pole and German is to reunite the broken
fragments of the Polish race and to restore the port of Danzig
to its natural position as a free port. The alternative would be
the cession of Danzig and at least a portion of West Prussia to
the new Poland, the isolation of East Prussia from the German
motherland, and the consequent creation of a new " Alsace-
Lorraine " in the east of Europe. This would be not to undo,
but merely to invert, the crime of the Polish Partition, and to
produce a situation such as must inevitably lead to fresh armed
conflicts. Here then is obviously a point at which wise and
far-sighted commercial provisions can do much to modify acute
racial antagonisms.
There is indeed much to be said for some special international
arrangement, on the lines of the Danube Commission, for regulat-
ing the commerce of all the riparian states with each other and
with the outer world. In such cases as the Seine, the Po, or the
Volga only a single state is concerned, and the problem must
be regarded as one of internal policy. But Germany has as
great an interest as Holland in the mouth of the Rhine, Belgium
is no less interested than Holland in the mouth of the Scheldt ;
on the Elbe and the Moldau depends much of Bohemia's pros-
perity ; the Danube is likely to assume for Hungary an even
greater importance in the future than in the past ; while the
Vistula supplies the key to the Polish problem.1
This passage shows forcibly not only the interdependence
of economics and politics, but the real economic back-
ground of the Great War.
3. ECONOMIC INFLUENCES AND WAR
In the modern world any dislocation or suspension of
trade and industry has consequences far beyond the im-
mediate area of disturbance. The dislocation produced
1 What is at Stake in the War, pp. 13-15 (Papers for War Time).
in INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC RELATIONS 95
by a serious earthquake, a political revolution or a war,
each in varying degrees, has economic consequences not
exactly calculable but far-reaching and often profound.
It is not necessary to labour the economic wastage of modern
warfare. Wars entail an immediate economic loss to the
world as a whole. There may, on the other hand, be some
gains to show. If, for example, the result of a war is to
bring a larger portion of the world within the sphere of
better government, or rearrange the political framework,
within which the economic system functions, in such a way
as to permit of better economic arrangements, the result in
the long run may be largely to reduce the net loss — if not,
indeed, to effect a gain — by securing the more effective
utilisation of nature's resources, and facilitating that
orderly development of industry and commerce which
depends upon enlightened rule and wise administration.
Moreover, in spite of the great risks of unforeseen economic
consequences, and of the certainty of more or less serious
economic injury to the community as a whole, individual
states, belligerent or non-belligerent, may on balance show
no appreciable ultimate loss.
In some ways it is futile to attempt to measure the
relative gain and loss of war. In the first place, the result
of the calculation will depend on the length of the period
over which the consequences of the war are measured, as
short period gains may prove to be counterbalanced by
ultimate losses and vice versa. Secondly, no one can fore-
cast with certainty the course of events and their economic
bearing if the dispute had been settled by some other
means than war. In any case, the good and bad effects
of war are so inextricably intertwined and so utterly
incapable of measurement that it becomes impossible to
strike a balance with any degree of accuracy. The economic
96 INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS m
effects of war are to be judged not only by the immediate
economic losses it involves, but also by their influence on
the future course of economic development, as compared
with the possibilities of the inscrutable " what might have
been." Not only so, but the political changes involved
react on economic life either for good or evil, so that the
political consequences of war may be either economically
advantageous or the reverse. It has been well said that in
the modern world purely economic matters do not exist ;
the bonds between economics and politics are too intimate.
If, as a result of the Franco-German War, Germany had
obtained in the Treaty of Frankfort all the iron mines of
Eastern France, as she thought she had done, " the im-
perious call of iron " would never have arisen, and the
political history and the economic life and growth of the
last generation would have been different ; whether the
net result would have been economically good or not is a
question which may be left to those who enjoy journeys
into the region of speculation.
What are the material costs of war ? In the first place,
war disturbs the normal workaday life of the world. In
spite of periodical war scares and the apparently important
part played by military considerations, the modern economic
world has been evolved upon the assumption of a state of
peace. It is built upon a peace foundation. When we
speak of " the crushing burden of armaments," judging
their cost by the expenditure on life-giving state services,
we are apt to forget that the volume of goods produced in
preparation for war is small in comparison with the total
volume of the world's production. Broadly speaking, only
a small proportion of the workers of the world are engaged
either directly or indirectly upon the production of war
materials. The vast majority are engaged in supplying
m INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC RELATIONS 97
food and clothing, housing accommodation, and the
amenities of civilised life, or in conveying them from place
to place, or in building the ships and rolling-stock which
carry them. Even in Germany, where the water and
railway transport system has been consolidated and
developed with strategic intentions, intermittent years of
warfare cannot submerge the importance of long periods
of peaceful use.
And the whole world, in spite of rivalry and individual
self-seeking, is engaged in the stupendous task of supplying
its normal needs. This task has called for the co-ordinated
activity of all its producers and a considerable amount of
international co-operation. Whatever diplomats and the
Press may say to the contrary, however much people at
times are pulled up before the prospect of an " inevitable "
war, the world goes on its way producing and consuming,
on the assumption that to-morrow will be as to-day, and
that peace will continue. The credit system — an economic
device for taking time by the forelock — an institution in-
dispensable in modern industry and commerce, is unwork-
able on any other assumption.
War shatters the peace basis of the economic world.
The whole economic organisation, even in the most militar-
istic country, must be revolutionised and re-established on
a war basis. The vast engine of economic life amid creaks
and jolts ponderously beats the ploughshare into engines
of war. Large numbers of men leave the productive
labours of peace for military or naval service ; a large
portion of the remainder of the working population are
turned into producers of the manifold needs of modern
armies and navies. Those on active service not only
become non-producers, but become consumers on a scale
which they have hardly dreamt of before. Less of the
98 INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS m
commodities of peace are produced. Plant and work-
people, both relatively less fitted for their new work, make
war materials of some kind instead of the goods to which
they are accustomed, and the tale of loss is increased.1
Trade between the belligerent countries ceases, and
a nation exercising control of the seas destroys the
enemy's trade with neutral countries, thus compelling
resort to substitutes, if these are obtainable within the
country. The war itself is the cause of immense destruction,
all the greater in modern times because it may be carried
on in large industrial areas. Because of the great cost
of war, countries trench upon their capital, or at the best
devote to the work of war wealth which under normal
circumstances would have gone to swell the world's capital,
so that future production suffers. Large numbers of people
are either killed or permanently incapacitated, and as they
are for the most part young men, the world loses the best
part of a lifetime's labour. At the end of the war, the
confusion and dislocation caused through the reconversion
of industry from a war footing to the normal peace footing
is the occasion of further inefficiency and waste. Credit,
without which commerce must languish, depends on trust
and confidence, a state of mind which is not immediately
restored with the return of peace. This is by no means
the full story of the economic losses of war, but it serves
to indicate what war means to industry and commerce.
1 It should be noted that the dislocation created by war is not so
great as at first sight appears, since a considerable proportion of the
expense is in the nature of allowances, food, clothing, etc., to soldiers
and sailors and their dependents, who, for the most part, consume
in war time the things they use in times of peace. Further, the
division of labour in such a way that parts of war commodities and
their accessories are manufactured in a large number of different
workshops, merely means the employment of peace industries for
war purposes, without very much change.
m INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC RELATIONS 99
Modern wars are costly for two reasons : first, because of
the economic interdependence of peoples ; and secondly,
because of the revolution which has taken place in the
methods of waging war. War has become a large-scale
machine industry. Elaborate trenches constructed with
far more care than the average house, mines on land and
sea, field telephones, wire entanglements, motor transport,
the large size of modern armies, the huge and complicated
engines which destroy themselves in propelling costly pro -
jectiles, have industrialised warfare to an extent which few
people realised until the other day.
It had been thought that a great war would work such
economic disaster that its end would be a matter of weeks
or at the most months. The fact is that the efficiency of
production, the technical knowledge, the power of organisa-
tion which have assisted in unifying the economic world,
and added to the awful thoroughness of war, are instruments
in the hands of belligerent states for the purpose of organ-
ising for war. The adaptability and resourcefulness of
modern industry and commerce, the power to distribute
the enormous financial burdens over generations, will work
to overcome the smashing blow which war gives to society.
The very qualities which have developed the world organisa-
tion of industry and commerce, and which control it in
times of peace, are devoted to adapting it to the different
needs and circumstances of war. The growing inter-
dependence and complexity of international economic
relations will not render war impossible, but they will make
it more and more costly. But even here the extraordinary
recuperative powers of the economic organism, the greater
knowledge of economic phenomena and, therefore, the
greater possibility of control, together with the increased
willingness of modern states to institute control, will tend
100 INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS in
to diminish the net loss of warfare. Even so, however,
the cost of war is almost beyond calculation, and as cosmo-
politan forces develop, and the interdependence of east and
west and .north and south becomes greater, the cost will
correspondingly increase. This will, at any rate, tend to
cool the ardour of those who call for war, and give pause to
sabre-rattling politicians, though, in itself, it will only show
the folly of war and not its impossibility.
It has already been suggested that there is a credit side
to warfare. So far as the world as a whole is concerned,
the aggregate gains from war will in all probability be less
than the total loss, though to what extent none can say.
Political changes due to war may have permanent economic
effects, of considerable importance, given sufficient time
in which to operate. The colossal and pressing demand
for munitions of war and their accessories taxes the economic
world to the utmost. Necessity is the mother of invention ;
and in belligerent states and neutral countries with manu-
facturing industries, the demand for war-supplies is likely
to lead to steps to satisfy it. New methods of production,
new inventions, improved organisation, such as we have
already seen to be a result of war, will be the means
taken to augment the supply of needed commodities. These
changes will tend to persist. The effects of an industrial
revolution, as a direct consequence of war precipitating
drastic changes in economic life, cannot be dismissed as
negligible in their influence on the rate and character of
economic progress. The economic losses of war are im-
mediately apparent, the possible gains less obvious.
Further, though the flood of loss is to some extent distri-
buted over time, its greatest effects are felt during the
period of war and in the succeeding years ; but, in general,
it will diminish with the passage of time. The gains, on
in INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC RELATIONS 101
the other hand, are cumulative, and will, in some cases,
fructify after a considerable period of time. The former
tend to be eradicated from economic society ; the latter
become permanently absorbed into its fabric. Hence it
is that estimates of the relative losses and gains of war are
impossible for long periods and futile for short periods.
This holds also in the case of single states. A state
that went to war in the hope of obtaining material advantage
from it would run fearful risks of disappointment. It would
be a gambler's throw ; for not only is there the chance of
defeat, but the chance of future economic developments
being different from what was desired, as economic forces
and tendencies are not fit subjects for definite prophecy.
As a set-off to the costs of war, however, a country may
obtain a revision of another country's tariff in its favour,
or a treaty conferring special advantages on its nationals ;
or it may obtain new territory, the revenue from which will
exceed the cost of administration, or perhaps supply it with
ports under its own fiscal control. Further, it may secure
an indemnity in order to burden its enemy with the greater
cost of the war. For, as a recent writer points out,1 skilful
handling of an indemnity may avoid the pitfalls dangerous
to the unwary, and it may be similar in its results to a
loan made by the people of one country to another state.
A study of the last Balkan Wars shows the complex
character of their economic effects and the intimate manner
in which economic and political consequences are inter-
woven, as well as the ramifications of their reaction upon
the Great Powers.2 The relatively primitive stage of
economic development reached in the Balkans, however,
1 Mr. J. H. Jones in The Economics of War and Conquest.
* See the illuminating account of the economic results of the
Balkan Wars in Nationalism and War in the Near East.
102 INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS m
makes it less difficult to trace the effects of war there. A
war in which the Great Powers were engaged would be
more difficult to unravel, and its effects would be both
more deep-seated and far-reaching. Whether any of them
would show the solid and undoubted economic gains which
resulted to Greece is more than doubtful, though it is
extremely likely that some of them would suffer the equally
undoubted losses which were the lot of Bulgaria.
To say that there may be some economic gains from
war is not to assert that war is the only way or the best
way to obtain them. Much less can one argue that wars
are a good thing, as at the best they mean a certain im-
mediate economic loss and a problematical and probably
long-period gain. There is, however, no evidence that any
statesman «ver decided on war or risked war because he
thought it would pay. The case against war rests really on
other than economic grounds.
4. INTERNATIONAL ECONOMICS AND THE FUTURE .
The free trade agitation in this country two generations
ago was, in the eyes of its leaders, much more than an
economic movement. It was thought that, under the
leadership of Britain, the world would adopt a free trade
policy, that as a consequence all nations would prosper,
and that the abandonment of hostile tariffs would remove
many causes of friction. Hence, international relations
would be more harmonious, and the blessings of free trade
would militate against war. The movement was therefore
a peace movement. In the mind of John Bright, for
example, freedom of trade was a means towards the realisa-
tion of international friendship ; or as Cobden said, " Free
trade is the best peacemaker."
m INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC RELATIONS 103
With few exceptions — though in a few cases not without
periods of hesitation — the states of the world have chosen
the other path. Has the regime of protection endangered
peaceful international relations, and is the future peace
of the world dependent upon the abolition of protective
tariffs ? So far as the Great Powers themselves are con-
cerned, the most that can be said is that, though in them-
selves insufficient to lead to war, protective measures have
at times swollen the volume of an already existing feeling
of hostility between nations. Even during the worst
periods of German or American " dumping " — a device
of protection — no one in this country dreamt of going to
war on the question. The most that was demanded was
some form of economic retaliation. It will be generally
found that when a country raises its tariff wall and inflicts
injury on the industrial and commercial interests of other
countries, the cry is for economic reprisals and not for the
use of armed force.1
But in the case of the outposts of empire, the problem
is somewhat different. These outlying territories are
potential markets for European produce and important
sources of supply of essential raw materials. The Powers
whose " possessions " they are more frequently than not
give the goods of their nationals preferential treatment as
against foreign imports. Neither Britain nor Germany,
however, has pursued this policy. Preferential treatment
has undoubtedly fostered bad feeling between the nations.
Nations entering into the field of world politics at a later
date have found the greater part of the earth under the
flag of other states, and barriers in the way of seeking over-
1 The chief blows to British trade have come from tariff revisions
in the United States ; concurrently, political relations between Great
Britain and the United States have improved !
104 INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS ra
seas markets and obtaining supplies of important products.
In the case of countries not annexed by Western Powers,
such as China, " the open door " policy has been supported
in order that no state may secure monopolistic advantages
in trade.
Without exaggeration it may be said that universal
free trade would be the greatest step towards the
realisation of peace. But the economically ideal policy
may not be politically expedient. At present, states are
moved by motives of self-interest and not by world
interest, to say nothing of motives of a non-economic
character. Fiscal policy is intimately bound up with
taxation and domestic policy generally. It is because of
this that the British self-governing dominions retain full
control over their fiscal systems. Imperial interference
would strike at the roots of self-government. A unified
fiscal system for the British Empire as a whole will be
possible when it is in accord with the national interests
of its constituent self-governing parts. The majority of
states in the world do not conceive of free trade as being
in the best interests of their own national development,
and without infringing their independence it could not be
imposed upon them. The day of free trade will have
dawned when the nations judge it to be in harmony with
their own domestic interests. For that day and, therefore,
for the realisation of universal freedom of trade we shall
have long to wait, even if the economic bonds between
nations grow stronger and more numerous.
The suggestion, however, that the foreign possessions
of the Powers should be thrown open to the traders and
contractors of all nations on equal terms, as is done in the
British Empire, is within the range of practical politics. It
is hardly likely that the Powers concerned would agree to
in INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC RELATIONS 105
the abolition of tarifE restrictions, for that would be con-
sidered the prerogative of the governing authority, but it
is perhaps not unlikely that they might agree to uniform
tariffs for imports whatever the country of origin. This
would remove from the field of international politics a
source of irritation and hostility.
The interdependence of peoples has led to a belief in the
use of the " economic boycott " as a possible alternative
to war. The idea is by no means new. Although the
transport of troops and supplies, the possibility of bombard-
ment of enemy territory, etc., are valuable results of naval
superiority, they are merely incidental ; the fundamental
advantage of maritime supremacy to the state that possesses
it in war-time is economic. It is essential to maintaining
its own supplies from neutral and allied countries ; at the
same time it enables it to prevent the import of supplies
into an enemy country. It is because of the economic
consequences that countries dependent for their existence
upon foreign produce have greater need of naval power
than economically independent countries. In the modern
world, however, the number of self-supporting states is
becoming less, for the state of to-day needs so much.
Hence the increasing importance of the naval arm. The
economic boycott is intended to secure the same results
as naval supremacy, without resort to the same methods.
In the words of Mr. J. A. Hobson, " The boycott is a
weapon which could be employed with paralysing power
by a circle of nations upon an offender against the public
law of the world. ... If all diplomatic intercourse were
withdrawn ; if the international postal and telegraphic
systems were closed to a public law breaker ; if all inter-
State railway trains stopped at his frontiers ; if no foreign
ships entered his ports, and ships carrying his flag were
106 INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS m
excluded from every port ; if all coaling stations were closed
to him ; if no acts of sale or purchase were permitted to
him in the outside world — if such a political and commercial
boycott were seriously threatened, what country could
long stand out against it ? Nay, the far less rigorous
measure of a financial boycott, the closure of all foreign
exchanges to members of the outlaw State, the prohibition
of all quotations on foreign Stock Exchanges, and of all
dealings in stocks and shares, all discounting and accept-
ances of trade bills, all loans for public and private purposes,
and all payments of moneys due — such a withdrawal of
financial intercourse, if thoroughly applied and persisted
in, would be likely to bring to its senses the least scrupulous
of States." l
It is an indication of the importance of economic influ-
ences in the modern world that economic means should be
suggested as a substitute for war. As Mr. Hobson points
out, the prosecution of a boycott would react injuriously
upon the states putting it into operation. Its chief weak-
ness probably is " the fact that any such boycott would be
far less potent or immediate in its pressure against some
nations than against others. While Great Britain would
have to yield at once to the threat of such pressure, Russia or
even the United States, could stand out for a considerable
time, and China might even regard it — the boycott — as
a blessing." 2 There are some difficulties which would
render its use less powerful, not the least of which is that
of stopping private trading, especially as " running the
blockade " would be highly profitable if successful.3 It is
also not unlikely that a boycott might precipitate war.
1 Towards International Government, pp. 90-91.
• Ibid. p. 93.
8 Great Britain's difficulty in blockading Germany is significant.
m INTEKNATIONAL ECONOMIC RELATIONS 107
For its successful use the boycott assumes the active co-
operation of a number of states, indeed of the most im-
portant states of the world. This is where the real difficulty
lies. Could the nations of the world agree on common
action for the maintenance of peace, the chances of war
would be greatly diminished. Up to the present such
full co-operation has not been forthcoming, so far as agree-
ment to keep the peace has been concerned, and it is
questionable how far states will, in the immediate future,
be willing to act together on an economic basis.
It has been suggested by Mr. F. N. Keen that " the
States comprised in the international scheme might be
required to keep deposited with, or under the control of,
the International Council sums of money . . . which
might be made available to answer international obligations,
and an international bank might be organised." 1 It should,
however, be remembered that any sums likely to be placed
by states on deposit for this purpose will be so small com-
pared with the cost of war that a state prepared to face
such expenditure would not be deterred by the loss of its
account in the international bank.
The suggestion has been made that the close economic
co-operation of the Allied Powers should be made the basis
of an economic league. Proposals in this direction have
emanated from individuals in this country, in France, Italy,
and Russia. The motives appear to be various. It is felt
by certain people that some form of Zollverein would cement
the friendship of states which have fought together, by others
that such a league would be able to prosecute with vigour
the economic chastisement of the Germanic Powers on the
cessation of military and naval operations ; some see in the
idea the beginning of a scheme of international economic
1 The World in Alliance, p. 58.
108 INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS m
co-operation, with the boycott as its weapon against
aggression. The chances are that an economic league on
the lines suggested would exclude enemy Powers, and be
merely a method of prolonging warfare in another sphere
and keeping alive feelings of hostility.
It is outside the scope of this chapter to put forth con-
structive proposals, but even the all too brief examination
of the economic proposals that have been made will serve
to show the difficult problems that the future must face.
On the economic side it may be pointed out that in the
settlement of the Great War there will be a number of
complicated matters needing treatment, connected with
the payment of compensation, indemnities, loans, etc.
These questions are different in character from those with
which diplomatists aie familiar, and after the principles
involved have been settled, there could be no better way of
dealing with these economic problems than by the appoint-
ment of an international economic commission, which
might also advise on the question of the economic recon-
struction of Europe. If such a body became permanent,
it would ultimately become a commission charged with the
control of certain international economic forces.
In conclusion, we have seen the growth in modern times
of closer economic intercourse between the people of different
nations ; and the tendency towards the greater economic
unification of the world. The markets for the great staple
commodities have become world-wide, and peoples hitherto
more or less self-sufficing have come to depend on others
to an increasing extent for the satisfaction of the varied
needs of modern life. Consequently, relations in our day
are more intimate in times of peace and their disruption
is more far-reaching and disastrous in times of war.
Economic forces and factors, once mainly local or national,
ra INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC RELATIONS 109
have come to operate over larger and larger areas until they
are rapidly becoming world-wide. Capital and labour are
enabled to seek employment over a great field ; and the
opportunities of each for consolidation have multiplied.
In point of fact, the former is more unified than the latter,
though both capitalists and labourers, each within their
own ranks, compete with each other, the former chiefly
through the medium of foreign investments and concessions,
the latter mainly through the operation of fiscal systems.
Economic power is an important asset to a state ; its
political power and prestige depend in some degree upon
its economic power. The old mercantilist policy of the
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries has been discarded by
the states of the world for a more complex subtle policy
in harmony with modern economic developments* The
era of territorial occupation has given place to the period
of economic exploitation ; and the rivalry of states is fought
out more and more in the sphere of industrial and com-
mercial competition, in which struggle the undeveloped
regions of the world are the chief battle-ground. Hence
the subtle relations existing in some countries between the
Government and its financiers. Nearer home, governments
are ready to utilise geographical advantages for diplomatic
purposes, usually to hamper the economic development of
another country. The world, in consequence, loses ; and
hostility is increased.
Thus whilst greater economic intercourse has made for
peace through interdependence, economic rivalry overseas,
and the use of economic pressure in one form or another as
a diplomatic weapon^ together with the pervasive influence
of large-scale co-operative capitalism in munitions industries,
have disturbed the peaceful relations fostered by fuller
intercourse. Amid the tangled causes of the Great War
110 INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS m
may be discerned economic threads. The effects of war
on the world's economic life we have seen to be deep-seated
and difficult to measure.
Finally, we have touched upon one or two suggestions
for the future in order to emphasise the difficulty and
complexity of the problems in store for the world. The
need, we realise, is for a large view. From the international
economic standpoint the question is twofold ; in the first
place there is the problem, which will assume larger propor-
tions in the future, of subjecting to control the cosmopolitan
economic forces, e.g. combinations, and the competition
between white and coloured labour ; secondly, there arise
thorny questions connected with the development of the
world's resources. The rivalry of capitalists for outlets
has in its present form little to commend it, and concession-
aires eager for quick returns are apt to be careless of ultimate
economic interests and to show little consideration for the
labour they employ, judging by the Congo and Putumayo
scandals. Further, the utilisation of a nation's geographical
position to exploit a neighbour, whether by tariffs, by
hindrances to through transport, or what not, is merely a
method of taking advantage of the world's economic needs,
which ought not to be made the plaything either of capitalists
or states.
These questions necessitate international control through
the institution of some permanent body or bodies specially
established to deal with them, and under the direction of
an international political institution. Economic inter-
nationalism will perform its real function in the world only
when it is politically controlled in the wider interests of
humanity.
m INTEKNATIONAL ECONOMIC KELATIONS 111
BIBLIOGRAPHY
There is no single book covering the ground dealt with in the
chapter. The most convenient book dealing with the growth of
international economic relations is A History of Commerce by Clive
Day. (Longmans. 7s. 6d.) Any good text-book on economics will
throw light upon economic interdependence, etc. The distribution
and earnings of British foreign investments, which is essential to an
understanding of their influence on policy, are given in a valuable
paper by Sir G. Paish in The Journal of the Royal Statistical Society
for January 1911. On the relations between economics and politics
reference should be made to —
Problems of Power, by W. Morton - Fullerton. (Constable.
7s. 6d.)
Nationality and the War, by Arnold Toynbee. (Dent. 7s. 6d.)
The New Europe, by Arnold Toyn bee. (Dent. Is. 6d.) Chapter
III. deals with " Politics and Economics."
The War of Steel and Gold, by H. N. Brailsford. (Bell. 2s.)
Ten Years of Secret Diplomacy, by E. D. Morel. (National
Labour Press. Is.)
German Culture. (Jack. 2s. 6d.) Chapter on " Political and
Economic Aspects of German Nationalism," by Professor
D. H. Macgregor.
Labour and the War, by G. D. H. Cole. (Bell. 2s.) Chapter I.
(" War and Class-War ") and Chapter II. (" Labour and
the Outbreak of War ").
For Section 3 on " Economics and War," see —
The Great Illusion, by N. Angell (Heinemann. 2s. 6d.), and
Mr. Angell's other works.
The Economics of War and Conquest, by J. H. Jones. (Kong &
Son. 2s. 6d.)
The Franco - German War Indemnity, by H. H. O'Farrell.
(Garton Foundation. Is.)
Nationalism and War in the Near East, by a Diplomatist.
(Clarendon Press. 12s. 6d.) Chapter VIII. deals with
the economic results of the Balkan Wars.
The Political Economy of War, by F. W. Hirst. (Dent. 5s.)
For Section 4 dealing with the economic aspects of international
peace, etc., see —
The War of Steel and Gold, by H. N. Brailsford. (Bell. 2s.)
Part II.
Towards International Government, by J. A. Hobson. (Allen
and Unwin. 2s. 6d.) Chapter VII. (" The Economic
Boycott ") and Chapter IX. (" International Government
in Relation to Problems of Economic Opportunity ").
112 INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS m
The Ethics of International Trade, by H. Lambert. (Papers for
War Time. 2d.)
The Great Settlement, by C. Ernest Fayle. (Murray. 6s.)
Chapter V. (" Colonial Questions in the Settlement ") and
Chapter VI. (" The Economic Factors of the Settlement ").
Towards a Lasting Settlement, ed. by C. R. Buxton. (Allen and
Unwin. 2s. 6d.) Chapter by Mr. J. A. Hobson on " The
Open Door."
See Appendix (Note on Cosmopolitan Associations).
IV
INTERNATIONAL LAW
IT may be well to state what is attempted in the present
chapter, not in a vain effort to forestall criticism, but to
indicate the aim with which it is written. A mere digest of
International Law would be of little use at the present
time. The conflict between the ideals of stability and
adaptation to new needs arises in any system of rules, and in
the international system this conflict is present in a degree
which is not found in other systems. The present time has
afforded peculiar opportunities to this conflict, so that
many have become sceptical as to whether it would not be
better to deny the existence of a system of rules which could
be regarded in any sense as binding upon nations, or
rather upon the Governments which represent them, and
are the guardians of their honour.
It will clearly be of more use, therefore, to give a general
survey of the nature and of the contents of the international
system of rules than to attempt a digest of the rules them-
selves ; to feel towards a method of thinking upon these
matters which may enable us to acquire a balanced and
reasoned outlook to the exclusion of a somewhat flippant
scepticism.
The chief question, therefore, that this essay will seek
to answer is :
113 I
114 INTEKNATIONAL KELATIONS iv
I. Is International Law really a true species of Law ?
Some reference will also be made to
II. The Scope and Contents of International Law,
and
III. The Position of International Law at the present
time.
1. Is INTERNATIONAL LAW REALLY A SPECIES OF LAW?
This, of course, is a question going to the root of our
subject, a question which introduces us to a lengthy con-
troversy upon the nature and definition of law, of which
some account must be given because a substantial question
lies hidden behind it. In dealing with abstract definitions
it is always well to keep in mind the real substantial facts
which lurk behind the abstract statements with which one
is concerned, so that a discussion may be as far removed
from intellectual pedantry as possible. What then is the
substance of the controversy raised by those who deny that
International Law is Law ? Let us approach the question
as follows :
Is it true or not to speak of the community of states ?
If there is such a community, then there must be rules to
regulate the relations of the individuals who form that
community, and these rules must be taken to be laws until
they are proved not to be. The essence of a law ia that it
belongs to a system of rules which exist for the regulation
of the rights and duties of members of a community. If
we decide that there is a community of states, we may
throw the burden upon objectors to prove that the rules
governing those states are not laws.
He would be a rash man who, even at the present time,
would deny that there is a community of states. A quarrel
iv INTERNATIONAL LAW 115
does not sever a family into me.re unrelated individuals.
No one would deny that France, Great Britain, Russia,
Japan, and Italy are at present members of a community,
and to these we may certainly add all neutral countries.
Those who are most readily sceptical about international
law call Germany an outlaw, and so imply a community
governed by law from which she is excluded. If then there
are rules applicable to the conduct of these individual states
in their relations to other states, why should not these rules
be termed laws in the fullest sense of the term ? The
various objections may be considered in order.
1. The main objection which interests lawyers comes
from those who accept what is called the Austinian theory
of law. The history of the political ideas involved in this
theory may be left to political philosophers ; at present we
must be content to see for ourselves whether we can accept
the definition of law put forward by Austin and his followers.
John Austin was the first to fill the Chair of Jurisprudence
in the University of London in the earlier half of the nine-
teenth century, and he set himself to define the nature of
law. He took his standpoint outside society and came to
the following conclusions upon the laws by which society is
regulated.
In any civil society there is a cleavage between governor
and governed, and the governor sets laws to be obeyed by
the governed. Law, therefore, is a command, and implies
power in the governor of enforcing the command by the
application of force. The governor is sovereign, and the
governed are subjects. Apart from the historical career
of this system of ideas upon the nature of society, it may be
noted that Austin's thinking was moulded by the Constitu-
tion of England about the time of the Reform Act of 1832.
Before the extension of the franchise in 1832, the political
116 INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS iv
condition of England would not contradict very forcibly a
theory which regarded law as a mere command to the mass
of the community by a sovereign parliament. Even after
the extension of the franchise in 1832 there was not such
a realisation of the ideal of self-government as would make
the theory obviously unsatisfactory.
It is clear, however, that the growth of democratic in-
stitutions and ideas would not be consistent with retaining
such a conception of the nature of law. It would be con-
tradictory to inform a self-governing citizen that his con-
duct was regulated from above by a sovereign whose com-
mands were backed by force. Even in Austin's writings
there are many passages departing from his own clear-cut
conceptions. The growth of democratic self-government
through an extended franchise led therefore to modifica-
tion of Austin's views by successive writers. The problem
was — How can you tell a self-governing citizen that he is
commanded, without contradicting yourself ? The result
of successive steps in reasoning may be stated as follows :
It is true that Parliament makes laws which are commands,
backed by force, but the Parliament is only the organ of
speech ordained by the constitution to give expression to
the will of the community as a whole. The community as
a whole is the sovereign seat of authority, and it is an organic
whole in which the self-governing citizen finds his place,
obedient to laws which are the expression of his social self.
The main point of this inadequate statement of certain
aspects of political theory is to emphasise the fact that for
many minds, particularly for English minds, the idea that
law is necessarily a command backed by force has been
retained, and reconciled with political conditions which
seemed at first to destroy it. For such minds International
Law can never be truly called law. It is the command of
rv INTERNATIONAL LAW 117
no sovereign with executive organs comparable to those
which appear in a modern state for the enforcement of the
uttered commands. State Law is State Command, and
State Command is the only law in the true sense of the
term. The challenge is clear : before any system of rules
can be termed ' law,' point to the sovereign who enunciates
the rules, and who in the last resort will enforce them.
There are many lines of attack upon this clear-cut
system of ideas. Some minds of an idealistic turn will seek
to find a deeper meaning in the civil law than that which is
implied in regarding it as a command ; others of a pene-
trating type will approach the matter psychologically and
ask, What are the facts of civic life, and the relation of law
thereto ? and will attempt an examination of the motives
for obedience to this law which is called a command backed
by force. The method of approach which will prove most
useful for present purposes is the historical.
The best known pioneer in the application of historical
methods to legal study is Sir Henry Maine, and two famous
chapters written by him in The Early History of Institu-
tions are generally taken to have put Austin's conception of
law out of court as a serious definition. It may be said in
passing that Maine paid a tribute to Austin's thinking
which has escaped many who follow his ideas in preference
to those of Austin. Maine acknowledged that if we regard
modern state life alone, Austin's conception of law would
serve very well, but he contended that for a full definition
of law it was impossible so to confine our outlook.
To the assertion that law is inevitably the command of
a sovereign, the historian replied that there are many com-
munities to-day, representing a stage in civilisation through
which even organised modern communities have passed,
which are in no sense governed by laws in the shape of
118 INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS iv
commands issuing from an organised sovereign. They are
governed by customary law in various stages of develop-
ment, representing the gradual accumulation of rules from
a time when human groups made their half -conscious adap-
tations to surrounding circumstances. As a rough example
of such adaptation we may note one cause of the develop-
ment of two forms of early tribal organisation. Where a
tribe has to sustain itself by hunting, the man had to be
free from the cares of home to the fullest degree, so that the
woman acquired a domestic position of such strength that
she became the head of the family. The man married into
her family, and the phenomenon of the matriarchal system
followed. On the other hand, in more settled modes of
living, the man can gather an agricultural community
round him and found a patriarchal household. The woman
will be taken into his family, and he will have power over
her, and her children will be his children, with no rights of
inheritance through their mother. In this way early law
grew up, by gradual development from first principles laid
down under stress of circumstance, much as a pathway
grows through a forest, deviating according as the first
pioneers adapted themselves to the conditions under which
they laboured. Such rules are not commanded from above
like the roads of a model building estate, any more than are
the forest pathways. They are obeyed rather by consent
than by command, obeyed as law rather than because they
are law.
The historian took up the cudgels on behalf of these early
rules, and claimed that any definition of law worthy of th^
name should include a survey of them. Some thought it a
fit answer to say that to define a man there is no need to
define an ape. Even assuming that this answer was founded
upon good evolutionary theory, it is clear that it by no
iv INTEKNATIONAL LAW 119
means silences the historian. The controversy is important
from one point of view, because if we can really put our
finger upon the point at issue, it will probably help us to
make up our minds upon the nature of International Law.
The Austinian says, law is a command of a sovereign :
the historian says that this does not account for the earlier
types of law prevalent in tribal organisation, and that any
true definition of law must embrace all forms of law ; the
International lawyer talks of his system of law, and the
Austinian denies that he has any right to do so, because his
laws again are not commands proceeding from a definite
sovereign with executive powers. If the historian and the
International lawyer can find a common ground upon
which to attack the narrow views of the Austinian, it is
clear that in all probability they have a very good case.
They certainly have a common ground, and the criti-
cism which we may imagine them to make upon the Austinian
will proceed upon the following lines.
The essence of law is that it regulates rights and duties
between the individual members of a community. To
require that every law shall be the command of a sovereign
with executive power is to introduce into the definition of
an age-old phenomenon characteristics derived from ex-
tremely modern conditions. Men have been in communi-
ties from time immemorial, and laws have regulated their
conduct, and it is only comparatively recently that law has
attached to itself two characteristics :
(i.) That it proceeds from a definite sovereign body, with
recognised power to formulate rules which shall figure as
laws.
(ii.) That this sovereign body has recognised power of
enforcing obedience or punishing disobedience to the rules
it has enunciated.
120 INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS iv
To say that law is essentially the command of a sovereign
backed by force, and that nothing else is law, is to regard
only these modern accidental developments and to make
them the essence of the matter to be defined.
Taking a comprehensive view of human associations it
is clear that a community may be regulated by laws which
have not been enunciated by a definite sovereign, e.g. it
may be governed by pure customary law. It is clear also
that there may not be a definite executive power where
there is absent a definite sovereign to enunciate laws. It is
purely arbitrary to say that these earlier laws were not laws,
because the essence of law really is that it regulates conduct
in a community. The point is that in the history of law
there are two distinct lines of development to be traced.
In the first place there is the growth of the system of rules
which apply to the groups of facts with which the law has
to deal. This growth may be gradual, or may be subject
to revolutionary changes where new groups of facts suddenly
develop in the economic life of the community, or where
new abuses suddenly become prominent. In the second
place there is the development of governmental organs and
machinery for the enactment and enforcement of laws. It
is idle to deny that these two lines of growth are closely
connected, but in order to define law it is essential to sever
one from the other. A law is none the less a law whether
it is enforced by tribal machinery, or by feudal, or by the
executive of a modern state. It is none the less a law
whether it is enunciated by a modern parliament, or whetl.
it has been forged in the reaction of a mass of men against
their surrounding conditions. Wherever there is a com-
munity, the absence of pure anarchy implies the presence
of laws, whether or not there be a definite sovereign to
command and enforce.
iv INTEKNATIONAL LAW 121
Turning to the question with which we began, and
recalling the fact than an international community of states
does certainly exist, it follows as night the day that there
must be a system of true laws to regulate rights and duties.
They need not be enunciated by a sovereign body, nor
certain of enforcement by a sovereign executive.
The whole trouble has arisen because Austin adopted a
system of ideas for the definition of law which historically
were concerned with a very different question, viz. the seat
of authority in a political community. Whether sovereignty
is to reside in the general will, or in a commanding sovereign,
whether authority be conferred upon the monarch by Divine
grant, or by a grant from the people, all these controversies
are irrelevant for the purpose of defining law. It may or
may not be good political theory to say that a sovereign has
authority underived from his subjects and commands them ;
but to proceed from this to the statement that the nature
of all true law is that it is commanded by a sovereign is
once again to inflict on lawyers debatable conclusions in the
form of a definition, and such was the work done by Austin.
It is often said that law is " the delimitation of rights,"
and this may be accepted as a phrase implying the con-
clusions which were reached in the above argument.
It is always unwise to drive an analogy too far, and it
must not be thought that modern international law has
much in common with early tribal law. It has to meet
wholly different groups of facts, and its development is aided
by the high skill of modern intelligence. The analogy is
useful, however, in the one fundamental matter, that in both
the tribal and the international community there is law
apart from the existence of a modern state sovereign. The
analogy breaks down in a matter equally fundamental, that
whereas the development of organised state machinery out
122 INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS rv
of tribal conditions involved also the break-down of tribal
law in the face of new conditions, there is no reason why the
development of more organised international machinery
should involve a similar break-down of the present system
of international law. The substance of the rules for times
of peace might remain much the same, even though a more
organised enforcement should develop, though the law of
neutrality and the laws of war would cease to exist as such.
2. Although the above line of argument be admitted to
be sound it is still possible that present events might suggest
a further objection, or a series of objections, which should
here be considered. They all have a connection with each
other, and may be considered together, viz. :
(i.) Even admitting that a system of law need not have
a modern organised executive behind it, it must be backed
up by force in some way, so that offenders shall be punished,
or have the possibility of punishment before their eyes as a
deterrent.
(ii.) If it were anything approaching a system of law, it
must surely be such as would exclude warfare as a means
of deciding disputes.
(iii.) Is it not so continually broken that it becomes a
mere farce to call it law ?
(As to i.) Need a system of law be backed up by force ?
There is not the slightest reason why it should. A law may
be a true law though obedience to it can never be enforced.
It is commonly said that International Law is law because
states agree to regard certain rules as law. It makes no
difference whatever whether states will abide by it when
the time of trial arrives. This cannot be emphasised too
strongly, nor is this statement such a foolish one as might
at first appear. Were the functions of international law
exhausted after it had provided a standard for breaches of
iv INTEKNATIONAL LAW 123
itself, it would still have served the purpose of a system of
law, viz. to delimit rights and duties. The sole function of
a system of law is to provide a considered measure by which
conduct may be judged as legal or illegal.
When we accuse Germany of having broken certain laws,
when Germany and the United States accuse us of having
broken certain laws, is it nothing to have precedents and a
considered system to which an appeal may be made for
judgment in the questions at issue ? Law is everywhere
but the crystallisation of previous experience, something
agreed upon as representing the balance of equity in the
case, and the question whether its conclusions can be en-
forced upon a refractory member is, however important,
irrelevant to the question whether it is law. It is untrue,
however, to say that international law can never be en-
forced : it has its sanctions, regulated by itself. For
instance, the United States might have withdrawn from
diplomatic intercourse with Germany in consequence of the
submarine policy of the German Navy. She might have
confiscated German shipping in her harbours.
Another form of sanction is the approved form of self-
help which has figured largely in the present war, viz.
reprisals. In response to Germany's modes of warfare, we
announce a stricter control over produce entering and
leaving German soil ; then by way of reprisals Germany
enters upon her submarine policy, upon which we accord
special treatment to their captured crews ; and this again
calls for reprisals on the part of Germany in treating more
harshly certain British prisoners in her hands.
It is true that the organised enforcement, such as is seen
in a modern state, is absent, but it is untrue to say that there
is no enforcement at all. War itself may be regarded as a
possible mode of enforcement. We were bound by treaty
124 INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS iv
to enter the war in defence of Belgian neutrality ; but in the
United States, certain utterances of Mr. Roosevelt practic-
ally called upon America to vindicate the law by a war on
its behalf. The practical utility of a system of law will
doubtless depend upon the efficacy of the sanctions attached
to it, but it is wholly erroneous to deny the system of rules
the status of laws merely because such sanctions are weak
or, indeed, absent altogether.
(As to ii.) Should not international law exclude warfare
as a mode of decision, if it is to be worthy of the name of
law ?
The feeling that a system of law is inconsistent with war-
fare lurks strongly in the minds of most of us, so that it
would be well to consider the relations of international law
to warfare, and to realise that the Conventions agreed upon
at the Hague have no magical power to prevent the
occurrence of war.
(a) We may note at once that by common consent a large
part of international relations are regarded as being beyond
the domain of law, i.e. questions of policy and honour and
vital interests. Instances of this may be taken at random.
In the draft of a scheme for the pacific settlement of
international disputes issued by the New Statesman in July
1915 a rigid distinction was drawn between justiciable and
noii- justiciable cases, i.e. cases of a legal nature or not of a
legal nature. Cases of a legal nature were for hearing by
an International High Court, but larger questions of policy
were for treatment by an International Council. A legal
matter is one where facts have to be elucidated and rules
applied, as for instance in the arbitration between Great
Britain and the United States on the conduct of the Ala-
bama. In this case the British authorities had failed to
act in accordance with the standard of care demanded of
iv INTEKNATIONAL LAW 125
neutrals, in order to prevent ships being fitted out by one
of the belligerents in the neutral port, before using such
ships to cruise against the enemy. The Alabama was rigged
up in British waters for the Southern States, and subsequently
wrought great havoc among the shipping of the United
States. She sailed just before the British authorities made
up their minds to lay hold of her, though after the authorities
had ample evidence in their possession to justify and to
impose the duty to effect a seizure. Now it is clear that
if there are certain recognised principles of neutrality, the
best mode of settling this dispute is to apply them to the
facts as found after an enquiry, and to award compensation
to the injured party. This was in fact done, except that in
the absence of agreement upon the law to be applied, rules
for the guidance of the arbitrators were agreed upon by
treaty between Great Britain and the United States. It is
easy to see the distinction between this type of case and
great settlements of Europe, such as took place at the
Congress of Vienna, which may be regarded as a council
dealing with non- justiciable matters.
The same recognition that the scope of International Law
is at present limited is seen in Article 38 of the first Con-
vention agreed upon at the Hague Conference of 1907. In
that Article the Contracting Powers agree that arbitration
is the most effective means of settling disputes in " questions
of a legal nature, and especially in the interpretation or
application of International Conventions." The Powers
say they will have recourse to arbitration "in so far as
circumstances permit." In 1907 the Powers registered a
declaration upon the subject of compulsory arbitration, but
limited their acceptance of the principle to " certain dis-
putes, in particular those relating to the interpretation and
application of the provisions of international agreements."
126 INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS iv
The Anglo-French Treaty of 1903 for reference to arbitration
of disputes between France and England follows the same
lines of thought. Article I. provides that " differences of a
legal nature " or " relating to the interpretation of treaties/'
shall be heard by the Permanent Court of Arbitration
established by the Hague Convention, " provided that they
do not affect the vital interests, the independence, or the
honour of the two Contracting States."
It must be understood, therefore, that the system of
international law itself recognises the distinction between
legal and non-legal matters in the general mass of inter-
national relations, and this will not appear strange if we
remember that the duel survived as a serious matter well
into the modern state with its efficient legal administration.
We may note here that with regard to the severance of
matters of honour and vital interests from the sphere of
law, the steps taken by the United States are noteworthy
as representing a possible plank across a gulf as yet un-
bridged. By a recent treaty between Great Britain and the
United States it is agreed that even matters affecting honour
and vital interests shall be sent to a commission for enquiry
before recourse is had to extreme measures.
(b) So far we have merely noted that international law
is consistent with warfare, and recognises it as a mode
of deciding " non- justiciable " matters. International Law
goes further than this and deals with warfare as a cause of
rights and duties. Two of the most important departments
of the system assume a state of war to be existing. The
laws to regulate the conduct of war have reference to the
relations between the belligerents themselves ; the laws of
neutrality relate to the rights and duties of neutral states
in relation to each of the belligerents. Historically, the
department which deals with the conduct of belligerents
iv INTERNATIONAL LAW 127
was the earliest to arise, and the main work of the modern
Hague Conferences is to be found in thirteen Conventions,
of which eleven assume a state of war to exist before they
are applicable.
To sum up : international law recognises a sphere where
legal modes of settlement are not at present applicable, but
it attempts to regulate warfare itself, and to settle the
position of neutrals by well-defined measures of conduct.
It does not purpose to render warfare impossible.
(As to iii.) In the light of present events ought we not to
admit that a system of law which is so easily broken is
worthless, that it is a mere collection of pious aspirations ?
This is a question which should be thoroughly and squarely
faced at the present time. A flippant idealism too soon
gives way to an equally flippant scepticism. It would
certainly be a curious result if we came to the conclusion
that a system of law which has engaged the minds of the
greatest should finally be found to be worthless. Three
lines of thinking deserve consideration before the pessi-
mistic conclusion is finally adopted.
(i.) Even if it is broken regularly in the case of a conflict
between legal duty and interest, it still stands as a measure
of the conduct in question. The breach will throw a heavy
burden of justification upon the guilty party. Having
broken the law, he must appeal to international morality to
absolve him. A striking instance of this is close at hand.
A series of breaches of international law upon the part of
Germany led finally to our maritime policy as declared on
the 1st of March 1915. In what precise details this policy
departed from the accepted law of blockade it is unnecessary
to discuss here. Let us assume that a real breach of law
was embarked upon. The result was that Mr. Balfour, on
March 29, published a powerful defence of our action by an
128 INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS iv
appeal to international morality. He recognised that the
burden of justification lay upon us since the law was not
observed. This justification consisted of two parts : first,
that Germany had herself made an adherence to law im-
possible ; secondly, that our departure did not violate the
principles of morality. He closed his defence as follows :
" But though, as I think, international law can hardly be
literally obeyed unless both sides are prepared to obey it,
we must not conclude that the absence of reciprocity justifies
the injured party in acting as if international law and inter-
national morality had thereby been abrogated. This would
be a monstrous doctrine. . . . Germany would indeed have
no right to complain of retaliation in kind ; but this would
not justify us in descending to her level. The policy which
I am defending has no resemblance to this. It violates no
deep ethical instincts ; it is in harmony with the spirit of
international law ; it is more regardful of neutral interests
than the accepted rules of blockade ; nor is the injury which
it is designed to inflict on the enemy of a different character
from that inflicted by an ordinary blockade. And lastly,
it is a reply to an attack which is not only illegal but
immoral ; and if some reply be legitimate and necessary
can a better one be devised ? "
A system of law is surely serving a sound practical
purpose when a departure from its rules calls forth such an
eloquent justification.
It might be urged, however, Why not rely on inter-
national morality alone and in the first place, instead of
formulating a law only to break it and fall back upon inter-
national morality ? The answer is simply that wherever
conduct has to be measured in a community, laws appear
for our general guidance ; they serve as general judgments
upon the merits of a case, departure from which has to be
iv INTEKNATIONAL LAW 129
specially justified. So far then, it is agreed, that in calling
for this special justification for a breach of its rules, the
system of law between nations has an effective reply to
those who would call it worthless.
(ii.) A second consideration to be undertaken, is that
because in times of stress certain rules of law are broken, it
by no means follows that the whole system is vitiated. A
few decayed timbers will not bring the house down ; they
may even be replaced by better ones. The outstanding
breaches of law in the present war have been in the conduct
of belligerent operations on the part of Germany. These
breaches, however, leave untouched the whole department
of law which regulates the conduct of nations in time of
peace. The disputes between Great Britain and the United
States with regard to certain branches of the law of neutrality
are still being conducted upon the basis of a reference to
law and legal principle.
(iii.) Thirdly, the distinction must be emphasised between
a breach of international law and a new departure which
claims the status of a precedent. In statute law, a change
in the law is made consciously, with deliberation, accom-
panied by a definite repeal, express or tacit, of previous law
to the contrary. This is not the case with customary law.
Changes are made by gradual process, and the initiative will
often have to be taken by a particular agent, to be followed
or not by successive agents in the future. Many courses of
international conduct have this pioneering nature. It is
vital to a true appreciation of the nature of international
law to realise that the spirit of the rules has, in comparison
with the letter, a validity which it can never have in ordinary
state law. With the highly organised legal machinery of
the state, with permanent means for a conscious alteration
of law, an adherence to the letter of the written rule serves
K
130 INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS iv
best as a guarantee of justice. It is very different where
such machinery is absent to which an appeal might have
been made for alteration. In this case a party may often
have to innovate tinder new sets of circumstance, and
appeal to his contemporaries and to his successors for
approval of his conduct.
To appreciate this, and to gain a method of judgment
into international matters, an enquiry into a few topics
suggested by current events will be useful.
(a) Let us take first the practice of the British Govern-
ment in the present war of bringing ships into port in order
to search them for contraband goods, or other prohibited
cargoes.
It has long been recognised as a belligerent right, that a
commissioned ship may call upon neutrals on the high seas
to submit to a visit and search, in order to determine whether
there is any prohibited cargo on board. If the search
reveals nothing suspicious, the neutral is allowed to proceed
upon its way ; if there is suspicion or apparent guilt the
neutral is brought into port to undergo proceedings in a
Prize Court. It is clear that to bring a ship into port before
searching her will involve delay to many innocent cargoes,
and dislocation in shipping, and upon this ground protests
have arisen in America against our treatment of neutral
cargoes.
The British reply alleged as a justification the skill with
which modern ships were packed, the ruses to which guilty
cargoes had recourse to escape detection, such that a proper
search was impossible on the high seas. If the right to
search is admitted at all, must not the law go further and
admit that any measures necessary for the exercise of this
right are permissible ? This would seem to be a reasonable
proposition, and the question of the legality of our procedure
iv INTERNATIONAL LAW 131
is therefore reduced to this question of fact — Can we
examine vessels with reasonable thoroughness upon the high
seas ? If not, then are our methods reasonable as they are
at present exercised ?
(b) The law of blockade provides a very useful field
for illustrating how an apparent breach of law may finally
be accepted as but a further application of underlying
principles.
Let us take as an example a doctrine which has appeared
in recent discussions, the " doctrine of continuous voyage."
It is recognised as an elementary principle of law that in
time of war one belligerent may blockade the coast of
another. This means that he can by an effective show of
force compel neutral traders to abstain from commerce with
the blockaded coast, or at least to attempt such commerce
only at the risk of suffering the penalty of confiscation. So
far the matter is clear. Suppose, however, that close by the
blockaded area there is territory belonging to a sovereign
who is not implicated in the war, so that other neutrals can
make this territory a base of operations, close at hand, for
the running of the blockade : ought the blockading Power to
stand by and see his blockade evaded in this manner ?
The point to be grasped is that the blockade-running
will consist of two parts : (1) the apparently innocent
voyage from one neutral port to another which is conveni-
ently close to the blockaded area ; (2) the dash from this
base of operations through the blockade by as many Captain
Kettles as the trader can secure for employment.
No one would deny that the second voyage is a guilty
one, since its destination is a port on the enemy coastline
which is being blockaded : but is the first voyage to be liable
to the same penalties, since its destination is not an enemy
port at all, but a neutral port which has nothing to do with
132 INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS iv
the war? The question arose in great prominence during
the blockade of the Southern States by the United States
Government in the Civil War, and the Government claimed
the right to seize British ships on the way to neutral ports,
situated adjacent to the Southern States. The ground was
that these ships were making the neutral ports bases of
operations for evading the blockade, and that the guilty
intention justified capture upon what was apparently an
innocent voyage to a neutral port. The British Govern-
ment acquiesced in this equitable extension of the law of
blockade, in spite of the protests of our traders. In other
words, what appeared at first to be a grave breach of law,
was found to be a logical application of the spirit of the law.
This extension, allowed by Great Britain to the United
States during the Civil War is particularly interesting, since
the same principle is now the ground of justification for
Great Britain of certain seizures under circumstances again
somewhat different.
The case of the steamship Neches may be taken as typical.
She was a ship of American register, sailing from Rotterdam
to a port of the United States, with cargo of enemy origin,
i.e., the goods came from territory in the possession of
Germany. The British Government had issued an order
to the effect that every merchant vessel sailing from a port
other than a German port, with goods of enemy origin, may
be required to discharge such goods in a British or allied
port, and the Neches was dealt with in accordance with this
order. There was here no question of contraband. The
United States Government felt " that it must insist upon
the rights of American owners to bring their goods out of
Holland in due course in neutral ships, even though such
goods may have come originally from the territories of a
country at war with Great Britain." It is clear that unless
iv INTEKNATIONAL LAW 133
there is a definite principle upon which such a seizure may
be grounded, the protest of the United States is justified.
There is no ground apparent on the surface why a neutral
vessel should not carry goods coming from Germany origin-
ally, when sailing from one neutral port to another. It
has been accepted since the middle of the nineteenth century
that a neutral vessel protects enemy cargoes other than
contraband.
The defence put forward by the British Government was
again that their conduct was only the application of the
underlying principles of established law. We did not claim
a right to haul enemy goods out of neutral bottoms, but
claimed that the measures " constitute no more than an
adaptation of the old principles of blockade to the peculiar
circumstances with which we are confronted." In other
words, we did not claim to have broken the law upon a just
provocation, but logically to have applied pre-existing rules.
A moment's reflection will show that the case does not
differ widely from the extension made in the Civil War by
the Government of the United States. It will be remem-
bered that in the latter case the ships were captured on the
way from a neutral British port to another neutral port
which was used as a base of operations for running the
blockade. In the present case the seizure is also made
between a neutral port and the neutral port of destination.
The only difference between the two cases is, that whereas
in the American seizures the goods were destined to enter
enemy territory, in the present case the goods had made
exit from enemy territory. In other respects, the case is on
all fours with the American precedent. Now it is clear
that a blockade may be broken both by entrance into and
exit from the blockaded area, so that it is very difficult to see
why the United States should object to our seizure. The
134 INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS iv
case would clearly seem to fall into the category of an
apparent breach of law, which resolves itself upon examina-
tion into no more than a legitimate development of pre-
existing rule.
The above discussion of points which have arisen in the
present war suggests a method by which an attempt may
be made to grasp the spirit of a legal rule ; to distinguish
a breach from an equitable application of pre-existing rule.
To sum up the conclusions arrived at so far : Inter-
national Law is true lav/ because it regulates lights and
duties within the community of states ; to object to this
on the ground that no definite sovereign commands and
enforces it, is to confuse the question of the efficiency of
administrative machinery with the question of the defini-
tion of law. Even if international law were never enforced
at all, it would serve its purpose by affording a standard
for the judgment of conduct, a measure of breaches of itself.
It has, however, sanctions of its own, and even war itself
may take on this character. Even if war is not for the
enforcement of international law, it does not deny the
existence of the system, since the system is largely con-
cerned with groups of fact which are only present in war
time. Finally, before becoming sceptical about the obedi-
ence paid to international law, it is well to distinguish
between a breach and an application of an underlying
principle.
2. THE SCOPE AND CONTENTS OF INTERNATIONAL LAW
The barest outline will suffice here to show that there are
many timbers to the structure. The first great division is
into rules relating to the relations of states in time of peace,
and rules relating to the condition of war.
iv INTERNATIONAL LAW 135
In the department relating to peace there is close analogy
with State Law. There is the law of persons, dealing with
questions of incapacity. In State Law the married women,
infant, and lunatic have special disabilities. So in inter-
national law there are bodies without the full capacity of
an independent sovereign state, e.g., a neutralised state must
not enter into diplomatic alliances ; a semi-sovereign state
may be under a similar disability where the protector has
taken over the control of its foreign policy.
There is also the law dealing with the birth, growth, and
death of states : e.g. when should a rebel community be
recognised as independent ? What rules apply to decide
the succession to rights and obligations when one state is
wholly or partly absolved in another ? A special com-
mission was appointed after the South African War to
deal with concessions made by the defeated governments.
The departments dealing with proprietary relations is
concerned with the question of title to territory, regulation
of boundaries, navigation of rivers not contained within a
single state, and the position of the high seas.
Corresponding to the law of contract, there is the law as
to treaties. In the departments relating to war, there are
rules governing the conduct of belligerents as against each
other ; and rules governing the relation of neutrals to the
belligerents. The general topics within these two depart-
ments are familiar enough in outline from a knowledge of
current events.
3. THE PRESENT POSITION OF INTERNATIONAL LAW
It is impossible at the present time to refrain from specula-
tion as to what may be the future of this system of law, for
the future of humanity at large will be reflected in its fate.
136 INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS iv
The preliminary to any sound speculation will be to make
an estimate of its present position. This estimate may be
made along the following lines :
(i.) The relation of international law to power :
The idea is firmly rooted in some minds that the whole
system is vitiated because it rests not on right but upon
power. In its earlier stages International Law had a
transcendental flavour about it by its association in juristic
minds with natural law. In so far as the complex idea of
natural law contained in it some reference to certain im-
mutable principles of right and wrong conceived to exist, the
conception of international law gained a nobility of stature
by this association. In so far as the connection with natural
law gave jurists the opportunity of laying down dogmati-
cally their own opinions as of international validity, the
association led to uncertainty and disagreement, and to
great confusion between authoritative and persuasive
sources of law. For its actual rules the system of inter-
national law is no longer conceived to be dependent upon
natural law. They are dependent upon international
agreement, and it is clear that such agreements will often
be compromises between governments of varying degrees
of strength, so that it cannot be denied that many of the
recognised principles are representative of the power of
contending governments. For instance, naval supremacy
renders Great Britain unwilling to surrender the right to
capture private property at sea. Naval inferiority rendered
Germany unwilling to surrender the right to use unanchored
mines, in spite of the fact that some five hundred Chinese
fishermen were sent to the bottom by the stray mines from the
Russian and Japanese naval operations. Instances might
be multiplied to show that many rules thus represent a com-
promise, the result of a struggle in power and influence.
iv INTERNATIONAL LAW 137
We may even go further, and affirm that the system as
a whole depends upon the balance of power being so main-
tained among states that no state or group of states can
assume a dictatorial position. At the outbreak of the
present war the question was much debated whether we
intervened for selfish reasons of self-preservation, or for
the vindication of international law after the violation of
Belgium. It may be noted that an intervention purely for
self-preservation would still make for the maintenance of
international law, since the system demands a certain rough
equality in the Great Powers or the groups which they form.
This dependence upon power does not vitiate the system
as a means towards realising the aim of justice. The same
dependence upon power may be seen in municipal law. It
has been said that since the Reform Act of 1832 the history
of the law upon landlord and tenant is one of continuous
progress in favour of the tenant. This is to say that the
rules of law were adapted in accordance with a different
distribution of political power. The dependence upon
power is no special defect of international law, because in
every system the approach to justice is through similar
tangled and thorny ways. The matter can only be left to
the philosophers to tell us the relation between force and
the ideal, or why the ideal must pay before it can be
embodied in an institution.
(ii.) The transition to a conscious formulation of rules
and arbitration.
Something very like legislative enactment has appeared
in the Hague Conventions, which were the product of
conferences held by the representatives of the powers, and
one main effort of these conferences was the setting up of
permanent judicial machinery for the trial of disputes. The
details of these processes would occupy too much space here.
138 INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS iv
The lawyer can but provide the machinery to which
governments may have recourse, and since 1899, it is
worthy of observation that recourse has been had to the
international machinery on several occasions, the most
notable of which was the inquiry into the facts in relation
to the firing upon our fishing fleet by the Russian navy
during the Russo-Japanese War. The main need would
seem to be an attitude of caution towards attempts to ex-
tend the scope of law too readily. With regard to arbitra-
tion, the machinery is there, to be used if needed.
The question before us is really one of speculation as to
how international legal machinery may develop. We saw
above that the machinery develops alongside of the rules to
be administered. One great lesson of the present war is
the need for caution, for a sense of responsibility. The
Declaration of London set forth to codify the law of contra-
band, by way of something akin to legislative enactment,
but the whole document has failed to stand the strain of
actual facts. The reason is apparent if a comparison be
made between the lists of contraband issued by the British
Government during the war, with those put in the Declara-
tion.
The main obstacle at present before a more perfect
system of international courts is the attitude of the smaller
states, especially those of South America. In any respect-
able system of law the doctrine of equality before the law
has validity. The doctrine means that once a law is made
it will be applied impartially, but the smaller states confuse
this with equality of influence, in the sense that every state
should have equal power in voting upon drafts for rules, and
in administering those rules in international tribunals. Up
to the present this attitude has brought the improvement
of legal machinery to a standstill.
iv INTERNATIONAL LAW 139
To sum up : we can trace in the international system the
same transition as has taken place in the municipal system
of law ; the unconscious formation of customary rules is
giving way to conscious formulation of law following upon
debates in conference. For the sake of the law itself more
caution is needed, more reference to stress of war, before
such formulation is finally made. In refusing to adhere to
British proposals upon the subject of mines, Baron Marschall
von Bieberstein said : "I have no need to tell you that I
recognise entirely the importance of the codification of rules
to be followed in war. But it would be well not to issue
rules, the strict observation of which might be rendered
impossible by the force of things. It is of the first import-
ance that the international maritime law which we desire
to create should only contain clauses the execution of which
is possible from a military point of view, even in exceptional
circumstances. Otherwise the respect for law will be
lessened, and its authority undermined."
Rules may be formulated by any fertile brain, but whence
may come their administration and observance ? The con-
quering Norman made sound administration possible in
England ; pressure from without might bring unity into
Europe ; the final victory of law in the affairs of humanity
can only come by disillusionment with warfare itself, a
disillusionment which is behind the opposition of Church
to State. Whether or not the scope of law may ever be so
widely extended, let us not deny its uses in its present
sphere. The laws of war have suffered most ; they were
the product of the professional soldier's chivalry. Though
conscript armies have betrayed this element of virtue, let
us seek to preserve and develop what remains according to
whatever opportunity may lie hidden before us.
140 INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS iv
BIBLIOGRAPHY
LAWRENCE. Principles of International Law. 4th ed. Macmillan.
12s. 0.1. net.
A general survey of international law.
PEARCE-HIGGINS. The Hague Peace Conferences, Cambridge Uni-
versity Press. 1909. 16s. net.
An account of the debates at, and methods of the Hague
Conferences, and the texts of the Conventions framed.
Prrr-CoBBETT. Cases and Opinions on International Law. 15s.
net.
The leading cases, with comments.
VINOGRADOFF. Common Sense in Law. Home University Library.
Is
General outlook on legal theory.
POLITICAL RELATIONS BETWEEN ADVANCED
AND BACKWARD PEOPLES
1. THE NECESSITY FOR EMPIRE
THE problem of the relations which should exist between
advanced and backward peoples has always been one of the
gravest that has presented itself to mankind. It figures
continuously in the history of the Jews. It is the subject
of the greatest epoch of Greek history— the struggle for
liberty of Greek civilisation against the Persian tyrant. It
was the constant preoccupation of Rome both in the days
of the Republic and of the Empire. It engaged for cen-
turies the attention of Christendom in the form of the
Crusades against the Turk. And, since the opening of
the seas made possible constant contact between East and
West, it has proved one of the most prolific of all sources
of discord between the Great Powers of the world.
The problem cannot be escaped by ignoring it. There are
peoples who by reason of their character, their truthfulness
and integrity, their political institutions, their sense of
public responsibility, their resourcefulness and capacity
progressively to improve the conditions under which they
live, regard themselves as the leaders of mankind. These
are, broadly speaking, the peoples of European origin. There
141
142 INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS v
are others who, because of their idolatry of wood or stone,
the weakness of their sense of responsibility, their treatment
of women, their apathy and their fatalist acquiescence in
things as they are, are regarded by the civilised peoples as
backward. These are, broadly speaking, the peoples of
non-European origin. The civilised peoples are not all of
one grade, nor are the backward all of another. Mankind
is divided into a graduated scale varying infinitely from the
zenith of civilisation to the nadir of barbarism. But, while
it is difficult to establish any exact standard by which the
comparative civilisation of peoples can be judged, the fact
that there is a difference between them, and that this
difference is one of quality and not merely of kind, is one of
the most fundamental facts in human history. To refuse
to recognise that the savages of Africa are immeasurably
behind the Americans, or that the masses of India or Egypt,
whatever the attainments of individual Indians or Egyptians,
are definitely less advanced than the peoples of Europe
to-day, is wilfully to close the eyes to truth and fact.
It is a problem, too, which time has made doubly insistent.
Steamship, railway, and telegraph have reduced the world
to manageable size. Travellers no longer set forth into the
unknown, to return years afterwards with fabulous tales.
Economic progress has linked all sections of humanity into
unity. The habits and attainments of the backward races
have been minutely studied and made familiar through
books and the press. And the backward people themselves
have been given access, through the immensely cheapened
processes for distributing knowledge and literature, to the
records and discoveries of Europe. The difficulty, indeed,
of the relations between the advanced and the backward
sections of mankind has tended to become greater rather
than less in recent years. This is seen in the controversy
v ADVANCED AND BACKWARD PEOPLES 143
about Asiatic immigration into America, Canada, Australia,
and South Africa. And it is seen in the growing demand
for full self-government among the peoples who are still
under the tutelage of some more civilised power.
There is, indeed, no political question about which it is
more important, or more difficult to have clear ideas, for
it is likely to be the crux of all the great international con-
troversies of the future. And there are no people for whom
it is more important to have such ideas than the inhabitants
of the self-governing portions of the British Empire, because
not only by their position and their sea-power have they a
special interest in international affairs, but they themselves
are responsible for the welfare of a State comprising one-
quarter of the earth, and more than 350,000,000 peoples
who are included among the backward races. The purpose
of this chapter is not to consider the problem in detail, but
only to serve as an introduction to its study. Its object is
to attempt to make clear certain first principles, rather than
to discover the solution of the manifold issues in which it
presents itself to us in practical shape from day to day.
(a) The Results of Commercial Intercourse
The first, indeed the fundamental principle to realise is
that the question is not a national but a human question,
and that the true solution must be one which benefits
humanity and not any single State or people. No sound
judgment is possible until we look at the human race as one
great family, and consider what ought to be the relations
which should exist between the advanced and the back-
ward members of that family. Just in so far as there are
differences in the level of civilisation, the're is imposed upon
the more civilised peoples the duty of helping their back-
144 INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS v
ward neighbours to rise to their own level. Civilisation, in
its essence, is not so much a matter of mechanical achieve-
ment as of character. It appears in the degree in which
individuals are united by mutual trust and mutual service,
and by the common determination to order the conditions
of their social life ever more and more in accordance with
truth and justice. Not the least decisive mark of a superior
civilisation is the readiness of its members to sacrifice them-
selves in order that their less fortunate fellows may learn
how to share in their blessings. It was this conception
which underlay the earliest relations between Christendom
and the pagan world. The missionary apostolate, carrying
a message of hope, sympathy, and encouragement, was the
first as it is still the noblest ideal of the relations which should
subsist between the advanced and the backward peoples.
This conception still persists, and the missionary, educa-
tional, and medical work now being carried on all over the
non-European world, where it is prompted by the selfless
desire to uplift and help, is probably, despite all its failures,
the most permanent and most fruitful of all the methods of
promoting mutual understanding and good relations among
the chief families of men.
But unfortunately the relations between the advanced
and backward peoples have not been confined to the selfless
ministrations of the enlightened few. From the remotest
antiquity there have always been some commercial relations
between Europe and India and the Far East, and since the
opening of the seas during the Renaissance, and the con-
sequent discovery of America, southern Africa, and the sea-
route to the East, intercommunication between Europe and
the rest of the world for purposes of trade has rapidly and
steadily increased. The individuals who engaged in trade
entered upon it with no idea of helping the backward races,
v ADVANCED AND BACKWARD PEOPLES 145
but with the perfectly legitimate object of making profit
out of the normal and mutually beneficial process of com-
mercial exchange. No one realised that the methods suited
to a civilised society might not be equally applicable else-
where. And in fact deplorable results have invariably
followed the appearance of the civilised trader among back-
ward peoples.
(b) Results amo-ng Savages
Two modern instances of the effect of commercial contact
between civilised and backward peoples may be given in
order to illustrate the process which has always operated
in the past, and which has produced the great modern
empires. In the first case, the evils are due to the deliberate
action of the traders themselves. Long absence from the
restraints of their own civilisation, enervating climates, and
contact with inferior civilisations, offering countless oppor-
tunities for gain to the unscrupulous, produces in many
cases a demoralising effect on those who are long engaged
in the business. Having no defined responsibility for the
welfare of the people with whom they are brought into
contact, many of them succumb to the temptation to take
full advantage of their own superior energy and knowledge,
and of the weakness and vices of the backward peoples, to
exploit them for their own profit. The following extract
from the life of Dr. John Paton was written in 1892, and
represents his own experiences of the New Hebrides : —
We found the Tannese to be painted Savages, enveloped in all
the superstition and wickedness of Heathenism. All the men
an 1 children go in a state of nudity. The older women wear
grass skirts, and the young women and girls, grass or leaf aprons
like Eve in Eden. They are exceedingly ignorant, vicious, and
bigoted, and almost devoid of natural affection. Instead of the
L
146 INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS v
inhabitants of Port Resolution being improved by coming in
contact with white men, they are rendered much worse ; for they
have learned all their vices, but none of their virtues — if such
are possessed by the pioneer traders among such races ! The
Sandalwood Traders are as a class the most godless of men, whose
cruelty and wickedness make us ashamed to own them as our
countrymen. By them the poor, defenceless Natives are
oppressed and robbed on every hand ; and if they offer the
slightest resistance, they are ruthlessly silenced by the musket
or revolver. Few months here pass without some of them being
so shot, and, instead of their murderers feeling ashamed, they
boast of how they despatch them. Such treatment keeps the
Natives always burning under a desire for revenge, so that it is
a wonder any white man is allowed to come among them. Indeed,
all Traders here are able to maintain their position only by
revolvers and rifles ; but we hope a better state of affairs is at
hand for Tanna. . . .
Thousands upon thousands of money were made in the sandal-
wood trade yearly, so long as it lasted ; but it was a trade steeped
in human blood and indescribable vice, nor could God's blessing
rest on the Traders and their ill-gotten gains. . . . Sandalwood
Traders murdered many of the Islanders when robbing them of
their wood, and the Islanders murdered many of them and their
servants in revenge. White men, engaged in the trade, also shot
dead and murdered each other in vicious and drunken quarrels,
and not a few put an end to their own lives. I have scarcely
known one of them who did not come to ruin and poverty ; the
money that came even to the shipowners was a conspicuous
curse. . . .
One morning three or four vessels entered our Harbour and
cast anchor in Port Resolution. The Captains called on me ;
and one of them, with manifest delight, exclaimed, " We know
how to bring down your proud Tannese now ! We'll humble
them before you ! "
I answered, " Surely you don't mean to attack and destroy
these poor people ? "
He replied, not abashed but rejoicing, " We have sent the
measles to humble them ! That kills them by the score ! Four
young men have been landed at different ports, ill with measles,
and these will soon thin their ranks."
Shocked above measure, I protested solemnly and denounced
v ADVANCED AND BACKWARD PEOPLES 147
their conduct and spirit ; but my remonstrances only called forth
the shameless declaration, " Our watchword is, Sweep these
creatures away and let white men occupy the soil ! "
Their malice was further illustrated thus : They induced
Kapuka, a young Chief, to go off to one of their vessels, promising
him a present. He was the friend and chief supporter of Mr.
Mathieson and of his work. Having got him on board, they
confined him in the hold amongst Natives lying ill with measles.
They gave him no food for about four-and-twenty hours ; and
then, without the promised present, they put him ashore far from
his own home. Though weak and excited, he scrambled back
to his Tribe in great exhaustion and terror. He informed the
Missionary that they had put him down amongst sick people,
red and hot with fever, and that he feared their sickness was upon
him. I am ashamed to say that these Sandalwood and other
Traders were our own degraded countrymen ; and that they
deliberately gloried in thus destroying the poor Heathen. A
more fiendish spirit could scarcely be imagined ; but most of
them were horrible drunkards, and their traffic of every kind
amongst these Islands was, generally speaking, steeped in human
blood.
The measles, thus introduced, became amongst our Islanders
the most deadly plague. It spread fearfully, and was accom-
panied by sore throat and diarrhoea. In some villages, man,
woman, and child were stricken, and none could give food or
water to the rest. The misery, suffering, and terror were un-
exampled, the living being afraid sometimes even to bury the
dead. . . .
The sale of Intoxicants, Opium, Firearms and Ammunition,
by the Traders amongst the New Hebrideans, has become a
terrible and intolerable evil. The lives of many Natives, and of
not a few Europeans, were every year sacrificed in connection
therewith, while the general demoralization produced on all
around was painfully notorious. Alike in the Colonial and in
the Home Newspapers, we exposed and condemned the fearful
consequences of allowing such degrading and destructive agencies
to be used as barter in dealing with these Islanders. It is in-
finitely sad to see the European and American Trader following
fast in the wake of the Missionary with opium and rum ! But,
blessed be God, our Christian Natives have thus far, with very
few exceptions, been able to keep away from the White Man's
148
Fire-Water, that maddens and destroys. And not less cruel is
it to scatter firearms and ammunition amongst Savages, who are
at the same time to be primed with poisonous rum ! This were
surely Demons' work.
To her honour, be it said, that Great Britain prohibited all
her own Traders, under heavy penalties, from bartering those
dangerous and destructive articles in trade with the Natives.
She also appealed to the other trading Nations, in Europe and
America, to combine and make the prohibition " International "
with regard to all the still unannexed Islands in the Pacific Seas.
At first America hesitated, owing to some notion that it was in-
consistent with certain regulations for trading embraced in the
Constitution of the United States. Then France temporising,
professed willingness to accept the prohibition when America
agreed. Thus the British Trader, with the Man-of-War and the
High Commissioner ready to enforce the laws against him, found
himself placed at an overwhelming disadvantage, as against the
neighbouring Traders of every other Nationality, free to barter
as they pleased. More especially so when the things prohibited
were the very articles which the masses of the Heathen chiefly
coveted in exchange for their produce ; and where keen rivals in
business were ever watchful to inform and to report against him.
If illicit Trading prevailed, under such conditions, no one that
knows average Human Nature can feel any surprise.1
That this history is no extravagant exception when
civilised adventurers come into unrestricted contact with
primitive barbarism, is proved by the many similar cases
which have lately come to light, notably the Congo, the
Putumayo and the Mexican atrocities, and these are only
the instances which by their conspicuous savagery have
attracted the attention of the world in quite recent years.
The occasions on which the civilised trader has found it im-
possible to resist the temptation to secure the assistance of
a chief to drive his subjects to labour by bribery or presents
of guns or liquor, thereby converting him into a tyrant, or
an incompetent sot, or to attract labour itself by offering
1 Life of John Paion, Missionary to the New Hebrides.
v ADVANCED AND BACKWARD PEOPLES 149
facilities for the purchase of drink or firearms, must be
legion. In fact, the history of the last two centuries is
studded with incidents of this kind, especially in Africa,
largely connected with the Slave Trade.
When this state of affairs is discovered, what is to
happen ? What is the obligation on those who by reason
of their own claim to superior civilisation have the responsi-
bility for saving the weak from the ravages of the strong ?
There is only one course open to them. They must
supplement voluntary missionary labour by the more
difficult work of assuming responsibility for the govern-
ment of the backward people. They must undertake this
duty, not from any pride of dominion, or because they
wish to exploit their resources, but in order to protect them
alike from oppression and corruption, by strict laws and
strict administration, which shall bind the foreigner as well
as the native, and then they must gradually develop, by
education and example, the capacity in the natives to
manage their own affairs. Every alternative expedient
breaks down in practice. To stand aside and do nothing
under the plea that every people must be left free to manage
its own affairs, and that intervention is wicked, is to repeat
the tragic mistake of the Manchester school in the economic
world which protested against any interference by the State
to protect workmen, women, and children from the oppres-
sion and rapacity of employers, on the ground that it was
an unwarranted interference with the liberty of the subject
and the freedom of trade and competition. To prevent
adventurers from entering the territory is impossible, unless
there is some civilised authority within it to stop them
through its police. To shut off a backward people from all
contact with the outside world by a kind of blockade is
not only impracticable, but is artificially to deny them the
150 INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS v
chances of education and progress. The establishment of a
genuine government by a people strong and liberal enough
to ensure freedom under the law and justice for all is the
only solution.
But it is not only in cases of deliberate cruelty or
exploitation that this step is necessary. It becomes in-
evitable wherever there is a sufficiently wide margin between
the civilisation of the advanced trader and the backward
native. Take another case. A certain company establishes
a factory in the centre of a large native district with the
object of obtaining palm oil as a raw material necessary to
the manufactures of the world. To facilitate this perfectly
legitimate and proper enterprise, and to economise labour,
the company sets to work to build light railways. This is
apparently a far better system than porterage. It saves
time and labour, and greatly extends the area which can
serve the factory. Yet it has a disastrous effect on the
whole native people. They have been accustomed only to
the ordinary village life, with an extremely rigid, if to our
minds not very elevated code of morals, suited to their
primitive needs. The sanctity of these customs depends
largely on the fact that they travel little and seldom escape
the influence of their own village traditions. Directly they
are organised for labour and moved about the country
in bands, these restraints go, temptation increases, and
wages enable them to satisfy their desires. General de-
moralisation is the result, followed by a great increase of
prostitution, and the appearance of syphilis and other
diseases. The end of what in itself appears to be an admir-
able enterprise, profitable to all concerned, is the corruption
of a native society, backward, it is true, but previously
reasonably contented, healthy, and prosperous. The evil is
not confined to the natives. The civilised trader is also often
v ADVANCED AND BACKWARD PEOPLES 151
demoralised by contact with primitive races and unlimited
opportunities for exploiting peoples who cannot protect
themselves. He has every right to trade, for the world could
not get on without raw materials from tropical parts. His
intentions may be perfectly straightforward and honourable.
But none the less his presence among an uncivilised, back-
ward people almost invariably sets up processes which are
harmful to both.
In this kind of case also the only course is that a civilised
government should step in and make itself responsible for
government within the territory, so that it may regulate
commercial and other development in the best interests of
the people themselves, protect them from self-destruction
by the free traffic in drink or firearms, and assist them to
study the learning and the virtues, and not the vices and
weaknesses, of the civilised world.
Contact between differing levels of civilisation, however,
sometimes operates in a different way. A backward people,
inspired by their own fanaticism and barbarism, or perhaps
by reason of a blind but not unnatural resentment at the
disturbing effect of foreign intrusion, destroy the lives and
property of harmless foreigners. Missionaries and their
families are murdered, legitimate trade is stopped, order
and security disappear. No civilised people can stand by
and see its own fellow-citizens, many of them engaged not
only in peaceful avocations, but often on missionary and
educational work, insulted or harmed, and take no notice.
In some cases warnings prove to be sufficient. In others
they are unheeded, and murder and destruction proceed.
Then there is only one course to pursue, to put a stop to
these conditions by intervention, which may or may not
lead to the assumption of a permanent responsibility for
maintaining law and order, and security for property and
152 INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS v
person. Moreover, it often happens that the chief sufferers
by native anarchy are not foreigners, but the subjects of a
dominant tribe or race. Conditions may arise of such a
nature that the civilised world cannot in self-respect stand
aside to look on. The depredations of the Mahdi and the
Khalifa, and the atrocities perpetrated by them in the
Sudan, and the Armenian and Macedonian massacres, are
the most conspicuous recent examples of the moral necessity
which civilised states are under to intervene by force or
threats, to put an end to intolerable oppression and misrule.
(c) Results among more Civilised Peoples
It is these causes, natural to the world in its present state
of development, which have brought about the creation
of the modern empires and especially the British Empire.
They operate not only in the case of the barbarous
peoples, but also in the case of those peoples who are not
uncivilised, yet who, for one reason or another, have been
unable to maintain a civilised government for themselves,
once close contact has been established with the modern
world. The most conspicuous instance of this is India.
India has a civilisation far older than that of Europe. In
the far past she produced some of the greatest thinkers,
and the finest literature. Her buildings, her pictures,
and her handicrafts rank among the great achievements
of man. Her leading men are able to move in Western
circles on terms of absolute equality. Yet contact with
the West, while it left her religious and her social customs
unchanged, reduced her political organisation to such chaos
that foreign control was the only chance for order and
progress.
British rule in India was neither, as Seeley said, an acci-
v ADVANCED AND BACKWAED PEOPLES 153
dent, nor was it accomplished in a fit of absence of mind, nor
was it the outcome of a deliberately imperial design. It
came about by the logic of facts. There had been missionary
contact between India and Europe in very early days.
There had always been a considerable volume of trade in
luxuries carried laboriously on the backs of camels and
ponies over the deserts and mountains of the middle East,
or in coasting vessels up the Persian Gulf or the Ked Sea.
But the opening of the seas and the discovery of the sea
route to India round the Cape of Good Hope in the last
years of the fifteenth century led to regular and direct
intercommunication between the two continents. Portugal
was the pioneer, and trading companies for the purpose
were first organised by the British and the Dutch about the
year 1600. For a hundred and fifty years from that date,
while European traders, notably the British, the French,
the Dutch, and the Portuguese, struggled vigorously among
themselves for commercial supremacy in the East, their
intercourse with India itself was confined to trading with
Indian merchants at certain defined " factories " on the
coast, granted to them by the Mogul Emperors. With the
death of Aurangzeb, the last of the Great Delhi Emperors,
the Mogul Empire began to fall into ruins. And by the
middle of the eighteenth century the internal condition of
India was approaching anarchy. It is described by Sir
Alfred Lyall in the following words :
At this point, therefore, it will be useful to sketch in loose out-
line the condition, in the middle of the last century, of that vast
tract of open plain country, watered by the Jumna, the Ganges,
and their affluents, which stretches from Bengal north-westward
to the Himalayas, and which is now divided into the three British
provinces of Oudh, the North-West Provinces, and the Punjab.
Throughout this vast region the flood of anarchy that had been
rising since Aurangzeb's death was now at its height ; and as
154 INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS v
the struggle over the ruins of the fallen empire was sharpest at
the capital and the centres of power, the districts round Delhi
and Agra, Lucknow and Benares, were perhaps more persistently
fought over than any other parts of India. Two centuries of
systematic despotism had long ago levelled and pulverized the
independent chiefships or tribal federations in these flat and
fertile plains, traversed by the highways open to every successive
invader. So when the empire toppled over under the storms of
the eighteenth century, there were no local breakwaters to check
the inrush of confusion. The Marathas swarmed up, like locusts,
from the south, and the Afghans came pouring down from the
north through the mountain passes. Within fifty years after the
death of Aurangzeb, who was at least feared throughout the
length and breadth of India, the Moghul emperor had become
the shadow of a great name, a mere instrument and figure-head
in the hand of treacherous ministers or ambitious usurpers. All
the imperial deputies and vicegerents were carving out for them-
selves independencies, and striving to enlarge their borders at
each other's expense.
We have seen that the Nizam, originally Viceroy of the
Southern Provinces, had long ago made himself de facto sovereign
of a great domain. In the north-west the Vizier of the empire
was strengthening himself east of the Ganges, and had already
founded the kingdom of Oudh, which underwent many changes
of frontier, but lasted a century. Rohilcund had been appro-
priated by some daring adventurers known as Rohillas (or
mountain men) from the Afghan hills ; a sagacious and fortunate
leader of the Hindu Jats was creating the State of Bhurtpore
across the Jumna river ; Agra was held by one high officer of the
ruined empire ; Delhi, with the emperor's person, had been seized
by another ; the governors sent from the capital to the Punjab
had to fight for possession with the deputies of the Afghan ruler
from Kabul, and against the fanatic insurrection of the Sikhs.
These were, speaking roughly, the prominent and stronger com-
petitors in the great scramble for power and lands ; but scarcely
one of them (except the Sikhs) represented any solid organization,
political principle, or title. Most of the rulerships depended on
the personality of some chief or leader, who was raised more by
the magnitude of his stakes than by the style of his play above
the common crowd of plunderers and captains of soldiery. Any
one who had money or credit might buy at the imperial treasury
v ADVANCED AND BACKWARD PEOPLES 155
a Firman authorizing him to collect the revenue of some refrac-
tory district. If he overcame the resistance of the landholders,
the district usually became his domain, and as his strength in-
creased he might expand into a territorial magnate ; if the
peasants rallied under some able headman and drove him off
their own leader often became a mighty man of his tribe, and
founded a petty chiefship of a ruling family. The traces of this
chance medley and fluctuating struggle for the possession of the
soil or of the rents were visible long afterwards in the complicated
varieties of tenure, title, and proprietary usage that made the
recording of landed rights and interests so perplexing a business
for English officials in this part of India.
The English reader may now form some notion of the dis-
tracted condition of upper India when the Marathas invaded it
in 1758, with a numerous army intended to carry out definite
plans of conquest. The Moghul empire was like a wreck among
the breakers ; the emperor Alamgir, who had long been a State
prisoner, had been murdered ; and the strife over the spoils had
assumed the character of a widespreading free fight, open to all
comers. But as any such contest, if it lasts, will usually merge
into a battle between distinct factions under recognized leaders,
so the rapidly increasing power of the Marathas, who came
swarming up from the south-west, and the repeated invasions
from the north-west of Ahmed Shah the Abdallee with his Afghan
bands, drew together to one or the other of these two camps all
the self-made princes and marauding adventurers who were
parcelling out the country among themselves.1
In a country distracted like this, it was inevitable that
the European traders should interfere. Their trade,
carried on for a hundred and fifty years in comparative
security, began to suffer, both from the inevitable interrup-
tions due to internal disorder, and from the direct attack of
marauders. In consequence they began to enlist troops
to protect their trading stations. At this moment, too,
war broke out in Europe between England and France,
and fighting soon extended to India. The French, under
1 Sir Alfred Lyall, British Dominion in India, pp. 148-160.
156 INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS v
Dupleix, enlisted the assistance of native rulers in the
struggle by promising them help against their own rivals.
The rivals appealed to the British, who struck up a bargain
on the same lines. Thus to the native anarchy and disorder
was added the evil of war between two sets of foreigners.
In the struggle the English were victorious, mainly by
reason of their superior sea-power in Europe, and at the end
of the war they alone among foreigners had any power or
influence in India. The situation in India with which they
had to deal at the peace was very different from that which
existed when the war broke out. Not only was the internal
disorder of India far worse, but they found themselves
practically saddled with the responsibility for the govern-
ment of Bengal. During the struggle with the French the
English in the trading factory of Calcutta had begun to
fortify themselves against a possible French attack. This
greatly incensed the young Nawab of Bengal, " a young
man whose savage and suspicious temper was controlled
by no experience or natural capacity for rulership," who
marched against them. " The English defended themselves
for a time ; but the town was open, the governor and many
of the English fled in ships down the river ; and the rest
surrendered on promise of honourable treatment. Yet
those whom the Nawab captured with the fort were thrown
into a kind of prison-room called the Black Hole, from
which, after one night's dreadful suffering, only twenty-
three out of one hundred and forty-six emerged alive." 1
The horror of the Black Hole of Calcutta was speedily
avenged by Clive, who won a conclusive victory at the
battle of Plassey. The Nawab fled, and was replaced upon
the throne by Mir Jafir. But the matter could not end
there. Mir Jafir in fact depended for his position on the
1 Sir Alfred Lyall, British Dominion in India, p. 129.
v ADVANCED AND BACKWARD PEOPLES 157
Company who had placed him on the throne, and this meant
that the Company itself was the real authority in Bengal.
Such an arrangement could not last. The combined effect
of a weak and incompetent native ruler, and an irresponsible
foreign trading company possessed of the only effective
military force in the country, speedily reduced Bengal to
hopeless suffering and chaos. The situation is well de-
scribed by Sir Alfred Lyall.
For the English, after their victory at Plassey, the most urgent
and important matter was the restoration of some regular ad-
ministration. They had invested Meer Jafir with the Nawabship
under a treaty which bound him to make to them heavy money
payments in compensation for their losses by the seizure of
Calcutta and other factories, and for their war expenditure ;
agreeing in return to supply troops at the Nawab's cost whenever
he should require them. The result was to drain the native
ruler's treasury and at the same time to reduce him, for the means
of enforcing his authority and maintaining his throne, to a con-
dition of dependence upon the irresponsible foreigners who com-
manded an army stationed within his province.
The difficulty of this consolidation was greatly enhanced by
the perplexity and indecision of the English as to their actual
situation in the country. Although they were conquerors de
facto, they neither could nor would assume the attitude of rulers
de jure, they were merely the representatives of a commercial
company with no warrant from their nation to annex territory,
and obliged to pretend deference toward a native ruler who was
really subservient to themselves. Nothing more surely leads to
misrule than the degradation of a civil government to subserve
the will of some arbitrary force or faction within the State ; and
in Bengal the evils of precarious and divided authority were
greatly heightened by special aggravations. . . . This is the only
period of Anglo-Indian history which throws grave and un-
pardonable discredit on the English name. During the six years
from 1760 to 1765, Olive's absence from the country left the
Company's affairs in the hands of incapable and inexperienced
chiefs, just at the moment when vigorous and statesmanlike
management was urgently needed. That Clive himself foresaw
158 INTEKNATIONAL RELATIONS v
clearly that the system would not answer and would not last, is
shown by his letter (1759) to Pitt, in which he suggested to the
Prime Minister the acquisition of Bengal in full sovereignty by
the English nation, promising him a net revenue of two millions
sterling. In the meantime he had done what he could to revive
internal order, and had forced the Delhi prince to evacuate the
province. The Dutch in Bengal, who naturally watched our
proceedings with the utmost jealousy and alarm, were secretly
corresponding with the Nawab and had brought over from
Batavia a large body of troops. When their armed ships were
prohibited by the English from ascending the river they began
hostilities, and were totally defeated by Colonel Forde in an
action described by Olive's report as " short, bloody, and deci-
sive." But after Olive's departure for England in 1760 the
invasions from outside were renewed ; and within Bengal the
whole administration was paralyzed by acrimonious disputes
between the Company's agents and the Nawab, who fought
against his effacement, and was secretly corresponding with the
Dutch. Being intent, as was natural, on asserting his own in
dependent authority, he manoeuvred to thwart and embarrass
the Company, intrigued with the rivals, and did his best to dis
concert their joint operations against the Marathas who were
laying his country waste, since a defeat might at least help to
shake off the English.
It followed that as neither party could govern tolerably, both
soon became equally unpopular, and that during these years the
country was in fact without an authoritative ruler. For while
the English traders garrisoned the country with a large body of
well-paid and well-disciplined troops, the whole duty of filling
the military chest and carrying on an executive government fell
upon the Nawab, who was distracted between dread of assassina-
tion by his own officers and fear of dethronement by the Company.
As the English traders had come to Bengal avowedly with the
sole purpose of making money, many of them set sail for Europe
as soon as they had made enough. In the meantime, finding
themselves entirely without restraint or responsibility, uncon-
trolled either by public opinion or legal liabilities (for there was
no law in the land), they naturally behaved as in such circum-
stances, with such temptations, men would behave in any age or
country. Some of them lost all sense of honour, justice, and
integrity ; they plundered as Moghuls or Marathas had done
v ADVANCED AND BACKWAED PEOPLES 159
before them, though in a more systematic and business-like
fashion ; the eager pursuit of wealth and its easy acquisition had
blunted their consciences and produced general insubordination.
As Clive wrote later to the Company, describing the state of
affairs that he found on his return in 1765, " In a country where
money is plenty, where fear is the principle of government, and
where your arms are ever victorious, it was no wonder that the
lust of riches should readily embrace the proffered means of
gratification," or that corruption and extortion should prevail
among men who were the uncontrolled depositaries of irresistible
force. This universal demoralization necessarily affected the
revenues, and exasperated the disputes between the Company and
Meer Jafir by increasing the financial embarrassments of both
parties. For the Nawab showed very little zeal in providing
money for the troops upon whom rested the Company's whole
power of overruling him, and arrears were accumulating danger-
ously. . . . All this violent friction soon culminated in an
explosion brought about by an awkward attempt on the part of
Mr. Ellis, chief of the Patna factory, to seize Patna city, with the
object of forestalling an attack by the Nawab on his factory.
Although Ellis took the place he could not hold it, and his whole
party were captured in their retreat ; but the Company's troops
marched against and defeated the Nawab, who in his furious
desperation caused his English prisoners to be massacred, and
then fled across the frontier to the camp of the Vizier of Oudh.
The Company, somewhat sobered by these tragic consequences
of misrule, relinquished the more scandalous monopolies and
restored Meer Jafir in 1763. When he died in 1765 the ruinous
system of puppet Nawabs came practically to an end ; for in
that year Lord Clive, who had returned to India, assumed, under
a grant from the Delhi emperor, direct administration of the
revenue of the three provinces of Bengal, Behar, and Orissa, an
office that was entitled the Diwani. The Diwan had been origin-
ally the Controller-General on behalf of the imperial treasury in
each province, with supreme authority over all public expendi-
ture ; so that the investiture of the Company with this office
added the power of the purse to the power of the sword, and
rendered them directly and regularly responsible for the most
important departments of government.1
1 Sir Alfred Lyall, British Dominion in India, pp. 141-147.
160 INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS v
In this matter we shall gain little by attempting to assess
credit or blame. It is really beside the point to do so. For
while individual traders and the policy of the French and
the English added enormously to the chaos, and caused
much loss and suffering, the fundamental cause of the trouble
was the collapse of the Mogul Empire, with which they had
nothing to do. The Delhi Emperors had been able to
control sufficiently both their own subjects and foreign
traders, and so long as their authority survived no serious
trouble arose. Directly it disappeared anarchy and dis-
order set in, and it was inevitable that the foreigner, whether
he wanted to or not, should make the confusion worse, and
the restoration of good government more difficult. The
only hope for India was that the Mogul Empire should be
effectively restored, or else that some other Power should
establish itself as supreme and restore peace, law, and order
to the distracted country. There never was the slightest
sign of the Delhi Emperors being able to reassert themselves.
No other native Power appeared which manifested any con-
structive governing ability. It therefore eventually became
evident that if India was to be given peace and a chance for
happiness and progress, if its peoples were to be protected
alike from the foreigner and their own oppressors, and if
commercial interchange with the West was not to languish
from internal disorder, that the duty must be undertaken
by the English who were left supreme in the East by the
defeat of the French.
This conclusion was arrived at slowly and with extreme
reluctance. The experience of the terrible years immediately
following the battle of Plassey brought home first to Clive
and later to Warren Hastings that the only hope for Bengal
was the establishment of a strong Government which could
control the lawless and predatory elements among the in-
v ADVANCED AND BACKWARD PEOPLES 161
habitants themselves, and also the foreign traders. Search
as they would there was no native ruler who could do it.
The system of bolstering up puppet rulers had proved a
disastrous failure. The only thing left was for the com-
pany to assume responsibility for government itself. But
that process once begun could not be stopped. " The prime
object of those who at this critical epoch directed the
affairs of the English in India, was to place a limit upon the
expansion of the Company's possessions, to put a sharp curb
upon schemes of conquest, and to avoid any connection
with the native princes that might involve us in foreign
war." * Clive himself wrote that it was " the resolute inten-
tion to bind our possessions absolutely to Bengal." But
this proved impossible. What had originally been true of
Bengal proved equally true of the territory bordering on
Bengal. The Mahrattas and other princes were continu-
ously at war. Napoleon set on foot intrigues against the
English, and his expedition to Egypt was undertaken largely
with the view of reaching India. Disorder beyond the
British frontier continually threatened to spread across it.
The acts and results of Lord Cornwallis' administration show
how difficult it had become for the English to stand still, or to
look on indifferently at the conflicts that broke out all round
them in India. . . ." No Governor- General ever set out for
India under more earnest injunctions to be moderate, and above
all things pacific, than Lord Cornwallis ; and these general orders
were ratified by a specific Act of Parliament, framed with the
express purpose of restraining warlike ardour or projects for the
extension of dominion. Pitt's Act of 1784 was emphatic in this
sense ; and in 1793 another Act declared that —
" Forasmuch as to pursue schemes of conquest and extension
of dominion in India are measures repugnant to the wish, the
honour, and the policy of this nation, it shall not be lawful for
the Governor-General in Council to declare war, or to enter into
1 Sir Alfred Lyall, British Dominion in India, pp. 158, 159.
M
162 INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS v
any treaty for making war, or for guaranteeing the possessions of
any country princes or states (except where hostilities against the
British nation in India have been actually commenced or pre-
pared), without express command and authority from the home
government."
Yet Lord CornwaUis, whose moderation and judgment have
never been doubted, found himself obliged to prepare for hostili-
ties almost immediately after his arrival at Calcutta ; and he
soon discovered that the restraining statutes operated to promote
the very evils they were intended to prevent. Under their
restrictions the English Governor- General was obliged to look
on with tied hands at violent aggressions and dangerous com-
binations among the native States, and was held back from
interposing until matters had reached a pitch at which the
security of his own territory was actually and unmistakably
threatened. The Mysore war, and a considerable extension of
dominion, followed in spite of all injunctions and honest efforts
to the contrary. Yet such was the confidence in the good inten-
tions of Cornwallis that when he left India in 1793 there was a
general impression in England that he had merely taken the
necessary steps for inaugurating a pacific and stationary policy.
Whereas in fact we were on the threshold of an era of wide-
ranging hostilities and immense annexations.
Nothing indeed is more remarkable, as illustrating the per-
sistence of the natural forces that propelled the onward move-
ment of our dominion, than the fact that the immediate conse-
quence of bringing India under direct Parliamentary control was
to stimulate, not to slacken, the expansion of our territories.
Mr. Spencer Walpole has declared in his History of England that
every prominent statesman of the time disliked and forbade
further additions to the Company's territories ; and we have
seen that frequent laws were passed to check the unfortunate
propensity for fighting that was supposed to have marred the
administration of the Company. Nevertheless it is historically
certain that a period of unprecedented war and conquest began
when the Crown superseded the Company in the supreme direction
of Indian affairs. The beginning of our Indian wars on a large
scale dates from 1789 ; and the period between 1786 and 1805,
during which British India was ruled (with a brief interval) by
the first two Parliamentary Governor-Generals, Cornwallis and
Wellesley — by Governor- Generals, that is, who were appointed
v ADVANCED AND BACKWARD PEOPLES 163
by Ministers responsible to Parliament, and for party reasons —
that period comprises some of our longest wars and largest acqui-
sitions by conquest or cession. It stands on record that the
greatest development of our dominion (up to the time of Lord
Dalhousie) coincides precisely with these two Governor-General-
ships. The foundations of our Indian empire were marked out
in haphazard piecework fashion by merchants, the corner-stone
was laid in Bengal by Clive, and the earlier stages were consoli-
dated by Hastings ; but the lofty superstructure has been entirely
raised by a distinguished line of Parliamentary proconsuls and
generals. For the last hundred years every important annexa-
tion in India has been made under the sanction and the deliberate
orders of the national government of England.1
The truth is that the government of backward races by
advanced races is, as Sir Alfred Lyall says, the result of
" natural laws." Where there is a sufficient difference
between the political development of one people and another
and they come into close commercial contact with one
another, it is inevitable that sooner or later the more civil-
ised people should be forced partly in its own interests,
partly in the interests of the backward people, partly in the
interests of the outside world, to assume the task of main-
taining good government in the territory concerned. The
government of one people by another may be wrongly
undertaken through a passion for aggression or domination.
It may be unduly delayed for sentimental or theoretic
reasons, just as the intervention of the State to set right
the analogous evil effects of the industrial revolution was
unduly delayed. But the general rule holds good that
where there is a sufficient difference between the levels of
civilisation of two peoples, the more civilised power will be
driven in the interests of justice and humanity to step in
and regulate, at any rate for a time, the effects of contact
between the two. Thus it was the extravagance of the
1 Sir Alfred Lyall, British Dominion in India, pp. 230-232.
164 INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS v
Khedive Ismail, which induced him first to pawn his country
to foreign bondholders, and then to subject his people to
intolerable and unproductive oppression in order to meet the
claims of his creditors, which led to the sequence of events
which finally brought Egypt under British rule, despite all
efforts, of Mr. Gladstone and others, to avoid it. Similar
conditions have led to the steady expansion of the French
Empire in Africa. No less inexorably have the United States
been carried along in the same direction. No people in the
world are more dedicated to the belief that every people
must govern itself, and more attached to the theory that
for one race to govern another is essentially and always
immoral. Yet the Americans have themselves appropriated
all the territory belonging to the Indians in America. They
have occupied large tracts belonging to Mexico. They have
annexed the Hawaiian Islands. They have been driven to
make themselves responsible for good government in Cuba
and for financial stability in certain central American
states. They have actually assumed the task of governing
the Philippines on lines very similar to those on which the
English govern India. And now they are faced with the
question of whether it is not their duty to restore the ele-
ments of law and order in Mexico.
Great, indeed, as has been the extension of European rule
in the last century, the process does not appear even yet
to have ceased. One has only to look round the world to
realise that there are many states — Mexico, for instance,
Persia, China, Turkey, the central American republics —
whose continued existence as independent sovereign states
is in doubt, because their capacity to maintain a sufficiently
stable and civilised Government for themselves is also in
doubt. These peoples all exhibit the want of financial
and political probity, the administrative incapacity and
v ADVANCED AND BACKWAKD PEOPLES 165
corruption, the failure to lift their policy above purely self-
regarding and ephemeral considerations, which are the
heralds of decay. No thoughtful person can desire their
collapse. All progress lies in the direction of increasing
rather than in that of diminishing the number of people who
have reached such a point of civilisation and self-control
that they are able to maintain law and order, liberty and
justice for themselves. Nothing save anarchy and the
disappearance of any real prospect of the internal restora-
tion of that law and order which are the conditions of liberty
and progress, can warrant any other people taking charge.
When, however, that point has been reached, and it is clear
that in the interests of the whole world intervention should
take place, the problem is complicated by the fact that the
civilised world includes many Great Powers, and that it is
usually a difficult matter to determine which Power should
intervene. Joint intervention is almost invariably dis-
astrous, because it renders unity and continuity of policy
impossible. Yet intervention by one Power may tend to
destroy the international balance, and is therefore usually
objected to by others. It therefore immediately became a
question of foreign politics as well as one of the relations
which should subsist between advanced and backward
peoples. This subject does not come within the scope of
this chapter. But the difficulties it introduces into the
relations between advanced and backward peoples may be
illustrated by the Anglo-Russian agreement of 1907 about
Persia. That country, under the combined effects of
internal demoralisation and political and commercial com-
petition between British and Russians, was rapidly falling
into chaos. It was vital that if these two Powers were not
to quarrel, and if there was to be any hope for the integrity
of Persia itself, that they should agree upon a common
166 INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS v
policy. The agreement of 1907, which looked like an
arrangement to partition, was in fact designed, if possible,
to prevent it by putting an end to competition between the
two great bordering Powers by determining beforehand their
respective spheres of influence in the event of the further
disintegration of the Persian State, and by providing for
outside assistance to the Persians in restoring law and
order and sound finance. The agreement, while fulfilling
its main function of preserving the peace and the integrity
of Persia has not been very satisfactory in other respects.
All such agreements are in their nature unsatisfactory,
for they are at best but attempts to secure uniformity of
dealing with a backward people by its more civilised neigh-
bours. But they are at any rate better than the only alter-
native other than annexation or partition, — unrestricted
and unregulated competition for influence and concessions.
2. THE GOVERNMENT OF DEPENDENCIES
Intervention, however, to put an end to intolerable
sufferings among a backward people, is only one half of
the problem which is the subject-matter of this chapter.
The second half is no less important, — the relations
between an advanced and a backward people, when once
the former have taken over the task of government. In
this case also the governing principle is clear. The more
advanced people having intervened in the interest of
civilisation, liberty, and progress, must conduct the govern-
ment in order to promote these same ends. And that
means that not only must they maintain the elements of
law and order, but in so far as they enjoy a higher civilisa-
tion than their dependants, they must give them every
opportunity of sharing in their own advantages and know-
v ADVANCED AND BACKWAED PEOPLES 167
ledge. This does not imply that they should impose upon
them their own culture or methods. The world will not
benefit by being moulded into a single pattern. Eather
will it profit by the diversity and individuality of its peoples.
It means that they must preserve those elements of law;
order, education, and material organisation which are the
preliminary to the development of a civilised national in-
dividuality, until such time as the backward people have
developed the capacity to maintain these conditions for
themselves.
Pure theory is as dangerous a guide in politics as it is in
other walks of life; and therefore, just as the conclusion that
under certain conditions it is the duty of civilised peoples
to assume charge of the government of backward peoples
was tested by the light of practical experience, so it will
be well to examine the problems of the government of de-
pendencies, in the light of the experience of the past. For
this purpose there is one classic example, the British Empire.
The dependent Empire has been in existence for a hundred
and fifty years. It now includes 350,000,000 people, of
every grade of civilisation. Its problems may therefore be
taken as typical, and its methods have stood the test of
time.
During the early centuries after the opening of the seas,
dependencies were regarded, especially by Spain and
Portugal, mainly as possessions to be exploited for the
benefit of their owners. Fortunately the seventeenth -
century wars left Great Britain, the most advanced and
liberal of the States of Europe, supreme by sea, and therefore
it fell chiefly to her lot to determine how the dependent
people should be treated. As the stories of the condition
of India began to filter home the conscience of the people
was aroused. It soon became apparent that a commercial
168 INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS v
company was not to be trusted with the government of
Indians, once their own government had broken down. At
a very early stage therefore by North's regulating Act of
1773, and later by Pitt's East India Act of 1783, the
British Government assumed some measure of control over
the policy of the East India Company. During the next
twelve years attention was largely concentrated by the
eloquence of Burke on the question of what should be
the attitude of Great Britain to the dependent peoples.
By the end of the impeachment of Warren Hastings the
essential principles which should guide the government of
dependencies were generally understood. It was recog-
nised on the one hand that India could not be abandoned
to its fate, to be racked once more by internal disorder and
foreign intrigue and corruption, and on the other that the
Indian dependency must be primarily governed, not in the
interest of England, but of its own peoples. The govern-
ment of dependencies, in fact, was a trust and not an
opportunity for dominion or profit. The idea of Empire
had given way to that of the Commonwealth. The im-
portance of this decision is well described by Lord Morley
in his Life of Burke : —
Looking across the ninety years that divide us from that
memorable scene (1788) in Westminster Hall, we may see that
Burke had more success than at first appeared. If he did not
convict the man, he overthrew a system and stamped its prin-
ciples with lasting censure and shame. ... If that situation is
better understood now than it was a century ago, and that duty
more loftily conceived, the result is due, so far as such results can
ever be due, to one man's action, apart from the influence of the
deep impersonal elements of time, to the seeds of justice and
humanity which were sown by Burke and his associates. . . .
That Hastings was acquitted was immaterial. The lesson of his
impeachment had been taught with sufficiently impressive force —
the great lessons that Asiatics have rights, and that Europeans
v ADVANCED AND BACKWARD PEOPLES 169
have obligations ; that a superior race is bound to observe the
highest current morality of the time in all its dealings with the
subject race. Burke is entitled to our lasting reverence as the
first apostle and great upholder of integrity, mercy, and honour
in the relation between his country and their humble dependants.
This passage inadequately recognises, perhaps, the great
work which Warren Hastings himself did for India. But
it sets forth clearly the ruling idea which has ever since
governed the relations between Great Britain and her
dependencies. From 1783 onwards, there has been a pro-
gressive increase in the control of the Government over the
East India Company, and a progressive diminution of its
commercial activities. In 1833 the Company was for-
bidden to trade, and in 1857, after the Mutiny, it was
extinguished altogether, the British Government itself
assuming the whole responsibility for the welfare of the
Indian peoples. In other spheres the same process has been
manifest. At first the function of the British in India was
confined to establishing and maintaining peace, order, and
justice throughout the length and breadth of the distracted
land, so that the individual might reap what he had sown,
and the trader, whether foreign or native, might pursue
his avocation under proper restraints. Macaulay's famous
educational Minute, however, of 1835, inadequately as it
appreciated Indian thought and learning, inaugurated a
great change, for it marked the assumption by the
British Government of the task of educating the Indian
peoples in the learning and methods of the West. And
since these days the activities of Government have
been steadily increased. Famines have been practically
overcome. The material basis of civilisation — roads,
bridges, railways, postal service, telegraphs — has been
laid in all save the most sparsely populated parts.
170 INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS v
Schools and colleges in which Western learning is taught,
both in English and the vernaculars, are to be found in
every part.
This is not to say that British rule has been invariably
disinterested and benevolent. Blindness and self-interest
have asserted themselves in the past as they assert them-
selves in the present. For instance, if the rapacity and
privileges of the individual foreign trader have been sup-
pressed, it is at least open to question whether the in-
dustrial development of India as a whole has not been sub-
ordinated to the economic theories and interests of Great
Britain. The record of the relations between the now self-
governing dominions and Downing Street point to the fact
that it is only too easy for a distant and all-powerful
administration, ignorant of local conditions, and naturally
over-conscious of its own point of view, to slip into policies
which, if well-intentioned and just in essentials, show little
regard for the inclinations or susceptibilities of the governed.
Only the most constant vigilance and the most scrupulous
scrutiny of motives can prevent this evil.
3. THE PROBLEM OF SELF-GOVERNMENT
Of late years a new question has arisen overshadowing in
importance all others. The duties of trusteeship are not
fulfilled merely by the introduction of law and order, educa-
tion and material development. The only real justifica-
tion for alien rule is that it should lead to the elevation
of the backward people in the scale of civilisation more
rapidly and at less cost of needless suffering than any other
way. And that elevation is illusory unless it implies the
development among them of the capacity to maintain a
civilised society for themselves. The purpose of the train-
v ADVANCED AND BACKWARD PEOPLES 171
ing and education of the young is to fit them to conduct
themselves as responsible members of society when of age.
The purpose of the tutelage of the backward by the
advanced races is exactly the same, and it will prove itself
a failure unless it eventually leads to that goal. The
growing demands in India and Egypt for larger measures
of self-government, coiipled as they are with the clear re-
cognition of the essential benefits of British rule, manifested
at the outbreak of the Great War, are the strongest proof
which could be given that the British Commonwealth is
achieving its true function and the greatest justification for
it. The desire for self-government is essentially healthy.
The most hopeless situation of all is a fatalist acquiescence
in things as they are. If British rule, however benevolent
and well intentioned, did not produce this uneasy striving
after better things, it would carry within itself its own
condemnation.
None the less it is difficult to determine the answer
which ought to be made to these demands. Self-govern-
ment, whether in peoples or in individuals, is not a matter
of political machinery or book knowledge or technical or
artistic accomplishments, so much as of the development
of character. Character, indeed, which means the habit
of acting in accordance with the precepts of right and
j ustice, truth and honour, especially in relation to others, is
essential to the working of any system of self-government.
Unless people can sufficiently restrain their selfish impulses,
their jealousies and fanaticisms, and can recognise that their
duty to their neighbour must override every considera-
tion of personal profit, or sectional interest, they cannot
collectively maintain a civilised government for themselves.
Character, however, cannot be created from outside.
It is essentially the outcome of the individual himself. But
172 INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS v
experience certainly shows that neither character nor the
real welfare of a backward people will be created by
the simple and convenient process of introducing the
machinery of democracy and leaving a politically back-
ward people to work it for themselves. That panacea, so
popular a century ago, and still in favour with many, does
not fulfil its promises. One might as well leave the conduct
of school to the school children. Moreover, in a backward
community only a small proportion of the people are
sufficiently advanced to have any understanding of politics.
Democracy involves a representative system, and that is
out of the question when the vast bulk of the population
is totally illiterate. In practice it is necessary to feel the
way with the utmost caution, remembering always the
welfare of the toiling and inarticulate masses at the bottom
of the social scale. A nation which has had to assume
the responsibility for maintaining good government among
a backward people, cannot relinquish that responsibility
until the latter have given some clear evidence of their
capacity to do so in its place. And that capacity will
have to be manifested not so much by ability for debate
in legislative assemblies, or by success in passing examina-
tions, but by actual success in responsible administration
and in the uprooting of habits and customs which are
repugnant to the spirit of liberty and justice. Let us take
the case of India, because it is by far the most civilised
non-self-governing community in the British commonwealth,
and because it contains many men at least as civilised as the
peoples of the West. One of the chief obstacles to political
self-government in India in the near future is the existence
of certain habits and practices of the Indians themselves.
Democracy has its roots in certain definite qualities. It
cannot flourish except where the people are bound together
v ADVANCED AND BACKWARD PEOPLES 173
by a strong sense of unity, and a vigorous spirit of mutual
responsibility and service. Such a spirit cannot manifest
itself while religious bitterness is as intense as it is between
Mohammedan and Hindu to-day, while habits like the
segregation of women in the harem are practically uni-
versal, and while the barriers of caste continue to separate
the people into water-tight groups largely debarred from
frank and generous communication with one another. While,
therefore, advance towards self-government implies a prac-
tical experiment in giving Indians full responsibility in
some restricted and manageable sphere of government, it
also implies practical success by Indians themselves in
dealing with social reform. Progress involves a gradual
advance in both spheres. The progress of self-government
in India, therefore, lies as much in the hands of the
Indians as it does in the hands of the British. The British
are committed to the principle of self-government. In
proportion as the Indians have the character and the
courage to strike at the evils in their own midst, that goal
will be gradually and peacefully attained.
It is well to remember that the peoples responsible for
the government of dependencies are trustees not for them-
selves only, nor for the inhabitants only, but for all man-
kind. Their function is to uphold the banner of liberty and
civilisation and progress in these backward parts until their
inhabitants can do so for themselves. To fail or falter in
this work is to betray the trust which is laid upon them.
This trust rests on all peoples governing dependencies. But
it rests especially upon the British peoples, for the Common-
wealth which they control, by reason of its size and the
diversity of the 400,000,000 people which compose it,
occupies an unique position in the polity of the world. Its
fabric is the outcome of no imperial design. It exists,
174 INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS v
because in spite of lapses and mistakes it meets an essential
human need. It establishes the relations between countless
grades of human society on a basis of law, and, with all its
human imperfections, it gives to all good government and
internal peace as never before in the history of the world.
If it were not there, chaos, tyranny, and war would inevit-
ably ensue. It clearly should continue to do this work.
But it is well to remember that its problems, instead of
growing less are becoming more difficult. Not the least
of these problems arises from the fact that a change has
come over its governing authority. The control of its affairs
is rapidly leaving the hands of a small aristocratic Govern-
ment, the inheritors of the traditions of those who built it
up, and falling into those of five democracies distributed
over the face of the globe. These democracies are scarcely
conscious as yet of the trust which rests upon them. But
none the less the future not only of these millions but of
the world itself depends on how they deal with the problems
now arising before them. They cannot escape them, and
they will solve them only if they deal with them with
the same selfless and inflexible resolution to do what is
right by all concerned which has governed the men and
women who have given their lives to its service in the past,
and which alone will solve the problems now looming up in
the future.
4. THE IMMIGRATION PROBLEM
The problem of the relations between advanced and
backward peoples is not concerned only with the establish-
ment of civilised conditions among the backward people
themselves. It presents itself in another form, which is
yearly becoming of greater importance. The inevitable
effect of the recent multiplication and cheapening of the
v ADVANCED AND BACKWAKD PEOPLES 175
means of communication has been a migration of popula-
tion totally without precedent in the earlier history of the
world. During the past two centuries the European
peoples have overflowed to North and South America, to
South Africa and to Australia, and in all these countries
they have built up civilisations of varying excellence on
European lines. Almost from the beginning these peoples
suffered from a shortage of labour. At first they attempted
to meet the labour difficulty by importing slaves from
Africa, and they continued to do so until the conscience of
man revolted and abolished slavery and the slave trade.
But this did not stop the flow. Coloured labour was trans-
ported under some system of indenture, or migrated of its
own free choice, attracted by the high wages prevalent in
the new lands.
It was not very long before serious difficulties arose.
The immigrant labourer was accustomed to living on a
lower scale of living. He was willing to accept far lower
wages than the white labourer. He was outside the trade
unions. He was usually of the labouring class, that is the
most backward of all, and the one least susceptible of
being assimilated into a civilisation on European lines. He
became, therefore, a grave menace to the white labouring
class, which saw their prospects of stable employment
filched away by strangers, for no other reason than that
they could live at a far lower standard, and could afford to
accept a far lower wage. Further, the coolie labourer was
accompanied or followed by the trader, and the Asiatic
trader not only usually worked longer hours, but was
satisfied with smaller profits than the white trader. He
therefore tended to get the custom not only of his own
fellows, but of the white consumer also. Thus the white
trader as well as the white labourer suffered. Again, many
176 INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS v
of the immigrant labourers were endowed with a high
degree of natural intelligence and adaptability, and were able
quickly to pick up from those with whom he worked a good
working knowledge of the skilled trades. They then began
to offer their services in the labour market for these purposes
at rates higher indeed than those paid to the coolie, but
still very far below those usually paid to the white artisan.
Thus the white artisan also gradually found himself
displaced by the coloured immigrant. Finally, the presence
of coloured labour reacted on the attitude of the white man
towards labour. He began to feel that manual work was
not a white man's job, and ceased to do it. That, however,
did not prevent his competitor from following him into the
higher fields of employment also. Thus the members of
the more civilised races tended to be confined to the re-
latively few directing and highly skilled positions in the
hierarchy of labour, while those who were unfit for these
posts, or could not find employment, sank into an ever-
growing class of demoralised and indolent " poor whites,"
unable to compete for manual labour, regarding it as
beneath their dignity, and without any means of subsist-
ence at all.
It was inevitable that these evils should produce great
discontent, which often manifested itself in bitter hostility
to the more backward race. And if the more advanced
people suffered from the presence in their midst of a large
body of people behind them in the social, economic, and
political scale, the backward race suffered no less, as the
lynchings, discriminatory laws, and the barriers to social
progress amply prove. The fact is that contact between
advanced and backward peoples within the civilised world
produces evils nearly as great and as difficult to cure, if not
so obviously scandalous, as contact within the confines of
v ADVANCED AND BACKWARD PEOPLES 177
the uncivilised world. In the early stages it may lead to
violence, penury for the poor white and the all-pervading
poison of the social colour line. In the intermediate stages
another complication appears in the shape of the half-
breed. In the later stages the coloured population, if it
obtains a vote, is exploited to corrupt political life, or else
organises itself in permanent opposition to the rest of the
community. The problem can no more be left unregulated
in the one case than the other. In theory it might appear
to be the best plan to bridge the gulf as rapidly as possible
by encouraging the greatest possible intermixture of the two
races and civilisations. But all experience, and the clear
verdict of every new country, shows that this solution is, in
fact, the worst. From every point of view it is better to
maintain as great a geographical separation as possible
between the masses of peoples of differing levels of civilisa-
tion, while making provision for the free interchange of
products, learning, and ideas, through certain denned
channels.
But if the enunciation of this principle is easy, its appli-
cation is extremely difficult. In practice it means that the
immigration of permanent settlers, especially agriculturists,
labourers, and artisans, is prohibited, while that of students,
travellers, and merchants engaged in wholesale trade, is
permitted under sufficient restrictions to prevent evasion
of the purpose of the law. But even this leads to endless
friction. Up to the present, with one exception, the
restriction has been applied only against the backward
races, the reason being that the problem scarcely arises in
the case of the advanced peoples, because the proletariat
of these peoples practically never wishes to settle in any
numbers among a backward community, because it cannot
compete with them owing to the lower conditions of living.
N
178 INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS v
Insomuch, therefore, as the legal prohibition only operates
in one way, it arouses violent resentment among the civilised
members of the backward peoples, for instance the Indian,
as being an insult to their race. It arouses resentment
also among those peoples who, like the Japanese, are not
backward as compared with European peoples, but who
are clearly differentiated from them by colour or stature
or appearance, and who are excluded because for economic,
religious, or political reasons they cannot assimilate them-
selves with the normal types of white civilisation and
remain for ever a foreign element in the body politic. The
Japanese, however, have replied by applying the principle
in the case of their own islands, prohibiting the settlement
of Europeans except for specified purposes, and this solu-
tion has been propounded in the case of India also.
The difficulties, indeed, which arise from unrestricted
immigration can only be solved if we look at them from the
point of view of the highest good of the world as a whole.
It is then clear that the cause of progress is best served
by preventing the free settlement of the proletariat of -an
advanced or a backward people in a territory already occu-
pied and settled by the other. The evils which have arisen
where it occurs, or where the territory occupied by the two
are contiguous, for instance in the case of Mexico and the
United States, the poignant tragedies which follow from
intermarriage or intermixture between the races widely
different in appearance and civilisation, all go to prove that
the policy of allotting separate territories to each, in which
no permanent settlement by the other shall be allowed,
and in which each race can develop on its own lines, with
free access by travel and learning to the civilisations and
methods of all the world, is, in the present state of the
world, much the best for all concerned. But such a policy
v ADVANCED AND BACKWAED PEOPLES 179
imposes a heavy responsibility on the leading peoples of the
world. It is one which can easily be abused if intolerantly
or selfishly applied. All races and all peoples have an equal
title to development, and a just solution of the difficulties
will only be found if the ruling peoples keep this principle
clearly in view.
5. CONCLUSION
The foregoing pages have been intended to give the
merest sketch of the problems which arise out of the contact
between peoples of different levels of civilisation. Their
object has been to establish, not as a matter of theory, but
as the outcome of actual experience, three general prin-
ciples. The first is, that so long as there are peoples seri-
ously behind the present level of the most civilised nations,
commercial intercourse is bound to lead to evils which can
only be ended by a more civilised people assuming charge
of the government of the more backward race. The
second is, that when this has been done the ruling people
ought to govern the dependency as trustees for all man-
kind, having as their ultimate aim the raising of the in-
habitants to the level at which they can govern them-
selves and share in the greater responsibilities of the
world. The third is, that the joint settlement of the
masses of races of widely differing levels of civilisation
or colour in a single area is injurious to all, and that
as far as possible they should be kept geographically
segregated, while free intercommunication is provided for
the superior elements in both, in order that, while retain-
ing their individuality, they may gradually reach mutual
understanding.
No attempt has been made to deal with the manifold
practical issues which arise out of the application of these
180 INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS v
general principles. The full method of segregation, for
instance, cannot be applied in the Southern States of
America, or in South Africa, where large masses of a back-
ward race are already mixed up with a large white popula-
tion. Nor, as in the case of the Maories, where no serious
evils have resulted from the intermingling of the two races,
can the evil effects of immigration be said to be universal.
The purpose of the chapter will be served if the structural
elements of the problem have been laid bare.
But in conclusion two other points must be emphasised.
The difficulty of the relations between backward and
advanced peoples is immensely increased by the difference
in colour. The fact that one man is white and another
is black or brown or yellow, and that each has physical
features which mark him off from the others, tends to make
people judge all individuals according to the general level
of the colour group to which they belong. Nothing could
be more fallacious, or more productive of the bitterness
and hatred which estrange. Whatever judgment we may
form of the general level of these groups, large members
of individuals in each of them are entitled to rank
among the most civilised of men by their learning, their
character, and their capacity for leading their fellows. To
deny these men an equal status is unjust, and can work
nothing but harm. The future peace and harmony of the
world, gravely imperilled already by the bitterness of the
colour line, will depend upon the maintenance of mutual
confidence and understanding between the leaders of the
different groups of mankind. Honesty, integrity, truth-
fulness, charity, these are the tests of character and true
civilisation, not the pigment of the skin or the moulding of
the features. Civilised men must learn to appraise their
coloured fellows by these tests and these tests alone.
v ADVANCED AND BACKWARD PEOPLES 181
The second point concerns other nations. The govern-
ment of dependencies is a trust. Dependencies therefore
cannot properly be treated as the preserve of the ruling
Powers. All other nations have an equal title to trade and
communicate with them subject to whatever restrictions
are necessary to the welfare of the inhabitants. As the
world is knit more closely together the principle of the
open door will become of increasing importance. The
responsible nation must obviously be free to impose what-
ever dues on foreign commerce may be necessary to the
prosperity of the dependency itself, but it clearly should
not take advantage of its position of trust to take for itself
privileges which it withholds from others.
The problem of the relations which should subsist be-
tween the advanced and backward peoples is thus seen to
be one of immense complexity. As years go by and the
backward races advance it is likely to increase in urgency
and in difficulty. The attitude in which the nations
approach it is therefore of vital importance. At the be-
ginning of this chapter it was said that the problem could
only be seen in its true perspective if it was regarded from
the point of view of humanity as a whole. It is only
possible to repeat this advice once more at its end. Man-
kind is one great family. Its members are in every stage
of development, but the conduct of one section reacts con-
tinuously and directly on every other. Under present
conditions, the most civilised members have no option but
to make themselves responsible for the maintenance of
peace, order, and liberty within the earthly habitation in
which all reside. The war of 1914, and the attempts of
some nations to upset civilised government in many back-
ward lands, show how little many of the great peoples of
the earth understand the problem of human government.
182 INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS v
Let us hope that its outcome will be a clearer vision that
human progress depends upon the material service of all
nations of the cause of human unity, liberty, and peace.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
The number of books dealing directly with this subject is not
great. But the number throwing light upon it is legion. The
following may be regarded as the more important : —
LYALL, SIB ALFRED. Rise and Expansion of British Dominion in
India. John Murray. 5s. net.
HOLDERNESS, SIR T. W. Peoples and Problems of India. (Home
University Library.) Williams & Norgate. Is.
STRACHEY, SIR JOHN India, its Administration and Progress.
Macmillan. 10s. net.
CROMER, EARL OF. Modern Egypt. Macmillan. Cheap ed.
7s. 6d. net.
Life of John 6. Paton, Missionary to the New Hebrides. Hodder
& Stoughton. Paper cover, 6d. Cloth, 6s.
MOREL, E. D. Bed Rubber. T. Fisher Unwin. Paper, Is. net.
Report on the Putumayo Atrocities.
The literature on the abolition of the Slave Trade.
The Lives of the Governor-Generals of India in the " Rulers of
India " Series. Clarendon Press. 2s. 6d. net each.
BUTLER, SIR W. Life of General Gordon. Macmillan. 2s. 6d.
Forty-one Years in India, by Lord Roberts. Macmillan. Cheap ed.
MURPHY, EDGAR GARDNER. The Basis of Ascendancy : a discussion
of certain principles of public policy involved in the development
of the Southern States of America. Longmans. 6s. net.
OLIVIER, SIR SYDNEY. White Capital and Coloured Labour. Inde-
pendent Labour Party. Is. 6d.
The Report of the Transvaal Indigency Commission contains a
minute examination of the economic reactions of black and white
labour on one another.
VI
INTEKNATIONAL RELATIONS AND THE
GROWTH OF FREEDOM
1. FREEDOM AND NATIONAL LIFE
THE goal of political endeavour is freedom. Those who
see the end of human effort in peace are at the best mis-
taking the means for the end. In the past, freedom has
often been won and kept by the sword, but in the long
run it will be attained through peace. For it is in peace
that those things, won perhaps in war, which are essential
to human liberty grow to fulness. It is man's desire for
freedom which is the key to an understanding of human
institutions and the development of law and order. They
exist as a barrier against his subjugation by Nature or by
his fellows. Both the conquest of Nature and the sup-
pression of anarchy are achieved through associated human
effort and the establishment of those ordered relations
which co-operation implies. Thus the history of civilisa-
tion is the history of the evolution of social groups for the
enlargement of the freedom of their members. Whatever
freedom man has so far attained, whether by overcoming
and controlling the forces of Nature or by the right to live
his own life in the world of men, has been won through cor-
porate action in society.
183
184 INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS vi
The family, with its ordered relations between the
various members of it, its protection of the young and
the weak, and its sense of unity, enlarges liberty and offers
opportunities for self-expression to those composing it.
The city, inhabited by people with common local interests,
and with common needs, through the development of many-
sided municipal life, yields greater freedom to its citizens
than they could win for themselves single-handed. The
nation still further widens the range of human liberty. It
introduces over a larger field a common rule of law and
establishes controlled relations between all those dwelling
within it, giving due place to the various localised and
sectional units it embraces. Order reigns where otherwise
anarchy might prevail. The nation recognises certain
rights which must be accorded to every individual, if he is
not to be at the mercy of other men ; it imposes on him
certain obligations in return, which mean that the individual
must recognise the rights of others. Similarly, the various
social groupings within the nation — religious, political,
industrial, educational, philanthropic, or what not — are
enabled to fulfil their ends by the establishment of re-
ciprocal relations between each other and with the nation
as a whole. Partly because of this, and partly because
it has a wider scope of activity and a richer life, the
nation is the medium for a much fuller expression of the
genius and individuality of its members than a series of
smaller unrelated social groups could provide. Smaller
groups within a larger group, organisations within organisa-
tions allow for that variety of development and that inter-
action of man with man and group with group without
which true freedom is impossible. The nation, the city,
the village, together with the multitude of voluntary associa-
tions through which individuals seek development and the
vi THE GROWTH OF FREEDOM 185
realisation of special common ends — all of them co-ordinated
and related — make life richer and fuller, and therefore freer,
than it could be under less integrated forms of society.
A nation, however, is a means to freedom only so far as its
members can realise themselves through its institutions.
Where part of the people within a nation are members of
it unwillingly, its common way of life, its laws, customs,
and institutions will be hindrances to their freedom rather
than means for its realisation. They will consider the law
coercive and participation in the national life will be a
burden. Different racial origins, different language, litera-
ture, religion, and traditions — a different background —
from the majority, will tend to make the minority a people
apart ; in that case to force them into the same mould as
their fellow-citizens means, not freedom, but thraldom.
If the background is not sufficiently strongly coloured to
permeate the outlook and culture of a body of people,
assimilation by the dominant nationality may take place,
but coercion generally breeds revolt, and sooner or later
liberty will be won, if needs be by force. Many of the
wars of modern times have been primarily wars of libera-
tion, though even now there are millions of people in
Europe deprived of the national avenue to freedom. Poland,
Alsace-Lorraine, Schleswig, non-Magyar Hungary, Bohemia,
Finland, and Ireland need but to be mentioned.
It does not follow, however, that every submerged
people will strive for full political independence. The end
may often be achieved by free partnership with other peoples
within a single state organisation. Where this occurs,
then as between the nations in union the frontiers of free-
dom are extended. The most valuable experiment on
these lines which the world has ever seen is to be found
within the British Empire. A quarter of the human race,
186
comprising people of different races and religions, and at
widely differing stages of political development, have
found freedom within its boundaries. Between its com-
ponent parts there are ordered relations, and the rule of
law is supreme. Each may pursue its own life and seek its
freedom in its own way without fear of hindrance and
aggression from the remainder of the quarter of the world's
population with which it is united.1
2. INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS
The best relations between the individual, and the city
and the State, and between each of these and other forms
of grouping are not to be attained without continual re-
adjustment and constant reference to human experience ;
and it is not surprising that they are as yet imperfect.
Injustice, or the denial of freedom — industrial, social,
religious, political — still exists. Nevertheless, we owe such
freedom as we possess to these various groupings of people.
Compared with the degree and variety of corporate action
within the nation, however, the relations between States
are most rudimentary. Yet the maintenance of existing
freedom and the further growth of liberty rest ultimately
upon the establishment of ordered relations between the
sovereign Powers of the world, and between the States and
the various sectional interests which cut across States.
It is clear that the organised resources of one State,
uncontrolled in any way, may be a serious menace to the
lives and freedom of members of another State. Indeed,
the mere prospect of aggression from without may under-
mine freedom within a state by imposing a policy and line
1 The relatively enlightened policy of Austria and the repressive
policy of Hungary in this respect are worth comparative study.
vi THE GKOWTH OF FREEDOM 187
of action which under ordinary circumstances it would
never have followed freely. Moreover, chaos amongst the
States of the world, potential disorder instead of estab-
lished order, anarchy instead of law, cuts short the progress
of human freedom. Even the national aspect of freedom can
never realise its latent possibilities in a world of unrelated
and often hostile states, for the wider world rivalry and
competition will react upon the corporate life within the
nation, and much that would be of value to the world as a
whole will come only to partial fruition. The nation loses
because it has not the sympathetic atmosphere necessary
for development, and the world loses because the contri-
butions of the nations to the cause of liberty have no
adequate channel of expression. Further, uncontrolled cos-
mopolitan interests may adversely affect national develop-
ment and curtail the freedom of members of national groups.
Hence, the question of international relations is one of the
utmost importance, not only to diplomatists but to social
reformers, and indeed to every citizen whose citizenship
is a reality ; on the establishment of harmonious and
controlled relations between the States themselves, and
between the States and growing cosmopolitan groupings
and interests, depends the freedom of the world.
It has been suggested that the best way of securing
unhampered development and freedom in the world is for
each State to live its own life without interfering with the
course of events outside its own borders. But such a
policy of non-intervention cuts at the very roots of free-
dom, because laissez-faire in an imperfect world results in
license for the few and subjection for the many. Indivi-
dualism and the laissez-faire policy inside the national
community fell to pieces because it was found that the
freedom of all the members of society could be secured
188 INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS vi
only by buttressing the better side of man through
the establishment of common rules of action enforced
by the community. Society could not allow one section
of itself to fall under the power of another without
endangering the freedom or restricting the liberty of the
whole ; for the whole needs the active co-operation of the
parts. An international policy of non-interference is fatal
on the same grounds, for it is nothing more than a policy
of short-sighted selfishness. It places the weak at the
mercy of the strong and limits freedom in consequence, as
the weak, crushed and trembling under the fear of aggres-
sion, are unable to participate fully in that complex life of
the world which is richer and fuller than a self-contained
national life can ever be. Non-interference in the in-
dustrial world worked more havoc in society as a whole than
a century of tentative and spasmodic intervention has been
able to sweep away. Non-intervention in international
affairs is the analogue of the laissez-faire policy of a century
ago with its motto of " Each for himself and the Devil take
the hindmost." As in industry, so in the sphere of inter-
national life, it means that the Devil takes not merely the
hindmost, but most of the rest. To avow a policy of non-
intervention is a declaration of voluntary outlawry and a
denial of duties and responsibilities in the wider world of
which nations are a part. Anarchism is not to be reached
by short cuts. Men and nations alike cannot yet be relied
upon to obey an inner moral law without the outward
manifestation of corporate regulation and the stimulus of
participation with others in a common task.
History records attempts which have been made to
secure ordered relations between States through the im-
position of universal dominion. It is said that Napoleon
dreamed of world power in order that he might bring
vi THE GROWTH OF FREEDOM 189
liberty to the nations of the world. Even if he had been
successful in extending his rule, he would not have brought
liberty. His achievement might have been peace at the
price of freedom. But the world rose against him as it will
always rise against attempts at universal dominion.
The policy of contracting alliances as a means of con-
trolling international relations is an old one, though in
earlier days they signified rather the personal union of
rulers. An alliance between two or more States so long
as it continues does establish reciprocal relations between
them, secures each from the aggression of the other, and
perhaps increases their freedom by diminishing the chances
of attack by other States. On the other hand, an alliance
between States may prove to be a menace to the independ-
ent action of other States. Further, there may be many
alliances, and though the number would be less than the
number of independent Powers in the world, and therefore
to that extent international relations would be simplified,
lack of co-ordination between the alliances, many of them
probably with opposite interests, would be a serious danger.
The multiplicity of alliances is not, therefore, a hopeful
line of growth in the work of enlarging the realm of liberty.
The Balance of Power theory represents an advance.
An alliance of powerful States may be so strong as to be
able to dominate international politics. The remaining
individual States would in such circumstances exist only on
sufferance. Their freedom would be merely an illusion.
But an equally strong alliance of some of the nations not
included in the first alliance would give greater security and
liberty of action for themselves and for the remaining States.
An equilibrium would thus be established between two sets
of Powers. England's policy in the past of maintaining
the equilibrium may have served a useful purpose, but it
190 INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS vi
is not a final solution for the problem of international
relations, as it could only be successful when it alone was
playing at keeping the balance. In any case, however,
Jkhe Balance of Power is open to obvious objections as a
theory of international relations. Even apart from the
tendency of each group to outbid the other in power, the
resources, population, and prestige of living nations are
never static. The equilibrium is, therefore, unstable, and
consequently international relations reflect the instability.
The international atmosphere becomes charged with float-
ing suspicions and uneasiness. Innocent events are given
sinister meanings. Under these circumstances national
freedom droops and withers. Nor can we be sure that a
Balance of Power is a net increase of freedom to the nations
concerned. It is true that to regulate the relations between
the members of a group is all to the good, but the existence
of another equally strong group may put limitations upon
the independence of the members of the first group, in so
far as each nation may have to divert its strength and energy
from the task of its own domestic development to the work
of preparing for possible aggression and of endeavouring
to counteract the influence in the world of the rival group
of States. Then, also, problems which arise outside the
two rival groups will be solved not on their essential
merits or with regard to justice and freedom, but from the
narrower view -point of sectional interests. Questions
affecting members of the group will be approached from
the same angle. This indeed is the vital weakness of a
Balance of Power. Individuals unaided cannot be trusted
unfailingly to act in accordance with the common interest ;
groups of individuals will tend to satisfy their private
interests and may indeed be brought together for that
purpose. So also States or groups of States will push their
vi THE GKOWTH OF FREEDOM 191
immediate interests to the front, violating the interests and
endangering the welfare of others in the process. The very
formation of a compensating alliance is a recognition of
this truth. It is because an alliance of Powers is likely to
seek the ends of its members and to threaten the liberty
of action of other States, that a second alliance comes into
existence. The Balance of Power theory is fallacious
because it bases national rights upon the power to enforce
them, and does not recognise that the only sure foundation
for national freedom is through the development of ordered
relations in which legitimate national rights are safeguarded
by the imposition of reciprocal national obligations.
At times a Concert of Europe has taken upon itself the
duty of regulating the relations between particular Powers
or setting the seal of its approval upon agreements made
by them. It is clear that the meeting together of the
different States is a valuable step, even though each State
representative is there with a watching brief. The occa-
sions of these meetings, unfortunately, are times when the
various Powers scent danger to themselves, either through
action unfavourable to them or through the possibility of
events strengthening a rival. It suffers, as all concerted
action by the Powers seems destined to suffer, from the
tendency to preserve the status quo. The status quo is
often the enemy of freedom. Had Italy and the Balkan
States waited upon a Concert of Europe for sanction to
seek political freedom, it is unlikely that any of them would
have gained their independence. In the future, no Concert
of Europe will be adequate, for the large problems upon the
wise solution of which the progress and development of the
world depends are extra-European ; and their very nature
as world problems requires the co-operation of the United
States and Japan at least among the non-European States.
192 INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS vi
3. THE INTERNATIONAL MIND
At this stage, in order to understand international rela-
tions, we must return to a consideration of the smaller social
groups. Society is possible only when men postpone their
own interests in some degree. Society continues to exist
because of the growth of public spirit, that is to say, the
growth of a social as distinct from an individual point of
view and the substitution of public for private ends.
Society develops and realises the potentialities of its mem-
bers when the relations between individuals and social
groups are moralised ; in other words, when a public moral
code emerges. In the wider world, the relations between
part and part, and the parts and the whole, are much
more complex than within a single nation. Not only does
the world polity include the various States and the many-
sided life within them, but individual members of different
nations have sets of common interests, and multitudinous
points of contact with the outside world ; the interaction
of nations and the interplay of different national influences
all add to the depth and wealth of life, but at the same
time add to its complexity.
To facilitate lawful growth, to repress anarchical im-
pulses and the tendency towards national self-aggrandise-
ment, and to establish just relations between the different
groups and interests in the world, is a task of considerable
magnitude, calling in especial degree for public spirit. The
nations of the world, however, are individualistic ; each is
too apt to confine itself to matters affecting its own particular
interests. Indeed, it is generally held that foreign ministers
are trustees for the States they represent, and should there-
fore confine themselves to serving national interests
without entering upon any course of knight-errantry.
vi THE GKOWTH OF FREEDOM 193
Generous impulses and unselfish feelings have, of course,
hovered over the battle-ground of international politics ;
but in the main, the guiding motives of action have been
national ; national security and self-protection is the first
law of international life. This philosophy of the jungle was
found wanting as a way of life for individuals, who slowly
realised that the only way to safeguard their real interests
and to guarantee essential liberties was through the rule
of law and by society itself becoming the champion of
rights and the upholder of obligations.
But nations — " the individuals of humanity " — partly
because of the complexity of their life, the range of interests
within them, and the difficulty of distilling from all these
factors a clearly conceived purpose, and partly because of
the higher type of public spirit required, have lagged behind
in the standard of their citizenship in the world. The in-
dividuals of which nations are composed have bridged the
gap between the city and the State, but they have not yet
leapt across the chasm between the nation and humanity.
They have not, to use the phrase of Dr. Nicholas Murray
Butler, developed "the international mind." Yet legitimate
national rights will be safeguarded and the bounds of freedom
extended only when, in the sphere of international relations,
the individualistic mind is superseded by the public mind.
The enlargement of freedom within the city is the
outcome of the civic spirit at work ; the growth of freedom
within the State is the result of a wider national spirit.
The point of view necessary for the adequate treatment of
affairs concerning the life centring round the parish pump
is too narrow for the settlement of the common domestic
problems of a whole people. The national point of view,
by its narrowness of vision and the temptation to be led
by purely national considerations, must grow into a wider
o
194
attitude of mind, if international relations are to be of such
a character as to serve the true ends of human society.
It may be argued that diplomatists possess " the inter-
national mind," and that in their deliberations and actions
they are influenced by wider considerations of world
interest. It is true that those who are brought into intimate
contact with the varied and complicated problems which
a world of independent States presents, must necessarily
approach them with a wider outlook and a fuller back-
ground of knowledge than is possible to others. But
the rarefied atmosphere of the diplomatic world, whilst it
lends itself to the process of throwing into relief the many
elements which must be considered in the establishment of
orderly international relations, lacks oxygen. The diplo-
matic world is out of contact with the living nations which
lie behind notes, protocols, and treaties. The real criticism
of modern diplomacy is that it works in vacua, far removed
from the inspiring and invigorating atmosphere of national
life. The importance of " the international mind " lies in the
fact that it is the foundation of an enlightened public opinion.
In the past such a public opinion has not existed, though
there have been at times gusts of partially informed opinion.
Even in the smaller realm of the nation, the course of
progress and the growth of freedom have been hampered
by the lack of a steady, continuous pressure from its
members. It is now recognised that public spirit is called
for, not merely from leaders and officials, but from the mass
of the people. Similarly in international affairs, sincerity,
enthusiasm, and public spirit in ministers and diplomats
lose the greater part of their value unless they are constantly
being re-vitalised and strengthened by the full expression
of considered opinion from those whom it is their business
to represent.
v! THE GKOWTH OF FREEDOM 195
4. THE FULLER CITIZENSHIP
We are, therefore, thrown back upon the general body of
citizens. In this country public interest has been absorbed
in the development of our constitutional system and our
industrial and social organisation, to the neglect of matters
outside our own borders. The Great War was all the greater
shock because it was so unexpected ; and it is typical of the
British people that, when the blow fell, we were rent in twain
over the solution of a constitutional problem. And now
the intelligent public is somewhat ashamed of its ignorance
concerning those international forces which affect the
freedom and even the smallest details of the lives of the
world's population. Now we stand at the parting of the
ways. It is for British citizens to choose whether they
will fly in the face of international tendencies and relapse
into an illusory insularity, or whether they will assume the
responsibilities of that wider citizenship without which
international life is chaotic, full of uncontrolled conflicting
forces and agencies working much harm and little good.
This fuller citizenship is the completion of the citizenship
of the city and the State, giving to them a richer meaning.
Mere machinery — whether judicial or political — how-
ever indispensable, is insufficient in itself. The great need
is for the development of a world policy based upon know-
ledge and understanding, and dealing with international
life as a whole. In the interests of human freedom, the
peoples of the world must face three groups of problems.
The first concerns the relations between the politically
developed States, upon whose co-operation the solution of
international problems depends. It is to these States that
we must look for the evolution of those ordered relations,
which lie at the base of international life, affecting not only
196 INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS vi
these States in their direct relations with one another, but
necessary for the solution of the international problems
falling into the other groups. The second series centres
round the difficult questions arising out of the relations
between races at widely differing stages of political and
economic development. There are two main sides to these
problems ; there is first the question of protection against
exploitation, whether political or economic, and secondly,
the question of developing among backward peoples those
broad principles, moral, social, and political, upon which
free societies must be built. Both merge into each other
at many points ; on the whole, the former are concerned
with immediate, and the latter with ultimate, questions.
Broadly speaking, we are here faced with " the white man's
burden," which hitherto has often appeared to cloak purely
selfish ends, but which is the analogy in the international
field of the communal protection of the young and the weak
in domestic politics. The third series of problems relates
to the control by the States of the world of the great cos-
mopolitan interests, mainly economic in character, whose
growth has been one of the most striking features of the
last century. These three sets of problems overlap and
cannot be kept distinct ; but broadly they are political,
sociological, and economic, though all of them are closely
related to international ethics. Indeed, reduced to the
simplest form of expression, the task is to " moralise "
international relations. To confine the issue to the problem
of how to keep a single strong-headed nation in its due
place, or of how to settle international disputes without
recourse to war, is to miss the real significance of these
questions as phases of the larger problems of human and
national relationships.
The task of the citizen is, in the light of knowledge and
vi THE GKOWTH OF FEEEDOM 197
experience, to lay the spiritual foundations of a general and
comprehensive policy upon which statesmen may build, and
to keep in touch with the changes and developments which
are continually taking place in the world, in order that the
policy may not fall out of harmony with the problems it is
designed to meet. But the first step is for the people of
this country to get that knowledge of the problems without
which there can be no wise and comprehensive policy ; and
yet upon which the growth of democracy depends.
The Great War has shown that the development of a
free democratic life and the growth of democratic institu-
tions within a nation can never in themselves be a guarantee
of the maintenance of harmonious relations without ; that
measures of social reconstruction within the State, how-
ever far-reaching, will not alone protect it from external
influences likely to throw it into confusion or lead it into
war. A nation cannot control its own domestic life if it is
the sport of uncontrolled external forces. For the main-
tenance of its liberty, and for the sake of the fuller national
liberty to be realised only in a community of nations, it
must, in association with other nations, learn to bring
those forces under the sway of law.
Human freedom, moral, political, social, and industrial,
realised through the home, the school, and the workshop,
the trade union and the co-operative society, the club and
the university, the city and the State, the Church and the
world of nations, with their active interplay of influences,
is no simple concept. And life is too many-sided and com-
plicated for liberty to be attained through any one channel.
There are no short-cuts to freedom. It is to be won only
through the application of knowledge and understanding,
imagination and sympathy, courage and public spirit,
to every side of human life and every form of human
198 INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS vr
relationship, and not least, the international. The con-
structive activity of human society grows outwards from the
individual in ever-widening circles — the city, the State, the
world — and back again to the individual. The fault in
the past has been to neglect the broader questions touching
the uttermost circle of human relations. The near future,
however, will present opportunities to get rid of the policy
of drift, and for a broad and comprehensive treatment of
the problems of international life. " Education, the father-
land, liberty, association, the family, property, and religion,"
says Mazzini, " all these are undying elements of human
nature : they cannot be cancelled or destroyed, but every
epoch has alike the right and the duty of modifying their
development in harmony with the intellect of the age, the
progress of science, and the altered condition of human
relations. Hence democracy, informed and enlightened
by these ideas, must abandon the path of negations ; useful
and opportune so long as the duty before us was that of
breaking asunder the chains that bound mankind to the
past ; useless and barren now that our task is the conquest
of the future. If it do not forsake this path, it can but doom
itself to perish — as all mere reaction must perish — in anarchy
and impotence."
It is difficult to suggest books dealing with the questions raised
in this chapter without going very far afield.
An Introduction to the History of the Science of Politics, by Sir
Frederick Pollock (Macmillan, 1906 ; 2s. 6d.), will lead readers to the
works of those philosophers who have dealt with political theory.
Political Thought from Spencer to To-day, by Ernest Barker (Home
University Library, 1915; Is.), is particularly interesting. A Primer
of Peace and War, edited by Rev. Chas. Plater for the Catholic Social
Guild (King & Son, 1915 ; Is. 6d.), deals with the principles of inter-
national morality from the Catholic point of view. See also The
vi THE GROWTH OF FREEDOM 199
Morality of Nations, by C. Delisle Burns (University of London Press,
1915; 5s.).
Reference should be made to The History of Freedom and Other
Essays, by Lord Acton (Macmillan, 1907 ; 10s. net.). For a statement
of the philosophy of national individualism see The Political Thought
of Heinrich von Treitschke, by H. C. W. Davis (Constable, 1915 ; 6s.).
For international law see the books given at the end of Chapter IV.,
and also the Cambridge Modern History, vol. xii. (Chap. XXII.,
" The Modern Law of Nations and the Prevention of War," by Sir
Frederick Pollock).
On the problems of international organisation raised by the
European War see C. B. Buxton (Ed.), Towards a Lasting Settlement
(Allen & Unwin, 1915; 2s. 6d.) ; H. N. Brailsford, The War of Steel
and Gold, Part II. and Appendix (Bell ; new ed., 1915 ; 2s.).
G. Lowes Dickinson, After the War. (Fifield, 6d.)
C. E. Fayle, The Great Settlement. (Murray, 1915; 5s.)
J. A. Hobson, Towards International Government. (Allen &
Unwin, 1915; 2s. 6d.)
New Statesman Supplement, July 10 and 17, 1915.
The foregoing books, for the most part, deal with only one side
of international organisation, viz. the maintenance of international
peace.
A further list of books will be found in The Causes of the War —
What to Bead. (C.S.I.R., 6d.)
See Bibliography given at the end of the Appendix ("Note on
Cosmopolitan Associations ").
APPENDIX
NOTE ON COSMOPOLITAN ASSOCIATIONS
THIS book confines its attention to international relations ; that
is to say, to those problems arising between different nations, or
involving states and other bodies. The latter are mainly cosmo-
politan organisations, which are voluntary in character and have
the avowed object of uniting individuals or societies on the basis
of a common interest, irrespective of the nation to which they
belong.
Nations — to use an economic term — are " vertical combina-
tions " of people of different social status, different degrees of
wealth, different religious and political views, etc., but with a
number of fundamental common interests arising out of com-
mon laws, customs, traditions, and institutions. Cosmopolitan
groupings are " horizontal combinations " of people of different
nations, possibly with many points of difference, but at least one
strong common interest. Such associations may be permanent
(e.g. an " international " trade union) or temporary (e.g. the
committee of an " international " exhibition) ; they may be
relatively well organised, as most of the permanent movements
tend to be, or informal in character as in the case of ententes
between groups of people with a common interest.
Their range is extremely wide, covering very many different
forms of human interest and activity, political, religious,
economic, literary, scientific, and artistic. But all of them have
one thing in common ; they operate beyond the confines of a
single state and, therefore, bring into closer — and friendly —
relations people of different nationalities. These bonds increase
the total volume of unofficial goodwill and understanding in
the world, which is all to the good. But cosmopolitan associa-
201
202 INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS
t ions are not a substitute for national groupings, any more than
local authorities can supersede national authorities, or than
co-operative societies and trade unions can supersede the national
grouping.
The inherent weakness of the cosmopolitan body is its narrow-
basis of membership, and all that springs from it. However
important the interests which these organisations represent, they
do not cover all the chief human interests and activities ; and
consequently, when there is a divergence of interests, the weaker
succumbs temporarily to the stronger, or a single interest to the
combined weight of several. Experience has shown that on the
outbreak of war all the deeply-rooted and intertwined common
interests of national life prove stronger, so far as most people are
concerned, than a single cosmopolitan interest, be it ever so
strong.
This is not to say that cosmopolitan life is either unnecessary
or valueless. In point of fact, it is extremely necessary ; its
agencies contribute to that outlook which is indispensable for
the growth of national policies favourable to international
co-operation, because it helps in breaking down insularity and
exclusiveness ; and it is extremely valuable, because its reactions
strengthen national life and enrich the life of the world. A
strongly-developed cosmopolitan co-operative movement, for
example, would ultimately widen the outlook and sympathies
of its members in different countries, and the constituent national
movements would gain in strength by association with each other,
whilst so far as this side of human activity was concerned there
would be a measure of unification in the world.
Cosmopolitan movements can only be vigorous when they
are built on firm foundations ; in general, the real basis is the
national movement. Movements of " international " origin are
driven back to a territorial basis. Cosmopolitan organisation
implies subsidiary localised organisation. The supporters of
Esperanto are grouped nationally. The " International,"
when it met in London in 1864, recommended the formation of
national bodies. In the trade-union world the growing belief
in " national guilds " is significant, and implies, at any rate, that
national solidarity must precede international solidarity. In
the past, the ineffectiveness of many cosmopolitan movements
has been due to feeble national movements.
Of particular importance for the future are those organisations
APPENDIX 203
essentially voluntary in character, but at the same time repre-
sentative of, or in close touch with, states. The International
Institute of Agriculture, with its headquarters in Rome, and the
International Association for Labour Legislation, with its head
office in Basle, are of this kind. Both have been of value in the
past, and both offer fruitful lines of future growth.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
THE " Intel-national " side of the labour movement, political and
industrial, is dealt with in The Labour Year Book, 1916 (1 Victoria
Street, London, S.W. Is.). See also the Annual Reports of the
International Trade Union Movement, and the Annual Reports of the
International Co-operative Alliance (Headquarters : St. Stephen's
House, Westminster), which also publishes monthly the International
Co-operative Bulletin. International Socialism as affected by the
War is dealt with in Socialists and the War, by E. W. Walling (1915 ;
6s.), and International Socialism and the War, by A. W. Humphrey
(King & Son, 1915; 3s. 6d.). See also Labour and the War, by
G. D. H. Cole, Chapter I. (Bell & Sons, 1915; 2s.). The Peace Tear
Book (Is. annually) gives particulars of international law societies,
international understanding societies, international organisations
for peace, etc. For a discussion of the place of " voluntary " organisa-
tions within the state see Churches in the Modern State, by J. N.
Figgis (Longmans, 1913; 4s. 6d.), and Church and Nation, by W.
Temple (Macmillan, 1915 ; 2s. 6d.), especially Lecture II. Dr. Figgis's
position should be compared with Mr. G. D. H. Cole's in The World of
Labour (Bell; cheap edition, 1915; 2s.).
The International Institute of Agriculture issues a monthly
bulletin, frequent reports, and a year book. The International
Association for Labour Legislation (British Office, Queen Anne's
Chambers, Westminster) publishes quarterly The World's Labour
Laws and an annual bulletin.
Most cosmopolitan bodies, religious, social, etc., issue reports of
their work. Buried in the files of daily papers, etc., are accounts of
exchanges of visits between working people, journalists, munici-
palities etc. of different countries.
A. G.
INDEX
Acton, Lord, 57
Aix-la-Cfaapelle, 7
Alabama, 124-5
Alexander I., 2, 3, 4, 5, 9
Alliances, 189
Holy, 2, 3, 4, 5, 33
Quadruple, 6, 7
Quintuple, 6-13
Triple, 37
Alsace, 50, 58, 185
Angell, Mr. N., 29
Arbitration, 35, 124-5, 137-8
Armament*, 88, 96, 109
Austria, 16, 17, 23. 24, 25, 45, 49, 57,
58, 59, 60, 86, 115-6, 186 n.
Backward peoples, 141 et seq.
Bagdad Railway, 85, 92
! Balance of Power, 6, 29-30, 137, 189-
191
Balfour, Mr. A. J., 137
Balkans, 17, 32, 59
Belgium, 13, 49, 57, 59, 94, 137
Bismarck, 22 et seq., 30, 49-50
Blanc, Louis, 14
Blockade, 106, 127, 131-3
Bohemia, 60, 185
Bourbons, 7
British Empire, 31, 46, 60, 82, 88, 90,
104, 143, 167 et seq., 173-4, 185-
186
Bulgaria, 102
Burke, 168
Canning, 10, 11, 12, 15
Castlereagh, 5, 8, 10
Cavour, 18-20, 23
Chaumont, 6
China, 82, 83-5, 91, 104, 164
Clive, 156, 157-9, 160-1
Coloured labour, 71, 76, 110, 145 <d
seq., 175-6
Concert of Europe, 30, 191
Concessions and concessionnaires, 71.
72, 80
Confederation of Europe, 33
Congress of Vienna, 2, 41
Continuous voyage, doctrine of, 131
Contraband, 130 et seq.
CornwaUis, Lord, 161-2
Crusades, 53
Declaration of London, 138
Democracy, 170-2, 174, 183 et seq.
Diplomacy, 63, 194
Dumping, 103
Economic aspects of war, 29, 95 et seq.
Economic boycott, 86, 105-7
Economic league, 107-8
Economic penetration, 91-2
Egypt, 46, 47, 48, 82, 164, 171
Federal States, 60
Finland, 185
Foreign exchanges, 71-2
Foreign policy, 37 et seq., 61 et seq.,
192-3
British, 61-2, 78 et seq.
democratic control of, 42, 63-4.
194, 197-8
France, 13, 19, 23, 31, 58, 85, 88, 164
Free Trade, 75, 79-80, 102 et seq.
Garibaldi, 23
Germany, 16, 22, 74, 83, 92, 97, 103,
123, 127
205
206
INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS
Gladstone, 82, 164
Oranville, 82
Greece, 57, 93, 102
Grey, Sir Edward, 30
GrotiuB, 40
Hague Conferences, 3, 30, 125
Hague Conventions, 24, 137
Hastings, Warren, 160, 168, 169
Headlam, Mr. J. W., 24
Henry the Navigator, Prince, 68
Hobson, Mr. J. A., 105, 106
Holland, 13
Huguenots, 54
Immigration, 143, 175 et seq.
Imperial Conference, 83
India, 46, 90-91, 152 et seq., 167-70,
171, 173
Industrial Revolution, 69, 70
International Finance, 78, 81, 82, 85,
88 et seq., 92, 107
International Law, 40, 53, 63, 113
et seq.
Belligerents, 126
Neutrals, 126
Peace, 135
War, 126, 127
" International mind," 193-4
International morality, 128, 196
International organisation, 34, 64,
77, 108, 110, 124 et seq., 137-8,
181, 186 et seq.
International socialist movement,
75, 77
International system of exchange,
71-2
International trade, 66 et seq., 179,
181
International trade union move-
ment, 75, 77
Ireland, 185
Italy, 16, 20, 23, 48, 58, 73
Japan, 83-5, 91, 178
Keen, Mr. F. N., 107
Laissez-faire, 187-8
Laybach, 9
List, 83
Lombardy, 57
Louis XIV., 45
Luxemburg, 49
Lyall, Sir A., 163
Macaulay, 169
Machiavelli, 35
Maine, Sir H., 117
Maoris, 180
Marx, Karl, 75
Mazzini, 12-13
Mercantile policy, 68, 109
Metternich, 4, 5, 7, 9
Mexico, 164, 178
Moltke, 25, 26
Morley, Lord, 168
Morocco, 82
Napoleon, 1, 44, 161, 188
Napoleon III., 17, 18, 21, 23, 25, 49-
50
Nationality, 14-15, 40, 50, 51, 56-60,
185-6, 187
Naval supremacy, 105, 136, 156
Non-intervention, 39, 40 et seq., 187-8
" Open door," 104-5, 181
Palmerston, 18, 52
Panama Canal, 70
Paton, Dr. J., 145-8
Patriotism, 53
Peace, 1, 87 et seq., 135, 183 et seq.
Persia, 164, 165-6
Philippines, 164
Phillips, Alison, 15, 29
Piedmont, 16, 23
Pitt, 62, 168
Poland and Poles, 45, 57, 60, 94, 185
Prize Court, 130
Prussia, 16, 19, 22, 24, 45, 59, 94
Racial problems, 76, 141-82, 196
Reprisals, 123
Revolutionary movements —
French Revolution, 1, 55-6
1818-1823, 9-10, 11
1830, 13
1848, 13 et seq.
Rhine frontier, 45, 51
Russia, 16, 17, 18, 31, 32, 45-6, 92, 165
INDEX
207
Salisbury, Lord, 31
Schleswig-Holstein, 24, 185
Seignoboe, 19
Self-government, 170 et seq.
Serbia, 86, 93
Seton- Watson, Dr. R. W., 77, 93
Socialism, 14, 75, 77
Solidarity of labour, 75, 76, 175-6
South Africa, 179
Suez Canal, 47, 70, 82
Switzerland, 59
Tarifi restrictions, 72-4, 75, 79-80,
103
Treaties —
Anglo-French, 126
Great Britain and U.S.A., 126
Treitschke, 35, 83
Trieste, 45, 93
Tripoli, 48, 81
Troppau, 9-10
Turkey and Turks, 17-18, 32, 45-6,
53, 67, 85, 86, 89, 91, 164
United States, 59, 164, 178, 179-80
Verona, 10
Vienna, Congress of, 2, 41
Treaty of, 13
Wallas, Graham, 81
Wars-
American Civil, 132-3
Balkan, 86, 101-2
Boer, 31, 135
Civil, 54
Colonial, 68
Crimean, 17-19
Danish, 59
Economic effects, 95 et seq.
Franco-German, 25-7, 48-9, 56, 59,
96
International Law, 126, 127
Napoleonic, 56
Russo-Japanese, 138
Tripolitan, 81
Wellington, 5, 8, 10, 11
THE END
Printed by R. & R. CLARK, LIMITED, Edinburgh.
An Introduction to the study
1315 of international relations
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