Are the axioms set out in the last chapter unchallengeable?
Is it true that the wealth, prosperity and well-being of a nation depend upon its military power, or have necessarily anything whatever to do therewith?
Can one civilized nation gain moral or material advantage by the military conquest of another? Does conquered territory add to the wealth of the conquering nation?
Is it possible for a nation to "own" the territory of another in the way that a person or corporation would "own" an estate? Could Germany "take" English trade and Colonies by military force?
Could she turn English Colonies into German ones, and win an overseas empire by the sword, as England won hers in the past? Does a modern nation need to expand its political[Pg 15] boundaries in order to provide for increasing population?
If England could conquer Germany to-morrow, completely conquer her, reduce her nationality to so much dust, would the ordinary
British subject be the better for it?
If Germany could conquer England, would any ordinary German subject be the better for it?
The fact that all these questions have to be answered in the negative, and that a negative answer seems to outrage common sense,
shows how much our political axioms are in need of revision.
The literature on the subject leaves no doubt whatever that I have correctly stated the premises of the matter in the foregoing chapter. Those whose special vocation is the philosophy of statecraft in the international field, from Aristotle and Plato, passing by Machiavelli and Clausewitz down to Mr. Roosevelt and the German Emperor, have left us in no doubt whatever on the point. The
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whole view has been admirably summarized by two notable writers--Admiral Mahan, on the Anglo-Saxon side, and Baron Karl von
Stengel (second German delegate to the First Hague Conference) on the German. Admiral Mahan says:
The old predatory instinct that he should take who has the power survives ... and moral force is not sufficient to determine issues unless supported by physical. Governments[Pg 16] are corporations, and corporations have no souls; governments, moreover, are trustees, and as such must put first the lawful interests of their wards--their own people.... More and more Germany needs the assured importation of raw materials, and, where possible, control of regions productive of such materials. More and more she requires assured markets and security as to the importation of food, since less and less comparatively is produced within her own borders by her rapidly increasing population. This all means security at sea.... Yet the supremacy of Great Britain in European seas means a perpetually latent control of German commerce.... The world has long been accustomed to the idea of a predominant naval power, coupling it with the name of Great Britain, and it has been noted that such power, when achieved, is commonly often associated with commercial and industrial predominance, the struggle for which is now in progress between Great Britain and Germany. Such predominance forces a nation to seek markets, and, where possible, to control them to its own advantage by preponderant force, the ultimate expression of which is possession.... From this flow two results: the attempt to possess and the organization of force by which to maintain possession already achieved.... This statement is simply a specific formulation of the general necessity stated; it is an inevitable link in the chain of logical sequences--industrial markets, control, navy bases....[3]
But in order to show that this is no special view, and that this philosophy does indeed represent the[Pg 17] general public opinion of Europe, the opinion of the great mass which prompts the actions of Governments and explains their respective policies, I take the following from the current newspapers and reviews ready to my hand:
It is the prowess of our navy ... our dominant position at sea ... which has built up the British Empire and its commerce.--London
Times leading article.
Because her commerce is infinitely vulnerable, and because her people are dependent upon that commerce for food and the wages with which to buy it.... Britain wants a powerful fleet, a perfect organization behind the fleet, and an army of defence. Until they are provided this country will exist under perpetual menace from the growing fleet of German Dreadnoughts, which have made the North Sea their parade-ground. All security will disappear, and British commerce and industry, when no man knows what the morrow will bring forth, must rapidly decline, thus accentuating British national degeneracy and decadence.--H.W. Wilson in the National Review, May, 1909.
Sea-power is the last fact which stands between Germany and the supreme position in international commerce. At present Germany sends only some fifty million pounds worth, or about a seventh, of her total domestic produce to the markets of the world outside Europe and the United States.... Does any man who understands the subject think there is any power in Germany, or, indeed, any power in the world, which can prevent Germany, she having thus accomplished the first stage of her work, from now closing with Great Britain for her ultimate share of this 240 millions of[Pg 18] overseas trade? Here it is that we unmask the shadow which looms like a real presence behind all the moves of present-day diplomacy, and behind all the colossal armaments that indicate the present preparations for a new struggle for sea-power.--Mr. Benjamin Kidd in the Fortnightly Review, April 1, 1910.
It is idle to talk of "limitation of armaments" unless the nations of the earth will unanimously consent to lay aside all selfish ambi-tions.... Nations, like individuals, concern themselves chiefly with their own interests, and when these clash with those of others, quarrels are apt to follow. If the aggrieved party is the weaker he usually goes to the wall, though "right" be never so much on his side; and the stronger, whether he be the aggressor or not, usually has his own way. In international politics charity begins at home, and quite properly; the duty of a statesman is to think first of the interests of his own country.--United Service Magazine, May,
1909.
Why should Germany attack Britain? Because Germany and Britain are commercial and political rivals; because Germany covets the trade, the colonies, and the Empire which Britain now possesses.--Robert Blatchford, "Germany and England," p. 4.
Great Britain, with her present population, exists by virtue of her foreign trade and her control of the carrying trade of the world; defeat in war would mean the transference of both to other hands and consequent starvation for a large percentage of the wage-earners.--T.G. Martin in the London World.
We offer an enormously rich prize if we are not able to defend out shores; we may be perfectly certain that the prize which we offer will go into the mouth of somebody powerful enough to overcome our resistance and to[Pg 19] swallow a considerable portion of us up.--The Speaker of the House of Commons in a speech at Greystoke, reported by the London Times.
What is good for the beehive is good for the bee. Whatever brings rich lands, new ports, or wealthy industrial areas to a State en-
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riches its treasury, and therefore the nation at large, and therefore the individual.--Mr. Douglas Owen in a letter to the Economist, May 28, 1910.
Do not forget that in war there is no such thing as international law, and that undefended wealth will be seized wherever it is exposed, whether through the broken pane of a jeweller's window or owing to the obsession of a humanitarian Celt.--London Referee, November 14, 1909.
We appear to have forgotten the fundamental truth--confirmed by all history--that the warlike races inherit the earth, and that Na-ture decrees the survival of the fittest in the never-ending struggle for existence.... Our yearning for disarmament, our respect for the tender plant of Non-conformist conscience, and the parrot-like repetition of the misleading formula that the "greatest of all British interests is peace" ... must inevitably give to any people who covet our wealth and our possessions ... the ambition to strike a swift
and deadly blow at the heart of the Empire--undefended London.--Blackwood's Magazine, May, 1909.
These are taken from English sources, but there is not a straw to choose between them and other European opinion on the subject. Admiral Mahan and the other Anglo-Saxons of his school have their counterpart in every European country, but more especially in