{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_10291/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_10291","id":"gutenberg_10291","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/10291","summary":null,"tags":["Category: History - Modern (1750+)","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Politics","Democracy","League of Nations","World War I","World War, 1914-1918 -- Peace"],"text":"Mr. WELLS has also written the following novels:\n\nLOVE AND MR. LEWISHAM\nKIPPS\nMR. POLLY\nTHE WHEELS OF CHANCE\nTHE NEW MACHIAVELLI\nANN VERONICA\nTONO BUNGAY\nMARRIAGE\nBEALBY\nTHE PASSIONATE FRIENDS\nTHE WIFE OF SIR ISAAC HARMAN\nTHE RESEARCH MAGNIFICENT\nMR. BRITLING SEES IT THROUGH\nTHE SOUL OF A BISHOP\n\nThe following fantastic and imaginative romances:\n\nTHE WAR OF THE WORLDS\nTHE TIME MACHINE\nTHE WONDERFUL VISIT\nTHE ISLAND OF DR. MOREAU\nTHE SEA LADY\nTHE SLEEPER AWAKES\nTHE FOOD OF THE GODS\nTHE WAR IN THE AIR\nTHE FIRST MEN IN THE MOON\nIN THE DAYS OF THE COMET\nTHE WORLD SET FREE\n\nAnd numerous Short Stories now collected in One\nVolume under the title of\n\nTHE COUNTRY OF THE BLIND\n\nA Series of books upon Social, Religious and Political questions:\n\nANTICIPATIONS (1900)\nMANKIND IN THE MAKING\nFIRST AND LAST THINGS\nNEW WORLDS FOR OLD\nA MODERN UTOPIA\nTHE FUTURE IN AMERICA\nAN ENGLISHMAN LOOKS AT THE WORLD\nWHAT IS COMING?\nWAR AND THE FUTURE\nGOD THE INVISIBLE KING\n\nAnd two little books about children's play, called:\n\nFLOOR GAMES and LITTLE WARS\n\n\n\n\nIN THE FOURTH YEAR\n\nANTICIPATIONS OF A WORLD PEACE\n\nBY\n\nH. G. WELLS\n\nAUTHOR OF \"MR. BRITLING SEES IT THROUGH,\"\n\"THE WAR AND THE FUTURE,\" \"WHAT IS COMING?\" \"THE WAR THAT WILL\nEND WAR,\" \"THE WORLD SET FREE,\" \"IN THE DAYS OF THE COMET,\" AND\n\"A MODERN UTOPIA\"\n\n1918\n\n\n\n\n\nPREFACE\n\n\nIn the latter half of 1914 a few of us were writing that this war was a\n\"War of Ideas.\" A phrase, \"The War to end War,\" got into circulation,\namidst much sceptical comment. It was a phrase powerful enough to sway\nmany men, essentially pacifists, towards taking an active part in the\nwar against German imperialism, but it was a phrase whose chief content\nwas its aspiration. People were already writing in those early days of\ndisarmament and of the abolition of the armament industry throughout the\nworld; they realized fully the element of industrial belligerency behind\nthe shining armour of imperialism, and they denounced the \"Krupp-Kaiser\"\nalliance. But against such writing and such thought we had to count, in\nthose days, great and powerful realities. Even to those who expressed\nthese ideas there lay visibly upon them the shadow of impracticability;\nthey were very \"advanced\" ideas in 1914, very Utopian. Against them was\nan unbroken mass of mental habit and public tradition. While we talked\nof this \"war to end war,\" the diplomatists of the Powers allied against\nGermany were busily spinning a disastrous web of greedy secret treaties,\nwere answering aggression by schemes of aggression, were seeing in the\ntreacherous violence of Germany only the justification for\ncountervailing evil acts. To them it was only another war for\n\"ascendancy.\" That was three years and a half ago, and since then this\n\"war of ideas\" has gone on to a phase few of us had dared hope for in\nthose opening days. The Russian revolution put a match to that pile of\nsecret treaties and indeed to all the imperialist plans of the Allies;\nin the end it will burn them all. The greatest of the Western Allies is\nnow the United States of America, and the Americans have come into this\nwar simply for an idea. Three years and a half ago a few of us were\nsaying this was a war against the idea of imperialism, not German\nimperialism merely, but British and French and Russian imperialism, and\nwe were saying this not because it was so, but because we hoped to see\nit become so. To-day we can say so, because now it is so.\n\nIn those days, moreover, we said this is the \"war to end war,\" and we\nstill did not know clearly how. We thought in terms of treaties and\nalliances. It is largely the detachment and practical genius of the\ngreat English-speaking nation across the Atlantic that has carried the\nworld on beyond and replaced that phrase by the phrase, \"The League of\nNations,\" a phrase suggesting plainly the organization of a sufficient\ninstrument by which war may be ended for ever. In 1913 talk of a World\nLeague of Nations would have seemed, to the extremest pitch, \"Utopian.\"\nTo-day the project has an air not only of being so practicable, but of\nbeing so urgent and necessary and so manifestly the sane thing before\nmankind that not to be busied upon it, not to be making it more widely\nknown and better understood, not to be working out its problems and\nbringing it about, is to be living outside of the contemporary life of\nthe world. For a book upon any other subject at the present time some\napology may be necessary, but a book upon this subject is as natural a\nthing to produce now as a pair of skates in winter when the ice begins\nto bear.\n\nAll we writers find ourselves engaged perforce in some part or other of\na world-wide propaganda of this the most creative and hopeful of\npolitical ideas that has ever dawned upon the consciousness of mankind.\nWith no concerted plan we feel called upon to serve it. And in no\nconnection would one so like to think oneself un-original as in this\nconnection. It would be a dismaying thing to realize that one were\nwriting anything here which was not the possible thought of great\nmultitudes of other people, and capable of becoming the common thought\nof mankind. One writes in such a book as this not to express oneself but\nto swell a chorus. The idea of the League of Nations is so great a one\nthat it may well override the pretensions and command the allegiance of\nkings; much more does it claim the self-subjugation of the journalistic\nwriter. Our innumerable books upon this great edifice of a World Peace\ndo not constitute a scramble for attention, but an attempt to express in\nevery variety of phrase and aspect this one system of ideas which now\npossesses us all. In the same way the elementary facts and ideas of the\nscience of chemistry might conceivably be put completely and fully into\none text-book, but, as a matter of fact, it is far more convenient to\ntell that same story over in a thousand different forms, in a text-book\nfor boys here, for a different sort or class of boy there, for adult\nstudents, for reference, for people expert in mathematics, for people\nunused to the scientific method, and so on. For the last year the writer\nhas been doing what he can--and a number of other writers have been\ndoing what they can--to bring about a united declaration of all the\nAtlantic Allies in favour of a League of Nations, and to define the\nnecessary nature of that League. He has, in the course of this work,\nwritten a series of articles upon the League and upon _the necessary\nsacrifices of preconceptions_ that the idea involves in the London\npress. He has also been trying to clear his own mind upon the real\nmeaning of that ambiguous word \"democracy,\" for which the League is to\nmake the world \"safe.\" The bulk of this book is made up of these\ndiscussions. For a very considerable number of readers, it may be well\nto admit here, it can have no possible interest; they will have come at\nthese questions themselves from different angles and they will have long\nsince got to their own conclusions. But there may be others whose angle\nof approach may be similar to the writer's, who may have asked some or\nmost of the questions he has had to ask, and who may be actively\ninterested in the answers and the working out of the answers he has made\nto these questions. For them this book is printed.\n\nH. G. WELLS.\n\n_May_, 1918.\n\nIt is a dangerous thing to recommend specific books out of so large and\nvarious a literature as the \"League of Nations\" idea has already\nproduced, but the reader who wishes to reach beyond the range of this\nbook, or who does not like its tone and method, will probably find\nsomething to meet his needs and tastes better in Marburg's \"League of\nNations,\" a straightforward account of the American side of the movement\nby the former United States Minister in Belgium, on the one hand, or in\nthe concluding parts of Mr. Fayle's \"Great Settlement\" (1915), a frankly\nsceptical treatment from the British Imperialist point of view, on the\nother. An illuminating discussion, advocating peace treaties rather than\na league, is Sir Walter Phillimore's \"Three Centuries of Treaties.\" Two\nexcellent books from America, that chance to be on my table, are Mr.\nGoldsmith's \"League to Enforce Peace\" and \"A World in Ferment\" by\nPresident Nicholas Murray Butler. Mater's \"Soci\u00e9t\u00e9 des Nations\" (Didier)\nis an able presentation of a French point of view. Brailsford's \"A\nLeague of Nations\" is already a classic of the movement in England, and\na very full and thorough book; and Hobson's \"Towards International\nGovernment\" is a very sympathetic contribution from the English liberal\nleft; but the reader must understand that these two writers seem\ndisposed to welcome a peace with an unrevolutionized Germany, an idea to\nwhich, in common with most British people, I am bitterly opposed.\nWalsh's \"World Rebuilt\" is a good exhortation, and Mugge's \"Parliament\nof Man\" is fresh and sane and able. The omnivorous reader will find good\nsense and quaint English in Judge Mejdell's \"_Jus Gentium_,\" published\nin English by Olsen's of Christiania. There is an active League of\nNations Society in Dublin, as well as the London and Washington ones,\npublishing pamphlets and conducting propaganda. All these books and\npamphlets I have named happen to lie upon my study table as I write, but\nI have made no systematic effort to get together literature upon the\nsubject, and probably there are just as many books as good of which I\nhave never even heard. There must, I am sure, be statements of the\nLeague of Nations idea forthcoming from various religious standpoints,\nbut I do not know any sufficiently well to recommend them. It is\nincredible that neither the Roman Catholic Church, the English Episcopal\nChurch, nor any Nonconformist body has made any effort as an\norganization to forward this essentially religious end of peace on\nearth. And also there must be German writings upon this same topic. I\nmention these diverse sources not in order to present a bibliography,\nbut because I should be sorry to have the reader think that this little\nbook pretends to state _the_ case rather than _a_ case for the League of\nNations.\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS\n\n    I.  THE WAY TO CONCRETE REALIZATION\n\n   II.  THE LEAGUE MUST BE REPRESENTATIVE\n\n  III.  THE NECESSARY POWERS OF THE LEAGUE\n\n   IV.  THE LABOUR VIEW OF MIDDLE AFRICA\n\n    V.  GETTING THE LEAGUE IDEA CLEAR IN RELATION TO\n            IMPERIALISM\n\n   VI.  THE WAR AIMS OF THE WESTERN ALLIES COMPACTLY STATED\n\n  VII.  THE FUTURE OF MONARCHY\n\n VIII.  THE PLAIN NECESSITY FOR A LEAGUE\n\n   IX.  DEMOCRACY\n\n    X.  THE RECENT STRUGGLE FOR PROPORTIONAL REPRESENTATION\n            IN GREAT BRITAIN\n\n   XI.  THE STUDY AND PROPAGANDA OF DEMOCRACY\n\n\n\n\nIN THE FOURTH YEAR\n\nTHE LEAGUE OF FREE NATIONS\n\n\n\n\nI\n\nTHE WAY TO CONCRETE REALIZATION\n\n\nMore and more frequently does one hear this phrase, The League of\nNations, used to express the outline idea of the new world that will\ncome out of the war. There can be no doubt that the phrase has taken\nhold of the imaginations of great multitudes of people: it is one of\nthose creative phrases that may alter the whole destiny of mankind. But\nas yet it is still a very vague phrase, a cloudy promise of peace. I\nmake no apology therefore, for casting my discussion of it in the most\ngeneral terms. The idea is the idea of united human effort to put an end\nto wars; the first practical question, that must precede all others, is\nhow far can we hope to get to a concrete realization of that?\n\nBut first let me note the fourth word in the second title of this book.\nThe common talk is of a \"League of Nations\" merely. I follow the man who\nis, more than any other man, the leader of English political thought\nthroughout the world to-day, President Wilson, in inserting that\nsignificant adjective \"Free.\" We western allies know to-day what is\ninvolved in making bargains with governments that do not stand for their\npeoples; we have had all our Russian deal, for example, repudiated and\nthrust back upon our hands; and it is clearly in his mind, as it must be\nin the minds of all reasonable men, that no mere \"scrap of paper,\" with\njust a monarch's or a chancellor's endorsement, is a good enough earnest\nof fellowship in the league. It cannot be a diplomatist's league. The\nLeague of Nations, if it is to have any such effect as people seem to\nhope from it, must be, in the first place, \"understanded of the people.\"\nIt must be supported by sustained, deliberate explanation, and by\nteaching in school and church and press of the whole mass of all the\npeoples concerned. I underline the adjective \"Free\" here to set aside,\nonce for all, any possible misconception that this modern idea of a\nLeague of Nations has any affinity to that Holy Alliance of the\ndiplomatists, which set out to keep the peace of Europe so disastrously\na century ago.\n\nLater I will discuss the powers of the League. But before I come to\nthat I would like to say a little about the more general question of its\nnature and authority. What sort of gathering will embody it? The\nsuggestions made range from a mere advisory body, rather like the Hague\nconvention, which will merely pronounce on the rights and wrongs of any\ninternational conflict, to the idea of a sort of Super-State, a\nParliament of Mankind, a \"Super National\" Authority, practically taking\nover the sovereignty of the existing states and empires of the world.\nMost people's ideas of the League fall between these extremes. They want\nthe League to be something more than an ethical court, they want a\nLeague that will act, but on the other hand they shrink from any loss of\n\"our independence.\" There seems to be a conflict here. There is a real\nneed for many people to tidy up their ideas at this point. We cannot\nhave our cake and eat it. If association is worth while, there must be\nsome sacrifice of freedom to association. As a very distinguished\ncolonial representative said to me the other day: \"Here we are talking\nof the freedom of small nations and the 'self-determination' of peoples,\nand at the same time of the Council of the League of Nations and all\nsorts of international controls. Which do we want?\"\n\nThe answer, I think, is \"Both.\" It is a matter of more or less, of\ngetting the best thing at the cost of the second-best. We may want to\nrelax an old association in order to make a newer and wider one. It is\nquite understandable that peoples aware of a distinctive national\ncharacter and involved in some big existing political complex, should\nwish to disentangle themselves from one group of associations in order\nto enter more effectively into another, a greater, and more satisfactory\none. The Finn or the Pole, who has hitherto been a rather reluctant\nmember of the synthesis of the Russian empire, may well wish to end that\nattachment in order to become a free member of a worldwide brotherhood.\nThe desire for free arrangement is not a desire for chaos. There is such\na thing as untying your parcels in order to pack them better, and I do\nnot see myself how we can possibly contemplate a great league of freedom\nand reason in the world without a considerable amount of such\npreliminary dissolution.\n\nIt happens, very fortunately for the world, that a century and a quarter\nago thirteen various and very jealous states worked out the problem of a\nUnion, and became--after an enormous, exhausting wrangle--the United\nStates of America. Now the way they solved their riddle was by\ndelegating and giving over jealously specified sovereign powers and\ndoing all that was possible to retain the residuum. They remained\nessentially sovereign states. New York, Virginia, Massachusetts, for\nexample, remained legally independent. The practical fusion of these\npeoples into one people outran the legal bargain. It was only after long\nyears of discussion that the point was conceded; it was indeed only\nafter the Civil War that the implications were fully established, that\nthere resided a sovereignty in the American people as a whole, as\ndistinguished from the peoples of the several states. This is a\nprecedent that every one who talks about the League of Nations should\nbear in mind. These states set up a congress and president in Washington\nwith strictly delegated powers. That congress and president they\ndelegated to look after certain common interests, to deal with\ninterstate trade, to deal with foreign powers, to maintain a supreme\ncourt of law. Everything else--education, militia, powers of life and\ndeath--the states retained for themselves. To this day, for instance,\nthe federal courts and the federal officials have no power to interfere\nto protect the lives or property of aliens in any part of the union\noutside the district of Columbia. The state governments still see to\nthat. The federal government has the legal right perhaps to intervene,\nbut it is still chary of such intervention. And these states of the\nAmerican Union were at the outset so independent-spirited that they\nwould not even adopt a common name. To this day they have no common\nname. We have to call them Americans, which is a ridiculous name when we\nconsider that Canada, Mexico, Peru, Brazil are all of them also in\nAmerica. Or else we have to call them Virginians, Californians, New\nEnglanders, and so forth. Their legal and nominal separateness weighs\nnothing against the real fusion that their great league has now made\npossible.\n\nNow, that clearly is a precedent of the utmost value in our schemes for\nthis council of the League of Nations. We must begin by delegating, as\nthe States began by delegating. It is a far cry to the time when we\nshall talk and think of the Sovereign People of the Earth. That council\nof the League of Nations will be a tie as strong, we hope, but certainly\nnot so close and multiplex as the early tie of the States at Washington.\nIt will begin by having certain delegated powers and no others. It will\nbe an \"_ad hoc_\" body. Later its powers may grow as mankind becomes\naccustomed to it. But at first it will have, directly or mediately, all\nthe powers that seem necessary to restrain the world from war--and\nunless I know nothing of patriotic jealousies it will have not a scrap\nof power more. The danger is much more that its powers will be\ninsufficient than that they will be excessive. Of that later. What I\nwant to discuss here now is the constitution of this delegated body. I\nwant to discuss that first in order to set aside out of the discussion\ncertain fantastic notions that will otherwise get very seriously in our\nway. Fantastic as they are, they have played a large part in reducing\nthe Hague Tribunal to an ineffective squeak amidst the thunders of this\nwar.\n\nA number of gentlemen scheming out world unity in studies have begun\ntheir proposals with the simple suggestion that each sovereign power\nshould send one member to the projected parliament of mankind. This has\na pleasant democratic air; one sovereign state, one vote. Now let us run\nover a list of sovereign states and see to what this leads us. We find\nour list includes the British Empire, with a population of four hundred\nmillions, of which probably half can read and write some language or\nother; Bogota with a population of a million, mostly poets; Hayti with a\npopulation of a million and a third, almost entirely illiterate and\nliable at any time to further political disruption; Andorra with a\npopulation of four or five thousand souls. The mere suggestion of equal\nrepresentation between such \"powers\" is enough to make the British\nEmpire burst into a thousand (voting) fragments. A certain concession\nto population, one must admit, was made by the theorists; a state of\nover three millions got, if I remember rightly, two delegates, and if\nover twenty, three, and some of the small states were given a kind of\nintermittent appearance, they only came every other time or something of\nthat sort; but at The Hague things still remained in such a posture that\nthree or four minute and backward states could outvote the British\nEmpire or the United States. Therein lies the clue to the insignificance\nof The Hague. Such projects as these are idle projects and we must put\nthem out of our heads; they are against nature; the great nations will\nnot suffer them for a moment.\n\nBut when we dismiss this idea of representation by states, we are left\nwith the problem of the proportion of representation and of relative\nweight in the Council of the League on our hands. It is the sort of\nproblem that appeals terribly to the ingenious. We cannot solve it by\nmaking population a basis, because that will give a monstrous importance\nto the illiterate millions of India and China. Ingenious statistical\nschemes have been framed in which the number of university graduates and\nthe steel output come in as multipliers, but for my own part I am not\ngreatly impressed by statistical schemes. At the risk of seeming\nsomething of a Prussian, I would like to insist upon certain brute\nfacts. The business of the League of Nations is to keep the peace of the\nworld and nothing else. No power will ever dare to break the peace of\nthe world if the powers that are capable of making war under modern\nconditions say \"_No_.\" And there are only four powers certainly capable\nat the present time of producing the men and materials needed for a\nmodern war in sufficient abundance to go on fighting: Britain, France,\nGermany, and the United States. There are three others which are very\ndoubtfully capable: Italy, Japan, and Austria. Russia I will mark--it is\nall that one can do with Russia just now--with a note of interrogation.\nSome day China may be war capable--I hope never, but it is a\npossibility. Personally I don't think that any other power on earth\nwould have a ghost of a chance to resist the will--if it could be an\nhonestly united will--of the first-named four. All the rest fight by the\nsanction of and by association with these leaders. They can only fight\nbecause of the split will of the war-complete powers. Some are forced to\nfight by that very division.\n\nNo one can vie with me in my appreciation of the civilization of\nSwitzerland, Sweden, or Holland, but the plain fact of the case is that\nsuch powers are absolutely incapable of uttering an effective protest\nagainst war. Far less so are your Haytis and Liberias. The preservation\nof the world-peace rests with the great powers and with the great powers\nalone. If they have the will for peace, it is peace. If they have not,\nit is conflict. The four powers I have named can now, if they see fit,\ndictate the peace of the world for ever.\n\nLet us keep our grip on that. Peace is the business of the great powers\nprimarily. Steel output, university graduates, and so forth may be\nconvenient secondary criteria, may be useful ways of measuring war\nefficiency, but the meat and substance of the Council of the League of\nNations must embody the wills of those leading peoples. They can give an\nenduring peace to the little nations and the whole of mankind. It can\narrive in no other way. So I take it that the Council of an ideal League\nof Nations must consist chiefly of the representatives of the great\nbelligerent powers, and that the representatives of the minor allies and\nof the neutrals--essential though their presence will be--must not be\nallowed to swamp the voices of these larger masses of mankind.\n\nAnd this state of affairs may come about more easily than logical,\nstatistical-minded people may be disposed to think. Our first impulse,\nwhen we discuss the League of Nations idea, is to think of some very\nelaborate and definite scheme of members on the model of existing\nlegislative bodies, called together one hardly knows how, and sitting\nin a specially built League of Nations Congress House. All schemes are\nmore methodical than reality. We think of somebody, learned and\n\"expert,\" in spectacles, with a thin clear voice, reading over the\n\"Projected Constitution of a League of Nations\" to an attentive and\nrespectful Peace Congress. But there is a more natural way to a league\nthan that. Instead of being made like a machine, the League of Nations\nmay come about like a marriage. The Peace Congress that must sooner or\nlater meet may itself become, after a time, the Council of a League of\nNations. The League of Nations may come upon us by degrees, almost\nimperceptibly. I am strongly obsessed by the idea that that Peace\nCongress will necessarily become--and that it is highly desirable that\nit should become--a most prolonged and persistent gathering. Why should\nit not become at length a permanent gathering, inviting representatives\nto aid its deliberations from the neutral states, and gradually\nadjusting itself to conditions of permanency?\n\nI can conceive no such Peace Congress as those that have settled up\nafter other wars, settling up after this war. Not only has the war been\nenormously bigger than any other war, but it has struck deeper at the\nfoundations of social and economic life. I doubt if we begin to realize\nhow much of the old system is dead to-day, how much has to be remade.\nSince the beginnings of history there has been a credible promise of\ngold payments underneath our financial arrangements. It is now an\nincredible promise. The value of a pound note waves about while you look\nat it. What will happen to it when peace comes no man can tell. Nor what\nwill happen to the mark. The rouble has gone into the Abyss. Our giddy\nmoney specialists clutch their handfuls of paper and watch it flying\ndown the steep. Much as we may hate the Germans, some of us will have to\nsit down with some of the enemy to arrange a common scheme for the\npreservation of credit in money. And I presume that it is not proposed\nto end this war in a wild scramble of buyers for such food as remains in\nthe world. There is a shortage now, a greater shortage ahead of the\nworld, and there will be shortages of supply at the source and transport\nin food and all raw materials for some years to come. The Peace Congress\nwill have to sit and organize a share-out and distribution and\nreorganization of these shattered supplies. It will have to Rhondda the\nnations. Probably, too, we shall have to deal collectively with a\npestilence before we are out of the mess. Then there are such little\njobs as the reconstruction of Belgium and Serbia. There are considerable\nrectifications of boundaries to be made. There are fresh states to be\ncreated, in Poland and Armenia for example. About all these smaller\nstates, new and old, that the peace must call into being, there must be\na system of guarantees of the most difficult and complicated sort.\n\nI do not see the Press Congress getting through such matters as these in\na session of weeks or months. The idea the Germans betrayed at Brest,\nthat things were going to be done in the Versailles fashion by great\nmoustached heroes frowning and drawing lines with a large black\nsoldierly thumbnail across maps, is--old-fashioned. They have made their\neastern treaties, it is true, in this mode, but they are still looking\nfor some really responsible government to keep them now that they are\nmade. From first to last clearly the main peace negotiations are going\nto follow unprecedented courses. This preliminary discussion of war aims\nby means of great public speeches, that has been getting more and more\nexplicit now for many months, is quite unprecedented. Apparently all the\nbroad preliminaries are to be stated and accepted in the sight of all\nmankind before even an armistice occurs on the main, the western front.\nThe German diplomatists hate this process. So do a lot of ours. So do\nsome of the diplomatic Frenchmen. The German junkers are dodging and\nlying, they are fighting desperately to keep back everything they\npossibly can for the bargaining and bullying and table-banging of the\ncouncil chamber, but that way there is no peace. And when at last\nGermany says snip sufficiently to the Allies' snap, and the Peace\nCongress begins, it will almost certainly be as unprecedented as its\nprelude. Before it meets, the broad lines of the settlement will have\nbeen drawn plainly with the approval of the mass of mankind.\n\n\n\n\nII\n\nTHE LEAGUE MUST BE REPRESENTATIVE\n\n\nA Peace Congress, growing permanent, then, may prove to be the most\npractical and convenient embodiment of this idea of a League of Nations\nthat has taken possession of the imagination of the world. A most\nnecessary preliminary to a Peace Congress, with such possibilities\ninherent in it, must obviously be the meeting and organization of a\npreliminary League of the Allied Nations. That point I would now\nenlarge.\n\nHalf a world peace is better than none. There seems no reason whatever\nwhy the world should wait for the Central Powers before it begins this\nnecessary work. Mr. McCurdy has been asking lately, \"Why not the League\nof Nations _now_?\" That is a question a great number of people would\nlike to echo very heartily. The nearer the Allies can come to a League\nof Free Nations before the Peace Congress the more prospect there is\nthat that body will approximate in nature to a League of Nations for the\nwhole world.\n\nIn one most unexpected quarter the same idea has been endorsed. The\nKing's Speech on the prorogation of Parliament this February was one of\nthe most remarkable royal utterances that have ever been made from the\nBritish throne. There was less of the old-fashioned King and more of the\nmodern President about it than the most republican-minded of us could\nhave anticipated. For the first time in a King's Speech we heard of the\n\"democracies\" of the world, and there was a clear claim that the Allies\nat present fighting the Central Powers did themselves constitute a\nLeague of Nations.\n\nBut we must admit that at present they do so only in a very rhetorical\nsense. There is no real council of empowered representatives, and\nnothing in the nature of a united front has been prepared. Unless we\nprovide beforehand for something more effective, Italy, France, the\nUnited States, Japan, and this country will send separate groups of\nrepresentatives, with separate instructions, unequal status, and very\nprobably conflicting views upon many subjects, to the ultimate peace\ndiscussions. It is quite conceivable--it is a very serious danger--that\nat this discussion skilful diplomacy on the part of the Central Powers\nmay open a cleft among the Allies that has never appeared during the\nactual war. Have the British settled, for example, with Italy and\nFrance for the supply of metallurgical coal after the war? Those\ncountries must have it somehow. Across the board Germany can make some\ntempting bids in that respect. Or take another question: Have the\nBritish arrived at common views with France, Belgium, Portugal, and\nSouth Africa about the administration of Central Africa? Suppose Germany\nmakes sudden proposals affecting native labour that win over the\nPortuguese and the Boers? There are a score of such points upon which we\nshall find the Allied representatives haggling with each other in the\npresence of the enemy if they have not been settled beforehand.\n\nIt is the plainest common sense that we should be fixing up all such\nmatters with our Allies now, and knitting together a common front for\nthe final deal with German Imperialism. And these things are not to be\ndone effectively and bindingly nowadays by official gentlemen in\ndiscreet undertones. They need to be done with the full knowledge and\nauthority of the participating peoples.\n\nThe Russian example has taught the world the instability of diplomatic\nbargains in a time of such fundamental issues as the present. There is\nlittle hope and little strength in hole-and-corner bargainings between\nthe officials or politicians who happen to be at the head of this or\nthat nation for the time being. Our Labour people will not stand this\nsort of thing and they will not be bound by it. There will be the plain\ndanger of repudiation for all arrangements made in that fashion. A\ngathering of somebody or other approved by the British Foreign Office\nand of somebody or other approved by the French Foreign Office, of\nsomebody with vague powers from America, and so on and so on, will be an\nentirely ineffective gathering. But that is the sort of gathering of the\nAllies we have been having hitherto, and that is the sort of gathering\nthat is likely to continue unless there is a considerable expression of\nopinion in favour of something more representative and responsible.\n\nEven our Foreign Office must be aware that in every country in the world\nthere is now bitter suspicion of and keen hostility towards merely\ndiplomatic representatives. One of the most significant features of the\ntime is the evident desire of the Labour movement in every European\ncountry to take part in a collateral conference of Labour that shall\nmeet when and where the Peace Congress does and deliberate and comment\non its proceedings. For a year now the demand of the masses for such a\nLabour conference has been growing. It marks a distrust of officialdom\nwhose intensity officialdom would do well to ponder. But it is the\nnatural consequence of, it is the popular attempt at a corrective to,\nthe aloofness and obscurity that have hitherto been so evil a\ncharacteristic of international negotiations. I do not think Labour and\nintelligent people anywhere are going to be fobbed off with an\nold-fashioned diplomatic gathering as being that League of Free Nations\nthey demand.\n\nOn the other hand, I do not contemplate this bi-cameral conference with\nthe diplomatists trying to best and humbug the Labour people as well as\neach other and the Labour people getting more and more irritated,\nsuspicious, and extremist, with anything but dread. The Allied countries\nmust go into the conference _solid_, and they can only hope to do that\nby heeding and incorporating Labour ideas before they come to the\nconference. The only alternative that I can see to this unsatisfactory\nprospect of a Peace Congress sitting side by side with a dissentient and\nprobably revolutionary Labour and Socialist convention--both gatherings\nwith unsatisfactory credentials contradicting one another and drifting\nto opposite extremes--is that the delegates the Allied Powers send to\nthe Peace Conference (the same delegates which, if they are wise, they\nwill have previously sent to a preliminary League of Allied Nations to\ndiscuss their common action at the Peace Congress), should be elected\n_ad hoc_ upon democratic lines.\n\nI know that this will be a very shocking proposal to all our able\nspecialists in foreign policy. They will talk at once about the\n\"ignorance\" of people like the Labour leaders and myself about such\nmatters, and so on. What do we know of the treaty of so-and-so that was\nsigned in the year seventeen something?--and so on. To which the answer\nis that we ought not to have been kept ignorant of these things. A day\nwill come when the Foreign Offices of all countries will have to\nrecognize that what the people do not know of international agreements\n\"ain't facts.\" A secret treaty is only binding upon the persons in the\nsecret. But what I, as a sample common person, am not ignorant of is\nthis: that the business that goes on at the Peace Congress will either\nmake or mar the lives of everyone I care for in the world, and that\nsomehow, by representative or what not, _I have to be there_. The Peace\nCongress deals with the blood and happiness of my children and the\nfuture of my world. Speaking as one of the hundreds of millions of \"rank\noutsiders\" in public affairs, I do not mean to respect any peace treaty\nthat may end this war unless I am honestly represented at its making. I\nthink everywhere there is a tendency in people to follow the Russian\nexample to this extent and to repudiate bargains in which they have had\nno voice.\n\nI do not see that any genuine realization of the hopes with which all\nthis talk about the League of Nations is charged can be possible, unless\nthe two bodies which should naturally lead up to the League of\nNations--that is to say, firstly, the Conference of the Allies, and then\nthe Peace Congress--are elected bodies, speaking confidently for the\nwhole mass of the peoples behind them. It may be a troublesome thing to\nelect them, but it will involve much more troublesome consequences if\nthey are not elected. This, I think, is one of the considerations for\nwhich many people's minds are still unprepared. But unless we are to\nhave over again after all this bloodshed and effort some such \"Peace\nwith Honour\" foolery as we had performed by \"Dizzy\" and Salisbury at\nthat fatal Berlin Conference in which this present war was begotten, we\nmust sit up to this novel proposal of electoral representation in the\npeace negotiations. Something more than common sense binds our statesmen\nto this idea. They are morally pledged to it. President Wilson and our\nBritish and French spokesmen alike have said over and over again that\nthey want to deal not with the Hohenzollerns but with the German people.\nIn other words, we have demanded elected representatives from the German\npeople with whom we may deal, and how can we make a demand of that sort\nunless we on our part are already prepared to send our own elected\nrepresentatives to meet them? It is up to us to indicate by our own\npractice how we on our side, professing as we do to act for democracies,\nto make democracy safe on the earth, and so on, intend to meet this new\noccasion.\n\nYet it has to be remarked that, so far, not one of the League of Nations\nprojects I have seen have included any practicable proposals for the\nappointment of delegates either to that ultimate body or to its two\nnecessary predecessors, the Council of the Allies and the Peace\nCongress. It is evident that here, again, we are neglecting to get on\nwith something of very urgent importance. I will venture, therefore, to\nsay a word or two here about the possible way in which a modern\ncommunity may appoint its international representatives.\n\nAnd here, again, I turn from any European precedents to that political\noutcome of the British mind, the Constitution of the United States.\n(Because we must always remember that while our political institutions\nin Britain are a patch-up of feudalism, Tudor, Stuart, and Hanoverian\nmonarchist traditions and urgent merely European necessities, a patch-up\nthat has been made quasi-democratic in a series of after-thoughts, the\nAmerican Constitution is a real, deliberate creation of the\nEnglish-speaking intelligence.) The President of the United States,\nthen, we have to note, is elected in a most extraordinary way, and in a\nway that has now the justification of very great successes indeed. On\nseveral occasions the United States has achieved indisputable greatness\nin its Presidents, and very rarely has it failed to set up very leaderly\nand distinguished men. It is worth while, therefore, to inquire how this\nPresident is elected. He is neither elected directly by the people nor\nappointed by any legislative body. He is chosen by a special college\nelected by the people. This college exists to elect him; it meets,\nelects him, and disperses. (I will not here go into the preliminary\ncomplications that makes the election of a President follow upon a\npreliminary election of two Presidential Candidates. The point I am\nmaking here is that he is a specially selected man chosen _ad hoc_.) Is\nthere any reason why we should, not adopt this method in this new\nnecessity we are under of sending representatives, first, to the long\noverdue and necessary Allied Council, then to the Peace Congress, and\nthen to the hoped-for Council of the League of Nations?\n\nI am anxious here only to start for discussion the idea of an electoral\nrepresentation of the nations upon these three bodies that must in\nsuccession set themselves to define, organize, and maintain the peace\nof the world. I do not wish to complicate the question by any too\nexplicit advocacy of methods of election or the like. In the United\nStates this college which elects the President is elected on the same\nregister of voters as that which elects the Senate and Congress, and at\nthe same time. But I suppose if we are to give a popular mandate to the\nthree or five or twelve or twenty (or whatever number it is) men to whom\nwe are going to entrust our Empire's share in this great task of the\npeace negotiations, it will be more decisive of the will of the whole\nnation if the college that had to appoint them is elected at a special\nelection. I suppose that the great British common-weals over-seas, at\npresent not represented in Parliament, would also and separately at the\nsame time elect colleges to appoint their representatives. I suppose\nthere would be at least one Indian representative elected, perhaps by\nsome special electoral conference of Indian princes and leading men. The\nchief defect of the American Presidential election is that as the old\nsingle vote method of election is employed it has to be fought on purely\nparty lines. He is the select man of the Democratic half, or of the\nRepublican half of the nation. He is not the select man of the whole\nnation. It would give a far more representative character to the\nelectoral college if it could be elected by fair modern methods, if for\nthis particular purpose parliamentary constituencies could be grouped\nand the clean scientific method of proportional representation could be\nused. But I suppose the party politician in this, as in most of our\naffairs, must still have his pound of our flesh--and we must reckon with\nhim later for the bloodshed.\n\nThese are all, however, secondary considerations. The above paragraph\nis, so to speak, in the nature of a footnote. The fundamental matter, if\nwe are to get towards any realization of this ideal of a world peace\nsustained by a League of Nations, is to get straight away to the\nconception of direct special electoral mandates in this matter. At\npresent all the political luncheon and dinner parties in London are busy\nwith smirking discussions of \"Who is to go?\" The titled ladies are\nparticularly busy. They are talking about it as if we poor, ignorant,\ntax-paying, blood-paying common people did not exist. \"L. G.,\" they say,\nwill of course \"_insist_ on going,\" but there is much talk of the \"Old\nMan.\" People are getting quite nice again about \"the Old Man's\nfeelings.\" It would be such a pretty thing to send him. But if \"L. G.\"\ngoes we want him to go with something more than a backing of intrigues\nand snatched authority. And I do not think the mass of people have any\nenthusiasm for the Old Man. It is difficult again--by the dinner-party\nstandards--to know how Lord Curzon can be restrained. But we common\npeople do not care if he is restrained to the point of extinction.\nProbably there will be nobody who talks or understands Russian among the\nBritish representatives. But, of course, the British governing class has\nwashed its hands of the Russians. They were always very difficult, and\nnow they are \"impossible, my dear, perfectly impossible.\"\n\nNo! That sort of thing will not do now. This Peace Congress is too big a\njob for party politicians and society and county families. The bulk of\nBritish opinion cannot go on being represented for ever by President\nWilson. We cannot always look to the Americans to express our ideas and\ndo our work for democracy. The foolery of the Berlin Treaty must not be\nrepeated. We cannot have another popular Prime Minister come triumphing\nback to England with a gross of pink spectacles--through which we may\nsurvey the prospect of the next great war. The League of Free Nations\nmeans something very big and solid; it is not a rhetorical phrase to be\nused to pacify a restless, distressed, and anxious public, and to be\nsneered out of existence when that use is past. When the popular mind\nnow demands a League of Free Nations it demands a reality. The only way\nto that reality is through the direct participation of the nation as a\nwhole in the settlement, and that is possible only through the direct\nelection for this particular issue of representative and responsible\nmen.\n\n\n\n\nIII\n\nTHE NECESSARY POWERS OF THE LEAGUE\n\n\nIf this phrase, \"the League of Free Nations,\" is to signify anything\nmore than a rhetorical flourish, then certain consequences follow that\nhave to be faced now. No man can join a partnership and remain an\nabsolutely free man. You cannot bind yourself to do this and not to do\nthat and to consult and act with your associates in certain\neventualities without a loss of your sovereign freedom. People in this\ncountry and in France do not seem to be sitting up manfully to these\nnecessary propositions.\n\nIf this League of Free Nations is really to be an effectual thing for\nthe preservation of the peace of the world it must possess power and\nexercise power, powers must be delegated to it. Otherwise it will only\nhelp, with all other half-hearted good resolutions, to pave the road of\nmankind to hell. Nothing in all the world so strengthens evil as the\nhalf-hearted attempts of good to make good.\n\nIt scarcely needs repeating here--it has been so generally said--that\nno League of Free Nations can hope to keep the peace unless every member\nof it is indeed a free member, represented by duly elected persons.\nNobody, of course, asks to \"dictate the internal government\" of any\ncountry to that country. If Germans, for instance, like to wallow in\nabsolutism after the war they can do so. But if they or any other\npeoples wish to take part in a permanent League of Free Nations it is\nonly reasonable to insist that so far as their representatives on the\ncouncil go they must be duly elected under conditions that are by the\nstandards of the general league satisfactorily democratic. That seems to\nbe only the common sense of the matter. Every court is a potential\nconspiracy against freedom, and the League cannot tolerate merely court\nappointments. If courts are to exist anywhere in the new world of the\nfuture, they will be wise to stand aloof from international meddling. Of\ncourse if a people, after due provision for electoral representation,\nchoose to elect dynastic candidates, that is an altogether different\nmatter.\n\nAnd now let us consider what are the powers that must be delegated to\nthis proposed council of a League of Free Nations, if that is really\neffectually to prevent war and to organize and establish and make peace\npermanent in the world.\n\nFirstly, then, it must be able to adjudicate upon all international\ndisputes whatever. Its first function must clearly be that. Before a war\ncan break out there must be the possibility of a world decision upon its\nrights and wrongs. The League, therefore, will have as its primary\nfunction to maintain a Supreme Court, whose decisions will be final,\nbefore which every sovereign power may appear as plaintiff against any\nother sovereign power or group of powers. The plea, I take it, will\nalways be in the form that the defendant power or powers is engaged in\nproceedings \"calculated to lead to a breach of the peace,\" and calling\nupon the League for an injunction against such proceedings. I suppose\nthe proceedings that can be brought into court in this way fall under\nsuch headings as these that follow; restraint of trade by injurious\ntariffs or suchlike differentiations or by interference with through\ntraffic, improper treatment of the subjects _or their property_ (here I\nput a query) of the plaintiff nation in the defendant state, aggressive\nmilitary or naval preparation, disorder spreading over the frontier,\ntrespass (as, for instance, by airships), propaganda of disorder,\nespionage, permitting the organization of injurious activities, such as\nraids or piracy. Clearly all such actions must come within the purview\nof any world-supreme court organized to prevent war. But in addition\nthere is a more doubtful and delicate class of case, arising out of the\ndiscontent of patches of one race or religion in the dominions of\nanother. How far may the supreme court of the world attend to grievances\nbetween subject and sovereign?\n\nSuch cases are highly probable, and no large, vague propositions about\nthe \"self-determination\" of peoples can meet all the cases. In\nMacedonia, for instance, there is a jumble of Albanian, Serbian,\nBulgarian, Greek and Rumanian villages always jostling one another and\nmaintaining an intense irritation between the kindred nations close at\nhand. And quite a large number of areas and cities in the world, it has\nto be remembered, are not homogeneous at all. Will the great nations of\nthe world have the self-abnegation to permit a scattered subject\npopulation to appeal against the treatment of its ruling power to the\nSupreme Court? This is a much more serious interference with sovereignty\nthan intervention in an external quarrel. Could a Greek village in\nBulgarian Macedonia plead in the Supreme Court? Could the Armenians in\nConstantinople, or the Jews in Roumania, or the Poles in West Prussia,\nor the negroes in Georgia, or the Indians in the Transvaal make such an\nappeal? Could any Indian population in India appeal? Personally I should\nlike to see the power of the Supreme Court extend as far as this. I do\nnot see how we can possibly prevent a kindred nation pleading for the\nscattered people of its own race and culture, or any nation presenting a\ncase on behalf of some otherwise unrepresented people--the United\nStates, for example, presenting a case on behalf of the Armenians. But I\ndoubt if many people have made up their minds yet to see the powers of\nthe Supreme Court of the League of Nations go so far as this. I doubt\nif, to begin with, it will be possible to provide for these cases. I\nwould like to see it done, but I doubt if the majority of the sovereign\npeoples concerned will reconcile their national pride with the idea, at\nleast so far as their own subject populations go.\n\nHere, you see, I do no more than ask a question. It is a difficult one,\nand it has to be answered before we can clear the way to the League of\nFree Nations.\n\nBut the Supreme Court, whether it is to have the wider or the narrower\nscope here suggested, would be merely the central function of the League\nof Free Nations. Behind the decisions of the Supreme Court must lie\npower. And here come fresh difficulties for patriotic digestions. The\narmies and navies of the world must be at the disposal of the League of\nFree Nations, and that opens up a new large area of delegated authority.\nThe first impulse of any power disposed to challenge the decisions of\nthe Supreme Court will be, of course, to arm; and it is difficult to\nimagine how the League of Free Nations can exercise any practical\nauthority unless it has power to restrain such armament. The League of\nFree Nations must, in fact, if it is to be a working reality, have power\nto define and limit the military and naval and aerial equipment of every\ncountry in the world. This means something more than a restriction of\nstate forces. It must have power and freedom to investigate the military\nand naval and aerial establishments of all its constituent powers. It\nmust also have effective control over every armament industry. And\narmament industries are not always easy to define. Are aeroplanes, for\nexample, armament? Its powers, I suggest, must extend even to a\nrestraint upon the belligerent propaganda which is the natural\nadvertisement campaign of every armament industry. It must have the\nright, for example, to raise the question of the proprietorship of\nnewspapers by armament interests. Disarmament is, in fact, a necessary\nfactor of any League of Free Nations, and you cannot have disarmament\nunless you are prepared to see the powers of the council of the League\nextend thus far. The very existence of the League presupposes that it\nand it alone is to have and to exercise military force. Any other\nbelligerency or preparation or incitement to belligerency becomes\nrebellion, and any other arming a threat of rebellion, in a world League\nof Free Nations.\n\nBut here, again, has the general mind yet thought out all that is\ninvolved in this proposition? In all the great belligerent countries the\narmament industries are now huge interests with enormous powers. Krupp's\nbusiness alone is as powerful a thing in Germany as the Crown. In every\ncountry a heavily subsidized \"patriotic\" press will fight desperately\nagainst giving powers so extensive and thorough as those here suggested\nto an international body. So long, of course, as the League of Free\nNations remains a project in the air, without body or parts, such a\npress will sneer at it gently as \"Utopian,\" and even patronize it\nkindly. But so soon as the League takes on the shape its general\nproposition makes logically necessary, the armament interest will take\nfright. Then it is we shall hear the drum patriotic loud in defence of\nthe human blood trade. Are we to hand over these most intimate affairs\nof ours to \"a lot of foreigners\"? Among these \"foreigners\" who will be\nappealed to to terrify the patriotic souls of the British will be the\n\"Americans.\" Are we men of English blood and tradition to see our\naffairs controlled by such \"foreigners\" as Wilson, Lincoln, Webster and\nWashington? Perish the thought! When they might be controlled by\nDisraelis, Wettins, Mount-Battens, and what not! And so on and so on.\nKrupp's agents and the agents of the kindred firms in Great Britain and\nFrance will also be very busy with the national pride of France. In\nGermany they have already created a colossal suspicion of England.\n\nHere is a giant in the path....\n\nBut let us remember that it is only necessary to defeat the propaganda\nof this vile and dangerous industry in four great countries. And for the\ncommon citizen, touched on the tenderest part of his patriotic\nsusceptibilities, there are certain irrefutable arguments. Whether the\nways of the world in the years to come are to be the paths of peace or\nthe paths of war is not going to alter this essential fact, that the\ngreat educated world communities, with a social and industrial\norganization on a war-capable scale, are going to dominate human\naffairs. Whether they spend their power in killing or in educating and\ncreating, France, Germany, however much we may resent it, the two great\nEnglish-speaking communities, Italy, Japan China, and presently perhaps\na renascent Russia, are jointly going to control the destinies of\nmankind. Whether that joint control comes through arms or through the\nlaw is a secondary consideration. To refuse to bring our affairs into a\ncommon council does not make us independent of foreigners. It makes us\nmore dependent upon them, as a very little consideration will show.\n\nI am suggesting here that the League of Free Nations shall practically\ncontrol the army, navy, air forces, and armament industry of every\nnation in the world. What is the alternative to that? To do as we\nplease? No, the alternative is that any malignant country will be free\nto force upon all the rest just the maximum amount of armament it\nchooses to adopt. Since 1871 France, we say, has been free in military\nmatters. What has been the value of that freedom? The truth is, she has\nbeen the bond-slave of Germany, bound to watch Germany as a slave\nwatches a master, bound to launch submarine for submarine and cast gun\nfor gun, to sweep all her youth into her army, to subdue her trade, her\nliterature, her education, her whole life to the necessity of\npreparations imposed upon her by her drill-master over the Rhine. And\nMichael, too, has been a slave to his imperial master for the self-same\nreason, for the reason that Germany and France were both so proudly\nsovereign and independent. Both countries have been slaves to Kruppism\nand Zabernism--_because they were sovereign and free_! So it will always\nbe. So long as patriotic cant can keep the common man jealous of\ninternational controls over his belligerent possibilities, so long will\nhe be the helpless slave of the foreign threat, and \"Peace\" remain a\nmere name for the resting phase between wars.\n\nBut power over the military resources of the world is by no means the\nlimit of the necessary powers of an effective League of Free Nations.\nThere are still more indigestible implications in the idea, and, since\nthey have got to be digested sooner or later if civilization is not to\ncollapse, there is no reason why we should not begin to bite upon them\nnow. I was much interested to read the British press upon the alleged\nproposal of the German Chancellor that we should give up (presumably to\nGermany) Gibraltar, Malta, Egypt, and suchlike key possessions. It\nseemed to excite several of our politicians extremely. I read over the\nGerman Chancellor's speech very carefully, so far as it was available,\nand it is clear that he did not propose anything of the sort. Wilfully\nor blindly our press and our demagogues screamed over a false issue. The\nChancellor was defending the idea of the Germans remaining in Belgium\nand Lorraine because of the strategic and economic importance of those\nregions to Germany, and he was arguing that before we English got into\nsuch a feverish state of indignation about that, we should first ask\nourselves what we were doing in Gibraltar, etc., etc. That is a\ndifferent thing altogether. And it is an argument that is not to be\ndisposed of by misrepresentation. The British have to think hard over\nthis quite legitimate German _tu quoque_. It is no good getting into a\npatriotic bad temper and refusing to answer that question. We British\npeople are so persuaded of the purity and unselfishness with which we\ndischarge our imperial responsibilities, we have been so trained in\nimperial self-satisfaction, we know so certainly that all our subject\nnations call us blessed, that it is a little difficult for us to see\njust how the fact that we are, for example, so deeply rooted in Egypt\nlooks to an outside intelligence. Of course the German imperialist idea\nis a wicked and aggressive idea, as Lord Robert Cecil has explained;\nthey want to set up all over the earth coaling stations and strategic\npoints, _on the pattern of ours._ Well, they argue, we are only trying\nto do what you British have done. If we are not to do so--because it is\naggression and so on and so on--is not the time ripe for you to make\nsome concessions to the public opinion of the world? That is the German\nargument. Either, they say, tolerate this idea of a Germany with\nadvantageous posts and possessions round and about the earth, or\nreconsider your own position.\n\nWell, at the risk of rousing much patriotic wrath, I must admit that I\nthink we _have_ to reconsider our position. Our argument is that in\nIndia, Egypt, Africa and elsewhere, we stand for order and civilization,\nwe are the trustees of freedom, the agents of knowledge and efficiency.\nOn the whole the record of British rule is a pretty respectable one; I\nam not ashamed of our record. Nevertheless _the case is altering_.\n\nIt is quite justifiable for us British, no doubt, if we do really play\nthe part of honest trustees, to remain in Egypt and in India under\nexisting conditions; it is even possible for us to glance at the\nhelplessness of Arabia, Palestine, and Mesopotamia, as yet incapable of\nself-government, helpless as new-born infants. But our case, our only\njustifiable case, is that we are trustees because there is no better\ntrustee possible. And the creation of a council of a League of Free\nNations would be like the creation of a Public Trustee for the world.\nThe creation of a League of Free Nations must necessarily be the\ncreation of an authority that may legitimately call existing empires to\ngive an account of their stewardship. For an unchecked fragmentary\ncontrol of tropical and chaotic regions, it substitutes the possibility\nof a general authority. And this must necessarily alter the problems not\nonly of the politically immature nations and the control of the tropics,\nbut also of the regulation of the sea ways, the regulation of the coming\nair routes, and the distribution of staple products in the world. I will\nnot go in detail over the items of this list, because the reader can\nfill in the essentials of the argument from what has gone before. I\nwant simply to suggest how widely this project of a League of Free\nNations swings when once you have let it swing freely in your mind! And\nif you do not let it swing freely in your mind, it remains nothing--a\nsentimental gesture.\n\nThe plain truth is that the League of Free Nations, if it is to be a\nreality, if it is to effect a real pacification of the world, must do no\nless than supersede Empire; it must end not only this new German\nimperialism, which is struggling so savagely and powerfully to possess\nthe earth, but it must also wind up British imperialism and French\nimperialism, which do now so largely and inaggressively possess it. And,\nmoreover, this idea queries the adjective of Belgian, Portuguese,\nFrench, and British Central Africa alike, just as emphatically as it\nqueries \"German.\" Still more effectually does the League forbid those\ncreations of the futurist imagination, the imperialism of Italy and\nGreece, which make such threatening gestures at the world of our\nchildren. Are these incompatibilities understood? Until people have\nfaced the clear antagonism that exists between imperialism and\ninternationalism, they have not begun to suspect the real significance\nof this project of the League of Free Nations. They have not begun to\nrealize that peace also has its price.\n\n\n\n\nIV\n\nTHE LABOUR VIEW OF MIDDLE AFRICA\n\n\nI was recently privileged to hear the views of one of those titled and\ninfluential ladies--with a general education at about the fifth standard\nlevel, plus a little French, German, Italian, and music--who do so much\nto make our England what it is at the present time, upon the Labour idea\nof an international control of \"tropical\" Africa. She was loud and\nderisive about the \"ignorance\" of Labour. \"What can _they_ know about\nforeign politics?\" she said, with gestures to indicate her conception of\n_them_.\n\nI was moved to ask her what she would do about Africa. \"Leave it to Lord\nRobert!\" she said, leaning forward impressively. \"_Leave it to the\npeople who know._\"\n\nUnhappily I share the evident opinion of Labour that we are not blessed\nwith any profoundly wise class of people who have definite knowledge and\nclear intentions about Africa, that these \"_people who know_\" are mostly\na pretentious bluff, and so, in spite of a very earnest desire to take\nrefuge in my \"ignorance\" from the burthen of thinking about African\nproblems, I find myself obliged, like most other people, to do so. In\nthe interests of our country, our children, and the world, we common\npersons _have_ to have opinions about these matters. A muddle-up in\nAfrica this year may kill your son and mine in the course of the next\ndecade. I know this is not a claim to be interested in things African,\nsuch as the promoter of a tropical railway or an oil speculator has;\nstill it is a claim. And for the life of me I cannot see what is wrong\nabout the Labour proposals, or what alternative exists that can give\neven a hope of peace in and about Africa.\n\nThe gist of the Labour proposal is an international control of Africa\nbetween the Zambesi and the Sahara. This has been received with loud\nprotests by men whose work one is obliged to respect, by Sir Harry,\nJohnston, for example, and Sir Alfred Sharpe, and with something\napproaching a shriek of hostility by Mr. Cunninghame Graham. But I think\nthese gentlemen have not perhaps given the Labour proposal quite as much\nattention as they have spent upon the details of African conditions. I\nthink they have jumped to conclusions at the mere sound of the word\n\"international.\" There have been some gross failures in the past to set\nup international administrations in Africa and the Near East. And these\ngentlemen think at once of some new Congo administration and of\nnondescript police forces commanded by cosmopolitan adventurers. (See\nJoseph Conrad's \"Out-post of Civilization.\") They think of\ninternationalism with greedy Great Powers in the background outside the\ninternationalized area, intriguing to create disorder and mischief with\nideas of an ultimate annexation. But I doubt if such nightmares do any\nsort of justice to the Labour intention.\n\nAnd the essential thing I would like to point out to these authorities\nupon African questions is that not one of them even hints at any other\nformula which covers the broad essentials of the African riddle.\n\nWhat are these broad essentials? What are the ends that _must_ be\nachieved if Africa is not to continue a festering sore in the body of\nmankind?\n\nThe first most obvious danger of Africa is the militarization of the\nblack. General Smuts has pointed this out plainly. The negro makes a\ngood soldier; he is hardy, he stands the sea, and he stands cold. (There\nwas a negro in the little party which reached the North Pole.) It is\nabsolutely essential to the peace of the world that there should be no\narming of the negroes beyond the minimum necessary for the policing of\nAfrica. But how is this to be watched and prevented if there is no\noverriding body representing civilization to say \"Stop\" to the\nbeginnings of any such militarization? I do not see how Sir Harry\nJohnston, Sir Alfred Sharpe, and the other authorities can object to at\nleast an international African \"Disarmament Commission\" to watch, warn,\nand protest. At least they must concede that.\n\nBut in practice this involves something else. A practical consequence of\nthis disarmament idea must be an effective control of the importation of\narms into the \"tutelage\" areas of Africa. That rat at the dykes of\ncivilization, that ultimate expression of political scoundrelism, the\nGun-Runner, has to be kept under and stamped out in Africa as\neverywhere. A Disarmament Commission that has no forces available to\nprevent the arms trade will be just another Hague Convention, just\nanother vague, well-intentioned, futile gesture.\n\nAnd closely connected with this function of controlling the arms trade\nis another great necessity of Africa under \"tutelage,\" and that is the\nnecessity of a common collective agreement not to demoralize the native\npopulation. That demoralization, physical and moral, has already gone\nfar. The whole negro population of Africa is now rotten with diseases\nintroduced by Arabs and Europeans during the last century, and such\nAfrican statesmen as Sir Harry Johnston are eloquent upon the necessity\nof saving the blacks--and the baser whites--from the effects of trade\ngin and similar alluring articles of commerce. Moreover, from Africa\nthere is always something new in the way of tropical diseases, and\npresently Africa, if we let it continue to fester as it festers now, may\nproduce an epidemic that will stand exportation to a temperate climate.\nA bacterium that may kill you or me in some novel and disgusting way may\neven now be developing in some Congo muck-heap. So here is the need for\nanother Commission to look after the Health of Africa. That, too, should\nbe of authority over all the area of \"tutelage\" Africa. It is no good\nstamping out infectious disease in Nyasaland while it is being bred in\nPortuguese East Africa. And if there is a Disarmament Commission already\ncontrolling the importation of arms, why should not that body also\ncontrol at the same time the importation of trade gin and similar\ndelicacies, and direct quarantine and such-like health regulations?\n\nBut there is another question in Africa upon which our \"ignorant\" Labour\nclass is far better informed than our dear old eighteenth-century upper\nclass which still squats so firmly in our Foreign and Colonial Offices,\nand that is the question of forced labour. We cannot tolerate any\npossibilities of the enslavement of black Africa. Long ago the United\nStates found out the impossibility of having slave labour working in the\nsame system with white. To cure that anomaly cost the United States a\nlong and bloody war. The slave-owner, the exploiter of the black,\nbecomes a threat and a nuisance to any white democracy. He brings back\nhis loot to corrupt Press and life at home. What happened in America in\nthe midst of the last century between Federals and Confederates must not\nhappen again on a larger scale between white Europe and middle Africa.\nSlavery in Africa, open or disguised, whether enforced by the lash or\nbrought about by iniquitous land-stealing, strikes at the home and\nfreedom of every European worker--_and Labour knows this_.\n\nBut how are we to prevent the enslavement and economic exploitation of\nthe blacks if we have no general watcher of African conditions? We want\na common law for Africa, a general Declaration of Rights, of certain\nelementary rights, and we want a common authority to which the black man\nand the native tribe may appeal for justice. What is the good of trying\nto elevate the population of Uganda and to give it a free and hopeful\nlife if some other population close at hand is competing against the\nBaganda worker under lash and tax? So here is a third aspect of our\ninternational Commission, as a native protectorate and court of appeal!\n\nThere is still a fourth aspect of the African question in which every\nmother's son in Europe is closely interested, and that is the trade\nquestion. Africa is the great source of many of the most necessary raw\nmaterials upon which our modern comforts and conveniences depend; more\nparticularly is it the source of cheap fat in the form of palm oil. One\nof the most powerful levers in the hands of the Allied democracies at\nthe present time in their struggle against the imperial brigands of\nPotsdam is the complete control we have now obtained over these\nessential supplies. We can, if we choose, cut off Germany altogether\nfrom these vital economic necessities, if she does not consent to\nabandon militant imperialism for some more civilized form of government.\nWe hope that this war will end in that renunciation, and that Germany\nwill re-enter the community of nations. But whether that is so or not,\nwhether Germany is or is not to be one of the interested parties in the\nAfrican solution, the fact remains that it is impossible to contemplate\na continuing struggle for the African raw material supply between the\ninterested Powers. Sooner or later that means a renewal of war.\nInternational trade rivalry is, indeed, only war--_smouldering_. We\nneed, and Labour demands, a fair, frank treatment of African trade, and\nthat can only be done by some overriding regulative power, a Commission\nwhich, so far as I can see, might also be the same Commission as that we\nhave already hypothesized as being necessary to control the Customs in\norder to prevent gun-running and the gin trade. That Commission might\nvery conveniently have a voice in the administration of the great\nwaterways of Africa (which often run through the possessions of several\nPowers) and in the regulation of the big railway lines and air routes\nthat will speedily follow the conclusion of peace.\n\nNow this I take it is the gist of the Labour proposal. This--and no more\nthan this--is what is intended by the \"international control of tropical\nAfrica.\" _I do not read that phrase as abrogating existing sovereignties\nin Africa_. What is contemplated is a delegation of authority. Every one\nshould know, though unhappily the badness of our history teaching makes\nit doubtful if every one does know, that the Federal Government of the\nUnited States of America did not begin as a sovereign Government, and\nhas now only a very questionable sovereignty. Each State was sovereign,\nand each State delegated certain powers to Washington. That was the\ninitial idea of the union. Only later did the idea of a people of the\nStates as a whole emerge. In the same way I understand the Labour\nproposal as meaning that we should delegate to an African Commission the\nmiddle African Customs, the regulation of inter-State trade, inter-State\nrailways and waterways, quarantine and health generally, and the\nestablishment of a Supreme Court for middle African affairs. One or two\nminor matters, such as the preservation of rare animals, might very well\nfall under the same authority.\n\nUpon that Commission the interested nations, that is to say--putting\nthem in alphabetical order--the Africander, the Briton, the Belgian, the\nEgyptian, the Frenchman, the Italian, the Indian the Portuguese--might\nall be represented in proportion to their interest. Whether the German\nwould come in is really a question for the German to consider; he can\ncome in as a good European, he cannot come in as an imperialist brigand.\nWhether, too, any other nations can claim to have an interest in African\naffairs, whether the Commission would not be better appointed by a\nLeague of Free Nations than directly by the interested Governments, and\na number of other such questions, need not be considered here. Here we\nare discussing only the main idea of the Labour proposal.\n\nNow beneath the supervision and restraint of such a delegated\nCommission I do not see why the existing administrations of tutelage\nAfrica should not continue. I do not believe that the Labour proposal\ncontemplates any humiliating cession of European sovereignty. Under that\ninternational Commission the French flag may still wave in Senegal and\nthe British over the protected State of Uganda. Given a new spirit in\nGermany I do not see why the German flag should not presently be\nrestored in German East Africa. But over all, standing for\nrighteousness, patience, fair play for the black, and the common welfare\nof mankind would wave a new flag, the Sun of Africa representing the\nCentral African Commission of the League of Free Nations.\n\nThat is my vision of the Labour project. It is something very different,\nI know, from the nightmare of an international police of cosmopolitan\nscoundrels in nondescript uniforms, hastening to loot and ravish his\ndear Uganda and his beloved Nigeria, which distresses the crumpled\npillow of Sir Harry Johnston. But if it is not the solution, then it is\nup to him and his fellow authorities to tell us what is the solution of\nthe African riddle.\n\n\n\n\nV\n\nGETTING THE LEAGUE IDEA CLEAR IN RELATION TO IMPERIALISM\n\n\n\u00a7 1\n\nIt is idle to pretend that even at the present time the idea of the\nLeague of Free Nations has secure possession of the British mind. There\nis quite naturally a sustained opposition to it in all the fastnesses of\naggressive imperialism. Such papers as the _Times_ and the _Morning\nPost_ remain hostile and obstructive to the expression of international\nideas. Most of our elder statesmen seem to have learnt nothing and\nforgotten nothing during the years of wildest change the world has ever\nknown. But in the general mind of the British peoples the movement of\nopinion from a narrow imperialism towards internationalism has been wide\nand swift. And it continues steadily. One can trace week by week and\nalmost day by day the Americanization of the British conception of the\nAllied War Aims. It may be interesting to reproduce here three\ncommunications upon this question made at different times by the\npresent writer to the press. The circumstances of their publication are\nsignificant. The first is in substance identical with a letter which was\nsent to the _Times_ late in May, 1917, and rejected as being altogether\ntoo revolutionary. For nowadays the correspondence in the _Times_ has\nceased to be an impartial expression of public opinion. The\ncorrespondence of the _Times_ is now apparently selected and edited in\naccordance with the views upon public policy held by the acting editor\nfor the day. More and more has that paper become the organ of a sort of\nOxford Imperialism, three or four years behind the times and very ripe\nand \"expert.\" The letter is here given as it was finally printed in the\nissue of the _Daily Chronicle_ for June 4th, 1917, under the heading,\n\"Wanted a Statement of Imperial Policy.\"\n\nSir,--The time seems to have come for much clearer statements of outlook\nand intention from this country than it has hitherto been possible to\nmake. The entry of America into the war and the banishment of autocracy\nand aggressive diplomacy from Russia have enormously cleared the air,\nand the recent great speech of General Smuts at the Savoy Hotel is\nprobably only the first of a series of experiments in statement. It is\ndesirable alike to clear our own heads, to unify our efforts, and to\ngive the nations of the world some assurance and standard for our\nnational conduct in the future, that we should now define the Idea of\nour Empire and its relation to the world outlook much more clearly than\nhas ever hitherto been done. Never before in the history of mankind has\nopinion counted for so much and persons and organizations for so little\nas in this war. Never before has the need for clear ideas, widely\nunderstood and consistently sustained, been so commandingly vital.\n\nWhat do we mean by our Empire, and what is its relation to that\nuniversal desire of mankind, the permanent rule of peace and justice in\nthe world? The whole world will be the better for a very plain answer to\nthat question.\n\nIs it not time for us British not merely to admit to ourselves, but to\nassure the world that our Empire as it exists to-day is a provisional\nthing, that in scarcely any part of the world do we regard it as more\nthan an emergency arrangement, as a necessary association that must give\nplace ultimately to the higher synthesis of a world league, that here we\nhold as trustees and there on account of strategic considerations that\nmay presently disappear, and that though we will not contemplate the\nreplacement of our flag anywhere by the flag of any other competing\nnation, though we do hope to hold together with our kin and with those\nwho increasingly share our tradition and our language, nevertheless we\nare prepared to welcome great renunciations of our present ascendency\nand privileges in the interests of mankind as a whole. We need to make\nthe world understand that we do not put our nation nor our Empire before\nthe commonwealth of man. Unless presently we are to follow Germany along\nthe tragic path her national vanity and her world ambitions have made\nfor her, that is what we have to make clear now. It is not only our duty\nto mankind, it is also the sane course for our own preservation.\n\nIs it not the plain lesson of this stupendous and disastrous war that\nthere is no way to secure civilization from destruction except by an\nimpartial control and protection in the interests of the whole human\nrace, a control representing the best intelligence of mankind, of these\nmain causes of war.\n\n(1) The politically undeveloped tropics;\n\n(2) Shipping and international trade; and\n\n(3) Small nationalities and all regions in a state of political\nimpotence or confusion?\n\nIt is our case against the Germans that in all these three cases they\nhave subordinated every consideration of justice and the general human\nwelfare to a monstrous national egotism. That argument has a double\nedge. At present there is a vigorous campaign in America, Russia, the\nneutral countries generally, to represent British patriotism as equally\negotistic, and our purpose in this war as a mere parallel to the German\npurpose. In the same manner, though perhaps with less persistency,\nFrance and Italy are also caricatured. We are supposed to be grabbing at\nMesopotamia and Palestine, France at Syria; Italy is represented as\npursuing a Machiavellian policy towards the unfortunate Greek\nrepublicans, with her eyes on the Greek islands and Greece in Asia. Is\nit not time that these base imputations were repudiated clearly and\nconclusively by our Alliance? And is it not time that we began to\ndiscuss in much more frank and definite terms than has hitherto been\ndone, the nature of the international arrangement that will be needed to\nsecure the safety of such liberated populations as those of Palestine,\nof the Arab regions of the old Turkish empire, of Armenia, of reunited\nPoland, and the like?\n\nI do not mean here mere diplomatic discussions and \"understandings,\" I\nmean such full and plain statements as will be spread through the whole\nworld and grasped and assimilated by ordinary people everywhere,\nstatements by which we, as a people, will be prepared to stand or fall.\n\nAlmost as urgent is the need for some definite statement about Africa.\nGeneral Smuts has warned not only the Empire, but the whole world of the\ngigantic threat to civilization that lies in the present division of\nAfrica between various keenly competitive European Powers, any one of\nwhich will be free to misuse the great natural resources at its disposal\nand to arm millions of black soldiers for aggression. A mere elimination\nof Germany from Africa will not solve that difficulty. What we have to\neliminate is not this nation or that, but the system of national shoving\nand elbowing, the treatment of Africa as the board for a game of\nbeggar-my-neighbour-and-damn-the-niggers, in which a few syndicates,\nmasquerading as national interests, snatch a profit to the infinite loss\nof all mankind. We want a lowering of barriers and a unification of\ninterests, we want an international control of these disputed regions,\nto override nationalist exploitation. The whole world wants it. It is a\nchastened and reasonable world we live in to-day, and the time for white\nreason and the wide treatment of these problems is now.\n\nFinally, the time is drawing near when the Egyptian and the nations of\nIndia will ask us, \"Are things going on for ever here as they go on now,\nor are we to look for the time when we, too, like the Africander, the\nCanadian and the Australian, will be your confessed and equal partners?\"\nWould it not be wise to answer that question in the affirmative before\nthe voice in which it is asked grows thick with anger? In Egypt, for\nexample, we are either robbers very like--except for a certain\ndifference in touch--the Germans in Belgium, or we are honourable\ntrustees. It is our claim and pride to be honourable trustees. Nothing\nso becomes a trustee as a cheerful openness of disposition. Great\nBritain has to table her world policy. It is a thing overdue. No doubt\nwe have already a literature of liberal imperialism and a considerable\naccumulation of declarations by this statesman or that. But what is\nneeded is a formulation much more representative, official and permanent\nthan that, something that can be put beside President Wilson's clear\nrendering of the American idea. We want all our peoples to understand,\nand we want all mankind to understand that our Empire is not a net about\nthe world in which the progress of mankind is entangled, but a\nself-conscious political system working side by side with the other\ndemocracies of the earth, preparing the way for, and prepared at last to\nsacrifice and merge itself in, the world confederation of free and equal\npeoples.\n\n\n\n\n\u00a7 2\n\nThis letter was presently followed up by an article in the _Daily News_,\nentitled \"A Reasonable Man's Peace.\" This article provoked a\nconsiderable controversy in the imperialist press, and it was reprinted\nas a pamphlet by a Free Trade organization, which distributed over\n200,000 copies. It is particularly interesting to note, in view of what\nfollows it, that it was attacked with great virulence in the _Evening\nNews_, the little fierce mud-throwing brother of the _Daily Mail_.\n\nThe international situation at the present time is beyond question the\nmost wonderful that the world has ever seen. There is not a country in\nthe world in which the great majority of sensible people are not\npassionately desirous of peace, of an enduring peace, and--the war goes\non. The conditions of peace can now be stated, in general terms that are\nas acceptable to a reasonable man in Berlin as they are to a reasonable\nman in Paris or London or Petrograd or Constantinople. There are to be\nno conquests, no domination of recalcitrant populations, no bitter\ninsistence upon vindictive penalties, and there must be something in the\nnature of a world-wide League of Nations to keep the peace securely in\nfuture, to \"make the world safe for democracy,\" and maintain\ninternational justice. To that the general mind of the world has come\nto-day.\n\nWhy, then, does the waste and killing go on? Why is not the Peace\nConference sitting now?\n\nManifestly because a small minority of people in positions of peculiar\nadvantage, in positions of trust and authority, and particularly the\nGerman reactionaries, prevent or delay its assembling.\n\nThe answer which seems to suffice in all the Allied countries is that\nthe German Imperial Government--that the German Imperial Government\nalone--stands in the way, that its tradition is incurably a tradition of\nconquest and aggression, that until German militarism is overthrown,\netc. Few people in the Allied countries will dispute that that is\nbroadly true. But is it the whole and complete truth? Is there nothing\nmore to be done on our side? Let us put a question that goes to the very\nheart of the problem. Why does the great mass of the German people still\ncling to its incurably belligerent Government?\n\nThe answer to that question is not overwhelmingly difficult. The German\npeople sticks to its militarist imperialism as Mazeppa stuck to his\nhorse; because it is bound to it, and the wolves pursue. The attentive\nstudent of the home and foreign propaganda literature of the German\nGovernment will realize that the case made by German imperialism, the\nmain argument by which it sticks to power, is this, that the Allied\nGovernments are also imperialist, that they also aim at conquest and\naggression, that for Germany the choice is world empire or downfall and\nutter ruin. This is the argument that holds the German people stiffly\nunited. For most men in most countries it would be a convincing\nargument, strong enough to override considerations of right and wrong. I\nfind that I myself am of this way of thinking, that whether England has\ndone right or wrong in the past--and I have sometimes criticized my\ncountry very bitterly--I will not endure the prospect of seeing her at\nthe foot of some victorious foreign nation. Neither will any German who\nmatters. Very few people would respect a German who did. But the case\nfor the Allies is that this great argument by which, and by which alone,\nthe German Imperial Government keeps its grip upon the German people at\nthe present time, and keeps them facing their enemies, is untrue. The\nAllies declare that they do not want to destroy the German people, they\ndo not want to cripple the German people; they want merely to see\ncertain gaping wounds inflicted by Germany repaired, and beyond that\nreasonable requirement they want nothing but to be assured, completely\nassured, absolutely assured, against any further aggressions on the\npart of Germany.\n\nIs that true? Our leaders say so, and we believe them. We would not\nsupport them if we did not. And if it is true, have the statesmen of the\nAllies made it as transparently and convincingly clear to the German\npeople as possible? That is one of the supreme questions of the present\ntime. We cannot too earnestly examine it. Because in the answer to it\nlies the reason why so many men were killed yesterday on the eastern and\nwestern front, so many ships sunk, so much property destroyed, so much\nhuman energy wasted for ever upon mere destruction, and why to-morrow\nand the next day and the day after--through many months yet,\nperhaps--the same killing and destroying must still go on.\n\nIn many respects this war has been an amazing display of human\ninadaptability. The military history of the war has still to be written,\nthe grim story of machinery misunderstood, improvements resisted,\nantiquated methods persisted in; but the broad facts are already before\nthe public mind. After three years of war the air offensive, the only\npossible decisive blow, is still merely talked of. Not once nor twice\nonly have the Western Allies had victory within their grasp--and failed\nto grip it. The British cavalry generals wasted the great invention of\nthe tanks as a careless child breaks a toy. At least equally remarkable\nis the dragging inadaptability of European statecraft. Everywhere the\nfailure of ministers and statesmen to rise to the urgent definite\nnecessities of the present time is glaringly conspicuous. They seem to\nbe incapable even of thinking how the war may be brought to an end. They\nseem incapable of that plain speaking to the world audience which alone\ncan bring about a peace. They keep on with the tricks and feints of a\ndeparted age. Both on the side of the Allies and on the side of the\nGermans the declarations of public policy remain childishly vague and\ndisingenuous, childishly \"diplomatic.\" They chaffer like happy imbeciles\nwhile civilization bleeds to death. It was perhaps to be expected. Few,\nif any, men of over five-and-forty completely readjust themselves to\nchanged conditions, however novel and challenging the changes may be,\nand nearly all the leading figures in these affairs are elderly men\ntrained in a tradition of diplomatic ineffectiveness, and now overworked\nand overstrained to a pitch of complete inelasticity. They go on as if\nit were still 1913. Could anything be more palpably shifty and\nunsatisfactory, more senile, more feebly artful, than the recent\nutterances of the German Chancellor? And, on our own side--\n\nLet us examine the three leading points about this peace business in\nwhich this jaded statecraft is most apparent.\n\nLet the reader ask himself the following questions:--\n\nDoes he know what the Allies mean to do with the problem of Central\nAfrica? It is the clear common sense of the African situation that while\nthese precious regions of raw material remain divided up between a\nnumber of competitive European imperialisms, each resolutely set upon\nthe exploitation of its \"possessions\" to its own advantage and the\ndisadvantage of the others, there can be no permanent peace in the\nworld. There can be permanent peace in the world only when tropical and\nsub-tropical Africa constitute a field free to the commercial enterprise\nof every one irrespective of nationality, when this is no longer an area\nof competition between nations. This is possible only under some supreme\ninternational control. It requires no special knowledge nor wisdom to\nsee that. A schoolboy can see it. Any one but a statesman absolutely\nflaccid with overstrain can see that. However difficult it may prove to\nwork out in detail, such an international control _must_ therefore be\nworked out. The manifest solution of the problem of the German colonies\nin Africa is neither to return them to her nor deprive her of them, but\nto give her a share in the pooled general control of mid-Africa. In\nthat way she can be deprived of all power for political mischief in\nAfrica without humiliation or economic injury. In that way, too, we can\nhead off--and in no other way can we head off--the power for evil, the\npower of developing quarrels inherent in \"imperialisms\" other than\nGerman.\n\nBut has the reader any assurance that this sane solution of the African\nproblem has the support of the Allied Governments? At best he has only a\nvague persuasion. And consider how the matter looks \"over there.\" The\nGerman Government assures the German people that the Allies intend to\ncut off Germany from the African supply of raw material. That would mean\nthe practical destruction of German economic life. It is something far\nmore vital to the mass of Germans than any question of Belgium or\nAlsace-Lorraine. It is, therefore, one of the ideas most potent in\nnerving the overstrained German people to continue their fight. Why are\nwe, and why are the German people, not given some definite assurance in\nthis matter? Given reparation in Europe, is Germany to be allowed a fair\nshare in the control and trade of a pooled and neutralized Central\nAfrica? Sooner or later we must come to some such arrangement. Why not\nstate it plainly now?\n\nA second question is equally essential to any really permanent\nsettlement, and it is one upon which these eloquent but unsatisfactory\nmouthpieces of ours turn their backs with an equal resolution, and that\nis the fate of the Ottoman Empire. What in plain English are we up to\nthere? Whatever happens, that Humpty Dumpty cannot be put back as it was\nbefore the war. The idea of the German imperialist, the idea of our own\nlittle band of noisy but influential imperialist vulgarians, is\nevidently a game of grab, a perilous cutting up of these areas into\njostling protectorates and spheres of influence, from which either the\nGermans or the Allies (according to the side you are on) are to be\nviciously shut out. On such a basis this war is a war to the death.\nNeither Germany, France, Britain, Italy, nor Russia can live\nprosperously if its trade and enterprise is shut out from this\ncardinally important area. There is, therefore, no alternative, if we\nare to have a satisfactory permanent pacification of the world, but\nlocal self-development in these regions under honestly conceived\ninternational control of police and transit and trade. Let it be granted\nthat that will be a difficult control to organize. None the less it has\nto be attempted. It has to be attempted because _there is no other way\nof peace_. But once that conception has been clearly formulated, a\nsecond great motive why Germany should continue fighting will have\ngone.\n\nThe third great issue about which there is nothing but fog and\nuncertainty is the so-called \"War After the War,\" the idea of a\npermanent economic alliance to prevent the economic recuperation of\nGermany. Upon that idea German imperialism, in its frantic effort to\nkeep its tormented people fighting, naturally puts the utmost stress.\nThe threat of War after the War robs the reasonable German of his last\ninducement to turn on his Government and insist upon peace. Shut out\nfrom all trade, unable to buy food, deprived of raw material, peace\nwould be as bad for Germany as war. He will argue naturally enough and\nreasonably enough that he may as well die fighting as starve. This is a\nfar more vital issue to him than the Belgian issue or Poland or\nAlsace-Lorraine. Our statesmen waste their breath and slight our\nintelligence when these foreground questions are thrust in front of the\nreally fundamental matters. But as the mass of sensible people in every\ncountry concerned, in Germany just as much as in France or Great\nBritain, know perfectly well, unimpeded trade is good for every one\nexcept a few rich adventurers, and restricted trade destroys limitless\nwealth and welfare for mankind to make a few private fortunes or secure\nan advantage for some imperialist clique. We want an end to this\neconomic strategy, we want an end to this plotting of Governmental\ncliques against the general welfare. In such offences Germany has been\nthe chief of sinners, but which among the belligerent nations can throw\nthe first stone? Here again the way to the world's peace, the only way\nto enduring peace, lies through internationalism, through an\ninternational survey of commercial treaties, through an international\ncontrol of inter-State shipping and transport rates. Unless the Allied\nstatesmen fail to understand the implications of their own general\nprofessions they mean that. But why do they not say it plainly? Why do\nthey not shout it so compactly and loudly that all Germany will hear and\nunderstand? Why do they justify imperialism to Germany? Why do they\nmaintain a threatening ambiguity towards Germany on all these matters?\n\nBy doing so they leave Germany no choice but a war of desperation. They\nunderline and endorse the claim of German imperialism that this is a war\nfor bare existence. They unify the German people. They prolong the war.\n\n\n\n\n\u00a7 3\n\nSome weeks later I was able, at the invitation of the editor, to carry\nthe controversy against imperialism into the _Daily Mail_, which has\nhitherto counted as a strictly imperialist paper. The article that\nfollows was published in the _Daily Mail_ under the heading, \"Are we\nSticking to the Point? A Discussion of War Aims.\"\n\nHas this War-Aims controversy really got down to essentials? Is the\npurpose of this world conflict from first to last too complicated for\nbrevity, or can we boil it down into a statement compact enough for a\nnewspaper article?\n\nAnd if we can, why is there all this voluminous, uneasy, unquenchable\ndisputation about War Aims?\n\nAs to the first question, I would say that the gist of the dispute\nbetween the Central Powers and the world can be written easily without\nundue cramping in an ordinary handwriting upon a postcard. It is the\nsecond question that needs answering. And the reason why the second\nquestion has to be asked and answered is this, that several of the\nAllies, and particularly we British, are not being perfectly plain and\nsimple-minded in our answer to the first, that there is a division among\nus and in our minds, and that our division is making us ambiguous in our\nbehaviour, that it is weakening and dividing our action and\nstrengthening and consolidating the enemy, and that unless we can drag\nthis slurred-over division of aim and spirit into the light of day and\n_settle it now_, we are likely to remain double-minded to the end of the\nwar, to split our strength while the war continues and to come out of\nthe settlement at the end with nothing nearly worth the strain and\nsacrifice it has cost us.\n\nAnd first, let us deal with that postcard and say what is the essential\naim of the war, the aim to which all other aims are subsidiary. It is,\nwe have heard repeated again and again by every statesman of importance\nin every Allied country, to defeat and destroy military imperialism, to\nmake the world safe for ever against any such deliberate aggression as\nGermany prepared for forty years and brought to a climax when she\ncrossed the Belgian frontier in 1914. We want to make anything of that\nkind on the part of Germany or of any other Power henceforth impossible\nin this world. That is our great aim. Whatever other objects may be\nsought in this war no responsible statesman dare claim them as anything\nbut subsidiary to that; one can say, in fact, this is our sole aim, our\nother aims being but parts of it. Better that millions should die now,\nwe declare, than that hundreds of millions still unborn should go on\nliving, generation after generation, under the black tyranny of this\nimperialist threat.\n\nThere is our common agreement. So far, at any rate, we are united. The\nquestion I would put to the reader is this: Are we all logically,\nsincerely, and fully carrying out the plain implications of this War\nAim? Or are we to any extent muddling about with it in such a way as to\nconfuse and disorganize our Allies, weaken our internal will, and\nstrengthen the enemy?\n\nNow the plain meaning of this supreme declared War Aim is that we are\nasking Germany to alter her ways. We are asking Germany to become a\ndifferent Germany. Either Germany has to be utterly smashed up and\ndestroyed or else Germany has to cease to be an aggressive military\nimperialism. The former alternative is dismissed by most responsible\nstatesmen. They declare that they do not wish to destroy the German\npeople or the German nationality or the civilized life of Germany. I\nwill not enlarge here upon the tedium and difficulties such an\nundertaking would present. I will dismiss it as being not only\nimpossible, but also as an insanely wicked project. The second\nalternative, therefore, remains as our War Aim. I do not see how the\nsloppiest reasoner can evade that. As we do not want to kill Germany we\nmust want to change Germany. If we do not want to wipe Germany off the\nface of the earth, then we want Germany to become the prospective and\ntrust-worthy friend of her fellow nations. And if words have any meaning\nat all, that is saying that we are fighting to bring about a Revolution\nin Germany. We want Germany to become a democratically controlled State,\nsuch as is the United States to-day, with open methods and pacific\nintentions, instead of remaining a clenched fist. If we can bring that\nabout we have achieved our War Aim; if we cannot, then this struggle has\nbeen for us only such loss and failure as humanity has never known\nbefore.\n\nBut do we, as a nation, stick closely to this clear and necessary, this\nonly possible, meaning of our declared War Aim? That great, clear-minded\nleader among the Allies, that Englishman who more than any other single\nman speaks for the whole English-speaking and Western-thinking\ncommunity, President Wilson, has said definitely that this is his\nmeaning. America, with him as her spokesman, is under no delusion; she\nis fighting consciously for a German Revolution as the essential War\nAim. We in Europe do not seem to be so lucid. I think myself we have\nbeen, and are still, fatally and disastrously not lucid. It is high\ntime, and over, that we cleared our minds and got down to the essentials\nof the war. We have muddled about in blood and dirt and secondary issues\nlong enough.\n\nWe in Britain are not clear-minded, I would point out, because we are\ndouble-minded. No good end is served by trying to ignore in the fancied\ninterests of \"unity\" a division of spirit and intention that trips us\nup at every step. We are, we declare, fighting for a complete change in\ninternational methods, and we are bound to stick to the logical\nconsequences of that. We have placed ourselves on the side of democratic\nrevolution against autocratic monarchy, and we cannot afford to go on\nshilly-shallying with that choice. We cannot in these days of black or\nwhite play the part of lukewarm friends to freedom. I will not remind\nthe reader here of the horrible vacillations and inconsistencies of\npolicy in Greece that have prolonged the war and cost us wealth and\nlives beyond measure, but President Wilson himself has reminded us\npungently enough and sufficiently enough of the follies and\ndisingenuousness of our early treatment of the Russian Revolution. What\nI want to point out here is the supreme importance of a clear lead in\nthis matter _now_ in order that we should state our War Aims\neffectively.\n\nIn every war there must be two sets of War Aims kept in mind; we ought\nto know what we mean to do in the event of victory so complete that we\ncan dictate what terms we choose, and we ought to know what, in the\nevent of a not altogether conclusive tussle, are the minimum terms that\nwe should consider justified us in a discontinuance of the tussle. Now,\nunless our leading statesmen are humbugs and unless we are prepared to\nquarrel with America in the interests of the monarchist institutions of\nEurope, we should, in the event of an overwhelming victory, destroy both\nthe Hohenzollern and Hapsburg Imperialisms, and that means, if it means\nanything at all and is not mere lying rhetoric, that we should insist\nupon Germany becoming free and democratic, that is to say, in effect if\nnot in form republican, and upon a series of national republics, Polish,\nHungarian, Serbo-Croatian, Bulgarian, and the like, in Eastern Europe,\ngrouped together if possible into congenial groups--crowned republics it\nmight be in some cases, in the case of the Serb for example, but in no\ncase too much crowned--that we should join with this renascent Germany\nand with these thus liberalized Powers and with our Allies and with the\nneutrals in one great League of Free Nations, trading freely with one\nanother, guaranteeing each other freedom, and maintaining a world-wide\npeace and disarmament and a new reign of law for mankind.\n\nIf that is not what we are out for, then I do not understand what we are\nout for; there is dishonesty and trickery and diplomacy and foolery in\nthe struggle, and I am no longer whole-hearted for such a half-hearted\nwar. If after a complete victory we are to bolster up the Hohenzollerns,\nHapsburgs, and their relations, set up a constellation of more cheating\nlittle subordinate kings, and reinstate that system of diplomacies and\nsecret treaties and secret understandings, that endless drama of\ninternational threatening and plotting, that never-ending arming, that\nhas led us after a hundred years of waste and muddle to the supreme\ntragedy of this war, then the world is not good enough for me and I\nshall be glad to close my eyes upon it. I am not alone in these\nsentiments. I believe that in writing thus I am writing the opinion of\nthe great mass of reasonable British, French, Italian, Russian, and\nAmerican men. I believe, too, that this is the desire also of great\nnumbers of Germans, and that they would, if they could believe us,\ngladly set aside their present rulers to achieve this plain common good\nfor mankind.\n\nBut, the reader will say, what evidence is there of any republican\nfeeling in Germany? That is always the objection made to any reasonable\ndiscussion of the war--and as most of us are denied access to German\npapers, it is difficult to produce quotations; and even when one does,\nthere are plenty of fools to suggest and believe that the entire German\nPress is an elaborate camouflage. Yet in the German Press there is far\nmore criticism of militant imperialism than those who have no access to\nit can imagine. There is far franker criticism of militarism in Germany\nthan there is of reactionary Toryism in this country, and it is more\nfree to speak its mind.\n\nThat, however, is a question by the way. It is not the main thing that I\nhave to say here. What I have to say here is that in Great Britain--I\nwill not discuss the affairs of any of our Allies--there are groups and\nclasses of people, not numerous, not representative, but placed in high\nand influential positions and capable of free and public utterance, who\nare secretly and bitterly hostile to this great War Aim, which inspires\nall the Allied peoples. These people are permitted to deny--our peculiar\ncensorship does not hamper them--loudly and publicly that we are\nfighting for democracy and world freedom; \"Tosh,\" they say to our dead\nin the trenches, \"you died for a mistake\"; they jeer at this idea of a\nLeague of Nations making an end to war, an idea that has inspired\ncountless brave lads to face death and such pains and hardships as outdo\neven death itself; they perplex and irritate our Allies by propounding\nschemes for some precious economic league of the British Empire--that is\nto treat all \"foreigners\" with a common base selfishness and stupid\nhatred--and they intrigue with the most reactionary forces in Russia.\n\nThese British reactionaries openly, and with perfect impunity, represent\nour war as a thing as mean and shameful as Germany's attack on Belgium,\nand they do it because generosity and justice in the world is as\nterrible to them as dawn is to the creatures of the night. Our Tories\nblundered into this great war, not seeing whither it would take them. In\nparticular it is manifest now by a hundred signs that they dread the\nfall of monarchy in Germany and Austria. Far rather would they make the\nmost abject surrenders to the Kaiser than deal with a renascent\nRepublican Germany. The recent letter of Lord Lansdowne, urging a peace\nwith German imperialism, was but a feeler from the pacifist side of this\nmost un-English, and unhappily most influential, section of our public\nlife. Lord Lansdowne's letter was the letter of a Peer who fears\nrevolution more than national dishonour.\n\nBut it is the truculent wing of this same anti-democratic movement that\nis far more active. While our sons suffer and die for their comforts and\nconceit, these people scheme to prevent any communication between the\nRepublican and Socialist classes in Germany and the Allied population.\nAt any cost this class of pampered and privileged traitors intend to\nhave peace while the Kaiser is still on his throne. If not they face a\nnew world--in which their part will be small indeed. And with the utmost\ningenuity they maintain a dangerous vagueness about the Allied peace\nterms, _with the sole object of preventing a revolutionary movement in\nGermany_.\n\nLet me put it to the reader exactly why our failure to say plainly and\nexactly and conclusively what we mean to do about a score of points, and\nparticularly about German economic life after the war, paralyses the\npenitents and friends and helpers that we could now find in Germany. Let\nme ask the reader to suppose himself a German in Germany at the present\ntime. Of course if he was, he is sure that he would hate the Kaiser as\nthe source of this atrocious war, he would be bitterly ashamed of the\nBelgian iniquity, of the submarine murders, and a score of such stains\nupon his national honour; and he would want to alter his national system\nand make peace. Hundreds of thousands of Germans are in that mood now.\nBut as most of us have had to learn, a man may be bitterly ashamed of\nthis or that incident in his country's history--what Englishman, for\ninstance, can be proud of Glencoe?--he may disbelieve in half its\ninstitutions and still love his country far too much to suffer the\nthought of its destruction. I prefer to see my country right, but if it\ncomes to the pinch and my country sins I will fight to save her from the\ndestruction her sins may have brought upon her. That is the natural way\nof a man.\n\nBut suppose a German wished to try to start a revolutionary movement in\nGermany at the present time, have we given him any reason at all for\nsupposing that a Germany liberated and democratized, but, of course,\ndivided and weakened as she would be bound to be in the process, would\nget better terms from the Allies than a Germany still facing them,\nmilitant, imperialist, and wicked? He would have no reason for believing\nanything of the sort. If we Allies are honest, then if a revolution\nstarted in Germany to-day we should if anything lower the price of peace\nto Germany. But these people who pretend to lead us will state nothing\nof the sort. For them a revolution in Germany would be the signal for\nputting up the price of peace. At any risk they are resolved that that\nGerman revolution shall not happen. Your sane, good German, let me\nassert, is up against that as hard as if he was a wicked one. And so,\npoor devil, he has to put his revolutionary ideas away, they are\nhopeless ideas for him because of the power of the British reactionary,\nthey are hopeless because of the line we as a nation take in this\nmatter, and he has to go on fighting for his masters.\n\nA plain statement of our war aims that did no more than set out honestly\nand convincingly the terms the Allies would make with a democratic\nrepublican Germany--republican I say, because where a scrap of\nHohenzollern is left to-day there will be a fresh militarism\nto-morrow--would absolutely revolutionize the internal psychology of\nGermany. We should no longer face a solid people. We should have\nreplaced the false issue of Germany and Britain fighting for the\nhegemony of Europe, the lie upon which the German Government has always\ntraded, and in which our extreme Tory Press has always supported the\nGerman Government, by the true issue, which is freedom versus\nimperialism, the League of Nations versus that net of diplomatic roguery\nand of aristocratic, plutocratic, and autocratic greed and conceit which\ndragged us all into this vast welter of bloodshed and loss.\n\n\n\n\nVI\n\nTHE WAR AIMS OF THE WESTERN ALLIES\n\n\nHere, quite compactly, is the plain statement of the essential cause and\nprocess of the war to which I would like to see the Allied Foreign\nOffices subscribe, and which I would like to have placed plainly before\nthe German mind. It embodies much that has been learnt and thought out\nsince this war began, and I think it is much truer and more fundamental\nthan that mere raging against German \"militarism,\" upon which our\npoliticians and press still so largely subsist.\n\nThe enormous development of war methods and war material within the last\nfifty years has made war so horrible and destructive that it is\nimpossible to contemplate a future for mankind from which it has not\nbeen eliminated; the increased facilities of railway, steamship,\nautomobile travel and air navigation have brought mankind so close\ntogether that ordinary human life is no longer safe anywhere in the\nboundaries of the little states in which it was once secure. In some\nfashion it is now necessary to achieve sufficient human unity to\nestablish a world peace and save the future of mankind.\n\nIn one or other of two ways only is that unification possible. Either\nmen may set up a common league to keep the peace of the earth, or one\nstate must ultimately become so great and powerful as to repeat for all\nthe world what Rome did for Europe two thousand years ago. Either we\nmust have human unity by a league of existing states or by an Imperial\nConquest. The former is now the declared Aim of our country and its\nAllies; the latter is manifestly the ambition of the present rulers of\nGermany. Whatever the complications may have been in the earlier stages\nof the war, due to treaties that are now dead letters and agreements\nthat are extinct, the essential issue now before every man in the world\nis this: Is the unity of mankind to be the unity of a common freedom, in\nwhich every race and nationality may participate with complete\nself-respect, playing its part, according to its character, in one great\nworld community, or is it to be reached--and it can only be so reached\nthrough many generations of bloodshed and struggle still, even if it can\nbe ever reached in this way at all--through conquest and a German\nhegemony?\n\nWhile the rulers of Germany to-day are more openly aggressive and\nimperialist than they were in August, 1914, the Allies arrayed against\nthem have made great progress in clearing up and realizing the instincts\nand ideals which brought them originally into the struggle. The German\ngovernment offers the world to-day a warring future in which Germany\nalone is to be secure and powerful and proud. _Mankind will not endure\nthat_. The Allies offer the world more and more definitely the scheme of\nan organized League of Free Nations, a rule of law and justice about the\nearth. To fight for that and for no other conceivable end, the United\nStates of America, with the full sympathy and co-operation of every\nstate in the western hemisphere, has entered the war. The British\nEmpire, in the midst of the stress of the great war, has set up in\nDublin a Convention of Irishmen of all opinions with the fullest powers\nof deciding upon the future of their country. If Ireland were not\ndivided against herself she could be free and equal with England\nto-morrow. It is the open intention of Great Britain to develop\nrepresentative government, where it has not hitherto existed, in India\nand Egypt, to go on steadfastly increasing the share of the natives of\nthese countries in the government of their own lands, until they too\nbecome free and equal members of the world league. Neither France nor\nItaly nor Britain nor America has ever tampered with the shipping of\nother countries except in time of war, and the trade of the British\nEmpire has been impartially open to all the world. The extra-national\n\"possessions,\" the so-called \"subject nations\" in the Empires of\nBritain, France, Italy, and Japan, are, in fact, possessions held in\ntrust against the day when the League of Free Nations will inherit for\nmankind.\n\nIs it to be union by conquest or is it to be union by league? For any\nsort of man except the German the question is, Will you be a free\ncitizen or will you be an underling to the German imperialism? For the\nGerman now the question is a far graver and more tragic one. For him it\nis this: \"You belong to a people not now increasing very rapidly, a\nnumerous people, but not so numerous as some of the great peoples of the\nworld, a people very highly trained, very well drilled and well armed,\nperhaps as well trained and drilled and equipped as ever it will be. The\ncollapse of Russian imperialism has made you safe if now you can get\npeace, and you _can_ get a peace now that will neither destroy you nor\nhumiliate you nor open up the prospect of fresh wars. The Allies offer\nyou such a peace. To accept it, we must warn you plainly, means refusing\nto go on with the manifest intentions of your present rulers, which are\nto launch you and your children and your children's children upon a\ncareer of struggle for war predominance, which may no doubt inflict\nuntold deprivations and miseries upon the rest of mankind, but whose end\nin the long run, for Germany and things German, can be only Judgment and\nDeath.\"\n\nIn such terms as these the Oceanic Allies could now state their war-will\nand carry the world straightway into a new phase of human history. They\ncould but they do not. For alas! not one of them is free from the\nentanglements of past things; when we look for the wisdom of statesmen\nwe find the cunning of politicians; when open speech and plain reason\nmight save the world, courts, bureaucrats, financiers and profiteers\nconspire.\n\n\n\n\nVII\n\nTHE FUTURE OF MONARCHY\n\n\nFrom the very outset of this war it was manifest to the clear-headed\nobserver that only the complete victory of German imperialism could save\nthe dynastic system in Europe from the fate that it had challenged. That\ncurious system had been the natural and unplanned development of the\npolitical complications of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Two\nsystems of monarchies, the Bourbon system and the German, then ruled\nEurope between them. With the latter was associated the tradition of the\nEuropean unity under the Roman empire; all the Germanic monarchs had an\nitch to be called Caesar. The Kaiser of the Austro-Hungarian empire and\nthe Czar had, so to speak, the prior claim to the title. The Prussian\nking set up as a Caesar in 1871; Queen Victoria became the Caesar of\nIndia (Kaisir-i-Hind) under the auspices of Lord Beaconsfield, and last\nand least, that most detestable of all Coburgers, Ferdinand of Bulgaria,\ngave Kaiserism a touch of quaint absurdity by setting up as Czar of\nBulgaria. The weakening of the Bourbon system by the French revolution\nand the Napoleonic adventure cleared the way for the complete ascendancy\nof the Germanic monarchies in spite of the breaking away of the United\nStates from that system.\n\nAfter 1871, a constellation of quasi-divine Teutonic monarchs, of which\nthe German Emperor, the German Queen Victoria, the German Czar, were the\ngreatest stars, formed a caste apart, intermarried only among\nthemselves, dominated the world and was regarded with a mystical awe by\nthe ignorant and foolish in most European countries. The marriages, the\nfunerals, the coronations, the obstetrics of this amazing breed of idols\nwere matters of almost universal worship. The Czar and Queen Victoria\nprofessed also to be the heads of religion upon earth. The\ncourt-centered diplomacies of the more firmly rooted monarchies steered\nall the great liberating movements of the nineteenth century into\nmonarchical channels. Italy was made a monarchy; Greece, the motherland\nof republics, was handed over to a needy scion of the Danish royal\nfamily; the sturdy peasants of Bulgaria suffered from a kindred\nimposition. Even Norway was saddled with as much of a king as it would\nstand, as a condition of its independence. At the dawn of the twentieth\ncentury republican freedom seemed a remote dream beyond the confines of\nSwitzerland and France--and it had no very secure air in France.\nReactionary scheming has been an intermittent fever in the French\nrepublic for six and forty years. The French foreign office is still\nundemocratic in tradition and temper. But for the restless disloyalty of\nthe Hohenzollerns this German kingly caste might be dominating the world\nto this day.\n\nOf course the stability of this Teutonic dynastic system in\nEurope--which will presently seem to the student of history so curious a\nhalting-place upon the way to human unity--rested very largely upon the\nmaintenance of peace. It was the failure to understand this on the part\nof the German and Bulgarian rulers in particular that has now brought\nall monarchy to the question. The implicit theory that supported the\nintermarrying German royal families in Europe was that their\ninter-relationship and their aloofness from their subjects was a\nmitigation of national and racial animosities. In the days when Queen\nVictoria was the grandmother of Europe this was a plausible argument.\nKing, Czar and Emperor, or Emperor and Emperor would meet, and it was\nunderstood that these meetings were the lubrication of European affairs.\nThe monarchs married largely, conspicuously, and very expensively for\nour good. Royal funerals, marriages, christenings, coronations, and\njubilees interrupted traffic and stimulated trade everywhere. They\nseemed to give a _raison d'\u00eatre_ for mankind. It is the Emperor William\nand the Czar Ferdinand who have betrayed not only humanity but their own\nstrange caste by shattering all these pleasant illusions. The wisdom of\nKant is justified, and we know now that kings cause wars. It needed the\nshock of the great war to bring home the wisdom of that old Scotchman of\nK\u00f6nigsberg to the mind of the ordinary man. Moreover in support of the\ndynastic system was the fact that it did exist as the system in\npossession, and all prosperous and intelligent people are chary of\ndisturbing existing things. Life is full of vestigial structures, and it\nis a long way to logical perfection. Let us keep on, they would argue,\nwith what we have. And another idea which, rightly or wrongly, made men\npatient with the emperors and kings was an exaggerated idea of the\ninsecurity of republican institutions.\n\nYou can still hear very old dull men say gravely that \"kings are better\nthan pronunciamentos\"; there was an article upon Greece to this effect\nquite recently in that uncertain paper _The New Statesman_. Then a kind\nof illustrative gesture would be made to the South American republics,\nalthough the internal disturbances of the South American republics have\ndiminished to very small dimensions in the last three decades and\nalthough pronunciamentos rarely disturb the traffic in Switzerland, the\nUnited States, or France. But there can be no doubt that the influence\nof the Germanic monarchy up to the death of Queen Victoria upon British\nthought was in the direction of estrangement from the two great modern\nrepublics and in the direction of assistance and propitiation to\nGermany. We surrendered Heligoland, we made great concessions to German\ncolonial ambitions, we allowed ourselves to be jockeyed into a phase of\ndangerous hostility to France. A practice of sneering at things American\nhas died only very recently out of English journalism and literature, as\nany one who cares to consult the bound magazines of the 'seventies and\n'eighties may soon see for himself. It is well too in these days not to\nforget Colonel Marchand, if only to remember that such a clash must\nnever recur. But in justice to our monarchy we must remember that after\nthe death of Queen Victoria, the spirit, if not the forms, of British\nkingship was greatly modified by the exceptional character and ability\nof King Edward VII. He was curiously anti-German in spirit; he had\nessentially democratic instincts; in a few precious years he restored\ngood will between France and Great Britain. It is no slight upon his\nsuccessor to doubt whether any one could have handled the present\nopportunities and risks of monarchy in Great Britain as Edward could\nhave handled them.\n\nBecause no doubt if monarchy is to survive in the British Empire it must\nspeedily undergo the profoundest modification. The old state of affairs\ncannot continue. The European dynastic system, based upon the\nintermarriage of a group of mainly German royal families, is dead\nto-day; it is freshly dead, but it is as dead as the rule of the Incas.\nIt is idle to close our eyes to this fact. The revolution in Russia, the\nsetting up of a republic in China, demonstrating the ripeness of the\nEast for free institutions, the entry of the American republics into\nworld politics--these things slam the door on any idea of working back\nto the old nineteenth-century system. People calls to people. \"No peace\nwith the Hohenzollerns\" is a cry that carries with it the final\nrepudiation of emperors and kings. The man in the street will assure you\nhe wants no diplomatic peace. Beyond the unstable shapes of the present\nthe political forms of the future rise now so clearly that they are the\ncommon talk of men. Kant's lucid thought told us long ago that the peace\nof the world demanded a world union of republics. That is a commonplace\nremark now in every civilized community.\n\nThe stars in their courses, the logic of circumstances, the everyday\nneeds and everyday intelligence of men, all these things march\nirresistibly towards a permanent world peace based on democratic\nrepublicanism. The question of the future of monarchy is not whether it\nwill be able to resist and overcome that trend; it has as little chance\nof doing that as the Lama of Thibet has of becoming Emperor of the\nEarth. It is whether it will resist openly, become the centre and symbol\nof a reactionary resistance, and have to be abolished and swept away\naltogether everywhere, as the Romanoffs have already been swept away in\nRussia, or whether it will be able in this country and that to adapt\nitself to the necessities of the great age that dawns upon mankind, to\ntake a generous and helpful attitude towards its own modification, and\nso survive, for a time at any rate, in that larger air.\n\nIt is the fashion for the apologists of monarchy in the British Empire\nto speak of the British system as a crowned republic. That is an\nattractive phrase to people of republican sentiments. It is quite\nconceivable that the British Empire may be able to make that phrase a\nreality and that the royal line may continue, a line of hereditary\npresidents, with some of the ancient trappings and something of the\npicturesque prestige that, as the oldest monarchy in Europe, it has\nto-day. Two kings in Europe have already gone far towards realizing\nthis conception of a life president; both the King of Italy and the King\nof Norway live as simply as if they were in the White House and are far\nmore accessible. Along that line the British monarchy must go if it is\nnot to go altogether. Will it go along those lines?\n\nThere are many reasons for hoping that it will do so. The _Times_ has\nstyled the crown the \"golden link\" of the empire. Australians and\nCanadians, it was argued, had little love for the motherland but the\ngreatest devotion to the sovereign, and still truer was this of Indians,\nEgyptians, and the like. It might be easy to press this theory of\ndevotion too far, but there can be little doubt that the British Crown\ndoes at present stand as a symbol of unity over diversity such as no\nother crown, unless it be that of Austria-Hungary, can be said to do.\nThe British crown is not like other crowns; it may conceivably take a\nline of its own and emerge--possibly a little more like a hat and a\nlittle less like a crown--from trials that may destroy every other\nmonarchial system in the world.\n\nNow many things are going on behind the scenes, many little indications\npeep out upon the speculative watcher and vanish again; but there is\nvery little that is definite to go upon at the present time to\ndetermine how far the monarchy will rise to the needs of this great\noccasion. Certain acts and changes, the initiative to which would come\nmost gracefully from royalty itself, could be done at this present time.\nThey may be done quite soon. Upon the doing of them wait great masses of\npublic opinion. The first of these things is for the British monarchy to\nsever itself definitely from the German dynastic system, with which it\nis so fatally entangled by marriage and descent, and to make its\nintention of becoming henceforth more and more British in blood as well\nas spirit, unmistakably plain. This idea has been put forth quite\nprominently in the _Times_. The king has been asked to give his\ncountenance to the sweeping away of all those restrictions first set up\nby George the Third, upon the marriage of the Royal Princes with\nBritish, French and American subjects. The British Empire is very near\nthe limit of its endurance of a kingly caste of Germans. The choice of\nBritish royalty between its peoples and its cousins cannot be\nindefinitely delayed. Were it made now publicly and boldly, there can be\nno doubt that the decision would mean a renascence of monarchy, a\nconsiderable outbreak of royalist enthusiasm in the Empire. There are\ntimes when a king or queen must need be dramatic and must a little\nanticipate occasions. It is not seemly to make concessions perforce;\nkings may not make obviously unwilling surrenders; it is the indecisive\nkings who lose their crowns.\n\nNo doubt the Anglicization of the royal family by national marriages\nwould gradually merge that family into the general body of the British\npeerage. Its consequent loss of distinction might be accompanied by an\nassociated fading out of function, until the King became at last hardly\nmore functional than was the late Duke of Norfolk as premier peer.\nPossibly that is the most desirable course from many points of view.\n\nIt must be admitted that the abandonment of marriages within the royal\ncaste and a bold attempt to introduce a strain of British blood in the\nroyal family does not in itself fulfil all that is needed if the British\nking is indeed to become the crowned president of his people and the\nnominal and accepted leader of the movement towards republican\ninstitutions. A thing that is productive of an enormous amount of\nrepublican talk in Great Britain is the suspicion--I believe an\nill-founded suspicion--that there are influences at work at court\nantagonistic to republican institutions in friendly states and that\nthere is a disposition even to sacrifice the interests of the liberal\nallies to dynastic sympathies. These things are not to be believed, but\nit would be a feat of vast impressiveness if there were something like\na royal and public repudiation of the weaknesses of cousinship. The\nbehaviour of the Allies towards that great Balkan statesman Venizelos,\nthe sacrificing of the friendly Greek republicans in favour of the\nmanifestly treacherous King of Greece, has produced the deepest shame\nand disgust in many quarters that are altogether friendly, that are even\nwarmly \"loyal\" to the British monarchy.\n\nAnd in a phase of tottering thrones it is very undesirable that the\nBritish habit of asylum should be abused. We have already in England the\ndethroned monarch of a friendly republic; he is no doubt duly looked\nafter. In the future there may be a shaking of the autumnal boughs and a\nshower of emperors and kings. We do not want Great Britain to become a\nhotbed of reactionary plotting and the starting-point of restoration\nraids into the territories of emancipated peoples. This is particularly\ndesirable if presently, after the Kaiser's death--which by all the\nstatistics of Hohenzollern mortality cannot be delayed now for many\nyears--the present Crown Prince goes a-wandering. We do not want any\nGerman ex-monarchs; Sweden is always open to them and friendly, and to\nSweden they ought to go; and particularly do British people dread an\nirruption of Hohenzollerns or Coburgers. Almost as undesirable would be\nthe arrival of the Czar and Czarina. It is supremely important that no\nwind of suspicion should blow between us and the freedom of Russia.\nAfter the war even more than during the war will the enemy be anxious to\nsow discord between the great Russian-speaking and English-speaking\ndemocracies. Quite apart from the scandal of their inelegant\ndomesticities, the establishment of the Czar and Czarina in England with\nfrequent and easy access to our royal family may be extraordinarily\nunfortunate for the British monarchy. I will confess a certain sympathy\nfor the Czar myself. He is not an evil figure, he is not a strong\nfigure, but he has that sort of weakness, that failure in decision,\nwhich trails revolution in its wake. He has ended one dynasty already.\nThe British royal family owes it to itself, that he bring not the\ninfection of his misfortunes to Windsor.\n\nThe security of the British monarchy lies in such a courageous severance\nof its destinies from the Teutonic dynastic system. Will it make that\nseverance? There I share an almost universal ignorance. The loyalty of\nthe British is not to what kings are too prone to call \"my person,\" not\nto a chosen and admired family, but to a renascent mankind. We have\nfought in this war for Belgium, for France, for general freedom, for\ncivilization and the whole future of mankind, far more than for\nourselves. We have not fought for a king. We are discovering in that\nspirit of human unity that lies below the idea of a League of Free\nNations the real invisible king of our heart and race. But we will very\ngladly go on with our task under a nominal king unless he hampers us in\nthe task that grows ever more plainly before us. ... That, I think, is a\nfair statement of British public opinion on this question. But every day\nwhen I am in London I walk past Buckingham Palace to lunch at my club,\nand I look at that not very expressive fa\u00e7ade and wonder--and we all\nwonder--what thoughts are going on behind it and what acts are being\nconceived there. Out of it there might yet come some gesture of\nacceptance magnificent enough to set beside President Wilson's\nmagnificent declaration of war. ...\n\nThese are things in the scales of fate. I will not pretend to be able to\nguess even which way the scales will swing.\n\n\n\n\nVIII\n\nTHE PLAIN NECESSITY FOR A LEAGUE\n\n\nGreat as the sacrifices of prejudice and preconception which any\neffective realization of this idea of a League of Free Nations will\ndemand, difficult as the necessary delegations of sovereignty must be,\nnone the less are such sacrifices and difficulties unavoidable. People\nin France and Italy and Great Britain and Germany alike have to subdue\ntheir minds to the realization that some such League is now a necessity\nfor them if their peace and national life are to continue. There is no\nprospect before them but either some such League or else great\nhumiliation and disastrous warfare driving them down towards social\ndissolution; and for the United States it is only a question of a little\nlonger time before the same alternatives have to be faced.\n\nWhether this war ends in the complete defeat of Germany and German\nimperialism, or in a revolutionary modernization of Germany, or in a\npractical triumph for the Hohenzollerns, are considerations that affect\nthe nature and scope of the League, but do not affect its essential\nnecessity. In the first two cases the League of Free Nations will be a\nworld league including Germany as a principal partner, in the latter\ncase the League of Free Nations will be a defensive league standing\nsteadfast against the threat of a world imperialism, and watching and\nrestraining with one common will the homicidal maniac in its midst. But\nin all these cases there can be no great alleviation of the evils that\nnow blacken and threaten to ruin human life altogether, unless all the\ncivilized and peace-seeking peoples of the world are pledged and locked\ntogether under a common law and a common world policy. There must rather\nbe an intensification of these evils. There must be wars more evil than\nthis war continuing this war, and more destructive of civilized life.\nThere can be no peace and hope for our race but an organized peace and\nhope, armed against disturbance as a state is armed against mad,\nferocious, and criminal men.\n\nNow, there are two chief arguments, running one into the other, for the\nnecessity of merging our existing sovereignties into a greater and, if\npossible, a world-wide league. The first is the present geographical\nimpossibility of nearly all the existing European states and empires;\nand the second is the steadily increasing disproportion between the\ntortures and destructions inflicted by modern warfare and any possible\nadvantages that may arise from it. Underlying both arguments is the fact\nthat modern developments of mechanical science have brought the nations\nof Europe together into too close a proximity. This present war, more\nthan anything else, is a violent struggle between old political ideas\nand new antagonistic conditions.\n\nIt is the unhappy usage of our schools and universities to study the\nhistory of mankind only during periods of mechanical unprogressiveness.\nThe historical ideas of Europe range between the time when the Greeks\nwere going about the world on foot or horseback or in galleys or sailing\nships to the days when Napoleon, Wellington, and Nelson were going about\nat very much the same pace in much the same vehicles and vessels. At the\nadvent of steam and electricity the muse of history holds her nose and\nshuts her eyes. Science will study and get the better of a modern\ndisease, as, for example, sleeping sickness, in spite of the fact that\nit has no classical standing; but our history schools would be shocked\nat the bare idea of studying the effect of modern means of communication\nupon administrative areas, large or small. This defect in our historical\ntraining has made our minds politically sluggish. We fail to adapt\nreadily enough. In small things and great alike we are trying to run the\nworld in areas marked out in or before the eighteenth century,\nregardless of the fact that a man or an army or an aeroplane can get in\na few minutes or a few hours to points that it would have taken days or\nweeks to reach under the old foot-and-horse conditions. That matters\nnothing to the learned men who instruct our statesmen and politicians.\nIt matters everything from the point of view of social and economic and\npolitical life. And the grave fact to consider is that all the great\nstates of Europe, except for the unification of Italy and Germany, are\nstill much of the size and in much the same boundaries that made them\nstrong and safe in the eighteenth century, that is to say, in the\nclosing years of the foot-horse period. The British empire grew and was\norganized under those conditions, and had to modify itself only a little\nto meet the needs of steam shipping. All over the world are its linked\npossessions and its ports and coaling stations and fastnesses on the\ntrade routes. And British people still look at the red-splashed map of\nthe world with the profoundest self-satisfaction, blind to the swift\nchanges that are making that scattered empire--if it is to remain an\nisolated system--almost the most dangerous conceivable.\n\nLet me ask the British reader who is disposed to sneer at the League of\nNations and say he is very well content with the empire, thank you, to\nget his atlas and consider one or two propositions. And, first, let him\nthink of aviation. I can assure him, because upon this matter I have\nsome special knowledge, that long-distance air travel for men, for\nletters and light goods and for bombs, is continually becoming more\npracticable. But the air routes that air transport will follow must go\nover a certain amount of land, for this reason that every few hundred\nmiles at the longest the machine must come down for petrol. A flying\nmachine with a safe non-stop range of 1500 miles is still a long way\noff. It may indeed be permanently impracticable because there seems to\nbe an upward limit to the size of an aeroplane engine. And now will the\nreader take the map of the world and study the air routes from London to\nthe rest of the empire? He will find them perplexing--if he wants them\nto be \"All-Red.\" Happily this is not a British difficulty only. Will he\nnext study the air routes from Paris to the rest of the French\npossessions? And, finally, will he study the air routes out of Germany\nto anywhere? The Germans are as badly off as any people. But we are all\nbadly off. So far as world air transit goes any country can, if it\nchooses, choke any adjacent country. Directly any trade difficulty\nbreaks out, any country can begin a vexatious campaign against its\nneighbour's air traffic. It can oblige it to alight at the frontier, to\nfollow prescribed routes, to land at specified places on those routes\nand undergo examinations that will waste precious hours. But so far as I\ncan see, no European statesman, German or Allied, have begun to give\ntheir attention to this amazing difficulty. Without a great pooling of\nair control, either a world-wide pooling or a pooling at least of the\nAtlantic-Mediterranean Allies in one Air League, the splendid peace\npossibilities of air transport--and they are indeed splendid--must\nremain very largely a forbidden possibility to mankind.\n\nAnd as a second illustration of the way in which changing conditions are\naltering political questions, let the reader take his atlas and consider\nthe case of that impregnable fastness, that great naval station, that\nKey to the Mediterranean, Gibraltar. British boys are brought up on\nGibraltar and the Gibraltar idea. To the British imagination Gibraltar\nis almost as sacred a national symbol as the lions in Trafalgar Square.\nNow, in his atlas the reader will almost certainly find an inset map of\nthis valuable possession, coloured bright red. The inset map will have\nattached to it a small scale of miles. From that he will be able to\nsatisfy himself that there is not an inch of the rock anywhere that is\nnot within five miles or less of Spanish land, and that there is rather\nmore than a semicircle of hills round the rock within a range of seven\nor eight miles. That is much less than the range of a sixteen-inch gun.\nIn other words, the Spaniards are in a position to knock Gibraltar to\nbits whenever they want to do so, or to smash and sink any ships in its\nharbour. They can hit it on every side. Consider, moreover, that there\nare long sweeps of coast north, south, and west of the Rock, from which\ntorpedoes could be discharged at any ship that approached. Inquire\nfurther where on the Rock an aeroplane can land. And having ascertained\nthese things, ask yourself what is the present value of Gibraltar?\n\nI will not multiply disagreeable instances of this sort, though it would\nbe easy enough to do so in the case both of France and Italy as well as\nof Great Britain. I give them as illustrations of the way in which\neverywhere old securities and old arrangements must be upset by the\ngreater range of modern things. Let us get on to more general\nconditions. There is not a capital city in Europe that twenty years from\nnow will not be liable to a bombing raid done by hundreds or even\nthousands of big aeroplanes, upon or even before a declaration of war,\nand there is not a line of sea communication that will not be as\npromptly interrupted by the hostile submarine. I point these things out\nhere only to carry home the fact that the ideas of sovereign isolation\nand detachment that were perfectly valid in 1900, the self-sufficient\nempire, Imperial Zollverein and all that stuff, and damn the foreigner!\nare now, because of the enormous changes in range of action and facility\nof locomotion that have been going on, almost as wild--or would be if we\nwere not so fatally accustomed to them--and quite as dangerous, as the\nidea of setting up a free and sovereign state in the Isle of Dogs. All\nthe European empires are becoming vulnerable at every point. Surely the\nmoral is obvious. The only wise course before the allied European powers\nnow is to put their national conceit in their pockets and to combine to\nlock up their foreign policy, their trade interests, and all their\nimperial and international interests into a League so big as to be able\nto withstand the most sudden and treacherous of blows. And surely the\nonly completely safe course for them and mankind--hard and nearly\nimpossible though it may seem at the present juncture--is for them to\nlock up into one unity with a democratized Germany and with all the\nother states of the earth into one peace-maintaining League.\n\nIf the reader will revert again to his atlas he will see very clearly\nthat a strongly consolidated League of Free Nations, even if it\nconsisted only of our present allies, would in itself form a\ncombination with so close a system of communication about the world, and\nso great an economic advantage, that in the long run it could oblige\nGermany and the rest of the world to come in to its council. Divided the\nOceanic Allies are, to speak plainly, geographical rags and nakedness;\nunited they are a world. To set about organizing that League now, with\nits necessary repudiation on the part of Britain, France, and Italy, of\na selfish and, it must be remembered in the light of these things I have\nbut hinted at here, a _now hopelessly unpracticable imperialism_, would,\nI am convinced, lead quite rapidly to a great change of heart in Germany\nand to a satisfactory peace. But even if I am wrong in that, then all\nthe stronger is the reason for binding, locking and uniting the allied\npowers together. It is the most dangerous of delusions for each and all\nof them to suppose that either Britain, France or Italy can ever stand\nalone again and be secure.\n\nAnd turning now to the other aspect of these consequences of the\ndevelopment of material science, it is too often assumed that this war\nis being as horrible and destructive as war can be. There never was so\ngreat a delusion. This war has only begun to be horrible. No doubt it is\nmuch more horrible and destructive than any former war, but even in\ncomparison with the full possibilities of known and existing means of\ndestruction it is still a mild war. Perhaps it will never rise to its\nfull possibilities. At the present stage there is not a combatant,\nexcept perhaps America, which is not now practising a pinching economy\nof steel and other mechanical material. The Germans are running short of\nfirst-class flying men, and if we and our allies continue to press the\nair attack, and seek out and train our own vastly greater resources of\nfirst quality young airmen, the Germans may come as near to being\n\"driven out of the air\" as is possible. I am a firmer believer than ever\nI was in the possibility of a complete victory over Germany--through and\nby the air. But the occasional dropping of a big bomb or so in London is\nnot to be taken as anything but a minimum display of what air war can\ndo. In a little while now our alliance should be in a position to\ncommence day and night continuous attacks upon the Rhine towns. Not\nhour-long raids such as London knows, but week-long raids. Then and then\nonly shall we be able to gauge the really horrible possibilities of the\nair war. They are in our hands and not in the hands of the Germans. In\naddition the Germans are at a huge disadvantage in their submarine\ncampaign. Their submarine campaign is only the feeble shadow of what a\nsubmarine campaign might be. Turning again to the atlas the reader can\nsee for himself that the German and Austrian submarines are obliged to\ncome out across very narrow fronts. A fence of mines less than three\nhundred miles long and two hundred feet deep would, for example,\ncompletely bar their exit through the North Sea. The U-boats run the\ngauntlet of that long narrow sea and pay a heavy toll to it. If only our\nAdmiralty would tell the German public what that toll is now, there\nwould come a time when German seamen would no longer consent to go down\nin them. Consider, however, what a submarine campaign would be for Great\nBritain if instead of struggling through this bottle-neck it were\nconducted from the coast of Norway, where these pests might harbour in a\nhundred fiords. Consider too what this weapon may be in twenty years'\ntime in the hands of a country in the position of the United States.\nGreat Britain, if she is not altogether mad, will cease to be an island\nas soon as possible after the war, by piercing the Channel Tunnel--how\ndifferent our transport problem would be if we had that now!--but such\ncountries as Australia, New Zealand, and Japan, directly they are\ninvolved in the future in a war against any efficient naval power with\nan unimpeded sea access, will be isolated forthwith. I cannot conceive\nthat any of the great ocean powers will rest content until such a\ntremendous possibility of blockade as the submarine has created is\nsecurely vested in the hands of a common league beyond any power of\nsudden abuse.\n\nIt must always be remembered that this war is a mechanical war conducted\nby men whose discipline renders them uninventive, who know little or\nnothing of mechanism, who are for the most part struggling blindly to\nget things back to the conditions for which they were trained, to\nNapoleonic conditions, with infantry and cavalry and comparatively light\nguns, the so-called \"war of manoeuvres.\" It is like a man engaged in a\ndesperate duel who keeps on trying to make it a game of cricket. Most of\nthese soldiers detest every sort of mechanical device; the tanks, for\nexample, which, used with imagination, might have given the British and\nFrench overwhelming victory on the western front, were subordinated to\nthe usual cavalry \"break through\" idea. I am not making any particular\ncomplaint against the British and French generals in saying this. It is\nwhat must happen to any country which entrusts its welfare to soldiers.\nA soldier has to be a severely disciplined man, and a severely\ndisciplined man cannot be a versatile man, and on the whole the British\narmy has been as receptive to novelties as any. The German generals have\ndone no better; indeed, they have not done so well as the generals of\nthe Allies in this respect. But after the war, if the world does not\norganize rapidly for peace, then as resources accumulate a little, the\nmechanical genius will get to work on the possibilities of these ideas\nthat have merely been sketched out in this war. We shall get big land\nironclads which will smash towns. We shall get air offensives--let the\nexperienced London reader think of an air raid going on hour after hour,\nday after day--that will really burn out and wreck towns, that will\ndrive people mad by the thousand. We shall get a very complete cessation\nof sea transit. Even land transit may be enormously hampered by aerial\nattack. I doubt if any sort of social order will really be able to stand\nthe strain of a fully worked out modern war. We have still, of course,\nto feel the full shock effects even of this war. Most of the combatants\nare going on, as sometimes men who have incurred grave wounds will still\ngo on for a time--without feeling them. The educational, biological,\nsocial, economic punishment that has already been taken by each of the\nEuropean countries is, I feel, very much greater than we yet realize.\nRussia, the heaviest and worst-trained combatant, has indeed shown the\neffects and is down and sick, but in three years' time all Europe will\nknow far better than it does now the full price of this war. And the\nshock effects of the next war will have much the same relation to the\nshock effects of this, as the shock of breaking a finger-nail has to the\nshock of crushing in a body. In Russia to-day we have seen, not indeed\nsocial revolution, not the replacement of one social order by another,\nbut disintegration. Let not national conceit blind us. Germany, France,\nItaly, Britain are all slipping about on that same slope down which\nRussia has slid. Which goes first, it is hard to guess, or whether we\nshall all hold out to some kind of Peace. At present the social\ndiscipline of France and Britain seems to be at least as good as that of\nGermany, and the _morale_ of the Rhineland and Bavaria has probably to\nundergo very severe testing by systematized and steadily increasing air\npunishment as this year goes on. The next war--if a next war comes--will\nsee all Germany, from end to end, vulnerable to aircraft....\n\nSuch are the two sets of considerations that will, I think, ultimately\nprevail over every prejudice and every difficulty in the way of the\nLeague of Free Nations. Existing states have become impossible as\nabsolutely independent sovereignties. The new conditions bring them so\nclose together and give them such extravagant powers of mutual injury\nthat they must either sink national pride and dynastic ambitions in\nsubordination to the common welfare of mankind or else utterly shatter\none another. It becomes more and more plainly a choice between the\nLeague of Free Nations and a famished race of men looting in search of\nnon-existent food amidst the smouldering ruins of civilization. In the\nend I believe that the common sense of mankind will prefer a revision of\nits ideas of nationality and imperialism, to the latter alternative. It\nmay take obstinate men a few more years yet of blood and horror to learn\nthis lesson, but for my own part I cherish an obstinate belief in the\npotential reasonableness of mankind.\n\n\n\n\nIX\n\nDEMOCRACY\n\n\nAll the talk, all the aspiration and work that is making now towards\nthis conception of a world securely at peace, under the direction of a\nLeague of Free Nations, has interwoven with it an idea that is often\nrather felt than understood, the idea of Democracy. Not only is justice\nto prevail between race and race and nation and nation, but also between\nman and man; there is to be a universal respect for human life\nthroughout the earth; the world, in the words of President Wilson, is to\nbe made \"safe for democracy.\" I would like to subject that word to a\ncertain scrutiny to see whether the things we are apt to think and\nassume about it correspond exactly with the feeling of the word. I would\nlike to ask what, under modern conditions, does democracy mean, and\nwhether we have got it now anywhere in the world in its fulness and\ncompletion.\n\nAnd to begin with I must have a quarrel with the word itself. The\neccentricities of modern education make us dependent for a number of\nour primary political terms upon those used by the thinkers of the small\nGreek republics of ancient times before those petty states collapsed,\nthrough sheer political ineptitude, before the Macedonians. They thought\nin terms of states so small that it was possible to gather all the\ncitizens together for the purposes of legislation. These states were\nscarcely more than what we English might call sovereign urban districts.\nFast communications were made by runners; even the policeman with a\nbicycle of the modern urban district was beyond the scope of the Greek\nimagination. There were no railways, telegraphs, telephones, books or\nnewspapers, there was no need for the state to maintain a system of\neducation, and the affairs of the state were so simple that they could\nbe discussed and decided by the human voice and open voting in an\nassembly of all the citizens. That is what democracy, meant. In Andorra,\nor perhaps in Canton Uri, such democracy may still be possible; in any\nother modern state it cannot exist. The opposite term to it was\noligarchy, in which a small council of men controlled the affairs of the\nstate. Oligarchy, narrowed down to one man, became monarchy. If you\nwished to be polite to an oligarchy you called it an aristocracy; if you\nwished to point out that a monarch was rather by way of being\nself-appointed, you called him a Tyrant. An oligarchy with a property\nqualification was a plutocracy.\n\nNow the modern intelligence, being under a sort of magic slavery to the\nancient Greeks, has to adapt all these terms to the problems of states\nso vast and complex that they have the same relation to the Greek states\nthat the anatomy of a man has to the anatomy of a jellyfish. They are\nnot only greater in extent and denser in population, but they are\nincreasingly innervated by more and more rapid means of communication\nand excitement. In the classical past--except for such special cases as\nthe feeding of Rome with Egyptian corn--trade was a traffic in luxuries\nor slaves, war a small specialized affair of infantry and horsemen in\nsearch of slaves and loot, and empire the exaction of tribute. The\nmodern state must conduct its enormous businesses through a system of\nministries; its vital interests go all round the earth; nothing that any\nancient Greek would have recognized as democracy is conceivable in a\ngreat modern state. It is absolutely necessary, if we are to get things\nclear in our minds about what democracy really means in relation to\nmodern politics, first to make a quite fresh classification in order to\nfind what items there really are to consider, and then to inquire which\nseem to correspond more or less closely in spirit with our ideas about\nancient democracy.\n\nNow there are two primary classes of idea about government in the\nmodern world depending upon our conception of the political capacity of\nthe common man. We may suppose he is a microcosm, with complete ideas\nand wishes about the state and the world, or we may suppose that he\nisn't. We may believe that the common man can govern, or we may believe\nthat he can't. We may think further along the first line that he is so\nwise and good and right that we only have to get out of his way for him\nto act rightly and for the good of all mankind, or we may doubt it. And\nif we doubt that we may still believe that, though perhaps \"you can fool\nall the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time,\"\nthe common man, expressing himself by a majority vote, still remains the\nsecure source of human wisdom. But next, while we may deny this\nuniversal distribution of political wisdom, we may, if we are\nsufficiently under the sway of modern ideas about collective psychology,\nbelieve that it is necessary to poke up the political indifference and\ninability of the common man as much as possible, to thrust political\nideas and facts upon him, to incite him to a watchful and critical\nattitude towards them, and above all to secure his assent to the\nproceedings of the able people who are managing public affairs. Or\nfinally, we may treat him as a thing to be ruled and not consulted. Let\nme at this stage make out a classificatory diagram of these elementary\nideas of government in a modern country.\n\nCLASS I. It is supposed that the common man _can_ govern:\n\n(1) without further organization (Anarchy);\n\n(2) through a majority vote by delegates.\n\nCLASS II. It is supposed that the common man _cannot_ govern, and that\ngovernment therefore must be through the agency of Able Persons who may\nbe classified under one of the following sub-heads, either as\n\n(1) persons elected by the common man because he believes them to be\npersons able to govern--just as he chooses his doctors as persons able\nto secure health, and his electrical engineers as persons able to attend\nto his tramways, lighting, etc., etc.;\n\n(2) persons of a special class, as, for example, persons born and\neducated to rule (e.g. _Aristocracy_), or rich business adventurers\n_(Plutocracy)_ who rule without consulting the common man at all.\n\nTo which two sub-classes we may perhaps add a sort of intermediate stage\nbetween them, namely:\n\n(3) persons elected by a special class of voter.\n\nMonarchy may be either a special case of Class II.(1), (2) or (3), in\nwhich the persons who rule have narrowed down in number to one person,\nand the duration of monarchy may be either for life or a term of years.\nThese two classes and the five sub-classes cover, I believe, all the\nelementary political types in our world.\n\nNow in the constitution of a modern state, because of the conflict and\nconfusion of ideas, all or most of these five sub-classes may usually be\nfound intertwined. The British constitution, for instance, is a\ncomplicated tangle of arrangements, due to a struggle between the ideas\nof Class I.(2), Class II.(3), tending to become Class II.(1) and Class\nII.(2) in both its aristocratic and monarchist forms. The American\nconstitution is largely dominated by Class I.(2), from which it breaks\naway in the case of the President to a short-term monarchist aspect of\nClass II.(1). I will not elaborate this classification further. I have\nmade it here in order to render clear first, that what we moderns mean\nby democracy is not what the Greeks meant at all, that is to say, direct\ngovernment by the assembly of all the citizens, and secondly and more\nimportant, that the word \"democracy\" is being used very largely in\ncurrent discussion, so that it is impossible to say in any particular\ncase whether the intention is Class I.(2) or Class II.(1), and that we\nhave to make up our minds whether we mean, if I may coin two phrases,\n\"delegate democracy\" or \"selective democracy,\" or some definite\ncombination of these two, when we talk about \"democracy,\" before we can\nget on much beyond a generous gesture of equality and enfranchisement\ntowards our brother man. The word is being used, in fact, confusingly\nfor these two quite widely different things.\n\nNow, it seems to me that though there has been no very clear discussion\nof the issue between those two very opposite conceptions of democracy,\nlargely because of the want of proper distinctive terms, there has\nnevertheless been a wide movement of public opinion away from \"delegate\ndemocracy\" and towards \"selective democracy.\" People have gone on saying\n\"democracy,\" while gradually changing its meaning from the former to the\nlatter. It is notable in Great Britain, for example, that while there\nhas been no perceptible diminution in our faith in democracy, there has\nbeen a growing criticism of \"party\" and \"politicians,\" and a great\nweakening in the power and influence of representatives and\nrepresentative institutions. There has been a growing demand for\npersonality and initiative in elected persons. The press, which was once\nentirely subordinate politically to parliamentary politics, adopts an\nattitude towards parliament and party leaders nowadays which would have\nseemed inconceivable insolence in the days of Lord Palmerston. And there\nhas been a vigorous agitation in support of electoral methods which are\nmanifestly calculated to subordinate \"delegated\" to \"selected\" men.\n\nThe movement for electoral reform in Great Britain at the present time\nis one of quite fundamental importance in the development of modern\ndemocracy. The case of the reformers is that heretofore modern democracy\nhas not had a fair opportunity of showing its best possibilities to the\nworld, because the methods of election have persistently set aside the\nbetter types of public men, or rather of would-be public men, in favour\nof mere party hacks. That is a story common to Britain and the American\ndemocracies, but in America it was expressed in rather different terms\nand dealt with in a less analytical fashion than it has been in Great\nBritain. It was not at first clearly understood that the failure of\ndemocracy to produce good government came through the preference of\n\"delegated\" over \"selected\" men, the idea of delegation did in fact\ndominate the minds of both electoral reformers and electoral\nconservatives alike, and the earlier stages of the reform movement in\nGreat Britain were inspired not so much by the idea of getting a better\ntype of representative as by the idea of getting a fairer\nrepresentation of minorities. It was only slowly that the idea that\nsensible men do not usually belong to any political \"party\" took hold.\nIt is only now being realized that what sensible men desire in a member\nof parliament is honour and capacity rather than a mechanical loyalty to\na \"platform.\" They do not want to dictate to their representative; they\nwant a man they can trust as their representative. In the fifties and\nsixties of the last century, in which this electoral reform movement\nbegan and the method of Proportional Representation was thought out, it\nwas possible for the reformers to work untroubled upon the assumption\nthat if a man was not necessarily born a\n\n     \"... little Liber-al,\n     or else a little Conservative,\"\n\nhe must at least be a Liberal-Unionist or a Conservative Free-Trader.\nBut seeking a fair representation for party minorities, these reformers\nproduced a system of voting at once simple and incapable of\nmanipulation, that leads straight, not to the representation of small\nparties, but to a type of democratic government by selected best men.\n\nBefore giving the essential features of that system, it may be well to\nstate in its simplest form the evils at which the reform aims. An\nelection, the reformers point out, is not the simple matter it appears\nto be at the first blush. Methods of voting can be manipulated in\nvarious ways, and nearly every method has its own liability to\nfalsification. We may take for illustration the commonest, simplest\ncase--the case that is the perplexity of every clear-thinking voter\nunder British or American conditions--the case of a constituency in\nwhich every elector has one vote, and which returns one representative\nto Parliament. The naive theory on which people go is that all the\npossible candidates are put up, that each voter votes for the one he\nlikes best, and that the best man wins. The bitter experience is that\nhardly ever are there more than two candidates, and still more rarely is\neither of these the best man possible. Suppose, for example, the\nconstituency is mainly Conservative. A little group of pothouse\npoliticians, wire-pullers, busybodies, local journalists, and small\nlawyers, working for various monetary interests, have \"captured\" the\nlocal Conservative organization. They have time and energy to capture\nit, because they have no other interest in life except that. It is their\n\"business,\" and honest men are busy with other duties. For reasons that\ndo not appear these local \"workers\" put up an unknown Mr. Goldbug as the\nofficial Conservative candidate. He professes a generally Conservative\nview of things, but few people are sure of him and few people trust him.\nAgainst him the weaker (and therefore still more venal) Liberal\norganization now puts up a Mr. Kentshire (formerly Wurstberg) to\nrepresent the broader thought and finer generosities of the English\nmind. A number of Conservative gentlemen, generally too busy about their\nhonest businesses to attend the party \"smokers\" and the party cave,\nrealize suddenly that they want Goldbug hardly more than they want\nWurstberg. They put up their long-admired, trusted, and able friend Mr.\nSanity as an Independent Conservative.\n\nEvery one knows the trouble that follows. Mr. Sanity is \"going to split\nthe party vote.\" The hesitating voter is told, with considerable truth,\nthat a vote given for Mr. Sanity is a vote given for Wurstberg. At any\nprice the constituency does not want Wurstberg. So at the eleventh hour\nMr. Sanity is induced to withdraw, and Mr. Goldbug goes into Parliament\nto misrepresent this constituency. And so with most constituencies, and\nthe result is a legislative body consisting largely of men of unknown\ncharacter and obscure aims, whose only credential is the wearing of a\nparty label. They come into parliament not to forward the great\ninterests they ostensibly support, but with an eye to the railway\njobbery, corporation business, concessions and financial operations that\nnecessarily go on in and about the national legislature. That in its\nsimplest form is the dilemma of democracy. The problem that has\nconfronted modern democracy since its beginning has not really been the\nrepresentation of organized minorities--they are very well able to look\nafter themselves--but _the protection of the unorganized mass of busily\noccupied, fairly intelligent men from the tricks of the specialists who\nwork the party machines_. We know Mr. Sanity, we want Mr. Sanity, but we\nare too busy to watch the incessant intrigues to oust him in favour of\nthe obscurely influential people, politically docile, who are favoured\nby the organization. We want an organizer-proof method of voting. It is\nin answer to this demand, as the outcome of a most careful examination\nof the ways in which voting may be protected from the exploitation of\nthose who _work_ elections, that the method of Proportional\nRepresentation with a single transferable vote has been evolved. It is\norganizer-proof. It defies the caucus. If you do not like Mr. Goldbug\nyou can put up and vote for Mr. Sanity, giving Mr. Goldbug your second\nchoice, in the most perfect confidence that in any case your vote cannot\nhelp to return Mr. Wurstberg.\n\nWith Proportional Representation with a single transferable vote (this\nspecification is necessary, because there are also the inferior\nimitations of various election-riggers figuring as proportional\nrepresentation), it is _impossible to prevent the effective candidature\nof independent men of repute beside the official candidates_.\n\nThe method of voting under the Proportional Representation system has\nbeen ignorantly represented as complex. It is really almost ideally\nsimple. You mark the list of candidates with numbers in the order of\nyour preference. For example, you believe A to be absolutely the best\nman for parliament; you mark him 1. But B you think is the next best\nman; you mark him 2. That means that if A gets an enormous amount of\nsupport, ever so many more votes than he requires for his return, your\nvote will not be wasted. Only so much of your vote as is needed will go\nto A; the rest will go to B. Or, on the other hand, if A has so little\nsupport that his chances are hopeless, you will not have thrown your\nvote away upon him; it will go to B. Similarly you may indicate a third,\na fourth, and a fifth choice; if you like you may mark every name on\nyour paper with a number to indicate the order of your preferences. And\nthat is all the voter has to do. The reckoning and counting of the votes\npresents not the slightest difficulty to any one used to the business\nof computation. Silly and dishonest men, appealing to still sillier\naudiences, have got themselves and their audiences into humorous muddles\nover this business, but the principles are perfectly plain and simple.\nLet me state them here; they can be fully and exactly stated, with\nvarious ornaments, comments, arguments, sarcastic remarks, and\ndigressions, in seventy lines of this type.\n\nIt will be evident that, in any election under this system, any one who\nhas got a certain proportion of No. 1 votes will be elected. If, for\ninstance, five people have to be elected and 20,000 voters vote, then\nany one who has got 4001 first votes or more _must_ be elected. 4001\nvotes is in that case enough to elect a candidate. This sufficient\nnumber of votes is called the _quota_, and any one who has more than\nthat number of votes has obviously got more votes than is needful for\nelection. So, to begin with, the voting papers are classified according\nto their first votes, and any candidates who have got more than a quota\nof first votes are forthwith declared elected. But most of these elected\nmen would under the old system waste votes because they would have too\nmany; for manifestly a candidate who gets more than the quota of votes\n_needs only a fraction of each of these votes to return him_. If, for\ninstance, he gets double the quota he needs only half each vote. He\ntakes that fraction, therefore, under this new and better system, and\nthe rest of each vote is entered on to No. 2 upon that voting paper. And\nso on. Now this is an extremely easy job for an accountant or skilled\ncomputer, and it is quite easily checked by any other accountant and\nskilled computer. A reader with a bad arithmetical education, ignorant\nof the very existence of such a thing as a slide rule, knowing nothing\nof account keeping, who thinks of himself working out the resultant\nfractions with a stumpy pencil on a bit of greasy paper in a bad light,\nmay easily think of this transfer of fractions as a dangerous and\nterrifying process. It is, for a properly trained man, the easiest,\nexactest job conceivable. The Cash Register people will invent machines\nto do it for you while you wait. What happens, then, is that every\ncandidate with more than a quota, beginning with the top candidate,\nsheds a traction of each vote he has received, down the list, and the\nnext one sheds his surplus fraction in the same way, and so on until\ncandidates lower in the list, who are at first below the quota, fill up\nto it. When all the surplus votes of the candidates at the head of the\nlist have been disposed of, then the hopeless candidates at the bottom\nof the list are dealt with. The second votes on their voting papers are\ntreated as whole votes and distributed up the list, and so on. It will\nbe plain to the quick-minded that, towards the end, there will be a\ncertain chasing about of little fractions of votes, and a slight\nmodification of the quota due to voting papers having no second or third\npreferences marked upon them, a chasing about that it will be difficult\nfor an untrained intelligence to follow. _But untrained intelligences\nare not required to follow it_. For the skilled computer these things\noffer no difficulty at all. And they are not difficulties of principle\nbut of manipulation. One might as well refuse to travel in a taxicab\nuntil the driver had explained the magneto as refuse to accept the\nprinciple of Proportional Representation by the single transferable vote\nuntil one had remedied all the deficiencies of one's arithmetical\neducation. The fundamental principle of the thing, that a candidate who\ngets more votes than he wants is made to hand on a fraction of each vote\nto the voter's second choice, and that a candidate whose chances are\nhopeless is made to hand on the whole vote to the voter's second choice,\nso that practically only a small number of votes are ineffective, is\nwithin the compass of the mind of a boy of ten.\n\nBut simple as this method is, it completely kills the organization and\nmanipulation of voting. It completely solves the Goldbug-Wurstberg-\nSanity problem. It is knave-proof--short of forging, stealing, or\ndestroying voting papers. A man of repute, a leaderly man, may defy all\nthe party organizations in existence and stand beside and be returned\nover the head of a worthless man, though the latter be smothered with\nparty labels. That is the gist of this business. The difference in\neffect between Proportional Representation and the old method of voting\nmust ultimately be to change the moral and intellectual quality of\nelected persons profoundly. People are only beginning to realize the\nhuge possibilities of advance inherent in this change of political\nmethod. It means no less than a revolution from \"delegate democracy\"\nto \"selective democracy.\"\n\nNow, I will not pretend to be anything but a strong partizan in this\nmatter. When I speak of \"democracy\" I mean \"selective democracy.\" I\nbelieve that \"delegate democracy\" is already provably a failure in the\nworld, and that the reason why to-day, after three and a half years of\nstruggle, we are still fighting German autocracy and fighting with no\ncertainty of absolute victory, is because the affairs of the three great\nAtlantic democracies have been largely in the hands not of selected men\nbut of delegated men, men of intrigue and the party machine, of dodges\nrather than initiatives, second-rate men. When Lord Haldane, defending\nhis party for certain insufficiencies in their preparation for the\neventuality of the great war, pleaded that they had no \"mandate\" from\nthe country to do anything of the sort, he did more than commit\npolitical suicide, he bore conclusive witness against the whole system\nwhich had made him what he was. Neither Britain nor France in this\nstruggle has produced better statesmen nor better generals than the\nGerman autocracy. The British and French Foreign Offices are old\nmonarchist organizations still. To this day the British and French\npoliticians haggle and argue with the German ministers upon petty points\nand debating society advantages, smart and cunning, while the peoples\nperish. The one man who has risen to the greatness of this great\noccasion, the man who is, in default of any rival, rapidly becoming the\nleader of the world towards peace, is neither a delegate politician nor\nthe choice of a monarch and his councillors. He is the one authoritative\nfigure in these transactions whose mind has not been subdued either by\nlong discipline in the party machine or by court intrigue, who has\ncontinued his education beyond those early twenties when the mind of the\n\"budding politician\" ceases to expand, who has thought, and thought\nthings out, who is an educated man among dexterous under-educated\nspecialists. By something very like a belated accident in the framing\nof the American constitution, the President of the United States is more\nin the nature of a selected man than any other conspicuous figure at the\npresent time. He is specially elected by a special electoral college\nafter an elaborate preliminary selection of candidates by the two great\nparty machines. And be it remembered that Mr. Wilson is not the first\ngreat President the United States have had, he is one of a series of\nfigures who tower over their European contemporaries. The United States\nhave had many advantageous circumstances to thank for their present\nascendancy in the world's affairs: isolation from militarist pressure\nfor a century and a quarter, a vast virgin continent, plenty of land,\nfreedom from centralization, freedom from titles and social vulgarities,\ncommon schools, a real democratic spirit in its people, and a great\nenthusiasm for universities; but no single advantage has been so great\nas this happy accident which has given it a specially selected man as\nits voice and figurehead in the world's affairs. In the average\ncongressman, in the average senator, as Ostrogorski's great book so\nindustriously demonstrated, the United States have no great occasion for\npride. Neither the Senate nor the House of Representatives seem to rise\nabove the level of the British Houses of Parliament, with a Government\nunable to control the rebel forces of Ulster, unable to promote or\ndismiss generals without an outcry, weakly amenable to the press, and\nterrifyingly incapable of great designs. It is to the United States of\nAmerica we must look now if the world is to be made \"safe for\ndemocracy.\" It is to the method of selection, as distinguished from\ndelegation, that we must look if democracy is to be saved from itself.\n\n\n\n\nX\n\nTHE RECENT STRUGGLE FOR PROPORTIONAL REPRESENTATION IN GREAT BRITAIN\n\n\nBritish political life resists cleansing with all the vigour of a dirty\nlittle boy. It is nothing to your politician that the economic and\nsocial organization of all the world, is strained almost to the pitch of\ncollapse, and that it is vitally important to mankind that everywhere\nthe whole will and intelligence of the race should be enlisted in the\ngreat tasks of making a permanent peace and reconstructing the shattered\nframework of society. These are remote, unreal considerations to the\npolitician. What is the world to him? He has scarcely heard of it. He\nhas been far too busy as a politician. He has been thinking of smart\nlittle tricks in the lobby and brilliant exploits at question time. He\nhas been thinking of jobs and appointments, of whether Mr. Asquith is\nlikely to \"come back\" and how far it is safe to bank upon L. G. His one\nsupreme purpose is to keep affairs in the hands of his own specialized\nset, to keep the old obscure party game going, to rig his little tricks\nbehind a vast, silly camouflage of sham issues, to keep out able men and\ndisinterested men, the public mind, and the general intelligence, from\nany effective interference with his disastrous manipulations of the\ncommon weal.\n\nI do not see how any intelligent and informed man can have followed the\nrecent debates in the House of Commons upon Proportional Representation\nwithout some gusts of angry contempt. They were the most pitiful and\nalarming demonstration of the intellectual and moral quality of British\npublic life at the present time.\n\nFrom the wire-pullers of the Fabian Society and from the party\norganizers of both Liberal and Tory party alike, and from the knowing\ncards, the pothouse shepherds, and jobbing lawyers who \"work\" the\nconstituencies, comes the chief opposition to this straightening out of\nour electoral system so urgently necessary and so long overdue. They\nhave fought it with a zeal and efficiency that is rarely displayed in\nthe nation's interest. From nearly every outstanding man outside that\nlittle inner world of political shams and dodges, who has given any\nattention to the question, comes, on the other hand, support for this\nreform. Even the great party leaders, Mr. Balfour and Mr. Asquith, were\nin its favour. One might safely judge this question by considering who\nare the advocates on either side. But the best arguments for\nProportional Representation arise out of its opponents' speeches, and to\nthese I will confine my attention now. Consider Lord Harcourt--heir to\nthe most sacred traditions of the party game--hurling scorn at a project\nthat would introduce \"faddists, mugwumps,\" and so on and so on--in fact\nindependent thinking men--into the legislature. Consider the value of\nLord Curzon's statement that London \"rose in revolt\" against the\nproject. Do you remember that day, dear reader, when the streets of\nLondon boiled with passionate men shouting, \"No Proportional\nRepresentation! Down with Proportional Representation\"? You don't. Nor\ndo I. But what happened was that the guinea-pigs and solicitors and\nnobodies, the party hacks who form the bulk of London's\nmisrepresentation in the House of Commons, stampeded in terror against a\nproposal that threatened to wipe them out and replace them by known and\nresponsible men. London, alas! does not seem to care how its members are\nelected. What Londoner knows anything about his member? Hundreds of\nthousands of Londoners do not even know which of the ridiculous\nconstituencies into which the politicians have dismembered our London\nthey are in. Only as I was writing this in my flat in St. James's Court,\nWestminster, did it occur to me to inquire who was representing me in\nthe councils of the nation while I write....\n\nAfter some slight difficulty I ascertained that my representative is a\nMr. Burdett Coutts, who was, in the romantic eighties, Mr.\nAshmead-Bartlett. And by a convenient accident I find that the other day\nhe moved to reject the Proportional Representation Amendment made by the\nHouse of Lords to the Representation of the People Bill, so that I am\nable to look up the debate in Hansard and study my opinions as he\nrepresented them and this question at one and the same time. And, taking\nlittle things first, I am proud and happy to discover that the member\nfor me was the only participator in the debate who, in the vulgar and\nreprehensible phrase, \"threw a dead cat,\" or, in polite terms, displayed\nclassical learning. My member said, \"_Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes_,\"\nwith a rather graceful compliment to the Labour Conference at\nNottingham. \"I could not help thinking to myself,\" said my member, \"that\nat that conference there must have been many men of sufficient classical\nreading to say to themselves, '_Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes_.'\" In\nwhich surmise he was quite right. Except perhaps for \"_Tempus fugit,\"_\n\"_verbum sap._,\" \"_Arma virumque_,\" and \"_Quis custodiet_,\" there is no\nbetter known relic of antiquity. But my member went a little beyond my\nideas when he said: \"We are asked to enter upon a method of legislation\nwhich can bear no other description than that of law-making in the\ndark,\" because I think it can bear quite a lot of other descriptions.\nThis was, however, the artistic prelude to a large, vague, gloomy\ndissertation about nothing very definite, a muddling up of the main\nquestion with the minor issue of a schedule of constituencies involved\nin the proposal.\n\nThe other parts of my member's speech do not, I confess, fill me with\nthe easy confidence I would like to feel in my proxy. Let me extract a\nfew gems of eloquence from the speech of this voice which speaks for me,\nand give also the only argument he advanced that needs consideration.\n\"History repeats itself,\" he said, \"very often in curious ways as to\nfacts, but generally with very different results.\" That, honestly, I\nlike. It is a sentence one can read over several times. But he went on\nto talk of the entirely different scheme for minority representation,\nwhich was introduced into the Reform Bill of 1867, and there I am\nobliged to part company with him. That was a silly scheme for giving two\nvotes to each voter in a three-member constituency. It has about as much\nresemblance to the method of scientific voting under discussion as a\nbath-chair has to an aeroplane. \"But that measure of minority\nrepresentation led to a baneful invention,\" my representative went on\nto say, \"and left behind it a hateful memory in the Birmingham caucus. I\nwell remember that when I stood for Parliament thirty-two years ago _we\nhad no better platform weapon than repeating over and over again in a\nsentence the name of Mr. Schnadhorst,_ and I am not sure that it would\nnot serve the same purpose now. Under that system the work of the caucus\nwas, of course, far simpler than it will be if this system ever comes\ninto operation. All the caucus had to do under that measure was to\ndivide the electors into three groups and with three candidates, A., B.,\nand C., to order one group to vote for A. and B., another for B. and C.,\nand the third for A. and C., and they carried the whole of their\ncandidates and kept them for many years. But the multiplicity of ordinal\npreferences, second, third, fourth, fifth, up to tenth, which the single\ntransferable vote system would involve, will require a more scientific\nhandling in party interests, and neither party will be able to face an\nelection with any hope of success without the assistance of the most\ndrastic form of caucus and _without its orders being carried out by the\nelectors_.\"\n\nNow, I swear by Heaven that, lowly creature as I am, a lost vote, a\nnothing, voiceless and helpless in public affairs, I am not going to\nstand the imputation that that sort of reasoning represents the average\nmental quality of Westminster--outside Parliament, that is. Most of my\nneighbours in St. James's Court, for example, have quite large pieces of\nhead above their eyebrows. Read these above sentences over and ponder\ntheir significance--so far as they have any significance. Never mind my\nkeen personal humiliation at this display of the mental calibre of my\nrepresentative, but consider what the mental calibre of a House must be\nthat did not break out into loud guffaws at such a passage. The line of\nargument is about as lucid as if one reasoned that because one can break\na window with a stone it is no use buying a telescope. And it remains\nentirely a matter for speculation whether my member is arguing that a\ncaucus _can_ rig an election carried on under the Proportional\nRepresentation system or that it cannot. At the first blush it seems to\nread as if he intended the former. But be careful! Did he? Let me\nsuggest that in that last sentence he really expresses the opinion that\nit cannot. It can be read either way. Electors under modern conditions\nare not going to obey the \"orders\" of even the \"most drastic\ncaucus\"--whatever a \"drastic caucus\" may be. Why should they? In the\nBirmingham instance it was only a section of the majority, voting by\nwards, in an election on purely party lines, which \"obeyed\" in order to\nkeep out the minority party candidate. I think myself that my member's\nmind waggled. Perhaps his real thoughts shone out through an argument\nnot intended to betray them. What he did say as much as he said anything\nwas that under Proportional Representation, elections are going to be\nvery troublesome and difficult for party candidates. If that was his\nintention, then, after all, I forgive him much. I think that and more\nthan that. I think that they are going to make party candidates who are\nmerely party candidates impossible. That is exactly what we reformers\nare after. Then I shall get a representative more to my taste than Mr.\nBurdett Coutts.\n\nBut let me turn now to the views of other people's representatives.\n\nPerhaps the most damning thing ever said against the present system,\ndamning because of its empty absurdity, was uttered by Sir Thomas\nWhittaker. He was making the usual exaggerations of the supposed\ndifficulties of the method. He said English people didn't like such\n\"complications.\" They like a \"straight fight between two men.\" Think of\nit! A straight fight! For more than a quarter-century I have been a\nvoter, usually with votes in two or three constituencies, and never in\nall that long political life have I seen a single straight fight in an\nelection, but only the dismallest sham fights it is possible to\nconceive. Thrice only in all that time have I cast a vote for a man whom\nI respected. On all other occasions the election that mocked my\ncitizenship was either an arranged walk-over for one party or the other,\nor I had a choice between two unknown persons, mysteriously selected as\ncandidates by obscure busy people with local interests in the\nconstituency. Every intelligent person knows that this is the usual\nexperience of a free and independent voter in England. The \"fight\" of an\nordinary Parliamentary election in England is about as \"straight\" as the\nbusiness of a thimble rigger.\n\nAnd consider just what these \"complications\" are of which the opponents\nof Proportional Representation chant so loudly. In the sham election of\nto-day, which the politicians claim gives them a mandate to muddle up\nour affairs, the voter puts a x against the name of the least detestable\nof the two candidates that are thrust upon him. Under the Proportional\nRepresentation method there will be a larger constituency, a larger list\nof candidates, and a larger number of people to be elected, and he will\nput I against the name of the man he most wants to be elected, 2 against\nhis second choice, and if he likes he may indulge in marking a third, or\neven a further choice. He may, if he thinks fit, number off the whole\nlist of candidates. That is all he will have to do. That is the\nstupendous intricacy of the method that flattens out the minds of Lord\nHarcourt and Sir Thomas Whittaker. And as for the working of it, if you\nmust go into that, all that happens is that if your first choice gets\nmore votes than he needs for his return, he takes only the fraction of\nyour vote that he requires, and the rest of the vote goes on to your\nNumber 2. If 2 isn't in need of all of it, the rest goes on to 3. And so\non. That is the profound mathematical mystery, that is the riddle beyond\nthe wit of Westminster, which overpowers these fine intelligences and\nsets them babbling of \"senior wranglers.\" Each time there is a debate on\nthis question in the House, member after member hostile to the proposal\nwill play the ignorant fool and pretend to be confused himself, and will\ntry to confuse others, by deliberately clumsy statements of these most\nelementary ideas. Surely if there were no other argument for a change of\ntype in the House, these poor knitted brows, these public perspirations\nof the gentry who \"cannot understand P.R.,\" should suffice.\n\nBut let us be just; it is not all pretence; the inability of Mr. Austen\nChamberlain to grasp the simple facts before him was undoubtedly\ngenuine. He followed Mr. Burdett Coutts, in support of Mr. Burdett\nCoutts, with the most Christian disregard of the nasty things Mr.\nBurdett Coutts had seemed to be saying about the Birmingham caucus from\nwhich he sprang. He had a childish story to tell of how voters would not\ngive their first votes to their real preferences, because they would\nassume he \"would get in in any case\"--God knows why. Of course on the\nassumption that the voter behaves like an idiot, anything is possible.\nAnd never apparently having heard of fractions, this great Birmingham\nleader was unable to understand that a voter who puts 1 against a\ncandidate's name votes for that candidate anyhow. He could not imagine\nany feeling on the part of the voter that No. 1 was his man. A vote is a\nvote to this simple rather than lucid mind, a thing one and indivisible.\nRead this--\n\n\"Birmingham,\" he said, referring to a Schedule under consideration, \"is\nto be cut into three constituencies of four members each. I am to have a\nconstituency of 100,000 electors, I suppose. How many thousand\ninhabitants I do not know. _Every effort will be made to prevent any of\nthose electors knowing--in fact, it would be impossible for any of them\nto know--whether they voted for me or not, or at any rate whether they\neffectively voted for me or not, or whether the vote which they wished\nto give to me was really diverted to somebody else_.\"\n\nOnly in a house of habitually inattentive men could any one talk such\nnonsense without reproof, but I look in vain through Hansard's record\nof this debate for a single contemptuous reference to Mr. Chamberlain's\nobtuseness. And the rest of his speech was a lamentable account of the\ntime and trouble he would have to spend upon his constituents if the new\nmethod came in. He was the perfect figure of the parochially important\nperson in a state of defensive excitement. No doubt his speech appealed\nto many in the House.\n\nOf course Lord Harcourt was quite right in saying that the character of\nthe average House of Commons member will be changed by Proportional\nRepresentation. It will. It will make the election of obscure and\nunknown men, of carpet-bag candidates who work a constituency as a\nhawker works a village, of local pomposities and village-pump \"leaders\"\nalmost impossible. It will replace such candidates by better known and\nmore widely known men. It will make the House of Commons so much the\nmore a real gathering of the nation, so much the more a house of\nrepresentative men. (Lord Harcourt's \"faddists and mugwumps.\") And it is\nperfectly true as Mr. Ramsay Macdonald (also an opponent) declares, that\nProportional Representation means constituencies so big that it will be\nimpossible for a poor man to cultivate and work them. That is\nunquestionable. But, mark another point, it will also make it useless,\nas Mr. Chamberlain has testified, for rich men to cultivate and work\nthem. All this cultivating and working, all this going about and making\nthings right with this little jobber here, that contractor there, all\nthe squaring of small political clubs and organizations, all the\nsubscription blackmail and charity bribery, that now makes a\nParliamentary candidature so utterly rotten an influence upon public\nlife, will be killed dead by Proportional Representation. You cannot job\nmen into Parliament by Proportional Representation. Proportional\nRepresentation lets in the outsider. It lets in the common, unassigned\nvoter who isn't in the local clique. That is the clue to nearly all this\nopposition of the politicians. It makes democracy possible for the first\ntime in modern history. And that poor man of Mr. Ramsay Macdonald's\nimagination, instead of cadging about a constituency in order to start\npolitician, will have to make good in some more useful way--as a leader\nof the workers in their practical affairs, for example--before people\nwill hear of him and begin to believe in him.\n\nThe opposition to Proportional Representation of Mr. Sidney Webb and his\nlittle circle is a trifle more \"scientific\" in tone than these naive\nobjections of the common run of antagonist, but underlying it is the\nsame passionate desire to keep politics a close game for the politician\nand to bar out the politically unspecialized man. There is more conceit\nand less jobbery behind the criticisms of this type of mind. It is an\nopposition based on the idea that the common man is a fool who does not\nknow what is good for him. So he has to be stampeded. Politics,\naccording to this school, is a sort of cattle-driving.\n\nThe Webbites do not deny the broad facts of the case. Our present\nelectoral system, with our big modern constituencies of thousands of\nvoters, leads to huge turnovers of political power with a relatively\nsmall shifting of public opinion. It makes a mock of public opinion by\ncaricature, and Parliament becomes the distorting mirror of the nation.\nUnder some loud false issue a few score of thousands of votes turn over,\nand in goes this party or that with a big sham majority. This the\nWebbites admit. But they applaud it. It gives us, they say, \"a strong\nGovernment.\" Public opinion, the intelligent man outside the House, is\nruled out of the game. He has no power of intervention at all. The\nartful little Fabian politicians rub their hands and say, \"_Now_ we can\nget to work with the wires! No one can stop us.\" And when the public\ncomplains of the results, there is always the repartee, \"_You_ elected\nthem.\" But the Fabian psychology is the psychology of a very small group\nof pedants who believe that fair ends may be reached by foul means. It\nis much easier and more natural to serve foul ends by foul means. In\npractice it is not tricky benevolence but tricky bargaining among the\ninterests that will secure control of the political wires. That is a bad\nenough state of affairs in ordinary times, but in times of tragic\nnecessity like the present men will not be mocked in this way. Life is\ngoing to be very intense in the years ahead of us. If we go right on to\nanother caricature Parliament, with perhaps half a hundred leading men\nin it and the rest hacks and nobodies, the baffled and discontented\noutsiders in the streets may presently be driven to rioting and the\nthrowing of bombs. Unless, indeed, the insurrection of the outsiders\ntakes a still graver form, and the Press, which has ceased entirely to\nbe a Party Press in Great Britain, helps some adventurous Prime Minister\nto flout and set aside the lower House altogether. There is neither much\nmoral nor much physical force behind the House of Commons at the present\ntime.\n\nThe argument of the Fabian opponents to Proportional Representation is\nfrankly that the strongest Government is got in a House of half a\nhundred or fewer leading men, with the rest of the Parliament driven\nsheep. But the whole mischief of the present system is that the obscure\nmembers of Parliament are not sheep; they are a crowd of little-minded,\nsecond-rate men just as greedy and eager and self-seeking as any of us.\nThey vote straight indeed on all the main party questions, they obey\ntheir Whips like sheep then; but there is a great bulk of business in\nParliament outside the main party questions, and obedience is not\nwithout its price. These are matters vitally affecting our railways and\nships and communications generally, the food and health of the people,\narmaments, every sort of employment, the appointment of public servants,\nthe everyday texture of all our lives. Then the nobody becomes somebody,\nthe party hack gets busy, the rat is in the granary....\n\nIn these recent debates in the House of Commons one can see every stock\ntrick of the wire-puller in operation. Particularly we have the old\ndodge of the man who is \"in theory quite in sympathy with Proportional\nRepresentation, but ...\" It is, he declares regretfully, too late. It\nwill cause delay. Difficult to make arrangements. Later on perhaps. And\nso on. It is never too late for a vital issue. Upon the speedy adoption\nof Proportional Representation depends, as Mr. Balfour made plain in an\nadmirable speech, whether the great occasions of the peace and after the\npeace are to be handled by a grand council of all that is best and most\nleaderlike in the nation, or whether they are to be left to a few\nleaders, apparently leading, but really profoundly swayed by the obscure\ncrowd of politicians and jobbers behind them. Are the politicians to\nhamper and stifle us in this supreme crisis of our national destinies or\nare we British peoples to have a real control of our own affairs in this\nmomentous time? Are men of light and purpose to have a voice in public\naffairs or not? Proportional Representation is supremely a test\nquestion. It is a question that no adverse decision in the House of\nCommons can stifle. There are too many people now who grasp its\nimportance and significance. Every one who sets a proper value upon\npurity in public life and the vitality of democratic institutions will,\nI am convinced, vote and continue to vote across every other question\nagainst the antiquated, foul, and fraudulent electoral methods that have\nhitherto robbed democracy of three-quarters of its efficiency.\n\n\n\n\nXI\n\nTHE STUDY AND PROPAGANDA OF DEMOCRACY\n\n\nIn the preceding chapter I have dealt with the discussion of\nProportional Representation in the British House of Commons in order to\nillustrate the intellectual squalor amidst which public affairs have to\nbe handled at the present time, even in a country professedly\n\"democratic.\" I have taken this one discussion as a sample to illustrate\nthe present imperfection of our democratic instrument. All over the\nworld, in every country, great multitudes of intelligent and serious\npeople are now inspired by the idea of a new order of things in the\nworld, of a world-wide establishment of peace and mutual aid between\nnation and nation and man and man. But, chiefly because of the\nelementary crudity of existing electoral methods, hardly anywhere at\npresent, except at Washington, do these great ideas and this world-wide\nwill find expression. Amidst the other politicians and statesmen of the\nworld President Wilson towers up with an effect almost divine. But it\nis no ingratitude to him to say that he is not nearly so exceptional a\nbeing among educated men as he is among the official leaders of mankind.\nEverywhere now one may find something of the Wilson purpose and\nintelligence, but nearly everywhere it is silenced or muffled or made\nineffective by the political advantage of privileged or of violent and\nadventurous inferior men. He is \"one of us,\" but it is his good fortune\nto have got his head out of the sack that is about the heads of most of\nus. In the official world, in the world of rulers and representatives\nand \"statesmen,\" he almost alone, speaks for the modern intelligence.\n\nThis general stifling of the better intelligence of the world and its\npossible release to expression and power, seems to me to be the\nfundamental issue underlying all the present troubles of mankind. We\ncannot get on while everywhere fools and vulgarians hold the levers that\ncan kill, imprison, silence and starve men. We cannot get on with false\ngovernment and we cannot get on with mob government; we must have right\ngovernment. The intellectual people of the world have a duty of\nco-operation they have too long neglected. The modernization of\npolitical institutions, the study of these institutions until we have\nworked out and achieved the very best and most efficient methods whereby\nthe whole community of mankind may work together under the direction of\nits chosen intelligences, is the common duty of every one who has a\nbrain for the service. And before everything else we have to realize\nthis crudity and imperfection in what we call \"democracy\" at the present\ntime. Democracy is still chiefly an aspiration, it is a spirit, it is an\nidea; for the most part its methods are still to seek. And still more is\nthis \"League of Free Nations\" as yet but an aspiration. Let us not\nunderrate the task before us. Only the disinterested devotion of\nhundreds of thousands of active brains in school, in pulpit, in book and\npress and assembly can ever bring these redeeming conceptions down to\nthe solid earth to rule.\n\nAll round the world there is this same obscuration of the real\nintelligence of men. In Germany, human good will and every fine mind are\nsubordinated to political forms that have for a mouthpiece a Chancellor\nwith his brains manifestly addled by the theories of _Welt-Politik_ and\nthe Bismarckian tradition, and for a figurehead a mad Kaiser.\nNevertheless there comes even from Germany muffled cries for a new age.\nA grinning figure like a bloodstained Punch is all that speaks for the\nbest brains in Bulgaria. Yes. We Western allies know all that by heart;\nbut, after all, the immediate question for each one of us is, \"_What\nspeaks for me?_\" So far as official political forms go I myself am as\nineffective as any right-thinking German or Bulgarian could possibly be.\nI am more ineffective than a Galician Pole or a Bohemian who votes for\nhis nationalist representative. Politically I am a negligible item in\nthe constituency of this Mr. Burdett Coutts into whose brain we have\nbeen peeping. Politically I am less than a waistcoat button on that\nquaint figure. And that is all I am--except that I revolt. I have\nwritten of it so far as if it were just a joke. But indeed bad and\nfoolish political institutions cannot be a joke. Sooner or later they\nprove themselves to be tragedy. This war is that. It is yesterday's\nlazy, tolerant, \"sense of humour\" wading out now into the lakes of blood\nit refused to foresee.\n\nIt is absurd to suppose that anywhere to-day the nationalisms, the\nsuspicions and hatreds, the cants and policies, and dead phrases that\nsway men represent the current intelligence of mankind. They are merely\nthe evidences of its disorganization. Even now we _know_ we could do far\nbetter. Give mankind but a generation or so of peace and right education\nand this world could mock at the poor imaginations that conceived a\nmillennium. But we have to get intelligences together, we have to\ncanalize thought before it can work and produce its due effects. To that\nend, I suppose, there has been a vast amount of mental activity among\nus political \"negligibles.\" For my own part I have thought of the idea\nof God as the banner of human unity and justice, and I have made some\ntentatives in that direction, but men, I perceive, have argued\nthemselves mean and petty about religion. At the word \"God\" passions\nbristle. The word \"God\" does not unite men, it angers them. But I doubt\nif God cares greatly whether we call Him God or no. His service is the\nservice of man. This double idea of the League of Free Nations, linked\nwith the idea of democracy as universal justice, is free from the\njealousy of the theologians and great enough for men to unite upon\neverywhere. I know how warily one must reckon with the spite of the\npriest, but surely these ideas may call upon the teachers of all the\ngreat world religions for their support. The world is full now of\nconfused propaganda, propaganda of national ideas, of traditions of\nhate, of sentimental and degrading loyalties, of every sort of error\nthat divides and tortures and slays mankind. All human institutions are\nmade of propaganda, are sustained by propaganda and perish when it\nceases; they must be continually explained and re-explained to the young\nand the negligent. And for this new world of democracy and the League of\nFree Nations to which all reasonable men are looking, there must needs\nbe the greatest of all propagandas. For that cause every one must\nbecome a teacher and a missionary. \"Persuade to it and make the idea of\nit and the necessity for it plain,\" that is the duty of every school\nteacher, every tutor, every religious teacher, every writer, every\nlecturer, every parent, every trusted friend throughout the world. For\nit, too, every one must become a student, must go on with the task of\nmaking vague intentions into definite intentions, of analyzing and\ndestroying obstacles, of mastering the ten thousand difficulties of\ndetail....\n\nI am a man who looks now towards the end of life; fifty-one years have I\nscratched off from my calendar, another slips by, and I cannot tell how\nmany more of the sparse remainder of possible years are really mine. I\nlive in days of hardship and privation, when it seems more natural to\nfeel ill than well; without holidays or rest or peace; friends and the\nsons of my friends have been killed; death seems to be feeling always\nnow for those I most love; the newspapers that come in to my house tell\nmostly of blood and disaster, of drownings and slaughterings, of\ncruelties and base intrigues. Yet never have I been so sure that there\nis a divinity in man and that a great order of human life, a reign of\njustice and world-wide happiness, of plenty, power, hope, and gigantic\ncreative effort, lies close at hand. Even now we have the science and\nthe ability available for a universal welfare, though it is scattered\nabout the world like a handful of money dropped by a child; even now\nthere exists all the knowledge that is needed to make mankind\nuniversally free and human life sweet and noble. We need but the faith\nfor it, and it is at hand; we need but the courage to lay our hands upon\nit and in a little space of years it can be ours.\n\nTHE END.","title":"In the Fourth Year: Anticipations of a World Peace","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":35965}