[Pg xxi]Why aggression upon a State does not correspond to aggression upon an individual--Our changing conception of collective responsibility--Psychological progress in this connection--Recent growth of factors breaking down the homogeneous personality
of States 296-325
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--Platitudes that everyone overlooks--To attenuate the motive for aggression is to undertake a work of defence 329-340
CHAPTER II
ARMAMENT, BUT NOT ALONE ARMAMENT
Not the facts, but men's belief about facts, shapes their conduct--Solving a problem of two factors by ignoring one--The fatal outcome of such a method--The German Navy as a "luxury"--If both sides concentrate on armament alone 341-352
CHAPTER III
IS THE POLITICAL REFORMATION POSSIBLE?
Men are little disposed to listen to reason, "therefore we should not talk reason"--Are men's ideas immutable? 353-367
CHAPTER IV METHODS
[Pg xxii]Relative failure of Hague Conferences and the cause--Public opinion the necessary motive force of national action--That opinion only stable if informed--"Friendship" between nations and its limitations--America's role in the coming "Political Reformation" 368-382
Appendix on Recent Events in Europe 383-406
Index 407-416 [Pg 1]
PART I
THE ECONOMICS OF THE CASE [Pg 2]
[Pg 3] CHAPTER I
STATEMENT OF THE ECONOMIC CASE FOR WAR
Where can the Anglo-German rivalry of armaments end?--Why peace advocacy fails--Why it deserves to fail--The attitude of the peace advocate--The presumption that the prosperity of nations depends upon their political power, and consequent necessity of protection against aggression of other nations who would diminish our power to their advantage--These the universal axioms of international politics.
It is generally admitted that the present rivalry in armaments in Europe--notably such as that now in progress between England and Germany--cannot go on in its present form indefinitely. The net result of each side meeting the efforts of the other with similar efforts is that at the end of a given period the relative position of each is what it was originally, and the enormous sacrifices of both have gone for nothing. If as between England and Germany it is claimed that England is in a position to maintain the lead because she has the money, Germany can retort that she is in a position to maintain the lead because she has the population, which must, in
7
the case of a highly organized European nation, in the end mean money. Meanwhile, neither side can yield to the other, as the[Pg 4]
one so doing would, it is felt, be placed at the mercy of the other, a situation which neither will accept.
There are two current solutions which are offered as a means of egress from this impasse. There is that of the smaller party, regarded in both countries for the most part as one of dreamers and doctrinaires, who hope to solve the problem by a resort to general disarmament, or, at least, a limitation of armament by agreement. And there is that of the larger, which is esteemed the
more practical party, of those who are persuaded that the present state of rivalry and recurrent irritation is bound to culminate in an armed conflict, which, by definitely reducing one or other of the parties to a position of manifest inferiority, will settle the thing for at least some time, until after a longer or shorter period a state of relative equilibrium is established, and the whole process will be recommenced da capo.
This second solution is, on the whole, accepted as one of the laws of life: one of the hard facts of existence which men of ordinary courage take as all in the day's work. And in every country those favoring the other solution are looked upon either as people who fail to realize the hard facts of the world in which they live, or as people less concerned with the security of their country than with upholding a somewhat emasculate ideal; ready to weaken the defences of their own country on no better assurance than that the prospective enemy will not be so wicked as to attack them.
To this the virile man is apt to oppose the law of[Pg 5] conflict. Most of what the nineteenth century has taught us of the evolution of life on the planet is pressed into the service of this struggle-for-life philosophy. We are reminded of the survival of the fittest,
that the weakest go to the wall, and that all life, sentient and non-sentient, is but a life of battle. The sacrifice involved in armament is the price which nations pay for their safety and for their political power. The power of England has been the main condition of her past industrial success; her trade has been extensive and her merchants rich, because she has been able to make her political and military force felt, and to exercise her influence among all the nations of the world. If she has dominated the commerce of the world,
it is because her unconquered navy has dominated, and continues to dominate, all the avenues of commerce. This is the currently
accepted argument.
The fact that Germany has of late come to the front as an industrial nation, making giant strides in general prosperity and well-being, is deemed also to be the result of her military successes and the increasing political power which she is coming to exercise in Continental Europe. These things, alike in England and in Germany, are accepted as the axioms of the problem, as the citations given in the next chapter sufficiently prove. I am not aware that a single authority of note, at least in the world of workaday politics, has ever challenged or disputed them. Even those who have occupied prominent positions in the propaganda of peace are at one with the veriest fire-eaters[Pg 6] on this point. Mr. W.T. Stead was one of the leaders of the big navy party in England. Mr. Frederic Harrison, who all his life had been known as the philosopher protagonist of peace, declared recently that, if England allowed Germany to get ahead of her in the race for armaments, "famine, social anarchy, incalculable chaos in the industrial and financial world, would be the inevitable result. Britain may live on ... but before she began to live freely again she would have to lose half her population, which she could not feed, and all her overseas Empire, which she could not defend.... How idle are fine words about retrenchment, peace, and brotherhood, whilst we lie open to the risk of unutterable ruin, to a deadly fight for national existence, to war in its most destructive and cruel form." On the other side we have friendly critics of England, like Professor von Schulze-Gaevernitz, writing: "We want
our [i.e. Germany's] navy in order to confine the commercial rivalry of England within innocuous limits, and to deter the sober sense of the English people from the extremely threatening thought of attack upon us.... The German navy is a condition of our bare existence and independence, like the daily bread on which we depend not only for ourselves, but for our children."
Confronted by a situation of this sort, one is bound to feel that the ordinary argument of the pacifist entirely breaks down; and it breaks down for a very simple reason. He himself accepts the premise which has just been indicated--viz., that the victorious party in the struggle for political predominance gains[Pg 7] some material advantage over the party which is conquered. The proposition even to the pacifist seems so self-evident that he makes no effort to combat it. He pleads his case otherwise. "It cannot be denied, of course," says one peace advocate, "that the thief does secure some material advantage by his theft. What we plead is that if the two
parties were to devote to honest labor the time and energy devoted to preying upon each other, the permanent gain would more than offset the occasional booty."
Some pacifists go further, and take the ground that there is a conflict between the natural law and the moral law, and that we must
choose the moral even to our hurt. Thus Mr. Edward Grubb writes:
Self-preservation is not the final law for nations any more than for individuals.... The progress of humanity may