The Great Illusion Part 16

The Labor and Socialist movements have always been international, and become more so every year. Few considerable strikes take place in any one country without the labor organizations of other countries furnishing help, and very large sums have been contributed by the labor organizations of various countries in this way.

With reference to capital, it may almost be said that it is organized so naturally internationally that formal organization is not necessary.

When the Bank of England is in danger, it is the Bank of France which comes automatically to its aid, even in a time of acute political hostility. It has been my good fortune in the last ten years to discuss these matters with financiers on one side and labor leaders on the other, and I have always been particularly struck by the fact that I have found in these two cla.s.ses precisely the same att.i.tude of internationalization. In no department of human activity is internationalization so complete as in finance. The capitalist has no country, and he knows, if he be of the modern type, that arms and conquests and jugglery with frontiers serve no ends of his, and may very well defeat them. But employers, as apart from capitalists, are also developing a strong international cohesive organization. Among the Berlin despatches in the London _Times_ of April 18, 1910, I find the following concerning a big strike in the building trade, in which nearly a quarter of a million men went out. Quoting a writer in the _North German Gazette_, the correspondent says:

The writer lays stress upon the efficiency of the employers'

arrangements. He says, in particular, that it will probably be possible to extend the lock-out to industries a.s.sociated with the building industry, especially the cement industry, and that the employers are completing a ring of cartel treaties, which will prevent German workmen from finding employment in neighboring countries, and will insure for German employers all possible support from abroad. It is said that Switzerland and Austria were to conclude treaties yesterday on the same conditions as Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Holland, and France, and that Belgium and Italy would come in, so that there will be complete co-operation on the part of all Germany's neighbors except Russia. In the circ.u.mstances the men's organs rather overlabor the point when they produce elaborate evidence of premeditation. The _Vorwarts_ proves that the employers have long been preparing for "a trial of strength," but that is admitted. The official organ of the employers says, in so many words, that any intervention is useless until "the forces have been measured in open battle."

Have not these forces begun already to affect the psychological domain with which we are now especially dealing? Do we place national vanity, for instance, on the same plane as individual vanity? Have we not already realized the absurdity involved?

I have quoted Admiral Mahan as follows:

That extension of national authority over alien communities, which is the dominant note in the world politics of to-day, dignifies and enlarges each State and each citizen that enters its fold.... Sentiment, imagination, aspiration, the satisfaction of the rational and moral faculties in some object better than bread alone, all must find a part in a worthy motive. Like individuals, nations and empires have souls as well as bodies. Great and beneficent achievement ministers to worthier contentment than the filling of the pocket.

Whatever we may think of the individuals who work disinterestedly for the benefit of backward and alien peoples, and however their lives may be "dignified and enlarged" by their activities, it is surely absurd to suppose that other individuals, who take no part in their work and who remain thousands of miles from the scene of action, can possibly be credited with "great and beneficent achievement."

A man who boasts of his possessions is not a very pleasant or admirable type, but at least his possessions are for his own use and do bring a tangible satisfaction, materially as well as sentimentally. His is the object of a certain social deference by reason of his wealth--a deference which has not a very high motive, if you will, but the outward and visible signs of which are pleasing to a vain man. But is the same in any sense true, despite Admiral Mahan, of the individual of a big State as compared to the individual of a small one? Does anyone think of paying deference to the Russian _mujik_ because he happens to belong to one of the biggest empires territorially? Does anyone think of despising an Ibsen or a Bjornsen, or any educated Scandinavian or Belgian or Hollander, because they happen to belong to the smallest nations in Europe? The thing is absurd, and the notion is simply due to inattention. Just as we commonly overlook the fact that the individual citizen is quite unaffected materially by the extent of his nation's territory, that the material position of the individual Dutchman as a citizen of a small State will not be improved by the mere fact of the absorption of his State by the German Empire, in which case he will become the citizen of a great nation, so in the same way his moral position remains unchanged; and the notion that an individual Russian is "dignified and enlarged" each time that Russia conquers some new Asiatic outpost, or Russifies a State like Finland, or that the Norwegian would be "dignified" were his State conquered by Russia and he became a Russian, is, of course, sheer sentimental fustian of a very mischievous order. This is the more emphasized when we remember that the best men of Russia are looking forward wistfully, not to the enlargement, but to the dissolution, of the unwieldy giant--"stupid with the stupidity of giants, ferocious with their ferocity"--and the rise in its stead of a multiplicity of self-contained, self-knowing communities, "whose members will be united together by organic and vital sympathies, and not by their common submission to a common policeman."

How small and thin a pretence is all the talk of national prestige when the matter is tested by its relation to the individual is shown by the commonplaces of our everyday social intercourse. In social consideration everything else takes precedence of nationality, even in those circles where Chauvinism is a cult. British Royalty is so impressed with the dignity which attaches to membership of the British Empire that its Princes will marry into the royal houses of the smallest and meanest States in Europe, while they would regard marriage with a British commoner as an unheard-of _mesalliance_. This standard of social judgment so marks all the European royalties that at the present time not one ruler in Europe belongs, properly speaking, to the race which he rules. In all social a.s.sociations an a.n.a.logous rule is followed. In our "selectest" circles an Italian, Rumanian, Portuguese, or even Turkish n.o.ble, is received where an American tradesman would be taboo.

This tendency has struck almost all authorities who have investigated scientifically modern international relations. Thus Mr. T. Baty, the well-known authority on international law, writes as follows:

All over the world society is organizing itself by strata. The English merchant goes on business to Warsaw, Hamburg, or Leghorn; he finds in the merchants of Italy, Germany, and Russia the ideas, the standard of living, the sympathies, and the aversions which are familiar to him at home. Printing and the locomotive have enormously reduced the importance of locality. It is the mental atmosphere of its fellows, and not of its neighborhood, which the child of the younger generation is beginning to breathe. Whether he reads the _Revue des Deux Mondes_ or _t.i.t-Bits_, the modern citizen is becoming at once cosmopolitan and cla.s.s-centred. Let the process work for a few more years; we shall see the common interests of cosmopolitan cla.s.ses revealing themselves as far more potent factors than the shadowy common interests of the subjects of States. The Argentine merchant and the British capitalist alike regard the Trade Union as a possible enemy--whether British or Argentine matters to them less than nothing. The Hamburg docker and his brother of London do not put national interests before the primary claims of caste. International cla.s.s feeling is a reality, and not even a nebulous reality; the nebula has developed centres of condensation. Only the other day Sir W.

Runciman, who is certainly not a Conservative, presided over a meeting at which there were laid the foundations of an International Shipping Union, which is intended to unite ship-owners of whatever country in a common organization. When it is once recognized that the real interests of modern people are not national, but social, the results may be surprising.[109]

As Mr. Baty points out, this tendency, which he calls "stratification,"

extends to all cla.s.ses:

It is impossible to ignore the significance of the International Congresses, not only of Socialism, but of pacificism, of esperantism, of feminism, of every kind of art and science, that so conspicuously set their seal upon the holiday season. Nationality as a limiting force is breaking down before cosmopolitanism. In directing its forces into an international channel, Socialism will have no difficulty whatever[110].... We are, therefore, confronted with a coming condition of affairs in which the force of nationality will be distinctly inferior to the force of cla.s.s-cohesion, and in which cla.s.ses will be internationally organized so as to wield their force with effect. The prospect induces some curious reflections.

We have here, at present in merely embryonic form, a group of motives otherwise opposed, but meeting and agreeing upon one point: the organization of society on other than territorial and national divisions. When motives of such breadth as these give force to a tendency, it may be said that the very stars in their courses are working to the same end.

PART III

THE PRACTICAL OUTCOME

CHAPTER I

THE RELATION OF DEFENCE TO AGGRESSION

Necessity for defence arises from the existence of a motive for attack--Plat.i.tudes that everyone overlooks--To attenuate the motive for aggression is to undertake a work of defence.

The general proposition embodied in this book--that the world has pa.s.sed out of that stage of development in which it is possible for one civilized group to advance its well-being by the military domination of another--is either broadly true or broadly false. If it is false, it can, of course, have no bearing upon the actual problems of our time, and can have no practical outcome; huge armaments tempered by warfare are the logical and natural condition.

But the commonest criticism this book has had to meet is that, though its central proposition is in essence sound, it has, nevertheless, no practical value, because--

1. Armaments are for defence, not for aggression.

2. However true these principles may be, the world does not recognize them and never will, because men are not guided by reason.

As to the first point. It is probable that, if we really understood truths which we are apt to dismiss as plat.i.tudes, many of our problems would disappear.

To say, "We must take measures for defence" is equivalent to saying, "Someone is likely to attack us," which is equivalent to saying, "Someone has a motive for attacking us." In other words, the basic fact from which arises the necessity for armaments, the ultimate explanation of European militarism, is _the force of the motive making for aggression_. (And in the word "aggression," of course, I include the imposition of superior force by the _threat_, or implied threat, of its use, as well as by its actual use.)

That motive may be material or moral; it may arise from real conflict of interest, or a purely imaginary one; but with the disappearance of prospective aggression disappears also the need for defence.

The reader deems these plat.i.tudes beside the mark?

I will take a few sample criticisms directed at this book. Here is the London _Daily Mail_:

The bigger nations are armed, not so much because they look for the spoils of war, as because they wish to prevent the horrors of it; arms are for defence.[111]

And here is the London _Times_:

No doubt the victor suffers, but who suffers most, he or the vanquished?"[112]

The criticism of the _Daily Mail_ was made within three months of a "raging and tearing" big navy campaign, all of it based on the a.s.sumption that Germany _was_ "looking for the spoils of war," the English naval increase being thus a direct outcome of such motives.

Without it, the question of English increase would not have arisen.[113]

The only justification for the clamor for increase was that England was liable to _attack_; every nation in Europe justifies its armaments in the same way; every nation consequently believes in the universal existence of this motive for attack.

The _Times_ has been hardly less insistent than the _Mail_ as to the danger from German aggression; but its criticism would imply that the motive behind that prospective aggression is not a desire for any political advantage or gain of any sort. Germany apparently recognizes aggression to be, not merely barren of any useful result whatsoever, but burdensome and costly into the bargain; she is, nevertheless, determined to enter upon it in order that though she suffer, someone else will suffer more![114]

In common with the London _Daily Mail_ and the London _Times_, Admiral Mahan fails to understand this "plat.i.tude," which underlies the relation of defence to aggression.

Thus in his criticism of this book, he cites the position of Great Britain during the Napoleonic era as proof that commercial advantage goes with the possession of preponderant military power in the following pa.s.sage:

Great Britain owed her commercial superiority then to the armed control of the sea, which had sheltered her commerce and industrial fabric from molestation by the enemy.

_Ergo_, military force has commercial value, a result which is arrived at by this method: in deciding a case made up of two parties you ignore one.

England's superiority was not due to the employment of military force, but to the fact that she was able to prevent the employment of military force against her; and the necessity for so doing arose from Napoleon's motive in threatening her. But for the existence of this motive to aggression--moral or material, just or mistaken--Great Britain, without any force whatsoever, would have been more secure and more prosperous than she was; she would not have been spending a third of her income in war, and her peasantry would not have been starving.

Of a like character to the remark of the _Times_ is the criticism of the _Spectator_, as follows:

Mr. Angell's main point is that the advantages customarily a.s.sociated with national independence and security have no existence outside the popular imagination.... He holds that Englishmen would be equally happy if they were under German rule, and that Germans would be equally happy if they were under English rule. It is irrational, therefore, to take any measures for perpetuating the existing European order, since only a sentimentalist can set any value on its maintenance....

Probably in private life Mr. Angell is less consistent and less inclined to preach the burglar's gospel that to the wise man _meum_ and _tuum_ are but two names for the same thing. If he is anxious to make converts, he will do well to apply his reasoning to subjects that come nearer home, and convince the average man that marriage and private property are as much illusions as patriotism. If sentiment is to be banished from politics, it cannot reasonably be retained in morals.

As the reply to this somewhat extraordinary criticism is directly germane to what it is important to make clear, I may, perhaps, be excused for reproducing my letter to the _Spectator_, which was in part as follows:

How far the foregoing is a correct description of the scope and character of the book under review may be gathered from the following statement of fact. My pamphlet does _not_ attack the sentiment of patriotism (unless a criticism of the duellist's conception of dignity be considered as such); it simply does not deal with it, as being outside the limits of the main thesis. I do _not_ hold, and there is not one line to which your reviewer can point as justifying such a conclusion, that Englishmen would be equally happy if they were under German rule. I do not conclude that it is irrational to take measures for perpetuating the existing European order. I do _not_ "expose the folly of self-defence in nations." I do _not_ object to spending money on armaments at this juncture. On the contrary, I am particularly emphatic in declaring that while the present philosophy is what it is, we are bound to maintain our relative position with other Powers. I admit that so long as there is danger, as I believe there is, from German aggression, we must arm. I do _not_ preach a burglar's gospel, that _meum_ and _tuum_ are the same thing, and the whole tendency of my book is the exact reverse: it is to show that the burglar's gospel--which is the gospel of statecraft as it now stands--is no longer possible among nations, and that the difference between _meum_ and _tuum_ must necessarily, as society gains in complication, be given a stricter observance than it has ever heretofore been given in history. I do _not_ urge that sentiment should be banished from politics, if by sentiment is meant the common morality that guides us in our treatment of marriage and of private property. The whole tone of my book is to urge with all possible emphasis the exact reverse of such a doctrine; to urge that the morality which has been by our necessities developed in the society of individuals must also be applied to the society of nations as that society becomes by virtue of our development more interdependent.

I have only taken a small portion of your reviewer's article (which runs to a whole page), and I do not think I am exaggerating when I say that nearly all of it is as untrue and as much a distortion of what I really say as the pa.s.sage from which I have quoted. What I do attempt to make plain is that the necessity for defence measures (which I completely recognize and emphatically counsel) implies on the part of someone a motive for aggression, and that the motive arises from the (at present) universal belief in the social and economic advantages accruing from successful conquest.