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THE MORALITY OF NATIONS

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MORALITY OF NATIONS

AN ESSAY ON THE THEORY
OF POLITICS

BY

C. DELISLE BURNS

"Remota iustitia, quid sunt regiia nisi
magna latrocinia." — De Civ. Dei, lib. iv.

Xonfcon : 1Hniv>ersit£ of XonDon press, Xt&.

AT ST. PAUL'S HOUSE, WARWICK SQUARE, E.G.

1915

PREFACE

THE situation during the past year will probably
result in changing many of the political ideas by
which we are governed : for any intense experi-
ence has a tendency to produce new intellectual
schemes, or at least to shatter the cherished idols
of calmer days. We require new ideas in order
to control new forces and direct them as far as we
can in the course of which we approve ; and the
need of such new ideas becomes urgent at a time
which may be either one of reconstruction or of
renewed evil.

It has become obvious that although our
political situation, both in domestic and in foreign
issues, is unique and new, we have only the con-
ceptions of our great-grandfathers with which to
master it. But the tools made for simpler tasks
are inadequate for the material upon which we
must now use them. To deal with the modern
State as though it were the TTO^IS of Aristotle or
the Leviathan of Hobbes is like .trying to face
heavy guns with a Macedonian phalanx or to
pierce armour-plate with a cavalier's rapier. Our
intellectual weapons are obsolete.

346882

vi PREFACE

It is not my purpose, however, to establish a
completely new theory of the State nor to deny
the correctness of the greater part of what is
embodied in our tradition ; but certain con-
clusions seem to flow from the situation which
has been growing up during the past fifty years.
These are of interest first because some German
writers have seemed to imagine that German
u Kultur " has its source in the German State or
that the " expansion " of this State might cause
an increase of Kultur among the unenlightened.
The merely controversial situation may be put
aside : for it is perfectly clear that even if
" Kultur " could be attained by the extension of
the activities of the German State, we do not
propose to endure the benevolent imposition of
such compulsory enlightenment. The main point
is that our ideas of the State are changing, and
that German State-worship is antiquated.

It was good journalism a few months ago to
accuse Treitschke and Nietzsche of poisoning the
German mind ; but clearly it is Hegel, and not
either of these two, whose influence in State-
worship and the Kultur-Staat is most pernicious.
Treitschke was a good historian who accepted his
political theories ready-made from the Hegelians,
and no one hated the State more than Nietzsche ;
but Hegel was the official guide for the Prussian
bureaucracy, and his philosophy subordinated

PREFACE vii

every portion of social life to the State. It is
known that he was ignorant of science, but it
is not generally admitted that he was ignorant
of history. His limitations, however, are not
of great importance, since it is an idea and not
a man which must be attacked. And again, our
own philosophy of the State in the Utilitarians
is as obsolete as Hegel's. Not all false ideas
were made in Germany. Even Plato and Aris-
totle are inadequate for understanding the present
political situation.

To all these, however, and to the commen-
tators upon them, we acknowledge a debt, for we
owe to them the reasoning which we must use
against them. It might have been well if some
of their dead theories had not been exhumed by
diplomatists anxious to find reasons for what they
did blindly. But many ghosts stalk the world
and lead men on to battle too : such are " Evolu-
tion," or " Kultur," or " inevitable conflict," or
the " logic of history," or the " Balance of
Power," and many more which shall be name-
less. Men are still as enslaved to dead ideas
as when the barbarians followed the ghost of
departed Rome. But these ideas once lived, and
we owe to them, if we know them in history, the
ability to see the new ideas which are now abroad.

In no section of political thought, however,
will there be greater changes than in that which

viii PREFACE

relates to the moral obligation of States. Mr.
Asquith, quoting Mr. Gladstone, has said that
England desires to " see the enthronement of this
idea of Public Right as the governing idea of
European policy ; as the common and precious
inheritance of all lands, but superior to the pass-
ing opinion of any. The foremost among the
nations will be that one which, by its conduct,
shall gradually engender in the minds of the
others a fixed belief that it is just." Morality
is established as between individuals, but it is
still insecure in the relationship between States.
We desire to establish it.

But what are the principles of right ? They
cannot be pious opinions that a nation should keep
treaties or should be honest. Such principles
are too vague. They are like the old Kantian
command to do one's duty. The real problem
begins in the attempt to discover what is one's
duty. So now the chief problem is to find
out what the moral relationship between States
really is.

Again, innumerable books and pamphlets have
dealt with the causes of the war : and it has
appeared as if these causes were all historical, as if
what now happens were altogether explained by
reference to what happened before. But the
causes of the war were partly what men desired to
happen. That is to say, principles as well as

PREFACE ix

events led us to the crisis : principles, therefore,
must be considered as a corrective to the tendency
of history in making events seem " inevitable."
Change your ideas of what is right and half the
so-called logic of history evaporates into thin air.

We must distinguish history from politics, or
any subject in which moral judgments are passed.
The history of events is no ground for moral
judgments ; although the consequence of events
may be referred to as indicating why this or
that event is to be approved. The historian has,
strictly speaking, no special knowledge of the
science of moral judgment : he is an authority on
what occurred ; but, without special training of a
non-historical kind, he is no authority on what
ought to have occurred or what ought not to occur.
And in passing moral judgments or in the dis-
cussion of principles the historian often flounders
as ludicrously as the biologist who tries to write
metaphysics.

We need, therefore, a criticism of inherited
conceptions of the State, a review of the present
moral relationship between States, and an indication
of the tendencies which are transforming the
whole of International Politics.

Such are the excuses I have to offer for an
attempt which is perhaps too ambitious. It must
be regarded as a mere essay in a subject which,
despite the efforts of International Lawyers, has

x PREFACE

been too much neglected. The problems are, of
course, more complicated than a statement of
general principles might seem to imply ; and, no
doubt, there are many mistakes in the solutions
suggested. But my purpose is rather to direct
attention to facts than to inculcate any doctrine
about them.

I have to thank my friend, Mr. G. P. Gooch,
for reading through the proofs and correcting
some of my mistakes : and I have also to thank
my wife, whose unblushing scepticism has made
my statements more careful than they would
otherwise have been.

C. DELISLE BURNS.

November 1915.

CONTENTS

CHAP. PAGE

I MORALITY AND NATIONALITY i

What is a nation ? Does nationality make any
difference to moral action?

II THE STATE AND OTHER INSTITUTIONS . . 26

Institutions gradually differentiated. In early times
the ' ' political " includes other purposes, not now.

III THE STATE AND OTHER STATES ... 43

The State used to be considered in isolation : and
was at one time more isolated. Now all States
interpenetrate.

IV THE STATE AND NATIONALITY ... 59

The State a territorial organisation. I,t brings
nations together ; it does not and should not keep
them apart.

V FOREIGN INTERESTS . . . . 76

What interdependence is there ? Trade, investment
and ideas.

VI FOREIGN POLICY 96

How are these interests maintained and developed ?
Secretariats and Embassies : the good and the evil
in them.

VII ALLIANCE . . . . . .120

Special connection of some States. The moral effect
of alliances : good and evil.

xii CONTENTS

CHAP. PAGE

VIII INTERNATIONAL RIVALRY . . . . 139

Independence to be maintained. But individuality
of the group can be maintained by a civilised form
of rivalry.

IX THE MORALITY OF NATIONS AT WAR . . 159

Even war does not destroy the whole moral relation-
ship of combatants. Restrictions to the use of
force.

X PEACE RELATIONS . . . . . 179

Peace not negative but positive. Modern peace a
new situation.

XI NEEDS OF THE STATE . . . .196

Changing ideas of the relation of the citizen to his
own State. The State needs chiefly a growth of
moral responsibility.

XII THE COMITY OF NATIONS . . . .220

Tendencies towards action in common between
States. New ideas of " other" States.

XIII CONCLUSION . . . . ) . .238

Social sentiment and institutions. Differentiation of
function.

INDEX ....... 253

THE MORALITY OF NATIONS

CHAPTER I

MORALITY AND NATIONALITY

IT may be taken for granted that there is a
moral relationship between some human indi-
viduals. This is quite distinct from an economic
or physical relationship. But individuals are not
isolated, since groupings of all kinds exist —
families, nations, states, companies, clubs and
labour unions. And the moral relationship holds
between all members of the same group, and
between members of some different groups. It
may hold between all members of all groups ; but
this is not generally admitted in practice, and at
any rate the moral relationship between citizens
of different states seems to be somewhat different
from that which holds between citizens of the
same state.

Hence arises an idea of group-morality, or of
a special kind of morality, as between nations or
States. States are spoken of as acting rightly or
wrongly, as a club or company may be supposed

2 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS

to att.1 The fact . is; .of course, that individuals
sometimes act in the name and for the interests
of the group to which they belong, and their
action on such occasions is apt to be governed
by different principles from those which are sup-
posed to govern their action in their own private
interest. But group-morality is not simply the
governing rule of the action of representatives ;
it really is in some sense the morality of all
members of the group in so far as these allow
action in their behalf to be of this or that kind,
or in so far as they are willing to receive the
benefit of actions based upon principles which
they would theoretically repudiate. The morality,
for example, of a company is both the morality
of its representatives and that of all the active
participants in the action or passive sharers of
the result.

There may be some who would say that the
principles governing the relations of citizen to
citizen should be the same as those governing
the relations of citizen to alien. But, in any
case, the existence of groups must make some
difference to morality ; and we may be inclined to
suppose that a diplomatist, for example, may be

1 Cf. Westlake, International Law, Vol. I. p. 3. "Indi-
vidual men associated in the state are moral beings, and the
action of the state which they form by their association is
their action, the state then must also be a moral being."

MORALITY AND NATIONALITY 3

most unselfish in his private action but cannot so
readily allow the interests of those he represents
to give place to others, except, of course, in cases
where justice clearly demands it. Or, again, the
individual may be less responsible for the action
of his company or state, where the interests
of many have to be considered, than he is in
considering only his own interests.

The whole subject of vicarious responsibility
and vicarious action is under discussion at present;
and perhaps writers on Ethics have too long
continued to deal with the hypothetical indi-
vidual, for it seems that very few even of our
" moral " acts are individual acts in the old
Kantian sense. But here we shall speak only
of that section of such morality which is con-
nected with political life and political institutions.
We need to discuss what principles do in fact
govern, and what should govern the relationship
of citizen to citizen and of citizen to alien. Or
we may suppose that our problem is to discover
what differences the existence of nationality
or of States makes or ought to make to
morality.

The problem is partly that which Hugo de
Groot first faced. He found that jurists had
considered (i) the municipal law of States, and
(2) the law common to all States ; but not (3)
the law governing the relationship of State to

4 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS

State. But in the spirit of his time he began1
the study of law with the discussion of morality^
and in the study and positive development of
International Law he has had many successors,
but in the study of International Morality almost
none.2 The existence of Law, however, even if
ineffective, may be taken as evidence of some
sort of morality. We no longer go to the
" Law of Nature " as the basis for International
Law, but only to the consent of the parties, and
though we have gained by the suppression of an
abstract Nature we have lost something by not
concerning ourselves with that morality which,
in some sense or other, must be what is partly
embodied in the Law.

Law is evidence for morality ; but dangerous
evidence, because Law deals largely with crime
or offences against morality. It is pathological.
The more positive evidence for morality is the
unwritten and unsystematic sentiment of approval
or disapproval. There may be no Moral Code
for nations in the sense of formulated principles ;
but there certainly is in the minds of civilised
man an "ought" and "ought not" with respect

1 De Jure Belli et Paris, proleg. Jus illud quod inter populos
plures aut populorum rectores intercedit . . . attigerunt pauci,
universim ac certo ordinetractavit hactenus nemo. The
" temperamenta belli " in Book III are based expressly on
Christianity.

2 Cf. Lawrence, International Lawy Ch. I. and. II.

MORALITY AND NATIONALITY 5

to group-action as with respect to the action of
individuals. And this distinction of right and
wrong and the reasons or evidence upon which
it is based may be discovered by considering how
far the relationship of States is moral.

For this purpose we shall have to speak first
of the groups which are in relation to one another,
since their nature must in some way be decided
before any general conceptions of value can be
reached as to the principles which do govern or
should govern their action. But common speech
has established the word " International " as in-
dicating a particular kind of law, and it may
be used as indicating also a particular kind of
morality. We do not speak of " Inter-State "
law, because of an inherited confusion of the
nation with the State.1 For this reason we must
begin by discussing the nature of a nation.

The conception of nationality which is accepted
almost everywhere at present is comparatively
modern, and this because the fact to which it
refers is new. For although in one sense nations
have existed and nationality has been recognised
even in the earliest times, the meaning we give
to the terms involves another sense. In this

1 Thus Westlake (loc. «'/.) says that for International Law
"a nation means a state considered with reference to the
persons composing it " ; but that is not the common meaning,
nor is it the best for any subject but International Law.

6 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS

other sense nations are new and nationality is
a new principle.1

A summary of the evidence must be given,
although the full details must be left for pro-
fessional historians. For here what is intended is
a discussion of the events of history in view of
certain principles which are not those of history.
The material, however, which we have to judge is
historical. We must consider the group called
a nation in the events which are, as it were, the
marks of its growth. And as examples of the
subject-matter of which we shall have to speak,
it is as well to take Germany and Italy and
Belgium.

As a beginning the geographical ghost must be
laid. In considering the conflict between nations,
the map has so great an effect on the imagination
that we tend to think of Germany or Italy as
certain portions of the earth's surface. The
distinction between nations is thought of as
spatial, and the "country" whose growth we
watch in history is carelessly identified with a
geographical region. But if Germany and Italy
are at war it is not clods of earth that fight, how-
ever intimate the connection may be between the

1 Cf. Bluntschli's Theory of the State (English trans. 1901),
Book II. Ch. IV. There he speaks of nationality ; but, as
we shall see, without sufficient perception of its result on
institutions.

MORALITY AND NATIONALITY 7

blood and bone which makes an army and the soil
of the land to which it belongs. The geographi-
cal ghost is only dangerous in so far as it tends to
substitute an abstract for a concrete conception.
If we give a concrete meaning, for history and
not for geography, to words such as England,
Germany and Italy, we must feel distinctly that
^nations are groups of men and women! The
colours of the map are the colours of blood ; and
where this is not true the current of common
blood tends to change the boundary of States.
The men and women who are of one blood,
whether or not under a special form of govern-
ment, tend to act together. A nation, then, is
primarily a group of men and women related
physically. The further explanation of the term
may be left until we have watched groups of this
kind in action, for it is from physical relationship
that nearly all powerful nations have arisen.

Let us take then, first, the growth of modern
Germany. That group of men and women which
we at present call Germany may be traced back in
their ancestors, for our present purpose, to the dim
beginnings of European history ; but we shall not
retail the well-known adventures of the German
tribes, nor the vicissitudes of German towns and
Principalities during the Middle Ages. It is
sufficient to notice that this descent appears to be
of very great importance, even to a politician like

8 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS

Prince von Biilow.1 Physical relationship, there-
fore, is recognised as one of the bases of a modern
nation. In the Renaissance, however, the vicissi-
tudes of the Middle Ages in that part of the
world were continued. The group of men and
women who were the ancestors of the present
German people, although physically related, were
divided in language and in interests. At the end,
as we may call it, of the Renaissance period, at
the French Revolution, the ancestors of our
present Germans were divided into eight hundred
groups. Then came the Napoleonic wars, and
the barriers between these groups were broken
down. The conqueror could hardly have imagined
i he result. He strengthened the groups by
uniting them ; by removing dynastic boundaries
he permitted the free circulation of blood in the
race and enabled the different groups to find their
common interest. But for a time the new dykes
which Napoleon established kept back the rising
flood ; and there were remnants, too, of the old
division of the groups. From 1815 to 1830 the
Germans oscillated between the separatism of their
past history and the tendency towards future
union. Movements in the groups of men and
women during 1830 and until 1848 were resisted
by officials, until at last it became evident that
these movements could be used. The question
1 Cf. Imperial Germany. Home policy, p. in (ed. 1914).

MORALITY AND NATIONALITY 9

then arose as to the principle according to which
the distinct groups were to be organised, and
opposition appeared between the tendencies of
Prussia and Austria.

The war of 1864 against Denmark for Schles-
wig-Holstein did not solve the problem, for the
allies fell out. The war of 1866 followed, and
the grouping of Germans in the North was
definitely secured by Prussia. From that year
till 1871 the history moves forward along the
line of increase of common sentiments and de-
crease of separatism. A successful war made all
the different remaining groups feel the benefits of
union, and the German Empire was established.
Without doubt the movement was directed by
Bismarck ; but in a sense the statesman was a tool
in the hands of the very force he seemed to
master. The German nation was being born, and
its nature was never quite grasped even by the
mind which seemed to the eyes of hero-worship
to have created it. A group of men and women
whose ancestors were divided in interest is now
content to subordinate minor purposes to the
ambition which they all feel in common. That is
the force which we call a nation.1

The making of Italy shows the same features,
except that there was in addition an ancient

1 Jellinek. Das Recht dcs Modernen Staates (p. 115, ed.
1905). Das Wesen der Nation 1st dynamischer Natur.

io THE MORALITY OF NATIONS

political union surviving as a memory, and the
struggle towards nationality necessitated conflict
with a foreign government. No Rome guided
German unity, in spite of the effective use by
politicians of the mediaeval ghost of an Empire ;
and not many Germans were under foreign
domination before the German Empire existed.1
In Italy, on the other hand, more than physical
relationship and kindred dialects served as a basis
for the uniting of divided groups. Here, too,
the Napoleonic wars made insecure the old bar-
riers, and the vague sentiments of the French
Revolution influenced " the people." But the
new force which we call the Italian nation hardly
existed until success against Austria had freed
Lombardy, until Garibaldi entered Naples, or
even until the downfall of Napoleon III made it
possible for the North Italians to enter Rome.
Here again, then, what we have to watch is the
gradual perception by divided groups of men and
women that they have a common interest and a
common tradition. Their gospeller Mazzini was,
indeed, too much aloof from immediate issues to
transform the crude elements of national ambition
in the way he wished. He said that a nation

1 Of course, the excuse for the war concerning Schleswig-
Holstein was the existence of a German population in the
Duchies, and Alsace-Lorraine was supposed to be in some
sense " German," having been violently added to France in
earlier times.

MORALITY AND NATIONALITY n

should claim not its own aggrandisement, but its
right to serve humanity as a distinct group. The
result in Italy, however, was a force with no very
idealistic tendency. As a force it still continues
and grows, and perhaps is seeking a direction in
which to move.

Lastly, we may quote Belgium as an example
of the same sort of force. In 1815 the groups
inhabiting what is now Belgium were summarily
combined with the groups which now make
Holland. Dissatisfaction and a growing percep-
tion of distinction from the Dutch led in 1830,
at the time of the "July" Revolution in Paris,
to risings in Liege, Louvain and Brussels. The
result was the formation by European agreement
of the Kingdom of the Belgians. The group
had asserted their common ambition and their
distinction from all other groups. They were
not all of the same blood or language, but their
traditions and purposes were the same. It is
of interest to note that in the eighteen-sixties
Napoleon III and Bismarck were bargaining in
the old, futile, " pre-nation," way as to whether
the Belgians should be absorbed by France.
The new group, however, survived : and to such
an effect that the attack of August 1914 has
cemented bjf common risk diverse races into one
complete nation.

Such is the evidence : and these are but recent

12 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS

examples of the new force. For much the same
may be said of the coming of group-consciousness
in the British Dominions over the Seas, or in
France or in Russia. From such examples one may
judge of the nature of what we now call a nation ;
and as a force whether for co-operation or for
opposition, this is what is now meant by nationality.1
We may therefore assert that a nation is, first,
a group of men and women related in blood.
It has been observed that in settled civilisation,
where for about a century immigration has not
greatly affected a group, every member will be
literally a relative of every other. It takes
only a few generations of intermarriage to
make the duke a relative of the tramp, where
social caste is not supreme. Physical formation
tends to be like in the members of the group,
and this would naturally lead to likeness in
language, custom or desires, although we should
not speak of physical likeness as the cause of
these. It follows that new nations may be
formed by intermarriage and that the physical
relationship remains important even when it is,
as in the case of England, entirely subordinated
to the other elements in nationality.

1 I use " nationality " to mean the quality uniting men and
women of the same nation. It is sometimes used to mean
what I have called a " nation " when that group is not
politically independent. Cf. Bryce, S. America, p. 424.

MORALITY AND NATIONALITY 13

A common language also seems to be usual in
a nation. Other things being equal, a nation is
stronger, the group is more closely knit, in pro-
portion to the effectiveness and common use of
a language. This again gives a special kind of
likeness to the members of the group ; for men
and women cannot use the same terms without
forcing their desires into the same moulds or
establishing the same customs. Further, the use
of a common language tends to intermarriage
and so reinforces the more primitive basis of
nationality in blood. And it is to be noticed
that a common language is not a merely physical
fact. It is not the sound which makes the nation
but the meaning. Thus we distinguish language
from the cries of beasts and, although beasts may
be physically related, they cannot form what we
call a nation because of the lack of that sympathy
for which language stands. Perhaps also it is
necessary to distinguish a language from a dialect ;
for not until dialect gives place to language does
a nation appear. But this means that the range,
subtlety and effectiveness of speech has increased ;
for dialect differs in these points from language.
Not mere intelligibility, then, makes a common
language, but effective co-operation in thought
upon universal issues.1

1 This does not appear in the ordinary histories of litera-
ture, which treat the English language as a mere manner

i4 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS

But neither blood nor language have the
importance in this matter which belongs to
tradition.1 A common tradition knits a group
more closely than physical relationship or common
language. Men whose ancestors have fought for
the same cause or used peace for the same ends
are more securely united than even those of the
same physical family. In fact it is a tradition of
purpose attempted that gives the human " family**
its most potent value. The finest element in
aristocracy is the inheritance of some tradition ;
and this inheritance the Middle Ages endeavoured
to make possible for the lowest-born by monasti-
cism, in which one entered the " family " of the
founder. Tradition has bound men together
even when they were hardly conscious of it ;
and the most decadent results of in-breeding
among " nobilities " have often been given an
artificial stamina by noblesse oblige. In larger
societies tradition has brought villages to fame
and endowed hill-tribesmen with human dignity,

of expression with hardly an understanding of what in the
subject-matter expressed is characteristic and what is interna-
tional and what universal.

1 For example, the formation of the English Nation by
tradition uniting men of alien blood (British, Saxon, Norman)
and diverse languages shows how far back this element of
Nationality may be supposed to go. There is no clearer
statement of this element of Nationality than in Kenan's
Qu'esf-ce qtfon nation? (Conf.faite en Sorbomie, 1882).

MORALITY AND NATIONALITY 15

so much so that we must count it one of the
chief formative elements in human grouping.
Thus in the case of Belgium a common purpose
overrides the distinction of race and language
between Walloon and Fleming ; and this is but
an extreme instance of the same case which we
find in the union of Breton and the Gens du
Midi in France.

To define more clearly what is meant by a
common tradition, there must be in the first place
a common history. If it is an eventful history,
a short period of common adventure will make a
group of families into a nation : if not much has
been risked, then many centuries will be neces-
sary. Thus more was done for the development
of the national force in England during the few
years of risk in Elizabeth's reign than during the
centuries of desultory warfare which preceded.
More was done for unifying the confused grovps
of Revolutionary France in the few months of
risk of foreign invasion in 1792 than had been
done by the ardent constitution-makers of the
preceding years.

It is not enough, then, to say that men must
have a common memory : for not merely the
fact of a common history, but the kind of history
is important. Adventure in common is more
uniting than a shared commonplace : and this is
the reason why war seems to be so important

1 6 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS

for the making of a nation. The advocates of
war do not simply believe it to be a regrettable
necessity, but they look to the risk it involves
as the only means by which men can learn their
common interest as a nation. Risk, and there-
fore war, since this has been the chief source of
danger to all primitive groups, has been the great
formative cause of nationality. It not only
makes men forget private interest in a common
cause, but it defines more clearly the lack of
common interest in an alien group.

We say, then, that tradition, as the force for
national unity and the diversity of nations, has
meant war : and war may still act in this way.
Of that we shall speak later. It is, however,
necessary to say that this by no means proves
war to be essential to the realisation of nation-
ality. With those who are mentally incompetent
to realise any danger but the physical, and with
those who are unable to grasp any but the crudest
common interests or the crudest differences from
others, war will always be thus effective, but we
may hope that those who are more developed
will not always need to be governed by the
necessity for the undeveloped to be taught
common interests.1

1 Of course, that war has knit men together is no excuse
for planning war, as the fact that disease has taught men
endurance is no excuse for increasing disease. To praise war

MORALITY AND NATIONALITY 17

There are other risks besides those of foreign
conquest, as, for example, the risk of domination
by a caste or a clique ; and this risk also unites
men and makes nations. In the English Revolu-
tion, and still more in the French Revolution,
this danger is seen actively driving the most
diverse men together. There is also the danger,
most effective in earlier times, of disease and
famine. Even the presence of a volcano will
make men brothers. And there are dangers, not
grasped by the majority but unconsciously effec-
tive, of mental decay or moral deterioration,
the fear of which is the real reason for men's
willingness to support such activities as national
Education.1

A tradition, however, looks forward as well as
back. It implies a common purpose or a common
ideal.2 The group which is united by a living
tradition generally holds (i) the same sort of
character the best, and (2) the same sort of life
the most desirable. Yet neither the ideal character

is like praising the man who burns down his house in order
to be certain of the domestic affection of those who dwell in it
(cf. Graham Wallas, The Great Society}.

1 Perhaps historians will look back to the United States as
an example of a nation which has not been formed by war, so
much at least as earlier nations have.

2 I give the word tradition this meaning as well, because
it seems that what has united in the past is this common
ideal : and it is because it was an ideal that the memory of the
past is so valuable.

c

1 8 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS

nor the ideal life may be yet in existence : the
present circumstances in the group may only tend
in the admired direction. The ideals imagined
may have only a vague basis in fact, and yet they
may unite as if they were established facts.

It is difficult, of course, to state in a formula
the nature of the character admired In England.
Nor is any statement of it to be found in treatises
on Ethics. It is expressed more clearly than
elsewhere in contemporary novels and drama :
but to be understood the admiration must be
watched in the crowd at a cricket-match, in the
audience at a political meeting or in the coteries
of clubs and universities. Expressing it inexactly
and in a general way one might, we may suppose,
contrast the character admired among us with
that admired by Prussians, in so far as they do
not seem to understand what we should call
playing the game, and they set a value upon
" dignity " which we do not. The French also
differ from us in seeming to think us too solemn,
while our popular superstition accuses the French
of frivolity. These absurdities stand for the real
distinctions in characters admired. Thus character
admired unites men. They accept as desirable
the existence of human beings of intelligence or
sobriety or strong emotion or stern intentness.

But also the kind of life we hold desirable
makes our tradition. Personal independence we

MORALITY AND NATIONALITY 19

value highly, and we are willing to risk egoism
in order to secure individuality. The organisa-
tion of the group is a further question which
must be dealt with in defining the nature of the
State ; but we may say here that all organisation
is by us supposed to make the life of the indi-
vidual more free ; and we think that the greater
the variety of individuals, the finer the life of
each in the group. This ideal is clear not only
from the arguments of the great English Indi-
vidualists, Mill and Sidgwick, but even from the
expression of ideals in romance.

Perhaps it is not fair to summarise the
Prussian ideal of life, but it appears to be clear
from its expression in literature that independ-
ence of the individual is by them somewhat
suspected. They seem to think that a group is
finer the more homogeneous the individuals are who
compose it : and we do not deny that such a group
is more easily governed, but they seem to think that
orderly and smooth-running government is an end.

Again, the French desire generally a different
kind of life from ours or the Prussian. They
appear to us sometimes to tend to bureaucracy
and the adoration of petty officials. To them we
appear " haphazard." And other like contrasts
may be found in the kinds of life desired by
Italians, or Spaniards, or Japanese. Thus the
kind of life desired is one of the elements of

20 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS

tradition, in so far as it unites men for a common
purpose : and it is not unusual for the ignorant
to suppose that there is something deficient in a
kind of life which they do not desire.

Tradition, however, is most powerful when it
is embodied in a characteristic form of religion.
In early times the group is united and distin-
guished from other groups by some form of
ritual : the king is the priest and group-customs
are rites.1 Sometimes a religion is enough to
keep a " nation " in existence in spite of diverging
language. The Jews are an example.

As civilisation develops and religion becomes
more closely connected with morality, the kind of
life and character admired (the moral standard)
is fixed and developed by religious sanctions.
Where the religious group is coterminous with
the blood and language group, where the physical
or intellectual relatives have the same ritual and
creed, the nation is stronger. Patriotism and
orthodoxy are inseparable and are, in the minds
of the majority, identified. Such is the situation
in most of Ireland and in Poland : and even in
more complex nations there is often a tendency to
reaction by the identifying of national enthusiasm
with some special form of creed.2

1 The theme is well worn : cf. Frazer, Golden Bough ; Jane
Harrison, Themis ; and Durkheim.

2 As, for example, in Dimnet's France herself again.

MORALITY AND NATIONALITY 21

Where the religious ritual and creed is not
precisely the same throughout the whole group,
as in England and in Germany, there is, neverthe-
less, a certain general resemblance in the religious
attitude of most citizens which is sufficient to
support the distinction of the group at least from
extremely distant groups such as the Japanese.
But in the differentiation which follows a higher
civilisation, the national differences are often quite
unconnected with religious differences. In every
case, however, religion seems to have an important
influence on the formation of nationality. So far,
then, we may go in indicating what makes a nation :
but the nature of nationality may be understood
also from the results it has had in the political sphere.

The result of common blood, language and
tradition has generally been the establishment of
common institutions, which distinguish this group
from the other. And these institutions have been
for many different purposes. The first, in the
development of history, has been religion : in fact
the nation, like the tribe or the family, has often
been a religious union, long before it was a
political whole. The result is national priesthood
and ritual : and when nations arise at a later stage
in civilisation the result is a national Church. In
a developed culture educational institutions tend to
be distinct and characteristic of different national
groups.

22 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS

But for our present purpose the political institu-
tions are the most interesting. They are of many
kinds, and not all nations have contrived to
establish a unique form of the highest political
institution called the State.1 Sometimes the
State-organisation is accepted from aliens while
the regional administration remains national and
distinctive. But every State is the institutional
result of some national sentiment or tradition,
even when the institution is imposed upon other
nations. And it is now often regarded in England
as desirable that there should be a closer corre-
spondence than there is between the distinctions
of nationality and the distinctions of political
institutions.

The consciousness of nationality has produced
a plan of action called Nationalism, according to
which each nation should have its own supreme
political organisation.2 In its exaggerated form
this would mean that every nation should be a
State ; and this, whether practicable or not, is

1 Since there is magic, black or white, in words, it is as well
to note that State (Staat, etat, stato) means simply " established."
It comes into use from the phrase " status reipublicae." Cf. a
full treatment in Jellinek, op. cit., Ch. V, p. 123.

It is absurd to treat nationality as a political fact only ; it
is also a religious or a cultural fact, and is only political in so
far as it expresses itself in a political institution.

2 It is well to remember that this ideal is recent. The
French Directorate of 1795, etc., declared a policy of "natural
boundaries " which still affects German statesmen.

MORALITY AND NATIONALITY 23

of interest for our present purpose because it
establishes the distinction now accepted between
a nation and a State. It has been maintained that
every nation should have its own Church, and
in every such theory the institutional system is
distinguished from the group united by blood,
language and tradition.

When we turn, with this conception of nation
and nationality, to discover what difference such
facts make to morality we find that nationality
which has not resulted in distinct States makes no
difference at all. Differences of blood, language
and tradition seem to make no difference to the
arrangement of conflicting interest according to
the same moral criteria which are used between
members of the same family.

But where the political institutions differ, the
moral relationships of men seem to differ. No
one would maintain that the moral relationship of
inhabitants of Scotland and England differs from
that of one Englishman to another. Issues to be
decided between Englishmen are decided in the
same way as between an Englishman and a Scots-
man or an Indian, allowing, of course, for peculi-
arities of local law. For no one imagines that
the Englishman must " expand " as against the
Scotsman, or that where it is doubtful whose
interests should suffer it must be decided by force
of arms. Again, Slavs under Austrian rule are

24 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS

treated as rebels if they refuse to fight Slavs of
Serbia ; and thus it seems that the moral attitude
towards people living under different political
institutions is supposed to be different from the
normal, whether or not these others are of the
same nation. Moral criteria, then, are accepted as
between nations but not altogether between States :
so that it may seem as if the differing institutions
created a new moral situation or an absolutely
unmoral situation.

We shall have, then, to examine into the nature
of this astonishing institution called the State,
which seems to have so strange an effect upon
morality. We may put aside altogether the idea
that the relationship between citizens of diverse
states is unmoral. It has been maintained by
Machiavelli ; and although Treitschke and von
Billow and even Bismarck were probably not
competent to think out what their writings imply,
it seems to be maintained also by them. A State
is not mere power nor a natural force like electri-
city : or rather if anyone chooses to use the word
in that sense he is not thinking of what we call
the supreme political institution.1 That such
institutions are related morally we take as proved

1 I need hardly say that the German tradition is opposed to
Treitschke, as is apparent in Kant, Fichte and Hegel ; and in
Bluntschli's The State has a moral nature (1st eln sittliches Wesen}
and moral duties.

MORALITY AND NATIONALITY 25

by the existence of intercourse and the limitations
of warfare ; but what precisely those moral rela-
tionships are we shall have to discuss later. It is
sufficient to note here that they are moral and are
accepted as such by implication even in those
works which seem to argue that they are not.

The fundamental issue first to be decided is as
to the nature of the State. And this can only be
discovered by noticing the current conceptions of
it and making such corrections as the present facts
seem to necessitate. The result will be not a
finished philosophy of the State, but an indication
of present tendencies in the morality of citizens as
related to citizens of other States.

CHAPTER II

THE STATE AND OTHER INSTITUTIONS

THE question "What is a State?" has been
answered in many great works ; but since new
facts have come into prominence in recent years
the old answers are quite inadequate. The con-
ceptions which arose from Greek city life, from
the Mediaeval Empire, from Renaissance Juris-
prudence and even from the Nineteenth Century
democracy are no longer adequate to explain what
we now experience. Each is, as Bacon said of
Scholastic philosophy, " subtilitati naturae longe
impar " : and all must be replaced or corrected.

Summarily one may say that there have been
four great conceptions of the State — not, of course,
merely four ways of using the word but four ways
of regarding the same fact. These are the Greek,
the Mediaeval, the Renaissance and that of the
Nineteenth Century. These four philosophies have
some common features, since all are really theories
of the same fact : and this fact in its general
features may be described somewhat as follows.
Institutions of many kinds exist, of which some

26

STATE AND OTHER INSTITUTIONS 27

are subordinate to others, not necessarily in im-
portance but in organisation. That political organ-
isation which is not subordinated to any other and
which generally unites men of the same race and
language is what is referred to in all theories of
the State.1 Organisation, then, is fundamental to
the idea of a State and not, for example, to that
of a nation. But, further, I think we may say
that such organisation must be conscious. In
this way State organisation seems to differ from
that of the family, although the distinction is
perhaps only one of degree. The " democratic "
State implies organisation consciously accepted or
even originated by the majority of its members,
whereas the despotic or oligarchic State is an
organisation accepted as unquestioningly by the
greater number as is the family or the tribe.

This also is common to all States, of the Greek
as well as of the modern type, that they are
organisations for the attainment of the common
u political " good of those organised. But a
political good is distinct from a religious, in-
dustrial, economic, artistic or scientific good :
although all these goods may have been attained

1 I take the sovereign State of International Law as the real
State and not, for example, the " State " of New York : but I
do not wish to imply that the State is sovereign over organisa-
tions of another kind, nor even that " sovereign " implies
complete independence.

28 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS

in the past by the use of one institution. I shall
endeavour to show in what follows that the State
is not now for the purpose of an undefined or
unlimited common good, but only for the common
good of a certain kind : and I shall suppose that
political good is a civilised life which may pro-
vide opportunity for varied interests or activities.
The political good, then, does not include the
whole of " the good life," as it would to Aristotle
or to any Greek, but may be regarded as the
necessary condition for attaining the artistic, scientific
or religious good. The general will is now organ-
ised for different purposes in different ways : or
we may be more exact and say that there are
different general wills even " in the same person/'
But the State is always in all philosophies re-
garded as at least the sovereign organisation for the
attainment of political common good?- No doubt much
more may be included in all past philosophies,
but this is all that it is necessary for us to assume
as common in order to show the deficiencies of
our inherited conceptions.

Allowing, therefore, for the common features
of all " States " in all civilised periods, there are

1 It will be understood that " sovereign " here means only
highest of all institutions (of the same group) which are of the
same political order. The State is thus " sovereign " over a
municipality which exists for departmental order and liberty :
and is not sovereign over institutions which exist for other
purposes.

STATE AND OTHER INSTITUTIONS 29

nevertheless great differences between the modern
State and all supreme political institutions of earlier
times. But these earlier institutions were the
evidence for our inherited theories of the State.
It would not then be strange if such theories
seemed inadequate for dealing with present prob-
lems. Indeed, although there is something common
to the modern State and the political institutions
of earlier times, there is much that makes the old
conceptions difficult to apply to the present situa-
tion. In the first place, the present meaning of
politics indicates the change, since we now dis-
tinguish politics from religion, education or culture.
But it is only in recent times that institutions for
entirely different purposes have been recognised
to exist independently of the State. Churches
did not exist in Aristotle's time, international
scientific associations were not of much impor-
tance in Hobbes's day, and trade unions were
negligible in Hegel's day. Now a civilised
man belongs to more than one institution,
and the different institutions are used for en-
tirely different purposes.1 We must therefore
point out the peculiarities of the earlier political
institutions in the four great periods of political

1 " When a body of men . . . bind themselves to act
together for any purpose . . . they create a body which by
no fiction of law but by the very nature of things differs from
the individuals composing it." Dicey, quoted in Maitland
(Coll. Papers, III. Body Pol.).

3o THE MORALITY OF NATIONS

thought, especially with respect to the purposes
for which political institutions were supposed to
exist. They have either included much more
than we expect of the State or they have implied
a sharing of social functions with other institutions
which is impossible now.

(A) The Greek polls. The modern State is so
essentially different from the Greek City-State
that it will not be necessary to go through all
the distinctions. But we must notice that polls
stands for an institution supplying nearly all the
needs of civilised life — religion, politics, music,
painting, and part of education. Naturally such
an institution is absolute, and its maintenance is
the necessity of any civilised life whatever. But
no such institution exists now. The theories
about it are too vague : for as metaphysics or
<c philosophy " once meant what is now divided
into astronomy, physics and logic, so " politics "
once meant what is now divided up into different
studies of social structure. Thus Aristotle on
" politics" discusses flute-playing and Plato poetry :
for the polls, which no longer exists, was the
object of their study. Now, as politics no longer
deals with the polls, so the word <c State " does not
generally stand now for what supplies our religious,
intellectual or artistic needs, and perhaps not even
for an institution supplying our food and cloth-
ing, although to the modern mind economics

STATE AND OTHER INSTITUTIONS 31

and politics are not clearly distinguished. So
that whatever the institution may be which we
call a State, the conceptions due to the absolutism
and universalism of the polis do not apply to it.
Those ideas of Plato and Aristotle which imply
that there is one institution supplying all civilised
needs are simply obsolete. The Roman " urbs "
was in a sense new, especially when it became an
tc orbs " ; and there existed also Cc collegia " which
embodied other purposes than the political ; but
the old theory of the omnipotent polis which
supplied the whole of civilised life still seemed
to be sufficient.

(B) The Mediaeval Regnum. On the downfall
of Rome new institutions came into prominence.
One, called the Church, was non-racial, and aimed
at being Cosmopolitan : it supplied artistic and
educational as well as religious needs. There
were also the feeble Empire and many half-
independent organisations for supplying political
needs, particularly order ^ directed and sometimes
established by warriors. These came into con-
tinual conflict, as to the limits of their functioning,
with the universal Church. They were called
generally regna ; but no such institution now
exists. The conceptions due to mediaeval king-
ship, as keeping order and having no direct
interest in education or culture, are obsolete.
The Greek-Roman conception included too much

32 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS

in politics, the mediaeval excluded too much from
it. The relation to the only other type of institu-
tion, the Church, was too simple to apply to our
modern situation ',l and other institutions, gilds
and universities seemed to exist at the pleasure of
the King or the Pope.

(C) The Renaissance Sovereign State. The medi-
aeval struggle practically ended in the defeat of
the Church, and the old regna put on the
sacredness of their opponent. The new institu-
tion was in some sense a reaction towards the
polls, in so far as the State then claimed to
be supreme over religion. But no State con-
trived to become a Church; and men united for
political purposes were quite divided for religious
or artistic or cultural purposes. The State as a
political institution, however, was regarded as more
important than any other institution, and every
other association or institution for civilised life
seemed to owe its existence to this Leviathan.
As opposed to egoistic individualism there seemed
to be only one social bond, that of citizenship ;
so that the only loyalty was patriotism, and the
only institution for which a man should give his
life was, not church or university, but the State,
identified in practice with the King.

1 Largely because the " Church " included too much among
its purposes for it to be regarded as equivalent to any single
institution now existing.

STATE AND OTHER INSTITUTIONS 33

(D) The Nineteenth Century. The French Revo-
lution disturbed the Renaissance situation but
resulted in little change of the current political
conceptions. For the continued growth of new
institutions was hardly marked in the new theories
of the State. The new political institutions
were practically national ; and affection based
upon blood, language or tradition, being directed
to the maintenance of the State, exalted the State
still more as compared with Church, economic
unions or cultured societies. Mediaevalists pro-
tested against the Erastianism, but the position of
superiority to all other institutions was granted
to the State grudgingly in England and gladly in
France, Germany and Italy. Even in England
the suspicion of the omnipotent State, which can
be felt in the Utilitarians, was expressed as though
the opposite to State-worship could only be an
isolating Individualism. There was no word of
other social bonds. The new situation had led
to a correction of Greek " politics," Mediaeval
simplicity and Renaissance absolutism ; but a
further change due to industrialism and the closer
contact of nations was to make political theory
even of the nineteenth century hopelessly inade-
quate. The world changed too quickly for the
slowly moving wits of the philosophers.

Present Political Theory. In theory the modern
State still continues to be a mixture of Greek

34 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS

iS) Mediaeval regnum and Renaissance " sove-
reign " ; but in fact the modern State gener-
ally does not supply religion or food and clothing,
even if it makes the supply of such needs possible
by law and order. The theory of politics still
continues to deal with issues which no practical
politician would dare to touch ; whereas in fact
men treat politics as being concerned supremely
with the State, and in this with one only of their
common interests. A man who belonged to a
State only and not to a Church or an academy or
a company or an artistic society or a trade union,
would not be conceived to be a whole man.
Clearly, then, one man may belong to many insti-
tutions for many different purposes, and the State
is one among these ; but only superior to others
if the purposes of citizenship are more valuable
to us than other purposes, or if we get more of
what we value by belonging to the State than we
get by belonging to any other institution. But
the State is still regarded as sacred by many who
have given up the sacredness of kings. And
perhaps the theological unorthodoxy of the nine-
teenth century will have to be followed by political
unorthodoxy in the twentieth. For we are now
aware of the genesis of the State, and no longer
regard it as descended from heaven. Facts force
themselves on our notice, while we still strive to

STATE AND OTHER INSTITUTIONS 35

believe in a confused medley of the observations
of dead thinkers.

Of all the obsolete conceptions of the State the
Hegelian is, perhaps, the most obsolete, in regard
to the purposes for which social organisation is
supposed to exist. The State is made into an
absolute institution, including and transcending
all others ; and with such a conception it is
natural to conclude that " Kultur " in its widest
sense, and everything which makes life civilised,
is due to the wonderful State. The last absurdity
is reached when this mysterious and all-powerful
organisation is identified with Prussian bureau-
cracy. But happily no Hegelian State exists ; for
even German " Kultur " is not dependent upon
the German State alone. The State being one of
many institutions, it is well to recognise that its
position with regard to other institutions is not
that of inclusion or transcendence. A citizen may
belong to a Church which counts among its
members citizens of other States than his ; or he
may belong to a company of scholars much more
closely in contact than are the citizens of any State ;
or he may belong to a non-national capitalist com-
pany or a labour union. To each of these insti-
tutions he belongs for a special purpose ; each he
maintains for a special gain which he expects from
it. And even when, as in the case of some

36 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS

Nonconformist religious bodies or some trade
unions, all the members are citizens of one State,
it does not follow that the common citizenship
has anything to do with the membership of the
other institutions.

When one man belongs to many institutions
the institutions may indeed be unified, but their
distinction is not obliterated : just as when one
man eats a dinner and hears a symphony, the
dinner and the symphony remain distinct. Again,
when a man uses many institutions, one insti-
tution need not be " superior " to the other, in
sense of including the other.1 The value of this
institution may be greater than the value of that,
as we value more what we derive from this than
what we derive from that : but it does not appear
to be obvious that the State is necessarily and
in every instance more valuable than any other.
And further, if we do make estimates of the
value of what we get from different institutions,
it does not follow that there is, or should be, any
institution which is " sovereign " over all. When
many " goods " are compared, there is, of course,
an absolute good : but the absolute good is
different in kind — it is not one among many,

1 The general thesis is worked out by Mainland, following
Gierke (Pol. Theory in the Middle Ages) ; also in Figgis, The Church
In the Modern State, the independence of religious association is
asserted. In Guild Socialism the same kind of thesis is com-
bined with what seems an antiquated view of a federal state.

STATE AND OTHER INSTITUTIONS 37

it is a universal and can never be a particular.
Good dinners, good literature, good music, good
order and freedom are all "goods" necessary in
the civilised life ; but one could not attain this
life by sacrificing all such u goods " and aiming
at "the good." When we say, then, that the
State is not sovereign over all other institutions,
we do not imply that the Church or any other
institution is sovereign. Modern life is an
orderly democracy of varied interests ; and the
relation of the institutions which supply those
interests is therefore democratic. The distinction
of value between the purposes for which institu-
tions exist may indeed subordinate one institution
to another when there is conflict ; but normally
they exist side by side in co-ordination which is
not subordination to anything but the law of
their own existence.

The State, by contrast with other institutions,
may be regarded as providing the opportunity for
the enjoyment of those " goods " which other
institutions supply ; but no special form of State
must, as we shall see, be therefore supposed to
be the necessary means for other institutional
ends.1 Law and government in general are the

1 The State is the highest institution for a political purpose,
but not the only institution even for this. Subordinate to it
are municipal councils, provincial governments, etc. Of course,
it is sovereign over these.

38 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS

means of State-action ; and the purpose is order
and liberty — as much order as does not involve
tyranny, and as much liberty as does not in-
volve license. But the State does not provide
art or science or religion in modern times,
although none of these could exist without order
and liberty. The State is one among many
institutions which seem to be necessary for the
civilised life, and political theory must therefore
explain its relation to these. This, however, is
not necessary for my present purpose, if it is
clear that the relationship will be based upon the
purposes for which the different institutions exist.
It may be held that although the State does
not, it should provide all the needs of civilised
life ; but this form of Socialism seems to be as
obsolete as Prussian despotism.1 The refutation
of it is to be found in the historical law of the
differentiation of function in institutions ; and
we take this law as the general statement indi-
cating the characteristic purpose of the modern
State. To take a non-controversial example :
the mediaeval Church supplied music, painting,
drama and even, in early times, dancing, as well
as what we now call religion and morality. The
Church building of the mediaeval town represents

1 It is, indeed, of German manufacture. State Socialism
has direct affinities with the Hegelian State-philosophy, and
that again with Prussian administration.

STATE AND OTHER INSTITUTIONS 39

in its singleness the many different buildings
which we now call the concert-hall, the art-
gallery, the museum, the theatre and sometimes,
as in the festa asinariay the music-hall. On the
plan of a mediaeval city one finds no theatres or
art-galleries : not because the needs now supplied
in such buildings were not felt, but because one
institution supplied them all. Since the Renais-
sance, however, learning and art have been
supplied by new institutions, and the Church
has been more and more limited in its function ;
but it has gained by that limitation in definiteness
and in effectiveness so far as religion is con-
cerned. And the same may be argued of the
modern State : for we by no means accept the
Spencerian idea that the limitation of State
function means that the State does less than it
did. Although the function of the State is
strictly political, its sphere of action now is much
greater than in the days when one institution
provided both the political and the other needs
of civilised life. The limitation of State function
does not, by any means, degrade the State, as the
limitation of the functions of a Church does not
degrade the Church. We give more, and we
expect more of the modern State ; and, indeed,
we receive more than even the Athenians did,
for specialisation of the institution has increased
its power and the range of its effectiveness.

40 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS

Spencer made the mistake of supposing that if
the individual had greater freedom, the State must
be restricted ; or if civilised needs were supplied
by other institutions, the State must become less
powerful. But such an idea implies that there
is a fixed amount of shared power, such that if
one institution gains the other must lose ; or that
there is a strictly bounded sphere of action within
which all distribution of function must take
place : whereas, in fact, power increases and the
sphere of institutional activity is always expand-
ing. So that, although there are many more
institutions than there once were, each does more
than any single comprehensive institution did in
the past ; and also — but this is a different issue
— although the individual is " freer," the State,
so far from being restricted, is more and more
active. Indeed, its power is not merely correc-
tive, it has even become directive. The limitation
or specialisation of function is therefore by no
means a restriction of power.

When we consider not the English State only,
but each civilised State in turn, we see every-
where how much more the State has still to do
than it has ever yet done, quite apart from the
changes in the relationship of State to State which,
as we shall see later, are a basis for more action.
We have a long way to go in extending liberty.
Men are not free who are born under-fed and

STATE AND OTHER INSTITUTIONS 41

brought up in surroundings which are physically
cramping or intellectually barren. And where
one man is not free, the whole society to which
he belongs is not free, since its development is
restricted by the restriction of its citizen. The
State, therefore, must extend its activities in this
direction. And, again, order is not yet estab-
lished among the new economic forces which
industrialism has created ; for competition is
leading to monopoly and monopoly to discontent
and disorder. Supply and demand are hopelessly
confused, for there is a glut of some articles and
a scarcity of others. The relation of classes also
is not orderly, since the law is often at the mercy
of caprice and the poor man often appeals in
vain. All this, then, is also material for State
action. So that when we say that the practical
politician is not directly concerned with religion
or art, we do not mean that there is less to be
done. On the contrary, there is much more to
be done than such politicians imagine.

Again, we are but on the frontiers of the
problem which arises out of the control by the
State, not of individuals, but of organised groups.
Institutions which exist for other purposes than
the maintenance of law and order have to submit
to regulation for the sake of law and order.
Thus a Church may not be a department of
State, but it must be prevented from persecuting ;

42 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS

a trade union may not exist for the benefit of
those who do not belong to it, but it must be
prevented from injuring them ; a trust or
company may not owe its existence to the State,
but its action must be limited in the interest
of the body of citizens. Indeed, the problems
of modern political theory are innumerable
although the State is not any longer what
it was for our grandfathers. The massing of
inhabitants in great cities, the manufacture for
a world market, the diversification of modern
interests, the subtleties of modern finance, have all
gone to produce the new situation. And in that
complexity we must distinguish the different
groupings of men and the diverse institutions
which men use in common for different purposes.
One institution has inherited the religious,
another the cultural, another the economic, and
another the political purpose of the old Greek
polis. And the various changes of history have
caused a continual redistribution of function until
at last we have arrived at the twentieth century —
which is not, of course, the end of time.

But whatever the State may be ultimately
proved to be, it is clear that it is not, with respect
to other institutions for civilised life, what our
traditional philosophy has imagined it to be.

CHAPTER III

THE STATE AND OTHER STATES

NOT only by contrast with institutions used
for other than political purposes is our State
different from the political institutions of the
past, but also by reference to its relationship
with other States. Supreme political institutions
may be said to be of the same order ; and it is in
this purely political sphere also that the modern
State differs from Trfais and regnum and
" sovereign." Its relationship to other institu-
tions of the same order is absolutely vital to
its nature ; so that it is utterly impossible to
regard the modern State as isolated. But the
inherited theory of the State implies, even when
it does not express, the idea that "foreign
relations "are a matter for an appendix or a
short chapter, while the " essence " of the State
is discussed under the heading of law and
government. Obviously the isolation of the
State for purposes of discussion is largely due
to the importance of the problem regarding the
relationship between the group (nation, families,

43

44 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS

etc.) and the institutions of the group. In
modern times the importance of understanding
this relationship has not diminished. There is
much thought of nationality and group character :
and, of course, political institutions are of great
importance for maintaining and developing this.
Internal or domestic political problems are not
any less important : but, admitting this, we may
nevertheless maintain that no State can be under-
stood at all if it is, even by implication, imagined
to be the only State in existence.

Let us, then, put aside, for the present, the
question of nationality and consider first the
false philosophical isolation of the State.

To the most cursory view of the facts it is
obvious that the State, our present organisation
for political life, is normally and continuously
in contact with other States. The sending of
occasional embassies has given place not only
to continued diplomatic intercourse but to the
most intricate business of the consular service.
State organisation is changed in one place because
of some method adopted in some other States, as,
for example, the influence of " foreign systems "
may be seen in English official education. Or
again, English parliamentary institutions cause a
modification of those in other States. The
existence of a military system in Germany makes
it necessary for France to adopt the same system.

THE STATE AND OTHER STATES 45

And the interrelation is not always in the
direction of assimilating institutions : for con-
tinuous economic intercourse makes the German
State resist the growth of industry for the
promotion of agriculture,1 while in the United
States industry is more and more protected
against "high finance." In the progress of
economic differentiation one group tends to
become predominantly industrial, another pre-
dominantly agricultural, and so on : the institu-
tions of the two groups tend, therefore, to differ
more and more. But they differ because of
their interdependence. This interdependence, then,
is of importance in considering the nature of
the State.

When, however, we turn to the traditional
philosophy of the State we find no recognition
of such facts ; partly, as we must allow, because
the prominence of this interdependence is a new
fact which has not been so noticeable in the past,
but partly because of the concentration of atten-
tion upon other facts. If we follow the line of
history farther and farther back into the past,
the philosophical theory of the State is seen to
be more and more inadequate to explain present
facts.

The Hegelian State lives and develops by
absorbing its own vitals ; but the metaphysical
1 Cp. von Bulow, Imperial Germany, p. 208.

46 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS

dogmatism of the " Philosophy of Mind " is no
worse than the economic dogmatism of Karl
Marx. He sees the State in isolation as a
changing series of relations between citizens ;
and he barely recognises the transference of
capital across boundaries or the interchange of
industry which was to make of his State
Socialism an obsolete ideal. To Spencer and
even to Mill and Sidgwick " the State " is the
English Government, having an occasional and
unimportant contact with mere foreigners.
Hence, as Hegel and Marx say, the nature of
the State is to centralise, Mill and Spencer say
the nature of the State is to decentralise ; and
it does not dawn upon either party that one
State centralises and the other decentralises
because there is a continuous interrelation
between them. It is true that the inter-State
life was not so great in the early nineteenth
century as it now is ; but a philosopher should
not require to be hit on the head before he
observes a new fact.

If we go farther back in history we find that
the philosophy preceding that of the nineteenth
century did recognise the existence of many
States. The Renaissance idea of equal sovereign
States was an attempt to understand the fact of
distinct organisations. Here again, however, only
one type of State is considered — the monarchical ;

THE STATE AND OTHER STATES 47

for although a grudging acknowledgment is made
by Grotius and by Bodin of republican forms, the
tendency for institutions to diverge is not referred
to in their final conclusions as to Sovereignty.
And this means that the existence of States of
entirely diverse kinds is not sufficiently discussed.
But more vital still for my present purpose is the
Renaissance conception of the almost accidental
relationship between States. An organisation
which is supposed occasionally, by some diplomatic
meeting or agreement or by a declaration of war,
to be really influenced by another organisation,
is not such an organisation as we know now to
be continuously and normally part of a complex
organism. Further, " Sovereignty," so far as it
was referred to external powers of the State,
involved the idea of opposition. Independence
was so conceived as if it could not co-exist with
interdependence. One State, to the mind of
the Renaissance, was as disconnected from another
as is the earth from the moon. It might be
drawn in the orbit of another, or at certain times
move together with another ; but it had definite
boundaries and therefore definite divisions from
all others. To our minds one State is only so
distinct from another as one limb is distinct from
another of the same body : and the " interests "
of one State are obviously no longer confined
within the boundaries of the lands over which

48 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS

the law and government of that State is
established.

Yet farther back, in the Middle Ages, even
the Renaissance distinction of organisations is
obscured in the magnificent hypothesis of a
single civilised Europe. This hypothesis and
the Roman idea of a single World-State,
outside of which there is politically nothing,
separate our world from theirs completely. But
Renaissance Sovereignty and the nineteenth-
century isolation of the State are direct results
of the Roman fact and the mediaeval dream.
A State can only be " sovereign " when there is
only one State in existence : hence the difficulties
which arise in the books on International Law as
to the " limits to sovereignty." The Renaissance
took the quality which belonged to the Roman
Empire and conferred it illogically upon several
States. And to the mediaeval dream we must
look for the source of that " theocracy " which
is conferred upon the State in all forms of
nineteenth-century philosophy.

Finally, in the Greek conception of the State
which still influences modern thought,' the State is
completely isolated. For Plato in the Republic
there is only one State which, by means of its
warrior-guardians, comes into occasional conflict
with shadowy opponents who are not even given
any definite aims or organisation of their own.

THE STATE AND OTHER STATES 49

There is not the slightest hint of two such
Republics in existence : and since that is unim-
portant, the State goes on its own way quite
without reference to the groupings or organisa-
tions of the rest of humanity. In the Laws
Plato acknowledges that peace and not war must
be the normal purpose of state-organisation ; and
that only seems to make matters worse. War
had at least introduced the idea of other groups
occasionally influencing " the " State ; but peace
seems to involve no interrelation at all. Travellers
may indeed come from abroad : we may learn
from foreigners, and hints may be given by
different actual States as to the method of
organisation in the State, but the State is conceived
as isolated.

Aristotle, it might be imagined, with his
inductive method, should have grasped the fact
that state-organisation was not isolated. He
knows of many diverse forms of organisation,
and is even said to have collected evidence from
many more constitutions than are referred to in
the Politics. But for him also there is only one
State, when he is discussing any one specimen.
He knows many organisations, but each in isola-
tion ; and he hardly allows for more than an
occasional alliance or a war. Trade is a dangerous
experiment largely because it seems to violate the
perfect self-sufficiency of the State.

50 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS

Now it is obvious that these theories, until and
after the Renaissance, represented facts much more
closely than they do now. The Greek State was
almost isolated : not so isolated in fact as our
reading of the philosophers would lead us to
imagine ; and we should remember that the official
relations between States are never quite all the
interconnections which exist. But on the whole
we may assert that the course of history has
brought groups always closer together and that
interdependence has followed on contact. The
later the philosophy, therefore, the more inade-
quately does it represent facts so long as the State
is considered to be isolated. Plato and Aristotle
are more inadequate than Hegel and Spencer for
the understanding of present facts ; but Hegel
and Spencer were more mistaken as to their own
contemporary facts than were Plato and Aristotle.

Present facts, then, demand the recognition
of continuous and normal interdependence of
States. The nature of the State is to be under-
stood, at least in part, from its relations with other
States : and all philosophies which even imply
that the State is isolated are out of date.

Indeed, one may say that the modern State
must be understood by this external reference.
In the same sense the individual cannot be under-
stood in isolation, but only by continual reference
to society or to his relations with other individuals.

THE STATE AND OTHER STATES 51

The individual, in our sense of the word, does not
exist prior to society ; but the contrary rather is
true. For the change which we call progress
is marked by the appearance of the unique and
differentiated " person," after the long period in
which the group so overshadows all action and
thought that the personality can hardly be said
to exist at all. So also the modern States arise
after the vague groupings of Feudalism and
Mediae valism (whether Western or Eastern) ;
and each arises only in close contact with other
individualised or distinct States, in definite relation
to it. In that sense the modern State is a new
fact, and the observations of Plato, Bodin, Hegel
and Sidgwick do not refer to it. But we have
preferred to be more polite and to say only that
some elements in the fact have not been considered.
Even the self-regarding or internal organisation of
the State is naturally posterior and even logically
dependent upon its relations with other States.1
Thus Hegel should have recognised that his ideal
bureaucracy was due to the contact with France ;
and Spencer should have seen that his view of*
governmental " interference " was due to the
industrial superiority of England in contact with
the Continent.

The relations of State with State, then, are

1 It is seen by Sidgwick that taxation for " defence " makes
a vast difference to the internal economy of a State.

52 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS

absolutely vital in the discussion of the nature
of the State. What those relations are in detail
we shall see later. Obviously the relation most
prominent in early State history is that of pure
opposition or war. Thus to many war is of the
essence of the State. But it is doubtful, to say
the least of it, whether even in the earliest times
the less prominent and less obtrusive relations of
peace are not more genuinely effective in creating
the State. Historians have neglected the unobtru-
sive and have made what was striking into what
was most real ; but even they have not been able
to explain the situation as it is at present except
by grudging references to non-warlike influence
of State on State. Whatever the relations are,
or have been, between States, it is clear that a
reference to them will profoundly modify the
current conception of the State.

In the first place, it will follow that State
systems tend to assimilate but also to differ : to
differ in some elements and to assimilate in others.
The isolation of the State or a grudging reference
to external relations results in a too great emphasis
on assimilation. Thus Herbert Spencer senten-
tiously announces that State action is gradually
restricted with the progress of civilisation, depend-
ing, in fact, upon a partial statement of what was
occurring in England in a short and exceptional
period of history. Had he seen the influences

THE STATE AND OTHER STATES 53

passing from Germany or France he would have
perceived that even the English State was soon to
be compelled to take over more and more the
direction of private enterprise, if for no other
reason, at least in order to stand even with the
centralising tendency of France and Germany.

Hegel, on the contrary, in the manner of his
own Absolute, declares to a credulous Germany
that the State is absolute. But if he had seen the
influences passing from England he would have
allowed for the freer play of individuality as one
of the results of State organisation.

Political interdependence, which had really
always existed and grew very rapidly in the
nineteenth century, has now become obvious.
International Law has established itself as a
science ; capital and industry pass across State
boundaries ; and a shock, whether to credit or
to secure government, in one State immediately
affects all others. But philosophy lags behind.
No new conception of the State has developed
out of these new facts ; and, since philosophy
affects common life more than the practical man
cares to admit, the lack of a new philosophy
involves the handling of new situations with the
primitive or clumsy conceptions of Plato or Hegel.

When the interdependence of States is recog-
nised it will follow that the philosophical idea
of the State will no longer be that of a single,

54 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS

self-sufficient organism, but rather that of a
functioning organ in a grouping more or less
organised. The relations of the citizens will not
be confined to the boundaries of their State but,
through their State, even in the political sphere,
they will be seen to be in continuous contact with
citizens of other States. And further, the state-
organisation itself will be seen to differ progres-
sively from that of other organisations with which
it is in contact, in proportion as the differentiation
of economic function or of religious ideal develops
in this or that State.

It is to be understood that such conscious
interdependence is not yet established. The
current phrases of politics, whether practical or
theoretical, indicate no very new conception of
the State or of the relationship between States.
To the mind of the average citizen the word
State does not normally indicate any reference
to his relationship with citizens of other States,
although in crises the fact that he is so related
by his State is forced upon his attention. The
intimate relationship which he then recognises
of his State with other States, existed before he
recognised it and influenced his own action with-
out his being conscious of it.1 An antiquated
theory implying the isolation of the State, ob-
scured his view of modern facts : but the new

1 e. g. in his payment of taxes for Navy and Army, etc.

THE STATE AND OTHER STATES 55

contact was increasing, and gradually it has forced
itself upon our attention.

The result of the new situation, acting upon
ordinary life and not being recognised for what it
is, has been disastrous. In the first place, facts
unrecognised have been left ungoverned. So
long as we neglect what we may call a natural
force we are at its mercy : when we recognise
it for what it is we may contrive to turn it to
our own advantage. By such advances do we
"master the lightning." The State has been
considered and criticised from the point of
view of law and government concerning its
own citizens : and the results of criticism have
been improvements, for example, in criminal
law or in local administration. An institution
conceived to exist for a certain purpose has been
found to be not fulfilling that purpose well, and
new methods have been suggested or tried. This,
however, was due to a concentration upon the
internal purposes of the State ; which involved a
neglect or a complete subordination of the other
elements in the same institution.

We do not maintain that the State was an
institution originally devised for bringing groups
politically into contact. The historical origin of
the present situation is another question. The
obvious fact is that the institution does now bring
groups into continuous and normal contact, and it

5 6 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS

is now used for that purpose. But the use of
the State for what we call " foreign " relations
has not been adequately considered, since it has
made no real difference to our conception of
what the State is. Being conceived as essentially
isolated, it is almost impossible by means of an
appendix or an occasional hint to correct the
original assumption : and the tacit assumption
has been that the modern State is a TTOX^ or a
regnum or a "sovereign"; whereas in fact the
situation has changed.

Here, then, is a political institution essentially
in contact with other institutions of the same
order ; whose internal structure is continually
affected by that contact ; . whose utility to the
group of which it is the highest political institu-
tion is due to the fact that it relates them to other
groups so organised ; whose history and character
is modified and sometimes developed by long
periods of amity and occasional, less important,
episodes of war. But that contact has been left
to be governed by the play of any accidental
or natural forces which might supervene, to be
violently transformed by unreasoned passion, to
be crudely used for selfish ends. The wonder is
that foreign policy in the civilised modern States
has not been still more blind and unprincipled
than it has. For where reason has not entered,
passion fills the void.

THE STATE AND OTHER STATES 57

The dangerous effects of an obsolete idea being
used to master a modern situation may be avoided.
It does not follow that evil practical results must
necessarily occur. The second and more general
reason, then, for supposing that it is important to
recognise the non-isolation of the State is that
such results might follow even if they have not
so far followed. For this reason, quite apart
from immediate and obvious difficulties, it is
useful to examine the State from a new point
of view.

First, then, we must discover what kind of
interdependence has come into existence ; for
Grotius knew that States needed one another,
and the need, to his mind, was for alliance
against foes, keeping off famine or resisting
revolution. But our interdependence is some-
what more subtle. And next, before we proceed
in detail to show how the new situation has
changed the idea of the State, we may indicate
here the general features of the change. Foreign
policy will no longer seem to be a subsidiary
interest of citizens. The action of their State
with respect to foreign States will seem to be of
vital importance in everyday politics.

Further, the purpose of the State with respect
to foreign States will be seen to be not that of
mere opposition or exclusiveness. The character-
istic individuality of each State will be seen to be

5 8 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS

best attained by contact with other States. And
lastly, the State itself will be seen to be other than
an armed band, since all that is of value in its law
and government will be perceived to have been
attained not through war but in spite of war.
Whether any institution can ever embody the
new attitude which is growing up in the contact
of States, whether Comity will ever lead to Con-
cert, may be left undecided ; since whatever the
future may bring forth, the present is sufficiently
different from the past to demand our closest
attention.

CHAPTER IV

THE STATE AND NATIONALITY

OF all the institutions and organisations by
which we attain to the civilised life the State may
seem to be the most fundamental, because of
its connection with nationality. Churches even
claiming to be national pass beyond any one
nationality ; economic or cultural associations
make no appeal to distinctions of blood, language
and tradition. But the law and government
under which the civilised man lives seem to
represent that fundamental difference which he
generally regards as his nationality. This is not,
however, the situation with respect to more than
half the civilised world. Not all men living
under law and government recognise in that
system the expression of their own nationality.
In the United States, the new nationality being
still formless, the political institutions are regarded
in a more abstract way, as essentially good, not
as traditionally valuable. In Ireland, India,
Egypt, Finland, Poland, the southern portions
of Austria-Hungary, in French, German, or

59

60 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS

Italian parts of Africa and Asia, men live more
or less contentedly under a law and government
which is, whether good or bad, certainly not
national. And when war breaks out the English-
man fights, as he knows, not merely for an
institution but for that tradition which he calls
England : and yet on the same side fight the
Irish and the Indians, as the Algerians fight for
<£ France " and " Italia Irridenta " for Austria.
Although some fight for the nation, all fight
for the State. The fundamental nature of the
State, then, must be discovered in part from this
contrast.

If we seek an explanation of all this in the
traditional conceptions of the State, we are left
somewhat unsatisfied. Our idea of political in-
stitutions is, of course, due to the thought of
our ancestors on their own institutions ; and our
state is, no doubt, in part the effect of what were
their supreme political organisations. But there
has been in the past no clear distinction between
nationality and citizenship. This was due, per-
haps, to the nature of the TTOX^, or the Roman
civitas^ or the Mediaeval regnum^ or the Renais-
sance sovereign State. And where no distinction
was conscious, no consideration could be given
to the influence of nationality on government, or
of government on nationality. We make no
complaint against our authorities. The modern

THE STATE AND NATIONALITY 61

State, however, depends upon the contact between
nationality and State, between the tradition of a
group and its political institutions.

It may be said that the fact of nationality
makes no difference to the idea of the State ;
the State is a political organisation, whether it
be the organisation of Frenchmen or Englishmen.
And, of course, we do not deny that there must
be some likeness between all organisations which
we call States. But we contend that, because
the fact of nationality has been inadequately con-
sidered, the likeness between States has been
exaggerated ; or, to put the same statement in
another form, certain elements have been sup-
posed to be essential to the idea of the State
which were only essential to the organisation
adopted by one nation. That is to say, the
characteristics of nationality have been taken for
the characteristics of state-organisation.

One example of this may be found in the
common confusion of patriotism with loyalty.
The difference of words really indicates a dis-
tinction in the emotions, for patriotism is more
passionate and loyalty more intellectual ; and,
again, patriotism is restricted by reference to one
object only, one's national group ; but loyalty
may be used with respect to one's club or trade-
association as well as to the Government under
which one lives. Thus, through confusing the

62 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS

two emotions, we may be led to confuse the two
objects to which they generally refer.

In the development of the theory of the State
the confusion leads, in the first place, with Plato,
to the conception of physical relationship of
citizens as fundamental to state organisation.
With Aristotle the State must be an organisation
of a number so restricted that each is known to
the other. That is to say, the conception had
not yet arisen that conscious allegiance to a system
of law and government, and not birth, was what
made a citizen. Hence the two theories of citizen-
ship which confuse International Law : sometimes
citizenship is due to birth and is inalienable, but
sometimes it is due to free choice and may be
changed. Sometimes both theories are worked
with, illogically, at the same time in the same State.

The Roman Empire practically and the medi-
aeval Empire theoretically, subordinated or neg-
lected the national grouping. And, in the
later Middle Ages, being a subject was no more
due to conscious choice than was membership of
the universal Church. By birth everyone was
a Christian, by birth a subject. And when, in
the Renaissance, distinct States were recognised,
racial or national differences were still regarded
as negligible. Even in religion the character-
istics of the national group were not in theory
acknowledged, for the divergence of religions was

THE STATE AND NATIONALITY 63

that of distinct rulers, not of races. The Augs-
burg " cuius regio, eius religio " does not mean
" there shall be national churches," but " the
religion of the district shall be that of the man
who rules the district."

Again, in the German theories of the State the
fact of national grouping was neglected, so that
the peculiarities of the German character are
made the grounds for universal laws of state-
organisation ; l and Marx, in the true Hegelian
manner, omits what his theory cannot explain —
that national sentiment is stronger than economic
common interest. When, therefore, the old idea
of the State is corrected by reference to the
modern fact of nationality, it is seen (i) that
citizenship is more conscious and nationality more
emotional, and (2) that the resulting organisation
may owe its features, not to the essence of the
State, but to national character.

The relation between nationality and state-
organisation has been vaguely recognised by
Mill,2 by Sidgwick 3 and by Bluntschli ; 4 but

1 As Kant's Categorical Imperative is a German pastor, so
Hegel's Absolute is a German official. The transcending of
the individual is German, not human.

2 Representative Government, Ch. XVI.

3 Elements of Politics, Ch. XIV. The " ought to be " of pure
Nationalism is corrected by Sidgwick's fear of revolution, but
no justification is attempted of an Imperial State, /. e. one in
which there are many nations.

4 Theory of the State, Bk. II. Ch. IV.

64 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS

no further correction in the old idea of the State
is made than is involved in the ideas that, as far
as possible, the national group ought to have a
state-organisation of its own. It is seen that
where national patriotism does not coincide with
State loyalty the established situation tends to be
unsafe, whether (as in Germany or Italy before
1860) many states divide one nation or (as in
the Austrian Empire) many nations divide one
State ; and, so far, there is a distinct gain in the
recognition of important facts.

We omit, for the present, the discussion of
Empires, but it seems that there is no reason
why the same system of law and government
should not be for the good of more than one
nation. And if the good of the separate nation-
alities, in so far as it is common, is attained by
the same system, there is no adequate reason for
supposing that Nationalism is the only principle
of state-organisation. In any case, the import-
ance of the nation would have to be recognised
as a fact.

Now, the situation has changed considerably
since the last of the great theories of the State
was made ; and the importance of nationality,
both as affecting the State and as affected by the
State, is comparatively new. The new elements
in the political situation must, therefore, be given
prominence. What relation, in present fact, has

THE STATE AND NATIONALITY 65

nationality to the State ? It has one relation
which has almost everywhere been recognised,
so long as the importance of nationality has been
known ; but it has some other relations which
have been very imperfectly, if at all, perceived.
The first and fundamental relation of nationality
to the State is expressed in the idea that the State
is a territorial organisation. The other relations
concern the contact of nationalities in and through
state-systems. This second class of relations has
not been considered by theorists or by practical
politicians, largely because of the false conceptual
isolation of States, of which we have spoken.
The importance of nationality has been conceived
to be sufficiently recognised when each State has
been seen to be the expression of some nation-
ality. The second issue, the contact between
nations, has been left unconsidered. This second,
then, we must put aside for the present, until
we have summarily expressed the accepted idea as
to the intimate relationship of one State with one
nation.

The State is the highest political institution.
Its contrasts and contacts with other institutions
have been described. Here it is only necessary
to say that the State represents not the common
interests of those who are intellectual, or musical,
or religious, but chiefly the common interest of
those who live in the same district. That district

66 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS

is small when communication is difficult or
organisation ineffective (city-states) ; it is larger
when the citizen gives place to the subject, making
government easier (Mediaeval regna and Renais-
sance sovereign States) ; and it is larger still when
geographical obstacles are overcome by science
(modern States). But always the system of law
and government has some reference to the land.
Hence the idea of territorial sovereignty. Now
that which limits effective political organisation is
one of the causes of distinct nationality, geographi-
cal environment. Therefore, whereas the common
interests of the cultured, or the musical, or the
religious, or the " workman," may be represented
by what are called " international " institutions,
the common interests of those who live together
are represented by national institutions. Indeed,
the so-called international institutions are really
non-national, since for their purposes the distinc-
tion of an Englishman from a Frenchman may be
neglected.

For political purposes, however, these distinc-
tions cannot be neglected. How then are they or
should they be reflected in the State ? To the
idea of Nationalism we have already referred. It
is recognised that national character ought to be
represented in some way in political organisation.
Extreme Nationalism might imply that each nation
should be a separate "sovereign" State; but a

THE STATE AND NATIONALITY 67

moderate form of the ideal would not be opposed
to an Imperialism which, within one system of
law and government, allowed for distinct interests
of different nationalities. It remains reasonable,
therefore, to suppose that the supreme political
organisation should either have within its frontiers
only one nation or that, if it has more, the separate
local interests should be preserved. Whatever
the ideal, however, the facts imply the recogni-
tion that the State sometimes is national (Holland,
Denmark, etc.) and sometimes is not national.
But all the greater modern States are not national,
in the sense that within the same state-system
different nationalities continue to exist. There is
no Great Power at present which has not under
the same law and government peoples of different
blood, language and tradition. And within such
boundaries these distinct peoples, willingly or un-
willingly, are related to one another morally, and
never as merely opposing forces. All this is
recognised.

We turn now to the effect of state-organisation
or nationality. Two different, and perhaps com-
plementary, movements have been developing
since the Napoleonic wars. One is towards
Imperialism ; the other towards regionalism or
Nationalism. The first is to be seen in the increase
of territory and population under the same law
and government (England in Egypt, India, etc. ;

68 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS

Germany in South-West Africa, the Cameroons,
etc. ; France in Tunis and Algeria ; the United
States in the Philippines). The second tendency
may be found in the increase of distinct national
sentiment among the Finns, the Poles, the Slavs,
the Irish or the Indians. This second tendency
has developed with developing democracy, while
the extending of territory has led to the rule of
the few. In either case the peculiar importance
of nationality, either as a democratic basis for
government or as an obstacle to specialist or
oligarchic government, has been frequently
recognised.

Now the peculiar fact, not sufficiently recog-
nised, is that it is precisely within the vast
Empire-states that the sense of nationality has
been most consciously developed. Nationalism is
the gospel not of small States, but of sections of
large States ; and it has generally expressed the
vague feeling that the national character was not
embodied in the established system. Hence it
has been disruptive so far as practical politics
is concerned. It aimed at the dissolution of
existing state-systems and their rearrangement
upon a purely national basis. On the other
hand, Imperialism, based upon the proved advan-
tage which comes from an identity of law and
government established over vast territories, set
itself rather to oppose the ambitions of National-

THE STATE AND NATIONALITY 69

ism. If Nationalism was destructive of inherited
state-systems. Imperialism tended to destroy
nationality in the name of the State. And both
really implied the acceptance of the same idea of
the State ; although to one the State was abhorrent
and to the other sacred, in particular instances.
Hence it was, and is, that Nationalism when the
nation is weak so readily turns into Imperialism
when the nation is strong.

In all this both Nationalism and Imperialism
have implied the acceptance of an antiquated, and
by no means valid, conception that the purpose
of state-organisation was to oppose nations one to the
other. Nationalism would keep them apart, Im-
perialism would suppress one by means of the
other. But nations, we must remember, are
groups of men and women, not land or territory ;
States arise because these groups are separated by
land or territory ; and it by no means follows
that States must perpetuate the situation out of
which they arise in a sphere in which territory has
no meaning.1 If we only make the bold assump-
tion that state-organisation, based as it is on

1 That is the political or moral sphere. The argument is
parallel to that in Rousseau's Social Contract. There it is said
that the State is to correct physical inequality, giving political
equality in order to discover moral inequality. So here, in
foreign policy, the -State is to correct physical division by pro-
viding political contact, to secure moral development of the
group character.

yo THE MORALITY OF NATIONS

nationality, exists for bringing groups into contact
in spite of local division, we shall arrive at a new
conception of the State.1

But how are the organised groups brought into
contact ? The answer must refer to the distinction
between Empires and national States. Within
Empires the different national groups are under
the same system of law and government. The
evil tradition of military Empires has affected
some modern Empires, so that the system of law
and government is directly aimed at the suppres-
sion of national differences. The German Empire
has led to the attempt to suppress Polish nation-
ality ; the Russian Empire has attempted to
suppress Finnish. The British Empire has not
consciously oppressed nationality, although the
tradition of the past hangs about the minds of
some of its administrators. In any case, there is
no reason, in the abstract, why the use of the
same law and government should lead to a sup-
pression of national character ; and if it does not,
then the state-system would lead to many nation-
alities living in contact without recourse to war or
without even the desire for war. The contact is
so far moral. And further, if the state- system
allows for local government, the distinct nationali-

1 Civilisation develops by this contact : where there is no
contact development is slow, as with Incas and Aztecs in
America. Cf. Bryce, South America, p. 574.

THE STATE AND NATIONALITY 71

ties will develop distinct individualities while they
are in contact one with the other. The very con-
tact, as in the case of persons, will lead each group
to a perception of what is really valuable in its own
character and tradition. So that the state- system,
in this case, develops nationality by amicable
contact.1

As for the contact between national States and
the contact of Empires as wholes with respect to
foreign States, the same principle holds good. In
fact men living under different systems of law and
government are brought into contact by those
systems. Every State has a Foreign Office with
a continuous business. In theory, the citizen,
whether of distinct nationality or not, is brought
into contact with citizens of other States, through
his own State.

And contact is not supposed to destroy dis-
tinctiveness. The Foreign Office is believed to
represent amicably the distinct interests of a
separate State ; and although in war national
differences of language, custom or tradition, are
used for raising antagonism, these differences
are (i) not allowed to be noticed when they exist
as between allies or within Empires, and (2) are
not supposed to justify eternal war although they

1 This is just as truly a reason for the development of
Nationalism within Empires, as the other reason is, — the
oppression of one nationality by another.

72 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS

do not end when peace breaks out. During
periods of peace this distinction of nationalities
marked by the boundaries of States is preserved
by amicable contact. One further step only
need be made. Let us say that States exist for
the development of national distinctions either
(i) within the State, or (2) outside the State, by
direct, continuous and amicable contact ; and the
old idea of the necessary opposition between
States breaks down.1 All opposition is for the
purpose of characteristic development, which is
normally attained otherwise. The State, then,
so far from being an institution which demoralises
the contact between distinct national groups, is
an institution for relating morally, for political
purposes, (i) members of the same national
group, (2) members of distinct national groups
within one Empire, and (3) members of groups
under different States. And this is not pious
aspiration, but a statement of fact neglected in
the modern theory of the State. This contact
between nations, however, maintained and de-
veloped through state-systems, will have an effect

1 It follows that any State which is forced by circumstances
into war, fights not because of the nature of the State, but
in spite of the nature of the State. It is so forced because
it has not adequately perfomed the functions of a State.
T. H. Green (Princ. of Pol. Obligation, § 167) comes to this
conclusion from slightly different premises.

THE STATE AND NATIONALITY 73

upon the institutions of political life.1 Isolation
would have one kind of result : contact has
another. This, therefore, is the further addition
we must make to the accepted ideas with respect
to state-organisations which in any way represent
nationality. If the State is naturally the political
organisation of a national group in the sense of
representing the national character and tradition,2
then States will tend to differ in certain features
of their law and government. The assimilating
tendency, due to intercourse, will continue ; but
along with this will go a progressive differentiation
in certain laws and in certain methods of govern-

1 That is to say, all the political institutions, not the State
only. Within the State, when many nations are within the
same State (Empires), the subordinate political institutions
(municipalities, provincial governments, etc.) will be affected
by contact both to differ in some points and to assimilate in
others. When the State has only one nationality (not an
Empire) the subordinate political institutions will generally be
affected, not directly, but indirectly through the effect of other
States upon the state-system under which they are. But even
in this case municipalities (subordinate political institutions)
sometimes come into contact and affect one another indepen-
dently of the States : an example may be found in the visits
of London aldermen to Paris, etc. The general thesis is
obvious. Nearly all institutions have been considered too
much in their relationship to their own members ; whereas
they are really used for and their character is influenced by
bringing their members into contact with the members of
other institutions of the same order.

2 That is, either by a separate state-system for each nation,
or by allowing for the representation of distinct national
character within one system.

74 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS

ment. An example of the same double tendency
may be found among the individuals of any
progressive community. Certain elements in
civilised life tend to assimilate — clothes, language,
social convention ; but certain other elements —
belief, knowledge, occupation, tend to be more
and more different. It will be found that in
state-organisation, although laws of contract,
etc., tend to assimilate across the boundaries of
nationality, yet laws of inheritance, education, or
religion tend to become more and more reflections
of distinct national character and, therefore, to
differ.

If this is true, then our conception of the
State must be corrected so that the growth of
national sentiment shall be recognised as dif-
ferentiating organisations ; and, therefore, the
State in general will not be considered as neces-
sarily and essentially either socialistic or non-
interfering. The tendencies in either direction
will be seen to be due to national character and
not to the nature of the State : and of the State
in general we shall say less, in proportion as we
recognise that many different organisations may
be equally good for the political good of different
national groups.

This will not mean that the community of
nations will be destroyed, or that the likeness
between races will be made impossible : even

THE STATE AND NATIONALITY 75

organisations may become more alike. But this
will only be one side of the facts. The old
opposition between individual growth and social
organisation, between national distinctions and
cosmopolitanism is due to an entirely false and
quite unconscious idea that there is a given
quantity of rights ; so that if the individual gains
more the society must lose, or if society gains
the individual must lose : or, again, to the idea
that there is a given inexpansible sphere of action,
so that if the nation becomes more distinctive
the human race must be more divided.

Both suppositions are opposed to facts : for it
is obvious that rights increase and duties are
more various, and that the sphere of human
action in separate groups and in the whole race is
growing rapidly. We have, therefore, to allow
in our theory of the State for progressive dif-
ferentiation even of state-institutions. In what
directions States will differ and in what assimilate
we cannot here establish ; but probably the
example of individuals will indicate. In what
are usually called " external " matters assimilation,
and in internal matters differentiation will occur ;
and, according to the first part of our argument,
" internal " matters cannot mean what the nine-
teenth century used to oppose to " foreign "
affairs, but, rather, matters of education, religion,
and conduct.

CHAPTER V

FOREIGN INTERESTS

IT follows from what has been so far said that,
since the nature of the modern State is to be seen
(i) in its contact with other institutions, and (2)
in its contact with other States, we shall have now
to discuss the economic or intellectual relations
between the different groupings of men, and to
see these mainly from the point of view of what
we have called the supreme political institution.

The relation between States, as it is at present
in normal times, is the result of a process which
has been very much accelerated during the last
fifty years. Since there is no chasm dividing the
changes of human history, we may believe that
the situation into which we have been born is the
result of the whole of the past ; and yet it would
not be untrue to say that the difference between
our world and our grandfather's is immeasurably
greater than the difference between our grand-
father's world and^hat even of the ancient
Assyrians. From tr^^kpint, then, we may begin,
since the argumejj^epends on the fact that we

76

FOREIGN INTERESTS 77

are in a situation so new as to make obsolete or,
at any rate, hopelessly inadequate the conceptions
of nearly all the past.

In two ways this situation is new. First, the
relations between States are absolutely normal and
continuous, and affect no longer only a small
class in each, but practically all the citizens ; and,
secondly, these relations are world-wide. Before,
however, we discuss in detail what these relations
actually are, it may be as well to show in what
sense the fact of continuous relationship is new.

The rapidity of communication, its ease and
its frequency, are recognised causes of inter-
dependence between men. But communication
has been in the main not very different, until about
1850, from the very earliest times of which we
have any record. At different times, as in the
great transient Empires of the past, the excellence
of roads or the effectiveness of organisation has
made communication for a short period more
rapid and frequent. The Roman cursus publicus
may stand for a type of what could be done ;
and in quasi-modern times it is known that
stage-coaches left London for the West in the
eighteenth century at the rate of one every two
minutes of the day. But quite apart from the
fact that such advances were transitory episodes
in a long darkness of ^Bition both between
States and between group^taitizens in the same

78 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS

State, it was at best the horse and the road upon
which men depended for mastering the limitations
of space and time. In times of peace a letter or
a piece of merchandise travelled not much more
quickly in eighteenth-century Europe than it
had travelled in ancient Assyria. In war time
Napoleon moved his troops not much more
quickly than did Assur-bani-pal. And if one
refers to the sea, the similarity of the whole past
before 1850 is still more remarkable. Sailing
to China was not very different in 1815 from
doubling the Cape with Vasco de Gama or trading
between Tyre and Cadiz with the Phoenicians.
Nelson watching outside Toulon was not much
freer from wind and wave than was the expedition
of Scipio Africanus.

There were, of course, changes, but nothing
comparable for effect with the change since 1850.
In half a century our rate of travel on land is
ten times increased, and that on sea five times ;
not to speak of the possibilities, as yet barely
developed, of the air. We need not go further
into detail, since the transformation of society due
to rapidity and ease of communication is well
known. We move troops in war more quickly,
and in peace we move merchandise more easily ;
and along with this ease and speed has gone the
frequency of communication. This, more even
than the rate of travel, has made States inter-

FOREIGN INTERESTS 79

dependent ; for although the communication
between New York and Liverpool, for example,
is very rapid only for a favoured few in the great
liners, yet the immense quantity of the slower
shipping makes the relationship between divided
groups quite continuous.

This continuousness has become normal. States
which hitherto came into contact by some slight
interchange of trade now are affected every day,
in normal times, by vast quantities of import and
export ; and although the volume of business
within each State has, of course, increased rapidly in
recent years, proportionately to this the increase
of " foreign " business has been much greater.
So that the very life of each group seems to
depend upon the activities of other state-groups
to an extent hardly yet recognised in our practical
diplomacy and not at all recognised in our current
conceptions of "foreign policy." But such normal
and continuous intercourse, even if not officially
recognised or promoted, must affect the institu-
tions of the groups related : and from the nature
of these relations we shall be able partly to judge
the probable effect on the institutions. An acci-
dental and occasional intercourse might make
men only more desperately alien to one another ;
a normal and continuous intercourse might create
sympathy without destroying distinctions.

The second great feature of our present situa-

8o THE MORALITY OF NATIONS

tion is that it is world-wide. For the first time
in history during the last fifty years world-politics
has been a reality : and we mean by that, not
merely the ambitious dreams of world-domination,
but the simple fact that nothing can happen
politically in any part of the world without its
effects being immediately felt in every other part.
The surface of the earth now holds no race which
is not somehow connected with every other. But,
even in Napoleon's time, although, no doubt,
Austerlitz made some difference to Egypt and
perhaps India, China and Japan were not affected,
and Australia was practically not on the ma£.
And the farther back we go into the past, the
more isolated is whatever civilisation we choose
to study ; so that the Romans, for example, or
the Chinese could afford to disregard the exist-
ence of humanity outside the borders of their
State. Now, not only is the State continually in
contact with other States, but the effect of that
contact spreads at once to the farthest corners
of the earth.

This world-politics is not, of course, new, if
we are to refer to popular talk or even to practical
finance, trade and diplomacy. The situation has
been recognised to exist in what we may call a
practical' way ; the trouble is that the " practical "
men have been dealing with it according to
theories which arose in a very different world.

FOREIGN INTERESTS 81

The fault is not theirs. When they speak of
cc a place in the sun," or " the flag of England,"
they do not recognise that they are talking theory;
and there has been no new theory at all com-
mensurate in importance with the vital changes
which have taken place in fact. The newness
of the situation, therefore, is chiefly noticeable
from the point of view of theory, if by that we
mean our understanding of it. For popular
speech, finance and diplomacy have contributed
almost nothing to new conceptions for the
management of the new facts. But if the new-
ness is noteworthy for the purpose of theory,
that does not imply any purely academic interest.
A theory is desperately practical when it is a tool
for the attainment of purposes or the control of
forces which we must achieve or perish. This
generation, however, has the dangerous and
honourable task of making new intellectual tools
by which to master the new material. Former
generations had tool-theories for a politics which
was not in fact world-wide : coming generations
will have become accustomed to world-politics.
The position, therefore, of this generation is
unique. We have to face the fact, for example,
that there is no place any longer for " expansion "
in the old sense. It must therefore either cease
or change its meaning. And we have to grasp
the idea that, until communication is opened with

82 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS

Mars or with the Man in the Moon there can be
no further " external " social forces working upon
States. Change must hereafter come from within
some group : and although new groups will arise,
since the whole human earth is explored, we shall
not suddenly be faced by fully-developed groups
as Europe was faced in the nineteenth century by
the Yellow Races.

The change has affected every State, partly
through the many new world-institutions which
have come into existence and partly, in a direct
manner, by the political effect of continuous
political interaction with other States. As for
institutions other than political, there are several
religious bodies now of which the members are
in close contact but belong to different States.
Institutional religion, however, even when inter-
national, is not very powerful nowadays. The
mind of the time is economic. But along with
the religious world-institutions we must count
scientific and artistic societies. These, too, are now
in a position never before known to history :
they count their members among men of every
State. And there are also the powerful economic
institutions called Companies, whether industrial
or financial, of which the members are taken from
any State. Of these the great Armament Firms
are most interesting ; since they are the sources
of income to citizens of a State against which

FOREIGN INTERESTS 83

they rouse hostility in order to gain income.
That is to say, certain gentlemen, for example,
of English citizenship may be making money by
supplying the armies or navies which fight against
England with the appliances for destroying Eng-
lishmen. German genius and German finance
supplied some of the appliances which are used
by the Russians for invading Germany. French
guns, made under the auspices of the name of
Schneider, are used by Turks against the allies of
France.

And not only Armament Firms but also
Finance " is in every country, like the Church
in the Middle Ages, an illustrious stranger." So
that however we are taxed, we may be sure that
part of it goes into the pockets of citizens of that
State which we are being taxed to oppose. It
is not difficult to see how different the modern
State must really be from the State our grand-
fathers knew, now that it is influenced by these
complex and novel forces. The intricate tangle
of half-understood appetites, of world-wide money-
making and vague idealisms, of ancient shibbo-
leths and modern political black-magic, is difficult
enough to grasp. And yet we still hear the old
cries "inevitable conflict," "balance of power,"
"arbitrament of the sword " — just as though we
really knew all that the State is and all that it
needs.

84 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS

It is impossible here to do more than give in
briefest outline some features of the world-
civilisation as it now exists : and for this purpose
it will not be necessary to separate the influences
of other institutions from those of the State ; but
we shall have our attention chiefly bent towards
the result of all the various modern contacts upon
the existing political institutions. By this means
we shall perhaps see in what direction to look
in order to discover what the modern State is and
what are its real interests.

We may divide the relations between organised
groups into three : those of trade, of investment
and of non-material interest.

As for trade, it is well known that no civilised
State at present is isolated or independent. Either
its citizens depend for food upon the activities
of " foreigners," or they sell food to foreigners :
or again, they export or import the materials of
industry. It is recognised as a fact, whether it
be judged good or bad, that highly organised
nations are not economic wholes ; and it would
naturally follow that they are not political wholes,
except in the belated dreams of those who still
continue to speak of the sovereign State.

The non-independence of England may be
found crudely expressed in the statistics of the
Board of Trade. We may take as an example of
the change from a normal to an abnormal situa-

FOREIGN INTERESTS 85

tion the contrast between the trade in September

1913 and September 1914, when the readjustment
to war conditions had not yet been completed.

To cite articles of food first, in September 1913
we had £24,407 worth of wheat from Russia ;
in September 1914 only £11,927 worth. In
wheat-meal and flour we had in September 1913,
from Germany £19,659, from Belgium £1,303,
from France £8,297, from Austria Hungary
£5,064, and from Argentine £5,333 ; from all
which countries in September 1914 we had
absolutely none. The changes in respect to eggs
are also striking. In September 1913 we had
from Russia £541,777 worth ; in September

1914 absolutely none. The figures for all
countries give our import of eggs in September

1913 as worth £910,557 ; and in September

1914 as worth £38I>351- What, then, are the
interests of the English State as calculated in eggs ?

In export our supply of the needs of other
groups is, of course, a source of income for
ourselves ; but we may suppose that what we
have sold has been of some value to the buyers.
Cotton cc piece-goods " sent to Germany in
September 1913 was worth £55,470. In
September 1914 we sent none. To Switzerland,
in September 1913, what we sent of the same
article was worth £112,647; and although we
were not at war with that country, in September

86 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS

1914 we sent absolutely none. War has destroyed
the normal interdependence even of neutral
nations.

Materials for industry suffered the same
change. In September 1913 we sold textile
machinery to our ally France which was worth
£60,621, in September 1914 absolutely none.
The whole of our export of this in the Septembers
of the two years compares thus : for September
1913, £643,480: for September 1914, £213,841.
But in this matter we must allow for the trans-
ference of power in engineering from construction
to destruction : it takes as much time and labour
to make good shells as would be represented by
£400,000 a month, so that the energy expended
is not less though the direction of it is different.

These figures are taken at random from the
innumerable statistics of the Board of Trade.
They indicate that England is clearly not any
longer independent, in the old Renaissance sense
of sovereignty, any more at least than Yorkshire
is independent. But if the interests of the State
are the interests of the citizens, some new con-
ception must arise out of the interdependence
of the citizens of all States. Such interdepend-
ence as we have so far noticed has regard to
food and clothing : and we by no means argue
that our interest in foreign eggs is our only or
our chief interest. It may be necessary to sacri-

FOREIGN INTERESTS 87

fice economic interest : but at least we should
recognise what it is.

In the second place, like trade. Capital also
has destroyed the old isolation of States.1 As
things stand at present it is calculated that the
amount of Capital owned by inhabitants of the
United Kingdom which is earning money out-
side these islands is £3,500,000,000. Similarly,
inhabitants of France are dependent on Capital
invested outside France to the extent of
£1,600,000,000, and inhabitants of Germany are
dependent upon the investment outside Germany
of £8oo,ooo,ooo.2 The annual report of the
Public Trustee (published April 7, 1915) implies
that property of Germans and Austrians in
England and Wales alone amounts to over
£ioo,ooo,ooo.3 So that it is now impossible to
suppose that the financial interest of the citizen
is confined to the development of the country
over which his State is established.

1 On this rests the chief argument of Mr. Norman Angell's
Great Illusion. His economic statements may be disputed in
detail, but not the fact that the banking situation has affected
politics. Mr. Angell does not, however, seem to make clear
the distinction between economics and politics.

2 Hobson, Export of Capital, p. 163.

3 Registered German-Austrian property is —

Held on behalf of " enemies " . . £54,000,000
Capital in partnership . . . 1,600,000

Capital in companies . . . 29,000,000

Total .

88 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS

The rapidity in the growth of this situation
is one of its most remarkable features : since in
1827, even after the great boom in foreign invest-
ment following the reconstruction of Europe when
"peace broke out," there was only ,£93,000,000
of English money invested outside of the United
Kingdom.1 Other countries were slow to come
into the field as competitors in investment outside
their own boundaries ; but the rate of growth
has been so rapid that nearly every civilised
country now has " interests " in all parts of
the world, and the process would normally be
accelerated as new countries are developed.

In the various economic relationships between
States we must allow for the existence of creditor
and debtor States,2 as well as for Great Powers,
and small States. Diplomacy of the rule-of-
thumb and selfseeking Finance already know it.
Russia, for example, is a debtor State, as we may
see by reading the " Russian Supplements" to the
Times, which are published apparently to tell us
what our ally really is. There is little reference
in it to Russian literature or Russian art, and

1 Hobson, p. 105.

2 For political results, cf. the influences in the creation of
the Chinese Republic in C. W. Eliot's Some Roads towards
Peace (p. 10). Capital cannot exist under despotic govern-
ment (p. 15). The whole report (published by the Carnegie
Endowment at Washington) is a good study of Peace
Relations.

FOREIGN INTERESTS 89

hardly any to Russian military force ; none,
naturally, to Russian political ideas ; but great
stress is put upon the possibilities for Capital in
Russia. France, on the contrary, is a creditor
State, as her position in alliance with Russia
proves. She must follow to secure her income.

All this, perhaps, is brutal economics, but the
political structure, even as to domestic affairs, in
each group is vitally affected by such facts as
these. We cannot speak of the function of law
and government without reference to the economic
forces which may subserve, but may also subvert,
our ideals.

What conception of the relation between States
results from all this ? Certainly not the concep-
tion of sovereignty, which means that each State
has no interests outside or expects no other State
to have interests within its boundaries. The little
hedge of frontiers is somewhat obsolete, since it
is clear that States interpenetrate. And an inter-
penetration even of the purely economic kind
must certainly have political effects, for, as we
shall see, the creditor State is often compelled to
political action in behalf of its debtor : and the
influence of foreign Capital has more than once
made a difference to a revolution or a popular
movement.

But the interdependence of economics, even
.though it is vital for political life, is not the

90 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS

whole of the present situation. Every civilised
State has " interest " in the health, general well-
being, education and individual development of
its citizens. These may be called non-material
interests.,/ We put aside for the present the
other non-material interests, independence and
" prestige," which are more commonly considered,
since these are not new, although their meaning
is somewhat changed.

In the third place, then, the non-material
interests of organised groups are, in a sense, well
known ; and, in a more definite sense, absolutely
neglected. Of these one cannot quote statistics.
Even a Foreign Office with prejudices in favour
of "prestige" cannot put down upon papef exactly
how one group of men and women depends on
another for other goods than food and clothing.
But the importance of the fact will be recognised
if one suggests that the discoveries of Pasteur
might have been restricted to France, or those of
Lister to England. Let us imagine what an
advantage it would be to England in war, and
even in industry, if a septic treatment had been
kept for Englishmen. How much of the import
of non-material goods we can do without may
perhaps depend on our civilisation ;/so that we
may not presume to say that England would
have lost much if the work of Mommsen or
Harnack had been protected so effectually as to

FOREIGN INTERESTS 91

have helped Germans only. We may not presume
to count it a gain to the State that Kreisler has been
able to play in England. But, speaking with bated
breath outside the sacred circle of economics, there
is a non-material interdependence of States.

This interchange of ideas across frontiers was
very far advanced even before our ease of com-
munication was attained. In the Greek world
ideas spread from city to city, and Rome carried
Greek thought into far countries : but our
modern cosmopolitanism of ideas really began in
the Middle Ages. It is well known that in spite
of bad roads and feudal anarchy, scholarship,
medicine, law, art and religion were able to pass
from country to country. A common language
did more, perhaps, for the interchange of ideas
than even railways and steamboats have done.
In any case scholars and men of ideas travelled ;
and at Salerno Englishmen might learn medicine,
at Bologna law, or at Paris science and theology.
So Italians might learn philosophy at Oxford or
anatomy at Montpellier. So also the different
groups felt the religious impulse originating with
the Italian St. Francis or the Spaniard St. Dominic
or, slightly later, the Englishman Wyclif. This
is not the place to describe what have been
the vicissitudes and further developments of the
interdependence of groups so far as ideas are
concerned. It is sufficient if it be clear that this

92 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS

interdependence has been obvious for a longer
time than that of trade and investment.1

The newness of the present situation, however,
is not altogether disproved by these facts ; for
there is no learned caste now, and all ideas
spread more universally within every group ; and
again, the store of such ideas is vastly increased
since the mediaeval scholar could attain the limits
of practically all the knowledge of his day.
Finally, not Europe merely but the whole earth
is now bound together by common knowledge
and a common appreciation of the Arts. So that
we are no longer provincial in our culture, as we
are no longer limited in our markets.

In the classification of those ideas which pass
across frontiers and continually modify even
political institutions we may begin with practical
scientific ideas. In medicine and surgery Pasteur,
Lister and Ehrlich represent contributions of
three different groups to all others. Radium
was happily not " protected." And outside the
purview of the average citizen are the continual,
priceless but unpriced, imports from foreigners
in the cure of disease, in sanitation, in surgery
and in preventive medicine. Without such inter-

1 Hobbes (Leviathan, II., Ch. 29) fears this interchange of
ideas — naturally, for it disproves most of his theory of
Sovereignty. Cf. The Unity of Western Civilization : Essays
collected by F. S. Marvin. Ch. XI. Common Ideals of Social
Reform, by C. D. Burns.

FOREIGN INTERESTS 93

change the modern State would not be what it
is. As for scientific ideas in manufacture, the
conception that they should not be exported was
at one time acted upon in England. In 1774
an Act was passed to prevent spinning machinery
from being exported. Skilled artisans were for-
bidden to leave the country. In 1823 *ca large
seizure of cotton machinery occurred in London."1
The effort was never very effective, and it was
found that when the protection was removed and
English scientific ideas were allowed to benefit
other groups, the demand for English machinery
made England wealthier than she could possibly
have been if she had kept her ideas to herself.
In brewing and in chemical works the import of
" foreign " ideas has been recognised to have
increased English resources : and, even were it
possible, it would be unwise, according to popular
conceptions, to keep technical science within State
boundaries. But the issue is by no means faced.
There is an obvious cash value in this sort of
ideas, and thus it attracts the lower type of intel-
ligence. Naturally, therefore, there will always
be a tendency to secrete technical processes ;
although, so far, physicians and surgeons have
not kept to themselves their scientific ideas, in
spite of their financial value.

But not only in medicine and practical science
1 Hobson, loc. cif., p. 107 se$.

94 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS

is the interchange of ideas proceeding. In ideas
as to social structure there is an interdependence.
We may count these as municipal or political.
For example, we in the United Kingdom have
used ideas applied first in German cities : " town-
planning" is derived in part from the German
idea of the city beautiful.1 Municipal control
of traffic and municipal supplies are ideas which
have crossed frontiers. Political ideas such as
that of National Insurance are used in one State
and copied in another. Income tax is an idea
which seems to spread.

We may perhaps count representative Parlia-
mentary Government as an export of ours : and
perhaps Cabinet Government is in part due to
an import of ideas. In Education we send Com-
missioners abroad to bring us ideas : and we
receive many more which do not come through
official channels. So also other nations discover
whatever value there may be in our Public Schools.

And outside the sphere in which the average
citizen lives there is a no less important inter-
change of ideas of a more refined sort, which
sooner or later transform the attitude of humanity.
Scholarship so disregards state-boundaries that
English and French historians can make con-

1 The great example is in Frankfort. Cf. the general treat-
ment in Municipal Government in Great Britain (1897) and
Municipal Government in Continental Europe (1898), by A. Shaw.

FOREIGN INTERESTS 95

elusions from evidence collected by Germans ; or
Danes and Dutchmen can comment upon English
Literature. In the larger field of scholarship,
which concerns our knowledge of the world we
inhabit in its most general features, there has
been no attempt yet to u protect " Darwin or to
exclude Weismann. Such are a few examples
of the close interdependence which has been
developing not only between the nations of
Europe but of the whole world. All this has
transformed civilised life, and it must have had
its influence upon those institutions, the States,
which exist for the protection of such life.

But if States are thus normally and continuously /
in contact, by trade, investment and ideas, and if
their organisation or action is affected by this
interdependence, our conceptions of the interests
of the State must change, and following upon
that, perhaps our very conception of what the
State is. At least it is clear that the " interest "
of a modern State cannot be rendered in the
terms of Greek, Mediaeval, Renaissance or even
nineteenth-century politics. The intimate and
world-wide relationship of States in the midst of
innumerable diverse institutions is practically new :
and we must in some way contrive to master it,
unless we are to leave ourselves to the mercy
of natural forces the results of which we might
by no means approve.

CHAPTER VI

FOREIGN POLICY

IF these are the organised groups and such their
interconnection, how are the relations between
them to be arranged ?

The interests of each organised group are to
be maintained and developed : and the morality
of nations is concerned with such development,
just as the morality of individuals must consider
the interests of individuals. Economics may seem
to be unconnected with morality ; and we should
admit that they are distinct from it, since a man
may be wealthy or cunning and yet not moral.
But morality among individuals involves some
reference to material well-being, for it is useless to
consider the height of virtue if the possibility of
bare life is not secured. A great part of ethical
theory is rendered futile by elaborate discussion
of free will without any reference to economic
conditions in which all men live : and economics
itself is often barren of interest because of the
exclusion of moral issues. Now in the case of
the States, however high our ideals, no one is
likely at present to forget the economic interests

96

FOREIGN POLICY 97

involved : but here we must suppose them to be
subordinated to some kind of morality. Foreign
policy, then, is to be considered not so much with
a view to the recording of facts, but with regard
to the principles upon which it may be supposed
to be based. And first, since bare life must be
secured, foreign policy is for the maintenance of
the material interests of the State. Diplomacy
is much concerned with commercial treaties and
the arrangement of loans, which are presumably
for the benefit of all the States concerned.

There is also the interest involved in indepen-
dence, since it is implied in what has so far been
said that foreign domination is unendurable to any
organised nation. The most peaceful policy must,
none the less, be one which promotes and develops
the characteristic differences of the State from
other States. The purpose of foreign policy is,
then, also to forestall any movements which might
diminish national independence, not only those
of a warlike nature; just as a man's relationship
to his fellows must not be allowed to cause a loss
of the man's individuality. There is a point in
the art of life, which is the practice of morality,
at which it becomes necessary to take measures
for self-defence — not only against mere danger
to life and limb but also against danger to in-
dividuality and character. In a sense this is of
more importance than economic interest, since it
H

98 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS

is more valuable to be able to do what we like
than to have a sufficient income : but one cannot
really exist without the other. Foreign policy,
then, does not treat the State as merely a
financial association. It expresses other interests
than wealth in manoeuvring for national character
and independence.

It is often said that self-preservation is the basis
of all moral action, and that may be argued : but
it is sometimes said that self-preservation is the
highest law, and that is false. Even for the State
self-preservation is not the highest law, if by that
it is meant that the State may do anything in
order to preserve its existence. Such a state-
ment would imply either that the State is above
morality or that morality has nothing to do with
actions done in behalf of the State.1

This error lies at the root of Treitzschke's over-
estimation of the status of an army in a civilised
State. He goes so far as to say that for the
preservation of a certain kind of organisation all
and every means is justifiable. It is not "the
people " who must be protected, since their
blood does not change if the forms of govern-
ment change, but " the State." This involves
that an armed force is of predominant importance
in the State ; — as if the State had no higher
purpose than its own security. Its interests,
1 Cf. Machiavelli : Discorsi, iv.

FOREIGN POLICY 99

however, demand a policy which, within moral
limits, gives it independence.

But the interests involved are not all economic
and military. The interchange of ideas, the de-
velopment of character by contact, the exchanging
of medicinal discoveries or educational plans-
all these are also interests of every State which
aims at civilised life, and foreign policy should
subserve these. Thus our ambassador in Berlin
reminded Herr von Bethman-Hollweg that if
England neglected her treaty-obligation to Belgium
her credit would be destroyed. Sir Edward Grey
and Mr. Asquith also said publicly that our national
reputation was at stake. But this can only mean
that a State has other interests than the economic
or the military, and interests other than mere
independence.

How are these interests at present expressed
and what attempts are made to develop them ?
It becomes necessary for an answer to look into
the diplomatic system : but this need only be
done here in the most summary fashion.

The general features of the system are two :
Secretariats and Embassies.

Secretariats vary in character in different States.
They are sometimes the agencies of autocratic
government and sometimes representative of the
popular will : and all bear marks of their growth
as results of the Renaissance state-system.

ioo THE MORALITY OF NATIONS

But for our purpose here it makes no difference
to whom the Secretaries are responsible, if they
are supposed to act in the interest of the whole
State. What is of more interest is to discover
what moral attitude is implied with respect to
other States ; and this will naturally change slightly
with the intellectual standing of the representa-
tive officials, or with the activity among the
citizens in general in managing their officials.
The whole system of continuous communication,
however, carries with it certain fundamental
amenities, and it would be impossible now, as
it was in the Middle Ages, for any State to
do without special officers for intercourse with
other States.

A Foreign Secretary is generally supposed to
promote friendly relations in normal times, and
with most countries if not with all. The State
for which he acts and other States to which he
speaks are generally taken to be in moral relation-
ship such that the ordinary difficulties of com-
merce, crime or " incidents," may be arranged
according to principles of morality rather than
the mere appeal to force.

We may now pass to the consideration of
Embassies. The Ambassadorial system was prac-
tically contemporaneous in growth with the idea
of suzerainty as established in the Renaissance.

FOREIGN POLICY ici

Louis XI (1461-1483) of France is counted the
first to keep permanent agents at foreign courts,1
but they were regarded by both sides as spies.
The attitude, however, quickly changed with the
appointment of chivalrous gentlemen, until in
our day the office of an Ambassador is generally
regarded as friendly to the State to which he is
accredited. The social amenities are no small
matter in the creation of a moral attitude ; and
civilised States generally recognise some moral
bond between them. The rupture of diplomatic
relations with Serbia after the murder of King
Alexander, in June 1 903,2 was intended to show
moral disapprobation. All the great powers with-
drew their representatives ; and Great Britain
only renewed diplomatic intercourse in 1906.
Thus, even though no clear moral code may be
established in the intercourse between States, it
is generally taken for granted that the relation-
ship is in some way moral.

The immunities of person and property which
are spoken of in Internationa] Law are simply
conditions of free intercourse. They are them-
selves indications of the progress we have made
since (i) occasional intercourse could be arranged
by special envoys, and (2) since States could afford
to regard all foreigners as prospective enemies.

From this system, combined with the more
1 Lawrence, International Law, par. 121. 2 Ibid., par. 125.

i THE MORALITY OF NATIONS

modern growth of the Consular System, has arisen
a vast amount of business between States, some
of it simply solutions of incidental difficulties, and
some producing more permanent arrangements on
general issues.

These arrangements are Treaties, and their
many kinds are discussed by international
lawyers. But since scientific international law
is not based upon any supposed law of Nature,
but only on the consent of the States which make
the treaties, their binding force in law is practically
indefinable.1 It is seen that States must keep
their promises ; but it is also admitted that no
treaty holds in all circumstances. Morality is not
unfairly indicated thus : " On the one hand good
faith is a duty incumbent on States as well as
individuals, and on the other no age can be so
wise and good as to make its treaties the rules
for all time."2

[n 1878, by the Treaty of Berlin, Bosnia and
Herzegovina were given to Austria to u occupy
and administer." That treaty was regarded by
Austria in 1908 as out of date : and, indeed,
circumstances had changed. In October of that
year she therefore extended her sovereignty over

1 Lawrence, § 132. When and under what conditions it is
justifiable to disregard a treaty is a question of morality rather
than of law.

2 Ibid., § I34.

FOREIGN POLICY 103

the provinces, and later, by diplomatic despatches,
the new situation was acknowledged.1

It is unnecessary to speak of the breaking of
the treaty regarding Belgium by Germany in
August 1914, since so much has already been
written on that point. It is sufficient to note that
the real moral issue was not whether treaties
in general bind, but whether the circumstances
in this instance had been contemplated by the
treaty-makers : and it is quite clear that they
had. The treaty was therefore morally binding.

All these moral problems seem to be suggested
by the method adopted in Foreign Policy ; but
we cannot let the matter rest there, for, whatever
the purpose, the system seems to need criticism.
It has its good and its bad qualities, not only
with respect to economic effectiveness or the
other results which are expected to flow from it,
but also in regard to morality.

The present system has undoubted advantages,
and any sound political judgment must admit
from the evidence that useful work has been
done by it. National interest has really been
considered both of the economic-military and of
the non-material kind. This is true not only of
England, but of most civilised countries.

One cannot deny that Bismarck's policy was
really a development of the interests of Prussia

1 Holland, European Concert in the Eastern Question, p. 292.

io4 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS

as a whole, although doubt may exist as to his
success in maintaining the true interests of other
German States. The political impoverishment
of Bavaria and other smaller groups, such as
Hanover, is hardly compensated even if they
have increased their economic wealth ; and it
would in the end be evil for the Germans in
general if they sacrificed political liberty to
Prussia and received in return only a wage.

The diplomacy of Cavour, antiquated in many
respects, was in the main an establishment of the
true interest of all Italians even outside Piedmont.
The diplomacy of Thiers, in the formation of the
third Republic, was in the best interests of France
as a whole.

With respect to our own Foreign Policy there
is great disagreement as to whether the true
interests of the majority in the British Isles were
developed by Palmerston or Disraeli. But at
least as much good as evil has been done by
the diplomatic system. There is a tendency to
disregard the smooth working of a system for
many years and to judge it only by an occasional
lapse : and this tendency must be corrected as
well as the tendency to regard the established
system as sacred.

Apart, however, from historical facts and moral
judgments passed upon them, it is possible to
observe certain features of the system which are

FOREIGN POLICY 105

valuable. The evidence for a judgment of the
system is, of course, the nature of the separate
judgments passed upon actions in the past directed
by its officials : but the system may be judged as
a whole in so far as it is an organisation with
a purpose. The purpose, then, seems to have
been and to be successfully accomplished when
the following features of the system have been
brought into play —

Specialist Knowledge. — The officials, aided by
tradition, have used special knowledge of foreign
countries which is not in the hands of the ordinary
voter or even of the average politician. The
great deficiency in all government is not lack of
good intention, but lack of knowledge. Men are
generally willing to do what is right not merely
for themselves, but for their group or even for
all humanity, but they do not know what it is
right to do. It follows that any system which
can preserve and increase special knowledge on
any of the issues with which political action is
concerned is, so far, good. The benevolent and
uninformed amateur is dangerous in morality
even of a private kind, and in the complexity of
international business it requires special knowledge
of the facts even to apply moral criteria to them.

Mazzini, for example, was a greater man than
Cavour, but Cavour had special knowledge which
was lacking to the well-intentioned Mazzini.

io6 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS

One cannot fairly say what would have happened
if Mazzini had been in touch with diplomatists as
Cavour was ; but, probably, if he had been, Italy
would not now be united. An ethical theorist
unrivalled in his knowledge of general principles
may be unable to deal with the seemingly trivial
complexities of domestic life, and a political
idealist may not be aware of the amount of primi-
tive savagery and low cunning which still exists.
Security against Popular Outbursts. — A second,
advantage of the official system is that it can
resist any too sudden or violent outburst of
political passion. The voice of " the people " is
very often nowadays only the voice of the city
crowd, faintly re-echoed, if echoed at all, in the
smaller towns. Sometimes also the noise is that
of a few editors of newspapers : and a nation
would hardly have its true interests developed if
it were committed to action whenever or as soon
as such clamour arose. We have instances in
which the " democratic control " of foreign policy
might be shown to be more dangerous than that
of the officials. Thus in 1863 our diplomacy
did not commit us to the action demanded by
many public meetings at the time of the Prussian
attack on the Danish Duchies. The English
public were much excited by the addresses of
Kossuth in 1848, and Austria appears to have
feared that England would go to war in behalf of

FOREIGN POLICY 107

the Hungarians : but the Cabinet was able to
keep away from danger in spite of the delicate
situation created by the personal sympathies of
Lord Palmerston. So also, perhaps, we may
imagine that, although the war of 1870 was
engineered by Gramont and Bismarck, the
popular clamour in Paris and Berlin would have
committed the nations to war long before, if it
had not been for the diplomatic system. Whether
the delay was good for France may be doubtful ;
but it was certainly good for Prussia.

Continuous Attention and Quick Decision. — In the
method of working, also, the diplomatic system
appears to have advantages : for specialists can
devote a continuous attention to the issues which
would be impossible for the average politician.
Palmerston is said to have declared that the
business of the Foreign Office needed continuous
labour.1 The cursory attention which the Govern-
ments of all countries, involved as they are in
efforts for social reform or oppression, in adminis-
tration and in law-making, could devote to the
relations with Foreign States would be still more
inadequate now than it was in the nineteenth
century, since, as we have said, the connections
of all States are more intimate. A further need
in dealing with foreign interests is quick decision.
This may not be always the case, but the relation-
1 Sidney Low, Governance of England, p. 252.

io8 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS

ship between alien peoples tends to pass through
periods of crisis which are much more sharp and
sudden than in the case of social unrest within
the State. This fact is marked by the greater
frequency of wars as compared with revolutions,
and it is due largely to the ignorance which
geneVally prevails as to the intentions or the
power of " foreigners." Where ignorance is
common, panic is frequent. Passion tends to fill
those spaces of the mind which are left empty
in the progress of education : emotion rushes in,
like blood to the head, and eventually swamps
even the limited drained land of reason. Thus
patriotism seems in moments of crisis to repudiate
all calm thought.

Now this involves the necessity for decided
action in crises, either to direct, to subdue, or
to use the popular feeling. Hence it was that
Palmerston, himself perhaps too hasty, objected
to the slow methods of the Prince Consort : and
often in a crisis, decided action, quickly taken, has
really maintained the interest of the nation where
the slower methods of parliamentary debate and
still more of a popular referendum would have
dangerously imperilled not only our military
effectiveness but also our reputation.1

1 It may be agreed that the decision to go to war on the
ground of Belgian Neutrality was thus well made, and that we
could not possibly have put the question to the vote.

FOREIGN POLICY 109

So far, then, we may count the diplomatic
system valuable ; but it has very great deficiencies
also, and perhaps more in continental countries
than in England. In the first place, the system
bears the marks of its birth in a time when the
State was not what it now is.1 The system is
hampered by its inheritance.

But it is not simply that an old organisation
deals with an entirely new situation. The
organisation which was once used in one way
might very easily be applied to other activities ;
and of this we have had many examples, especially
in English government. Thus the Committee
of the Privy Council, which was called the
Cabinet, has become a governing body. So also we
use the old system of Secretariat and Embassy for
dealing with the new relationship between States.
But quite apart from the disadvantages in the
structure of the organisation, the actual working
of such a system carries with it an inheritance
of ideas.

" What can be done and what cannot be
done " is often a sacred gospel to officials,
although the only meaning in the words is

1 See "Foreign Policy in Middle Ages," in Stubbs'
Lectures on English History y p. 354 sej.9 publ. 1906. It is
amusing to read that Germany and England are always united
in Foreign Policy, because they are " non-aggressive nations "
which love " order and peace." France is " aggressive,
unscrupulous, false," p. 371.

no THE MORALITY OF NATIONS

" What has been done and what has not." l
Every established institution, as the price of
preserving a valuable inheritance, tends to " pilfer
the present for the beggar past." The methods
of secret interview, of pompous despatches and
of court functions, valuable as they may be in
preserving the personal contact, the polite man-
ners, and the decorative dresses of a vanished
civilisation, are paid for too highly if they involve
the transfer of attention and timely labour from
the task of understanding or expressing national
interests.

And as for actual guiding ideas, first, the
principle of Balance of Power* belongs to the
Renaissance situation, where the relationship of
States was not so intimate and continuous, in
economics and ideas, as it is to-day. It is not
a false principle if applied to the situation out
of which it arose ; but that situation has simply
disappeared. It continues to exist as a ghost

1 Cf. letter of Sir R. Morier to Sir W. White, March 21,
1877. " The abiding fact ... is the absolute and uncon-
ditional ineptitude of our International machinery. . . . The
departmental people at the F. O. are the worst offenders.
Their hatred of anything that rises above routine or carries
with it the promise of a policy would be amusing if one could
look at it with indifferent eyes." — Life of Sir W. White, by
by H. S. Edwards, 1902.

2 This can only mean in theory that States may be treated
as units, to be put together or taken apart as economic or
military power changes in each. In practice it is the attempt
to overbalance military force in our favour.

FOREIGN POLICY in

in the corridors of the Foreign Office, and in the
portfolios of Imperial Chancellors. It was the
primitive method of securing independence of
governmental development. Next there is a
primitive conception of natural enmity to foreigners
which remains in some at least of the Secretariats.
Treitzschke calls this a "veiled hostility," and since
warfare, according to him, justifies every kind
of deceit or trick, it follows that during times
of so-called peace any State may deceive or trick
its neighbours ; and not only States which pro-
fess the Machiavellian immorality suffer from
the tendency to treat foreigners as naturally to
be deceived.

The conception which began as that of an
Ambassador being a spy in a foreign country
continues in so far as the Ambassador may use
his privileges to inform his Government of any
weakness among their neighbours ; and it would
be interesting to know what connection there is
between the Secret Service which every civilised
State seems to use, and the privileged repre-
sentative of that State in the very heart of a
foreign country.

And even more prominently the atmosphere
of obsolete ideas hangs round the official concep-
tion of national interest. The Secretariats and
Embassies have not yet grasped the economic
interdependence of recent years among all great

ii2 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS

nations. They still seem to imagine that the
" interests " of the nation are confined to the
boundaries over which their State is supreme.
Of course, there is an immense amount of com-
mercial and financial business transacted through
Embassies and Consulates. That is a good point
in the system. What is wrong seems to be the
intellectual inability to grasp that one State benefits
by increasing wealth in another.

There is also the antiquated tendency to suppose
that foreign conquest is to the " interest " of the
nation ; although we suppose that ghost is more or
less laid, except in the minds of army officers who
venture into print.

And, finally, there is a complete absence of any
clear conception that the interest of a nation must
be treated, for practical purposes, as the interest of
the majority. There is no real calculation among
Secretaries of State or Ambassadors as to the
results of their action upon the lives and fortunes
of the proletariat ; so that the " interest " repre-
sented is often only the interest of a small clique
or of the governing class. The whole body,
perhaps, benefits by the increasing wealth of the
few ; but it would be interesting to examine
diplomatists on the social situation of the countries
which they are supposed to represent. At most
they seem to be aware vaguely of " labour unrest,"
or of discontented people who object to the partial

FOREIGN POLICY 113

starvation which they might endure for the sake
of their beloved country and patriotically say
nothing.

But if the interest represented in diplomacy is
to be the interest of the majority, knowledge of
such interest must exist among the officials : the
diplomatic caste is, however, economically divided
from the mass, from the trading class and even
from the intellectuals in almost every nation.1
Or, if the interests of these classes are admitted,
they are known only from blue books or treatises
and not by personal contact. The result is neglect
of the consideration of the interest of the vast
majority in every nation.

Finally, in no department of government is the
practice of despotism more prominent than in
diplomacy. By despotism we mean the govern-
ment of others, even, in the case of beneficent
despotism, for the good of others, in spite of their
wishes or without reference to their wishes. And
the objection against such a method is not made
on the ground that Foreign Ministers are evil-

1 The professors and editors used by the United States are,
I suppose, less divided ; but elsewhere the diplomatists are
allied to the military and land-owning classes only and neither
" trade " nor " labour " are closely present to their minds.
The proof of this is to be found in the establishment of the
Consular system to correct the deficiencies of Renaissance
"aristocracy" in Embassies. And even in the case of the
United States, personal wealth being often necessary, the choice
of ambassadors is restricted.
I

n4 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS

minded or intend to do wrong, but on the ground
that they do not know as much as " the people "
do what the people need. " Les hommes droits
et simples sont difficiles a tromper " : 1 and again,
" the many, of whom each is but an ordinary
person, when they meet together are likely to be
better than the few good." 2 Thus the objection
against despotism is an objection not against
clever tyranny but against benevolent incom-
petence.

In a monarchical State the interest of the monarch
is chiefly considered, even if it is believed that
that interest involves as a result the interests of
"the people." And in such a State the person
whose interest is primarily considered is definitely
consulted. Queen Victoria apparently conceived
Foreign Policy altogether in terms of Kings and
Queens : but already the world had moved away
from that Renaissance situation. With us "the
people," whose interest is supposed to be fore-
most, are not consulted. This is really due to the
historic origin of Secretariats, but a modern excuse
is given for it by saying that to consult the people
involves publicity. This puts our Secretary at a
disadvantage of showing his hand^ which he cannot
do without losing in the contest between national
interests. But this again implies an interesting
moral problem. Are you justified in cheating

1 Rousseau, Contrat Social. 2 Arist., Pol., izSib.

FOREIGN POLICY 115

your grocer if "you think he is likely to cheat
you ? Or why should there be any secrecy if
there is nothing being done of which the nation
might be ashamed or to which foreign nations
might reasonably object ?

A clear example of the disadvantages of the
present system is to be found in the Reminiscences
of Prince Bismarck. It is at first difficult to
discover what he imagined the principles of foreign
policy to be : but it appears that he accepted the
idea that it should be the development of Prussia's
interests, and, through this, a development of
German interests. He did not go further. The
interests of those not German in blood or language
were no business of his ; and he implies that they
must be opposed to the interests for which he was
to act.1 Prussian-German interests, however, he
conceived in the most obsolete way. " Real-
politik " is generally the politics of our great-
grandfathers, and what are called " facts " are
generally the illusions of a still earlier age. Prince
Bismarck modelled his policy on that of Frederick
the Great.2 He would use modern guns but not
modern ideas. He accepts the description of State-

1 Bismarck, the Man and the Stafesman, English trans., Vol.
II, ch. xxi, p. 56. "I took it as assured that war with
France would necessarily have to be waged on the road to our
further national development." The purpose of the war («V.,
p. 291) was "autonomous political life."

2 Ibid., Vol. II, ch. xii.

n6 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS

relationship given in Hobbes :l and as for " national
interest," it seems to be chiefly keeping things as
they are, which is naturally the view of the well-
fed and well-clothed who have also the social
"position" they want. He treats all expression
of dissatisfaction with the established system as
a pernicious tendency which must be condoned
only in order to fit the whole group for foreign
war. He mistakes his idiosyncrasy for a permanent
feature of German character.2

But Bismarck is not the only specimen of the
blind guide, or of the specialist whose knowledge
is that of his grandfathers. The system which
perpetuates such guidance in so many civilised
States must certainly be somewhat deficient.

We have so far discussed the advantages and
disadvantages of the system ; but a word must be
said concerning the principles on which the system
seems to have been managed. It is impossible to
make accusations against contemporaries, for we
have not all the evidence ; but it is abundantly
clear that in the past the principles of diplomacy
have not been moral. The very ancient and

1 " Upon foreign politics . . . my views . . . were taken
from the standpoint of a Prussian officer" (Id., p. 3).

2 Ibid., Ch. XIII, p. 314. "Never, not even at Frankfort,
did I doubt that the key to German politics was to be found
in princes and dynasties, not in publicists, whether in parlia-
ment and the press or on the barricades." " German patriotism
needs to hang on the peg of dependence upon a dynasty"
(P- 3i6).

FOREIGN POLICY 117

Machiavellian method we may omit, although it
has undoubtedly vitiated the tradition even until
our own day. But in comparatively recent times
and as between modern States, diplomacy has
been often based upon lying, studied deceit and
unblushing theft.

The point is that the relationship of the citizens
of one State to those of another cannot possibly
be moral so long as their representatives are either
strong enough or are allowed to use immoral
means for the attainment of what is conceived to
be a national purpose. Yet we know that Lord
Beaconsfield in 1878 obtained Cyprus by under-
hand means ; that a Prussian King and his
statesmen betrayed a trust to obtain their share
of Poland. And of all the hopelessly immoral
methods those of Austrian diplomacy seem to be
crudest, for the annexation of Bosnia was excused
by the deliberate forgery of documents in the
Austrian legation at Belgrade.1

We are not throwing stones at diplomatists.
What seems to us more important is that ^ the
majority of citizens in the several States which

1 As an instance of " diplomacy " this deserves a fuller record.
It was proved in the Friedjung Trial (Dec. 1909) that the
historian Dr. Friedjung had been supplied with documents
forged in the Austrian Legation under Count Forgach and the
Foreign Minister Count Aehrenthal. Forgach was promoted
to Vienna. The forged documents were the only grounds for
Austrian action. (Cf. Dr. Seton-Watson in The War and
Democracy, Ch. IV, p. 150.)

n8 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS

benefited financially by immoral practice did not
protest or even refuse to receive the property
stolen in their behalf. Morality remains at a low
stage of development so long as men, who might
avoid lying or stealing for themselves, are perfectly
willing to benefit by such deeds done by others.
And this is not merely a political but also an
economic issue. The State is not a trading com-
pany ; but even if it were, the position would be
no better. It makes no difference that business
is often conducted on the same Machiavellian
principles as diplomacy. The principles are im-
moral. And our much-abused diplomatists are
very often angels of light by comparison with
some peace-loving business men who continue to
raise private fortunes by acting upon principles
which they affect to disapprove of when they read
Machiavelli or diplomatic despatches.

Further, as we shall argue later, the principle
that foreign policy should be a maintenance and
development of the interest of the State must be
subservient to the general principle of morality
that such development should not injure any
other.1 The principle is implied in what we have

1 Sedgwick, Elements, Ch. XVIII. " For a State, as for an
individual, the ultimate end and standard of conduct is the
happiness of all who are affected by its actions. ... In excep-
tional cases where the interest of the p^rt conflicts with the
interests of the whole, the interest of the part — be it individual

FOREIGN POLICY 119

already said as to the moral character of the State ;
but how it can be applied will be seen when we
consider the latest tendencies towards the Comity
of Nations.

There is a general principle which seems to
arise from such consideration of the system by
which Foreign Policy is managed. It is the
expression of a need in the developing morality
of nations. The increase of popular power over
law and government should be accompanied by an
increase of knowledge among all citizens of the
foreign interests of their group and of the method
by which such interests are developed. We must
rid ourselves of the barbaric ignorance of foreign
peoples which is our inheritance from the time
when peoples were separated by geographical
features or economic structure. The man of the
Middle Ages, by comparison with ourselves, could
well afford to neglect the habits and customs of
foreigners ; he could with difficulty communicate
with them, and he traded with them hardly at all ;
but if the minds of our diplomatists seem to
belong to the Renaissance, those of " the people "
seem to be mediaeval, and the next step forward in
making diplomacy more moral must be an increase
in the political knowledge of citizens.

or State — must necessarily give way. On this point of principle
no compromise is possible, no hesitation admissible, no appeal
to experience relevant."

CHAPTER VII

ALLIANCE

THE results of Foreign Policy, so far as they
are permanent in the progress of International
Morality, are generally of two opposite kinds.
There is, first, the promotion of alliance between
States, and secondly, the continuance of inter-
state rivalry. This second result may seem to
be not moral ; but it is clearly a part of morality
to develop distinctions of group-character, as of
individuality, and not only to work upon the
principle of common interest. We shall, how-
ever, leave this issue for the present, and speak
of alliance. It must be understood that the dis-
cussion does not involve any plan for a Concert
of the whole civilised world. We must begin at
the beginning. There are, in fact, a few States
which are acting together for common purposes,
however transitory and limited : and this fact is
important for a judgment upon the international
situation. For alliance has sometimes moral
causes or moral purposes, and nearly always
moral results. We should not be deceived by

I2O

ALLIANCE 121

the purely economic theory, whatever its basis
in fact. It is true, of course, that a new distinc-
tion has come into prominence in recent times,
that of debtor and creditor States.1 We cannot any
longer be content with the old theory of equality
of sovereign States or even with the newer dis-
tinction between the " Great Powers " and other
States.2 There is the new fact of an economic
relationship between citizens or companies of
citizens in one State with citizens of another,
due to the lending of money.

We have seen that investment tends to
disregard State frontiers : but there is a further
important fact — that it tends to follow lines
partly laid down by foreign policy in the interest
of military or non-material security ; and follow-
ing these lines it tends to secure a friendship
which military reasons alone might be insufficient
to make permanent. The standard example is
the relationship of Russia and France. French
citizens lend money to Russian business ; and
foreign policy assists this, at first perhaps with an
anti-German intention. But the money once lent
is a sufficient reason for the desire of France that
Russia should develop successfully.

In the same way our financiers played their
part, in the beginning of the war, by the attention

1 Brailsford, War of Steel and Gold, p. 221.

2 Cf. Lawrence, Part II, ch. iv, p. 268.

122 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS

which was directed to the possibilities of lucrative
investment in Russia.1 But if such investment
takes place, it will bind us to Russia far more
effectively than any common action in war.

The creditor-debtor relationship in foreign
policy, however, -may not always result in alliance,
when the debtor State is very much inferior in
military or economic power. For example, the
presence of British capital in the Transvaal before
the Boer War put the Transvaal Government in
a difficult political position. In the same sense,
Mexico and China are debtor-States which tend
to become subordinated politically because of the
superior military or economic power of their
creditors.

Thus we have to allow not merely for the
interdependence of all States, but for the closer
interdependence of some States and the creation
of larger economic and political groups out of
two or more States. The cc Balance of Power "
alliances of the past, transitory and often for
warlike purposes only, are being transformed or
replaced by a new form of alliance which, what-
ever it excludes, binds more effectively and for
longer periods the States which it includes.

1 The best example of this is to be found in the Times
Russian Supplement (published January 1915), of which the
whole point was the excellence of Russia as a field for British
capital.

ALLIANCE 123

The whole problem is new. It is vital to
foreign policy : but it has no solution in the
language and thought of Renaissance diplomacy
or our antiquated conceptions of the State. What
is the relation between the State as a political
institution and a financial company of its citizens
who may have interests in foreign countries ?
On the one hand, is the State committed to act
in order to collect debts for a few powerful
citizens, and, on the other hand, should not the
State hesitate to act if action would imperil such
interests in foreign lands ? These, however, are
problems for the practical politicians : perhaps no
general principles are established ; and yet from
such problems arises one of the important issues
in the moral relationship between States.

At one time the State was regarded as a kind
of Church, and wars were fought for religion :
now the State tends to be considered as a sort of
financial company. But even if the relationship
which holds together modern States is at first
economic, the result is often of importance morally.
The merely financial common interest tends to
produce a moral sentiment of sympathy : and
such also is the general effect of a merely military
agreement. The important point for our present
purpose is the result upon the minds of the
average citizens in the allied or interdependent
States. It makes no difference that the majority

i24 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS

are quite unaware of the reason for their senti-
ment of friendliness : nor does it matter that
such sentiment is often created by newspapers in
the pay of financiers. In a sense, a sentiment of
friendliness so formed may be easily destroyed ;
and, as we shall see, the Italians could not forget
an ancient grudge even though diplomacy seemed
to commit them to the Triple Alliance. But
sentiments of friendliness are interesting because
they prove that there is no insuperable obstacle
to intimacy between any nations whatever. And,
at least for the few years during which they are
active, they give promise of common action
between diverse peoples on general principles.

Now, therefore, we may examine the alliances
of recent history and, in tracing their growth,
enquire if any general principles can be found
which govern the friendship of States.

The situation in international politics was until
recently governed by the groupings of —

1. The Triple Alliance,

2. The Triple Entente.

The first may be held to have disappeared,
since Italy stood out of the war at the begin-
ning. Nevertheless, it may be worth while to
say how the situation just preceding the war came
into existence.

It seems reasonable that Germany and Austria
should be allied against France, or, at least, for

ALLIANCE 125

the defence of common interests. The ruling
peoples in both empires are Teutonic, and the
history of their ancestors binds them to a sort of
affection.

Also they may both be held to have a common
cause against Pan-Slavism in Russia or in the
Balkans. In fact, it was the Balkan War, and
the fear of a Slav preponderance of power in
Eastern Europe, which probably moved the
Berlin diplomats to force on a war between
Austria and Serbia.1

But even the Teutonic peoples have not for
very long been allied officially. Prussia main-
tained a traditional friendship for Russia during
the greater part of Bismarck's power. But the
current of affairs bringing Russia and France
together after the Prussian success of 1866,
Bismarck began to secure his position by friend-
ship with Austria. In 1879 a treaty was signed
between the new German Empire and the Aus-
trian Empire which was the beginning of the
Triple Alliance.2

The third party of the alliance was Italy, in
spite of the fact that Italian opposition to Austria
had by no means ceased. But in 1881 France
declared Tunis her protectorate, and the Italian
people were much incensed by it. Old passions
flamed up, and the memory of Italian provinces
1 Correspondence i etc. 2 Bismarck, II, 257.

126 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS

(Savoy and Nice) which had been given over to
France, served to make the Italian Government
able to enter into special arrangements with
Austria and Germany. The Triple Alliance was
probably in existence as early as October 1881.
The terms were like those agreed upon between
Austria and Germany : that each Government
should aid in the event of the other being
attacked. It was a purely defensive alliance ;
and Italy was, to all appearance, in exactly the
same position as Austria with respect to Germany.
If the present war is not purely " defensive,"
there is no more " treaty reason " for Austria's aid
being given to Germany than there is for Italy's.
On paper, it would seem that what Italy views
as not defensive is viewed by the other two
parties to the alliance as defensive ; but in fact
it is not a treaty which keeps Vienna and Berlin
so closely together. The terms of the treaty
may have been exactly the same for all three
parties : but two of the three are united by blood
and tradition. The real reason for Italy's neu-
trality is not because the war of her late allies is
regarded as aggressive, but because the treaty
obligations entered into in 1881, in a fit of anti-
French policy, have not been sufficient to destroy
the long tradition of Italian sentiment directed
against the Austrian Government.

The Triple Alliance was formed by a defensive

ALLIANCE 127

policy against France, and has gradually been
turned, owing to events in the Balkans, against
Russia. As an expression in diplomatic form of
the real interests of two groups or Governments
it is a reasonable and, in part, a beneficent in-
fluence in so far as it has cemented the friend-
ship of Berlin and Vienna, and closed, perhaps
finally, the disputes as to predominance among
the German States ; but as to the interests of
the third group or Government (Italy), it is diffi-
cult to see how the alliance subserved any real
good except as providing a transitory pause to
the anti-Austrian feeling in Italy.

The history of the Franco-Russian alliance
is even stranger than that of the Triple Alliance.
We need not go back to Napoleonic times to
find out how completely the tradition of France
differs from that of Russia. Politically France
has been the great experimenter in methods of
government, while Russia has been continuously
opposed to all such changes.

In March 1854 France declared war against
Russia, since at that time it was conceived to be
necessary to restrict the growth of Russian power
at the expense of Turkey. The war ended with
no very great feeling on either side.

There had been a faint sympathy between
Russia and the French Empire in the promotion
of nationality in the Balkans, following on the

128 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS

Treaty of Paris (March 1856). Russia desired
to see the Balkan people free of Turkish rule
because of their blood, and Napoleon III had a
sentimental regard for the principle of nationality.
This tendency for two Empires to come together
almost produced an entente in 1861 and 1862; but
in 1863 the Poles rose against Russia. French
sympathy, even that of the Emperor, was on the
side of the national movement, and the Russian
Government only wanted to remain as it was.

In 1866 Russia was friendly with Prussia
rather than with the French Empire, and in 1871
Bismarck was able to buy off any possible Russian
interference with the success of Prussian arms by
acting in the interest of the Russian repudiation
of the Treaty of Paris. Republican France of
1872 and the following years was opposed by
Russian autocracy in the League of the three
Emperors, and it was not until the reopening of
the whole Eastern question and after the anti-Slav
policy of the Teutonic powers was revealed at
Berlin in 1878, that Russia was drawn again
towards France. The common interest was un-
doubtedly opposition to the growth of Teutonic
influence in Europe, and the result was an
alliance which was begun in July 1891. France
gave Russia a large loan and freedom of action
in the East, and Russia gave France some security
against a renewal of 1870.

ALLIANCE 129

The entry of England into full alliance with
France and Russia cannot yet be fully explained,
since the necessary documents are not yet public.
Officially we were not allied until August 1914,
on the outbreak of war ; but the Entente
Cordiale, whatever that means, had been followed
by a rapprochement with Russia. We acted in
concert with Russia in the suppression of some
Persian developments, and the future will reveal
whether we stood in this case for an order which
did not suppress national liberties. We are,
however, now committed to a full alliance, and
the most prominent moral result is the general
sentiment of friendliness and admiration of the
allies, each for the other.

Alliance is of immense importance in interna-
tional morality. Indeed, nothing in recent years has
been so directly a force in the direction of peace as
the present war in so far as it is waged by Allies.
We have seen that German States may be reason-
ably supposed to have common interests, not
only in the economic sense but also in the main-
tenance of a special type of government. Thus
two great nations, the German and Austrian, are
agreed not to fight each other. They are not
likely to forget the common experiences of danger
or of success.

But far more important is the situation on the
side of those whom we call pre-eminently "the

130 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS

Allies." The popular voice in newspapers has
rightly given prominence to the important fact
that such different races as the English, French,
Russian, Belgian and Japanese are all fighting on
the same side. For to fight together means at
least not to fight one another, and that fact is
important.

Nations of very different government and
tradition can then be induced to act together at
least for a short time : and if they act together
in war, why should they not in peace ? But this
means that the crude conception of nations as
necessarily individualistic competitors is obsolete,
for co-operation is possible among very many.
And even if this co-operation is transient and
only for the primitive need of military effective-
ness, even if in a few years we were at war with
any of our present allies, the months or years
of alliance will have done something towards
breaking down the wall of ignorance and barbaric
hostility to foreigners which are the fruitful
sources of all war.

For, let us consider the result of our alliance
in other ways than its military effectiveness. We
have learnt for years, from the " Entente Cordiale,"
to appreciate the French character and the French
point of view. A French invasion of England
is to the present generation absolutely unthink-
able. Our soldiers may learn to admire their

ALLIANCE 131

French comrades, and already there is some effort
among them to understand the French language.
They are proud to receive French medals as a
reward for gallantry, and they and all England
feel desperately concerned in the security of
North-eastern France. Such a sympathetic under-
standing between two such different nations,
even if it were only forcible in the moment of
danger, is nevertheless more valuable than any
treaty or covenant between Governments. For
it is national sympathy and not merely a soldier's
emotion.

Next, as to Russia, it seems already unkind
to refer to our hostility in the Crimean War,
and we desire nothing better now than the
Russian occupation of Constantinople, which our
forefathers fought to prevent. This is not mere
inconsistency, for the situation has changed. And
already we are learning as a people to appreciate
Russian opera, Russian dancing and Russian
literature. The Russian character has become
more known to us, even the geography of Russia
has its interests, and we no longer neglect the
virtues of a people which has done and may yet
do so much for civilisation at large.

Doubtless a great part of this popular senti-
ment for " our allies " is the superficial friend-
liness of mariners adrift in the same boat ; but
however superficial, it is a promise of a time

132 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS

when very different races will learn to appreciate
the standpoint of other races, and when the
popular voice will not condemn every foreign
habit as barbarous and every foreign government
as tyranny. It is interesting to notice that those
who speak of a " natural " distaste for foreigners
also make a distinction between foreigners ; so
that some foreigners are now regarded as bar-
barous, false and aggressive, and others as amiably
different from ourselves. But apparently a few
years suffice to transform this natural distaste,
so that those who were aggressive fifty years
ago are now believed to be kindly, and those who
were peaceful then are now ambitious of conquest.
It is obvious that this " natural " distaste is simply
another instance of how we are governed by
illusions in political thinking. Thus with any
historical perspective we learn much from the
present alliance of England, Russia, France,
Belgium, Serbia and Japan.

More important still for international morality
is the fact that the present Alliance shows how
force may be exerted in the maintenance of law
and order without the existence of any one
"World-dominion," Rome in old days dictated
peace to the world ; England dictates peace to
India ; and in these cases law and order depend
upon the predominance of one State. But if the
Allies win the present war, peace will be dictated

ALLIANCE 133

not by any one, but by a large group of very
different States : it follows that it will be a peace
in which a great number of different interests will
be preserved. And, still further, it follows that
International Law will be maintained not by
the will of one World-power, but by agreement
between many equals.

The principle of independent development
contained in the legal conception of sovereignty
has so far been effective in securing the right of
each separate state-group. The Renaissance con-
ception had its value. But States have not, in
fact, kept a splendid isolation ; it has been found
ever since there were any sovereign States that
alliance was necessary and valuable. And we
look forward to a further extension of the
principle of alliance, although at first sight it
might seem to hamper the full independence of a
sovereign State to avoid any " individual " action.
Thus the mutual pledge of the three Govern-
ments of Russia, France, and England not to
enter into a separate peace may be extended
to cover common action for many years after
the War.

If States are not isolated, it is because of real
or supposed interests which they have in common,
whether those interests are purely economic or
military or non-material. The new commerce
and the new finance destroyed the more personal

134 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS

and accidental alliances of the Middle Ages and
the Renaissance. For modern alliance is of a
different and more enduring kind. It carries
with it economic bonds and the growth of
popular sentiment.

But the interests of the group are the ultimate
interests of all the individuals : and, again, the
national group is subdivided into smaller groups.
Clearly, alliance should not be for the benefit of
one small group among many ; unless in helping
that group it also helps the others. The tendency,
however, to refuse to begin with small gains in
order to wait until every one can be directly
helped, is like a vague cosmopolitanism which will
not begin with the actual friendliness of two or
more nations.

Alliance, nevertheless, may not be altogether
good in its moral results. We may pay too
highly for success in war or in investment, if we
allow the restriction of liberty even among other
peoples. It is sometimes implied that other
peoples must look after themselves : political
and national laissez-faire is advocated even by
those who see that as between fellow-citizens
laissez-faire is obsolete. But lest it may seem as
if the interest in the liberty of other peoples is
mere sentimentalism, we must repeat what should
by now be obvious, that the State which aids or

ALLIANCE 135

allows the extinction of liberty in other States has
become tyrannical ; and the direct effect is tyranny
within the tyrannical State. The taste for tyranny
cannot be satisfied with practice upon foreigners
or "natives."

We may then pass to definite instances either
of the moral ineffectiveness of alliance, or of its
pernicious moral effects.

Alliances are made by established Governments,
not by peoples. Sometimes the Governments
consider the interest of the governed ; but some-
times only the interest of the established system
is considered, or even if the interest of the people
is considered by the officials, it is misunderstood.
Thus alliance may be made for the suppression of
popular liberty by combining the force of two or
more bodies of officials ; and it matters nothing
that the officials conscientiously believe the sup-
pression of popular liberty to be good for the
people. The maintenance of a system which
the majority wish to change may be good for that
majority : but the majority are less likely to be
wrong about that than are the officials who are
the system.

In 1854 we assisted Turkey against Russia.
The alliance was strange, since many in England
held that nothing could be worse than Turkish
rule : but the English people, incurably optimistic

136 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS

as to the character of their friends of the moment,
apparently hoped great things from the influence
of England's friendship over Turkish rulers. In
1867 the Sultan of Turkey visited England, and
was received not only with official greetings, but
with popular enthusiasm. It was supposed by
many that the effect of such a welcome would be
to make the Sultan reform his manner of rule ;
and, of course, no such result followed.1 But,
whatever sane statesmen may have thought, a
great number of Englishmen really seem to hope
that English friendship for foreign Governments
will affect these Governments in a manner of
which we should approve.

It is said by Germany that England's alliance
with Russia is in the interest of barbarism, and
we regard that as a charge to be refuted. For
even if it were to our interest to ally ourselves
with a barbaric power, we could hardly believe it
moral to assist in the suppression of civilised life :
and, in fact, it could hardly be to the higher
interest of any civilised nation to increase the
power of barbarism in the world. But, clearly,
it is not simply because of our interest that we
regard it as just to ally ourselves with Russia :

1 The best record ot work done upon the principle of
friendly influence as a ground for reform in foreign States is
to be found in the life of Lord Stratford de Redcliffe (Life,
by S. Lane-Poole).

ALLIANCE 137

not any means is justified in the attempt to
maintain the interests of England. So that it is
usually urged that the alliance may have a good
effect in assisting the forces within Russia itself
of which we approve ; and this means that we
regard the alliance as useful for the promotion
not merely of England's financial or military
interests, but also for those non-material interests
which every self-respecting nation must consider —
local independence, popular happiness, and the
rest. The alliance would be morally justified
if it secured the independence of Serbia without
imperilling the liberties of the Russian, Finnish,
Polish, or Jewish people.

The argument, therefore, runs in this way.
Alliance may have many different causes or
purposes : but it invariably has important and
good moral effects, at least as between the allies.
Such effects are greater in modern times than
they have been hitherto, because of the greater
consciousness of the mass of men and the closer
contact due to swift and frequent communication.
Upon alliance, then, we may rely not merely for
securing a new moral attitude in any one nation
towards foreigners, but also for the common
action of diverse States in matters of principle.
Alliance may have evil effects upon certain
sections of the States allied, or upon small or
weak States not in the alliance. These effects

138 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS

must be considered and prevented : not only
because they injure others, but also because even
the good effects upon the allied States will be
insecure or absolutely destroyed by the common
support of evil.

CHAPTER VIII

INTERNATIONAL RIVALRY

THE relation of States to one another, even if
it be considered with a view to morality rather
than for the purpose of merely recording facts,
must be acknowledged to depend very much
upon the opposition of interests. With the best
will in the world, the average man feels that the
ideals of cosmopolitanism do not sufficiently allow
for divergent claims of different groups. Ab-
stractly it may be certain that what is for the
good of the whole of humanity must be for the
good of each and every group of men and women ;
but if it is difficult to find the true interest even
of a small group on any wide issue, it must be
almost impossible, especially by abstract consider-
ation, to discover what is really for the good of
all human beings. And in any case it is more
likely that we shall promote the general interest
by developing the interest of separate groups than
that we shall help the smaller group by attempt-
ing to act upon some vague general principle.
For the intelligent pursuit by each State of its

139

1 40 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS

own interest will be the most practical method of
attaining the true interest of each ; and yet such
pursuit seems to lead inevitably to the attack
upon the interest of other States. At all costs,
however, we feel that the character of each State
should be preserved by that State.

It is our purpose, then, to discover how far the
rivalry and opposition between States is valuable
and how far it is not. The ultimate criterion
must be again the amount of civilised life which
is derived by individuals from such rivalry ; since
it is misleading here as elsewhere to speak of
States as large persons, or to speak of the contact
between States as a sort of Individualism. It is
the interest of a definite group of men and women
which seems opposed to that of another group.
And first we must refer to the astonishing psycho-
logical variety in the attitude of nations to one
another. For the general attitude of a people
reflects at least a vague feeling as to who their
rivals really are ; and the result has generally been
rapprochement with some other group.

There always have been transferences of national
affection, based not upon common blood or tradi-
tion but upon supposed common interests ; but
never yet has any affection or national sympathy
been without some suggestion of a common
enemy. The most primitive form of union is
based upon common hostility, and the emotional

INTERNATIONAL RIVALRY 141

adventures of every people appear in history as a
record of changing rivalries.1

The differences of national feeling in Prussia,
for example, have been remarkable in recent
years. In 1853, just before the Crimean War,
Prussia was supposed to be in agreement with
England and France against Russia ; and during
that year Prussia was a signatory to notes which
Russia rejected. But the general tendency of
feeling in Prussia was by no means anti-Russian.
Both the King and Bismarck were more than
inclined to support Russia. The rising of the
Poles in 1863 gave Bismarck the opportunity of
going further than abstract amity, and a Conven-
tion was signed which practically amounted to
armed alliance between Prussia and Russia against
the subject race. Whether one can speak of
national sentiments in this matter is doubtful,
since the agreement of the new German power
with the Slav autocracy was largely managed by
Bismarck in accordance with his own conception
of national interest. In any case the friendship
of Prussia for Russia alarmed both the Austrians
and the French so far that an attempt was made
in 1867 to establish an alliance against their

1 Thus in individual morality " scandal " is useful in con-
versation because the primitive basis for friendship is a
common hostility to some third. So the cementing of amity
between groups, by war against a common enemy, provides only
primitive friendship.

1 42 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS

union. In 1870 the Russian friendship still
continued to make Prussians think kindly of
their Eastern neighbour. As late as 1884 Bis-
marck was able to procure a secret treaty of the
new Germany with Russia, and this remained in
force until 1890 ; although national sentiment in
Prussia had by that time completely transferred
affection to Austria.

In much the same way we can watch the
Prussian sentiment changing with respect to
Austria. In 1849 tne German peoples were
much agitated by their attempts to consolidate
their union in spite of an obsolete dynastic system.
Prussia was regarded by many as the friend of
democracy, or at least of progress, as opposed to
the absolutism of Austria. The Governments of
Germany were in difficulties owing to popular
excitement ; but a rivalry appeared none the less,
and in 1850 the small German States were with
Prussia against Austria, Hanover, Saxony, Bavaria,
and Wiirtemberg. In July of that year the
Prussians, under vague threats from Russia and
Austria, were made to feel that their predominance
among Germans was definitely opposed by Austria.
A league was actually formed by Austria, Bavaria
and Wiirtemberg against Prussia (Oct. 1 1, 1850) ;
but by 1 86 1 the Prussians had become deliberal-
ised and the Austrians were playing with the
principles of popular government. In 1862

INTERNATIONAL RIVALRY 143

Bismarck was called upon by King William of
Prussia to give force to the new anti-liberal
regime. At once he took up the solving of the
German problem by " blood and iron " ; but first
German sentiment was stirred by the affair of the
Danish Duchies. The diplomatic subtleties of
Bismarck do not concern us here. It is sufficient
to say that Austria and Prussia found themselves
at one in 1864. It was an accidental difficulty
for Austria, the Magyar disturbances and Italian
sentiment in Venetia, which led to her alliance
with her German rival ; and Prussians seem all
along to have suspected the ultimate designs of
their ally. Feeling against Bismarck and Prussia
ran high in Germany, and in Prussia there was
still a certain suspicion of the high-handed
absolutism of the Chancellor. He continued,
however, to take advantage of Austrian difficulties
at home and of German disunion to take over the
Duchy of Schleswig.1

In 1866 Prussian hostility to Austria resulted
in open war. But Bismarck, and perhaps the
Prussian Conservatives, did not want the ruin of
a kindred nation. It was sufficient, as it seemed,
for Prussian interests if predominance in Northern
Germany was secured. So that the hostility to
Austria was transformed into an affection, which
grew steadily after the peace of July 1866.
1 Convention of Gastein, August 1865.

i44 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS

Prussian hostility to France is an old inheritance
since Napoleon I roused the national spirit by his
success; but by the war of 1870 the Prussians
seem to have convinced themselves that France
was decadent in military power. The enmity
involved in their conception of <c interest " was
therefore transferred to England. Since the
success of the naval scheme in 1900 their sense
of rivalry has implied an opposition to English
naval power, which they felt as an unwarrantable
world-domination hostile to German development.
As the militarism of Prussia seems to us a danger
to European independence, although to the Prus-
sians it seems a bare necessity of their position,
so the naval power of England seems to them a
menace to the weaker nations, although to us it
seems a bare necessity of our life on an island.

The hostilities of emotion through which
England has passed in recent years provide the
same kind of evidence. It is not a matter of
open war. The sense of national rivalry may
not break out into war, and may be all the more
obstructive when it does not. Thus France was
our " natural enemy " for most of the Renaissance
and until the downfall of Napoleon.1 In 1852

1 It is impossible to begin national hostility before that.
The mediaeval wars were not " national," and our kings were
kings of" France." But Stubbs (vide supra, p. 109) preserves
the Napoleonic-Wars attitude in his misinterpretation of
mediaeval " foreign " policy.

INTERNATIONAL RIVALRY 145

our first Volunteer Movement originated in fear
of invasion by the French. Two years after we
were allied with the French in the Crimean War
against Russia. For many years about this period
Russia was our " natural enemy " ; and it was
" proved " that the two Imperial powers in Asia
could not fail to be hostile. France meantime
had come into the Russian orbit, and in 1898 our
" natural " hostility to France showed itself in
connection with the Fashoda episode. A very
few years after, the Entente Cordiale bound us to
France, and we then began friendly arrangements
with Russia. Thus in 1900 our " natural " enemy
was Germany ; and it was proved not merely
that it was for the moment a convenience to be
friendly to France, but that the advanced demo-
cratic peoples of France and England were
"naturally" to be allied.1

All this shows that there is a sense of rivalry
between organised nations which, whether it leads
to war or not, is of immense political importance.
For on it are based the vast expenditure on arma-
ment,2 the panics which disturb industry and the

1 I need not refer to the popular expression of political
rivalry, although it is effective in the formation of general
sentiment. German table-manners and domestic life are
abhorrent to us now as were French manners and " frivolity "
in Nelson's time.

2 How impossible it is to consider the nature of the State
with only a passing reference to " external " relations is seen

L

146 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS

transference, especially where there is compulsory
military service, of countless energies to the mere
waiting for war.

What, then, is the real basis of international
rivalry ? It is unlikely that rivalry is based only
on illusions, although the particular forms which
it takes at certain times are supported by illusion.
Let us therefore examine, first, the current " ex-
planations " of rivalry in which the change of
rivals is admitted, for we cannot count as reason-
able the idea that any rivalry is eternal or funda-
mental or natural. It is only a rivalry based upon
a definite situation which can be worth explaining.

The " inevitable causes " of rivalry usually
referred to are (i) natural expansion and (2)
Evolution. But what is natural expansion ?
We connect it with colonies and " a place in the
sun." It is held to be " natural " that a country
with a high birth-rate should expand: and ex-
panding generally is allowed to mean the extension
of a state-system.1 This must be dealt with

from the fact that taxation based on rivalry (for " defence ")
in every civilised country exceeds taxation for " all internal
functions taken together" (Sidgwick, Elements of 'Politics, Ch. XV.
par. i, note).

1 It is interesting that this " reason " for expansion is new.
The same idea was supported originally by quite a different
"reason/' which still affected Neitzsche. The original "reason"
is to be found in Machiavelli, that it is the nature of the State
to expand (Disc. I. 6, la necessita la conducesse ad ampliare) ; and
the evidence for that is Livy's rendering of Roman history !

INTERNATIONAL RIVALRY 147

abruptly. It cannot follow that, because within
the frontiers of a modern State there are now
more inhabitants than there were, the frontiers
should be enlarged. For, in the first place, no
State has developed fully the land or resources
within its frontiers, and until this is done there
is no valid reason for demanding more. If
there is distress within the frontiers, it is not
due to the compression of the inhabitants. The
implied metaphor is childish and futile. One
would imagine inhabitants to be so thick that they
jostled one another. Distress is due to neglect
of resources and maldistribution of wealth, not
to lack of land. And, secondly, if there are too
many inhabitants within the frontiers they can
easily cross any frontier without the extension of
their own state-system. Against this it is urged
that they are u lost to the State " : by which it is
meant that they cannot be taxed or made to serve
in the army ; and that is no reason for expanding
the State to the detriment of other States. It
may, however, be urged that the " surplus popu-
lation " does not wish to part with its own insti-
tutions ; and that would be a reasonable ground
for their retaining their own law and government.1

1 Either by not naturalising themselves in the new country
or by transforming the institutions of the new country in the
direction they desire. But the whole idea implied in the
word " surplus " is absolute nonsense.

148 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS

But even that would not excuse the conquest of
new lands ; for it is quite reasonable to say that
the surplus population must sacrifice either its
prospects of wealth or its continuance with the
same law and government. The man who is not
willing to sacrifice prospects of greater wealth for
active citizenship in his old State does not value
his citizenship as much as his income ; and the
man who values his citizenship so highly as to
want his State to expand over him wherever he
goes, might reasonably sacrifice a large income to
what he values so highly.

The whole idea of expanding by conquest of
colonies is based upon bad history and obsolete
politics.1 England did not conquer colonies in
order to find room for surplus population, and
the period is long since gone when vast open
spaces could be cc possessed " by conquerors. The
surface of the earth is now politically a whole with
no edges or fringes.2

1 As a fruitful source of war the acquisition of seaports in
the East for trading purposes is one of the most important (cf.
C. W. Eliot, Some Roads Towards Peace, p. 18).

2 Prussian policy still bears the mark of a rather primitive
stage of thought. I do not think that it is simply the state
of war which makes us suspect the Prussian diplomatists of
ambitions in the direction of foreign conquest. They have
learnt, indeed, that such conquest is impossible or in some way
undesirable on the continent of Europe : the difficulty of
treating a group of men and women in Alsace-Lorraine as
conquered property has become evident. But they still seem

INTERNATIONAL RIVALRY 149

But, undoubtedly, if expansion means the taking
over of " spheres of influence " or the superseding

to imagine that colonies should be captured by the strongest
power. Thus they confessed aggressive intentions with respect
to the French colonies.

They appear to imagine that nations inhabiting or govern-
ing much land should be regarded as natural enemies of nations
with less. They seem to think that England " owns " Canada
or Australia and that the ownership can be changed by a
successful war. But Canada and Australia are not patches
of land, they are groups of men and women who are in no
sense owned by the inhabitants of England. Even if they
were under the direct government of London officials, they
could not be counted as property any more than Yorkshiremen,
who are not owned by the offices in Whitehall which collect
taxes or take measures for the military defence of Yorkshire.
I do not know whether Bavaria seems to be a Prussian
possession.

As to colonies which are really inhabited by what we may
call subject races, there may seem to be more ground for the
Prussian idea, since even in England there is much careless
language about " our possessions." But in practice, even in
such cases, we do not treat native races as property.

Such races are ruled by English system of law and govern-
ment for their good and often with the acquiescence of the
majority of the governed. They are not held down by military
force, nor are they in any sense " possessed " by the English
State, even though there may be many evil deeds of dispossession
and tyranny on the part of individual Englishmen.

As a matter of fact the surplus population of Germany has
gone largely to South America and to the United States. It
has not gone to the German " possessions " in Africa or in the
East Indies. And has Germany lost anything by this move-
ment ? She gained the immense development of her Atlantic
trade, which grew quite independently of the strength of the
German Navy or the extent of the German state-system.
Even the diplomatists have never said that the growth of such

150 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS

of a more primitive by a more developed state-
system, then, whether it should occur or not, it is
occurring and is a real basis for rivalry and a
fruitful cause of war.1 In Africa and farther Asia
there is a contact of European States as rivals over
the decrepit bodies of native Governments ; and
we may see a like situation later in some parts of
South America. Why, then, it may be asked,
does one State feel that this sort of expansion on
the part of another is to be opposed ? First,
because States tend to restrict trade in their own
interest in countries over which they expand.
The conception of restricting trade is based upon
the false economics which aims at impoverishing a
prospective buyer.2 When that is no longer used,
expansion will not involve rivalry. And, secondly,
the State " expanding " does undoubtedly aim at
military advantage ; but when the test of value
among States is no longer savage this kind of
expansion will cease. The conclusion is not, of

wealth was due to the Navy : the existence of the wealth was
made an excuse for the Navy, and it has never been shown that
the power of the Navy increased the wealth of Hamburg.

Germany has also gained a solid body of friends in America
in the company of her sons who have lived there for many years.

1 See Eliot's report to the Carnegie Endowment on the
influence of Western ports in China, etc. Also P. S. Reinsch,
World Politics at the end of the 'Nineteenth Century as Influenced by
the Oriental Situation , 1 900.

2 Cf. the French " expansion " into Morocco and the secret
Conventions of 1 904.

INTERNATIONAL RIVALRY 151

course, that there is no reasonable rivalry of the
physical kind, but only that such rivalry is not
natural or inevitable, being simply due to the
undeveloped state of international feeling, which
again is due to the primitive ideas of government
and political institutions.1

As for " Evolution," the word is a sort of
political " black magic." It means nothing and
excuses everything. Even if races were in conflict
for survival, as individuals were once imagined to
be, there is another and a better conflict than the
conflict of brute force. In defiance of Nature, we
men apply to individuals the test of character and
not that of physical force or low cunning. And
if we applied the same sort of test to groups, it
would not follow that a State should be hostile to
another either because of having more or because
of having fewer citizens. Quality, not quantity,
is what we hold best. A small State of fine
citizens is " better " than a large State of fools.
But " Evolution " in such a case is nonsense.
" Survival of the fittest " is an obsolete charm.
When we ask " who are the fittest ? " we are told
" those who survive " ; and when we ask " who
survive ? " we are told " the fittest " ! Obviously,

1 I disagree with Sidgwick here. His conception that the
guiding policy of States with respect to each other should be
non-interference is undeveloped Individualism wrongly applied.
No one now believes that non-interference is the basic principle
in realising even the individuality of persons.

152 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS

then, evolution is neither a justification nor a
decent excuse for national rivalries : for even
if " Nature " tries races in this way, a proposition
by no means proved, we must confess that the
process leaves us without any enthusiasm ; and a
moral politics cannot be based on mere adoration
of natural processes.

Such are the alleged causes of national rivalry.
What are the real causes ? First, there are the
sinister and unmentioned causes. States are often
persuaded into mutual hostility by financiers for
increase in armament trade or for exploiting
natives,1 or by newspapers for copy or sensation ; 2
or peoples are engineered into hostility by a
Government which feels insecure.3 All these are
causes of dangerous rivalries, and they must be
dragged out into the open if we are to distinguish
the reasonable and the natural from the artificial
contrivances of private greed or personal ambition.

There is, however, a reasonable ground for
rivalry. If States are to remain distinct and

1 Cf. The War Traders, by E. H. Porris, where the details
are given of faked information being used by armament firms
to induce Governments to spend more on arms.

2 The Hearst papers are known to have engineered the
Spanish-American War.

3 Napoleon III was eager to maintain military prestige when
his administration was causing discontent. Bismarck, in his
Reminiscences, seems to imply that hostility to France was
useful to him for the same purpose — avoiding internal reform,
Russia has often played the same game.

INTERNATIONAL RIVALRY 153

systems of law and government may continue
to differ, for the advantage of all humanity, the
independence of state-development must be
secured. We have spoken of this above as one
of the guiding conceptions of foreign policy. It
is the reasonable basis underlying the obsolete
methods of a Balance of Power. It is true that
no one State can be allowed to predominate over
all others : it is true that each State must take
measures to secure independent development ; and
it is true that possible danger to such development
comes now from one State, now from another.
The changes in rivalry which we have noticed
above are not unreasonable : it was not foolish
for England to be afraid of Napoleon III in
December 1851, or of Prussian militarism in
1914.

There is rivalry, and so long as States are
conceived as " armed bands," the rivalry will
take a military form. Politically it is not
possible to disarm. That is obvious. But we
do not here depend only upon the wrinkled
and dotard past, which hobbles upon the political
stage. We bow to it and pass on. For there
is a new form of rivalry gradually being sub-
stituted in the minds of citizens for the primitive
rivalry of physical force.

Individuals do not now think it necessary to
preserve their individuality by strengthening their

154 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS

muscles. Indeed, individuality is more prominent
when physical rivalry is set aside : the primitive,
who are able to defend themselves from each
other, are more like one another than the civilised
who have not learnt " self-defence." 1 It is true
that the new kind of rivalry is only possible be-
cause force is exerted by the State to prevent the
old kind from being used. But the point is that
the abolition of the use of private force has not
resulted in less but in more individuality. One
savage is more like another savage in thought and
action than is one civilised man like another.

In the same way military rivalry, so far from
securing distinct, independent and characteristic
development of each State, tends to make all
States more similar. If we wish, therefore, to
secure a complete individuality for our State we
must contrive to use some other than the
military-economic rivalry.2 The argument is
that the physical form of rivalry does not effect
the purpose for which alone it could be justified.

1 The psychological law would be that attention to defence
inhibits characteristic development, by concentrating all force
upon one purpose. That purpose being the same for all who want
to defend themselves, they tend to become all like one another.

2 Hegel's argument for war thus falls to the ground. He
says " individuality must create opposition and so beget an
enemy" (Phil, of Right, § 324); but if that were so we
should still need personal enmity for development of character.
His history is simply out of date : but he wrote, of course, in
1820.

INTERNATIONAL RIVALRY 155

We put aside war, then, not because we disap-
prove of war, but because warfare and the prepara-
tion for warfare do not result in independent
development.

What other form of rivalry is possible ? The
future will indicate that more fully ; but we can
at present see that it is on the lines of specialisa-
tion of function. Individuality of persons has been
secured by specialisation of knowledge and special-
isation of business. So also " individuality " of
groups will be secured by developing the special
function of each group in the world polity.
This specialisation began with the world-situation
reviewed above. England before the war was
supplying some needs to the whole world, and
Germany others. Russia was supplying some,
and France others. This situation in times of
peace would tend to develop. And not only in
industry but also in ideas is there specialisation of
function.1 The result upon the political institu-

1 The war has set back the development of this tendency.
Every State has had to become suddenly more self-sufficing, i. e.
more isolated, /'. e. more primitive. In England we have had
to begin the manufacture of articles which before the war we
could obtain more economically from Germany. The war-
party in Germany foresaw this situation and, by way of
preparing for war, set themselves to resist the civilising
tendency to specialisation of function. Cf. von Billow's
Imperial Germany. The author (p. 209) actually prides himself
on resisting the development of German industry because it
would make Germany dependent on other States.

156 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS

tions of the different groups would be inevitable,
and they would come more closely into contact
and organise themselves more adequately in in-
dependence of one another. They would be
rivals, but not in warfare.

It may not be correct to use the word rivalry in
this sense. If that is so and the older meaning is
the only one possible, then perhaps we shall do
without any rivalry. But we continue to use the
word State and nation in senses unknown to our
grandfathers, and so perhaps we may use rivalry
to indicate the independent development of groups
organised for different purposes.

Again, it might be argued that the new and
civilised rivalry cannot replace the older rivalry
of force until some superior force above all the
States is established ; on the ground that the
individual does not use force to protect his in-
dividuality only because another force, the State's,
is used instead. But such an argument overlooks
the fact that force used by the State is really based
upon the changed attitude of individuals.

The new idea of individuality comes first,
although vaguely, and then the use of physical
force is given up by individuals. The conception
of the relation between men changed and was no
longer that of purely physical conflict : then only
could the new political situation come about.
And the same is true of group character or of

INTERNATIONAL RIVALRY 157

national independence. A new conception of what
these are must come first ; and then we may con-
sider the formation of an international police
force. New standards of value in the rivalry
of States, not those of purely economic-military
kind, must take hold of the minds of the average
citizens, and then we may begin to speak of laying
down arms. For if an international force were
now established it would probably be used only
to perpetuate the brute conflict of power which is
the greatest obstacle to the progress of civilised
life. We must begin, then, from some such idea
as this : there is no " danger " to national de-
velopment in the increase of interdependence
between States, as there is no danger to personal
individuality in the doctor's depending on the
shoemaker for his shoes. And the sudden
refusal of the shoemaker to supply the doctor
probably hurts the individuality of the shoe-
maker just as much as that of the doctor.1 It

1 Independence is a means to individuality of the person or
the group. If characteristic development is secured, "in-
dependence " may be disregarded. The old individualism
obscured the issue by the emphasis on non-interference — a
purely negative concept. Difference is promoted by differentia-
tion of function ; but even independence, in a new sense of
the word, may be said to be also promoted by the same
differentiation.

A person is independent in two senses : (i) when he does
everything for himself and also (2) when he does what he is
capable of doing. The former (primitive) is the independence
of the stone, the latter (organic) the independence of the eye.

158 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS

is the purpose of foreign policy, then, to promote
the specialisation of function between States as a
f means to real individuality of character. For
isolation is not true independence ; or, at least,
the most valuable form of independence cannot
be arrived at by isolation, since isolation preserves
only material independence, whereas co-operation
secures independence of thought and character.
One of the chief purposes of foreign policy must
be the preservation and development of this in-
dependence ; but it cannot be conceived any
longer in terms of the Renaissance philosophy
or the individualistic enlightenment. It will be
seen to be in its finest and most human form
when it is understood to be simply the complement
or corollary of interdependence.

We are at present working in this matter with
two irreconcilable hypotheses. Foreign Policy,
in all States, is based at once on the old idea of
rivalry and on the new. It promotes military
spying and commerce ; but one or the other
must cease, if we are not to continue our vicious
circle of war after war.

But the eye does not lose independence because it cannot
hear ; for in fact the attending to many functions causes a
lessened ability to do what is most suitable and therefore most
pleasant. The man who might be an artist is not more
independent in life on a desert island where he has to spend
most of his time killing and cooking : he has less real freedom
to develop what is characteristic of him.

CHAPTER IX

THE MORALITY OF NATIONS AT WAR

AT certain crises the conflicting interests of
States lead to war : and war is not an appeal to
any moral criterion.1 Either the conflicting in-
terests cannot be arranged according to the
accepted view of moral values, or there is no
accepted view according to which it may be plain
to all which interest ought to give place to the
other. The interests which are in conflict may
be either material (economic) or non-material
(independence, reputation, development, etc.) ;
but even non-material interests leading to war
do not make war in itself a moral relationship.
For war, being conflict between groups, is essen-

1 I take it for granted that no one seriously believes that
in a contest of physical force the man or men who are better
morally are necessarily victorious. Such a belief would be
a survival of the mediaeval Trial by battle, etc. All that
is decided in war is strength (military or economic) ; and the
world is not necessarily better morally because the stronger
survive, except according to the confused Evolutionism of the
nineteenth century, which does not distinguish a moral value
from a physical, or seeks to " transcend" both in an imaginary
Absolute.

*59

160 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS

tially a setting aside, for the moment and so far
as the conflict is concerned, of moral criteria as
to which interest should prevail. But the state
of belligerency is complex, and many things occur
which are not warlike acts : therefore, even when
the interests of States are in conflict to such an
extent that war becomes possible, the relationship
of States does not cease to be moral. If war
were mere conflict of brute force, then it would
be the end of moral relations, at least between
the belligerents ; but, in fact, it is unusual in
modern times to find States in conflict of an
unrestricted kind, and so long as groups of men
are related otherwise than in physical conflict,
their relations are in that degree moral. And
not only are some moral relationships preserved
between belligerent States,1 but even in the actual
exercise of force a most important moral element
is to be found.

The first and most important fact is that even
the use of force does not generally compel or
induce a civilised group to the use of unlimited
force. We must, therefore, discover what the
limits imposed are, and then endeavour to explain
the grounds on which such limits rest. For to
say that the contending parties are, at least, not
supposed to go to any lengths, implies that we
do not imagine that even in actual conflict the
1 In truces, exchange of prisoners, etc.

MORALITY OF NATIONS AT WAR 161

opponents are without some moral regard for one
another : they have not become purely animals
or purely machines. In some ways they may
be purely opponents in force or cunning ; but
in some ways they remain still obedient to a
moral criterion : so long, that is, as " there are
some things which no fellow can do."

Of the ameliorations of war, as they are called
in International Law, there are two main classes.1
Some relate to the use of force or guile as
between combatants, and others relate to a
distinction made in comparatively recent years
between combatants and non-combatants. This
is not the place to describe in detail the con-
ventions of war, for our purpose is to discover
what moral relationship is implied in the existence
of any such conventions, and not merely to classify
or to prove that such-and-such conventions exist.

It will be sufficient to give some examples of
the restrictions usually supposed to be made
even in the exercise of physical force. Poisoned
weapons are not supposed to be used ; explosive
bullets are not to be used, nor those which
expand on entering the body. There are certain
buildings, conveyances and persons marked with
the Red Cross : these must not directly be
attacked or destroyed. When a combatant is

1 See Lecture VII in Maine's International Law, and J. E.
Holland, A Lecture on the Brussels Conference 0/1874, publ. 1 876.
M

1 62 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS

wounded he must be given " quarter," and may
even be cared for by those of the opposite side.
Prisoners of war are not supposed to be killed.
As for the distinction of combatants and non-
combatants, it is a strange development in the
history of warfare : at present it is usually sup-
posed that only those in a recognised uniform
may be directly attacked ; and these alone, on
the other hand, are allowed to attack in depend-
ence on the conventions covering wounded or
prisoners, for if a non-uniformed assailant be
captured he may be executed as a criminal.

The greater number in any civilised group —
chiefly, of course, women and children — are sup-
posed not to be directly attacked. They are not
to be killed or enslaved. War is, therefore, now
defined in International Law, not as the conflict
between States but as the conflict between the
armed representatives of States.

Property also is protected by certain conventions
in time of war. As between belligerent States,
private property on land is not to be directly
destroyed or taken. Private property on the sea
is not quite so well protected in the mind of the
time ; and the point is, not that there are not
established " conventions," but that the restriction
of physical force in this matter is not supposed to
be so great.

The existence of war changes the relations

MORALITY OF NATIONS AT WAR 163

even between States which are not at war and
those which are at war. Neutrality has become
a very elaborate section in International Law.
The belligerents are not supposed to interfere
with certain Neutral rights even in the exercise
of physical force against their opponents. In all
this we have not merely much legal interest but
the delicate moral issue as to the reason for re-
strictions of force. We do not mean the power
of conventions : that is no reason. The question
is, Why were such conventions ever made ? Why
do we suppose that even the omnipotent State
should not use every force ? And if not every
force, why even such force as is now used ? For
nearly every argument against poisoned weapons
or explosive bullets is equally valid against
modern shell-fire or torpedoes. And if non-
combatants are to be recognised, why would not
ten combatants on either side be sufficient ? The
idea is ludicrous ; but that is only because the
whole conception of restricting the use of force
in one way and not in another is ludicrous.

Even the limitation of force in war now
admitted, however, is comparatively recent. The
greater part of the limitations in the matter of
weapons, so far as convention goes, is not older
than the nineteenth century.1 One can hardly

1 Poisoned weapons only forbidden in 1868 by the
Declaration of St. Petersburg. Treatment of wounded agreed

1 64 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS

imagine what happened to the wounded in
Napoleonic and earlier wars. There was no
Geneva convention, no Red Cross, no elaborate
ambulances. The surgery was primitive, and the
care of the diseases incidental to a campaign
practically non-existent. On warships the situa-
tion was even more terrible than on land ; but
here, of course, we have made less change.

Non-combatants were not likely to fare well
when a town was taken by storm, as we may
judge from Wellington's remark that he had for-
bidden his soldiers to sack and murder in Spain.1
The ancient privilege of conquest was revived at
the taking of Pekin by the European nations :
but this was generally supposed to be retaliation,2

to only in 1864, by the Geneva Convention. This was
directly due to private energy in publishing descriptions of
the battlefields of Solferino, etc. (1861). Holland, loc. cit.,
and Maine, loc. cit., p. 199.

To go further back, our Black Prince caused innumerable
murders at Limoges. Henry V executed prisoners. The
sack of Magdeburg is famous, in which of 25,000 only 2,000
were left when the house-to-house murdering was over.
Before the " Red Cross " a black flag was used to cover the
work of surgeons, etc., but it was an inadequate protection.
The new Geneva convention (Red Cross) was vigorously
opposed by military men as tending to lessen the effectiveness
of their action (for details and proof, see Holland, loc. a'/.).

1 He announced to the people, however, that if there was
any armed resistance among those not soldiers he would
" totally destroy their towns and hang up all the people
belonging to them."

2 Retaliation or retorsion is morally interesting, as the

MORALITY OF NATIONS AT WAR 165

and most modern armies would not sack or
murder in a city taken by storm.1 Something
has been achieved in recent years, after the long-
lasting brutalities of human history. Indeed, the
farther we go back in history, the more unlimited
is the use of available force in war : until we
come to a time when the only limitation was
made in the interest of the conquerors, who
would not slay if they could enslave, and would
not burn what they could use. But, whatever
the reason, as soon as the limitation of force sets
in, it becomes a habit.

We should have to go very far back indeed to
find absolutely unlimited exercise of force, and in
those days States could not be held to exist ;
so that we may say that war as an official conflict
has always implied some restriction in the use of
force. Long before conventions existed there
were limits imposed by general sentiment which
could not be over-ridden even by conquerors
except in the supremest crises. It is not usual to
poison food or water, to assassinate generals, or

pain never falls on the actual culprits. In it the citizen is
treated as identical with the State : what any agent of his
State does, any citizen is supposed to have done. A modifica-
tion of this primitive morality is necessary (Westlake, Coll.
Papers, p. 259 seq.).

1 Murder and outrage were common incidents in the
Balkan Wars of 1912, 1913. See Report on Balkan Wars
(Carnegie Endowment).

1 66 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS

to do certain quite possible but nameless things
which would bring a war to speedy termination.
It is quite possible to think of innumerable acts
which even primitive States could have done to
be successful in their wars, and they have not
done them. It is possible still more nowadays
to imagine engines of destruction or modern
subtleties which could quite easily give us the
victory — but we dare not use them.1

A gradual amelioration of war has excluded the
possibility of certain weapons or the prevalence
of certain actions.2 We are in advance of our
forefathers, at least in sentiment : since we gener-
ally feel that there are some things which should
not be done even when we are at war, although
this feeling is always in danger of being sub-
merged by a sudden access of fear. But although
we may congratulate ourselves on the moral
progress implied in the Red Cross and the
abolition of poisoned weapons, we must also
recognise that the present conventions are only

1 When war has destroyed the normal inhibitions upon
which civilisation depends, there is no telling how far men
may go. Poison is already used ; there are some few, not less
effective, brutalities which have not yet been used in this most
" civilised " war. One cannot well describe them ; but it is
perfectly possible to prevent the return of the wounded to
the firing line. Will calculating barbarism, using modern
science, break down that inhibition too ?

2 The number of these actually excluded lessens as the
present war goes on ; but there are still a few left.

MORALITY OF NATIONS AT WAR 167

a few successful attempts surviving from the
innumerable desires of idealists to keep physical
force in control of moral sentiment. The record
is long of the attempts to ameliorate war which
have failed.

The crossbow was once forbidden, but it came
into use : x the musket seemed barbarous to men
who used only bows and arrows ; but it was soon
common in every army. Shells were supposed
to be too barbarous in 1789, but all armies now
use them. The rifle, which replaced the old
smooth-bore gun, was regarded as hardly to be
used in civilised warfare, but it now is everywhere.
Men tried to forbid the use of the bayonet ; but
that too was introduced, and first made common
by Frederick the Great of Prussia. Torpedoes
were at first thought barbarous, but were soon
adopted by all nations. So that, clearly, two
forces have been at work in the making of the
present situation — an ever-increasing power of
destruction and a sentiment which has only been
partly successful in limiting the use of that power.
If the sentiment had been stronger we should not
now be using the bayonet or the torpedo, and
who can tell what other mechanical devices ? If
the sentiment had not been so strong we should

1 Pope Innocent III forbade the use of instruments to cast
stones, etc. (artem illam mortiferam et odibilem ballistariorum),
at least against Christians.

1 68 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS

now be assassinating generals, poisoning weapons,
and slaughtering the wounded.

He would indeed be a subtle historian who
could explain why the civilised State is willing to
use certain methods and not certain others in
destroying its " enemies " : but whatever the
explanation, the distinction exists, and not all the
violation of this or that convention can quite put
us back to the unlimited use of force. This,
however, has not made much real difference to
the destructiveness of war. On sea, when Nelson
lay alongside his opponent and both pounded
away at point-blank range there was less destruc-
tion of life than when, as in the Falkland Islands
battle, ships travelling at about twenty-five miles
an hour sank German ships also travelling at that
rate at a range of over eight miles, by firing
shell in arcs so high that they could have passed
over Mont Blanc. In an action between evenly
matched fleets there is no reason why any one at
all should survive.

On land, between dawn and sunset on March
10, 1915, at Neuve Chapelle 2,337 men anc^
1 90 officers were killed : x and we were victorious.

1 Details in Sir John French's despatch, published April
1 5th-

Officers. Men.

Killed .... 190 2>337

Wounded .... 359 8,174

Missing .... 23 I>?28

Total . . . 572

MORALITY OF NATIONS AT WAR 169

What the enemy lost we do not know. This is
only a trivial episode in a really civilised war.
In conflict with slightly less effective weapons,
however, Bulgaria suffered the deaths of 44,313
men and 579 officers killed, in the two wars of
1912 and 19 13.* It is clear that they are not so
civilised in the Balkans, although they assisted the
civilised methods of destruction by the killing of
sick and wounded.2

In destroying more than lives we are also
very much advanced. When men built Rheims
Cathedral or Ypres Town Hall they had not
the power to destroy them except with much
hard labour : now a few well-planted shells lay
flat the careful work of many years.

The power of destruction is greater now than
it ever has been, in spite of all conventions and

1 The whole population of Bulgaria before the wars was
4,337,516, of whom perhaps one-quarter (1,084,376) were
capable of bearing arms. The losses were —

Killed. Wounded. Missing.
War against Turkey —

Officers . . . 313 915 2

Men .... 29,711 52,550 3,193

War against the "Alliei" —

Officers . . . 266 816 69

Men .... 14,602 50*303 4>56o

Totals (Officers) . 579 1,731 71

„ (Men) . . 44,313 102,853 7,753

44,892 104,584 7,824

2 For all details see Report on Balkan Wars (published by
the Carnegie Endowment, Washington, D.C.).

i yo THE MORALITY OF NATIONS

sentiments. And there is no reason whatever
why our power should not increase even more
rapidly in the near future. The probability is
that we shall in the next few years be able to
destroy much more effectively and at a still
greater distance. We may be able to prevent
the return of wounded to the firing line. It
would shorten wars. We may even be able to
destroy whole towns at one blow. It would
make victory more certain. One hardly likes
to mention what may easily become possible in
the near future if States really give their minds
to the continuance of war.

Again, the calculus of pain is difficult to make ;
but, allowing for the numbers engaged and the
effectiveness of the instruments employed, it is
clear that in recent wars the pain has been much
increased, in spite of all our conventions and all
our kindness to the wounded. That pain, more
even than the deaths of many, is a legacy of
warfare such that it is infinitely multiplied among
our more sensitive populations. The numberless
and subtle terrors which may attend on all — not
merely on soldiers — from the air, from bombard-
ment at fantastic distances, from chemical poisons,
from skilfully manipulated disease — all this the
future holds in store for us, unless perhaps the
restricting sentiment which has so ineffectively
limped behind our intellectual ability gains some

MORALITY OF NATIONS AT WAR 171

new strength. That only can keep us from the
use of nameless deeds : but it is a delicate growth,
and can easily become callous to the death and
maiming of millions. That sentiment, however,
has already done something ; and it is difficult to
explain why it has not done more.1

1 -fj 2A.7ris fieyaXr), It was when war was at its worst that
Hugo de Groot made the world listen to his idea of limiting
force ; so now, bad as things seem, the new sentiment may
rise.

Compare " The Evolution of Peace " (Essay VI in T. J.
Lawrence's Essays on some disputed Questions of International Law,
2nd ed. 1883). From 1880-1885 in wars between civilised
nations 2,000,000 men were killed. Russell is quoted, from
the Times, on the battlefield of Sedan : " Masses of coloured
rags glued together with blood and brains and pinned into
strange shapes by fragments of bones. Men's bodies without
heads, legs without bodies, heaps of human entrails attached
to red and blue cloth and disembowelled corpses in uniform."
Vice of all kinds arises in the heat of war — lust, private
murder, theft, hate and brutishness. Insanity is more frequent
in our more civilised noises of war. No one has yet put on
record the nature of the stench arising from decaying corpses in
Poland and France owing to the rapidity with which civilised
nations can destroy life.

Compare also Ch. XI in the Collected Papers of J. West-
lake (Camb. 1914), on War: the rules of war, considered as
Laws, where it is argued that the sentiment for restricting
force is less in modern popular States. There is " a public
impatience of any restrictions." The important German theory
of necessity is stated in full. Professor Lueder is quoted (from
Holtzendorf's Handbuch des Volkerrecht) as saying that " ravage,
burning and devastation, even on a large scale, or of a whole
neighbourhood and tract of country . . . may be practised " ;
— when the " necessity " demands it or even when the
resistance is " frivol." This is called Kriegsraison (as opposed

172 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS

Even if war may be supposed to be necessary
or inevitable — a proposition we do not even con-
descend to argue about — still, it would not follow
that this or that instrument of destruction was
necessary or inevitable. If a shell is an inevitable
exercise of force, why is not a poisoned weapon
inevitable or the murder of wounded ? We
" draw the line " somewhere. Why draw it
where we now do ? Indeed, when cavalry
generals assert that war must be the ultimate
test of the conflicting interests of States, they do
not commonly define what they mean by war.
War might mean very much more than it does
in the exercise of the " arbitrament of the
sword " ; but it might also mean very much less
than it does. In which sense is it " inevitable " ?
Is it inevitable that millions of men should fight ?
Why not that women and children also should ?

The answer to all these problems is a simple
one. It is not direct : it implies much which

to Kriegsmanier (law of war). It is clear that the judgment
as to when it is necessary and when the resistance of the
opposite side is " frivol " must be that of the commander.
Besides that, Westlake shows that as no State goes to war
except by necessity, necessity is always present to excuse any
violence as soon as there is war. " But," says Westlake, " it
need not be greatly feared that Professor Lueder's own
Government will ever give effect to his doctrine by ordering
the devastation of a whole region as an act of terrorism."
This was published in July 1914. See the Bryce Report
(published May 1915) on what was done in August 1914.

MORALITY OF NATIONS AT WAR 173

cannot be put into words ; but it shows at least
why the sentiment which has excluded poison
has not excluded cordite.

The truth is that our intellectual progress is
immense, and our moral progress ludicrously
small. Our concepts governing Nature are
immensely advanced since the days of Greek and
Roman ; but in governing human action we are
using obsolete and inadequate theories. Moral
progress, however, does not consist of an increase
in good intentions. The attention given to cul-
tivating goodwill has indeed been one of the
direct causes of our moral incompetence ; for it
has involved a neglect of knowledge. And it is
our moral knowledge which is deficient. We do
not know what actions are right and what are
wrong, and why : or at least we have made no
noticeable advance upon our great-grandfather's
conceptions in this matter. The old issues have
not been reconsidered and new issues have not
been faced. But it is moral progress only which
will master and subdue our increasing ability to
destroy.

So obsessed are we with Kantian Pietism in
philosophy, or Hegelian confusion of everything
in an Absolute, that it is even misleading to
speak of moral progress. We do not mean that men
should feel more virtuous or should become more
saintly than their grandfathers ; we mean that men

174 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS

must leave good intentions to take care of them-
selves and acquire a knowledge of moral facts by
the same methods which have been successful in
physical science — by direct inquiry into evidence
and the making of certain and universally valid
conclusions. We shall at least have to avoid
taking it for granted that conflicting interest be-
tween groups makes it inevitable that men should
use every power in overcoming. We shall at least
discuss, what many appear to take for granted,
whether the State has not a higher purpose than
even its own self-preservation : and perhaps it
may be whispered that in the case of divided
allegiance, when a man finds his duty to his State
in conflict with other duties, it need not necessarily
follow that his duty to his State should take
precedence. All kinds of accepted moral plati-
tude will have to be dragged out into the open :
and we shall stand up at last in our own right to
give judgment upon the State. But what solution
we find for these problems will depend upon a
judgment of evidence : and until we begin to
understand what the evidence is, we cannot even
approach a conclusion. The empty aspirations of
sentimentalists are of no more moral worth than the
submissions of the economists to " natural law."

The present situation, then, in the morality of
nations or States has not abolished the use of
physical force. Normally the citizens of different

MORALITY OF NATIONS AT WAR 175

States trade with each other or interchange ideas,
in dependence on a moral attitude not essentially
different from that of fellow-citizens in the same
State. But at certain times it seems impossible
to maintain that attitude. Perhaps the interests
of the organised groups are in conflict, perhaps
one group. is aggressive, perhaps all groups are
hypnotised by fear — whatever the reasons, real or
imaginary, for the declaration of war — war is
declared. Even that, however, does not altogether
destroy the moral relationship of the combatants,
since it is felt, however vaguely, that " there are
some things that no fellow can do." l That is to
say, we treat our enemies as something more
than beasts or machines ; which implies that we
continue to treat them as moral beings. This
restricting sentiment is a comparatively recent
growth, and its effectiveness is endangered not
only by the tides of passion or fear which arise
in war, but also by the unparalleled increase in
intellectual power over natural forces. It is of
little value that we deny ourselves the use of the
crossbow if we can use the rifle ; and it will be
of little value that in the future we may deny

1 It would be an interesting moral investigation to discover
how far the average soldier thinks it possible to go, or how
far the average citizen thinks the State can command him to
go, or how far the women of a State are willing that their
defenders should go. Defence would clearly be more adequate
if it were more deadly.

176 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS

ourselves the use of dumdum bullets if we can
use modern chemicals.

The morality of nations can only survive if we
are able to subordinate our power over Nature to
our knowledge of man. For the power over
Nature is morally colourless. The same ability
which gives us an exquisite shell might give
us greater comforts in peace. Which way the
ability is used depends entirely on our conceptions
of the nature of man in society and of what is
worth while in life. And such conceptions are
not inspired or intuitive. They are the results of
intellectual labour. The prime need, then, of the
present is a continued and universal investigation
into our moral conceptions, into the nature of
citizenship, of the State and the relationship
between States. We have been so obsessed with
physical science that we have neglected to develop
the other realms of knowledge. In material
power we are immeasurably superior to our
grandfathers, in political and moral thought
we stumble through primaeval darkness.

In the morality of warfare, however, it is not
simply a question of searching in the dark. One
principle at least stands out from the facts we
have considered. It is not very definite, perhaps,
and appears rather as a vast figure in the darkness
of our international morality, whose nature is
rather guessed at than understood. But it is

MORALITY OF NATIONS AT WAR 177

there clearly enough for all practical purposes.
That principle is the basis of all convention and
of all restriction of physical force.

The moral relationship of nations cannot begin
with agreed conventions nor even with the en-
forcement of such conventions. It must begin
with a firm establishment among the citizens, at
least of civilised nations, of the attitude of mind
and the habit of action which alone make any
conventions possible. If there is anything which
stands out from the facts we have recited it is
that there are innumerable acts which no civilised
nation could do which are not covered by any
convention. Destroy every vestige of the Hague
Conferences and we should still find that warfare
was not the unlimited exercise of force. There
is something stronger than the sentiment of
respect for wounded or for non-combatants,
something which survives even when a calculat-
ing brutality throws these to the winds, something
which gives pause even to the conventional
modern barbarian, who is barbarian by vicious
argument and not by accidental impulse. It is
the acquired habit of generations. Upon that
alone we may rely for the security of many
limitations of force which were not mentioned at
the Hague ; and upon that really depends the
security even of such conventions as are con-
scious. For many generations, unconsciously, we

178 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS

have simply put aside as utterly impossible certain
actions which were quite common in primitive
times ; and some actions at least no nation would
dare to do. How secure the acquired habit is,
one cannot tell. A great war, great passion and
great fear, endanger old inhibitions. The strain
may set us back to utter barbarism. But so far
we are safe : and we are safe only so long as
acquired habit makes it impossible to use certain
forces. The line of progress, therefore, is the
securing of this habit of mind and action, in spite
of all temptations to retaliate, and the deliberate
increasing of the number of those acts which
habit makes it impossible to do.

CHAPTER X

PEACE RELATIONS

WE may presume that, in spite of occasional
wars, peace is now the normal situation between
most States. That it is still an armed peace is
true, but it is peace. The situation, however,
needs some examination, both because (i) its
nature is entirely different from any peace which
preceded 1850, and because (2) ordinarily the
word " peace " is supposed to mean only the
negative of war. But, conceived as a Renaissance
or a mediaeval cessation of hostilities, modern
peace cannot be understood ; and so long as we
continue to imagine war to be a time for positive
action and peace only a time for doing nothing,
so long will the old attractiveness of war continue.
For men and women, though incurably lazy during
most of life, delight in occasional fits of energy ;
and peace, being conceived to deny energy, is
regarded as something unworthy of the higher
aspirations of man.

Sentimentalists, indeed, have made too much
of peace. We are speaking here not of the

179

180 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS

supposed beauties or delights of peace, but of
its commonplace nature. And first it is necessary
to recognise that the contrast between peace and
war, as it appears to the popular imagination, is a
result of false history. Not only is it false to
say that war is a period of activity ; it is a direct
reverse of the truth. In periods of war less,
not more, is done ; and preparation for war is a
well-known cause of the inertia and idleness
during years of peace.1 In peace much more is
achieved in producing and using all the higher
resources of the civilised life. And again, not
merely is less done in war, but less need be done.
The activities essential to the prosecution of war
are comparatively simple ; but in peace there is
very much to be done. How, then, it may be
asked, does the morality of a nation seem to receive
new impetus from war, in the devotion to unselfish
ends and the self-sacrifice incidental to bearing
arms ? 2 For in peace it seems that men seek
only their own private interests and do nothing
for the State : or parties pursue their programmes
without subordination to a higher loyalty. But in

1 Thus Bacon says, " warlike nations are lazy." Essay on
Empire.

2 The misrepresentation ot war is largely due to the ignor-
ance of professed philosophers. Hegel makes the army the
highest essence of the State, and he says, " The military class
is the class of universality," which, besides being an obscure
compliment, is also false (Phil, of Right, § 327).

PEACE RELATIONS 181

\var all. this is changed. Therefore war is some-
times said to be a moral tonic, in so far as it rouses
men to unselfishness or the facing of danger :
peace seems to mean inertia or egoistic activity.
We cannot deny the truth of this, but the
reason for it is instructive. That reason is the
undeveloped political imagination. The needs of
peace are more pressing, more various and more
exalting than those of war ; but few are able even
to see them. The moral perception is obscured
by conventional ideas ; and indeed the senti-
mentalism of the advocates of peace is as nothing
by comparison with the sentimentalism of those
who accept the ancient idea that the finest service
of the community is the bearing of arms. There
are opportunities enough for unselfishness, public
service, and even danger or death, in the service
of the State in times of peace ; but few see them :
and this because we do not really consider what
we mean by peace, but leave it to mean only
cc not war." We do not see that modern peace is
not anything specially virtuous or sanctimonious,
but only an opportunity for a life of full and
varied activity. That the opportunity has not
been used by very many may be true : it
may even be true that such opportunity will
never be used. We cannot tell. But it is
nothing against an opportunity of this kind that
men are too undeveloped to use it : just as it is

1 82 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS

nothing against wealth that those who possess it
seem to find time hanging on their hands. A
subtler imaginative development uses great
opportunities more fully and makes much even
of very limited means. So it is with the vast
majority of the so-called civilised : their con-
ceptions of what is enjoyable are indications of
the undeveloped imagination. Men do not lack
leisure so much as they lack knowledge of what
to do with it if they have it. Put a savage
in a theatre or a library and he will be " bored "
until he can scalp some one : give the semi-
civilised peace and they will long for war. The
reason is that they cannot see what may be done
unless what is to be done is very simple and
obvious. It is their understanding of peace itself
which is at fault.1

What, then, is modern peace ? The answer
is to be found partly, as we have already said,
in the complex interchange of goods and ideas
under the influence of the various ^institutions
other than States, which in modern times have
become international. This has affected the
political situation so as to make it more difficult

1 " Till all the methods have been exhausted by which
Nature can be brought into the services of man, till society is
so organised that every one's capacities have free scope for their
development, there is no need to resort to war for a field in
which patriotism may display itself" (Green, Principles of Pol.
ObL, §171).

PEACE RELATIONS 183

for the State to pass either from peace to war
or from war to peace. It is said of organisms
that the higher or more complex they become,
the more difficult is any structural rearrangement
to meet a new environment. And however that
may be, the complex institution is certainly less
adaptable. It is easier for Serbia to pass either
from peace to war or from war to peace than
it is for England. There is less dislocation in
an agricultural than in an industrial country, and
in proportion as the occupations of peace become
more diverse and more specialised, in that pro-
portion the State suffers by declaring war. For
modern peace is the condition or opportunity
for the exercise of very complex interdependent
functions, political, industrial and cultural ; and
the peace which preceded the Napoleonic wars
was, therefore, quite different from the peace
which preceded the present war, at least as re-
gards the more developed States. It must be
recognised, therefore, that the very necessities
of modern life make peace so full of diverse
activities that war becomes more and more
dangerous to civilised life as civilised life becomes
more complex.

But not only industrial complexity separates
modern from ancient peace. It was, or will be,
a new intellectual period.

The peace preceding this war, at least as

1 84 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS

between States which we have called " modern,"
had lasted from 1871 to 1914. That alone would
be sufficient to prove it a unique phenomenon
in European history ; and during those years the
mental and bodily activities of European men
and women were habituated to the situation. So
consolidated had the peace become that even
modern war could not set back belligerents to
the state of complete severance which supervened
in wars of the non-modern period. For example,
in 1904, in the midst of the Russo-Japanese
war, Russians and Japanese met at the Scientific
Congress at St. Louis, U.S.A.1 It would not be
difficult to quote examples of the same sort even
in the present embittered hostility.2

During the period 1871-1914 populations in-
creased, wealth not only increased but was more
subtly and effectively organised according to the
principles of the joint-stock company, the mastery
over Nature and the supply of human needs
developed immensely ; and in the purely political
sphere every nation became more conscious of

1 Reinsch, Intern. Unions, p. 185. The same sort of
meeting occurred in the wars of the eighteenth century, but
those were dynastic non-popular wars, when feeling did not
run very high.

2 Through the bureaux for communicating with prisoners
of war, and contacts of persons in neutral countries, communi-
cation is not stopped as it used to be. We even hear what is
officially announced to the citizens of the opposing States.

PEACE RELATIONS 185

its special character and every State moved towards
democratic forms of government.

The conclusion as regards morality is some-
what subtle. All the various functionings of
modern peace are really services of the com-
munity as valuable at least as military service
in time of war. In a sense they are not u serving
the State " ; for, as we have seen, " the State "
is not the only organisation for the civilised life ;
but they are not therefore selfish or egoistic
occupations. The idea that what is not done " for
the State " is done for yourself is due to the
old universalism of " the State," and the lack of
any theory as to other social bonds besides that
of citizenship. Even the Socialists have been
misled by obsolete ideas. They have tried to
redeem peace by making all occupations state-
services ; but in that they have accepted the
antiquated conception of the State. Their pur-
pose, however, was reasonable. They saw that
we suffer from lack of social perceptiveness, and
they emphasised the social causes and the social
results of all action.

It is obvious, however, that the business man,
or the engineer, or the writer, has generally no
conception of " service " ; and a higher moral per-
ception is, perhaps, needed in the carrying out
of the various social functions during modern
peace. But the point now is that, whether they

1 86 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS

know it or not, those who perform such functions
are really " serving the community," and it makes
no difference whatever that they make their
own living by it. Nor would making livings
by such service destroy the moral quality of
it, if it were consciously service. As a mere
economic necessity it is not moral ; but as a
conscious fulfilling of social function the special-
isation of modern peace is moral. And perhaps
this is more commonly recognised than is be-
lieved. Nothing is more remarkable in the
period preceding 1914 than the growth of the
social conscience, the emotional perception of
disease and poverty, not as mere opportunities
for benevolence, but as the result of social forces
and as causes of social decay. And this conscience
is not confined within the boundaries of States.
Those who feel any social evils are likely to
sympathise with the citizens of other States who
feel the same evils. A common suffering sub-
ordinates to sympathy distinctions of law and
government, and with this fact the statesman of
the future will have to reckon.

The true nature of modern peace, however,
can best be seen in the direct influence of States
upon one another. The agreement between
States on certain methods of arranging life within
their own borders is one of the most interesting
features of the late nineteenth and early twentieth

PEACE RELATIONS 187

centuries. Fortunately this has been worked out
in detail, and we need not repeat here the results
of the investigations of Professor Reinsch.1

He counts and gives details of twenty-eight
different agreements between States, no one of
which was in existence before the middle of the
nineteenth century. These comprise agreements
on methods of communication, regulation of
trade, of prisons, of sanitation, of police (fisheries
police and suppression of slavery) besides scientific
common work. The point is that this has been
done besides whatever is due to private enterprise
or voluntary associations. The States themselves
have assimilated their institutions or have intro-
duced new methods in common ; and this, not
because of any sentimental regard for co-op'era-
tion, but simply because in practical politics it

1 Public International Unions, by P. S. Reinsch, 1911. The
list includes the International Unions for (i) Telegraphs,
(2) Wireless, (3) Postage, (4.) Railway Freight, (5) Auto-
mobiles, (6) Navigation ; the Agreements on (7) the Metric
System, (8) Industrial and Literary Property, (9) the Publica-
tion of Customs Tariffs, (10) Protection of Labourers, (il)
Sugar, (12) Agriculture, (13) Insurance, (14) Prisons, (15)
Sanitation, (16) Pan-American Sanitation, (17) Opium,
(18) Geneva Convention, (19) Fisheries Police, (20) Pro-
tection of Submarine Cables, (21) African Slave Trade and
Liquor Traffic, (22) White Slave Traffic, (23) South American
Police. And there are the following scientific Unions : (24)
Geodetic Association, (25) Electro-technical Commission, (26)
Seismological Union, (27) Union for the Exploration of the
Sea, (28) Pan-American Scientific Union.

1 88 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS

saves time and money. Thus, the very institutions
which according to the ancient hypothesis were
self-sufficing and complete in themselves, have not
only been influenced by the other interests of
civilised life outside the region of politics, but
in a strictly political sense and in direct depend-
ence upon other States, have adopted governmental
action together. No more glaring contradiction
could be given to the whole of the ancient idea of
the State. It is to be noticed that this is direct
peace policy, and not any mere alliance for war
or for avoiding war.1 The States have preserved
their independence and have acted together. They
have even accepted common institutional arrange-
ments (postage, telegraph, etc.), and their char-
acteristics have not been obliterated. And all
that has been done while the theorists of expansion
and prestige and " vital interests " slept or kept
their one eye upon possible war.

But we can only calculate prospects of the
future by reference to actual achievement. A
peace policy in terms perhaps of the mere avoid-
ance of war but really with a new spirit, is
embodied in the Treaty between the United
Kingdom and the United States of America
signed on September 15, 1914. It provides that

1 Nearly all these Unions or Agreements were originally
suggested or contrived by private citizens who used their
influence upon officials.

PEACE RELATIONS 189

" all disputes between them, of any nature what-
soever, other than disputes the settlement of
which is provided for and, in fact, achieved under
existing agreements between the High Contracting
Parties, shall, when diplomatic methods of adjust-
ment have failed, be referred for investigation and
report to a permanent International Commission
. . . and they agree not to declare war or begin
hostilities during such investigation and before
the report is submitted."1 'The security for such
a policy is not in the signatures, but in the new
attitude which such an agreement indicates. And
such an attitude is the result of the years of peace.
Since the nineteenth century about one hundred
disputes have been decided by arbitration. Arbi-
tration agreements of a limited kind have been
entered into by the United Kingdom with twelve
other States ;2 and in the two years 1913, 1914,
the United States of America entered into Peace
Commission Treaties with eighteen different
States, chiefly on the American continent.3

These are only a few indications of the new
relationship between States ; and from them alone
it would be obvious that the word State refers to

1 Treaty, Art. I.

2 Par/. Papers, Misc. No. 9 (1909), Cd. 4870.

3 Salvador, Guatemala, Panama, Honduras, Nicaragua,
Netherlands, Bolivia, Portugal, Persia, Denmark, Switzerland,
Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Venezuela, Great Britain,
France, Spain, China.

190 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS

something very different from the partly isolated
and mutually suspicious governments of the early
nineteenth century. The institutions themselves
are transformed. From such a transformation
one may judge of the intangible but more im-
portant change which has taken place in the
sentiments of civilised men and women ; and
although the change in actual politics seems to be
small, that change is already having its effect on
the sentiments even of the unthinking.

We may turn now to the problem which is
more fundamental in the study of morality.
What course of action is to be adopted on the
part of institutions so variously related ? It is
generally agreed that a peace policy is the only
one reasonable ; and we need not trouble to
argue with those who advocate, if any do, a
policy of war or of aggression. But while
diplomatists and statesmen proclaim their ad-
hesion to a peace policy, no one seems to inquire
what such a policy would be. And we may be
bold enougl^ to say that, whatever may be true
in future/'there certainly has never yet been a
peace policy. For the avoidance of war is not
a peace policy.

In private as well as in public morality we are
hampered by an obsolete conception of what
morality is. We have inherited, among other
mistakes, the idea that there is some " command "

PEACE RELATIONS 191

implied in the moral " ought " — but that is a
general issue in Ethics which it would be out of
place to discuss here. Along with the idea of
command, however, has gone the use of negatives.
We have been supposed to know from "the
moral law " what we should not do. The Mosaic
code reasonably, considering its date, was chiefly
insistent on the avoidance of certain actions —
swearing, coveting, killing, adultery. Morality
consisted, as it then seemed, in not doing these ;
and although there was a half-hearted command
to do something in loving your parents, this
seemed an exception in a rule of life which was
an inculcation of avoidances. Such, of course,
morality is, in a primitive state of society. Taboo
is the first law ; and society depends upon inhibi-
tions. But by an accident of history this ancient
type of law became the embodiment of morality,
even when the whole structure of society had
changed. Life, therefore, became an obstacle
race. The moral man was he who did not do
things. The good life was a successful avoidance.
It is clear that this is a conception of morality
belonging to a primitive time. Civilised morality,
as Plato and Aristotle knew, is a doing of actions,
not an avoiding. It is positive and not negative.
And moral knowledge consists in knowing what
to do, not what to avoid ; for life is not an
obstacle race, but a fine art. The moral man is

1 92 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS

he who acts, not he who avoids action. The
moral life is varied and complex activity, not the
successful escape from temptation.

The most pernicious effect, then, of the older
conception of morality was that " moral instruc-
tion " definitely became an instruction in immorality.
The knowledge of what not to do involved explain-
ing to children the meaning of vice ; for if your
commands contain words like " adultery," " theft "
and the rest, unless you are to leave them mere
sounds, you must explain to your pupils their full
meaning. But this involves impressing ideas of
vice upon the mind.

This is all criticism of morality in general, and
its importance will depend upon the development
of the same theme in elaborating an art of life for
individuals. That is another issue. / The same
obsolete system, however, has been in vogue in
group-morality. We have been made to feel,
feebly enough, what we must not do, and no one
has considered what we should do. The State in
contact with other States should avoid this and
that ; but no one has said how the State should
act positively in the relation to other States.

Thus there never has been a peace policy
because there has been no conscious official activity
in the complexities of peace. The policy of avoid-
ing war has been the highest imagined ; and it
has had the same effect as the inculcation of

PEACE RELATIONS 193

avoidances in private morality. For the idea of
avoiding an action tends to concentrate the mind
upon that very action. The real thought is given
to the obstacle, and successful policy seems to be
a mere avoidance of it. Hence every one under-
stands how great a benefit the State may derive
from war, in the knitting together of its citizens ;
and no one has ever considered that citizens might
be more closely knit in times of peace. For war
has been considered at least to be action ; but
peace only a time in which not to do what you do
in war. Hence also the peace of 1871 to 1914
has been an armed peace ; and the ancient lie has
survived that one may secure peace by preparing
for war. While the current of events has steadily
transformed society and, with it, its political insti-
tutions, the official mind was still obsessed with
the primitive idea of group- morality. Policy was
negative ; and the danger of war filled the minds
of statesmen who might have turned attention to
new and positive action. With a new conception
of group-morality, however, we should regard it
as our first task to discover what the State should
do in times of peace with respect to other States.
Something is, as we have seen, already done ; but
it is unconscious and hardly part of a settled policy.
A real peace policy would involve the increase of
official activity in the name of the State and for
the benefit of all the citizens, in the direction of

194 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS

benefiting other States and gaining their trust. It
is perfectly well known that some States tend at
certain times to hostile feeling. A peace policy
would involve action in order to correct that, on
the part of the State which is regarded as hostile.
And also perhaps, even if the hostility is between
two neighbouring States, a peace policy would
suggest conciliatory action on the part of some
third. This is not Utopian, nor is it some heroic
morality to which the average citizens could not
rise. It could probably be shown, if we had all
the documents, that such a policy has at least
fitfully been pursued by some statesmen.

In any case, the present situation, even in spite
of a great war, is so different from that of our
grandfathers that we must conceive the moral
relationship of States differently and, with a new
view of what is done and what can be done in
peace, the policy of every State will change. Our
conclusion must certainly be that one of the
changes of recent years is the change in the
meaning of peace.1 War also has changed, as

1 Lest the idea of a peace policy should seem new, it is well
to be reminded that ever since the early years of Christianity
there have been some who stood out against the preparation for
war (cf. E. Nys, Les Origines du droit internationeL Bruxelles,
Paris, 1894, Ch. Ill, "Christianity and War," and Ch. XVII,
" Les Irenistes"). The Friars attempted to preach in this
sense ; and a society, the Fratres Pacis, spread through France
in the twelfth century to protest against the continual mediaeval
wars. At the Renaissance Colet preached directly against

PEACE RELATIONS 195

we have seen, and to write history or to give
ethical judgments which confounded, because of
a mere similarity of name, the events of the
Hundred Years War with the events of the last
few months would be like confusing the Mill
on the Floss with Mill on Liberty. The word
" war " has absolutely changed its meaning.1 And
so has "peace." The new situation has given to
the complex relationship between States which we
call peace a colour which was impossible in our
grandfathers' time. It is as different from their
peace as our finance is different from theirs.

Henry VIIPs war policy. More, in the Utopia, Erasmus and
the other humanists, all protested in the same sense. In later
times the protests were even more frequent, but the historians
have commonly neglected them.

1 For the change in the meaning of war, see Hobhouse,
Morals in Evolution, Pt. I. ch. vi. New Edition, 1915.

CHAPTER XI

NEEDS OF THE STATE

STATES are organised groups, and such groups
are related morally one to another. Such state-
ments do not go beyond the actual facts admitted
by every one nowadays. But the relations have
affected the modern State so that even with respect
to one's fellow-citizens the attitude of many is
somewhat different from what it was in the past.
There is a modern tendency, due in part to the
new situation, which is of extreme importance for
the future. It concerns, first, the bond by which
the modern citizen feels himself held within his
own State ; and, next, the relationship in which
the few at least in every State feel themselves to
be with respect to the citizens of other States.

This is not the place to discuss the appearance
of what has been called the social conscience in
matters of social reform. But it is recognised on
every hand that, whatever the distresses of the
present, the emotional atmosphere with regard to
this has been transformed within the last hundred
years. It has always been recognised that a

196

NEEDS OF THE STATE 197

complex social organisation is accompanied by
much poverty and disease. Attempts have often
been made to deal with these, and generally on
the ground of benevolence or charity. But the
modern social conscience is the indefinite feeling
of discontent even with the partial success of
charity. It is now felt that social distress exists
because of forces which can and must be controlled.
Prevention, not cure, is our purpose. Charity
implies that the recipient has no right to what he
gets ; but now we believe that poverty and disease
imply disregarded rights. We now feel that the
social organism is real and that individuals are
not atomic. We seek the re-establishment of
human association in place of or beside the merely
economic and legal. Contract took the place of
Status. Now Co-operation takes the place of
Contract. The whole community suffers from the
disease and poverty of some ; and the State must
conquer such evils or decay. Social reform,
development of national resources, education,
protection of the weak — all these are matters of
pressing importance.

All these, then, may be " needs of the State/'
But here our subject must be allowed to limit
the discussion of these needs to such as regard
immediately the foreign relations of the State.
Since the State is not isolated, it has needs other
than those of domestic or internal reform. The

198 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS

other needs arise from the situation created by
contact with foreign States ; and they are supposed
to be represented and supplied in our foreign
policy. And further, such needs are our needs—
not the needs of a government. Our honour,
our interests and our obligations are supposed to
govern foreign policy : and the same might be
said of the citizens of every civilised State. Their
needs also are recognised by their representatives
in contact with foreigners. But this is new.

It would not require much reference to ancient
texts to show that foreign policy was once sup-
posed to represent not the needs of the governed
but rather those of the government. Napoleon III
is believed to have been at least not unwilling
to undertake war in order to secure his rule in
France. But now in every country war or peace
is supposed to be contrived in the interests of the
whole group of the citizens. For their sake what
is done had to be done.

And when the result of our foreign policy is
war, the cry is " Your king and country need you."
It may be supposed that the need has existed
before : or shall we say that king and country
can get on very well without us until there is
a war ? And if king and country need us in time
of peace, why has it never been said ? Are the
citizens not needed by the Government for any
common action in times of peace ? Or are they

NEEDS OF THE STATE 199

only sources of income to the Services ? However
that may be, the need is at last acknowledged —
that the State cannot exist without entire depend-
ence on its citizens. And what is needed ?
Military service and whatever in engineering or
manufacture is subservient to this : in a time of
crisis such is really the need. But even the non-
warlike employment of citizens is now recognised
as a need of the State. Education must go on
and the provision of food and clothing : and all
this not for supplying individuals who pay or for
maintaining individuals who work, but " for the
State." This surely involves a change of attitude
at least for the moment : and even if it cannot
last, its effects will endure.

But to say that the king and the country need
us will obscure the issue, if we do not understand
that the need is reciprocal. King and country
need us as we need king and country. What is
endangered is the institution under which we live,
which we fight for because we need it. We need
it to make life endurable or pleasant, or because
we think that there is more hope for our future
in our institution than in others. It is quite clear
that in every civilised nation the conscious citizen
values his political institutions and is willing to do
anything which may be necessary for preserving
them. And the danger from foreign aggression
only makes the value of our own system more

200 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS

obvious. The special need being admitted and
acted upon, we are driven to consider the more
general issue. If these are the needs of the State
at present, what are its needs in normal times with
respect to foreign nations ? And as soon as we
ask, the usual host of antiquated and obsolete
conceptions appear to answer. The felt needs are
not all the real needs ; and the real needs are often
misrepresented by the same limited conception of
the State with which we have dealt above. We
must, therefore, first examine the rektionship of
the citizen to his State, in so far as he may feel his
need supplied by the State for his contact with
foreigners. We must discover what governing
conception makes him support his State in this or
that action with respect to foreign States.

The need with respect to foreign States has
always been conceived in terms of opposition.
The chief need felt normally by the mass of
citizens is the need of independence : this has
been consciously accepted even when other needs
have really been supplied. So that the average
citizen feels his State with regard to foreign
States to be chiefly a defence : hence in action
for his State, in contact with other States, he feels
that the chief need is military. But other needs
have existed, and have actually been supplied,
without impressing the mind so as to correct or
modify the older view of international relation-

NEEDS OF THE STATE 201

ship. We have always needed, although we have
not always wanted, honesty in our dealing with
foreigners, suggestions from foreigners in ideas
of reform, and goods of foreigners for the amen-
ities of life. These are, however, unnoticed and
unconscious needs. What is conscious is our
need of independence, leading directly through
a normal attitude of pure opposition, to such
crises as produce war in generation after gener-
ation. For these wars have all been effects, at
least in part, of the governing conception of what
our State needs and what it is. The situation
is not very different in the various civilised
countries, but we may make our argument more
pointed by confining attention to England. What
do we think England is ? What, in fact, have we
been taught she is ? The answer is to be found
in the established conventions of history.

History is supposed to be the source of patriot-
ism, in the sense that from it one may derive
some rational idea of what is meant by " King
and Country." From history we are supposed
to learn what has made England what she is.
The theme of the story is the growth of the
inheritance into which we have been born ; and
if there is any moral judgment implied, as well
as mere record of fact, we are supposed to see in
history the good and the bad gradually evolving
into a better state of things. In the course of

202 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS

this evolution the modern State has appeared ;
and we are supposed to find in history an explan-
ation of the institutions under which we live,
which we desire to maintain and, at times of
crises, are called upon to defend. What sort
of State, then, do we find in the established
history ?

History has been for generations the mere
record of conflict — wars and rumours of wars, and
the marriages of kings. We may put aside for
the moment the fact that such a record is no
explanation of how we come to be as we now
are, and we may acknowledge that history in
recent times has been by no means altogether
a mere list of exceptional events. It is true
that historians have, after many generations of
mediaeval chronicling, contrived to mention how
common men lived and how most men thought
in the past. History is not the crude journalism
which it once was ; but the crudities of the old
history hang about the meaning we give to the
name of England. For the "history" of Eng-
land's foreign relations is only a record of conflict,
or at most an occasional reference to a dynastic
alliance. We cannot possibly avoid the conclusion
that such foreign relations are in the essence of
things.

Undoubtedly the current conception of the
State, as in pure opposition to foreign States, is

NEEDS OF THE STATE 203

due in part to the idea that the history of Eng-
land's foreign relations is to be found in the
records of war, or in trivial personal alliances
between unintelligent princelings and passive
brides. And even the modern historians, while
they are no longer date-and-fact journalists,
remain provincial in the restriction of their
theme. There is very little, if any, acknowledg-
ment of the influence of the relations of England
with foreign countries in the development of
even English thought and habits. The two
causes — the mistakes of the old history and the
limitations of the new — combine to prevent us
rising to a new conception of the needs of the
State. For, first, " England " is supposed to be
concerned primarily in such adventures as Crecy
and Agincourt. Plans of battles, not plans of
towns, are the illustrations of text-books ; armed
men, not scholars or traders, are the English of
the past. Now, quite apart from the fact that
" England," the modern State, was not in exist-
ence and that " the enemy " in mediaeval times
were certainly not great national groups — apart
from the fact that the whole conception of organ-
ised groups in opposition is an anachronism when
applied to the Middle Ages — clearly England
did not mainly come into contact with the non-
English in the adventures of war. Crecy and
Agincourt and the rest are merely chance episodes

204 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS

in the steady current of international growth. So
that the foreign relations of England must be
looked for in the cosmopolitanism of scholars,
of professional classes, of traders and of travellers.
Men went from England to learn law in Bologna,
or medicine at Montpellier, or science in Paris.
Germans, French and Italians came to learn from
us at Oxford. There was the cosmopolitanism
of trade also. New methods came to us from
the Flemings and the Lombards. Fashions came
from France and Italy. So that while the official
attitude to foreign rulers may have been that of
mere hostility, the real growth of England was
dependent on continual interdependence. The
history, therefore, which relegates all this to an
appendix or a short chapter, and dilates upon
campaigns and dynastic marriages, is simply false
to fact. It is not true that England came to be
what she is through battles, or that English
institutions are worth defending because of op-
position to foreigners. Indeed, this very State
which needs us has owed much to foreign political
thought and practice.

But the misreading of historical fact is not due
to the date-and-fact historians only, who remained
mediaeval in their attitude because their sources
were mediaeval. It is due also to the limita-
tions of the new historical school. Custom and
language cannot be studied provincially. The

NEEDS OF THE STATE 205

language of England is what it is not simply
because of our developed method of expression
from " Beowulf " to Meredith, but also because of
the matter with which English has been concerned.
Now that English contains new subjects, covers
a vaster field, and, in fact, is a language and not
merely a dialect, is due to the intimacy of the in-
terdependence between English and non-English
thinkers.

The history of English thought and custom
cannot be rendered with merely occasional refer-
ences to "the Continent," any more than the
history of thought and custom in York could be
rendered without reference to the developments
which were taking place outside York. English
institutions, then, and English thought are worth
defending and developing, not in spite of foreign-
ers but because of what we owe to foreigners.
The battles of England have kept back the English
State : the years of unnoticed and peaceful con-
tact have helped it to grow. But these years
and these influences passing from State to State,
are either unnoticed or are subordinated to the
exceptional. The result is that we still think of
the needs of the State in regard to foreign States,
either in the terms of pure opposition or in the
terms of occasional and accidental exchange.
Hence the needs of the State in foreign affairs
seem to be military organisation or, at best, an

206 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS

occasional expedition for inquiry into the habits
of interesting strangers. And the acquired atti-
tude of the average citizen regarding his State
as a defence against such strangers is due, in
great part, to the misrepresentation of fact in
journalistic history and to the misinterpretation
of comparative values by the newer school.1

Our present attitude is embodied in our institu-
tions. For our recognised needs with respect to
foreign States we have three great Government
offices : the War Office, the Admiralty and the
Foreign Office. The guiding conception in all
three is that of pure opposition. Of the War
Office and the Admiralty that is obvious.
Defence and, because " the best defensive is
an offensive," also direct hostility, is the pur-
pose of these two. Of course they do not
exist for aggression. In no country are such
offices for anything but pure defence ; and the
elaborate organisation of armaments is only
for the purpose of maintaining our threatened
independence. So the citizens of any civilised
country would say of their own War Offices.
But who is likely to interfere with independence ?

1 As far as one can gather from Treitschke the influence of
obsolete history has been very great in limiting the German
conception of what has made Germany worth defending. Ger-
many even more than England owes much to " foreigners " :
all her culture is due to such interdependence and has been
obstructed by war.

NEEDS OF THE STATE 207

Foreign States. Why should they ? That no
one has been able to explain, and therefore it is
said to be inevitable. That is to say, it is regarded
as the nature of a foreign State to interfere with
the independence of our State. States are in
opposition inevitably because they " expand " or
because of spheres of influence and all the rest
of that fantastic mythology which grows out of
an obsolete conception of what the State is. Upon
all that is based the importance of War Offices.
There is no Peace Office.

But if the real foreign interests of the State are
such as we have outlined in an earlier chapter,
and if the needs of the State are to be judged by
reference to them, there is no reason why there
should not be a Peace Office. Only tradition
is against it, and only obsolete conceptions prevent
us seeing that the needs of a modern civilised
State in foreign affairs are such that deliberate
and official maintenance or development of inter-
change should not be left to private enterprise.
At present war is officially prepared for and
carried on : peace is not public business.1 It
may be said that peace, being normal, may be
left to take care of itself, or at least without

1 Another sign of the same attitude is in the training of
princes. Machiavelli (Principe, Ch. XIV) says that "War is
the only profession worthy of a prince," and even in the
twentieth century who ever heard of a prince being trained as
an economist or engineer I

208 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS

official maintenance by a Government Office.
But, in the first place, that plan has been tried and
has failed ; and secondly, if prevention is better
than cure, and it is better worth while to preserve
health than to cure disease, surely the official and
organised development of the interdependence of
States should begin.

The Foreign Office, however, it may be said,
does not exist merely for opposition. It is in
fact the source of our official alliances, and is
continually in communication with other Govern-
ments. It may be said to take a less hostile
view of foreign States than is usual in the War
Office and Admiralty. But, we must observe,
even the War Office and Admiralty have no
objection to alliances. In fact, apparently without
any governmental sanction, our War Office went
so far a few years ago as to secure our entente
with France by military agreements ; and, indeed,
the War Office has always developed alliances —
with a view to possible conflict.

The Admiralty is of a more independent turn
of mind ; but the Admiralty also counts upon
certain friendliness on the part of some nations
when ships are being counted against Germany.
The interest in alliances is not peculiar to the
Foreign Office, it may co-exist with the obsolete
view of foreign relations. And, further, the
Foreign Office is very closely in contact with the

NEEDS OF THE STATE 209

War Office and Admiralty, more closely in fact
than it is even with the Cabinet. Whether the
Fleet is ready has often made a difference to the
manner of the Foreign Office : so that a cynic
might be inclined to say that the Foreign Offices
in every civilised State are mere departments of
the War Offices.

It is true, nevertheless, that the Foreign Office
and the Diplomatic and Consular Service do
develop the interdependence of States in time
of peace. In so far as this is so the Foreign
Office may be our future Peace Office ; but, as
we have seen, its interests are certainly not yet
confined to the maintenance of peace, and much
of its usefulness in this direction is hampered by
the tradition of diplomacy which it represents.
It is saturated with that false history of the State
of which we have already spoken, and even with
the best will in the world its present organisation
is not likely to embody any definite peace policy.

The conclusion is inevitable. There is no
official organisation for the maintenance or de-
velopment of those interests of the State which
are not based upon mere opposition to other
States. The reason is the current and obsolete
conception of the State and its needs.

But what, in positive terms, are the needs of
the State ? We may learn in part from a truer
conception of the past. The wealth and well-

p

210 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS

being, the moral and intellectual life of the Eng-
lish have grown in continuous interchange with
foreigners ; and if such are the needs of the
State with respect to other States, the first neces-
sity is a new conception of foreign policy. And
that this may be permanent, a new institution will
have to be established or an old one absolutely
transformed.

But the more fundamental need is, of course,
a change of attitude among the citizens. A mere
institution will be valueless unless it is the result
of a new sentiment ; and the sentiment will have
to be very much more widespread and powerful
than it is before it gives birth to an institution.
Such a sentiment must first transform the relation
of the citizens to the institutions under which
they live. They must feel in some new way the
needs of the State or their own need of a State.

We can, however, be more precise still as to
the change of attitude. Sometimes the democratic
control of foreign policy is said to be the solution
of our present difficulties. The people in every
group are said to be likely to arrange difficulties
more amicably than the diplomatists : at any rate
we may accept completely the statements that
" the people " are likely to recognise the incon-
veniences of war more than the diplomatists.
For these f<»w may have to do without their
footmen, but the people do without bread ; and

NEEDS OF THE STATE 211

one is more likely to be careful about a possible
lack of food than about a mere deficiency in
domestic service.

But the democratic control of foreign policy \
will be as futile as any other if the people accept
the old conception of the State. That conception
will certainly be put before them as soon as they
are able to exercise any real power, as soon as
they show any interest at all, in foreign policy.
Wiseacres are always ready to tell the people the
thoughts of their grandfathers ; and, as to being
believed, the proportion of fools among " the
people " is probably not lower than among the
" upper " classes. But changes have been made
before in the accepted beliefs, and perhaps a
change may yet be made in the conception which
the average citizen has of his own State.

This fundamental change of attitude is occurring.
Men feel themselves bound together in the State
by other than economic or legal bonds. They
rise with at least a momentary enthusiasm in
every country to the cry " Your country needs
you." Differences are for the moment sunk :
private or clique interests are for the moment
subordinated to the general good, and that not
for pay or what any one may make out- of it, nor
because of any legal contract between^citizens.

The bond is clearly emotional/ Our fellow
citizens are regarded as living men and women,

212 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS

not as machines or as types. Less is said about
" the working man " of drawing-room fiction or
of the " wicked capitalist " of popular rhetoric ;
and all are recognised as human. The State,
then, is an institution which lives in the conscious
emotion of its citizens : it is not an economic nor
a legal union.

But this means that we are recovering from
one of the chief deficiencies in the representative
system of government. The vast size of modern
States has had the effect, first, of producing an
extreme of delegated power, and, secondly, an
extreme lack of interest among the great body of
citizens. The delegation of power meant the
dehumanising of state-functions. The imagina-
tion was not able to grasp the common interests
of the vaster groups as it could when, for example,
in Athens every citizen knew every other and
soon heard from his neighbour of the effects upon
this neighbour of any new law.1 Now we cry to
one another across the chasm of vastness which
is not at all bridged by the institutions which are
supposed to hold us together.

The situation, however, is being transformed.
The mechanical inventions which have made it

1 Aristotle was perfectly right in the purpose for which he
suggested a limitation in the number of citizens, although we
may yet attain that purpose without such limiting. He knew
that citizens must be persons to one another, not mere units
or machines.

NEEDS OF THE STATE 213

possible for such vast States to exist may yet, by
giving us rapid and widespread communication,
enable us to master the machine of government,
and to humanise the relation of men by bringing
them more closely into contact. Even in normal
times there is really a closer contact between the
inhabitants of vast Empires now than there was
in the much smaller States of Renaissance Europe.
And, next, the crisis of war has awakened interest
in the common affairs of the group among the
mass of citizens. The vastness of the issues, or
the remoteness of their connection with one's
food and clothing in times of peace, led us to
give more and more the judgment and the action
into the hands of a few specialists who would
represent and look after our interests. But the
crisis has taught many that a mistake in diplomatic
policy may directly affect one's food. The result
is that the action of the State, its interests, honour
and obligations, are now felt to be a subject
for every citizen's immediate and continuous dis-
cussion. We put out our hands to master the
machine we have created and have allowed to run
its course until it came near to the precipice.
Now no plea of inevitableness or necessity will
prevent our feeling that the human needs are
supreme over the existence of the mere institution.
The immense increase in intellectual power and
the mastery over Nature has often been referred

2i4 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS

to, as it is to be seen either in the modern loco-
motive or spinning-machine, or in the exquisitely
constructed shells which destroy so effectively.
But forces of another kind have also increased.
The banding together of great numbers in cities
and States has given us social force so great that
the group-force of Athens or Rome, or even
Revolutionary Paris, becomes trifling by com-
parison. The moving together of the vast armies
of the last few months is but a sign of the amount
of social force which can now be directed to the
supply of certain needs. It is true that one
cannot imagine yet the raising of such an army
for any purpose but conflict : and yet abstractly
it is possible that we could now mass millions
of men together for the destruction of hideous
slums, for the building of cities, or the conquest
of disease. The mastery of natural forces has led
to the possibility of immense social force ; and so
far this immense force has been used either for
private manufacture or for public slaughter. But
the force is there, and that is something. The
human bond between us in England and the army
in France is stronger than that which existed
between the army at Crecy and the England of
their day. Communication and rapid transit keep
the more numerous group closer together than
the less numerous could manage to be. But it is
not altogether due to the mechanical contrivances.

NEEDS OF THE STATE 215

The emotional crisis is at least one cause of the
common interest being perceived and the human
relationship therefore being established. There
has been no such human relationship between the
user of coal and the coal-miner. The common
needs are only felt in their crudest form.

But felt needs, however crude, based upon a
human and not a merely mechanical relationship,
will produce naturally a new sense of social
responsibility. First, we shall have, perhaps, an
end of the nonsense which pretends that the
morality of individuals cannot govern the rela-
tionship of States. That was all based upon
the mythological and mechanical-legal State of
philosophic fiction. When the relationships are
humanised it will be clear that morality holds
good and is of fundamentally the same nature,
whether between individuals of the same insti-
tution or of different institutions. Savages have
been said by travellers to be immoral, on the
ground that they kill or steal : but scholars now
maintain that the lowest savage feels the incon-
venience of stealing from men of his own group.
Outside the group, of course, no such bond is
recognised. The old philosophy of the non-
morality of the State was a learned excuse for
the savage attitude. In place of this we begin
to feel that a man should have as high a moral
code when acting in behalf of his group as he

216 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS

should have in acting for his own interests.
We do not excuse a man for lying, cheating or
murdering if he says that after all he did not do
it for himself but for his wife and family. Why
should we excuse him if he says he did it for
his second cousins twice removed, which he calls
his country ?

The attitude of officials, however, can only be
transformed by the transformation of the attitude
of the greater number in the group. The change
must come from the citizens before it is effective
with their representatives. The majority ^must
be able to feel, however dimly, that they should
not benefit by the actions which they would be
ashamed to do in their own interests. They
must object to lying, cheating or murdering by
their representatives, even if they get something
out of it. And before this comes about, the
tendency to say a it is no business of ours "
must be corrected. State-morality is of the same
kind as the group-morality of trading-companies
or dividend-making. But there are very few who
do not turn their eyes away from the sources of
their wealth. Not merely u wicked capitalists,"
but great numbers who do not get dividends,
maintain a system, by conscious blindness,
which reduces all human relationship to merely
mechanical arrangement, which depends upon the
transformation of great numbers of men into tools.

NEEDS OF THE STATE 217

This is all part of the same issue, but we
must restrict our reference to the responsibility
of the citizens for the actions done by others
for their interests, honour or obligations. Not
merely should the ultimate power be in the
hands and the full information be in the minds
of greater numbers, but the nature of the things
done by this greater number or in their name
must be governed by the ordinary rules of
morality. We see no reason why the citizens
should not definitely object to the lying, cheating
and spying system, which is normally carried on
by all civilised States in the Secret Service, for
the purposes, of course, of self-defence. We
need say nothing of the normal purposes of
diplomacy or of the " Statesmanship " which
keeps a national obligation secret from the people
whom it is destined to bind until an emotional
crisis makes it certain that no one will be able
to object to bearing the obligation. All that
has yet to be brought to reasonable limits : but
we must begin with the crudest examples of the
immorality which is practised in the interest of
citizens. Spying is an example. It is not
accounted honourable for a man to go in dis-
guise into a neighbour's house in order to
discover the weak points in his family affairs :
but for every civilised State this is done. And
it is said that we have to use the weapons of

2i8 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS

our adversaries to secure ourselves from their pre-
datory intentions. It is not, however, regarded
as moral to cheat your grocer because you suspect
that he has cheated or may cheat you. And in
social morality one would not allow the repre-
sentative of one's family to lie systematically to
neighbours in the interest of the family. How
far the average man would go in preventing
immorality from which he might benefit we
cannot tell. Not long ago a certain company
manufactured machines according to their rivals'
pattern, so constructed that these imitations
would break down. The consequence was that
the rival machine soon had the reputation for
breaking down ; and the company which so
skilfully and indirectly advertised gained great
wealth. But we never heard of any of the
actual gainers protesting against this method.
In State affairs we do not think there was
any German protest against the violation of
Belgian neutrality : there was practically no
Belgian protest against the government of the
Congo in its worst days. And in no civilised
State is there yet any combined or forcible
protest against immoral official actions which
either we will not look at, or which we see and
see only in their good results for ourselves.
Examples would cut too closely in a time of

NEEDS OF THE STATE 219

difficulty and crisis. We may leave them for
the reader to find.

The State, then, needs in normal times an
organised and official maintenance and develop-
ment of the inter-relation with other States,
based upon a new conception of the nature of
States. And it needs most of all the establish-
ment and consistent maintenance of a moral
attitude by its representatives and an increased
moral responsibility in all its citizens.

CHAPTER XII

THE COMITY OF NATIONS

OWING to the necessity for an atmosphere of
mutual trust in times of peace, for the interchange
of ideas or of trade, the problem arises as to the
new moral attitude of modern States : and owing
to the insecurity of conventions in times of war
the problem arises as to the possibility of main-
taining moral relations in the face of possible
defiance by one group of principles recognised
by other groups. We pass then from what the
citizen thinks of his own State to what he thinks
of other States.

It must be noticed, to begin with, that moral
restrictions to physical force are more and not
less insecure as States become larger, since it is
more and more difficult, so powerful is the in-
stitutional machine, for the citizen even to know
what is being done in his name. Governments
have a very great power over the information
supplied, and, in proportion as the average man
is far removed from the actors in any great
affair, in that proportion he is unwilling to adopt

220

THE COMITY OF NATIONS 221

responsibility. So that the very complexity of
modern world-politics might induce the average
citizen not to think of other States at all except
in times of crisis, or to leave the management
of state-relationship entirely in the hands of a
few. This might involve the impossibility of
securing a moral relationship between States, in
so far as citizens will not extend their moral
imagination to cover the action of other States
than their own.

There are indications, however, that States
have been prepared to act together on moral
issues. We may take as an example of this,
first, the so-called Concert of Europe. The
historical facts with regard to this phrase are
well known. It is said to have been invented
at a time when established Governments feared
the destructive power of the French Revolution.
There was then an idea that Governments should
act together in suppressing what was believed to
be the fundamental immorality of the Revolu-
tionaries. But the idea of concerted action
disappeared before the sinister diplomacy of
Napoleon. Each State fought for itself, at least
for a time. In 1815 the Congress of Vienna
again expressed a tendency towards concerted
action on certain generally accepted principles.
The next step was taken in the Holy Alliance,
to which England found it impossible to adhere,

222 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS

since the principles upon which concerted action
was to be based were practically those of dynastic
despotism if not those of theocracy.

Until about 1840 nearly all concerted action
among the European States was more or less
definitely aimed at France : for France was the
embodiment of militarism.1 From that date, how-
ever, the phrase " Concert of Europe " always
connoted action with reference to south-eastern
Europe : 2 and from that date onwards there was
the beginning of recognition by Governments of
the existence of nationality. A new principle,
not that of theocracy, was becoming a basis for
common action.

Greece had been established as a State in i827.3
In 1 86 1 Roumania became partly independent of
Turkey, in 1862 Servia ; in 1875 Bosnia and
Herzegovina revolted against Turkey. England
had been committed by Disraeli to opposition
during these years against the principle of nation-
ality, because of the supposed English need of
supporting Turkey. But at last even England,

1 By militarism I mean the subordination of all the youthful
energies of the State to action for physical attack and defence.

2 For the change of attitude see Chapter I in The European
Concert In the Eastern Question, by T. E. Holland. Superviison
in the near East has been " systematically exercised since
1856."

3 Cf. Holland (loc. cit.y Ch. II). Greece was only recognised
as a State in 1830, though the battle of Navarino practically
gave her independence.

THE COMITY OF NATIONS 223

in 1877, signed a protocol in agreement with
the other Powers of the European Concert,1
warning Turkey of the general interest in "the
well-being of the Christian populations." Turkey
was disdainful and Russia declared war. The
Congress of Powers at Berlin (July 1878) estab-
lished Bulgaria, and freed Servia and Roumania
from tribute to Turkey.2 The Powers seemed
to be united in principle. But in spite of Con-
ferences of the Powers in 1880 and 1881, the
Turks did what they pleased. In 1897 British
and French warships in the name of European
principle bombarded Christian villages in Crete
to support the Turks : but they intervened in
May of that year to save Greece. Massacres in
1896 and 1897 were lefr unpunished by the
Powers, but each Power sought to invoke
common principle as a cover for private gain.

What is of interest here is not the actual
ineffectiveness of the European Concert. It pro-
posed much and did little. The performers of

1 The signatories were Great Britain, Germany, Austria,
France, Italy, Russia and Turkey. Cf. Holland, p. 277.

2 At this date there are counted six Great Powers acting
together. The Russian diplomacy compares well throughout
these years with that of Lord Beaconsfield. No principle seems
to have guided the latter except an extended selfishness : and
he all but wrecked even the little the European Concert could
do. In spite of him, however, the Great Powers held together
at least in principle. His most immoral act in our behalf took
place in 1878, in the Cyprus Convention.

224 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS

the Concert had each an axe to grind, and an
axe is an unmusical instrument. The result was
discord. But the vague feeling remained that
civilised States could act together on certain
general principles, without alliance and without
the stimulus of war directed against themselves.
The inherited immorality of Renaissance diplo-
macy prevented any common principle being
established; and common action was never done
for an unselfish end. But the growth of social
morality was transforming even the Concert of
Europe and sickening even diplomatists with the
extended egoism of " foreign " policy.

Such feelings had a still more interesting embodi-
ment in the Hague Conference of 1899. At that
first Conference twenty-six different States were
represented and the Concert of Europe was seen
to be transformed into a Council of the World.
At the Conference in 1907 forty-four different
States were represented. A Tribunal was estab-
lished by sixteen Powers at the Hague in July
1899 ; at which representatives of forty-four
nations are entitled to sit. At this court since
1902 about twelve cases have been decided, which
in former days might easily have been reasons for
warfare.

A further example of the same tendency to
concerted action upon agreed principles may be
seen in the Partition of Africa. Division had

THE COMITY OF NATIONS 225

begun by the entry of France into Tunis and
the military occupation of Egypt in 1882 by the
British. German East Africa was established in
1884. An agreement was signed between Great
Britain and Germany in November 1886, followed
by minor agreements and the greatest in 1890.
Bismarck had by this time lost power and was
not able to engineer anti-English feeling in
Germany. By the 1890 agreement Germany
received Heligoland and Great Britain the Zan-
zibar Protectorate : but most important for our
present argument was the settlement of frontier
disputes, especially as regards Uganda. With
France we signed agreements in 1898 and 1904 :
and the whole situation has shown the possibility
of peaceful arrangements between those who might
have been led into war, if the danger had not been
foreseen and avoided.

The French, Portuguese and Italians have large
amounts of African land under their control, and,
whatever may be said of the exploiting of natives,
at least there has been very little bloodshed of the
official and traditional kind. It has been remarked
that the gain is immense if we compare this
method with the long-continued contest in the
Partition of America. For, in effect, civilised
States foresaw the possibilities of future conflict
in Africa and avoided at least one cause of conflict
by agreeing upon boundaries without fighting to

226 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS

discover where they should be. The result was
such as this : the British in East Africa actually
were lent a steamer and arms by the Germans
in order to suppress marauding tribes, and the
Germans received help from the British.1

Such events have led some to suppose that
there might be continuous concerted action be-
tween civilised States on certain general principles.
It is imagined that there might even be a sort of
international police force, to do for criminal States
what the policeman does for the private criminal.
It is said that International Law, and perhaps even
international morality, needs a " sanction," and
clearly no sanction is possible until delinquent
States can be punished. Undoubtedly such a
force would be desirable. But law is not based
upon force. Law gives force its direction.

Even within every State law is not dependent
upon force, but force upon law. For although
force may be required to coerce criminals, it is not
so required in order to make the majority " keep
the law." Law is dependent for its effectiveness
much more upon acquired habit than upon force ;
and in fact this acquired habit is such that it never
enters the head of the ordinary man that he might
steal or murder. This habit is itself based upon
a kind of half-reasoned sentiment which is the
very life-blood of civilised society. But if this is
1 Especially in the revolt of natives in 1888.

THE COMITY OF NATIONS 227

so within the State, the same must be the situation
as between citizens of different States. Force may
come after to maintain the law, law may come
after to express the habit, but the half-reasoned
sentiment must come first. For some time before
it becomes fixed in a habitual attitude or group of
actions this sentiment may be fitful and insecure ;
but it is already in existence among the few, and
it may spread not only in spite of war but even
through war. It is the natural result of human
contact, and war has brought great numbers
together, even in opposition, who could not have
met " foreigners " in our clumsily arranged peace.

The half-reasoned sentiment is one of funda-
mental trust in citizens of other States, and as a
confirmed attitude it may be the real force in that
international courtesy which goes beyond mere
law and even beyond the strict conceptions of
national duty.

But this true Comity of Nations can only be
established upon a basis of acquired habit among
the inhabitants of different civilised groups — a
habit of thought and action which would simply
make the relationship human across the frontiers
of States, and might not even imply a continual
interchange of views and goods. It is a matter of
attitude, or the establishment of a hypothesis
which might perhaps underlie all the superficial
economic or political interchange. For even

228 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS

within our vast States of modern times the actual
interchange between citizens is not in fact very
great ; but the hypothesis governs all our actions
that, whenever there is need, this basal human
relationship is there to be depended upon. So
even in our great modern cities one never knows
many of the people living in the same street ; but
an attitude of mind in all the inhabitants is
established, so that we do not expect to be stabbed
in the back by our neighbour. One may never
have said a word to the inhabitant of the house
next door, but our hypothesis of civilised life
makes us all act as though a human relationship
were there all the time.1 So also with nations,
there may be no need of actual contact with
foreign races, when we have at last discovered we
have nothing to fear from them, in order that we
shall feel how absolutely we can depend upon the
human relationship surviving all the conflicts of
State interests, all the governmental quarrels and
all the financially engineered panics.

We seem to speak of Utopia when such an
attitude is explained. Idealists sigh for the

1 The human relationship to be relied on comes out, of
course, chiefly in common danger or in sympathy, as when
our neighbour's house is on fire. So among nations an earth-
quake in a foreign land soon proves the existence of a human
relationship. In such moments the mere governmental insti-
tutions are subordinated and yet not neglected ; but to make
such subordination more permanent should not be very difficult.

THE COMITY OF NATIONS 229

Comity of Nations. But it is already in existence.
It is only the Comity of States which seems im-
possible : for distinct nationality is no bar to
comity. In the United States, for example, Ger-
mans and English and Turks and Greeks and
Russians and Austrians find it possible to enter
into moral relationship despite diversity of race.1
In Canada French-born citizens are friendly with
English ; and now, in this war, even Indians
appear to have entered into an emotional comity
with Englishmen. It is not race, language or
tradition which is a bar to comity ; not religion,
education or trade, but only one institution — the
State. We have already shown what fantastic
ideas concerning the State are generally current,
and perhaps the impossibility of a comity between
Governments is due in part to the false ideas upon
which Governments live. But when we have
destroyed even the absolutism and isolation of
the theoretical State, there may still remain the
idea that the State must, sooner or later, declare
war.

It is worth while to ask whether this is essential
to the State or only a transitory effect of past
history, or perhaps only the result of a false idea

1 In the War of Greece against Turkey (1913), Greeks and
Turks who had been working together in the United States
returned to Europe in the same ships ; and on landing, Greeks
at Athens and Turks at Constantinople, marched to fight one
another.

230 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS

as to what the State is. At first sight it is strange
that only one institution among all should find it
impossible to decide some of its disputes with
other institutions of the same kind upon moral
grounds. These institutions only are still reduced
to physical conflict.

It is not simply" because the moral criteria by
which we may decide how conflicting interests
ought to be arranged are not clear. It is not
necessary to fight, if we cannot decide the justice
of a case. The moral criteria, for example, are
by no means clear when there is a conflict
of interest between a capitalist company and a
trade union ; but we have not yet adopted the
" appeal to arms " for such a dispute.1 Even
if no decision can be reached and no power above
each is able to enforce a decision, we do not so
far find it necessary to " declare war." Nor do
we any longer " declare war " because another
group of men and women differs from us in
religion. We see that religious institutions may

1 There may be revolutionaries who really mean what the
phrase class-war seems to mean ; and, I confess, I see no
logical objection to physical conflict of other institutions if the
physical conflict of States is regarded as reasonable. It is sup-
posed that killing in war is not the act of the individual ; but
it would not be the act of the individual if his trade union
directed him to kill. This is not abstract speculation. A
capitalist company in West Virginia has actually directed its
officers to shoot down strikers, and it was done. Not the
State, as in England, but another institution has used arms.

THE COMITY OF NATIONS 231

arrange differences without an appeal even to the
God of battles. We do not fight if universities
disagree, or scientific or artistic societies. All
other institutions arrange their differences upon
some plan which omits even the possibility of
war ; and no other institution arms its members in
case of aggression by other like institutions — but
the State only is armed and " appeals " to arms.
This is fact, and it is useless to say that the State
ought not to go to war. The first need is to
discover why it does go to war, even occasionally.
And this is in part due to what the average
citizen thinks of other States : for he is not armed
because of the nature of his State, but because of
what he believes to be the nature of some other.

The obstacles to the establishment of a new
moral attitude across the boundaries of States are
chiefly in the imagination. Here also we are
hampered by inherited superstitions, which may
once have represented facts, but do so no longer.
The reason why the State " must appeal to arms "
is not because of the lack of a superior power,
nor because of " natural expansion," but simply
because of what "that other" State is commonly
supposed to be : and the common supposition
makes the State actually to be such, although
another idea might transform it.

The view taken of a State from the outside has
never adequately been considered. Plato never

232 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS

thought of his ideal commonwealth from the
point-of-view of those who did not belong to it :
and at the end of political theorising our thinkers
never put themselves in the position of those
who do not belong to this or that State. But
no object of study can be understood by such a
method of " introspection " only. We must con-
sider what the average man thinks of States not
his own.1 Every man, except the philosopher,
is usually aware that other States do or design
certain actions, and it is in view of these that he
acts in behalf of his own State./ For " the State "
to him means that organised group over there, as
he means by a " man " not himself only but other
people.

And when we consider any State from the out-
side what do we see ? We see first the astonishing
fact that whereas every other civilised institution
does not expect physical aggression upon its
members, the State alone is armed. No civilised

1 The psychological argument should be clear. We come
to conclusions about ourselves because of what we think of
others ; just as much as we interpret the expressions of others
by inner experiences of our own. Avenarius even held that
our soul-body hypothesis was really due to our theory for
explaining other people ; which we then applied to ourselves.
I argue, then, that the nature of the State is understood by the
average man from his observation of other States (of which he
knows almost nothing), which is then applied to his own.
Philosophers, not noticing this, have left the mistakes
uncorrected.

THE COMITY OF NATIONS 233

State is confessedly, and viewed from within, ag-
gressive ; for even if its guides inculcate aggres-
sion, its own people are never asked to fight for
anything but self-defen5e. "But viewed from out-
side, the State being obviously armed and " we "
being as obviously not, aggressive, the armament
must be to attack us,/ If there is need of defence
there must be evidence of intended aggression.
So that every citizen looking at another State
expects to be attacked — for what purpose is not very
clear : but it is necessary to prepare to defend
himself. Men do not prepare to fight for their
Church or university or trade union, whatever
of value they may .derive from such institutions.
They are called on to fight only for their State.
They may be even fighting against members of their
Church or their trade union ; but it is conceived
that it is their duty none the less. And it is their
duty, until — until men begin to perceive that the
arming of all States for pure self-defence against
other States which protest that they only desire
self-defence, is perilously like low comedy. But
indeed, the truth is that the State, viewed from
the outside, is still an armed band. Another State
than ours is aggressive : there is evidence to prove
it. Ours, therefore, must be defensive, that is to
say " armed ;" and that provides evidence for other
States to regard ours as aggressive ; and so the
illusion grows as to the nature of the State. A

234 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS

man, being frightened, may do something by which
he frightens himself still more or gives himself
good ground for fear. Illusion makes you jump :
your jump makes you hit your head, and hitting
your head is a proof that there was danger !

Let us put it concretely. Here is an alien
citizen who belongs to a Church which is not
mine, a trade not mine, or a cultural society not
mine. I do not expect him to attack me as a
Lutheran, or as an engineer, or as a graduate of
Harvard ; but as a good citizen I suspect him. I
really think that force would be out of place in
the attempt to make me a Lutheran or an engineer
or a Harvard man, although I might be made any
of these by some other means ; but I think force
would be not unlikely to be used in the attempt
to make me accept some other person's political
institutions.

And I am probably right. He stands armed :
and where one State is armed all States will be
armed. If one Church were armed, all would be.
Why, then, is even one State armed ? Because
of the nature of the State ? No. Only because
in political imagination we are still in the early
Middle Ages, or perhaps even the Dark Ages.
We continue to say the State is what it is not.

For some centuries men believed that the earth
was the centre of the universe. And when some
few said it was not, many were greatly pained at

THE COMITY OF NATIONS 235

the apparent insolence, and the established guides
elaborately " proved " that it was. But the sky
did not fall when the new belief was everywhere
accepted : and/perhaps nothing very dreadful
would happen if we began to act as if the State
were no more an armed band than any other of
the many institutions we use. And by such
action we do not mean the laying down of our
arms, but the believing in the protestation of
our neighbours that they are not aggressive, and
leaving it to them to prevent their guides leading
them into aggression. It would be a dangerous
policy, but the sky would not fall. As for dis-
armament or even the restriction of armament,
that is a problem for practical politics, and it is
almost as important. Of course, if you give
a man murderous weapons, he may be inclined to
use them : but the civilised man has acquired a
habit of mind which would make the use of them
very unlikely. The fundamental problem, there-
fore, is the transformation of the imaginative out-
look, not the taking away of murderous weapons.
It seems to be true that one State cannot begin.
The same argument would show that we could
never have reached our normal disarmament of
individuals within the State. But what produced
the change was not the law or police. Gradually
men began to perceive that there was no need of
arms, that criminals were few, and that a friendly

236 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS

attitude towards other men led to no alarming
consequences. Comity took the place of armed
peace : and we may suppose some one or some
few must have begun it. The change did not
take place by the laying down of arms, but by
the transformation of sentiment among those who
still bore arms, until arms were subordinated and
eventually forgotten. Meantime, no external
change could perhaps be noted, and all men
seemed to live in accordance with the inherited
illusions which were really believed in only by a
few.

Living among madmen who agree, it is best to
agree with them; unless, perhaps, there is some
cure for their madness, or unless the majority are
not really mad but are simply persuaded to believe
in the illusions of the few who are. We are
enslaved by the black magic of dead words, and
we can only be rescued by the white magic of
some new word. But that is the office of poets.
The task of analytical philosophy is done when
the current hypotheses have been examined.

When, however, the mistaken results of the
primitive view of the State from the outside are
corrected there is no reason why a permanent
comity of organised nations should not be estab-
lished. For then the citizen will consider other
States not as possible aggressors but as moral
equals of his own. He will, that is to say, believe

THE COMITY OF NATIONS 237

the protestation of other citizens that they arm
only for defence, and, knowing that he himself is
not aggressive, he will either lay down his own
arms or perhaps preserve them as a decorative
symbol of the past.

For already a certain amount of mutual trust
has been established by the years of peaceful
commerce, and no one who is really aware of the
interdependence of all institutions can go back to
the savage suspicion of foreigners. Such trust
between citizens of diverse States has not been
more abused than trust between citizens of the
same State. It ma^y be betrayed in a few in-
stances : but the world has held together. When,
therefore, we point to a permanent comity even
between States we are not speaking of Utopia,
but are seeking to develop a movement which has
already begun. Nor will even diplomatic subtle-
ties be able to keep us back : for trust between
the citizens of diverse States is trust between the
States, and the official Governments will soon
have to submit to the new situation.

CHAPTER XIII

CONCLUSION

THERE are some general principles which seem
to follow from the argument we have so far
developed. One has reference to the relation
between institutions and social sentiments, another
relates to the assimilation and differentiation of
institutions. By a social sentiment we mean a
half-emotional, half-reasoned habit of action, which
may imply an established attitude, but is very
often not conscious until there is a crisis, — either
danger or a new and strange experience. Such
social sentiments are family affection, club or
college loyalty, patriotism, human sympathy felt,
without regard to frontiers, at the news of an
earthquake, and innumerable vaguer habits of
action or inhibition expressed in such phrases as
" women and children first," " noblesse oblige,"
" the things no fellow can do."

It has been seen that an institution generally
follows upon a social sentiment and, being estab-
lished, transforms the sentiment. Thus the
Church or the State follows upon habits of action

238

CONCLUSION 239

or inhibition ; and, although when established they
maintain or develop, they do not create such
habits. Law and government did not create
civilisation ; but civilisation created law and
government. This alone will explain why law
maintains one action and forbids another.

It is not necessary here to go back to the
possible origins of the State. We have dealt in
an earlier chapter with the progressive differentia-
tion of functions and their distribution among
many different institutions as life becomes more
civilised. What is now of interest is -to mark the
interplay between free sentiment and established
institutions. For this is fundamental to the
group-morality of which we have been speaking.
The organisations or institutions which unite or
divide men, which may or may not make immense
differences in their moral attitude — these both
maintain social sentiment and are maintained by it.
When such sentiments change they may trans-
form the institutions ; but they may, on the other
hand, not be strong enough, and may themselves
be transformed by the established tradition. Moral
progress depends upon such transformations.

Let us, however, first consider the interplay of
sentiment and institution in the case of individuals
of any one group. For the same law will, no
doubt, with some modification, be applicable to
organised groups.

24o THE MORALITY OF NATIONS

Sentiment maintains institutions. Social feeling
combined with habitual action or inhibition is the
real guarantee for the continued existence of any
form of organisation ; and although a traditional
institution may exist for many commonplace years
without any appeal to such sentiment, a time of
crisis will soon prove whether or not the life-blood
is flowing still in the old body. In the religious
sphere, perhaps English Monasticism in the six-
teenth century was an example of this. The royal
power would not have sufficed to suppress the
monasteries unless these had already lost their
hold upon the popular imagination. In the
political sphere, the kingship in France in 1791 is
an instance of the same kind. For some time
the Revolution was an appeal to the king against
<c wicked advisers " : and although the ancien
regime of land-owning was hated, the king re-
tained the affection of the people. Had Mirabeau
lived, the sentiment might have transformed the
institution. As it was, the sentiment was alienated
and the bloodless body of royalty fell.

Hence it is that education is given so important
a place in the TTO'XJS of Plato and Aristotle. In
Plato it becomes the chief business of the magis-
trate : 1 and in the Laws the State is not secure
till the ministry for education is higher in rank
than the ministry for war. Aristotle is even
1 Statesman, 306 seq.

CONCLUSION 241

more clear. The importance of the formation of
social sentiment is the ground for the treat-
ment of education at the end of the Politics ; l
and education in this sense is said to be the
one security against revolutions.2 The stability
of the State is seen to depend upon the social
sentiment of the citizens.

Institutions maintain sentiment and habits of
mind or action. For all men most of the time
and most men all of the time are so institution-
alised that if by some impossible freak one could
remove the institutions, they would feel that part
of themselves was gone. No one who has not
lived on the fringe of civilisation, where institu-
tions are less omnipresent, can understand how
much of ordinary thought and action is simply
the expression of an established institution. This
is more recognised in literature than in Ethical
theory. " Few men realise that their life, the
very essence of their character, their capabilities
and their audacities, are only the expression of
their belief in the safety of their surroundings.
Their courage, their composure, their confidence ;
their emotions and principles ; every great and
every insignificant thought belongs not to the
individual but to the crowd : to the crowd that
believes blindly in the irresistible force of its
institutions and of its morals, in the power of its

1 Po!., \wjzseq. 2 Pol.9 13103.

242 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS

police and of its opinion. But the contact with
pure unmitigated savagery, with primitive nature
and primitive man, brings sudden and profound
trouble into the heart. . . . To the negation of
the habitual, which is safe, there is added the
affirmation of the unusual, which is dangerous ; a
suggestion of things vague, uncontrollable and
repulsive, whose discomposing intrusion excites
the imagination and tries the civilised nerves of
the foolish and the wise alike." l

Doubtless even the fully moralised man who
never thinks of stealing or murdering owes the
current direction of his thought in part to the
Law ; and for the great majority, who never
think out the reasons for action or for inhibitions,
the Law is, perhaps unconsciously, the guide.
The moral man is ahead of the Law, the non-
moral behind it.

Further, a group consists of men and women
of many different ages. It seems probable that
social sentiment is regarded as stronger by the
young and may be stronger for the young ; and
institutions are thought of chiefly by the old, and
they may indeed be more important for the old.
The change in Plato is striking. In the Republic
he relies almost entirely upon sentiment embodied
in very vague laws, in the Statesman the two are
almost equal, in the Laws he relies almost entirely
1 Joseph Conrad, An Outpost of Progress.

CONCLUSION 243

upon detailed regulations. And this follows from
the tendency of the young to admire change and
of the old to admire stability, of the young to
subordinate traditional habit to feeling and of the
old to subordinate feeling to habit.

But sentiments change. We may cite as an
instance the change of attitude since the eighteenth
century between husband and wife or parent and
child, although one cannot tell how many people
in how many nations have really adopted the new
attitude. At any rate some, and those not the
least important, since they are generally the trans-
formers of institutions, no longer treat man and
woman as merely male and female : and it is
recognised by these also that the rights of children
and the duties of parents are far more important
than the duties of children and the rights of
parents": But even if the sentiment has changed,
there is no register of the change in institutions.
We go on with our old marriage and divorce laws
and our old educational systems. The natural
result of a change of sentiment would be a
gradual transformation of institutions, for although
a few may live for a little according to some ideas
which have not been made into laws, the many
will not change unless they are changed. And
most men can more easily be reached from the
outside : that is to say, they will adopt a new
method of walking when a new kind of road is

244 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS

made, but they will not be able to maintain a new
habit without a new law. Now one of the most
interesting facts in the development of morality
is that the " sanction " of law has become less and
less violent. We no longer mutilate or brand
offenders, but the morality of individuals is not
lower. So that the amount of force required as
sanction is considerably less as civilisation pro-
gresses. And this is of immense importance to
the question of a sanction for international moral-
ity ; for it would seem that the force required as
sanction in this highly developed situation is very
small indeed. Institutions change because of
changing sentiment ; but the institutional change
is subtler and less noticeable the higher the
development of sentiment becomes.1

When we turn to the morality of nations or of
citizens as related to citizens of other States, we
find that the present situation is one of transition
between a barely organised relationship and an
international institution such as might embody
and develop a comparatively recent social senti-
ment. No such institution may come into
existence, at least of so positive and powerful a
kind as the States of the world. The tendency
towards the new embodiment of social sentiment

1 The reform of political corruption in England since the
eighteenth century is an example of a changing sentiment subtly
affecting an institution.

CONCLUSION 245

may be frustrated either by turning it in other
directions or by absorbing it in the older institu-
tions : and nothing more definite may appear than
a Hague Tribunal or a council of Conciliation.
Very obviously the social sentiment of a few is, so
far, in advance of the established practice in the
relationship of States.1 This, however, will be
ineffective unless it can be embodied in some
definite institutional change. It is useless to
prophesy. Perhaps the States of the world, by
warlike alliance, by recurrent war and by the
consequent return towards barbaric isolation, will
approximate to the hideous imaginings of the
philosophers ; but perhaps they will change in the
direction in which other institutions have de-
veloped, and arrange their differences otherwise
than by war. Whichever the future holds in store
for our children, it is as well for us now to recog-
nise the modifications which changing events have
already made in the nature of the highest political
institutions, so as not to be entrapped in the
subtleties of our forefathers : and it is as well also
to acknowledge that our institutions are still
changing more rapidly than the concepts by
which we manage them.

1 It is quite possible that the advanced social sentiment is
more widespread than is usually thought. The voice of the
newspapers is generally the ghostly voice of a past age which is
thought by editors to represent what is generally accepted.

246 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS

The State is not as bad as the philosophers have
imagined it to be. It is not an isolated armed
band. But it is not as good as it might be.
There is much room for a modification of political
institutions by new sentiments. In the contriving
of new institutional schemes, however, whether for
changing the State itself or its relation to other
States, we should not lose sight of the social senti-
ment which changes and may be changed, so subtly
that the gods of one generation may be the devils
of the next.

With regard to the assimilation and differen-
tiation of institutions of the same order, when they
are in continuous contact, there appears to be an
assimilation in externals and a differentiation of
internal character. This, as we have seen, is the
rule for individuals. We are more alike than our
grandfathers were in clothes and speech, but less
alike than they were in creeds and thought. This
diversification is due to the greater diversity of
occupation in modern times. And in institu-
tions also there seems to be the same distinc-
tion between external administration and internal
character.

For example, in religious institutions, ever since
the old social exclusiveness broke down, there has
been an increasing assimilation between the Church
of Rome in England and the English Church.
Each has adopted some of the external features of

CONCLUSION 247

the other. But, on the other hand, each has
become more conscious of whatever is distinctive
in its spirit or inner character. And the conscious-
ness of distinct character has led each to be more
friendly to the other. In the same way municipal
administration has become more alike in different
towns, but the character of the towns has been
diversified owing to the varieties of industry ; #nd
this diversity has bound the towns together, where-
as their old similarity caused separation. The
supreme political institution, in contact with others
of the same order, shows the same development.
States are more like one another in military
organisation, in police supervision and in their
relations to trade than they were when contact was
not normal and continuous. Even their legislative
methods seem to become more alike : and in
government — monarchies approximate to republics
and republics to monarchies.

On the other hand, there is no sign that the
assimilation of institutions in these points is oblit-
erating the distinction between States ; and not
merely are the States distinct, but they differ. At
first sight similarity of law and even parliamentary
institutions might seem to make it a matter of
indifference under what government one lived ;
and such indifference would be natural in a semi-
savage or a loafer ; but our keenness of perception
has increased and the really civilised man is able to

248 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS

notice a difference of " atmosphere " even when
the externals of two States are very much alike.
We belong to one State or another because of this
indefinable " atmosphere." Even if French law
and government became more like English than
it is now, France would not be England, not only
because of distinct language but politically also.
And the political diversity would, in part at least,
be' due to the difference in occupation or in
products which a difference of climate or soil
might make necessary.

Whatever the institution may be which comes
out of the growing sentiment of comity between
all nations, it will certainly not be a State. There
could not be a World-State. In the first place,
the constituent elements of this institution will
not be individuals but groups. The political
equality of all distinct state-groups will be the
basis of associationy/and thus a new sense will be
given to Renaissance Sovereignty.

The States of the world would then be bound
together not only by their similarity in methods
of government, but also by their diversity of
character. The economic interdependence would
be, as we have already seen, more complete
as material inventions become more numerous.
But there would also be the new and more
civilised comity of nations of different characters,
since the savage dislikes what is different from

CONCLUSION 249

himself but the civilised man is attracted by
diversity.

Again, it is sometimes said that as " England "
has resulted from subordination of the local in-
terests of Yorkshire, Devonshire, London and the
rest, so the separate States will be subordinated to
some vaster institution. But the metaphor is mis-
leading. The new process cannot be the same as
the earlier process in any essential points : for,
first, Yorkshire and the rest never had a fully
developed political life of their own. And even
the analogy of England and Scotland or Prussia
and Bavaria will not do. For the component
elements in what is now a larger whole were not,
before the union, modern States in a complex of
world-politics. The new situation has arisen
since any subordination of parts of which we have
evidence in history. The elements, then, in the
new Union are unique in kind, and their unity
cannot be modelled upon the unions of the past.
The new Union of the States of the world may
very well be " looser " institutionally and stronger
sentimentally. That is to say, in this matter we
may perhaps have reached a stage when we can
produce an institution as different from even
the modern State as that is different from the
Greek TTO?U£ ; an institution which would hold
together rather because of the changed social
sentiment in citizens of diverse States than

250 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS

because of the amount of force by which it can
be supported.

Perhaps this is not practical politics, but perhaps
also what seems the veriest dream of idealists
may, after all, be practical politics. If there is
one proposition which it is safe to deny it is the
creed of those who pride themselves on being
practical, that what has occurred will occur, or
that nothing can be done but what has been done.
One may imagine the Renaissance diplomatist
proving that what now commonly exists could
not possibly come to be ; as mathematicians once
proved flying to be impossible. The future is
open. And the most skilful statesman will be
he who is able to apply some new hypothesis
and discover truths in the relationship of States
of which we have not the faintest suspicion.
The practical morality of nations may be as
different in a few years' time as the conceptions
of the few in many nations now are from those
of the unthinking majority.

The result will not be a formula or a code :
for even if International Law becomes more and
more exact or extensive, international morality
will never be quite completely expressed in it.
The expressions of the Law will perhaps be
somewhat in advance of the morality of some
States, but they will always be inadequate to
render the full meaning of the moral sentiments

CONCLUSION 251

of others. And within every State there will
always be many who take their morality from
the law and a few who make the law by their
morality. For the morality of nations no less
than that of individuals is a continually developing
art of life.

INDEX

ALLIANCE, 120
Ambassadors, 100
Arbitration, 189
Aristotle, 62, 240
Armament Firms, 82

Balance of Power, no, 122
Beaconsfield, 117
Belgium, 6, n, 103
Berlin Treaty, 102
Bismarck, n, 107, 115, 141,

142

Bluntschli, 63
Board of Trade, 84
Bodin, 47
Bologna, 91
Bulgaria, 169

Cabinet, 109
Cabinet Government, 94
Capital, 87

Communication, 77, 78
Concert of Europe, 221
Conventions, 160
Creditor States, 88
Crimean War, 141

Darwin,:95
Debtor States, 88
Denmark, 9
Diplomacy, 99
Disraeli, 117

Education, 94, 240
Ehrlich, 92
Eliot, 88

Embassies, 100
Empires, 70, 71
Entente, 129
Expansion, 81, 146

Falkland Islands, 168
Fashoda Episode, 145
Finance, 83
Foreign Office, 71
Foreign Policy, 96

German Empire, 9

German Militarism, 144

Germany, 6, 144

Greek Polis, 30

Green, 182

Grotius, 47, 57

Group Morality, I, 2, 210, 217

Hague, 224
Harnack, 9
Hegel, 46, 50, 51, 53
History, 201
Hobbes, 92
Hugo de Groot, 3

Imperialism, 67, 69
Innocent III, 167
International Rivalry, 139

Law, 161

Italy, 6

Kultur, 35

Law, 4, 242
Lawrence, 101, 171

253

INDEX

Liberty, 38
Lister, 90
Louis XI, 100
Loyalty, 61

Machiavelli, 146, 207
Marx, 46, 63
Mazzini, 10, 105
Mediaeval Regnum, 31, 34
Mill, 46, 63
Mommsen, 90
Montpellier, 91
Morality, 191, 192
Municipal control, 94

National Insurance, 94
Nationalism, 66, 67, 68, 69
Nationality, 5, 6, 229
Nations, 5, 6, 12, 13
Napoleon III, II
Napoleonic Wars, 8
Neutrality, 163
Nineteenth Century State, 26
Non-combatants, 164

Order, 38
Oxford, 91

Palmerston, 108

Paris, 91

Parliamentary Government, 94

Pasteur, 90

Patriotism, 61

Plato, 48, 49, So, 242

Property, 162

Prussia, 141

Radium, 92

Red Cross, 161, 166

Regionalism, 67, 68, 69
Renaissance State, 26
Sovereign State, 32

St. Dominic, 91

St. Francis, 91

Salerno, 91

Serbia, 101

Sidgwick, 46, 63, 118

Slavs, 24

Socialists, 185

Specialisation of function, 155

Spencer, 30, 46, 52

State organisation, 67

Statistics (Board of Trade),

85-88
Stubbs, 109

Town planning, 94

Trade, 84

Treaties, 102

Treaty with U.S.A. (1914), 188

Treitschke, 98

Triple Alliance, 124

United States, 113, 188

Victoria, 114

Volunteer Movement} 145

Von Biilow, 8

War, 1 6, 159,232
Weapons, 167
Weismann, 95
World-politics, 80, 132-
Wyclif, 91

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