The Unity of Western Civilization Part 14

Thirdly, there is gradually coming about a transformation of social castes. One must speak carefully; for in the West we are supposed not to have castes. There is, however, an uncomfortable feeling that society is not one, that the two cities which Plato said would divide and destroy the true city of men are now established--the rich and the poor. I do not mean those with 3,000 a year, and those with 160 a year. It is not a question for the Exchequer. I mean that great numbers in all 'civilized' nations are ill-fed and ill-clothed from birth, and die prematurely. To perceive it is to desire action which perhaps no state can perform. But that we perceive it is something. Read the complacent rhymes of Lord Tennyson about 'freedom slowly broadening down' and then turn to contemporary literature, to Jean Richepin or John Galsworthy, and you will acknowledge that a common ideal of social reform has come into existence. We are at least restless in face of a social organization which wastes humanity during long years of peace almost as completely, though not so recklessly, as during a few months of war.

Something has been already done--English writers and English experience have given a motive power to Hungarian, Russian, Finnish, Turkish, Persian, and Indian democracy. Groups of men have claimed, for example in South America, their right to free development. And everywhere during the period of European peace the contact between nations was teaching every nation the force of its own character, while the new complexities of society were weakening the old dividing lines of caste between individuals.

In all these matters we seem to be moved by a desire for a freer social atmosphere. Whether law or administration changes or not, it is clear that most European nations have undergone in the years of peace from 1871 to 1914 considerable social changes. How far they are effective in all nations and in all cla.s.ses it is very difficult for a contemporary to judge. It may be that the social structure of the decorative upper fringe or of the bedraggled hem of society is much the same as it was before communication was easy and transit rapid. But the central body of European society is certainly changed; and, after all, between the sc.u.m and the dregs is the good soup.

Such are the changes which have been introduced into social life owing to the interdependence of nations. But we should not understand what has happened if we accepted the mere record of achievements. The future is built not only upon what we have done, but upon what we hope to do.

Reforms accomplished do not make us more satisfied to endure evil not yet reformed--for always working in the achieved present is the ideal which transformed the past into what we now see.

We may turn, then, to consider some general features of the force working in social reform which is not yet achieved. And for that purpose we put aside established law and custom to consider the implied att.i.tude.

Now that political privilege and inequality before the law are more or less removed, there is a greater concentration upon the underlying social injustice. We all accept it as good that the activities of government should not be for the benefit of the few, or that the money should not be drawn from one cla.s.s. We suppose at least that there should be one law for rich and poor.

To any one with a knowledge of history this seems an immense step since small cla.s.ses in every nation held political privilege, made law for others, and forced tribute from the majority. Not that all is justice and liberty. The law still, with n.o.ble impartiality, forbids both the millionaire and the pauper to steal bread. Of course it is not directed against the poor. The law never forbids the poor man to cheat the state out of more than 3,000 a year. Again, political power still depends on the social position of your cousins and your aunts. But something has been done.

We hear much more nowadays about social than about political or legal reform. That, in itself, is a sign of a change of att.i.tude. In the revolution of 1381 the crowds came marching to London swearing, in the words of the old chronicle, that there would be no peace in the land till each and every lawyer was slain. In the revolutions of 1830 and 1848 it was 'death to the politicians'. Now--it may be that we despair of lawyers or politicians, dead or alive. In any case the attention of those in every state who are moved by enthusiasm for a better society is concentrated less upon votes and laws than upon the distribution of well-being.

Secondly, there has been a transference of enthusiasm of the religious or poetic kind from the sphere of contemplation or aloofness to that of earthly and even material action. Ideals of social reform do not any longer involve a neglect of food and clothing: we are all more and more convinced that it is idle to preach culture to a starving man, or to talk of liberty to one whose whole life is a b.e.s.t.i.a.l struggle for bare food and covering. I speak of normal times. In England, France, and Germany, social betterment means giving to a greater number security of bare life, upon which alone the good life can be built.

It will be seen that I imply a disagreement with the Tolstoian conception of reform; in so far as that involves a neglect of food and clothing and generally of what are called material goods. That conception is not perhaps powerful among those who deal with what is usually called social reform. It is not 'modern', and it is also dependent upon a mistaken argument in ethical theory. An unfortunate confusion made by what is called Eastern, Stoic, or Mediaeval asceticism led to the idea that because the mind is more important than the body, the body has no importance at all. But we need not deal with this theory in detail, especially as the general att.i.tude of to-day is opposed to it. There is undoubtedly a concentration upon the bare necessities of human life with a view to discovering how these can be shared more generally.

We are fully aware of the immense social danger in the desire for riches; but that is no objection to the desire for bread and clothing and the bare necessities of human life. And the seemingly materialistic enthusiasm which will gradually transform our semi-b.e.s.t.i.a.l civilization is no less poetic or religious than any Eastern aloofness or Tolstoian simplicity. Poetry is not all rhyming couplets: religion is not all for the intellectually or artistically incompetent. So, a world in which twenty per cent. of humanity did not slowly starve to death would not necessarily be less worthy of admiration. Nor would religion disappear if every one were healthy, unless religion means the result of neurasthenia or dyspepsia or premature ageing. No doubt there is some exaggeration in this element of the common social ideals. Not even a poor man lives on bread alone; and it is indeed possible to have a perfectly well-fed society which would be quite barbarous. But we must regard the fine flower of culture as purchased at too high a price if, for the sake of a few connoisseurs and courtiers not to say bourgeois plutocrats, the majority in every nation must lack a bare human life.

Some declare that the division between nations is more important than that between the rich and the poor. It may be so; but the only reason must be that what the few have, the many, however dimly, may hope to share or may be induced to think they do share. Humanity is infinitely gullible. But in every nation there is rising a murmur which may yet become an articulate cry.

The writers of modern Utopias in their detailed conception of what is desirable may speak only for themselves; but it is a sign of the common enthusiasm that they all attach so much importance to organization and to physical health. This indicates that we all, in every nation, look forward, however vaguely, to a society in which human life shall be less difficult for the majority to obtain. We speak sometimes of the redistribution of leisure--August Bebel made it one of the chief articles of his creed. But this as an ideal does not indicate any desire that the dock-labourer should have time to loaf in a club, or his wife time to play bridge, except in so far as time to loaf is an opportunity for some other employment than the mere struggle for food. There is nothing inevitable in a situation which makes the development of most of the human faculties a privilege of a few and an impossibility for the greater number. Nor is it correct to suppose that the half-starved and the ill-clothed should be satisfied with being 'virtuous', and leave it to others, possibly wicked and certainly far from simple, to cultivate art and science.

Nor again is it absurd to hope for a world in which all should have at least the opportunity for the development of any faculties they may possess. The social gain would be immense. It would be like the change from a harmony which is produced by a few amateurs to one of a full orchestra.

Thirdly, it is increasingly evident that no one state or nation can act effectively in social reform unless it acts in concert with others.

Treaties of commerce, common prison legislation, and common measures for sanitation and medicine have proved effective because they are in the nature of things. They are necessary means for the desired prosperity even of the most selfish and segregated state.

But ignorance and prejudice and irrational violence spread as easily as disease or crime. Knowledge is not secure until it is widespread; and civilization perishes, which is segregated in a world of barbarism.

Therefore education also, in its widest sense, must be contrived in common. Not merely school systems influenced by foreign ideas, but the very atmosphere of thought must change in harmony among all nations, if we are not to go toppling down into the abyss from which by painful centuries we have ascended.

This ideal of social reform then seems to be agreed upon between some men of all nations, that more common action should be taken. It is not a vague sentiment for the abolition of conflict between states; nor is it a pious aspiration for peace. It is the clear perception that the state cannot fulfil its functions in modern life if it continues to act as isolated or segregated. That for which the state itself stands cannot be attained even within the frontiers of one state by any state acting alone.

This is not the place to distinguish those subjects upon which states should act together from those on which they should act separately. That is simply the problem as to the limits of political regionalism. The fact which is sufficient for our argument here is that certain forces, chiefly economic, have come into existence in recent years, which disregard state boundaries. In concrete terms, these are international trusts and international labour interests. But it is increasingly evident that these cannot be effectively dealt with by any one state acting separately. The isolated sovereign state of earlier times is simply helpless before the elaborate world-system of economics; and control can only be secured by an established world-system of politics.

The states, one supposes, exist for justice and liberty. Divided, they will perish or become mere playthings in the hands of non-moral economic 'interests'.

To save itself and all it stands for, the state must cease to pose as a possible opponent to any other state, and must deliberately co-operate in an increasing number of reforms.

It is better to put into the coldest terms a conception which has too often hitherto proved futile, because it arose rather from vague discontent, than from the perception of a definite evil. The fire of enthusiasm must indeed work upon that conception before any effective change can be made in the att.i.tude of governments or of peoples. But enthusiasm will be wasted if we cannot pause to see against what we are contending.

We are struggling with the greatest of all obstacles to social reform when we attack the isolation of nations. Unless that is overcome we shall perhaps patch and prop; but, time and again, we shall be enslaved to the immensely powerful non-moral forces, in the midst of which humanity finds its way. I cannot speak more clearly--[Greek: bous epi glosse]. The nations face each other in conflict, while death, disease, violence, b.e.s.t.i.a.l indolence and docility corrode every state.

But when war was at its brutish worst Grotius spoke with effect of a moral bond which survived between men who in physical conflict had been trying to take their 'enemies' for beasts and stones. And humanity began once more its long struggle with the beast in man. So now--I leave it to your imagination.

We have made immense progress by a.s.sisting each other across the frontiers of states in such science as may provide high explosive and submarine warfare. In these the nations have co-operated. The guns which kill the English at the Dardanelles were made by Englishmen. There may yet come a time when high explosives will be out of date, and the state will use the careful dissemination of disease among its enemies. The only reason, I think, why it is not now done, is that no group can be certain of making itself immune from the disease it may spread among its enemies.

Our conclusion, therefore, is that one of the elements in the present att.i.tude towards social reform is a tendency to co-operation between nations. We have seen that this has already had effect in various details of law and administration; and there is every reason to suppose that the method will be carried further.

But the problem cannot be left there. Co-operation as a word is a mere charm, like Evolution. There has been, and there may be co-operation in doing wrong. That action has become common does not prove that it is right; and an ideal implies at least some ethical judgement. Therefore, in every nation there are some few who are convinced of the necessity for more deliberately moral action in common between men of different races. If there can be so much co-operation in the making of armaments or the defrauding of shareholders, there may yet be more co-operation in the elimination of disease and poverty. And not only may there be such co-operation, but it must be. The situation no longer exists in which most of the effects of an evil regime are confined within frontiers. The social distress of European nations must be dealt with as a whole because it is a whole. Therefore whatever militates against the unity of western civilization destroys the possibility of social reform.

Many times before it has been seen that there are n.o.bler conflicts than the struggle for markets or for the political domination of one clique or one nation. Many times before it has been felt, at least by a few, that man is deceived when he imagines that man is his enemy. And many times when the deliverance seemed near we have been enslaved again by an evil magic. A hundred years ago, at the end of the Napoleonic wars, the dreamers imagined that humanity would have done with its false prophets and lay the ghosts which have haunted it since it began to shake off the manners of the beasts. But a dismal succession of new falsehoods and new blind guides appeared. And now, in this so advanced age, we have to face the same possibility. There is much to excuse a despair; from which nothing can free us but a new enthusiasm. The evil magic must be overcome by magic of another kind, and how acute the crisis seems it is hardly possible to indicate.

The quality of our age was its expectancy. For that reason men of every nation were moved to desire a transformed society. But perhaps that quality of expectancy was the quality of youth. For the first time in history, in the early twentieth century, age was giving place to youth in the political equilibrium of the generations. Now--I dare not speak too plainly. The young men of the western world are already, since August 1914, noticeably fewer. Death may have made no difference to them. It has made an immense difference to the future. It means that the eager expectancy of youth, which is the source of so much enthusiasm for a better world, is being lost. The crisis is here. As yet the common ideals of civilized nations still survive; but the desire for a better future is at ebb and flow with a tired acquiescence in the established order. It is in our hands to decide which shall overcome. No generation has faced a greater issue. We cannot tell what will be the outcome; but to hope too much is at least a more generous fault than to despair too soon.

BOOKS FOR REFERENCE

C.D. Burns, _Political Ideals_. Clarendon Press.

P. Geddes, _Cities in Evolution_. Williams & Norgate.

J.A. Hobson, _Towards International Government_. Allen & Unwin.

P.S. Reinsch, _Public International Unions_. Ginn & Co.

XII

POLITICAL BASES OF A WORLD-STATE

World-state is a term likely to be offensive in its arrogance, if it be taken to mean the subst.i.tution of a single political community and government for the numerous separate national states which have hitherto existed. I therefore hasten to say that I intend no such meaning, but use the term as a convenient expression to cover any body of political arrangements, to which most of the princ.i.p.al nations of the world are parties, sufficiently stable in character and wide in scope to merit the t.i.tle of international government.

Towards such a possibility the nineteenth century has made three great contributions. During that century great advances have been made in the settlement of political government upon a basis of nationality. This process has been accomplished partly by throwing off the dominion of some foreign power, as in the case of Belgium, Greece, Montenegro, Bulgaria, Rumania, and Serbia, and the South American colonies of Spain; partly by the closer federal union of independent states, as in the case of Germany and Switzerland; partly by a blend of the two methods as in the case of Italy; and partly by the peaceful dissolution of an unnatural union, as with Norway and Sweden. Though much still remains to be done before the identification of statehood with nationality even for Europe is completed, and some backward steps have been taken, the growing acceptance of the conception of nationality as a just and expedient basis of government is a powerful guarantee for the persistence of this joint work of liberation and of union. If, as the result of the settlement following this war, political readjustments are made which fairly satisfy the remaining aspirations after national autonomy, the more pacific atmosphere will favour all opportunities for co-operation between nations.

The second contribution of the nineteenth century towards political internationalism is of a more positive character. It consists in a series of inchoate and fragmentary but genuine attempts of the Great Powers to work together upon critical occasions in the interests of 'justice and order', as they understood those terms, and to embody in acts or conventions some policy which is the result of their deliberations. This flickering light, called the Concert of Europe, first kindled at the Congress of Vienna, has reappeared fitfully throughout the century. The treaties, declarations, and conventions, proceeding from these conferences or congresses of the Powers, have marked important advances, not only in the substance of international law, but in the method of legislation. For whereas, before the Congress of Vienna, all the treaties between states which helped to form the body of international law were the acts of two or, at the most, a small group of states, since that time law-making treaties of general application and of world-wide importance have come into being. The most noteworthy examples of these general treaties are the Final Act of the Vienna Congress in 1815, the Declaration of Paris in 1856, the Geneva Convention of 1864, the Treaty of Berlin in 1878, the General Act of the Congo Conference in 1885, and the two Hague Conferences of 1899 and 1907. Having regard to the general character of many of the rules laid down at these conferences, as, for instance, the abolition of the slave trade, the neutralization of certain lands and waters, and the regulation of the rules of war, it is clear that we have to recognize throughout last century the existence of a rudimentary organ of international legislation, very irregular in its operation, very imperfect in structure and authority, but none the less a genuine experiment in international government.

Hardly less significant for our purpose has been the prominent a.s.sertion of the principle of federalism in the formation or growth of national government. The great example of the United States has been followed by Switzerland and Germany, by Mexico, Argentine, Brazil, and Venezuela, and by the dominions of the British Empire in Canada, Australia, and South Africa. I must not in this brief survey even touch upon the different forms of federalism. It must suffice to remark that, whether as a a principle of devolution, as in the case of the proposal of Home Rule for the const.i.tuent parts of Great Britain, or as a principle of closer union, as in the proposal for a federated British Empire, federalism is very much alive. It furnishes a hopeful mode not only for reconciling demands for local autonomy with effective central sovereignty among the provinces or districts of a single national state, but even for harmonizing the claims of separate nationality with those of wider racial, linguistic, and traditional sympathy. But even more important than these distinctively political movements and events, as a pledge of the coming world-state, is the manifold structure of industrial and commercial internationalism which has been growing during the last few generations at an ever accelerating pace. The network of material, financial, and intellectual communications, connecting all parts of the developed world, and establishing quick, constant, cheap, and reliable modes of transport for men, goods, money, and information, form the actual basis of what may not improperly be called an economic world-state. Though much of this machinery, with the great work of international trade and capitalistic co-operation which it a.s.sists to perform, lies outside the sphere of politics, there are innumerable points of political contact and pressure. The realities of foreign policy in every state are more and more concerned with issues of trade, communications, and concessions, and the treaties and other formal arrangements between states are to a growing extent the instruments and the expressions of the internationalism of economic interests. The imperialism and the colonial policy of each great Power, though composed of various ingredients, are mainly directed by commerce and finance.

Most of the disagreements and conflicts between governments relate to interferences with the free play of economic internationalism by states whose policy is still dominated by foolish and obsolescent rules of a narrowly national economy. An enlightened interpretation of the needs and interests of modern man demands that all such national economic barriers be removed and replaced by governmental co-operation to secure, by free trade and an open door, for capital and labour the fullest and best development and distribution of the economic resources of the world.

While, therefore, the most impressive political events of the nineteenth century have been the expression and the successful realization of nationalism, many powerful undercurrents of internationalism have been gathering force. The pressures of civilization have been more and more towards extra-national activities. Thoughtful men and women in our time recognize the urgent need of closer international communion for three related purposes: First, the consolidation, extension, and effective sanction of the existing body of international law; secondly, the establishment of peace on a basis of reliable methods for the just settlement of differences; thirdly, the provision of regular accepted means for the co-operation of nations in all sorts of positive constructive work for the human commonwealth.

These general considerations I will ask you to regard as introductory to the grave practical question which confronts us. Is this essential work of internationalism consistent with the preservation of the sovereignty and independence of the present national state, or does its performance involve some definite cession of these national state-rights to the requirements of an international government?

The terrible events which are pa.s.sing to-day ripen and sharpen this issue. They bring into powerful relief the inherent defects of an international polity based upon the absolute independence of the several states, and the futile mechanical balances and readjustments by which foreign policy has been conducted hitherto. But how far do they offer a.s.sistance or security for the achievement of organic reform? After this war has come to a close, will the nations and governments be enabled to lay a sound basis for pacific settlement of disputes and for active co-operation in the common cause of humanity for the future? No confident answer to this question is possible. For n.o.body can predict the composition and the relative strength of the feelings and ideas which will const.i.tute 'the state of mind' of the several nations and their statesmen. As regards immediate or early policy, much will, of course, depend upon the definiteness of the victory and defeat, and the consequent distribution and intensity of the pa.s.sions of elation and depression, anger and revenge, which peace may leave behind. It is, of course, part of the fighting strength of every belligerent to persuade himself that an overwhelming victory for himself affords the best security of peace and progress in the future. But this conclusion, based on the prior a.s.sumption, equally liable to error, that one's own cause is entirely right and one's enemy's entirely wrong, is unlikely to be sound. A peace which brings the least intensity of triumph and humiliation, the most even distribution of gains and losses, would seem to give an atmosphere most favourable to the growth of pacific internationalism. This, of course, will be sharply contested, and those who contest it will exhibit the usual excessive confidence of those whose mind moves in a shut oven of heated but unmeaning phrases about fighting to a finish, crushing German militarism, and 'a war to end war'. But there is no stronger evidence of the intellectual and moral havoc of war than the easy acceptance of what Ruskin called 'masked words' in lieu of thinking.

"There are masked words abroad, I say, which n.o.body understands, but which everybody uses, and most people will also fight for, live for, or even die for, fancying they mean this or that or other of the things dear to them. There were never creatures of prey so mischievous, never diplomatists so cunning, never poisoners so deadly, as these masked words; they are the unjust stewards of all men's ideas; whatever fancy or favourite instinct a man most cherishes, he gives to his favourite masked word to take care of for him; the word at last comes to have an infinite power over him--you cannot get at him but by its ministry." In war-time this domination of 'masked words' is all-powerful, and is likely to leave the thinking powers of all Europe seriously impaired when the war is over.