Essays in War-Time Part 3

What is Germany's greatest danger? That is the subject of a pamphlet by Rudolf Goldscheid, of Vienna, now published in Switzerland, with a preface by Professor Forel, as originally written a year earlier, because it is believed that in the interval its conclusions have been confirmed by events.[2] Goldscheid is an independent and penetrating thinker in the economic field, and the author of a book on the principles of Social Biology (_Hoherentwicklung und Menschenokonomie_) which has been described by an English critic as the ablest defence of Socialism yet written. By the nature of his studies he is concerned with problems of human rather than merely national development, but he ardently desires the welfare of Germany, and is anxious that that welfare shall be on the soundest and most democratic basis. After the War, he says, there must necessarily be a tendency to approximate between the Central Powers and one or other of their present foes.

It is clear (though this point is not discussed) that Italy, whose presence in the Triple Alliance was artificial, will not return, while French resentment at German devastation is far too great to be appeased for a long period to come. There remain, therefore, Russia and England.

After the War German interests and German sympathies must gravitate either eastwards towards Russia or westwards towards England. Which is it to be?

There are many reasons why Germany should gravitate towards Russia.

Such a movement was indeed already in active progress before the war, notwithstanding Russia's alliance with France, and may easily become yet more active after the war, when it is likely that the bonds between Russia and France may grow weaker, and when it is possible that the Germans, with their immense industry, economy and recuperative power, may prove to be in the best position--unless America cuts in--to finance Russia. Industrially Russia offers a vast field for German enterprise which no other country can well s.n.a.t.c.h away, and German is already to some extent the commercial language of Russia.[3]

Politically, moreover, a close understanding between the two supreme autocratic and anti-democratic powers of Europe is of the greatest mutual benefit, for any democratic movement within the borders of either Power is highly inconvenient to the other, so that it is to the advantage of both to stimulate each other in the task of repression.[4] It is this aspect of the approximation which arouses Goldscheid's alarm. It is mainly on this ground that he advocates a counter-balancing approximation between Germany and England which would lay Germany open to the West and serve to develop her latent democratic tendencies. He admits that at some points the interests of Germany and England run counter to each other, but at yet a greater number of points their interests are common. It is only by the development of these common interests, and the consequent permeation of Germany by democratic English ideas, that Goldscheid sees any salvation from Czarism, for that is "Germany's greatest danger," and at the same time the greatest danger to Europe.

That is Goldscheid's point of view. Our English point of view is necessarily somewhat different. With our politically democratic tendencies we see very little difference between Russia and Prussia. As they are at present const.i.tuted, we have no wish to be in very close political intimacy with either. It so happens, indeed, that, for the moment, the chances of fellowship in War have brought us into a condition of almost sentimental sympathy with the Russian people, such as has never existed among us before. But this sympathy, amply justified, as all who know Russia agree, is exclusively with the Russian people. It leaves the Russian Government, the Russian bureaucracy, the Russian political system, all that Goldscheid concentrates into the term "Czarism,"

severely alone. Our hostility to these may be for the moment latent, but it is as profound as it ever was. Czarism is even more remote from our sympathies than Kaiserism. All that has happened is that we cherish the pious hope that Russia is becoming converted to our own ideas on these points, although there is not the smallest item of solid fact to support that hope. Otherwise, Russian oppression of the Finns is just as odious to us as Prussian oppression of the Poles, and Russian persecution of Liberals as alien as German persecution of War-prisoners.[5] Our future policy, in the opinion of many, should, however, be to isolate Germany as completely as possible from English influence and to cultivate closer relations with Russia.[6] Such a policy, Goldscheid argues, will defeat its own ends. The more stringently England holds aloof from Germany the more anxiously will Germany cultivate good relationships with Russia.

Such relationships, as we know, are easy to cultivate, because they are much in the interests of both countries which possess so large an extent of common frontier and so admirably supply each other's needs; it may be added also that the Russian commercial world is showing no keen desire to enter into close relations with England. Moreover, after the War, we may expect a weakening of French influence in Russia, for that influence was largely based on French gold, and a France no longer able or willing to finance Russia would no longer possess a strong hold over Russia. A Russo-German understanding, difficult to prevent in any case, is inimical to the interests of England, but it would be rendered inevitable by an attempt on the part of England to isolate Germany.[7]

Such an attempt could not be carried out completely and would break down on its weakest side, which is the East. So that the way lies open to a League of the Three Kaisers, the Dreikaiserbundnis which would form a great island fortress of militarism and reaction amid the surrounding sea of democracy, able to repress those immense possibilities of progress within its own walls which would have been liberated by contact with the vital currents outside.

So long as the War lasts it is the interest of England to strike Germany and to strike hard. That is here a.s.sumed as certain. But when the War is over, it will no longer be in the interests of England, it will indeed be directly contrary to those interests, to continue cultivating hostility, provided, that is, that no rankling wounds are left. The fatal mistake of Bismarck in annexing Alsace-Lorraine introduced a poison into the European organism which is working still. But the Russo-j.a.panese War produced a more amicable understanding than had existed before, and the Boer War led to still more intimate relationships between the belligerents. It may be thought that the impression in England of German "frightfulness," and in Germany of English "treachery," may prove ineffaceable. But the Germans have been considered atrocious and the English perfidious for a long time past, yet that has not prevented English and Germans fighting side by side at Waterloo and on many another field; nor has it stood in the way of German worship of the quintessential Englishman, Shakespeare, nor English homage to the quintessential German Goethe.

The question of the future relations of England and Germany may, indeed, be said to lie on a higher plane than that of interest and policy, vitally urgent as their claims may be. It is the merit of Goldscheid's little book that--with faith in a future United States of Europe in which every country would develop its own peculiar apt.i.tudes freely and harmoniously--he is able to look at the War from that European standpoint which is so rarely attained in England. He sees that more is at stake than a mere question of national rivalries; that democracy is at stake, and the whole future direction of civilisation.

He looks beyond the enmities of the moment, and he knows that, unless we look beyond them, we not only condemn Europe to the prospect of unending war, we do more: we ensure the triumph of Reaction and the destruction of Democracy. "War and Reaction are brethren"; on that point Goldscheid is very sure, and he foretells and laments the temporary "demolition of Democracy" in England. We have only too much reason to believe his prophetic words, for since he wrote we have had a Coalition Government which is predominantly democratic, Liberal and Labour, and yet has been fatally impelled towards reaction and autocracy.[8] That the impulse is really fatal and inevitable we cannot doubt, for we see exactly the same movement in France, and even in Russia, where it might seem that reaction has so few triumphs to achieve.

"The blood of the battlefield is the stream that drives the mills of Reaction." The elementary and fundamental fact that in Democracy the officers obey the men, while in Militarism the men obey the officers, is the key to the whole situation. We see at once why all reactionaries are on the side of war and a military basis of society. The fate of democracy in Europe hangs on this question of adequate pacification.

"Democratisation and Pacification march side by side."[9] Unless we realise that fact we are not competent to decide on a sound European policy. For there is an intimate connection between a country's external policy and its internal policy. An internal reactionary policy means an external aggressive policy. To shut out English influence from Germany, to fortify German Junkerism and Militarism, to drive Germany into the arms of a yet more reactionary Russia, is to create a perpetual menace, alike to peace and to democracy, which involves the arrest of civilisation. However magnanimous the task may seem to some, it is not only the interest of England, but England's duty to Europe, to take the initiative in preparing the ground for a clear and good understanding with Germany. It is, moreover, only through England that France can be brought into harmonious relations with Germany, and when Russia then approaches her neighbour it will be in sympathy with her more progressive Western Allies and not in reactionary response to a reactionary Germany.

It is along such lines as these that amid the confusion of the present we may catch a glimpse of the Europe of the future.

We have to remember that, as Goldscheid reminds us, this War is making all of us into citizens of the world. A world-wide outlook can no longer be reserved merely for philosophers. Some of the old bridges, it is true, have been washed away, but on every side walls are falling, and the petty fears and rivalries of European nations begin to look worse than trivial in the face of greater dangers. As our eyes begin to be opened we see Europe lying between the nether millstone of Asia and the upper millstone of America. It is not by const.i.tuting themselves a Mutual Suicide Club that the nations of Europe will avoid that peril.[10] A wise and far-seeing world-policy can alone avail, and the enemies of to-day will see themselves compelled, even by the mere logic of events, to join hands to-morrow lest a worse fate befall them. In so doing they may not only escape possible destruction, but they will be taking the greatest step ever taken in the organisation of the world. Which nation is to a.s.sume the initiative in such combined organisation? That remains the fateful question for Democracy.

[1] Treitschke in his _History_ (Bk. I., Ch. III.) has well described "the elemental hatred which foreign injury pours into the veins of our good-natured people, for ever pursued by the question: 'Art thou yet on thy feet, Germania? Is the day of thy revenge at hand!'"

[2] Rudolf Goldscheid, _Deutschlands Grosste Gefahr_, Inst.i.tut Orell Fussli, Zurich, 1916.

[3] One may remark that up to the outbreak of war fifty per cent. of the import trade of Russia has been with Germany. To suppose that that immense volume of trade can suddenly be transferred after the war from a neighbouring country which has intelligently and systematically adapted itself to its requirements to a remote country which has never shown the slightest apt.i.tude to meet those requirements argues a simplicity of mind which in itself may be charming, but when translated into practical affairs it is stupendous folly.

[4] Sir Valentine Chirol remarks of Bismarck, in an Oxford Pamphlet on "Germany and the Fear of Russia":--"Friendship with Russia was one of the cardinal principles of his foreign policy, and one thing he always relied upon to make Russia amenable to German influence was that she should never succeed in healing the Polish sore."

[5] In making these observations on the Russians and the Prussians, I do not, of course, overlook the fact that all nations, like individuals,

"Compound for sins they are inclined to By d.a.m.ning those they have no mind to,"

and the English treatment of the conscientious objector in the Great War has been just as odious as Russian treatment of the Finns or Prussian treatment of war prisoners, and even more foolish, since it strikes at our own most cherished principles.

[6] There is, indeed, another school which would like to shut off all foreign countries by a tariff wall and make the British Empire mutually self-supporting, on the economic basis adopted by those three old ladies in decayed circ.u.mstances who subsisted by taking tea in one another's houses.

[7] Even if partially successful, as has lately been pointed out, the greater the financial depression of Germany the greater would be the advantage to Russia of doing business with Germany.

[8] It may be proper to point out that I by no means wish to imply that democracy is necessarily the ultimate and most desirable form of political society, but merely that it is a necessary stage for those peoples that have not yet reached it. Even Treitschke in his famous _History_, while idealising the Prussian State, always a.s.sumes that movement towards democracy is beneficial progress. For the larger question of the comparative merits of the different forms of political society, see an admirable little book by C. Delisle Burns, _Political Ideals_ (1915). And see also the searching study, _Political Parties_ (English translation, 1915), by Robert Michels, who, while accepting democracy as the highest political form, argues that practically it always works out as oligarchy.

[9] Professor D.S. Jordan has quoted the letter of a German officer to a friend in Roumania (published in the Bucharest _Adverul_, 21 Aug., 1915): "How difficult it was to convince our Emperor that the moment had arrived for letting loose the war, otherwise Pacifism, Internationalism, Anti-Militarism, and so many other noxious weeds would have infected our stupid people. That would have been the end of our dazzling n.o.bility. We have everything to gain by the war, and all the chimeras and stupidities of democracy will be chased from the world for an infinite time."

[10] "Let us be patient," a j.a.panese is reported to have said lately, "until Europe has completed her _hara-kiri_."

VIII

FEMINISM AND MASCULINISM

During more than a century we have seen the slow but steady growth of the great Women's movement, of the movement of Feminism in the wide sense of that term. The conquests of this movement have sometimes been described by rhetorical feminists as triumphs over "Man." That is scarcely true.

The champions of Feminism have nearly as often been men as women, and the forces of Anti-feminism have been the vague ma.s.sive inert forces of an order which had indeed made the world in an undue degree "a man's world,"

but unconsciously and involuntarily, and by an instrumentation which was feminine as well as masculine. The advocates of Woman's Rights have seldom been met by the charge that they were unjustly encroaching on the Rights of Man. Feminism has never encountered an aggressive and self-conscious Masculinism.

Now, however, when the claims of Feminism are becoming practically recognised in our social life, and some of its largest demands are being granted, it is interesting to observe the appearance of a new att.i.tude.

We are, for the first time, beginning to hear of "Masculinism." Just as Feminism represents the affirmation of neglected rights and functions of Womanhood, so Masculinism represents the a.s.sertion of the rights and functions of Manhood which, it is supposed, the rising tide of Feminism threatens to submerge.

Those who proclaim the necessity of an a.s.sertion of the rights of Masculinism usually hold up America as an awful example of the triumph of Feminism. Thus Fritz Voechting in a book published in Germany, "On the American Cult of Woman," is appalled by what he sees in the United States. To him it is "the American danger," and he thinks it may be traced partly to the influence of the matriarchal system of the American Indians on the early European invaders and partly to the effects of co-education in undermining the fundamental conceptions of feminine subordination. This state of things is so terrible to the German mind, which has a const.i.tutional bias to masculinism, that to Herr Voechting America seems a land where all the privileges have been captured by Woman and nothing is left to Man, but, like a good little boy, to be seen and not heard. That is a slight exaggeration, as other Germans, even since the War, have pointed out in German periodicals. Even if it were true, however, as a German Feminist has remarked, it would still be a pleasant variation from a rule we are so familiar with in the Old World. That it should be put forward at all indicates the growing perception of a cleavage between the claims of Masculinism and the claims of Feminism.

It is not altogether easy at present to ascertain whom we are to recognise as the champions and representatives of Masculinism. Various notable figures are mentioned, from Nietzsche to Mr. Theodore Dreiser.

Nietzsche, however, can scarcely be regarded as in all respects an opponent to Feminism, and some prominent feminists even count themselves his disciples. One may also feel doubtful whether Mr. Dreiser feels himself called upon to put on the armour of masculinism and play the part a.s.signed to him. Another distinguished novelist, Mr. Robert Herrick, whose name has been mentioned in this connection, is probably too well-balanced, too comprehensive in his outlook, to be fairly claimed as a banner-bearer of masculinism. The name of Strindberg is most often mentioned, but surely very unfortunately. However great Strindberg's genius, and however acute and virulent his a.n.a.lysis of woman, Strindberg with his p.r.o.nounced morbidity and sensitive fragility seems a very unhappy figure to put forward as the ideal representative of the virtues of masculinity. Much the same may be said of Weininger. The name of Mr.

Belfort Bax, once a.s.sociated with William Morris in the Socialistic campaign, may fairly be mentioned as a pioneer in this field. For many years he has protested vigorously against the encroachment of Feminism, and pointed out the various privileges, social and legal, which are possessed by women to the disadvantage of men. But although he is a distinguished student of philosophy, it can scarcely be said that Mr. Bax has clearly presented in any wide philosophic manner the demands of the masculinistic spirit or definitely grasped the contest between Feminism and Masculinism. The name of William Morris would be an inspiring battle-cry if it could be fairly raised on the side of Masculinism.

Unfortunately, however, the masculine figures scarcely seem eager to put on the armour of Masculinism. They are far too sensitive to the charm of Womanhood ever to rank themselves actively in any anti-feministic party.

At the most they remain neutral.

Thus it is that the new movement cannot yet be regarded as organised.

There is, however, a temptation for those among us who have all their lives been working in the cause of Feminism to belittle the future possibilities of Masculinism. There can be no doubt that all civilisation is now, and always has been to some extent, on the side of Feminism.

Wherever a great development of civilisation has occurred--whether in ancient Egypt, or in later Rome, or in eighteenth-century France--there the influence of woman has prevailed, while laws and social inst.i.tutions have taken on a character favourable to women. The whole current of civilisation tends to deprive men of the privileges which belong to brute force, and to confer on them the qualities which in ruder societies are especially a.s.sociated with women. Whenever, as in the present great European War, brute force becomes temporarily predominant, the causes a.s.sociated with Feminism are roughly pushed into the background. It is, indeed, the War which gives a new actuality to this question. War has always been regarded as the special and peculiar province of Man, indeed, the sacred refuge of the masculine spirit and the ultimate appeal in human affairs. That is not the view of Feminism, nor yet the standpoint of Eugenics. Yet, to-day, in spite of all our homage to Feminism and Eugenics, we witness the greatest war of the world. It is an instructive spectacle from our present point of view. We realise, for one thing, how futile it is for Feminism to adopt the garb of masculine militancy. The militancy of the Suffragettes, which looked so brave and imposing in times of peace, disappeared like child's play at the first touch of real militancy. That was patriotic of the Suffragettes, no doubt; but it was also a necessary measure of self-preservation, for non-combatants who carry bombs about in time of war, when armed sentries are swarming everywhere, are not likely to have much time for hunger-striking.

We witness another feature of war which has a bearing on Eugenics. It is sometimes said that war is necessary for the preservation of heroic and virile qualities which, without war and the cultivation of military ideals, would be lost to the race, and that so the race would degenerate.

To-day France, which is the chief seat of anti-Militarism, and Belgium, a land of peaceful industrialism which had no military service until a few years ago, and England, which has always been content to possess a contemptible little army, and Russia whose popular ideals are humane and mystical, have sent to the front swarms of professional men and clerks and artisans and peasants who had never occupied themselves with war at all. Yet these men have proved as heroic and even as skilful in the game of war as the men of Germany, where war is idolised and where the practice of military virtues and military exercises is regarded as the highest function alike of the individual and of the State. We see that we need not any longer worry over the possible extinction of these heroic qualities. What we may more profitably worry over is the question whether there is not some higher and n.o.bler way of employing them than in the destruction of the finest fruits of civilisation and the slaughter of those very stocks on which Eugenics mainly relies for its materials.

We can also realise to-day that war is not only an opportunity for the exercise of virtues. It is also an opportunity for the exercise of vices.

"War is h.e.l.l" said Sherman, and that is the opinion of most great reflective soldiers. We see that there is nothing too brutal, too cruel, too cowardly, too mean, and too filthy for some, at all events, of modern civilised troops to commit, whether by, or against, the orders of their officers. In France, a few months before the present War, I found myself in a railway train at Laon with two or three soldiers; a young woman came to the carriage door, but, seeing the soldiers, she pa.s.sed on; they were decent, well-behaved men, and one of them remarked, with a smile, on the suspicion which the military costume arouses in women. Perhaps, however, it is a suspicion that is firmly based on ancient traditions. There is the fatally seamy side of be-praised Militarism, and there Feminism has a triumphant argument.

In this connection I may allude in pa.s.sing to a little conflict between Masculinism and Feminism which has lately taken place in Germany.

Germany, as we know, is the country where the claims of Masculinism are most loudly a.s.serted, and those of Feminism treated with most contempt.

It is the country where the ideals of men and of women are in sharpest conflict. There has been a great outcry among men in Germany against the "treachery" and "unworthiness" of German women in bestowing chocolates and flowers on the prisoners, as well as doing other little services for them. The att.i.tude towards prisoners approved by the men--one trusts it is not to be regarded as a characteristic outcome of Masculinism--is that of petty insults, of spiteful cruelty, and mean deprivations. Dr. Helene Stocker, a prominent leader of the more advanced band of German Feminists, has lately published a protest against this treatment of enemies who are helpless, unarmed, and often wounded--based, not on sentiment, but on the highest and most rational grounds--which is an honour to German women and to their Feminist leaders.[1]

Taken altogether, it seems probable that when this most stupendous of wars is ended, it will be felt--not only from the side of Feminism, but even of Masculinism,--that War is merely an eruption of ancient barbarism which in its present virulent forms would not have been tolerated even by savages. Such methods are hopelessly out of date in days when wars may be engineered by a small clique of ambitious politicians and self-interested capitalists, while whole nations fight, with or without enthusiasm, merely because they have no choice in the matter. All the powers of civilisation are working towards the elimination of wars. In the future, it seems evident, militarism will not furnish the basis for the masculinistic spirit. It must seek other supports.

That is what will probably happen. We must expect that the increasing power of women and of the feminine influence will be met by a more emphatic and a more rational a.s.sertion of the qualities of men and the masculine spirit in life. It was unjust and unreasonable to subject women to conditions that were primarily made by men and for men. It would be equally unjust and unreasonable to expect men to confine their activities within limits which are more and more becoming adjusted to feminine preferences and feminine capacities. We are now learning to realise that the _tertiary_ physical, and psychic s.e.xual differences--those distinctions which are only found on the average, but on the average are constant[2]--are very profound and very subtle. A man is a man throughout, a woman is a woman throughout, and that difference is manifest in all the energies of body and soul. The modern doctrine of the internal secretions--the hormones which are the intimate stimulants to physical and psychic activity in the organism--makes clear to us one of the deepest and most all-pervading sources of this difference between men and women. The hormonic balance in men and women is unlike; the generative ferments of the ductless glands work to different ends.[3]

Masculine qualities and feminine qualities are fundamentally and eternally distinct and incommensurate. Energy, struggle, daring, initiative, originality, and independence, even though sometimes combined with rashness, extravagance, and defect, seem likely to remain qualities in which men--_on the average_, it must be remembered--will be more conspicuous than women. Their manifestation will resist the efforts put forth to constrain them by the feminising influences of life.

Such considerations have a real bearing on the problem of Eugenics. As I view that problem, it is first of all concerned, in part with the acquisition of scientific knowledge concerning heredity and the influences which affect heredity; in part with the establishment of sound ideals of the types which the society of the future demands for its great tasks; and in part--perhaps even in chief part--with the acquisition of a sense of personal responsibility. Eugenic legislation is a secondary matter which cannot come at the beginning. It cannot come before our knowledge is firmly based and widely diffused; it cannot come until we are clear as to the ideals which we wish to see embodied in human character and human action; it cannot come until the sense of personal responsibility towards the race is so widely spread throughout the community that its absence is universally felt to be either a crime or a disease.

I fear that point of view is not always accepted in England and still less in America. It is widely held throughout the world that America is not only the land of Feminism, but the land in which laws are pa.s.sed on every possible subject, and with considerable indifference as to whether they are carried out, or even whether they could be carried out. This tendency is certainly well ill.u.s.trated by eugenic legislation in the United States. In the single point of sterilisation for eugenic ends--and I select a point which is admirable in itself and for which legislation is perhaps desirable--at least twelve States have pa.s.sed laws. Yet most of these laws are a dead letter; every one of them is by the best experts considered at some point unwise; and the remarkable fact remains that the total number of eugenical sterilising operations performed in the States _without any law at all_ is greater than the total of those performed under the laws. So that the laws really seem to have themselves a sterilising effect on a most useful eugenic operation.[4]

I refrain from mentioning the muddles and undesigned evils produced by other legislation of a much less admirable nature.[5] But I may perhaps be allowed to mention that it has seemed to some observers that there is a connection between the Feminism of America and the American mania for hasty laws which will not, and often cannot, be carried out in practice.

Certainly there is no reason to suppose that women are firmly antagonistic to such legislation. Nice, pretty, virtuous little laws, complete in every detail, seem to appeal irresistibly to the feminine mind. (And, of course, many men have feminine minds.) It is true that such laws are only meant for show. But then women are so accustomed to things that are only meant for show, and are well aware that if one attempted to use such things they would fall to pieces at once.