The World in Chains Part 7

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 78: H. N. Brailsford (_The War of Steel and Gold_, p. 125) speaks of an "indifferent democracy." Unhappily our democracy is not indifferent to Imperialism, for it is misled to believe that mere expansion is somehow grand and good; the only geography it learns at school is miscalled "patriotic" because it is designed to encourage this belief.]

[Footnote 79: I.e. as a real "Empire," the British Empire was a failure, as all Empires must be. It has been a success since it ceased to be an Empire about a hundred years ago. Cf. Professor H. E. Egerton's remark:--

"The British Colonial Empire of to-day is not the Empire which was the outcome of seventeenth-century methods. So far as the colonists themselves were concerned, English colonisation (in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries) was a complete success, but from the point of view of the mother country it was a failure, and the rock on which it foundered was the same rock which lost America to Spain and caused Canada to acquiesce in separation from France."]

[Footnote 80: I am ashamed to say that when I wrote these chapters I had not read Mr. H. N. Brailsford's _War of Steel and Gold_. But Mr.

Brailsford's brilliant examination of the connection between War and Finance is quite consistent with my supplementary theory of War and Trade. "Trade supplies no explanation of Imperialism," says Mr.

Brailsford (p. 75). It does, in so far as Traders support Imperialism because they think it is good for Trade: while financiers, as Mr.

Brailsford shows, support Imperialism because they know it is good for investments.]

[Footnote 81: "What is vital to any real Democracy in a densely-peopled, economically-complicated modern State, is that the Government should not be one. The very concentration of authority which is essential in war is, in peace, fatally destructive not of freedom alone, but also of that maximum individual development which is the very end and purpose for which society exists."--Sidney Webb, _Towards Social Democracy?_, 1916.]

militarism acquire strength with each fresh licence until the community as a whole is quite unable to control its own baser pa.s.sions--a condition which more than any other merits the name of servitude.[83]

Imperialism is a form of political corruption in which a nation is consoled for its own slavery by the pride of enslaving its neighbours.

The attainment of permanent peace connotes the abandonment of Imperialism.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 82: "Les Anglais veulent etre conquerants; donc ils ne tarderont pas d'etre esclaves."--_Political Writings_, C. E. Vaughan, I, 373.]

-- 6

Possible Objects of War

If the nations are prepared to abandon the claims of Imperialism there will be very little else left to fight about. An examination of the doc.u.ments connected with any war of the last century shows that the object of a belligerent in prolonging the agony is usually expressed in vague language that can be dissolved by a little a.n.a.lysis. Sometimes a government will propose, in the interests of peace and good government, to crush the enemy's aggressiveness by a purely defensive aggression, an excuse for bloodshed which only the most fanatical pacifist could confuse with Mr. Asquith's blunt watchword of "crus.h.i.+ng German militarism." The logical fallacy of such an excuse which is almost invariably pleaded by powerful belligerents,[84] a fallacy of which no one could wish to accuse Mr. Asquith's solid intellect, lies (quite apart from any question of the priority of aggression) in the fact that any attempt to crush by force the Will to Conquer inevitably breeds more militarism. The tag about taking a lesson from the enemy, _fas est et ab hoste doceri_, is only one half of the unhappy truth that the fighter is fatally bound to acquire his enemy's worst characteristics.

The object undertaken apparently in the interests of democracy can only be accomplished by the wholesale suppression of democratic rights, and involves an organised manufacture of imperialistic emotion which ends by delegating the authority of the State to a reactionary triumvirate of bureaucracy, jingoism and vulgarity (or Tory, Landowner and Journalist).

The guarantees of democracy, the rights of free thought and free speech, every sort of civil liberty and every defence against the servile state, will all have to be suppressed in the interests of the nation at war. It is the old story of the conversion of Thais by Paphnutius: the preacher s.n.a.t.c.hes lovely Thais from the burning, but himself is d.a.m.ned--"si hideux qu'en pa.s.sant la main sur son visage, il sent.i.t sa laideur." A is white and finds it necessary to whitewash B, who is black: after several years of hopeless grey, A finds that he has indeed put some very satisfactory daubs of whitewash all over B, but that his own coat has been blackened in the course of the struggle. It is as if a gardener, having heard of the cannibalistic habit of earwigs, proposed to exterminate the earwig in his rose-garden by importing a special army of five million earwigs collected at great expense from the surrounding country.

Other belligerent governments will raise the plea of checking the spread of a hostile and dangerous culture; a plausible because apparently philosophical justification of war as the only means of extirpating a heresy that might pervert the whole future of European civilisation.

Unfortunately such a moral effect, such a "conversion by shock," could only be accomplished by a very sudden, complete and shattering victory; and it is now beginning to be recognised that spectacular triumphs are not to be expected in modern warfare. But even if it were as possible by violence as it might conceivably be desirable to extirpate or even to limit the propagation of a particular form of mental culture, the achievement would certainly not be worth the cost to the unhappy survivors and their posterity. It would indeed be a crime against humanity to eliminate the better part of the younger generation, the flower of human brains, in the monstrous pedantry of attempting to correct an intellectual error. For the risks of modern warfare are not ordinary. It is not sufficiently realised that in six months of offensive tactics under modern conditions no man in the front line has more than one chance in a million of escaping death or mutilation.

There may remain the plea that a prolonged campaign is necessary in order by exhaustion to compel the enemy to evacuate some territory that he may have wrongfully occupied. The inevitable answer to such a plea would be that if a war had arrived at a stage in which there was a clear possibility of coercing the enemy by a process of exhaustion, that possibility, if it were well-founded, would certainly not have escaped the intelligence of the enemy, who would consequently be prepared to save his face by coming to terms. The evacuation of the occupied territory, or whatever it is that was to be achieved by the coercive exhaustion of another year or two of battle, might then be obtained by negotiation at once, and at the cost of a certain amount of paper and ink, instead of being forced on a revengeful and embittered opponent by the expensive process of killing young men, a process which has the disadvantage of working both ways.

The conclusion of these general considerations seems to be that all the arguments that are likely to be put forward in the course of a war in order to excuse and ensure its continuation, are only excuses to gain time, put forward in hope that the chances of a further campaign may enable the government concerned to retrieve some apparent advantage out of the disastrous muddle through which they drifted into the first declaration of war. Having drawn the sword in a moment of embarra.s.sment, they have now jolly well got to pretend that it was the right thing to do, and are not going to sheathe it till they see a chance of proving that they are glad they drew it. In short, there comes a point in all modern wars in which the belligerents are fighting for nothing at all, except for a more or less advantageous position from which to discuss a way to stop fighting.[85]

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 83: Spinoza, _Ethica_, IV, _praefat. ad init._ Humanam impotentiam in moderandis et coercendis affectibus servitutem voco.]

[Footnote 84: See above, -- 2, on "defensive" war, and compare a pa.s.sage from Mr. C. Grant Robertson's letter in _The Times_ of August 15, 1916:--

"Bismarck repeatedly and explicitly in the Reichstag justified the wars of 1864, 1866, and 1870 as 'defensive'--i.e. as not 'willed' by Prussia.

On the contrary, they were wars 'forced' on a peace-loving State denied its 'rights' by Denmark, Austria, and France. The argument, briefly, on Bismarckian principles is this. Prussia's policy is an '_Interessenpolitik_'--a policy of 'interests.' An 'interest' confers a 'right.' The satisfaction of 'national interest' is therefore the achievement of 'national rights.' If these 'rights' can be achieved by a compromise--i.e. by the complete surrender of Prussia's opponents to the demands based on these 'rights'--that is a proof of her peace-loving nature. But if her opponents refuse, then the war by which the 'rights'

are secured is a war 'forced' on Prussia. She has not 'willed' it. It is a 'defensive' war to prevent the robbery of her 'rights' by others; Bismarck, not without difficulty, converted his Sovereign to this argument. In each case--1864, 1866, 1870--William I was ultimately convinced that Denmark, Austria, and France were resisting the 'rights'

of Prussia, and that war to secure them was 'defensive,' 'forced' on the King, and just. The successful issues confirmed William's conscience and proved that Bismarckian principles had the Divine sanction."]

[Footnote 85: This att.i.tude is well ill.u.s.trated by the history of the Crimean War. In January, 1855, "peace seemed impossible until some of the disgrace was wiped away, and the pacificists, Cobden and Bright, were burned in effigy.... The prolongation of the war called out no protest from the public." Yet "the popular war produced an unpopular peace." When after another year of fighting our French allies finally insisted on peace, "'there was no indication,' said a Frenchman, 'as to which was the victor and which the vanquished.' Reviews and illuminations could not obscure the truth; Britain had sacrificed lives and treasure and obtained little in return."--Alice Green's Epilogue to J. R. Green's _Short History of the English People_.]

-- 7

Physical Force in a Moral World

The explanation of all this seems to lie in the simple fact that it is for ever impossible to solve questions of moral or political principle by the expenditure of physical force. Anyone at all conversant with philosophical thought, if I may adopt a simile used by Mr. H. G. Wells, "would as soon think of trying to kill the square root of 2 with a rook rifle." Physical violence can only solve purely physical problems. But as man no longer exists, if he ever did exist, in the completely unsocial "state of nature,"[86] the relations of one individual with another are no longer purely physical: their position as members of one society has given them a moral relation, questions affecting which can only be settled by reference to the judgment of the society as a whole.

Within the limits of the State this fact is already clearly recognised by the common voice of public opinion. If Smith quarrels with his neighbour Robinson, because Smith's old English sheep-dog is suspected of having scratched up Robinson's lawn, and Smith says the poor dog would never do such a thing, and anyhow Robinson had no business to leave his back gate open, while Robinson declares that that brute is becoming a d.a.m.ned nuisance, and so provokes Smith to express a hope that now perhaps that gra.s.s of Robinson's won't want so much G.o.dless mowing on Sunday morning: if two neighbours, in short, have a difference of opinion they both know perfectly well that the rights of the argument can never be decided by a free fight in the middle of the road, even if one of them happens to be a heavy-weight champion. Moreover, if they do come to blows it is perfectly certain that the opinion of the whole road will be against them, and that the Law, to which they might have appealed in the first instance, will intervene as the embodiment of that opinion. The street fight is clearly recognised as not only futile but immoral; it not only settles no questions of principle but it const.i.tutes a breach of the moral relation between two members of one community; it is become merely a rather sordid exhibition of irrelevant physical facts. The average citizen of England or Germany would never think of encouraging a fight between two sides of a street: why does he not recognise with equal directness the futility and immorality of a fight between two sides of a continent?[87] It is only because public opinion has not yet effectively realised that the moral sphere includes not only the citizens of one city and the cities of one nation, but the nations of a continent and the continents of the world. But it is a fact that the moral sphere does include the whole of humanity, who are colleagues in the task of civilisation, inspired by the twentieth-century corollary of gloomy nineteenth-century religious agnosticism, the cheerful corollary that it is Man's duty rather than G.o.d's to improve the habitable earth. The truth of this fact is already recognised by the better thought of all the nations concerned, and there is no reason why it should be withheld any longer from the people who suffer most by its suppression. As soon as public opinion is allowed to grasp this truth--and it is only too willing to clutch at any generalisation that is emotionally encouraged by its governors--there need be no difficulty at all in embodying that opinion in some form of international government: for, as Rousseau might have said, where there's a General Will, there's a way. As a matter of fact the way has already been admirably mapped by several parties of surveyors.[88]

On the const.i.tution of an International Authority, even on the general aspiration of Europe towards some form of supernational judicature, war will cease to have any more attraction or justification than the street brawl. For war is actually in the community of nations what the street fight is between individual citizens. War is futile, because it can settle no questions of principle; it is immoral, because it is an offence against the members.h.i.+p of a moral community. There is abundant evidence in Blue Books and in the overt acts of Germany that war releases and encourages the elementary brutality of the individual which is normally inhibited by the consciousness of social relations. I have tried to show in a former chapter that war serves the lowest interests of a parasitic commercial cla.s.s at the expense of the better part of the community. War fosters at the same time the basest elements in the individual, and the basest individuals in the community. War is a crime against the peace of the people.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 86: _Supra_, I, -- 5.]

[Footnote 87: Mr. Gilbert Cannan has noted somewhere that "a 'straight'

fight between Great Britain and Germany will be like a fight between two drunken women in a slum."]

[Footnote 88: See, for example, the quite definite and complete report on _International Government_, published by the Fabian Society (1916): and compare Mr. J. A. Hobson's book _Towards International Government_, and Mr. H. G. Wells' _The World Set Free_.]

-- 8

Imperialism and Capitalism through War and Trade the Enemies: Socialism to the Rescue

It is the most remarkable fact in political bibliography that all the Utopias worth mentioning have been written by Socialists. The fact is not surprising to anyone who has considered that the Socialists are the only political party in the State who ever attempt to look more than a dozen years ahead. The ordinary politician steers the s.h.i.+p by keeping a look-out for rocks and squalls, and does not trouble to make for any distant landmark. Only the Socialist looks ahead to a harbour attainable perhaps in a hundred years, from which a happier voyage may be begun.

Only the Socialist seems to realise that in the world conceived, as modern thought must conceive it, as a continuous process, Government rather than Trade, Science and Art rather than Industry are the chief activities of the citizen. Government is nothing less than the organisation of the State to take its place among the other States of the world. It includes of course education, being itself a form of education: for the State must be educated to fulfil its duty to other States, just as the citizen must be (and more or less is) educated in duty towards his neighbour. The first task of education is naturally to eliminate violence, to inhibit, by inducing in the young citizen the recognition of mutual rights, those acts of ferocity by which primitive man instinctively expresses his solipsistic pa.s.sions.

But where, it may well be asked, is the authority which is to begin the neglected education of the nations of Europe? Where is what Mr. Boon (or Mr. Bliss) would call "the Mind of the Race"? At present the only body of doctrine with any conception of the nature of government for the collective benefit of humanity is International Socialism. It is the International Socialists who must lead the attack on War, if only because the only instigators of war themselves form an international body in so far as the only occasions for war are contrived by the Imperialists and Capitalists who are to be found in every nation. To Socialism belongs the duty of educating Europe against Imperialism, as it has begun to educate the nation against Capitalism; for Imperialism is only an allotropic form of Capitalism, manifesting itself in the exploitation of fellow-nations instead of in the exploitation of fellow-citizens. The first step in that education must be the fight not only against "private" or profiteering Trade, but against "private" or profiteering War: and "private war" is every war that is not authorised by an International Authority and waged by an International army.

I seem to have heard it said before that there is only one way to break the chains that bind us: and that Amalgamation is the mother of Liberty.

The need for the education of Europe is a call to the Trade Unionists and Fabians and Collectivists and Guildsmen of every Nation:

SOCIALISTS OF THE WORLD UNITE.

APPENDIX TO CHAPTER III

SOME TYPICAL WAR PROFITS

I. _The Manchester Guardian_, January 3, 1916: