Freedom In Service Part 4

The essential preliminary to any useful discussion of pa.s.sive resistance is the clear recognition of the fact that it is rebellion, and nothing less. To say, or admit, this is not necessarily to condemn it; for there are few persons to-day, I suppose, who would contend that rebellion is never justifiable. All it a.s.serts is that pa.s.sive resistance has to be judged by the same measures and according to the same standards as any other kind of revolt against const.i.tuted political authority. It is all the more needful to make this plain because some of the milder but more muddled among the resisters try to shut their eyes to the fact that they are rebels. They claim to be sheep and not goats. They call themselves Socialists; they profess an abnormal loyalty to the idea of the State; they protest their devotion to the Great Society; they ask to be allowed to make all sorts of sacrifices to the community; they announce their willingness to do anything--except the one thing which the Government requires them to do. The exception is fatal to their claim. "To obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams." The State does not and cannot submit the validity of its enactments to the private judgment of its subjects. It expresses and enforces the general will, and it dare not leave to the choice, or even to the conscience, of the individual an option as to which of its commands shall be obeyed, and which not. To do so would be to loose the bands of society, to bring to an end the reign of law, and to plunge the community once again into that primal chaos of anarchy from which in the beginning it painfully emerged. The State demands, and must necessarily demand, implicit obedience. From the loyal it receives it. Those from whom it does not receive it are rebels, no matter how conscientious they may be, how lofty their moral elevation, how sublimely pa.s.sive their resistance. So far as their disobedience extends they are the enemies of organized society, disrupters of the commonwealth, subverters of government, the allies and confederates of criminals and anarchists. It is worth noting, moreover, how easily their pa.s.sive resistance develops into more active forms of rebellion. Not for long was the Suffragist content to remain merely defensive in revolt; soon she emerged with whips for Cabinet Ministers, hammers for windows, and bombs for churches. Resistant Trade Unionists rapidly and generally slide into sabotage and personal violence. The No-Conscriptionists of Ireland threaten through Mr.

Byrne, M.P., for Dublin, that "if Conscription is forced on Ireland, it will be resisted by drilled and armed forces"[43]--a delightfully Hibernian type of anti-militarism, which, nevertheless, throws a lurid light on the real meaning of the movement. It is seen to be rebellion, open, naked and unashamed.

FOOTNOTE:

[43] See _Times_, November 22nd, 1915.

III. THE RIGHT OF REBELLION

Pa.s.sive resistance, then, is rebellion; but, as has already been admitted, it is not on that account necessarily unjustifiable. An established government may be so hopelessly iniquitous that it ought to be overthrown; an organized society may be so irremediably corrupt that it merits disruption; duly enacted laws may, when judged by moral standards, be so flagrantly unjust as to demand the resistance of all good men. There is no need to labour the point: actual examples crowd upon the mind. Who would condemn the revolt of the Greeks against Turkish rule? Who would contend that the degenerate society of the later Bourbon monarchy did not deserve dissolution? Who would maintain that John Hampden and Oliver Cromwell had no moral warrant for their resistance to Charles I, or their successors to James II. We may freely allow that in these cases, and in many similar ones, there existed on ethical grounds a right, or more strictly a communal duty, to rebel. Few would now proclaim with Filmer the divine right of any government to exact obedience quite irrespective of the wishes or the interests of its subjects. Still fewer would agree with Hobbes that an original contract precludes for ever all opposition to sovereign political authority. The ground on which political obligation is a.s.serted has been shifted. The State is recognized as "an inst.i.tution for the promotion of the common good," and it is admitted that if it ceases to promote the common good the obligation to obey it is transformed into an obligation to reform it, or even to

Shatter it to bits--and then Remould it nearer to the heart's desire.

But, viewed thus, the right of rebellion a.s.sumes an aspect of awful responsibility, perhaps the most tremendous within the sphere of politics that the mind can conceive. For rebellion means the breaking-up of the existing order, the throwing of inst.i.tutions into the melting-pot, the letting loose of incalculable forces of discord and destruction, the suspension of law, the return to chaos, in the hope that out of the welter a new and better cosmos--one more fitted to promote the common good--may be evolved. Every rebel, or prospective rebel, whether of the pa.s.sive or the active type, ought to ponder well the logical consequences of his revolt against authority, ought to consider the inevitable results that would flow from the general adoption of the principles which he professes, ought to decide whether or not he really desires to overthrow the polity under which he lives, ought to ask if he and his fellows are able to face with any serious hope of success the colossal task of constructing a new society on the ruins of the old. Now the historic rebels to whom I have referred above by way of example--the Greek Nationalists, the French Revolutionists, the English Puritans and Whigs--did not hesitate to acknowledge the nature of their acts, and were not unprepared to face their consequences. They did not deceive themselves, or attempt to deceive others, by false professions of loyalty. The Greeks proclaimed their undying hostility to the Turks, fought them, shook off their yoke, and erected a national kingdom on the ruins of Turkish tyranny. The French Revolutionists openly declared war upon the old regime, eradicated it by means of the guillotine, and established a republic where it had been. Similarly the English Puritans repudiated allegiance to Charles I, brought him to the block, and inst.i.tuted the Commonwealth in his place; while the Whigs drove out James II and set up the const.i.tutional monarchy of William and Mary. One can respect heroic rebels of these types. They were honest and open; they attacked great abuses; they took great risks, and they achieved notable results. Very different are our modern rebels. They profess with nauseating unction loyalty to the State whose dominion they are undermining; they claim to be exceptionally virtuous members of the Society whose unity they are destroying; above all they continue to demand with insolent effrontery the protection of the very law and the very courts whose authority they are denying and defying. They can be freed from the charge of the most revolting hypocrisy only on the plea that "they know not what they do."

IV. REBELLION AGAINST A DEMOCRACY

It is granted, then, that rebellion may sometimes be not only a justifiable act, but also a bounden public duty. Three examples have been given which perhaps may be allowed to have ill.u.s.trated and confirmed this view. It will be noted, however, that in each of the cases cited the revolt was that of an oppressed community against a government in which it had no part or lot, and over which it had no const.i.tutional control. Rebellion against a democracy on the part of members of that democracy stands on a widely different footing. It is treachery as well as insurrection. One can, indeed, conceive circ.u.mstances which would justify it; but they would be rare and exceptional, and that for two reasons. First, in a democracy const.i.tutional means are provided for the alteration of law and even for the remodelling of the form of government. Secondly, if a democratic government is undermined by disobedience, discredited by successful defiance, destroyed by treasonable betrayal on the part of its own professed supporters, there is nothing to take its place; the community is bound either to drift into anarchy, or to revert to some sort of tyranny. Let us consider these two points in turn. (1) The essence of democracy is government according to the will of the majority. This almost necessarily implies government in opposition to the will of one or more minorities. But democratic minorities have a remedy--and it is the peculiar virtue of democracy to provide it. It is this: by means of argument, persuasion, and appeal; by press agitation and platform campaign; through organization and combination, to convert themselves into a majority. The whole of our English political system, the very existence of our democratic const.i.tution, depends upon the recognition and acceptance of this rule of the game. If the will of the majority is not to be regarded as authoritative, measures for reform of the franchise, extension of the suffrage, and adjustment of the electoral machine have no rational meaning at all. They are merely vanity and vexation of spirit. What matter who makes the laws, or what laws are made, if laws are not to be implicitly obeyed? Our extremists want to have it both ways: they want to enforce law with majestic severity as "the Will of the People," when they are in a majority; but they also want to defy law with conscientious obstinacy as a violation of personal freedom when they are in a minority. Some members of "The Union of Democratic Control" are also members of the "No-Conscription Fellowship"! Could inconsistency or muddle-headedness go further? Those who wish to rule as part of a majority must be prepared to be overruled as part of a minority. If minorities, instead of employing the const.i.tutional machinery placed at their disposal to secure the repeal of obnoxious laws, are going to resist and rebel whenever the majority does something of which they strongly disapprove, there is an end of democratic government altogether, and a reversion to the state of nature. T. H. Green in his _Principles of Political Obligation_ puts the case clearly and well. He asks this very question, What shall an individual do when he is faced by a command of a democratic government which he believes to be wrong? He replies: "In a country like ours with a popular government and settled methods of enacting and repealing laws, the answer of common sense is simple and sufficient. He should do all he can by legal methods to get the command cancelled, but till it is cancelled, he should conform to it. The common good must suffer more from resistance to a law or to the ordinance of a legal authority than from the individual's conformity to the particular law or ordinance that is bad, until its repeal can be obtained."[44] Here we have the true ground of the duty of obedience. The antagonistic principle of pa.s.sive resistance provides a charter for criminals and anarchists.

(2) The second point needs little enlargement. It is clear from many examples in both ancient and modern history that if a monarchy is overthrown an aristocracy can take its place, and that if an aristocracy is dispossessed of power, room is made for a democracy. But what do our rebels against democracy propose to subst.i.tute for the sovereign will of the majority, if they succeed by resistance in reducing it to impotence?

Possibly they hope that their own exalted will may prevail. Let them not flatter themselves by any such vain dream. Even a.s.suming what is improbable, viz., that they remain united among themselves, can they suppose that their example of successful revolt will remain without imitators, or that their anti-social doctrines will never be applied again? If they will not render obedience when they are in a minority, who will obey them even if they have a majority behind them? Government will cease; the reign of order will be at an end; Society will be dissolved amid "red ruin and the breaking-up of laws."

FOOTNOTE:

[44] Green. _Principles of Political Obligation_, p. 111. _Cf._ Ritchie, Natural Rights, p. 243.

V. THE DUTY OF THE STATE

The case seems clear. Pa.s.sive resistance is rebellion, and it is entirely inconsistent with loyalty to any form of government. In relation to democratic government it is, moreover, on the part of members of the democracy, treachery of a peculiarly heinous type, since it is a betrayal of the sovereign community by those within its own ranks. If the sovereign community does (as it easily may) by the vote of its majority make enactments which seem to any one of its subjects to be morally wrong, that subject has two legitimate courses open to him. He may either obey under protest, and meantime use all lawful influence at his disposal to convince the majority of the error of their ways, and convert them to his way of thinking; or he may withdraw from the community and its territories altogether, and go to some other part of the wide world where the obnoxious enactment is not in force. What he may _not_ do, is to remain within the community, enjoy all the advantages of its ordered life, exercise its franchises, receive the protection of its forces, claim the securities of its courts and the liberties of its const.i.tution, and at the same time refuse to render it obedience.

If in his misguided perversity he adopts this last-named course, the duty of the State is plain. It is to call him to submission, or to withdraw its protection from him. The person who will not recognize the State's sovereignty, has no claim upon the services of the State. The first essential of a government is that it should govern. It should, of course, exercise the utmost care in issuing commands to avoid as far as possible the giving of offence to tender consciences; but when once its deliberate commands are issued, and so long as they remain unrepealed, it should enforce them with calm but inexorable determination. Nothing is more fatal to the very foundations of political society, than the spectacle of a government that can be defied with impunity.[45] That demoralizing spectacle has been seen far too often during recent years, and at the moment when the war broke out it had led us to the verge of national disaster. The war has brought us into closer touch with realities than we had been for many a long year before, and it has taught us how ruinous it is in fatuous complacency to "wait and see"

whither disorder, disloyalty, and disobedience will conduct us. If, however, there are still in our midst ministers who tremble before rebellion, and do not know how to act in the presence of organized pa.s.sive resistance, let me commend to them the worthy example of Edward I, who in 1296 was faced by a general refusal on the part of the clergy to pay taxes. He simply excluded them from the protection of the laws, and closed his courts to their pleas. A few weeks of well-merited outlawry brought to an end their ill-advised experiment in pa.s.sive resistance.

FOOTNOTE:

[45] Maine (_Popular Government_, p. 64) emphasizes this point. "If," he says, "any government should be tempted to neglect, even for a moment, its function of compelling obedience to law--if a Democracy, for example, were to allow a portion of the mult.i.tude of which it consists to set some law at defiance which it happens to dislike--it would be guilty of a crime which hardly any other virtue could redeem, and which century upon century might fail to repair."

V

CHRISTIANITY AND WAR

I. A CONFLICT OF CONVICTIONS

Few of those who lived through the critical ten days that culminated in the outbreak of the Great War in August, 1914, will ever forget the conflict of emotions which the events of that dramatic period called forth. If I may speak of myself--though I think that I am merely one of a large cla.s.s--I was torn by the contending convictions, first, that every consideration of honour and policy made it necessary for Britain to go to the aid of Serbia, Belgium, France, and Russia in their struggle against the wanton attack of the Central Empires; but, secondly, that war is a relic of barbarism, wholly incompatible with civilization, and entirely antagonistic to the Christian ideal. On the one hand I realized the magnitude of the German menace to the Commonwealth of Europe; recognized that the Teutonic race had long plotted conquest, and that it was out for world-dominion; perceived the significance of its monstrous demands on Serbia, and its shameless violations of its treaty obligations to Luxemburg and Belgium; saw that the triumph of the imperial militants would involve the disruption of the concert of the nations, the abrogation of International Law (laboriously inst.i.tuted through three centuries of painful effort) and the collapse of the democratic order; and felt, finally, that upon British intervention depended the very existence of the British Empire with all that it means of good to one-fifth part of the human race. Over against this group of convictions I was confronted on the other hand by a vision of the cosmopolitan and pacific Kingdom of G.o.d as proclaimed in the Sermon on the Mount, and exemplified by Christ and His disciples in Palestine, long ago--a Kingdom whose law is love; whose fundamental principles are inexhaustible goodwill, meekness, gentleness, brotherly-kindness and charity; whose administration works along the gracious lines of sacrifice, unselfish devotion, and untiring beneficence. Obviously, within the limits of such a Kingdom war is inconceivable. Under such a regime, if it were universally established, the one service which could never be demanded would be military service. How can the consecrated servant of the Prince of Peace in any circ.u.mstances become a man of war?

The reconciliation of the contradiction is, I think, not impossible. It is to be effected, it seems to me, by recognizing that unflinching resistance to evil is the supreme duty of the present, while the realization of the ideal, pacific, and world-wide Kingdom of G.o.d is the goal of the future; and, further, that the attainment of the goal depends upon the performance of the duty. At the moment our high task is to defend our homes, our rights, our liberties, our inst.i.tutions, our standards of justice, our hopes for humanity, against the diabolical aggressor. In a happier day and a freer world we may hope that, as one of the results of our present struggle and sacrifice, beneath the sway of restored and vindicated law, a larger scope may be given for the spread of the divine realm of love. The vindication of law must precede the proclamation of peace. The goodwill that shall put an end to strife must be based on triumphant justice and sovereign righteousness. As yet we see not law supreme, or justice and righteousness in the ascendant.

So long as violence is rampant, and evil stalks abroad, we must be prepared to fight even to the death. It is vain--it is worse than vain; it is treasonable--to cry "Peace, peace," when there is no peace, and when the conditions of peace do not exist.

II. THE RELIGION OF THE BIBLE

The distinctive feature of the religion of the Bible is its indissoluble connection with righteousness. Other primitive cults have been either domestic, or economic, or political. Thus the Lares and Penates safeguarded the pious Latin family irrespective of its ethical character; the Greek deities, such as Dionysus and Aphrodite, were frankly immoral, but if propitiated they gave plenty and prosperity; the great G.o.ds of Rome were political personages who had no regard for private virtues, and their proper worship was performed by State officials whose functions strictly fell within the department of foreign affairs. But the religion of the Chosen People, under both the Old and the New Covenant, was, and still is, a faith whose keynote is divine law. The standard which has led the hosts of Jehovah to victory throughout the ages has been the lofty ethical code which it has displayed and maintained. The Bible begins with the story of man's fall from righteousness, and it ends with a vision of his restoration to ideal holiness. The prime purpose of the religion of the Bible is the conquest of sin, the defeat of the devil, the redemption of humanity, the recovery of the lost paradise, and the re-establishment of the Kingdom of Heaven. Milton made no mistake when he chose this as the central theme of his two immortal epics. Everything else is secondary.

Now the means which the Bible describes and recognizes for the attainment of its supreme end are broadly two, viz., the persuasion of love, and the compulsion of force. In the case of all those who can be reached thereby the gentler means are employed. With what infinite patience were the Children of Israel led throughout their chequered career; with what divine compa.s.sion were the faltering disciples guided along the way of salvation! But where gentler means fail or are inapplicable, sterner measures are unhesitatingly sanctioned. The Bible knows nothing of the pernicious Manichaean objection to the use of physical force to attain moral ends. In the beginning the rebellious angels were overthrown in battle by Michael and his hosts. The consummation of all things is to be reached as the result of the field of Armageddon. The Old Testament history is a long record of wars undertaken at the divine command, and to the Children of Israel Jehovah was peculiarly the G.o.d of Battles. Nor does the New Testament, with all its insistence on the power of love, ever condemn the Old Testament theology as false, ever repudiate force as a moral agent, ever denounce war as necessarily evil. On the contrary, it celebrates the achievements of the heroes of Israel who "waxed valiant in fight"; it announces irremediable destruction to the impenitent and unyielding wicked; it recognizes to the fullest degree the civil authorities who wield the sword of justice, and make themselves a terror to evil-doers; it proclaims that those who take the sword shall perish by the sword; it admits centurions and soldiers to the company of the elect without suggesting that they should forsake their military duties; it tells how on one notable occasion Christ Himself used force to cleanse the temple, and so for ever sanctified its use.

III. THE DOCTRINE AND PRACTICE OF THE CHURCH

The Church as a whole during the long and varied course of her history has been true to the general Biblical principle that evil should, where possible, be overcome by gentle means which give the evildoer room for repentance, but that it should be stamped out by the force of inexorable justice where gentle means have failed. No one can contend, I fear, that the Church has always been wise or Christly in her application of this sound Scriptural doctrine. She has, it must be admitted, sometimes encouraged premature resort to force, and has given her blessing to countless wanton wars. She has at other times treated as evils to be suppressed by violent means offences which have been mere deviations from her own arbitrary standards, and not violations of the eternal laws of truth and right. Nevertheless, however imperfect her practice, all her great teachers from Athanasius to Aquinas, and from Aquinas to the present day, have rightly recognized the legitimacy of the employment of force for moral purposes in the last resort, have admitted the compatibility of Christianity with military service, and have confessed that, evil as war is, there are evils still greater, and that the duty of every Christian man may be to fight lest the cause of righteousness and justice should suffer defeat. If the Church had taught otherwise--if she had been captured by the Gnostic heresy of non-resistance--Mediaeval Christendom and Western Civilization would inevitably have been destroyed by the a.s.saults of Huns and Saracens, Magyars and Tartars, Vikings and Turks; while within the borders of Christendom itself law and order would have perished at the hands of wicked and violent men.

Similarly in modern times common Christian opinion has agreed that there are causes worth fighting for and worth dying for. The English Puritans, for instance, including the early Quakers, considered that political freedom and religious liberty were ideals that justified and indeed demanded armed resistance to tyranny. During the last three centuries there have been few who, on religious grounds, have condemned the revolt of Christian peoples against Turkish misrule. In the American Civil War many professed pacificists felt that for the abolition of slavery they must need take arms. In our own recent history men like Havelock, Gordon, and Roberts have regarded as sacred trusts the tasks of saving women and children from ma.s.sacre, of suppressing fanatical and cruel tyranny, of preventing intolerable wrong. The Church with confident consistency has rightly sanctioned and sanctified their heroic enterprises. While condemning wars of ambition, conquest, or revenge, she has taught that those who take arms to defend from murderous violence the weak and helpless, to maintain the priceless heritage of freedom, and to vindicate the majesty of law, may with humble a.s.surance and firm faith pray for and expect the benediction of the Lord of Hosts.

The Christian doctrine of war is admirably summarized by Burke in the words:--"The blood of man is well shed for our family, for our friends, for our G.o.d, for our country, for our kind; the rest is vanity; the rest is crime."[46]

FOOTNOTE:

[46] Burke. _Regicide Peace_, vi, 145.

IV. FORCE AS A MORAL INSTRUMENT

Force, in short, has a proper and necessary place in the ethical sphere.