The Task of Social Hygiene Part 14

FOOTNOTES:

[191] Westermarck, _Origin and Development of the Moral Ideas_, Vol. I, p.

160; see also chapter on s.e.xual morality in Havelock Ellis, _Studies in the Psychology of s.e.x_, Vol. VI, "s.e.x in Relation to Society," chap. IX.

[192] It must be remembered that in medieval days not only adultery but the smallest infraction of what the Church regarded as morality could be punished in the Archdeacon's court; this continued to be the case in England even after the Reformation. See Archdeacon W.W. Hales'

interesting work, _Precedents and Proceedings in Criminal Causes_ (1847), which is, as the author states, "a History of the Moral Police of the Church."

[193] _The Social Evil in New York City_, p. 100.

[194] This has been emphasized in an able and lucid discussion of this question by Dr. Hans Hagen, "Sittliche Werturteile," _Mutterschutz_, Heft I and II, 1906. Such recognition of popular morals, he justly remarks, is needed not only for the sake of the people, but for the sake of law itself.

[195] Grabowsky, in criticizing Hiller's book, _Das Recht uber sich Selbst_ (_Archiv fur Kriminalanthropologie und Kriminalistik_, Bd. 36, 1809), argues that in some cases immorality injures rights which need legal protection, but he admits it is difficult to decide when this is the case. He does not think that the law should interfere with h.o.m.os.e.xuality in adults, but he does consider it should interfere with incest, on the ground that in-breeding is not good for the race. But it is the view of most authorities nowadays that in-breeding is only injurious to the race in the case of an unsound stock, when the defect being in both partners of the same kind would probably be intensified by heredity.

[196] The occurrence of, for instance, incestuous, b.e.s.t.i.a.l, and h.o.m.os.e.xual acts--which are generally abhorrent, but not necessarily anti-social--makes it necessary to exercise some caution here.

[197] I quote from a valuable and interesting study by Dr. Eugen Wilhelm, "Die Volkspsychologischen Unterschiede in der franzosischen und deustchen Sittlichkeits-Gesetzgebung und Rechtsprechung,"

_s.e.xual-Probleme_, October, 1911. It may be added that in Switzerland, also, the tyranny of the police is carried to an extreme. Edith Sellers gives some extraordinary examples, _Cornhill_, August, 1910.

[198] The absurdities and injustice of the German law, and its interference with purely private interests in these matters, have often been pointed out, as by Dr. Kurt Hiller ("Ist Kuppelei Strafwurdig?"

_Die Neue Generation_, November, 1910). As to what is possible under German law by judicial decision since 1882, Hagen takes the case of a widow who has living with her a daughter, aged twenty-five or thirty, engaged to marry an artisan now living at a distance for the sake of his work; he comes to see her when he can; she is already pregnant; they will marry soon; one evening, with the consent of the widow, who looks on the couple as practically married, he stays over-night, sharing his betrothed's room, the only room available. Result: the old woman becomes liable to four years' penal servitude, a fine of six thousand marks, loss of civil rights, and police supervision.

[199] In another respect the French code carries private rights to an excess by forbidding the unmarried mother to make any claim on the father of her child. In most countries such a prohibition is regarded as unreasonable and unjust. There is even a tendency (as by a recent Dutch law) to compel the father to provide for his illegitimate child not on the scale of the mother's social position but on the scale of his own social position. This is, possibly, an undue a.s.sertion of the superiority of man.

[200] The same point has lately been ill.u.s.trated in Holland, where a recent modification in the law is held to press harshly on h.o.m.os.e.xual persons. At once a vigorous propaganda on behalf of the h.o.m.os.e.xual has sprung into existence. We see here the difference between moral enactments and criminal enactments. Supposing that a change in the law had placed, for instance, increased difficulties in the way of burglary.

We should not witness any outburst of literary activity on behalf of burglars, because the community, as a whole, is thoroughly convinced that burglary ought to be penalized.

[201] Apart from the att.i.tude towards immorality, we have an ill.u.s.tration of the peculiarly English tendency to unite religious fervour with individualism in Quakerism. In no other European country has any similar movement--that is, a popular movement of individualistic mysticism--ever appeared on the same scale.

[202] E.F. Fuld, Ph.D., _Police Administration_, 1909.

[203] Ex-Police Commissioner Bingham, of New York, estimated (_Hampton's Magazine_, September, 1909) that "fifteen per cent. or from 1500 to 2000 members of the police force are unscrupulous 'grafters' whose hands are always out for easy money." See also Report of the Committee of Fourteen on _The Social Evil in New York City_, p. 34.

[204] Fuld, _op. cit._, pp. 373 _et seq._ This last opinion by no means stands alone. Thus it is a.s.serted by the Committee of Fourteen in their Report on The _Social Evil in New York City_ (1910, p. x.x.xiv) that "some laws exist to-day because an unintelligent, cowardly public puts unenforceable statutes on the book, being content with registering their hypocrisy."

[205] It is also a blundering policy. Its blind anathema is as likely as not to fall on its own allies. Thus the Report of the munic.i.p.ally appointed and munic.i.p.ally financed Vice Commission of Chicago is not only an official but a highly moral doc.u.ment, advocating increased suppression of immoral literature, and erring, if it errs, on the side of over-severity. It has been suppressed by the United States Post Office!

[206] This system applies only to spirits, not to beer and wine, but it has proved very effective in diminishing drunkenness, as is admitted by those who are opposed to the system. A somewhat similar system exists in England under the name of the Trust system, but its extension appears unfortunately to be much impeded by English laws and customs.

[207] Jacques Bertillon, in a paper read to the Academie des Sciences Morales et Politiques, 30th September, 1911.

[208] During the present century a great wave of immorality and s.e.xual crime has been pa.s.sing over Russia. This is not attributable to the laws, old or new, but is due in part to the Russo-j.a.panese War, and in part to the relaxed tension consequent on the collapse of the movement for political reform. (See an article by Professor Asnurof, "La Crise s.e.xuelle en Russie," _Archives d'Anthropologie Criminelle_, April, 1911.)

[209] It was by this indirect influence that I was induced to write the present chapter. The editor of a prominent German review wrote to me for my opinion regarding a Bill dealing with the prevention of immorality which had been introduced into the English Parliament and had aroused much interest and anxiety in Germany, where it had been discussed in all its details. But I had never so much as heard of the Bill, nor could I find any one else who had heard of it, until I consulted a Member of Parliament who happened to have been instrumental in causing its rejection.

[210] J. Schrank, _Die Prost.i.tution in Wien_, Bd. I, pp. 152-206.

[211] The history of this movement in Germany may be followed in the _Vierteljahrsberichte des Wissenschaftlich-humanitaren Komitees_, edited by Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld, a great authority on the matter.

[212] Report on _The Social Evil in New York City_, p. 38; see also Rev Dr. J.P. Peters, "Suppression of the 'Raines Law Hotels,'" _American Academy of Political and Social Science_, November, 1908.

[213] It is probably needless to add that the specific object of the Act--the Puritanic observance of Sunday--was by no means attained. On Sunday, the 8th December, 1907, the police made a desperate attempt to enforce the law; every place of amus.e.m.e.nt was shut up; lectures, religious concerts, even the social meetings of the Young Men's Christian a.s.sociation, were rigorously put a stop to. There was, of course, great popular indignation and uproar, and the impromptu performances got up in the streets, while the police looked on sympathetically, are said to have been far more outrageous than any entertainment indoors could possibly have been.

[214] _The Social Evil in Chicago_, p. 112.

[215] The methods of Maria Theresa never had any success; the methods of Calvin at Geneva had, however, a certain superficial success, because the right conditions existed for their exercise. That is to say, that a theocratic basis of society was generally accepted, and that the suppression of immorality was regarded by the great ma.s.s of the population, including in most cases, no doubt, even the offenders themselves, as a religious duty. It is, however, interesting to note that, even at Geneva, these "triumphs of morality" have met the usual fate. At the present day, it appears (Edith Sellers, _Cornhill_, August, 1910), there are more disorderly houses in Geneva, in proportion to the population, than in any other town in Europe.

[216] See e.g. P. Hausmeister, "Zur a.n.a.lyse der Prost.i.tution," _Geschlect und Gesellschaft_, 1907, p. 294.

[217] Theodore Schroeder, _"Obscene" Literature and Const.i.tutional Law_, New York, 1911.

[218] Thus Sir Samuel Dill (_Roman Society_, p. 11) calls attention to the letter of St. Paulinus who, when the Empire was threatened by barbarians, wrote to a Roman soldier that Christianity is incompatible with family life, with citizenship, with patriotism, and that soldiers are doomed to eternal torment. Christians frequently showed no respect for law or its representatives. "Many Christian confessors," says Sir W.M. Ramsay (_The Church in the Roman Empire_, chap. xv), "went to extremes in showing their contempt and hatred for their judges. Their answers to plain questions were evasive and indirect; they lectured Roman dignitaries as if the latter were the criminals and they themselves the judges; and they even used violent reproaches and coa.r.s.e, insulting gestures." Bouche-Leclercq (_L'Intolerance Religieuse et le Politique_, 1911, especially chap. X) shows how the early Christians insisted on being persecuted. We see much the same att.i.tude to-day among anarchists of the lower cla.s.s (and also, it may be added, sometimes among suffragettes), who may be regarded as the modern a.n.a.logues of the early Christians.

[219] It may well be, indeed, that in all ages the actual sum of immorality, broadly considered--in public and in private, in thought and in act--undergoes but slight oscillations. But in the nature of its manifestations and in the nature of the manifestations that accompany it, there may be immense fluctuations. Tarde, the distinguished thinker, referring to the "delicious Catholicism" of the days before Luther, asks: "If that amiable Christian evolution had peacefully continued to our days, should we be still more immoral than we are? It is doubtful, but in all probability we should be enjoying the most aesthetic and the least vexatious religion in the world, in which all our science, all our civilization, would have been free to progress" (Tarde, _La Logique Sociale_, p. 198). As has often been pointed out, it was along the lines indicated by Erasmus, rather than along the lines pursued by Luther, that the progress of civilization lay.

[220] Nietzsche, _Beyond Good and Evil_, chap. II. A century earlier G.o.dwin had written in his _Political Justice_ (Book VII, chap. VIII): "Men are weak at present because they have always been told they are weak and must not be trusted with themselves. Take them out of their shackles, bid them enquire, reason, and judge, and you will soon find them very different beings. Tell them that they have pa.s.sions, are occasionally hasty, intemperate, and injurious, but that they must be trusted with themselves. Tell them that the mountains of parchment in which they have been hitherto entrenched, are fit only to impose upon ages of superst.i.tion and ignorance, that henceforth we will have no dependence but upon their spontaneous justice; that, if their pa.s.sions be gigantic, they must rise with gigantic energy to subdue them; that if their decrees be iniquitous, the iniquity shall be all their own."

X

THE WAR AGAINST WAR

Why the Problem of War is specially urgent To-day--The Beneficial Effects of War in Barbarous Ages--Civilization renders the Ultimate Disappearance of War Inevitable--The Introduction of Law in disputes between Individuals involves the Introduction of Law in disputes between Nations--But there must be Force behind Law--Henry IV's Attempt to Confederate Europe--Every International Tribunal of Arbitration must be able to enforce its Decisions--The Influences making for the Abolition of Warfare--(1) Growth of International Opinion--(2) International Financial Development--(3) The Decreasing Pressure of Population--(4) The Natural Exhaustion of the Warlike Spirit--(5) The Spread of Anti-military Doctrines--(6) The overgrowth of Armaments--(7) The Dominance of Social Reform--War Incompatible with an Advanced Civilization--Nations as Trustees for Humanity--The Impossibility of Disarmament--The Necessity of Force to ensure Peace--The Federated State of the Future--The Decay of War still leaves the Possibilities of Daring and Heroism.

There are, no doubt, special reasons why at the present time war and the armaments of war should appear an intolerable burden which must be thrown off as soon as possible if the task of social hygiene is not to be seriously impeded. But the abolition of the ancient method of settling international disputes by warfare is not a problem which depends for its solution on the conditions of the moment. It is implicit in the natural development of the process of civilization. At one stage, no doubt, warfare plays an important part in const.i.tuting states and so, indirectly, in promoting civilization. But civilization tends slowly but surely to subst.i.tute for war in the later stages of this process the methods of law, or, in any case, methods which, while not always un.o.bjectionable, avoid the necessity for any breach of the peace.[221] As soon, indeed, as in primitive society two individuals engage in a dispute which they are compelled to settle not by physical force but by a resort to an impartial tribunal, the thin end of the wedge is introduced, and the ultimate destruction of war becomes merely a matter of time. If it is unreasonable for two individuals to fight it is unreasonable for two groups of individuals to fight.[222]

The difficulty has been that while it is quite easy for an ordered society to compel two individuals to settle their differences before a tribunal, in accordance with abstractly determined principles of law and reason, it is a vastly more difficult matter to compel two groups of individuals so to settle their differences. A large part of the history of all the great European countries has consisted in the progressive conquest and pacification of small but often bellicose states outside, and even inside, their own borders.[223] This is the case even within a community. Hobbes, writing in the midst of a civil war, went so far as to lay down that the "final cause" of a commonwealth is nothing else but the abolition of "that miserable condition of war which is necessarily consequent to the natural pa.s.sions of men when there is no visible power to keep them in awe." Yet we see to-day that even within our highly civilized communities there is not always any adequately awful power to prevent employers and employed from engaging in what is little better than a civil war, nor even to bind them to accept the decision of an impartial tribunal they may have been persuaded to appeal to. The smallest state can compel its individual citizens to keep the peace; a large state can compel a small state to do so; but hitherto there has been no guarantee possible that large states, or even large compact groups within the state, should themselves keep the peace. They commit what injustice they please, for there is no visible power to keep them in awe. We have attained a condition in which a state is able to enforce a legal and peaceful att.i.tude in its own individual citizens towards each other. The state is the guardian of its citizens' peace, but the old problem recurs: _Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?_

It is obvious that this difficulty increases as the size of states increases. To compel a small state to keep the peace by absorbing it if it fails to do so is always an easy and even tempting process to a neighbouring larger state. This process was once carried out on a complete scale, when practically the whole known world was brought under the sway of Rome. "War has ceased," Plutarch was able to declare in the days of the Roman Empire, and, though himself an enthusiastic Greek, he was unbounded in his admiration of the beneficence of the majestic _Pax Romana_, and never tempted by any narrow spirit of patriotism to desire the restoration of his own country's glories. But the Roman organization broke up, and no single state will ever be strong enough to restore it.

Any attempt to establish orderly legal relationships between states must, therefore, be carried out by the harmonious co-operation of those states. At the end of the sixteenth century a great French statesman, Sully, inspired Henry IV with a scheme of a Council of Confederated European Christian States; each of these states, fifteen in number, was to send four representatives to the Council, which was to sit at Metz or Cologne and regulate the differences between the const.i.tuent states of the Confederation. The army of the Confederation was to be maintained in common, and used chiefly to keep the peace, to prevent one sovereign from interfering with any other, and also, if necessary, to repel invasion of barbarians from without. The scheme was arranged in concert with Queen Elizabeth, and twelve of the fifteen Powers had already promised their active co-operation when the a.s.sa.s.sination of Henry destroyed the whole plan. Such a Confederation was easier to arrange then than it is now, but probably it was more difficult to maintain, and it can scarcely be said that at that date the times were ripe for so advanced a scheme.[224]

To-day the interests of small states are so closely identified with peace that it is seldom difficult to exert pressure on them to maintain it. It is quite another matter with the large states. The fact that during the past half century so much has been done by the larger states to aid the cause of international arbitration, and to submit disputes to international tribunals, shows how powerful the motives for avoiding war are nowadays becoming. But the fact, also, that no country hitherto has abandoned its liberty of withdrawing from peaceful arbitration any question involving "national honour" shows that there is no const.i.tuted power strong enough to control large states. For the reservation of questions of national honour from the sphere of law is as absurd as would be any corresponding limitation by individuals of their liability for their acts before the law; it is as though a man were to say: "If I commit a theft I am willing to appear before the court, and will probably pay the penalty demanded; but if it is a question of murder, then my vital interests are at stake, and I deny altogether the right of the court to intervene." It is a reservation fatal to peace, and could not be accepted if pleaded at the bar of any international tribunal with the power to enforce its decisions. "Imagine," says Edward Jenks, in his _History of Politics_, "a modern judge 'persuading' Mr. William Sikes to 'make it up' with the relatives of his victim, and, on his remaining obdurate, leaving the two families to fight the matter out." Yet that is what was in some degree done in England until medieval times as regards individual crimes, and it is what is still done as regards national crimes, in so far as the appeal to arbitration is limited and voluntary.

The proposals, therefore--though not yet accepted by any Government--lately mooted in the United States, in England, and in France, to submit international disputes, without reservation, to an impartial tribunal represent an advance of peculiar significance.

The abolition of collective fighting is so desirable an extension of the abolition of individual fighting, and its introduction has waited so long the establishment of some high compelling power--for the influence of the Religion of Peace has in this matter been less than nil--that it is evident that only the coincidence of very powerful and peculiar factors could have brought the question into the region of practical politics in our own time. There are several such factors, most of which have been developing during a long period, but none have been clearly recognized until recent years. It may be worth while to indicate the great forces now warring against war.

(1) _Growth of International Opinion._ There can be no doubt whatever that during recent years, and especially in the more democratic countries, an international consensus of public opinion has gradually grown up, making itself the voice, like a Greek chorus, of an abstract justice. It is quite true that of this justice, as of justice generally, it may be said that it has wide limits. Renan declared once, in a famous allocution, that "what is called indulgence is, most often, only justice," and, at the other extreme, Remy de Gourmont has said that "injustice is sometimes a part of justice;" in other words, there are varying circ.u.mstances in which justice may properly be tempered either with mercy or with severity. In any case, and however it may be qualified; a popular international voice generously p.r.o.nouncing itself in favour of justice, and resonantly condemning any Government which clashes against justice, is now a factor of the international situation.

It is, moreover, tending to become a factor having a certain influence on affairs. This was the case during the South African War, when England, by offending this international sense of justice, fell into a discredit which had many actual unpleasant results and narrowly escaped, there is some reason to believe, proving still more serious. The same voice was heard with dramatically sudden and startling effect when Ferrer was shot at Barcelona. Ferrer was a person absolutely unknown to the man in the street; he was indeed little more than a name even to those who knew Spain; few could be sure, except by a kind of intuition, that he was the innocent victim of a judicial murder, for it is only now that the fact is being slowly placed beyond dispute. Yet immediately after Ferrer was shot within the walls of Monjuich a great shout of indignation was raised, with almost magical suddenness and harmony, throughout the civilized world, from Italy to Belgium, from England to Argentina. Moreover, this voice was so decisive and so loud that it acted like those legendary trumpet-blasts which shattered the walls of Jericho; in a few days the Spanish Government, with a powerful minister at its head, had fallen. The significance of this event we cannot easily overestimate. For the first time in history, the voice of international public opinion, unsupported by pressure, political, social, or diplomatic, proved potent enough to avenge an act of injustice by destroying a Government. A new force has appeared in the world, and it tends to operate against those countries which are guilty of injustice, whether that injustice is exerted against a State or even only against a single obscure individual. The modern developments of telegraphy and the Press--unfavourable as the Press is in many respects to the cause of international harmony--have placed in the hands of peace this new weapon against war.

(2) _International Financial Development._ There is another international force which expresses itself in the same sense. The voice of abstract justice raised against war is fortified by the voice of concrete self-interest. The interests of the propertied cla.s.ses, and therefore of the ma.s.ses dependent upon them, are to-day so widely distributed throughout the world that whenever any country is plunged into a disastrous war there arises in every other country, especially in rich and prosperous lands with most at stake, a voice of self-interest in harmony with the voice of justice. It is sometimes said that wars are in the interest of capital, and of capital alone, and that they are engineered by capitalists masquerading under imposing humanitarian disguises. That is doubtless true to the extent that every war cannot fail to benefit some section of the capitalistic world, which will therefore favour it, but it is true to that extent only. The old notion that war and the acquisition of territories encouraged trade by opening up new markets has proved fallacious. The extension of trade is a matter of tariffs rather than of war, and in any case the trade of a country with its own acquisitions by conquest is a comparatively insignificant portion of its total trade. But even if the financial advantages of war were much greater than they are, they would be more than compensated by the disadvantages which nowadays attend war. International financial relationships have come to const.i.tute a network of interests so vast, so complicated, so sensitive, that the whole thrills responsively to any disturbing touch, and no one can say beforehand what widespread damage may not be done by shock even at a single point. When a country is at war its commerce is at once disorganized, that is to say that its shipping, and the shipping of all the countries that carry its freights, is thrown out of gear to a degree that often cannot fail to be internationally disastrous. Foreign countries cannot send in the imports that lie on their wharves for the belligerent country, nor can they get out of it the exports they need for their own maintenance or luxury.

Moreover, all the foreign money invested in the belligerent country is depreciated and imperilled. The international voice of trade and finance is, therefore, to-day mainly on the side of peace.

It must be added that this voice is not, as it might seem, a selfish voice only. It is justifiable not only in immediate international interests, but even in the ultimate interests of the belligerent country, and not less so if that country should prove victorious. So far as business and money are concerned, a country gains nothing by a successful war, even though that war involves the acquisition of immense new provinces; after a great war a conquered country may possess more financial stability than its conqueror, and both may stand lower in this respect than some other country which is internationally guaranteed against war. Such points as these have of late been ably argued by Norman Angell in his remarkable book, _The Great Illusion_, and for the most part convincingly ill.u.s.trated.[225] As was long since said, the ancients cried, _Vae victis_! We have learnt to cry, _Vae victoribus_!