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diff --git a/10291-0.txt b/10291-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..4d28d9b --- /dev/null +++ b/10291-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,3449 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 10291 *** + +Mr. WELLS has also written the following novels: + +LOVE AND MR. LEWISHAM +KIPPS +MR. POLLY +THE WHEELS OF CHANCE +THE NEW MACHIAVELLI +ANN VERONICA +TONO BUNGAY +MARRIAGE +BEALBY +THE PASSIONATE FRIENDS +THE WIFE OF SIR ISAAC HARMAN +THE RESEARCH MAGNIFICENT +MR. BRITLING SEES IT THROUGH +THE SOUL OF A BISHOP + +The following fantastic and imaginative romances: + +THE WAR OF THE WORLDS +THE TIME MACHINE +THE WONDERFUL VISIT +THE ISLAND OF DR. MOREAU +THE SEA LADY +THE SLEEPER AWAKES +THE FOOD OF THE GODS +THE WAR IN THE AIR +THE FIRST MEN IN THE MOON +IN THE DAYS OF THE COMET +THE WORLD SET FREE + +And numerous Short Stories now collected in One +Volume under the title of + +THE COUNTRY OF THE BLIND + +A Series of books upon Social, Religious and Political questions: + +ANTICIPATIONS (1900) +MANKIND IN THE MAKING +FIRST AND LAST THINGS +NEW WORLDS FOR OLD +A MODERN UTOPIA +THE FUTURE IN AMERICA +AN ENGLISHMAN LOOKS AT THE WORLD +WHAT IS COMING? +WAR AND THE FUTURE +GOD THE INVISIBLE KING + +And two little books about children's play, called: + +FLOOR GAMES and LITTLE WARS + + + + +IN THE FOURTH YEAR + +ANTICIPATIONS OF A WORLD PEACE + +BY + +H. G. WELLS + +AUTHOR OF "MR. BRITLING SEES IT THROUGH," +"THE WAR AND THE FUTURE," "WHAT IS COMING?" "THE WAR THAT WILL +END WAR," "THE WORLD SET FREE," "IN THE DAYS OF THE COMET," AND +"A MODERN UTOPIA" + +1918 + + + + + +PREFACE + + +In the latter half of 1914 a few of us were writing that this war was a +"War of Ideas." A phrase, "The War to end War," got into circulation, +amidst much sceptical comment. It was a phrase powerful enough to sway +many men, essentially pacifists, towards taking an active part in the +war against German imperialism, but it was a phrase whose chief content +was its aspiration. People were already writing in those early days of +disarmament and of the abolition of the armament industry throughout the +world; they realized fully the element of industrial belligerency behind +the shining armour of imperialism, and they denounced the "Krupp-Kaiser" +alliance. But against such writing and such thought we had to count, in +those days, great and powerful realities. Even to those who expressed +these ideas there lay visibly upon them the shadow of impracticability; +they were very "advanced" ideas in 1914, very Utopian. Against them was +an unbroken mass of mental habit and public tradition. While we talked +of this "war to end war," the diplomatists of the Powers allied against +Germany were busily spinning a disastrous web of greedy secret treaties, +were answering aggression by schemes of aggression, were seeing in the +treacherous violence of Germany only the justification for +countervailing evil acts. To them it was only another war for +"ascendancy." That was three years and a half ago, and since then this +"war of ideas" has gone on to a phase few of us had dared hope for in +those opening days. The Russian revolution put a match to that pile of +secret treaties and indeed to all the imperialist plans of the Allies; +in the end it will burn them all. The greatest of the Western Allies is +now the United States of America, and the Americans have come into this +war simply for an idea. Three years and a half ago a few of us were +saying this was a war against the idea of imperialism, not German +imperialism merely, but British and French and Russian imperialism, and +we were saying this not because it was so, but because we hoped to see +it become so. To-day we can say so, because now it is so. + +In those days, moreover, we said this is the "war to end war," and we +still did not know clearly how. We thought in terms of treaties and +alliances. It is largely the detachment and practical genius of the +great English-speaking nation across the Atlantic that has carried the +world on beyond and replaced that phrase by the phrase, "The League of +Nations," a phrase suggesting plainly the organization of a sufficient +instrument by which war may be ended for ever. In 1913 talk of a World +League of Nations would have seemed, to the extremest pitch, "Utopian." +To-day the project has an air not only of being so practicable, but of +being so urgent and necessary and so manifestly the sane thing before +mankind that not to be busied upon it, not to be making it more widely +known and better understood, not to be working out its problems and +bringing it about, is to be living outside of the contemporary life of +the world. For a book upon any other subject at the present time some +apology may be necessary, but a book upon this subject is as natural a +thing to produce now as a pair of skates in winter when the ice begins +to bear. + +All we writers find ourselves engaged perforce in some part or other of +a world-wide propaganda of this the most creative and hopeful of +political ideas that has ever dawned upon the consciousness of mankind. +With no concerted plan we feel called upon to serve it. And in no +connection would one so like to think oneself un-original as in this +connection. It would be a dismaying thing to realize that one were +writing anything here which was not the possible thought of great +multitudes of other people, and capable of becoming the common thought +of mankind. One writes in such a book as this not to express oneself but +to swell a chorus. The idea of the League of Nations is so great a one +that it may well override the pretensions and command the allegiance of +kings; much more does it claim the self-subjugation of the journalistic +writer. Our innumerable books upon this great edifice of a World Peace +do not constitute a scramble for attention, but an attempt to express in +every variety of phrase and aspect this one system of ideas which now +possesses us all. In the same way the elementary facts and ideas of the +science of chemistry might conceivably be put completely and fully into +one text-book, but, as a matter of fact, it is far more convenient to +tell that same story over in a thousand different forms, in a text-book +for boys here, for a different sort or class of boy there, for adult +students, for reference, for people expert in mathematics, for people +unused to the scientific method, and so on. For the last year the writer +has been doing what he can--and a number of other writers have been +doing what they can--to bring about a united declaration of all the +Atlantic Allies in favour of a League of Nations, and to define the +necessary nature of that League. He has, in the course of this work, +written a series of articles upon the League and upon _the necessary +sacrifices of preconceptions_ that the idea involves in the London +press. He has also been trying to clear his own mind upon the real +meaning of that ambiguous word "democracy," for which the League is to +make the world "safe." The bulk of this book is made up of these +discussions. For a very considerable number of readers, it may be well +to admit here, it can have no possible interest; they will have come at +these questions themselves from different angles and they will have long +since got to their own conclusions. But there may be others whose angle +of approach may be similar to the writer's, who may have asked some or +most of the questions he has had to ask, and who may be actively +interested in the answers and the working out of the answers he has made +to these questions. For them this book is printed. + +H. G. WELLS. + +_May_, 1918. + +It is a dangerous thing to recommend specific books out of so large and +various a literature as the "League of Nations" idea has already +produced, but the reader who wishes to reach beyond the range of this +book, or who does not like its tone and method, will probably find +something to meet his needs and tastes better in Marburg's "League of +Nations," a straightforward account of the American side of the movement +by the former United States Minister in Belgium, on the one hand, or in +the concluding parts of Mr. Fayle's "Great Settlement" (1915), a frankly +sceptical treatment from the British Imperialist point of view, on the +other. An illuminating discussion, advocating peace treaties rather than +a league, is Sir Walter Phillimore's "Three Centuries of Treaties." Two +excellent books from America, that chance to be on my table, are Mr. +Goldsmith's "League to Enforce Peace" and "A World in Ferment" by +President Nicholas Murray Butler. Mater's "Société des Nations" (Didier) +is an able presentation of a French point of view. Brailsford's "A +League of Nations" is already a classic of the movement in England, and +a very full and thorough book; and Hobson's "Towards International +Government" is a very sympathetic contribution from the English liberal +left; but the reader must understand that these two writers seem +disposed to welcome a peace with an unrevolutionized Germany, an idea to +which, in common with most British people, I am bitterly opposed. +Walsh's "World Rebuilt" is a good exhortation, and Mugge's "Parliament +of Man" is fresh and sane and able. The omnivorous reader will find good +sense and quaint English in Judge Mejdell's "_Jus Gentium_," published +in English by Olsen's of Christiania. There is an active League of +Nations Society in Dublin, as well as the London and Washington ones, +publishing pamphlets and conducting propaganda. All these books and +pamphlets I have named happen to lie upon my study table as I write, but +I have made no systematic effort to get together literature upon the +subject, and probably there are just as many books as good of which I +have never even heard. There must, I am sure, be statements of the +League of Nations idea forthcoming from various religious standpoints, +but I do not know any sufficiently well to recommend them. It is +incredible that neither the Roman Catholic Church, the English Episcopal +Church, nor any Nonconformist body has made any effort as an +organization to forward this essentially religious end of peace on +earth. And also there must be German writings upon this same topic. I +mention these diverse sources not in order to present a bibliography, +but because I should be sorry to have the reader think that this little +book pretends to state _the_ case rather than _a_ case for the League of +Nations. + + + + +CONTENTS + + I. THE WAY TO CONCRETE REALIZATION + + II. THE LEAGUE MUST BE REPRESENTATIVE + + III. THE NECESSARY POWERS OF THE LEAGUE + + IV. THE LABOUR VIEW OF MIDDLE AFRICA + + V. GETTING THE LEAGUE IDEA CLEAR IN RELATION TO + IMPERIALISM + + VI. THE WAR AIMS OF THE WESTERN ALLIES COMPACTLY STATED + + VII. THE FUTURE OF MONARCHY + + VIII. THE PLAIN NECESSITY FOR A LEAGUE + + IX. DEMOCRACY + + X. THE RECENT STRUGGLE FOR PROPORTIONAL REPRESENTATION + IN GREAT BRITAIN + + XI. THE STUDY AND PROPAGANDA OF DEMOCRACY + + + + +IN THE FOURTH YEAR + +THE LEAGUE OF FREE NATIONS + + + + +I + +THE WAY TO CONCRETE REALIZATION + + +More and more frequently does one hear this phrase, The League of +Nations, used to express the outline idea of the new world that will +come out of the war. There can be no doubt that the phrase has taken +hold of the imaginations of great multitudes of people: it is one of +those creative phrases that may alter the whole destiny of mankind. But +as yet it is still a very vague phrase, a cloudy promise of peace. I +make no apology therefore, for casting my discussion of it in the most +general terms. The idea is the idea of united human effort to put an end +to wars; the first practical question, that must precede all others, is +how far can we hope to get to a concrete realization of that? + +But first let me note the fourth word in the second title of this book. +The common talk is of a "League of Nations" merely. I follow the man who +is, more than any other man, the leader of English political thought +throughout the world to-day, President Wilson, in inserting that +significant adjective "Free." We western allies know to-day what is +involved in making bargains with governments that do not stand for their +peoples; we have had all our Russian deal, for example, repudiated and +thrust back upon our hands; and it is clearly in his mind, as it must be +in the minds of all reasonable men, that no mere "scrap of paper," with +just a monarch's or a chancellor's endorsement, is a good enough earnest +of fellowship in the league. It cannot be a diplomatist's league. The +League of Nations, if it is to have any such effect as people seem to +hope from it, must be, in the first place, "understanded of the people." +It must be supported by sustained, deliberate explanation, and by +teaching in school and church and press of the whole mass of all the +peoples concerned. I underline the adjective "Free" here to set aside, +once for all, any possible misconception that this modern idea of a +League of Nations has any affinity to that Holy Alliance of the +diplomatists, which set out to keep the peace of Europe so disastrously +a century ago. + +Later I will discuss the powers of the League. But before I come to +that I would like to say a little about the more general question of its +nature and authority. What sort of gathering will embody it? The +suggestions made range from a mere advisory body, rather like the Hague +convention, which will merely pronounce on the rights and wrongs of any +international conflict, to the idea of a sort of Super-State, a +Parliament of Mankind, a "Super National" Authority, practically taking +over the sovereignty of the existing states and empires of the world. +Most people's ideas of the League fall between these extremes. They want +the League to be something more than an ethical court, they want a +League that will act, but on the other hand they shrink from any loss of +"our independence." There seems to be a conflict here. There is a real +need for many people to tidy up their ideas at this point. We cannot +have our cake and eat it. If association is worth while, there must be +some sacrifice of freedom to association. As a very distinguished +colonial representative said to me the other day: "Here we are talking +of the freedom of small nations and the 'self-determination' of peoples, +and at the same time of the Council of the League of Nations and all +sorts of international controls. Which do we want?" + +The answer, I think, is "Both." It is a matter of more or less, of +getting the best thing at the cost of the second-best. We may want to +relax an old association in order to make a newer and wider one. It is +quite understandable that peoples aware of a distinctive national +character and involved in some big existing political complex, should +wish to disentangle themselves from one group of associations in order +to enter more effectively into another, a greater, and more satisfactory +one. The Finn or the Pole, who has hitherto been a rather reluctant +member of the synthesis of the Russian empire, may well wish to end that +attachment in order to become a free member of a worldwide brotherhood. +The desire for free arrangement is not a desire for chaos. There is such +a thing as untying your parcels in order to pack them better, and I do +not see myself how we can possibly contemplate a great league of freedom +and reason in the world without a considerable amount of such +preliminary dissolution. + +It happens, very fortunately for the world, that a century and a quarter +ago thirteen various and very jealous states worked out the problem of a +Union, and became--after an enormous, exhausting wrangle--the United +States of America. Now the way they solved their riddle was by +delegating and giving over jealously specified sovereign powers and +doing all that was possible to retain the residuum. They remained +essentially sovereign states. New York, Virginia, Massachusetts, for +example, remained legally independent. The practical fusion of these +peoples into one people outran the legal bargain. It was only after long +years of discussion that the point was conceded; it was indeed only +after the Civil War that the implications were fully established, that +there resided a sovereignty in the American people as a whole, as +distinguished from the peoples of the several states. This is a +precedent that every one who talks about the League of Nations should +bear in mind. These states set up a congress and president in Washington +with strictly delegated powers. That congress and president they +delegated to look after certain common interests, to deal with +interstate trade, to deal with foreign powers, to maintain a supreme +court of law. Everything else--education, militia, powers of life and +death--the states retained for themselves. To this day, for instance, +the federal courts and the federal officials have no power to interfere +to protect the lives or property of aliens in any part of the union +outside the district of Columbia. The state governments still see to +that. The federal government has the legal right perhaps to intervene, +but it is still chary of such intervention. And these states of the +American Union were at the outset so independent-spirited that they +would not even adopt a common name. To this day they have no common +name. We have to call them Americans, which is a ridiculous name when we +consider that Canada, Mexico, Peru, Brazil are all of them also in +America. Or else we have to call them Virginians, Californians, New +Englanders, and so forth. Their legal and nominal separateness weighs +nothing against the real fusion that their great league has now made +possible. + +Now, that clearly is a precedent of the utmost value in our schemes for +this council of the League of Nations. We must begin by delegating, as +the States began by delegating. It is a far cry to the time when we +shall talk and think of the Sovereign People of the Earth. That council +of the League of Nations will be a tie as strong, we hope, but certainly +not so close and multiplex as the early tie of the States at Washington. +It will begin by having certain delegated powers and no others. It will +be an "_ad hoc_" body. Later its powers may grow as mankind becomes +accustomed to it. But at first it will have, directly or mediately, all +the powers that seem necessary to restrain the world from war--and +unless I know nothing of patriotic jealousies it will have not a scrap +of power more. The danger is much more that its powers will be +insufficient than that they will be excessive. Of that later. What I +want to discuss here now is the constitution of this delegated body. I +want to discuss that first in order to set aside out of the discussion +certain fantastic notions that will otherwise get very seriously in our +way. Fantastic as they are, they have played a large part in reducing +the Hague Tribunal to an ineffective squeak amidst the thunders of this +war. + +A number of gentlemen scheming out world unity in studies have begun +their proposals with the simple suggestion that each sovereign power +should send one member to the projected parliament of mankind. This has +a pleasant democratic air; one sovereign state, one vote. Now let us run +over a list of sovereign states and see to what this leads us. We find +our list includes the British Empire, with a population of four hundred +millions, of which probably half can read and write some language or +other; Bogota with a population of a million, mostly poets; Hayti with a +population of a million and a third, almost entirely illiterate and +liable at any time to further political disruption; Andorra with a +population of four or five thousand souls. The mere suggestion of equal +representation between such "powers" is enough to make the British +Empire burst into a thousand (voting) fragments. A certain concession +to population, one must admit, was made by the theorists; a state of +over three millions got, if I remember rightly, two delegates, and if +over twenty, three, and some of the small states were given a kind of +intermittent appearance, they only came every other time or something of +that sort; but at The Hague things still remained in such a posture that +three or four minute and backward states could outvote the British +Empire or the United States. Therein lies the clue to the insignificance +of The Hague. Such projects as these are idle projects and we must put +them out of our heads; they are against nature; the great nations will +not suffer them for a moment. + +But when we dismiss this idea of representation by states, we are left +with the problem of the proportion of representation and of relative +weight in the Council of the League on our hands. It is the sort of +problem that appeals terribly to the ingenious. We cannot solve it by +making population a basis, because that will give a monstrous importance +to the illiterate millions of India and China. Ingenious statistical +schemes have been framed in which the number of university graduates and +the steel output come in as multipliers, but for my own part I am not +greatly impressed by statistical schemes. At the risk of seeming +something of a Prussian, I would like to insist upon certain brute +facts. The business of the League of Nations is to keep the peace of the +world and nothing else. No power will ever dare to break the peace of +the world if the powers that are capable of making war under modern +conditions say "_No_." And there are only four powers certainly capable +at the present time of producing the men and materials needed for a +modern war in sufficient abundance to go on fighting: Britain, France, +Germany, and the United States. There are three others which are very +doubtfully capable: Italy, Japan, and Austria. Russia I will mark--it is +all that one can do with Russia just now--with a note of interrogation. +Some day China may be war capable--I hope never, but it is a +possibility. Personally I don't think that any other power on earth +would have a ghost of a chance to resist the will--if it could be an +honestly united will--of the first-named four. All the rest fight by the +sanction of and by association with these leaders. They can only fight +because of the split will of the war-complete powers. Some are forced to +fight by that very division. + +No one can vie with me in my appreciation of the civilization of +Switzerland, Sweden, or Holland, but the plain fact of the case is that +such powers are absolutely incapable of uttering an effective protest +against war. Far less so are your Haytis and Liberias. The preservation +of the world-peace rests with the great powers and with the great powers +alone. If they have the will for peace, it is peace. If they have not, +it is conflict. The four powers I have named can now, if they see fit, +dictate the peace of the world for ever. + +Let us keep our grip on that. Peace is the business of the great powers +primarily. Steel output, university graduates, and so forth may be +convenient secondary criteria, may be useful ways of measuring war +efficiency, but the meat and substance of the Council of the League of +Nations must embody the wills of those leading peoples. They can give an +enduring peace to the little nations and the whole of mankind. It can +arrive in no other way. So I take it that the Council of an ideal League +of Nations must consist chiefly of the representatives of the great +belligerent powers, and that the representatives of the minor allies and +of the neutrals--essential though their presence will be--must not be +allowed to swamp the voices of these larger masses of mankind. + +And this state of affairs may come about more easily than logical, +statistical-minded people may be disposed to think. Our first impulse, +when we discuss the League of Nations idea, is to think of some very +elaborate and definite scheme of members on the model of existing +legislative bodies, called together one hardly knows how, and sitting +in a specially built League of Nations Congress House. All schemes are +more methodical than reality. We think of somebody, learned and +"expert," in spectacles, with a thin clear voice, reading over the +"Projected Constitution of a League of Nations" to an attentive and +respectful Peace Congress. But there is a more natural way to a league +than that. Instead of being made like a machine, the League of Nations +may come about like a marriage. The Peace Congress that must sooner or +later meet may itself become, after a time, the Council of a League of +Nations. The League of Nations may come upon us by degrees, almost +imperceptibly. I am strongly obsessed by the idea that that Peace +Congress will necessarily become--and that it is highly desirable that +it should become--a most prolonged and persistent gathering. Why should +it not become at length a permanent gathering, inviting representatives +to aid its deliberations from the neutral states, and gradually +adjusting itself to conditions of permanency? + +I can conceive no such Peace Congress as those that have settled up +after other wars, settling up after this war. Not only has the war been +enormously bigger than any other war, but it has struck deeper at the +foundations of social and economic life. I doubt if we begin to realize +how much of the old system is dead to-day, how much has to be remade. +Since the beginnings of history there has been a credible promise of +gold payments underneath our financial arrangements. It is now an +incredible promise. The value of a pound note waves about while you look +at it. What will happen to it when peace comes no man can tell. Nor what +will happen to the mark. The rouble has gone into the Abyss. Our giddy +money specialists clutch their handfuls of paper and watch it flying +down the steep. Much as we may hate the Germans, some of us will have to +sit down with some of the enemy to arrange a common scheme for the +preservation of credit in money. And I presume that it is not proposed +to end this war in a wild scramble of buyers for such food as remains in +the world. There is a shortage now, a greater shortage ahead of the +world, and there will be shortages of supply at the source and transport +in food and all raw materials for some years to come. The Peace Congress +will have to sit and organize a share-out and distribution and +reorganization of these shattered supplies. It will have to Rhondda the +nations. Probably, too, we shall have to deal collectively with a +pestilence before we are out of the mess. Then there are such little +jobs as the reconstruction of Belgium and Serbia. There are considerable +rectifications of boundaries to be made. There are fresh states to be +created, in Poland and Armenia for example. About all these smaller +states, new and old, that the peace must call into being, there must be +a system of guarantees of the most difficult and complicated sort. + +I do not see the Press Congress getting through such matters as these in +a session of weeks or months. The idea the Germans betrayed at Brest, +that things were going to be done in the Versailles fashion by great +moustached heroes frowning and drawing lines with a large black +soldierly thumbnail across maps, is--old-fashioned. They have made their +eastern treaties, it is true, in this mode, but they are still looking +for some really responsible government to keep them now that they are +made. From first to last clearly the main peace negotiations are going +to follow unprecedented courses. This preliminary discussion of war aims +by means of great public speeches, that has been getting more and more +explicit now for many months, is quite unprecedented. Apparently all the +broad preliminaries are to be stated and accepted in the sight of all +mankind before even an armistice occurs on the main, the western front. +The German diplomatists hate this process. So do a lot of ours. So do +some of the diplomatic Frenchmen. The German junkers are dodging and +lying, they are fighting desperately to keep back everything they +possibly can for the bargaining and bullying and table-banging of the +council chamber, but that way there is no peace. And when at last +Germany says snip sufficiently to the Allies' snap, and the Peace +Congress begins, it will almost certainly be as unprecedented as its +prelude. Before it meets, the broad lines of the settlement will have +been drawn plainly with the approval of the mass of mankind. + + + + +II + +THE LEAGUE MUST BE REPRESENTATIVE + + +A Peace Congress, growing permanent, then, may prove to be the most +practical and convenient embodiment of this idea of a League of Nations +that has taken possession of the imagination of the world. A most +necessary preliminary to a Peace Congress, with such possibilities +inherent in it, must obviously be the meeting and organization of a +preliminary League of the Allied Nations. That point I would now +enlarge. + +Half a world peace is better than none. There seems no reason whatever +why the world should wait for the Central Powers before it begins this +necessary work. Mr. McCurdy has been asking lately, "Why not the League +of Nations _now_?" That is a question a great number of people would +like to echo very heartily. The nearer the Allies can come to a League +of Free Nations before the Peace Congress the more prospect there is +that that body will approximate in nature to a League of Nations for the +whole world. + +In one most unexpected quarter the same idea has been endorsed. The +King's Speech on the prorogation of Parliament this February was one of +the most remarkable royal utterances that have ever been made from the +British throne. There was less of the old-fashioned King and more of the +modern President about it than the most republican-minded of us could +have anticipated. For the first time in a King's Speech we heard of the +"democracies" of the world, and there was a clear claim that the Allies +at present fighting the Central Powers did themselves constitute a +League of Nations. + +But we must admit that at present they do so only in a very rhetorical +sense. There is no real council of empowered representatives, and +nothing in the nature of a united front has been prepared. Unless we +provide beforehand for something more effective, Italy, France, the +United States, Japan, and this country will send separate groups of +representatives, with separate instructions, unequal status, and very +probably conflicting views upon many subjects, to the ultimate peace +discussions. It is quite conceivable--it is a very serious danger--that +at this discussion skilful diplomacy on the part of the Central Powers +may open a cleft among the Allies that has never appeared during the +actual war. Have the British settled, for example, with Italy and +France for the supply of metallurgical coal after the war? Those +countries must have it somehow. Across the board Germany can make some +tempting bids in that respect. Or take another question: Have the +British arrived at common views with France, Belgium, Portugal, and +South Africa about the administration of Central Africa? Suppose Germany +makes sudden proposals affecting native labour that win over the +Portuguese and the Boers? There are a score of such points upon which we +shall find the Allied representatives haggling with each other in the +presence of the enemy if they have not been settled beforehand. + +It is the plainest common sense that we should be fixing up all such +matters with our Allies now, and knitting together a common front for +the final deal with German Imperialism. And these things are not to be +done effectively and bindingly nowadays by official gentlemen in +discreet undertones. They need to be done with the full knowledge and +authority of the participating peoples. + +The Russian example has taught the world the instability of diplomatic +bargains in a time of such fundamental issues as the present. There is +little hope and little strength in hole-and-corner bargainings between +the officials or politicians who happen to be at the head of this or +that nation for the time being. Our Labour people will not stand this +sort of thing and they will not be bound by it. There will be the plain +danger of repudiation for all arrangements made in that fashion. A +gathering of somebody or other approved by the British Foreign Office +and of somebody or other approved by the French Foreign Office, of +somebody with vague powers from America, and so on and so on, will be an +entirely ineffective gathering. But that is the sort of gathering of the +Allies we have been having hitherto, and that is the sort of gathering +that is likely to continue unless there is a considerable expression of +opinion in favour of something more representative and responsible. + +Even our Foreign Office must be aware that in every country in the world +there is now bitter suspicion of and keen hostility towards merely +diplomatic representatives. One of the most significant features of the +time is the evident desire of the Labour movement in every European +country to take part in a collateral conference of Labour that shall +meet when and where the Peace Congress does and deliberate and comment +on its proceedings. For a year now the demand of the masses for such a +Labour conference has been growing. It marks a distrust of officialdom +whose intensity officialdom would do well to ponder. But it is the +natural consequence of, it is the popular attempt at a corrective to, +the aloofness and obscurity that have hitherto been so evil a +characteristic of international negotiations. I do not think Labour and +intelligent people anywhere are going to be fobbed off with an +old-fashioned diplomatic gathering as being that League of Free Nations +they demand. + +On the other hand, I do not contemplate this bi-cameral conference with +the diplomatists trying to best and humbug the Labour people as well as +each other and the Labour people getting more and more irritated, +suspicious, and extremist, with anything but dread. The Allied countries +must go into the conference _solid_, and they can only hope to do that +by heeding and incorporating Labour ideas before they come to the +conference. The only alternative that I can see to this unsatisfactory +prospect of a Peace Congress sitting side by side with a dissentient and +probably revolutionary Labour and Socialist convention--both gatherings +with unsatisfactory credentials contradicting one another and drifting +to opposite extremes--is that the delegates the Allied Powers send to +the Peace Conference (the same delegates which, if they are wise, they +will have previously sent to a preliminary League of Allied Nations to +discuss their common action at the Peace Congress), should be elected +_ad hoc_ upon democratic lines. + +I know that this will be a very shocking proposal to all our able +specialists in foreign policy. They will talk at once about the +"ignorance" of people like the Labour leaders and myself about such +matters, and so on. What do we know of the treaty of so-and-so that was +signed in the year seventeen something?--and so on. To which the answer +is that we ought not to have been kept ignorant of these things. A day +will come when the Foreign Offices of all countries will have to +recognize that what the people do not know of international agreements +"ain't facts." A secret treaty is only binding upon the persons in the +secret. But what I, as a sample common person, am not ignorant of is +this: that the business that goes on at the Peace Congress will either +make or mar the lives of everyone I care for in the world, and that +somehow, by representative or what not, _I have to be there_. The Peace +Congress deals with the blood and happiness of my children and the +future of my world. Speaking as one of the hundreds of millions of "rank +outsiders" in public affairs, I do not mean to respect any peace treaty +that may end this war unless I am honestly represented at its making. I +think everywhere there is a tendency in people to follow the Russian +example to this extent and to repudiate bargains in which they have had +no voice. + +I do not see that any genuine realization of the hopes with which all +this talk about the League of Nations is charged can be possible, unless +the two bodies which should naturally lead up to the League of +Nations--that is to say, firstly, the Conference of the Allies, and then +the Peace Congress--are elected bodies, speaking confidently for the +whole mass of the peoples behind them. It may be a troublesome thing to +elect them, but it will involve much more troublesome consequences if +they are not elected. This, I think, is one of the considerations for +which many people's minds are still unprepared. But unless we are to +have over again after all this bloodshed and effort some such "Peace +with Honour" foolery as we had performed by "Dizzy" and Salisbury at +that fatal Berlin Conference in which this present war was begotten, we +must sit up to this novel proposal of electoral representation in the +peace negotiations. Something more than common sense binds our statesmen +to this idea. They are morally pledged to it. President Wilson and our +British and French spokesmen alike have said over and over again that +they want to deal not with the Hohenzollerns but with the German people. +In other words, we have demanded elected representatives from the German +people with whom we may deal, and how can we make a demand of that sort +unless we on our part are already prepared to send our own elected +representatives to meet them? It is up to us to indicate by our own +practice how we on our side, professing as we do to act for democracies, +to make democracy safe on the earth, and so on, intend to meet this new +occasion. + +Yet it has to be remarked that, so far, not one of the League of Nations +projects I have seen have included any practicable proposals for the +appointment of delegates either to that ultimate body or to its two +necessary predecessors, the Council of the Allies and the Peace +Congress. It is evident that here, again, we are neglecting to get on +with something of very urgent importance. I will venture, therefore, to +say a word or two here about the possible way in which a modern +community may appoint its international representatives. + +And here, again, I turn from any European precedents to that political +outcome of the British mind, the Constitution of the United States. +(Because we must always remember that while our political institutions +in Britain are a patch-up of feudalism, Tudor, Stuart, and Hanoverian +monarchist traditions and urgent merely European necessities, a patch-up +that has been made quasi-democratic in a series of after-thoughts, the +American Constitution is a real, deliberate creation of the +English-speaking intelligence.) The President of the United States, +then, we have to note, is elected in a most extraordinary way, and in a +way that has now the justification of very great successes indeed. On +several occasions the United States has achieved indisputable greatness +in its Presidents, and very rarely has it failed to set up very leaderly +and distinguished men. It is worth while, therefore, to inquire how this +President is elected. He is neither elected directly by the people nor +appointed by any legislative body. He is chosen by a special college +elected by the people. This college exists to elect him; it meets, +elects him, and disperses. (I will not here go into the preliminary +complications that makes the election of a President follow upon a +preliminary election of two Presidential Candidates. The point I am +making here is that he is a specially selected man chosen _ad hoc_.) Is +there any reason why we should, not adopt this method in this new +necessity we are under of sending representatives, first, to the long +overdue and necessary Allied Council, then to the Peace Congress, and +then to the hoped-for Council of the League of Nations? + +I am anxious here only to start for discussion the idea of an electoral +representation of the nations upon these three bodies that must in +succession set themselves to define, organize, and maintain the peace +of the world. I do not wish to complicate the question by any too +explicit advocacy of methods of election or the like. In the United +States this college which elects the President is elected on the same +register of voters as that which elects the Senate and Congress, and at +the same time. But I suppose if we are to give a popular mandate to the +three or five or twelve or twenty (or whatever number it is) men to whom +we are going to entrust our Empire's share in this great task of the +peace negotiations, it will be more decisive of the will of the whole +nation if the college that had to appoint them is elected at a special +election. I suppose that the great British common-weals over-seas, at +present not represented in Parliament, would also and separately at the +same time elect colleges to appoint their representatives. I suppose +there would be at least one Indian representative elected, perhaps by +some special electoral conference of Indian princes and leading men. The +chief defect of the American Presidential election is that as the old +single vote method of election is employed it has to be fought on purely +party lines. He is the select man of the Democratic half, or of the +Republican half of the nation. He is not the select man of the whole +nation. It would give a far more representative character to the +electoral college if it could be elected by fair modern methods, if for +this particular purpose parliamentary constituencies could be grouped +and the clean scientific method of proportional representation could be +used. But I suppose the party politician in this, as in most of our +affairs, must still have his pound of our flesh--and we must reckon with +him later for the bloodshed. + +These are all, however, secondary considerations. The above paragraph +is, so to speak, in the nature of a footnote. The fundamental matter, if +we are to get towards any realization of this ideal of a world peace +sustained by a League of Nations, is to get straight away to the +conception of direct special electoral mandates in this matter. At +present all the political luncheon and dinner parties in London are busy +with smirking discussions of "Who is to go?" The titled ladies are +particularly busy. They are talking about it as if we poor, ignorant, +tax-paying, blood-paying common people did not exist. "L. G.," they say, +will of course "_insist_ on going," but there is much talk of the "Old +Man." People are getting quite nice again about "the Old Man's +feelings." It would be such a pretty thing to send him. But if "L. G." +goes we want him to go with something more than a backing of intrigues +and snatched authority. And I do not think the mass of people have any +enthusiasm for the Old Man. It is difficult again--by the dinner-party +standards--to know how Lord Curzon can be restrained. But we common +people do not care if he is restrained to the point of extinction. +Probably there will be nobody who talks or understands Russian among the +British representatives. But, of course, the British governing class has +washed its hands of the Russians. They were always very difficult, and +now they are "impossible, my dear, perfectly impossible." + +No! That sort of thing will not do now. This Peace Congress is too big a +job for party politicians and society and county families. The bulk of +British opinion cannot go on being represented for ever by President +Wilson. We cannot always look to the Americans to express our ideas and +do our work for democracy. The foolery of the Berlin Treaty must not be +repeated. We cannot have another popular Prime Minister come triumphing +back to England with a gross of pink spectacles--through which we may +survey the prospect of the next great war. The League of Free Nations +means something very big and solid; it is not a rhetorical phrase to be +used to pacify a restless, distressed, and anxious public, and to be +sneered out of existence when that use is past. When the popular mind +now demands a League of Free Nations it demands a reality. The only way +to that reality is through the direct participation of the nation as a +whole in the settlement, and that is possible only through the direct +election for this particular issue of representative and responsible +men. + + + + +III + +THE NECESSARY POWERS OF THE LEAGUE + + +If this phrase, "the League of Free Nations," is to signify anything +more than a rhetorical flourish, then certain consequences follow that +have to be faced now. No man can join a partnership and remain an +absolutely free man. You cannot bind yourself to do this and not to do +that and to consult and act with your associates in certain +eventualities without a loss of your sovereign freedom. People in this +country and in France do not seem to be sitting up manfully to these +necessary propositions. + +If this League of Free Nations is really to be an effectual thing for +the preservation of the peace of the world it must possess power and +exercise power, powers must be delegated to it. Otherwise it will only +help, with all other half-hearted good resolutions, to pave the road of +mankind to hell. Nothing in all the world so strengthens evil as the +half-hearted attempts of good to make good. + +It scarcely needs repeating here--it has been so generally said--that +no League of Free Nations can hope to keep the peace unless every member +of it is indeed a free member, represented by duly elected persons. +Nobody, of course, asks to "dictate the internal government" of any +country to that country. If Germans, for instance, like to wallow in +absolutism after the war they can do so. But if they or any other +peoples wish to take part in a permanent League of Free Nations it is +only reasonable to insist that so far as their representatives on the +council go they must be duly elected under conditions that are by the +standards of the general league satisfactorily democratic. That seems to +be only the common sense of the matter. Every court is a potential +conspiracy against freedom, and the League cannot tolerate merely court +appointments. If courts are to exist anywhere in the new world of the +future, they will be wise to stand aloof from international meddling. Of +course if a people, after due provision for electoral representation, +choose to elect dynastic candidates, that is an altogether different +matter. + +And now let us consider what are the powers that must be delegated to +this proposed council of a League of Free Nations, if that is really +effectually to prevent war and to organize and establish and make peace +permanent in the world. + +Firstly, then, it must be able to adjudicate upon all international +disputes whatever. Its first function must clearly be that. Before a war +can break out there must be the possibility of a world decision upon its +rights and wrongs. The League, therefore, will have as its primary +function to maintain a Supreme Court, whose decisions will be final, +before which every sovereign power may appear as plaintiff against any +other sovereign power or group of powers. The plea, I take it, will +always be in the form that the defendant power or powers is engaged in +proceedings "calculated to lead to a breach of the peace," and calling +upon the League for an injunction against such proceedings. I suppose +the proceedings that can be brought into court in this way fall under +such headings as these that follow; restraint of trade by injurious +tariffs or suchlike differentiations or by interference with through +traffic, improper treatment of the subjects _or their property_ (here I +put a query) of the plaintiff nation in the defendant state, aggressive +military or naval preparation, disorder spreading over the frontier, +trespass (as, for instance, by airships), propaganda of disorder, +espionage, permitting the organization of injurious activities, such as +raids or piracy. Clearly all such actions must come within the purview +of any world-supreme court organized to prevent war. But in addition +there is a more doubtful and delicate class of case, arising out of the +discontent of patches of one race or religion in the dominions of +another. How far may the supreme court of the world attend to grievances +between subject and sovereign? + +Such cases are highly probable, and no large, vague propositions about +the "self-determination" of peoples can meet all the cases. In +Macedonia, for instance, there is a jumble of Albanian, Serbian, +Bulgarian, Greek and Rumanian villages always jostling one another and +maintaining an intense irritation between the kindred nations close at +hand. And quite a large number of areas and cities in the world, it has +to be remembered, are not homogeneous at all. Will the great nations of +the world have the self-abnegation to permit a scattered subject +population to appeal against the treatment of its ruling power to the +Supreme Court? This is a much more serious interference with sovereignty +than intervention in an external quarrel. Could a Greek village in +Bulgarian Macedonia plead in the Supreme Court? Could the Armenians in +Constantinople, or the Jews in Roumania, or the Poles in West Prussia, +or the negroes in Georgia, or the Indians in the Transvaal make such an +appeal? Could any Indian population in India appeal? Personally I should +like to see the power of the Supreme Court extend as far as this. I do +not see how we can possibly prevent a kindred nation pleading for the +scattered people of its own race and culture, or any nation presenting a +case on behalf of some otherwise unrepresented people--the United +States, for example, presenting a case on behalf of the Armenians. But I +doubt if many people have made up their minds yet to see the powers of +the Supreme Court of the League of Nations go so far as this. I doubt +if, to begin with, it will be possible to provide for these cases. I +would like to see it done, but I doubt if the majority of the sovereign +peoples concerned will reconcile their national pride with the idea, at +least so far as their own subject populations go. + +Here, you see, I do no more than ask a question. It is a difficult one, +and it has to be answered before we can clear the way to the League of +Free Nations. + +But the Supreme Court, whether it is to have the wider or the narrower +scope here suggested, would be merely the central function of the League +of Free Nations. Behind the decisions of the Supreme Court must lie +power. And here come fresh difficulties for patriotic digestions. The +armies and navies of the world must be at the disposal of the League of +Free Nations, and that opens up a new large area of delegated authority. +The first impulse of any power disposed to challenge the decisions of +the Supreme Court will be, of course, to arm; and it is difficult to +imagine how the League of Free Nations can exercise any practical +authority unless it has power to restrain such armament. The League of +Free Nations must, in fact, if it is to be a working reality, have power +to define and limit the military and naval and aerial equipment of every +country in the world. This means something more than a restriction of +state forces. It must have power and freedom to investigate the military +and naval and aerial establishments of all its constituent powers. It +must also have effective control over every armament industry. And +armament industries are not always easy to define. Are aeroplanes, for +example, armament? Its powers, I suggest, must extend even to a +restraint upon the belligerent propaganda which is the natural +advertisement campaign of every armament industry. It must have the +right, for example, to raise the question of the proprietorship of +newspapers by armament interests. Disarmament is, in fact, a necessary +factor of any League of Free Nations, and you cannot have disarmament +unless you are prepared to see the powers of the council of the League +extend thus far. The very existence of the League presupposes that it +and it alone is to have and to exercise military force. Any other +belligerency or preparation or incitement to belligerency becomes +rebellion, and any other arming a threat of rebellion, in a world League +of Free Nations. + +But here, again, has the general mind yet thought out all that is +involved in this proposition? In all the great belligerent countries the +armament industries are now huge interests with enormous powers. Krupp's +business alone is as powerful a thing in Germany as the Crown. In every +country a heavily subsidized "patriotic" press will fight desperately +against giving powers so extensive and thorough as those here suggested +to an international body. So long, of course, as the League of Free +Nations remains a project in the air, without body or parts, such a +press will sneer at it gently as "Utopian," and even patronize it +kindly. But so soon as the League takes on the shape its general +proposition makes logically necessary, the armament interest will take +fright. Then it is we shall hear the drum patriotic loud in defence of +the human blood trade. Are we to hand over these most intimate affairs +of ours to "a lot of foreigners"? Among these "foreigners" who will be +appealed to to terrify the patriotic souls of the British will be the +"Americans." Are we men of English blood and tradition to see our +affairs controlled by such "foreigners" as Wilson, Lincoln, Webster and +Washington? Perish the thought! When they might be controlled by +Disraelis, Wettins, Mount-Battens, and what not! And so on and so on. +Krupp's agents and the agents of the kindred firms in Great Britain and +France will also be very busy with the national pride of France. In +Germany they have already created a colossal suspicion of England. + +Here is a giant in the path.... + +But let us remember that it is only necessary to defeat the propaganda +of this vile and dangerous industry in four great countries. And for the +common citizen, touched on the tenderest part of his patriotic +susceptibilities, there are certain irrefutable arguments. Whether the +ways of the world in the years to come are to be the paths of peace or +the paths of war is not going to alter this essential fact, that the +great educated world communities, with a social and industrial +organization on a war-capable scale, are going to dominate human +affairs. Whether they spend their power in killing or in educating and +creating, France, Germany, however much we may resent it, the two great +English-speaking communities, Italy, Japan China, and presently perhaps +a renascent Russia, are jointly going to control the destinies of +mankind. Whether that joint control comes through arms or through the +law is a secondary consideration. To refuse to bring our affairs into a +common council does not make us independent of foreigners. It makes us +more dependent upon them, as a very little consideration will show. + +I am suggesting here that the League of Free Nations shall practically +control the army, navy, air forces, and armament industry of every +nation in the world. What is the alternative to that? To do as we +please? No, the alternative is that any malignant country will be free +to force upon all the rest just the maximum amount of armament it +chooses to adopt. Since 1871 France, we say, has been free in military +matters. What has been the value of that freedom? The truth is, she has +been the bond-slave of Germany, bound to watch Germany as a slave +watches a master, bound to launch submarine for submarine and cast gun +for gun, to sweep all her youth into her army, to subdue her trade, her +literature, her education, her whole life to the necessity of +preparations imposed upon her by her drill-master over the Rhine. And +Michael, too, has been a slave to his imperial master for the self-same +reason, for the reason that Germany and France were both so proudly +sovereign and independent. Both countries have been slaves to Kruppism +and Zabernism--_because they were sovereign and free_! So it will always +be. So long as patriotic cant can keep the common man jealous of +international controls over his belligerent possibilities, so long will +he be the helpless slave of the foreign threat, and "Peace" remain a +mere name for the resting phase between wars. + +But power over the military resources of the world is by no means the +limit of the necessary powers of an effective League of Free Nations. +There are still more indigestible implications in the idea, and, since +they have got to be digested sooner or later if civilization is not to +collapse, there is no reason why we should not begin to bite upon them +now. I was much interested to read the British press upon the alleged +proposal of the German Chancellor that we should give up (presumably to +Germany) Gibraltar, Malta, Egypt, and suchlike key possessions. It +seemed to excite several of our politicians extremely. I read over the +German Chancellor's speech very carefully, so far as it was available, +and it is clear that he did not propose anything of the sort. Wilfully +or blindly our press and our demagogues screamed over a false issue. The +Chancellor was defending the idea of the Germans remaining in Belgium +and Lorraine because of the strategic and economic importance of those +regions to Germany, and he was arguing that before we English got into +such a feverish state of indignation about that, we should first ask +ourselves what we were doing in Gibraltar, etc., etc. That is a +different thing altogether. And it is an argument that is not to be +disposed of by misrepresentation. The British have to think hard over +this quite legitimate German _tu quoque_. It is no good getting into a +patriotic bad temper and refusing to answer that question. We British +people are so persuaded of the purity and unselfishness with which we +discharge our imperial responsibilities, we have been so trained in +imperial self-satisfaction, we know so certainly that all our subject +nations call us blessed, that it is a little difficult for us to see +just how the fact that we are, for example, so deeply rooted in Egypt +looks to an outside intelligence. Of course the German imperialist idea +is a wicked and aggressive idea, as Lord Robert Cecil has explained; +they want to set up all over the earth coaling stations and strategic +points, _on the pattern of ours._ Well, they argue, we are only trying +to do what you British have done. If we are not to do so--because it is +aggression and so on and so on--is not the time ripe for you to make +some concessions to the public opinion of the world? That is the German +argument. Either, they say, tolerate this idea of a Germany with +advantageous posts and possessions round and about the earth, or +reconsider your own position. + +Well, at the risk of rousing much patriotic wrath, I must admit that I +think we _have_ to reconsider our position. Our argument is that in +India, Egypt, Africa and elsewhere, we stand for order and civilization, +we are the trustees of freedom, the agents of knowledge and efficiency. +On the whole the record of British rule is a pretty respectable one; I +am not ashamed of our record. Nevertheless _the case is altering_. + +It is quite justifiable for us British, no doubt, if we do really play +the part of honest trustees, to remain in Egypt and in India under +existing conditions; it is even possible for us to glance at the +helplessness of Arabia, Palestine, and Mesopotamia, as yet incapable of +self-government, helpless as new-born infants. But our case, our only +justifiable case, is that we are trustees because there is no better +trustee possible. And the creation of a council of a League of Free +Nations would be like the creation of a Public Trustee for the world. +The creation of a League of Free Nations must necessarily be the +creation of an authority that may legitimately call existing empires to +give an account of their stewardship. For an unchecked fragmentary +control of tropical and chaotic regions, it substitutes the possibility +of a general authority. And this must necessarily alter the problems not +only of the politically immature nations and the control of the tropics, +but also of the regulation of the sea ways, the regulation of the coming +air routes, and the distribution of staple products in the world. I will +not go in detail over the items of this list, because the reader can +fill in the essentials of the argument from what has gone before. I +want simply to suggest how widely this project of a League of Free +Nations swings when once you have let it swing freely in your mind! And +if you do not let it swing freely in your mind, it remains nothing--a +sentimental gesture. + +The plain truth is that the League of Free Nations, if it is to be a +reality, if it is to effect a real pacification of the world, must do no +less than supersede Empire; it must end not only this new German +imperialism, which is struggling so savagely and powerfully to possess +the earth, but it must also wind up British imperialism and French +imperialism, which do now so largely and inaggressively possess it. And, +moreover, this idea queries the adjective of Belgian, Portuguese, +French, and British Central Africa alike, just as emphatically as it +queries "German." Still more effectually does the League forbid those +creations of the futurist imagination, the imperialism of Italy and +Greece, which make such threatening gestures at the world of our +children. Are these incompatibilities understood? Until people have +faced the clear antagonism that exists between imperialism and +internationalism, they have not begun to suspect the real significance +of this project of the League of Free Nations. They have not begun to +realize that peace also has its price. + + + + +IV + +THE LABOUR VIEW OF MIDDLE AFRICA + + +I was recently privileged to hear the views of one of those titled and +influential ladies--with a general education at about the fifth standard +level, plus a little French, German, Italian, and music--who do so much +to make our England what it is at the present time, upon the Labour idea +of an international control of "tropical" Africa. She was loud and +derisive about the "ignorance" of Labour. "What can _they_ know about +foreign politics?" she said, with gestures to indicate her conception of +_them_. + +I was moved to ask her what she would do about Africa. "Leave it to Lord +Robert!" she said, leaning forward impressively. "_Leave it to the +people who know._" + +Unhappily I share the evident opinion of Labour that we are not blessed +with any profoundly wise class of people who have definite knowledge and +clear intentions about Africa, that these "_people who know_" are mostly +a pretentious bluff, and so, in spite of a very earnest desire to take +refuge in my "ignorance" from the burthen of thinking about African +problems, I find myself obliged, like most other people, to do so. In +the interests of our country, our children, and the world, we common +persons _have_ to have opinions about these matters. A muddle-up in +Africa this year may kill your son and mine in the course of the next +decade. I know this is not a claim to be interested in things African, +such as the promoter of a tropical railway or an oil speculator has; +still it is a claim. And for the life of me I cannot see what is wrong +about the Labour proposals, or what alternative exists that can give +even a hope of peace in and about Africa. + +The gist of the Labour proposal is an international control of Africa +between the Zambesi and the Sahara. This has been received with loud +protests by men whose work one is obliged to respect, by Sir Harry, +Johnston, for example, and Sir Alfred Sharpe, and with something +approaching a shriek of hostility by Mr. Cunninghame Graham. But I think +these gentlemen have not perhaps given the Labour proposal quite as much +attention as they have spent upon the details of African conditions. I +think they have jumped to conclusions at the mere sound of the word +"international." There have been some gross failures in the past to set +up international administrations in Africa and the Near East. And these +gentlemen think at once of some new Congo administration and of +nondescript police forces commanded by cosmopolitan adventurers. (See +Joseph Conrad's "Out-post of Civilization.") They think of +internationalism with greedy Great Powers in the background outside the +internationalized area, intriguing to create disorder and mischief with +ideas of an ultimate annexation. But I doubt if such nightmares do any +sort of justice to the Labour intention. + +And the essential thing I would like to point out to these authorities +upon African questions is that not one of them even hints at any other +formula which covers the broad essentials of the African riddle. + +What are these broad essentials? What are the ends that _must_ be +achieved if Africa is not to continue a festering sore in the body of +mankind? + +The first most obvious danger of Africa is the militarization of the +black. General Smuts has pointed this out plainly. The negro makes a +good soldier; he is hardy, he stands the sea, and he stands cold. (There +was a negro in the little party which reached the North Pole.) It is +absolutely essential to the peace of the world that there should be no +arming of the negroes beyond the minimum necessary for the policing of +Africa. But how is this to be watched and prevented if there is no +overriding body representing civilization to say "Stop" to the +beginnings of any such militarization? I do not see how Sir Harry +Johnston, Sir Alfred Sharpe, and the other authorities can object to at +least an international African "Disarmament Commission" to watch, warn, +and protest. At least they must concede that. + +But in practice this involves something else. A practical consequence of +this disarmament idea must be an effective control of the importation of +arms into the "tutelage" areas of Africa. That rat at the dykes of +civilization, that ultimate expression of political scoundrelism, the +Gun-Runner, has to be kept under and stamped out in Africa as +everywhere. A Disarmament Commission that has no forces available to +prevent the arms trade will be just another Hague Convention, just +another vague, well-intentioned, futile gesture. + +And closely connected with this function of controlling the arms trade +is another great necessity of Africa under "tutelage," and that is the +necessity of a common collective agreement not to demoralize the native +population. That demoralization, physical and moral, has already gone +far. The whole negro population of Africa is now rotten with diseases +introduced by Arabs and Europeans during the last century, and such +African statesmen as Sir Harry Johnston are eloquent upon the necessity +of saving the blacks--and the baser whites--from the effects of trade +gin and similar alluring articles of commerce. Moreover, from Africa +there is always something new in the way of tropical diseases, and +presently Africa, if we let it continue to fester as it festers now, may +produce an epidemic that will stand exportation to a temperate climate. +A bacterium that may kill you or me in some novel and disgusting way may +even now be developing in some Congo muck-heap. So here is the need for +another Commission to look after the Health of Africa. That, too, should +be of authority over all the area of "tutelage" Africa. It is no good +stamping out infectious disease in Nyasaland while it is being bred in +Portuguese East Africa. And if there is a Disarmament Commission already +controlling the importation of arms, why should not that body also +control at the same time the importation of trade gin and similar +delicacies, and direct quarantine and such-like health regulations? + +But there is another question in Africa upon which our "ignorant" Labour +class is far better informed than our dear old eighteenth-century upper +class which still squats so firmly in our Foreign and Colonial Offices, +and that is the question of forced labour. We cannot tolerate any +possibilities of the enslavement of black Africa. Long ago the United +States found out the impossibility of having slave labour working in the +same system with white. To cure that anomaly cost the United States a +long and bloody war. The slave-owner, the exploiter of the black, +becomes a threat and a nuisance to any white democracy. He brings back +his loot to corrupt Press and life at home. What happened in America in +the midst of the last century between Federals and Confederates must not +happen again on a larger scale between white Europe and middle Africa. +Slavery in Africa, open or disguised, whether enforced by the lash or +brought about by iniquitous land-stealing, strikes at the home and +freedom of every European worker--_and Labour knows this_. + +But how are we to prevent the enslavement and economic exploitation of +the blacks if we have no general watcher of African conditions? We want +a common law for Africa, a general Declaration of Rights, of certain +elementary rights, and we want a common authority to which the black man +and the native tribe may appeal for justice. What is the good of trying +to elevate the population of Uganda and to give it a free and hopeful +life if some other population close at hand is competing against the +Baganda worker under lash and tax? So here is a third aspect of our +international Commission, as a native protectorate and court of appeal! + +There is still a fourth aspect of the African question in which every +mother's son in Europe is closely interested, and that is the trade +question. Africa is the great source of many of the most necessary raw +materials upon which our modern comforts and conveniences depend; more +particularly is it the source of cheap fat in the form of palm oil. One +of the most powerful levers in the hands of the Allied democracies at +the present time in their struggle against the imperial brigands of +Potsdam is the complete control we have now obtained over these +essential supplies. We can, if we choose, cut off Germany altogether +from these vital economic necessities, if she does not consent to +abandon militant imperialism for some more civilized form of government. +We hope that this war will end in that renunciation, and that Germany +will re-enter the community of nations. But whether that is so or not, +whether Germany is or is not to be one of the interested parties in the +African solution, the fact remains that it is impossible to contemplate +a continuing struggle for the African raw material supply between the +interested Powers. Sooner or later that means a renewal of war. +International trade rivalry is, indeed, only war--_smouldering_. We +need, and Labour demands, a fair, frank treatment of African trade, and +that can only be done by some overriding regulative power, a Commission +which, so far as I can see, might also be the same Commission as that we +have already hypothesized as being necessary to control the Customs in +order to prevent gun-running and the gin trade. That Commission might +very conveniently have a voice in the administration of the great +waterways of Africa (which often run through the possessions of several +Powers) and in the regulation of the big railway lines and air routes +that will speedily follow the conclusion of peace. + +Now this I take it is the gist of the Labour proposal. This--and no more +than this--is what is intended by the "international control of tropical +Africa." _I do not read that phrase as abrogating existing sovereignties +in Africa_. What is contemplated is a delegation of authority. Every one +should know, though unhappily the badness of our history teaching makes +it doubtful if every one does know, that the Federal Government of the +United States of America did not begin as a sovereign Government, and +has now only a very questionable sovereignty. Each State was sovereign, +and each State delegated certain powers to Washington. That was the +initial idea of the union. Only later did the idea of a people of the +States as a whole emerge. In the same way I understand the Labour +proposal as meaning that we should delegate to an African Commission the +middle African Customs, the regulation of inter-State trade, inter-State +railways and waterways, quarantine and health generally, and the +establishment of a Supreme Court for middle African affairs. One or two +minor matters, such as the preservation of rare animals, might very well +fall under the same authority. + +Upon that Commission the interested nations, that is to say--putting +them in alphabetical order--the Africander, the Briton, the Belgian, the +Egyptian, the Frenchman, the Italian, the Indian the Portuguese--might +all be represented in proportion to their interest. Whether the German +would come in is really a question for the German to consider; he can +come in as a good European, he cannot come in as an imperialist brigand. +Whether, too, any other nations can claim to have an interest in African +affairs, whether the Commission would not be better appointed by a +League of Free Nations than directly by the interested Governments, and +a number of other such questions, need not be considered here. Here we +are discussing only the main idea of the Labour proposal. + +Now beneath the supervision and restraint of such a delegated +Commission I do not see why the existing administrations of tutelage +Africa should not continue. I do not believe that the Labour proposal +contemplates any humiliating cession of European sovereignty. Under that +international Commission the French flag may still wave in Senegal and +the British over the protected State of Uganda. Given a new spirit in +Germany I do not see why the German flag should not presently be +restored in German East Africa. But over all, standing for +righteousness, patience, fair play for the black, and the common welfare +of mankind would wave a new flag, the Sun of Africa representing the +Central African Commission of the League of Free Nations. + +That is my vision of the Labour project. It is something very different, +I know, from the nightmare of an international police of cosmopolitan +scoundrels in nondescript uniforms, hastening to loot and ravish his +dear Uganda and his beloved Nigeria, which distresses the crumpled +pillow of Sir Harry Johnston. But if it is not the solution, then it is +up to him and his fellow authorities to tell us what is the solution of +the African riddle. + + + + +V + +GETTING THE LEAGUE IDEA CLEAR IN RELATION TO IMPERIALISM + + +§ 1 + +It is idle to pretend that even at the present time the idea of the +League of Free Nations has secure possession of the British mind. There +is quite naturally a sustained opposition to it in all the fastnesses of +aggressive imperialism. Such papers as the _Times_ and the _Morning +Post_ remain hostile and obstructive to the expression of international +ideas. Most of our elder statesmen seem to have learnt nothing and +forgotten nothing during the years of wildest change the world has ever +known. But in the general mind of the British peoples the movement of +opinion from a narrow imperialism towards internationalism has been wide +and swift. And it continues steadily. One can trace week by week and +almost day by day the Americanization of the British conception of the +Allied War Aims. It may be interesting to reproduce here three +communications upon this question made at different times by the +present writer to the press. The circumstances of their publication are +significant. The first is in substance identical with a letter which was +sent to the _Times_ late in May, 1917, and rejected as being altogether +too revolutionary. For nowadays the correspondence in the _Times_ has +ceased to be an impartial expression of public opinion. The +correspondence of the _Times_ is now apparently selected and edited in +accordance with the views upon public policy held by the acting editor +for the day. More and more has that paper become the organ of a sort of +Oxford Imperialism, three or four years behind the times and very ripe +and "expert." The letter is here given as it was finally printed in the +issue of the _Daily Chronicle_ for June 4th, 1917, under the heading, +"Wanted a Statement of Imperial Policy." + +Sir,--The time seems to have come for much clearer statements of outlook +and intention from this country than it has hitherto been possible to +make. The entry of America into the war and the banishment of autocracy +and aggressive diplomacy from Russia have enormously cleared the air, +and the recent great speech of General Smuts at the Savoy Hotel is +probably only the first of a series of experiments in statement. It is +desirable alike to clear our own heads, to unify our efforts, and to +give the nations of the world some assurance and standard for our +national conduct in the future, that we should now define the Idea of +our Empire and its relation to the world outlook much more clearly than +has ever hitherto been done. Never before in the history of mankind has +opinion counted for so much and persons and organizations for so little +as in this war. Never before has the need for clear ideas, widely +understood and consistently sustained, been so commandingly vital. + +What do we mean by our Empire, and what is its relation to that +universal desire of mankind, the permanent rule of peace and justice in +the world? The whole world will be the better for a very plain answer to +that question. + +Is it not time for us British not merely to admit to ourselves, but to +assure the world that our Empire as it exists to-day is a provisional +thing, that in scarcely any part of the world do we regard it as more +than an emergency arrangement, as a necessary association that must give +place ultimately to the higher synthesis of a world league, that here we +hold as trustees and there on account of strategic considerations that +may presently disappear, and that though we will not contemplate the +replacement of our flag anywhere by the flag of any other competing +nation, though we do hope to hold together with our kin and with those +who increasingly share our tradition and our language, nevertheless we +are prepared to welcome great renunciations of our present ascendency +and privileges in the interests of mankind as a whole. We need to make +the world understand that we do not put our nation nor our Empire before +the commonwealth of man. Unless presently we are to follow Germany along +the tragic path her national vanity and her world ambitions have made +for her, that is what we have to make clear now. It is not only our duty +to mankind, it is also the sane course for our own preservation. + +Is it not the plain lesson of this stupendous and disastrous war that +there is no way to secure civilization from destruction except by an +impartial control and protection in the interests of the whole human +race, a control representing the best intelligence of mankind, of these +main causes of war. + +(1) The politically undeveloped tropics; + +(2) Shipping and international trade; and + +(3) Small nationalities and all regions in a state of political +impotence or confusion? + +It is our case against the Germans that in all these three cases they +have subordinated every consideration of justice and the general human +welfare to a monstrous national egotism. That argument has a double +edge. At present there is a vigorous campaign in America, Russia, the +neutral countries generally, to represent British patriotism as equally +egotistic, and our purpose in this war as a mere parallel to the German +purpose. In the same manner, though perhaps with less persistency, +France and Italy are also caricatured. We are supposed to be grabbing at +Mesopotamia and Palestine, France at Syria; Italy is represented as +pursuing a Machiavellian policy towards the unfortunate Greek +republicans, with her eyes on the Greek islands and Greece in Asia. Is +it not time that these base imputations were repudiated clearly and +conclusively by our Alliance? And is it not time that we began to +discuss in much more frank and definite terms than has hitherto been +done, the nature of the international arrangement that will be needed to +secure the safety of such liberated populations as those of Palestine, +of the Arab regions of the old Turkish empire, of Armenia, of reunited +Poland, and the like? + +I do not mean here mere diplomatic discussions and "understandings," I +mean such full and plain statements as will be spread through the whole +world and grasped and assimilated by ordinary people everywhere, +statements by which we, as a people, will be prepared to stand or fall. + +Almost as urgent is the need for some definite statement about Africa. +General Smuts has warned not only the Empire, but the whole world of the +gigantic threat to civilization that lies in the present division of +Africa between various keenly competitive European Powers, any one of +which will be free to misuse the great natural resources at its disposal +and to arm millions of black soldiers for aggression. A mere elimination +of Germany from Africa will not solve that difficulty. What we have to +eliminate is not this nation or that, but the system of national shoving +and elbowing, the treatment of Africa as the board for a game of +beggar-my-neighbour-and-damn-the-niggers, in which a few syndicates, +masquerading as national interests, snatch a profit to the infinite loss +of all mankind. We want a lowering of barriers and a unification of +interests, we want an international control of these disputed regions, +to override nationalist exploitation. The whole world wants it. It is a +chastened and reasonable world we live in to-day, and the time for white +reason and the wide treatment of these problems is now. + +Finally, the time is drawing near when the Egyptian and the nations of +India will ask us, "Are things going on for ever here as they go on now, +or are we to look for the time when we, too, like the Africander, the +Canadian and the Australian, will be your confessed and equal partners?" +Would it not be wise to answer that question in the affirmative before +the voice in which it is asked grows thick with anger? In Egypt, for +example, we are either robbers very like--except for a certain +difference in touch--the Germans in Belgium, or we are honourable +trustees. It is our claim and pride to be honourable trustees. Nothing +so becomes a trustee as a cheerful openness of disposition. Great +Britain has to table her world policy. It is a thing overdue. No doubt +we have already a literature of liberal imperialism and a considerable +accumulation of declarations by this statesman or that. But what is +needed is a formulation much more representative, official and permanent +than that, something that can be put beside President Wilson's clear +rendering of the American idea. We want all our peoples to understand, +and we want all mankind to understand that our Empire is not a net about +the world in which the progress of mankind is entangled, but a +self-conscious political system working side by side with the other +democracies of the earth, preparing the way for, and prepared at last to +sacrifice and merge itself in, the world confederation of free and equal +peoples. + + + + +§ 2 + +This letter was presently followed up by an article in the _Daily News_, +entitled "A Reasonable Man's Peace." This article provoked a +considerable controversy in the imperialist press, and it was reprinted +as a pamphlet by a Free Trade organization, which distributed over +200,000 copies. It is particularly interesting to note, in view of what +follows it, that it was attacked with great virulence in the _Evening +News_, the little fierce mud-throwing brother of the _Daily Mail_. + +The international situation at the present time is beyond question the +most wonderful that the world has ever seen. There is not a country in +the world in which the great majority of sensible people are not +passionately desirous of peace, of an enduring peace, and--the war goes +on. The conditions of peace can now be stated, in general terms that are +as acceptable to a reasonable man in Berlin as they are to a reasonable +man in Paris or London or Petrograd or Constantinople. There are to be +no conquests, no domination of recalcitrant populations, no bitter +insistence upon vindictive penalties, and there must be something in the +nature of a world-wide League of Nations to keep the peace securely in +future, to "make the world safe for democracy," and maintain +international justice. To that the general mind of the world has come +to-day. + +Why, then, does the waste and killing go on? Why is not the Peace +Conference sitting now? + +Manifestly because a small minority of people in positions of peculiar +advantage, in positions of trust and authority, and particularly the +German reactionaries, prevent or delay its assembling. + +The answer which seems to suffice in all the Allied countries is that +the German Imperial Government--that the German Imperial Government +alone--stands in the way, that its tradition is incurably a tradition of +conquest and aggression, that until German militarism is overthrown, +etc. Few people in the Allied countries will dispute that that is +broadly true. But is it the whole and complete truth? Is there nothing +more to be done on our side? Let us put a question that goes to the very +heart of the problem. Why does the great mass of the German people still +cling to its incurably belligerent Government? + +The answer to that question is not overwhelmingly difficult. The German +people sticks to its militarist imperialism as Mazeppa stuck to his +horse; because it is bound to it, and the wolves pursue. The attentive +student of the home and foreign propaganda literature of the German +Government will realize that the case made by German imperialism, the +main argument by which it sticks to power, is this, that the Allied +Governments are also imperialist, that they also aim at conquest and +aggression, that for Germany the choice is world empire or downfall and +utter ruin. This is the argument that holds the German people stiffly +united. For most men in most countries it would be a convincing +argument, strong enough to override considerations of right and wrong. I +find that I myself am of this way of thinking, that whether England has +done right or wrong in the past--and I have sometimes criticized my +country very bitterly--I will not endure the prospect of seeing her at +the foot of some victorious foreign nation. Neither will any German who +matters. Very few people would respect a German who did. But the case +for the Allies is that this great argument by which, and by which alone, +the German Imperial Government keeps its grip upon the German people at +the present time, and keeps them facing their enemies, is untrue. The +Allies declare that they do not want to destroy the German people, they +do not want to cripple the German people; they want merely to see +certain gaping wounds inflicted by Germany repaired, and beyond that +reasonable requirement they want nothing but to be assured, completely +assured, absolutely assured, against any further aggressions on the +part of Germany. + +Is that true? Our leaders say so, and we believe them. We would not +support them if we did not. And if it is true, have the statesmen of the +Allies made it as transparently and convincingly clear to the German +people as possible? That is one of the supreme questions of the present +time. We cannot too earnestly examine it. Because in the answer to it +lies the reason why so many men were killed yesterday on the eastern and +western front, so many ships sunk, so much property destroyed, so much +human energy wasted for ever upon mere destruction, and why to-morrow +and the next day and the day after--through many months yet, +perhaps--the same killing and destroying must still go on. + +In many respects this war has been an amazing display of human +inadaptability. The military history of the war has still to be written, +the grim story of machinery misunderstood, improvements resisted, +antiquated methods persisted in; but the broad facts are already before +the public mind. After three years of war the air offensive, the only +possible decisive blow, is still merely talked of. Not once nor twice +only have the Western Allies had victory within their grasp--and failed +to grip it. The British cavalry generals wasted the great invention of +the tanks as a careless child breaks a toy. At least equally remarkable +is the dragging inadaptability of European statecraft. Everywhere the +failure of ministers and statesmen to rise to the urgent definite +necessities of the present time is glaringly conspicuous. They seem to +be incapable even of thinking how the war may be brought to an end. They +seem incapable of that plain speaking to the world audience which alone +can bring about a peace. They keep on with the tricks and feints of a +departed age. Both on the side of the Allies and on the side of the +Germans the declarations of public policy remain childishly vague and +disingenuous, childishly "diplomatic." They chaffer like happy imbeciles +while civilization bleeds to death. It was perhaps to be expected. Few, +if any, men of over five-and-forty completely readjust themselves to +changed conditions, however novel and challenging the changes may be, +and nearly all the leading figures in these affairs are elderly men +trained in a tradition of diplomatic ineffectiveness, and now overworked +and overstrained to a pitch of complete inelasticity. They go on as if +it were still 1913. Could anything be more palpably shifty and +unsatisfactory, more senile, more feebly artful, than the recent +utterances of the German Chancellor? And, on our own side-- + +Let us examine the three leading points about this peace business in +which this jaded statecraft is most apparent. + +Let the reader ask himself the following questions:-- + +Does he know what the Allies mean to do with the problem of Central +Africa? It is the clear common sense of the African situation that while +these precious regions of raw material remain divided up between a +number of competitive European imperialisms, each resolutely set upon +the exploitation of its "possessions" to its own advantage and the +disadvantage of the others, there can be no permanent peace in the +world. There can be permanent peace in the world only when tropical and +sub-tropical Africa constitute a field free to the commercial enterprise +of every one irrespective of nationality, when this is no longer an area +of competition between nations. This is possible only under some supreme +international control. It requires no special knowledge nor wisdom to +see that. A schoolboy can see it. Any one but a statesman absolutely +flaccid with overstrain can see that. However difficult it may prove to +work out in detail, such an international control _must_ therefore be +worked out. The manifest solution of the problem of the German colonies +in Africa is neither to return them to her nor deprive her of them, but +to give her a share in the pooled general control of mid-Africa. In +that way she can be deprived of all power for political mischief in +Africa without humiliation or economic injury. In that way, too, we can +head off--and in no other way can we head off--the power for evil, the +power of developing quarrels inherent in "imperialisms" other than +German. + +But has the reader any assurance that this sane solution of the African +problem has the support of the Allied Governments? At best he has only a +vague persuasion. And consider how the matter looks "over there." The +German Government assures the German people that the Allies intend to +cut off Germany from the African supply of raw material. That would mean +the practical destruction of German economic life. It is something far +more vital to the mass of Germans than any question of Belgium or +Alsace-Lorraine. It is, therefore, one of the ideas most potent in +nerving the overstrained German people to continue their fight. Why are +we, and why are the German people, not given some definite assurance in +this matter? Given reparation in Europe, is Germany to be allowed a fair +share in the control and trade of a pooled and neutralized Central +Africa? Sooner or later we must come to some such arrangement. Why not +state it plainly now? + +A second question is equally essential to any really permanent +settlement, and it is one upon which these eloquent but unsatisfactory +mouthpieces of ours turn their backs with an equal resolution, and that +is the fate of the Ottoman Empire. What in plain English are we up to +there? Whatever happens, that Humpty Dumpty cannot be put back as it was +before the war. The idea of the German imperialist, the idea of our own +little band of noisy but influential imperialist vulgarians, is +evidently a game of grab, a perilous cutting up of these areas into +jostling protectorates and spheres of influence, from which either the +Germans or the Allies (according to the side you are on) are to be +viciously shut out. On such a basis this war is a war to the death. +Neither Germany, France, Britain, Italy, nor Russia can live +prosperously if its trade and enterprise is shut out from this +cardinally important area. There is, therefore, no alternative, if we +are to have a satisfactory permanent pacification of the world, but +local self-development in these regions under honestly conceived +international control of police and transit and trade. Let it be granted +that that will be a difficult control to organize. None the less it has +to be attempted. It has to be attempted because _there is no other way +of peace_. But once that conception has been clearly formulated, a +second great motive why Germany should continue fighting will have +gone. + +The third great issue about which there is nothing but fog and +uncertainty is the so-called "War After the War," the idea of a +permanent economic alliance to prevent the economic recuperation of +Germany. Upon that idea German imperialism, in its frantic effort to +keep its tormented people fighting, naturally puts the utmost stress. +The threat of War after the War robs the reasonable German of his last +inducement to turn on his Government and insist upon peace. Shut out +from all trade, unable to buy food, deprived of raw material, peace +would be as bad for Germany as war. He will argue naturally enough and +reasonably enough that he may as well die fighting as starve. This is a +far more vital issue to him than the Belgian issue or Poland or +Alsace-Lorraine. Our statesmen waste their breath and slight our +intelligence when these foreground questions are thrust in front of the +really fundamental matters. But as the mass of sensible people in every +country concerned, in Germany just as much as in France or Great +Britain, know perfectly well, unimpeded trade is good for every one +except a few rich adventurers, and restricted trade destroys limitless +wealth and welfare for mankind to make a few private fortunes or secure +an advantage for some imperialist clique. We want an end to this +economic strategy, we want an end to this plotting of Governmental +cliques against the general welfare. In such offences Germany has been +the chief of sinners, but which among the belligerent nations can throw +the first stone? Here again the way to the world's peace, the only way +to enduring peace, lies through internationalism, through an +international survey of commercial treaties, through an international +control of inter-State shipping and transport rates. Unless the Allied +statesmen fail to understand the implications of their own general +professions they mean that. But why do they not say it plainly? Why do +they not shout it so compactly and loudly that all Germany will hear and +understand? Why do they justify imperialism to Germany? Why do they +maintain a threatening ambiguity towards Germany on all these matters? + +By doing so they leave Germany no choice but a war of desperation. They +underline and endorse the claim of German imperialism that this is a war +for bare existence. They unify the German people. They prolong the war. + + + + +§ 3 + +Some weeks later I was able, at the invitation of the editor, to carry +the controversy against imperialism into the _Daily Mail_, which has +hitherto counted as a strictly imperialist paper. The article that +follows was published in the _Daily Mail_ under the heading, "Are we +Sticking to the Point? A Discussion of War Aims." + +Has this War-Aims controversy really got down to essentials? Is the +purpose of this world conflict from first to last too complicated for +brevity, or can we boil it down into a statement compact enough for a +newspaper article? + +And if we can, why is there all this voluminous, uneasy, unquenchable +disputation about War Aims? + +As to the first question, I would say that the gist of the dispute +between the Central Powers and the world can be written easily without +undue cramping in an ordinary handwriting upon a postcard. It is the +second question that needs answering. And the reason why the second +question has to be asked and answered is this, that several of the +Allies, and particularly we British, are not being perfectly plain and +simple-minded in our answer to the first, that there is a division among +us and in our minds, and that our division is making us ambiguous in our +behaviour, that it is weakening and dividing our action and +strengthening and consolidating the enemy, and that unless we can drag +this slurred-over division of aim and spirit into the light of day and +_settle it now_, we are likely to remain double-minded to the end of the +war, to split our strength while the war continues and to come out of +the settlement at the end with nothing nearly worth the strain and +sacrifice it has cost us. + +And first, let us deal with that postcard and say what is the essential +aim of the war, the aim to which all other aims are subsidiary. It is, +we have heard repeated again and again by every statesman of importance +in every Allied country, to defeat and destroy military imperialism, to +make the world safe for ever against any such deliberate aggression as +Germany prepared for forty years and brought to a climax when she +crossed the Belgian frontier in 1914. We want to make anything of that +kind on the part of Germany or of any other Power henceforth impossible +in this world. That is our great aim. Whatever other objects may be +sought in this war no responsible statesman dare claim them as anything +but subsidiary to that; one can say, in fact, this is our sole aim, our +other aims being but parts of it. Better that millions should die now, +we declare, than that hundreds of millions still unborn should go on +living, generation after generation, under the black tyranny of this +imperialist threat. + +There is our common agreement. So far, at any rate, we are united. The +question I would put to the reader is this: Are we all logically, +sincerely, and fully carrying out the plain implications of this War +Aim? Or are we to any extent muddling about with it in such a way as to +confuse and disorganize our Allies, weaken our internal will, and +strengthen the enemy? + +Now the plain meaning of this supreme declared War Aim is that we are +asking Germany to alter her ways. We are asking Germany to become a +different Germany. Either Germany has to be utterly smashed up and +destroyed or else Germany has to cease to be an aggressive military +imperialism. The former alternative is dismissed by most responsible +statesmen. They declare that they do not wish to destroy the German +people or the German nationality or the civilized life of Germany. I +will not enlarge here upon the tedium and difficulties such an +undertaking would present. I will dismiss it as being not only +impossible, but also as an insanely wicked project. The second +alternative, therefore, remains as our War Aim. I do not see how the +sloppiest reasoner can evade that. As we do not want to kill Germany we +must want to change Germany. If we do not want to wipe Germany off the +face of the earth, then we want Germany to become the prospective and +trust-worthy friend of her fellow nations. And if words have any meaning +at all, that is saying that we are fighting to bring about a Revolution +in Germany. We want Germany to become a democratically controlled State, +such as is the United States to-day, with open methods and pacific +intentions, instead of remaining a clenched fist. If we can bring that +about we have achieved our War Aim; if we cannot, then this struggle has +been for us only such loss and failure as humanity has never known +before. + +But do we, as a nation, stick closely to this clear and necessary, this +only possible, meaning of our declared War Aim? That great, clear-minded +leader among the Allies, that Englishman who more than any other single +man speaks for the whole English-speaking and Western-thinking +community, President Wilson, has said definitely that this is his +meaning. America, with him as her spokesman, is under no delusion; she +is fighting consciously for a German Revolution as the essential War +Aim. We in Europe do not seem to be so lucid. I think myself we have +been, and are still, fatally and disastrously not lucid. It is high +time, and over, that we cleared our minds and got down to the essentials +of the war. We have muddled about in blood and dirt and secondary issues +long enough. + +We in Britain are not clear-minded, I would point out, because we are +double-minded. No good end is served by trying to ignore in the fancied +interests of "unity" a division of spirit and intention that trips us +up at every step. We are, we declare, fighting for a complete change in +international methods, and we are bound to stick to the logical +consequences of that. We have placed ourselves on the side of democratic +revolution against autocratic monarchy, and we cannot afford to go on +shilly-shallying with that choice. We cannot in these days of black or +white play the part of lukewarm friends to freedom. I will not remind +the reader here of the horrible vacillations and inconsistencies of +policy in Greece that have prolonged the war and cost us wealth and +lives beyond measure, but President Wilson himself has reminded us +pungently enough and sufficiently enough of the follies and +disingenuousness of our early treatment of the Russian Revolution. What +I want to point out here is the supreme importance of a clear lead in +this matter _now_ in order that we should state our War Aims +effectively. + +In every war there must be two sets of War Aims kept in mind; we ought +to know what we mean to do in the event of victory so complete that we +can dictate what terms we choose, and we ought to know what, in the +event of a not altogether conclusive tussle, are the minimum terms that +we should consider justified us in a discontinuance of the tussle. Now, +unless our leading statesmen are humbugs and unless we are prepared to +quarrel with America in the interests of the monarchist institutions of +Europe, we should, in the event of an overwhelming victory, destroy both +the Hohenzollern and Hapsburg Imperialisms, and that means, if it means +anything at all and is not mere lying rhetoric, that we should insist +upon Germany becoming free and democratic, that is to say, in effect if +not in form republican, and upon a series of national republics, Polish, +Hungarian, Serbo-Croatian, Bulgarian, and the like, in Eastern Europe, +grouped together if possible into congenial groups--crowned republics it +might be in some cases, in the case of the Serb for example, but in no +case too much crowned--that we should join with this renascent Germany +and with these thus liberalized Powers and with our Allies and with the +neutrals in one great League of Free Nations, trading freely with one +another, guaranteeing each other freedom, and maintaining a world-wide +peace and disarmament and a new reign of law for mankind. + +If that is not what we are out for, then I do not understand what we are +out for; there is dishonesty and trickery and diplomacy and foolery in +the struggle, and I am no longer whole-hearted for such a half-hearted +war. If after a complete victory we are to bolster up the Hohenzollerns, +Hapsburgs, and their relations, set up a constellation of more cheating +little subordinate kings, and reinstate that system of diplomacies and +secret treaties and secret understandings, that endless drama of +international threatening and plotting, that never-ending arming, that +has led us after a hundred years of waste and muddle to the supreme +tragedy of this war, then the world is not good enough for me and I +shall be glad to close my eyes upon it. I am not alone in these +sentiments. I believe that in writing thus I am writing the opinion of +the great mass of reasonable British, French, Italian, Russian, and +American men. I believe, too, that this is the desire also of great +numbers of Germans, and that they would, if they could believe us, +gladly set aside their present rulers to achieve this plain common good +for mankind. + +But, the reader will say, what evidence is there of any republican +feeling in Germany? That is always the objection made to any reasonable +discussion of the war--and as most of us are denied access to German +papers, it is difficult to produce quotations; and even when one does, +there are plenty of fools to suggest and believe that the entire German +Press is an elaborate camouflage. Yet in the German Press there is far +more criticism of militant imperialism than those who have no access to +it can imagine. There is far franker criticism of militarism in Germany +than there is of reactionary Toryism in this country, and it is more +free to speak its mind. + +That, however, is a question by the way. It is not the main thing that I +have to say here. What I have to say here is that in Great Britain--I +will not discuss the affairs of any of our Allies--there are groups and +classes of people, not numerous, not representative, but placed in high +and influential positions and capable of free and public utterance, who +are secretly and bitterly hostile to this great War Aim, which inspires +all the Allied peoples. These people are permitted to deny--our peculiar +censorship does not hamper them--loudly and publicly that we are +fighting for democracy and world freedom; "Tosh," they say to our dead +in the trenches, "you died for a mistake"; they jeer at this idea of a +League of Nations making an end to war, an idea that has inspired +countless brave lads to face death and such pains and hardships as outdo +even death itself; they perplex and irritate our Allies by propounding +schemes for some precious economic league of the British Empire--that is +to treat all "foreigners" with a common base selfishness and stupid +hatred--and they intrigue with the most reactionary forces in Russia. + +These British reactionaries openly, and with perfect impunity, represent +our war as a thing as mean and shameful as Germany's attack on Belgium, +and they do it because generosity and justice in the world is as +terrible to them as dawn is to the creatures of the night. Our Tories +blundered into this great war, not seeing whither it would take them. In +particular it is manifest now by a hundred signs that they dread the +fall of monarchy in Germany and Austria. Far rather would they make the +most abject surrenders to the Kaiser than deal with a renascent +Republican Germany. The recent letter of Lord Lansdowne, urging a peace +with German imperialism, was but a feeler from the pacifist side of this +most un-English, and unhappily most influential, section of our public +life. Lord Lansdowne's letter was the letter of a Peer who fears +revolution more than national dishonour. + +But it is the truculent wing of this same anti-democratic movement that +is far more active. While our sons suffer and die for their comforts and +conceit, these people scheme to prevent any communication between the +Republican and Socialist classes in Germany and the Allied population. +At any cost this class of pampered and privileged traitors intend to +have peace while the Kaiser is still on his throne. If not they face a +new world--in which their part will be small indeed. And with the utmost +ingenuity they maintain a dangerous vagueness about the Allied peace +terms, _with the sole object of preventing a revolutionary movement in +Germany_. + +Let me put it to the reader exactly why our failure to say plainly and +exactly and conclusively what we mean to do about a score of points, and +particularly about German economic life after the war, paralyses the +penitents and friends and helpers that we could now find in Germany. Let +me ask the reader to suppose himself a German in Germany at the present +time. Of course if he was, he is sure that he would hate the Kaiser as +the source of this atrocious war, he would be bitterly ashamed of the +Belgian iniquity, of the submarine murders, and a score of such stains +upon his national honour; and he would want to alter his national system +and make peace. Hundreds of thousands of Germans are in that mood now. +But as most of us have had to learn, a man may be bitterly ashamed of +this or that incident in his country's history--what Englishman, for +instance, can be proud of Glencoe?--he may disbelieve in half its +institutions and still love his country far too much to suffer the +thought of its destruction. I prefer to see my country right, but if it +comes to the pinch and my country sins I will fight to save her from the +destruction her sins may have brought upon her. That is the natural way +of a man. + +But suppose a German wished to try to start a revolutionary movement in +Germany at the present time, have we given him any reason at all for +supposing that a Germany liberated and democratized, but, of course, +divided and weakened as she would be bound to be in the process, would +get better terms from the Allies than a Germany still facing them, +militant, imperialist, and wicked? He would have no reason for believing +anything of the sort. If we Allies are honest, then if a revolution +started in Germany to-day we should if anything lower the price of peace +to Germany. But these people who pretend to lead us will state nothing +of the sort. For them a revolution in Germany would be the signal for +putting up the price of peace. At any risk they are resolved that that +German revolution shall not happen. Your sane, good German, let me +assert, is up against that as hard as if he was a wicked one. And so, +poor devil, he has to put his revolutionary ideas away, they are +hopeless ideas for him because of the power of the British reactionary, +they are hopeless because of the line we as a nation take in this +matter, and he has to go on fighting for his masters. + +A plain statement of our war aims that did no more than set out honestly +and convincingly the terms the Allies would make with a democratic +republican Germany--republican I say, because where a scrap of +Hohenzollern is left to-day there will be a fresh militarism +to-morrow--would absolutely revolutionize the internal psychology of +Germany. We should no longer face a solid people. We should have +replaced the false issue of Germany and Britain fighting for the +hegemony of Europe, the lie upon which the German Government has always +traded, and in which our extreme Tory Press has always supported the +German Government, by the true issue, which is freedom versus +imperialism, the League of Nations versus that net of diplomatic roguery +and of aristocratic, plutocratic, and autocratic greed and conceit which +dragged us all into this vast welter of bloodshed and loss. + + + + +VI + +THE WAR AIMS OF THE WESTERN ALLIES + + +Here, quite compactly, is the plain statement of the essential cause and +process of the war to which I would like to see the Allied Foreign +Offices subscribe, and which I would like to have placed plainly before +the German mind. It embodies much that has been learnt and thought out +since this war began, and I think it is much truer and more fundamental +than that mere raging against German "militarism," upon which our +politicians and press still so largely subsist. + +The enormous development of war methods and war material within the last +fifty years has made war so horrible and destructive that it is +impossible to contemplate a future for mankind from which it has not +been eliminated; the increased facilities of railway, steamship, +automobile travel and air navigation have brought mankind so close +together that ordinary human life is no longer safe anywhere in the +boundaries of the little states in which it was once secure. In some +fashion it is now necessary to achieve sufficient human unity to +establish a world peace and save the future of mankind. + +In one or other of two ways only is that unification possible. Either +men may set up a common league to keep the peace of the earth, or one +state must ultimately become so great and powerful as to repeat for all +the world what Rome did for Europe two thousand years ago. Either we +must have human unity by a league of existing states or by an Imperial +Conquest. The former is now the declared Aim of our country and its +Allies; the latter is manifestly the ambition of the present rulers of +Germany. Whatever the complications may have been in the earlier stages +of the war, due to treaties that are now dead letters and agreements +that are extinct, the essential issue now before every man in the world +is this: Is the unity of mankind to be the unity of a common freedom, in +which every race and nationality may participate with complete +self-respect, playing its part, according to its character, in one great +world community, or is it to be reached--and it can only be so reached +through many generations of bloodshed and struggle still, even if it can +be ever reached in this way at all--through conquest and a German +hegemony? + +While the rulers of Germany to-day are more openly aggressive and +imperialist than they were in August, 1914, the Allies arrayed against +them have made great progress in clearing up and realizing the instincts +and ideals which brought them originally into the struggle. The German +government offers the world to-day a warring future in which Germany +alone is to be secure and powerful and proud. _Mankind will not endure +that_. The Allies offer the world more and more definitely the scheme of +an organized League of Free Nations, a rule of law and justice about the +earth. To fight for that and for no other conceivable end, the United +States of America, with the full sympathy and co-operation of every +state in the western hemisphere, has entered the war. The British +Empire, in the midst of the stress of the great war, has set up in +Dublin a Convention of Irishmen of all opinions with the fullest powers +of deciding upon the future of their country. If Ireland were not +divided against herself she could be free and equal with England +to-morrow. It is the open intention of Great Britain to develop +representative government, where it has not hitherto existed, in India +and Egypt, to go on steadfastly increasing the share of the natives of +these countries in the government of their own lands, until they too +become free and equal members of the world league. Neither France nor +Italy nor Britain nor America has ever tampered with the shipping of +other countries except in time of war, and the trade of the British +Empire has been impartially open to all the world. The extra-national +"possessions," the so-called "subject nations" in the Empires of +Britain, France, Italy, and Japan, are, in fact, possessions held in +trust against the day when the League of Free Nations will inherit for +mankind. + +Is it to be union by conquest or is it to be union by league? For any +sort of man except the German the question is, Will you be a free +citizen or will you be an underling to the German imperialism? For the +German now the question is a far graver and more tragic one. For him it +is this: "You belong to a people not now increasing very rapidly, a +numerous people, but not so numerous as some of the great peoples of the +world, a people very highly trained, very well drilled and well armed, +perhaps as well trained and drilled and equipped as ever it will be. The +collapse of Russian imperialism has made you safe if now you can get +peace, and you _can_ get a peace now that will neither destroy you nor +humiliate you nor open up the prospect of fresh wars. The Allies offer +you such a peace. To accept it, we must warn you plainly, means refusing +to go on with the manifest intentions of your present rulers, which are +to launch you and your children and your children's children upon a +career of struggle for war predominance, which may no doubt inflict +untold deprivations and miseries upon the rest of mankind, but whose end +in the long run, for Germany and things German, can be only Judgment and +Death." + +In such terms as these the Oceanic Allies could now state their war-will +and carry the world straightway into a new phase of human history. They +could but they do not. For alas! not one of them is free from the +entanglements of past things; when we look for the wisdom of statesmen +we find the cunning of politicians; when open speech and plain reason +might save the world, courts, bureaucrats, financiers and profiteers +conspire. + + + + +VII + +THE FUTURE OF MONARCHY + + +From the very outset of this war it was manifest to the clear-headed +observer that only the complete victory of German imperialism could save +the dynastic system in Europe from the fate that it had challenged. That +curious system had been the natural and unplanned development of the +political complications of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Two +systems of monarchies, the Bourbon system and the German, then ruled +Europe between them. With the latter was associated the tradition of the +European unity under the Roman empire; all the Germanic monarchs had an +itch to be called Caesar. The Kaiser of the Austro-Hungarian empire and +the Czar had, so to speak, the prior claim to the title. The Prussian +king set up as a Caesar in 1871; Queen Victoria became the Caesar of +India (Kaisir-i-Hind) under the auspices of Lord Beaconsfield, and last +and least, that most detestable of all Coburgers, Ferdinand of Bulgaria, +gave Kaiserism a touch of quaint absurdity by setting up as Czar of +Bulgaria. The weakening of the Bourbon system by the French revolution +and the Napoleonic adventure cleared the way for the complete ascendancy +of the Germanic monarchies in spite of the breaking away of the United +States from that system. + +After 1871, a constellation of quasi-divine Teutonic monarchs, of which +the German Emperor, the German Queen Victoria, the German Czar, were the +greatest stars, formed a caste apart, intermarried only among +themselves, dominated the world and was regarded with a mystical awe by +the ignorant and foolish in most European countries. The marriages, the +funerals, the coronations, the obstetrics of this amazing breed of idols +were matters of almost universal worship. The Czar and Queen Victoria +professed also to be the heads of religion upon earth. The +court-centered diplomacies of the more firmly rooted monarchies steered +all the great liberating movements of the nineteenth century into +monarchical channels. Italy was made a monarchy; Greece, the motherland +of republics, was handed over to a needy scion of the Danish royal +family; the sturdy peasants of Bulgaria suffered from a kindred +imposition. Even Norway was saddled with as much of a king as it would +stand, as a condition of its independence. At the dawn of the twentieth +century republican freedom seemed a remote dream beyond the confines of +Switzerland and France--and it had no very secure air in France. +Reactionary scheming has been an intermittent fever in the French +republic for six and forty years. The French foreign office is still +undemocratic in tradition and temper. But for the restless disloyalty of +the Hohenzollerns this German kingly caste might be dominating the world +to this day. + +Of course the stability of this Teutonic dynastic system in +Europe--which will presently seem to the student of history so curious a +halting-place upon the way to human unity--rested very largely upon the +maintenance of peace. It was the failure to understand this on the part +of the German and Bulgarian rulers in particular that has now brought +all monarchy to the question. The implicit theory that supported the +intermarrying German royal families in Europe was that their +inter-relationship and their aloofness from their subjects was a +mitigation of national and racial animosities. In the days when Queen +Victoria was the grandmother of Europe this was a plausible argument. +King, Czar and Emperor, or Emperor and Emperor would meet, and it was +understood that these meetings were the lubrication of European affairs. +The monarchs married largely, conspicuously, and very expensively for +our good. Royal funerals, marriages, christenings, coronations, and +jubilees interrupted traffic and stimulated trade everywhere. They +seemed to give a _raison d'être_ for mankind. It is the Emperor William +and the Czar Ferdinand who have betrayed not only humanity but their own +strange caste by shattering all these pleasant illusions. The wisdom of +Kant is justified, and we know now that kings cause wars. It needed the +shock of the great war to bring home the wisdom of that old Scotchman of +Königsberg to the mind of the ordinary man. Moreover in support of the +dynastic system was the fact that it did exist as the system in +possession, and all prosperous and intelligent people are chary of +disturbing existing things. Life is full of vestigial structures, and it +is a long way to logical perfection. Let us keep on, they would argue, +with what we have. And another idea which, rightly or wrongly, made men +patient with the emperors and kings was an exaggerated idea of the +insecurity of republican institutions. + +You can still hear very old dull men say gravely that "kings are better +than pronunciamentos"; there was an article upon Greece to this effect +quite recently in that uncertain paper _The New Statesman_. Then a kind +of illustrative gesture would be made to the South American republics, +although the internal disturbances of the South American republics have +diminished to very small dimensions in the last three decades and +although pronunciamentos rarely disturb the traffic in Switzerland, the +United States, or France. But there can be no doubt that the influence +of the Germanic monarchy up to the death of Queen Victoria upon British +thought was in the direction of estrangement from the two great modern +republics and in the direction of assistance and propitiation to +Germany. We surrendered Heligoland, we made great concessions to German +colonial ambitions, we allowed ourselves to be jockeyed into a phase of +dangerous hostility to France. A practice of sneering at things American +has died only very recently out of English journalism and literature, as +any one who cares to consult the bound magazines of the 'seventies and +'eighties may soon see for himself. It is well too in these days not to +forget Colonel Marchand, if only to remember that such a clash must +never recur. But in justice to our monarchy we must remember that after +the death of Queen Victoria, the spirit, if not the forms, of British +kingship was greatly modified by the exceptional character and ability +of King Edward VII. He was curiously anti-German in spirit; he had +essentially democratic instincts; in a few precious years he restored +good will between France and Great Britain. It is no slight upon his +successor to doubt whether any one could have handled the present +opportunities and risks of monarchy in Great Britain as Edward could +have handled them. + +Because no doubt if monarchy is to survive in the British Empire it must +speedily undergo the profoundest modification. The old state of affairs +cannot continue. The European dynastic system, based upon the +intermarriage of a group of mainly German royal families, is dead +to-day; it is freshly dead, but it is as dead as the rule of the Incas. +It is idle to close our eyes to this fact. The revolution in Russia, the +setting up of a republic in China, demonstrating the ripeness of the +East for free institutions, the entry of the American republics into +world politics--these things slam the door on any idea of working back +to the old nineteenth-century system. People calls to people. "No peace +with the Hohenzollerns" is a cry that carries with it the final +repudiation of emperors and kings. The man in the street will assure you +he wants no diplomatic peace. Beyond the unstable shapes of the present +the political forms of the future rise now so clearly that they are the +common talk of men. Kant's lucid thought told us long ago that the peace +of the world demanded a world union of republics. That is a commonplace +remark now in every civilized community. + +The stars in their courses, the logic of circumstances, the everyday +needs and everyday intelligence of men, all these things march +irresistibly towards a permanent world peace based on democratic +republicanism. The question of the future of monarchy is not whether it +will be able to resist and overcome that trend; it has as little chance +of doing that as the Lama of Thibet has of becoming Emperor of the +Earth. It is whether it will resist openly, become the centre and symbol +of a reactionary resistance, and have to be abolished and swept away +altogether everywhere, as the Romanoffs have already been swept away in +Russia, or whether it will be able in this country and that to adapt +itself to the necessities of the great age that dawns upon mankind, to +take a generous and helpful attitude towards its own modification, and +so survive, for a time at any rate, in that larger air. + +It is the fashion for the apologists of monarchy in the British Empire +to speak of the British system as a crowned republic. That is an +attractive phrase to people of republican sentiments. It is quite +conceivable that the British Empire may be able to make that phrase a +reality and that the royal line may continue, a line of hereditary +presidents, with some of the ancient trappings and something of the +picturesque prestige that, as the oldest monarchy in Europe, it has +to-day. Two kings in Europe have already gone far towards realizing +this conception of a life president; both the King of Italy and the King +of Norway live as simply as if they were in the White House and are far +more accessible. Along that line the British monarchy must go if it is +not to go altogether. Will it go along those lines? + +There are many reasons for hoping that it will do so. The _Times_ has +styled the crown the "golden link" of the empire. Australians and +Canadians, it was argued, had little love for the motherland but the +greatest devotion to the sovereign, and still truer was this of Indians, +Egyptians, and the like. It might be easy to press this theory of +devotion too far, but there can be little doubt that the British Crown +does at present stand as a symbol of unity over diversity such as no +other crown, unless it be that of Austria-Hungary, can be said to do. +The British crown is not like other crowns; it may conceivably take a +line of its own and emerge--possibly a little more like a hat and a +little less like a crown--from trials that may destroy every other +monarchial system in the world. + +Now many things are going on behind the scenes, many little indications +peep out upon the speculative watcher and vanish again; but there is +very little that is definite to go upon at the present time to +determine how far the monarchy will rise to the needs of this great +occasion. Certain acts and changes, the initiative to which would come +most gracefully from royalty itself, could be done at this present time. +They may be done quite soon. Upon the doing of them wait great masses of +public opinion. The first of these things is for the British monarchy to +sever itself definitely from the German dynastic system, with which it +is so fatally entangled by marriage and descent, and to make its +intention of becoming henceforth more and more British in blood as well +as spirit, unmistakably plain. This idea has been put forth quite +prominently in the _Times_. The king has been asked to give his +countenance to the sweeping away of all those restrictions first set up +by George the Third, upon the marriage of the Royal Princes with +British, French and American subjects. The British Empire is very near +the limit of its endurance of a kingly caste of Germans. The choice of +British royalty between its peoples and its cousins cannot be +indefinitely delayed. Were it made now publicly and boldly, there can be +no doubt that the decision would mean a renascence of monarchy, a +considerable outbreak of royalist enthusiasm in the Empire. There are +times when a king or queen must need be dramatic and must a little +anticipate occasions. It is not seemly to make concessions perforce; +kings may not make obviously unwilling surrenders; it is the indecisive +kings who lose their crowns. + +No doubt the Anglicization of the royal family by national marriages +would gradually merge that family into the general body of the British +peerage. Its consequent loss of distinction might be accompanied by an +associated fading out of function, until the King became at last hardly +more functional than was the late Duke of Norfolk as premier peer. +Possibly that is the most desirable course from many points of view. + +It must be admitted that the abandonment of marriages within the royal +caste and a bold attempt to introduce a strain of British blood in the +royal family does not in itself fulfil all that is needed if the British +king is indeed to become the crowned president of his people and the +nominal and accepted leader of the movement towards republican +institutions. A thing that is productive of an enormous amount of +republican talk in Great Britain is the suspicion--I believe an +ill-founded suspicion--that there are influences at work at court +antagonistic to republican institutions in friendly states and that +there is a disposition even to sacrifice the interests of the liberal +allies to dynastic sympathies. These things are not to be believed, but +it would be a feat of vast impressiveness if there were something like +a royal and public repudiation of the weaknesses of cousinship. The +behaviour of the Allies towards that great Balkan statesman Venizelos, +the sacrificing of the friendly Greek republicans in favour of the +manifestly treacherous King of Greece, has produced the deepest shame +and disgust in many quarters that are altogether friendly, that are even +warmly "loyal" to the British monarchy. + +And in a phase of tottering thrones it is very undesirable that the +British habit of asylum should be abused. We have already in England the +dethroned monarch of a friendly republic; he is no doubt duly looked +after. In the future there may be a shaking of the autumnal boughs and a +shower of emperors and kings. We do not want Great Britain to become a +hotbed of reactionary plotting and the starting-point of restoration +raids into the territories of emancipated peoples. This is particularly +desirable if presently, after the Kaiser's death--which by all the +statistics of Hohenzollern mortality cannot be delayed now for many +years--the present Crown Prince goes a-wandering. We do not want any +German ex-monarchs; Sweden is always open to them and friendly, and to +Sweden they ought to go; and particularly do British people dread an +irruption of Hohenzollerns or Coburgers. Almost as undesirable would be +the arrival of the Czar and Czarina. It is supremely important that no +wind of suspicion should blow between us and the freedom of Russia. +After the war even more than during the war will the enemy be anxious to +sow discord between the great Russian-speaking and English-speaking +democracies. Quite apart from the scandal of their inelegant +domesticities, the establishment of the Czar and Czarina in England with +frequent and easy access to our royal family may be extraordinarily +unfortunate for the British monarchy. I will confess a certain sympathy +for the Czar myself. He is not an evil figure, he is not a strong +figure, but he has that sort of weakness, that failure in decision, +which trails revolution in its wake. He has ended one dynasty already. +The British royal family owes it to itself, that he bring not the +infection of his misfortunes to Windsor. + +The security of the British monarchy lies in such a courageous severance +of its destinies from the Teutonic dynastic system. Will it make that +severance? There I share an almost universal ignorance. The loyalty of +the British is not to what kings are too prone to call "my person," not +to a chosen and admired family, but to a renascent mankind. We have +fought in this war for Belgium, for France, for general freedom, for +civilization and the whole future of mankind, far more than for +ourselves. We have not fought for a king. We are discovering in that +spirit of human unity that lies below the idea of a League of Free +Nations the real invisible king of our heart and race. But we will very +gladly go on with our task under a nominal king unless he hampers us in +the task that grows ever more plainly before us. ... That, I think, is a +fair statement of British public opinion on this question. But every day +when I am in London I walk past Buckingham Palace to lunch at my club, +and I look at that not very expressive façade and wonder--and we all +wonder--what thoughts are going on behind it and what acts are being +conceived there. Out of it there might yet come some gesture of +acceptance magnificent enough to set beside President Wilson's +magnificent declaration of war. ... + +These are things in the scales of fate. I will not pretend to be able to +guess even which way the scales will swing. + + + + +VIII + +THE PLAIN NECESSITY FOR A LEAGUE + + +Great as the sacrifices of prejudice and preconception which any +effective realization of this idea of a League of Free Nations will +demand, difficult as the necessary delegations of sovereignty must be, +none the less are such sacrifices and difficulties unavoidable. People +in France and Italy and Great Britain and Germany alike have to subdue +their minds to the realization that some such League is now a necessity +for them if their peace and national life are to continue. There is no +prospect before them but either some such League or else great +humiliation and disastrous warfare driving them down towards social +dissolution; and for the United States it is only a question of a little +longer time before the same alternatives have to be faced. + +Whether this war ends in the complete defeat of Germany and German +imperialism, or in a revolutionary modernization of Germany, or in a +practical triumph for the Hohenzollerns, are considerations that affect +the nature and scope of the League, but do not affect its essential +necessity. In the first two cases the League of Free Nations will be a +world league including Germany as a principal partner, in the latter +case the League of Free Nations will be a defensive league standing +steadfast against the threat of a world imperialism, and watching and +restraining with one common will the homicidal maniac in its midst. But +in all these cases there can be no great alleviation of the evils that +now blacken and threaten to ruin human life altogether, unless all the +civilized and peace-seeking peoples of the world are pledged and locked +together under a common law and a common world policy. There must rather +be an intensification of these evils. There must be wars more evil than +this war continuing this war, and more destructive of civilized life. +There can be no peace and hope for our race but an organized peace and +hope, armed against disturbance as a state is armed against mad, +ferocious, and criminal men. + +Now, there are two chief arguments, running one into the other, for the +necessity of merging our existing sovereignties into a greater and, if +possible, a world-wide league. The first is the present geographical +impossibility of nearly all the existing European states and empires; +and the second is the steadily increasing disproportion between the +tortures and destructions inflicted by modern warfare and any possible +advantages that may arise from it. Underlying both arguments is the fact +that modern developments of mechanical science have brought the nations +of Europe together into too close a proximity. This present war, more +than anything else, is a violent struggle between old political ideas +and new antagonistic conditions. + +It is the unhappy usage of our schools and universities to study the +history of mankind only during periods of mechanical unprogressiveness. +The historical ideas of Europe range between the time when the Greeks +were going about the world on foot or horseback or in galleys or sailing +ships to the days when Napoleon, Wellington, and Nelson were going about +at very much the same pace in much the same vehicles and vessels. At the +advent of steam and electricity the muse of history holds her nose and +shuts her eyes. Science will study and get the better of a modern +disease, as, for example, sleeping sickness, in spite of the fact that +it has no classical standing; but our history schools would be shocked +at the bare idea of studying the effect of modern means of communication +upon administrative areas, large or small. This defect in our historical +training has made our minds politically sluggish. We fail to adapt +readily enough. In small things and great alike we are trying to run the +world in areas marked out in or before the eighteenth century, +regardless of the fact that a man or an army or an aeroplane can get in +a few minutes or a few hours to points that it would have taken days or +weeks to reach under the old foot-and-horse conditions. That matters +nothing to the learned men who instruct our statesmen and politicians. +It matters everything from the point of view of social and economic and +political life. And the grave fact to consider is that all the great +states of Europe, except for the unification of Italy and Germany, are +still much of the size and in much the same boundaries that made them +strong and safe in the eighteenth century, that is to say, in the +closing years of the foot-horse period. The British empire grew and was +organized under those conditions, and had to modify itself only a little +to meet the needs of steam shipping. All over the world are its linked +possessions and its ports and coaling stations and fastnesses on the +trade routes. And British people still look at the red-splashed map of +the world with the profoundest self-satisfaction, blind to the swift +changes that are making that scattered empire--if it is to remain an +isolated system--almost the most dangerous conceivable. + +Let me ask the British reader who is disposed to sneer at the League of +Nations and say he is very well content with the empire, thank you, to +get his atlas and consider one or two propositions. And, first, let him +think of aviation. I can assure him, because upon this matter I have +some special knowledge, that long-distance air travel for men, for +letters and light goods and for bombs, is continually becoming more +practicable. But the air routes that air transport will follow must go +over a certain amount of land, for this reason that every few hundred +miles at the longest the machine must come down for petrol. A flying +machine with a safe non-stop range of 1500 miles is still a long way +off. It may indeed be permanently impracticable because there seems to +be an upward limit to the size of an aeroplane engine. And now will the +reader take the map of the world and study the air routes from London to +the rest of the empire? He will find them perplexing--if he wants them +to be "All-Red." Happily this is not a British difficulty only. Will he +next study the air routes from Paris to the rest of the French +possessions? And, finally, will he study the air routes out of Germany +to anywhere? The Germans are as badly off as any people. But we are all +badly off. So far as world air transit goes any country can, if it +chooses, choke any adjacent country. Directly any trade difficulty +breaks out, any country can begin a vexatious campaign against its +neighbour's air traffic. It can oblige it to alight at the frontier, to +follow prescribed routes, to land at specified places on those routes +and undergo examinations that will waste precious hours. But so far as I +can see, no European statesman, German or Allied, have begun to give +their attention to this amazing difficulty. Without a great pooling of +air control, either a world-wide pooling or a pooling at least of the +Atlantic-Mediterranean Allies in one Air League, the splendid peace +possibilities of air transport--and they are indeed splendid--must +remain very largely a forbidden possibility to mankind. + +And as a second illustration of the way in which changing conditions are +altering political questions, let the reader take his atlas and consider +the case of that impregnable fastness, that great naval station, that +Key to the Mediterranean, Gibraltar. British boys are brought up on +Gibraltar and the Gibraltar idea. To the British imagination Gibraltar +is almost as sacred a national symbol as the lions in Trafalgar Square. +Now, in his atlas the reader will almost certainly find an inset map of +this valuable possession, coloured bright red. The inset map will have +attached to it a small scale of miles. From that he will be able to +satisfy himself that there is not an inch of the rock anywhere that is +not within five miles or less of Spanish land, and that there is rather +more than a semicircle of hills round the rock within a range of seven +or eight miles. That is much less than the range of a sixteen-inch gun. +In other words, the Spaniards are in a position to knock Gibraltar to +bits whenever they want to do so, or to smash and sink any ships in its +harbour. They can hit it on every side. Consider, moreover, that there +are long sweeps of coast north, south, and west of the Rock, from which +torpedoes could be discharged at any ship that approached. Inquire +further where on the Rock an aeroplane can land. And having ascertained +these things, ask yourself what is the present value of Gibraltar? + +I will not multiply disagreeable instances of this sort, though it would +be easy enough to do so in the case both of France and Italy as well as +of Great Britain. I give them as illustrations of the way in which +everywhere old securities and old arrangements must be upset by the +greater range of modern things. Let us get on to more general +conditions. There is not a capital city in Europe that twenty years from +now will not be liable to a bombing raid done by hundreds or even +thousands of big aeroplanes, upon or even before a declaration of war, +and there is not a line of sea communication that will not be as +promptly interrupted by the hostile submarine. I point these things out +here only to carry home the fact that the ideas of sovereign isolation +and detachment that were perfectly valid in 1900, the self-sufficient +empire, Imperial Zollverein and all that stuff, and damn the foreigner! +are now, because of the enormous changes in range of action and facility +of locomotion that have been going on, almost as wild--or would be if we +were not so fatally accustomed to them--and quite as dangerous, as the +idea of setting up a free and sovereign state in the Isle of Dogs. All +the European empires are becoming vulnerable at every point. Surely the +moral is obvious. The only wise course before the allied European powers +now is to put their national conceit in their pockets and to combine to +lock up their foreign policy, their trade interests, and all their +imperial and international interests into a League so big as to be able +to withstand the most sudden and treacherous of blows. And surely the +only completely safe course for them and mankind--hard and nearly +impossible though it may seem at the present juncture--is for them to +lock up into one unity with a democratized Germany and with all the +other states of the earth into one peace-maintaining League. + +If the reader will revert again to his atlas he will see very clearly +that a strongly consolidated League of Free Nations, even if it +consisted only of our present allies, would in itself form a +combination with so close a system of communication about the world, and +so great an economic advantage, that in the long run it could oblige +Germany and the rest of the world to come in to its council. Divided the +Oceanic Allies are, to speak plainly, geographical rags and nakedness; +united they are a world. To set about organizing that League now, with +its necessary repudiation on the part of Britain, France, and Italy, of +a selfish and, it must be remembered in the light of these things I have +but hinted at here, a _now hopelessly unpracticable imperialism_, would, +I am convinced, lead quite rapidly to a great change of heart in Germany +and to a satisfactory peace. But even if I am wrong in that, then all +the stronger is the reason for binding, locking and uniting the allied +powers together. It is the most dangerous of delusions for each and all +of them to suppose that either Britain, France or Italy can ever stand +alone again and be secure. + +And turning now to the other aspect of these consequences of the +development of material science, it is too often assumed that this war +is being as horrible and destructive as war can be. There never was so +great a delusion. This war has only begun to be horrible. No doubt it is +much more horrible and destructive than any former war, but even in +comparison with the full possibilities of known and existing means of +destruction it is still a mild war. Perhaps it will never rise to its +full possibilities. At the present stage there is not a combatant, +except perhaps America, which is not now practising a pinching economy +of steel and other mechanical material. The Germans are running short of +first-class flying men, and if we and our allies continue to press the +air attack, and seek out and train our own vastly greater resources of +first quality young airmen, the Germans may come as near to being +"driven out of the air" as is possible. I am a firmer believer than ever +I was in the possibility of a complete victory over Germany--through and +by the air. But the occasional dropping of a big bomb or so in London is +not to be taken as anything but a minimum display of what air war can +do. In a little while now our alliance should be in a position to +commence day and night continuous attacks upon the Rhine towns. Not +hour-long raids such as London knows, but week-long raids. Then and then +only shall we be able to gauge the really horrible possibilities of the +air war. They are in our hands and not in the hands of the Germans. In +addition the Germans are at a huge disadvantage in their submarine +campaign. Their submarine campaign is only the feeble shadow of what a +submarine campaign might be. Turning again to the atlas the reader can +see for himself that the German and Austrian submarines are obliged to +come out across very narrow fronts. A fence of mines less than three +hundred miles long and two hundred feet deep would, for example, +completely bar their exit through the North Sea. The U-boats run the +gauntlet of that long narrow sea and pay a heavy toll to it. If only our +Admiralty would tell the German public what that toll is now, there +would come a time when German seamen would no longer consent to go down +in them. Consider, however, what a submarine campaign would be for Great +Britain if instead of struggling through this bottle-neck it were +conducted from the coast of Norway, where these pests might harbour in a +hundred fiords. Consider too what this weapon may be in twenty years' +time in the hands of a country in the position of the United States. +Great Britain, if she is not altogether mad, will cease to be an island +as soon as possible after the war, by piercing the Channel Tunnel--how +different our transport problem would be if we had that now!--but such +countries as Australia, New Zealand, and Japan, directly they are +involved in the future in a war against any efficient naval power with +an unimpeded sea access, will be isolated forthwith. I cannot conceive +that any of the great ocean powers will rest content until such a +tremendous possibility of blockade as the submarine has created is +securely vested in the hands of a common league beyond any power of +sudden abuse. + +It must always be remembered that this war is a mechanical war conducted +by men whose discipline renders them uninventive, who know little or +nothing of mechanism, who are for the most part struggling blindly to +get things back to the conditions for which they were trained, to +Napoleonic conditions, with infantry and cavalry and comparatively light +guns, the so-called "war of manoeuvres." It is like a man engaged in a +desperate duel who keeps on trying to make it a game of cricket. Most of +these soldiers detest every sort of mechanical device; the tanks, for +example, which, used with imagination, might have given the British and +French overwhelming victory on the western front, were subordinated to +the usual cavalry "break through" idea. I am not making any particular +complaint against the British and French generals in saying this. It is +what must happen to any country which entrusts its welfare to soldiers. +A soldier has to be a severely disciplined man, and a severely +disciplined man cannot be a versatile man, and on the whole the British +army has been as receptive to novelties as any. The German generals have +done no better; indeed, they have not done so well as the generals of +the Allies in this respect. But after the war, if the world does not +organize rapidly for peace, then as resources accumulate a little, the +mechanical genius will get to work on the possibilities of these ideas +that have merely been sketched out in this war. We shall get big land +ironclads which will smash towns. We shall get air offensives--let the +experienced London reader think of an air raid going on hour after hour, +day after day--that will really burn out and wreck towns, that will +drive people mad by the thousand. We shall get a very complete cessation +of sea transit. Even land transit may be enormously hampered by aerial +attack. I doubt if any sort of social order will really be able to stand +the strain of a fully worked out modern war. We have still, of course, +to feel the full shock effects even of this war. Most of the combatants +are going on, as sometimes men who have incurred grave wounds will still +go on for a time--without feeling them. The educational, biological, +social, economic punishment that has already been taken by each of the +European countries is, I feel, very much greater than we yet realize. +Russia, the heaviest and worst-trained combatant, has indeed shown the +effects and is down and sick, but in three years' time all Europe will +know far better than it does now the full price of this war. And the +shock effects of the next war will have much the same relation to the +shock effects of this, as the shock of breaking a finger-nail has to the +shock of crushing in a body. In Russia to-day we have seen, not indeed +social revolution, not the replacement of one social order by another, +but disintegration. Let not national conceit blind us. Germany, France, +Italy, Britain are all slipping about on that same slope down which +Russia has slid. Which goes first, it is hard to guess, or whether we +shall all hold out to some kind of Peace. At present the social +discipline of France and Britain seems to be at least as good as that of +Germany, and the _morale_ of the Rhineland and Bavaria has probably to +undergo very severe testing by systematized and steadily increasing air +punishment as this year goes on. The next war--if a next war comes--will +see all Germany, from end to end, vulnerable to aircraft.... + +Such are the two sets of considerations that will, I think, ultimately +prevail over every prejudice and every difficulty in the way of the +League of Free Nations. Existing states have become impossible as +absolutely independent sovereignties. The new conditions bring them so +close together and give them such extravagant powers of mutual injury +that they must either sink national pride and dynastic ambitions in +subordination to the common welfare of mankind or else utterly shatter +one another. It becomes more and more plainly a choice between the +League of Free Nations and a famished race of men looting in search of +non-existent food amidst the smouldering ruins of civilization. In the +end I believe that the common sense of mankind will prefer a revision of +its ideas of nationality and imperialism, to the latter alternative. It +may take obstinate men a few more years yet of blood and horror to learn +this lesson, but for my own part I cherish an obstinate belief in the +potential reasonableness of mankind. + + + + +IX + +DEMOCRACY + + +All the talk, all the aspiration and work that is making now towards +this conception of a world securely at peace, under the direction of a +League of Free Nations, has interwoven with it an idea that is often +rather felt than understood, the idea of Democracy. Not only is justice +to prevail between race and race and nation and nation, but also between +man and man; there is to be a universal respect for human life +throughout the earth; the world, in the words of President Wilson, is to +be made "safe for democracy." I would like to subject that word to a +certain scrutiny to see whether the things we are apt to think and +assume about it correspond exactly with the feeling of the word. I would +like to ask what, under modern conditions, does democracy mean, and +whether we have got it now anywhere in the world in its fulness and +completion. + +And to begin with I must have a quarrel with the word itself. The +eccentricities of modern education make us dependent for a number of +our primary political terms upon those used by the thinkers of the small +Greek republics of ancient times before those petty states collapsed, +through sheer political ineptitude, before the Macedonians. They thought +in terms of states so small that it was possible to gather all the +citizens together for the purposes of legislation. These states were +scarcely more than what we English might call sovereign urban districts. +Fast communications were made by runners; even the policeman with a +bicycle of the modern urban district was beyond the scope of the Greek +imagination. There were no railways, telegraphs, telephones, books or +newspapers, there was no need for the state to maintain a system of +education, and the affairs of the state were so simple that they could +be discussed and decided by the human voice and open voting in an +assembly of all the citizens. That is what democracy, meant. In Andorra, +or perhaps in Canton Uri, such democracy may still be possible; in any +other modern state it cannot exist. The opposite term to it was +oligarchy, in which a small council of men controlled the affairs of the +state. Oligarchy, narrowed down to one man, became monarchy. If you +wished to be polite to an oligarchy you called it an aristocracy; if you +wished to point out that a monarch was rather by way of being +self-appointed, you called him a Tyrant. An oligarchy with a property +qualification was a plutocracy. + +Now the modern intelligence, being under a sort of magic slavery to the +ancient Greeks, has to adapt all these terms to the problems of states +so vast and complex that they have the same relation to the Greek states +that the anatomy of a man has to the anatomy of a jellyfish. They are +not only greater in extent and denser in population, but they are +increasingly innervated by more and more rapid means of communication +and excitement. In the classical past--except for such special cases as +the feeding of Rome with Egyptian corn--trade was a traffic in luxuries +or slaves, war a small specialized affair of infantry and horsemen in +search of slaves and loot, and empire the exaction of tribute. The +modern state must conduct its enormous businesses through a system of +ministries; its vital interests go all round the earth; nothing that any +ancient Greek would have recognized as democracy is conceivable in a +great modern state. It is absolutely necessary, if we are to get things +clear in our minds about what democracy really means in relation to +modern politics, first to make a quite fresh classification in order to +find what items there really are to consider, and then to inquire which +seem to correspond more or less closely in spirit with our ideas about +ancient democracy. + +Now there are two primary classes of idea about government in the +modern world depending upon our conception of the political capacity of +the common man. We may suppose he is a microcosm, with complete ideas +and wishes about the state and the world, or we may suppose that he +isn't. We may believe that the common man can govern, or we may believe +that he can't. We may think further along the first line that he is so +wise and good and right that we only have to get out of his way for him +to act rightly and for the good of all mankind, or we may doubt it. And +if we doubt that we may still believe that, though perhaps "you can fool +all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time," +the common man, expressing himself by a majority vote, still remains the +secure source of human wisdom. But next, while we may deny this +universal distribution of political wisdom, we may, if we are +sufficiently under the sway of modern ideas about collective psychology, +believe that it is necessary to poke up the political indifference and +inability of the common man as much as possible, to thrust political +ideas and facts upon him, to incite him to a watchful and critical +attitude towards them, and above all to secure his assent to the +proceedings of the able people who are managing public affairs. Or +finally, we may treat him as a thing to be ruled and not consulted. Let +me at this stage make out a classificatory diagram of these elementary +ideas of government in a modern country. + +CLASS I. It is supposed that the common man _can_ govern: + +(1) without further organization (Anarchy); + +(2) through a majority vote by delegates. + +CLASS II. It is supposed that the common man _cannot_ govern, and that +government therefore must be through the agency of Able Persons who may +be classified under one of the following sub-heads, either as + +(1) persons elected by the common man because he believes them to be +persons able to govern--just as he chooses his doctors as persons able +to secure health, and his electrical engineers as persons able to attend +to his tramways, lighting, etc., etc.; + +(2) persons of a special class, as, for example, persons born and +educated to rule (e.g. _Aristocracy_), or rich business adventurers +_(Plutocracy)_ who rule without consulting the common man at all. + +To which two sub-classes we may perhaps add a sort of intermediate stage +between them, namely: + +(3) persons elected by a special class of voter. + +Monarchy may be either a special case of Class II.(1), (2) or (3), in +which the persons who rule have narrowed down in number to one person, +and the duration of monarchy may be either for life or a term of years. +These two classes and the five sub-classes cover, I believe, all the +elementary political types in our world. + +Now in the constitution of a modern state, because of the conflict and +confusion of ideas, all or most of these five sub-classes may usually be +found intertwined. The British constitution, for instance, is a +complicated tangle of arrangements, due to a struggle between the ideas +of Class I.(2), Class II.(3), tending to become Class II.(1) and Class +II.(2) in both its aristocratic and monarchist forms. The American +constitution is largely dominated by Class I.(2), from which it breaks +away in the case of the President to a short-term monarchist aspect of +Class II.(1). I will not elaborate this classification further. I have +made it here in order to render clear first, that what we moderns mean +by democracy is not what the Greeks meant at all, that is to say, direct +government by the assembly of all the citizens, and secondly and more +important, that the word "democracy" is being used very largely in +current discussion, so that it is impossible to say in any particular +case whether the intention is Class I.(2) or Class II.(1), and that we +have to make up our minds whether we mean, if I may coin two phrases, +"delegate democracy" or "selective democracy," or some definite +combination of these two, when we talk about "democracy," before we can +get on much beyond a generous gesture of equality and enfranchisement +towards our brother man. The word is being used, in fact, confusingly +for these two quite widely different things. + +Now, it seems to me that though there has been no very clear discussion +of the issue between those two very opposite conceptions of democracy, +largely because of the want of proper distinctive terms, there has +nevertheless been a wide movement of public opinion away from "delegate +democracy" and towards "selective democracy." People have gone on saying +"democracy," while gradually changing its meaning from the former to the +latter. It is notable in Great Britain, for example, that while there +has been no perceptible diminution in our faith in democracy, there has +been a growing criticism of "party" and "politicians," and a great +weakening in the power and influence of representatives and +representative institutions. There has been a growing demand for +personality and initiative in elected persons. The press, which was once +entirely subordinate politically to parliamentary politics, adopts an +attitude towards parliament and party leaders nowadays which would have +seemed inconceivable insolence in the days of Lord Palmerston. And there +has been a vigorous agitation in support of electoral methods which are +manifestly calculated to subordinate "delegated" to "selected" men. + +The movement for electoral reform in Great Britain at the present time +is one of quite fundamental importance in the development of modern +democracy. The case of the reformers is that heretofore modern democracy +has not had a fair opportunity of showing its best possibilities to the +world, because the methods of election have persistently set aside the +better types of public men, or rather of would-be public men, in favour +of mere party hacks. That is a story common to Britain and the American +democracies, but in America it was expressed in rather different terms +and dealt with in a less analytical fashion than it has been in Great +Britain. It was not at first clearly understood that the failure of +democracy to produce good government came through the preference of +"delegated" over "selected" men, the idea of delegation did in fact +dominate the minds of both electoral reformers and electoral +conservatives alike, and the earlier stages of the reform movement in +Great Britain were inspired not so much by the idea of getting a better +type of representative as by the idea of getting a fairer +representation of minorities. It was only slowly that the idea that +sensible men do not usually belong to any political "party" took hold. +It is only now being realized that what sensible men desire in a member +of parliament is honour and capacity rather than a mechanical loyalty to +a "platform." They do not want to dictate to their representative; they +want a man they can trust as their representative. In the fifties and +sixties of the last century, in which this electoral reform movement +began and the method of Proportional Representation was thought out, it +was possible for the reformers to work untroubled upon the assumption +that if a man was not necessarily born a + + "... little Liber-al, + or else a little Conservative," + +he must at least be a Liberal-Unionist or a Conservative Free-Trader. +But seeking a fair representation for party minorities, these reformers +produced a system of voting at once simple and incapable of +manipulation, that leads straight, not to the representation of small +parties, but to a type of democratic government by selected best men. + +Before giving the essential features of that system, it may be well to +state in its simplest form the evils at which the reform aims. An +election, the reformers point out, is not the simple matter it appears +to be at the first blush. Methods of voting can be manipulated in +various ways, and nearly every method has its own liability to +falsification. We may take for illustration the commonest, simplest +case--the case that is the perplexity of every clear-thinking voter +under British or American conditions--the case of a constituency in +which every elector has one vote, and which returns one representative +to Parliament. The naive theory on which people go is that all the +possible candidates are put up, that each voter votes for the one he +likes best, and that the best man wins. The bitter experience is that +hardly ever are there more than two candidates, and still more rarely is +either of these the best man possible. Suppose, for example, the +constituency is mainly Conservative. A little group of pothouse +politicians, wire-pullers, busybodies, local journalists, and small +lawyers, working for various monetary interests, have "captured" the +local Conservative organization. They have time and energy to capture +it, because they have no other interest in life except that. It is their +"business," and honest men are busy with other duties. For reasons that +do not appear these local "workers" put up an unknown Mr. Goldbug as the +official Conservative candidate. He professes a generally Conservative +view of things, but few people are sure of him and few people trust him. +Against him the weaker (and therefore still more venal) Liberal +organization now puts up a Mr. Kentshire (formerly Wurstberg) to +represent the broader thought and finer generosities of the English +mind. A number of Conservative gentlemen, generally too busy about their +honest businesses to attend the party "smokers" and the party cave, +realize suddenly that they want Goldbug hardly more than they want +Wurstberg. They put up their long-admired, trusted, and able friend Mr. +Sanity as an Independent Conservative. + +Every one knows the trouble that follows. Mr. Sanity is "going to split +the party vote." The hesitating voter is told, with considerable truth, +that a vote given for Mr. Sanity is a vote given for Wurstberg. At any +price the constituency does not want Wurstberg. So at the eleventh hour +Mr. Sanity is induced to withdraw, and Mr. Goldbug goes into Parliament +to misrepresent this constituency. And so with most constituencies, and +the result is a legislative body consisting largely of men of unknown +character and obscure aims, whose only credential is the wearing of a +party label. They come into parliament not to forward the great +interests they ostensibly support, but with an eye to the railway +jobbery, corporation business, concessions and financial operations that +necessarily go on in and about the national legislature. That in its +simplest form is the dilemma of democracy. The problem that has +confronted modern democracy since its beginning has not really been the +representation of organized minorities--they are very well able to look +after themselves--but _the protection of the unorganized mass of busily +occupied, fairly intelligent men from the tricks of the specialists who +work the party machines_. We know Mr. Sanity, we want Mr. Sanity, but we +are too busy to watch the incessant intrigues to oust him in favour of +the obscurely influential people, politically docile, who are favoured +by the organization. We want an organizer-proof method of voting. It is +in answer to this demand, as the outcome of a most careful examination +of the ways in which voting may be protected from the exploitation of +those who _work_ elections, that the method of Proportional +Representation with a single transferable vote has been evolved. It is +organizer-proof. It defies the caucus. If you do not like Mr. Goldbug +you can put up and vote for Mr. Sanity, giving Mr. Goldbug your second +choice, in the most perfect confidence that in any case your vote cannot +help to return Mr. Wurstberg. + +With Proportional Representation with a single transferable vote (this +specification is necessary, because there are also the inferior +imitations of various election-riggers figuring as proportional +representation), it is _impossible to prevent the effective candidature +of independent men of repute beside the official candidates_. + +The method of voting under the Proportional Representation system has +been ignorantly represented as complex. It is really almost ideally +simple. You mark the list of candidates with numbers in the order of +your preference. For example, you believe A to be absolutely the best +man for parliament; you mark him 1. But B you think is the next best +man; you mark him 2. That means that if A gets an enormous amount of +support, ever so many more votes than he requires for his return, your +vote will not be wasted. Only so much of your vote as is needed will go +to A; the rest will go to B. Or, on the other hand, if A has so little +support that his chances are hopeless, you will not have thrown your +vote away upon him; it will go to B. Similarly you may indicate a third, +a fourth, and a fifth choice; if you like you may mark every name on +your paper with a number to indicate the order of your preferences. And +that is all the voter has to do. The reckoning and counting of the votes +presents not the slightest difficulty to any one used to the business +of computation. Silly and dishonest men, appealing to still sillier +audiences, have got themselves and their audiences into humorous muddles +over this business, but the principles are perfectly plain and simple. +Let me state them here; they can be fully and exactly stated, with +various ornaments, comments, arguments, sarcastic remarks, and +digressions, in seventy lines of this type. + +It will be evident that, in any election under this system, any one who +has got a certain proportion of No. 1 votes will be elected. If, for +instance, five people have to be elected and 20,000 voters vote, then +any one who has got 4001 first votes or more _must_ be elected. 4001 +votes is in that case enough to elect a candidate. This sufficient +number of votes is called the _quota_, and any one who has more than +that number of votes has obviously got more votes than is needful for +election. So, to begin with, the voting papers are classified according +to their first votes, and any candidates who have got more than a quota +of first votes are forthwith declared elected. But most of these elected +men would under the old system waste votes because they would have too +many; for manifestly a candidate who gets more than the quota of votes +_needs only a fraction of each of these votes to return him_. If, for +instance, he gets double the quota he needs only half each vote. He +takes that fraction, therefore, under this new and better system, and +the rest of each vote is entered on to No. 2 upon that voting paper. And +so on. Now this is an extremely easy job for an accountant or skilled +computer, and it is quite easily checked by any other accountant and +skilled computer. A reader with a bad arithmetical education, ignorant +of the very existence of such a thing as a slide rule, knowing nothing +of account keeping, who thinks of himself working out the resultant +fractions with a stumpy pencil on a bit of greasy paper in a bad light, +may easily think of this transfer of fractions as a dangerous and +terrifying process. It is, for a properly trained man, the easiest, +exactest job conceivable. The Cash Register people will invent machines +to do it for you while you wait. What happens, then, is that every +candidate with more than a quota, beginning with the top candidate, +sheds a traction of each vote he has received, down the list, and the +next one sheds his surplus fraction in the same way, and so on until +candidates lower in the list, who are at first below the quota, fill up +to it. When all the surplus votes of the candidates at the head of the +list have been disposed of, then the hopeless candidates at the bottom +of the list are dealt with. The second votes on their voting papers are +treated as whole votes and distributed up the list, and so on. It will +be plain to the quick-minded that, towards the end, there will be a +certain chasing about of little fractions of votes, and a slight +modification of the quota due to voting papers having no second or third +preferences marked upon them, a chasing about that it will be difficult +for an untrained intelligence to follow. _But untrained intelligences +are not required to follow it_. For the skilled computer these things +offer no difficulty at all. And they are not difficulties of principle +but of manipulation. One might as well refuse to travel in a taxicab +until the driver had explained the magneto as refuse to accept the +principle of Proportional Representation by the single transferable vote +until one had remedied all the deficiencies of one's arithmetical +education. The fundamental principle of the thing, that a candidate who +gets more votes than he wants is made to hand on a fraction of each vote +to the voter's second choice, and that a candidate whose chances are +hopeless is made to hand on the whole vote to the voter's second choice, +so that practically only a small number of votes are ineffective, is +within the compass of the mind of a boy of ten. + +But simple as this method is, it completely kills the organization and +manipulation of voting. It completely solves the Goldbug-Wurstberg- +Sanity problem. It is knave-proof--short of forging, stealing, or +destroying voting papers. A man of repute, a leaderly man, may defy all +the party organizations in existence and stand beside and be returned +over the head of a worthless man, though the latter be smothered with +party labels. That is the gist of this business. The difference in +effect between Proportional Representation and the old method of voting +must ultimately be to change the moral and intellectual quality of +elected persons profoundly. People are only beginning to realize the +huge possibilities of advance inherent in this change of political +method. It means no less than a revolution from "delegate democracy" +to "selective democracy." + +Now, I will not pretend to be anything but a strong partizan in this +matter. When I speak of "democracy" I mean "selective democracy." I +believe that "delegate democracy" is already provably a failure in the +world, and that the reason why to-day, after three and a half years of +struggle, we are still fighting German autocracy and fighting with no +certainty of absolute victory, is because the affairs of the three great +Atlantic democracies have been largely in the hands not of selected men +but of delegated men, men of intrigue and the party machine, of dodges +rather than initiatives, second-rate men. When Lord Haldane, defending +his party for certain insufficiencies in their preparation for the +eventuality of the great war, pleaded that they had no "mandate" from +the country to do anything of the sort, he did more than commit +political suicide, he bore conclusive witness against the whole system +which had made him what he was. Neither Britain nor France in this +struggle has produced better statesmen nor better generals than the +German autocracy. The British and French Foreign Offices are old +monarchist organizations still. To this day the British and French +politicians haggle and argue with the German ministers upon petty points +and debating society advantages, smart and cunning, while the peoples +perish. The one man who has risen to the greatness of this great +occasion, the man who is, in default of any rival, rapidly becoming the +leader of the world towards peace, is neither a delegate politician nor +the choice of a monarch and his councillors. He is the one authoritative +figure in these transactions whose mind has not been subdued either by +long discipline in the party machine or by court intrigue, who has +continued his education beyond those early twenties when the mind of the +"budding politician" ceases to expand, who has thought, and thought +things out, who is an educated man among dexterous under-educated +specialists. By something very like a belated accident in the framing +of the American constitution, the President of the United States is more +in the nature of a selected man than any other conspicuous figure at the +present time. He is specially elected by a special electoral college +after an elaborate preliminary selection of candidates by the two great +party machines. And be it remembered that Mr. Wilson is not the first +great President the United States have had, he is one of a series of +figures who tower over their European contemporaries. The United States +have had many advantageous circumstances to thank for their present +ascendancy in the world's affairs: isolation from militarist pressure +for a century and a quarter, a vast virgin continent, plenty of land, +freedom from centralization, freedom from titles and social vulgarities, +common schools, a real democratic spirit in its people, and a great +enthusiasm for universities; but no single advantage has been so great +as this happy accident which has given it a specially selected man as +its voice and figurehead in the world's affairs. In the average +congressman, in the average senator, as Ostrogorski's great book so +industriously demonstrated, the United States have no great occasion for +pride. Neither the Senate nor the House of Representatives seem to rise +above the level of the British Houses of Parliament, with a Government +unable to control the rebel forces of Ulster, unable to promote or +dismiss generals without an outcry, weakly amenable to the press, and +terrifyingly incapable of great designs. It is to the United States of +America we must look now if the world is to be made "safe for +democracy." It is to the method of selection, as distinguished from +delegation, that we must look if democracy is to be saved from itself. + + + + +X + +THE RECENT STRUGGLE FOR PROPORTIONAL REPRESENTATION IN GREAT BRITAIN + + +British political life resists cleansing with all the vigour of a dirty +little boy. It is nothing to your politician that the economic and +social organization of all the world, is strained almost to the pitch of +collapse, and that it is vitally important to mankind that everywhere +the whole will and intelligence of the race should be enlisted in the +great tasks of making a permanent peace and reconstructing the shattered +framework of society. These are remote, unreal considerations to the +politician. What is the world to him? He has scarcely heard of it. He +has been far too busy as a politician. He has been thinking of smart +little tricks in the lobby and brilliant exploits at question time. He +has been thinking of jobs and appointments, of whether Mr. Asquith is +likely to "come back" and how far it is safe to bank upon L. G. His one +supreme purpose is to keep affairs in the hands of his own specialized +set, to keep the old obscure party game going, to rig his little tricks +behind a vast, silly camouflage of sham issues, to keep out able men and +disinterested men, the public mind, and the general intelligence, from +any effective interference with his disastrous manipulations of the +common weal. + +I do not see how any intelligent and informed man can have followed the +recent debates in the House of Commons upon Proportional Representation +without some gusts of angry contempt. They were the most pitiful and +alarming demonstration of the intellectual and moral quality of British +public life at the present time. + +From the wire-pullers of the Fabian Society and from the party +organizers of both Liberal and Tory party alike, and from the knowing +cards, the pothouse shepherds, and jobbing lawyers who "work" the +constituencies, comes the chief opposition to this straightening out of +our electoral system so urgently necessary and so long overdue. They +have fought it with a zeal and efficiency that is rarely displayed in +the nation's interest. From nearly every outstanding man outside that +little inner world of political shams and dodges, who has given any +attention to the question, comes, on the other hand, support for this +reform. Even the great party leaders, Mr. Balfour and Mr. Asquith, were +in its favour. One might safely judge this question by considering who +are the advocates on either side. But the best arguments for +Proportional Representation arise out of its opponents' speeches, and to +these I will confine my attention now. Consider Lord Harcourt--heir to +the most sacred traditions of the party game--hurling scorn at a project +that would introduce "faddists, mugwumps," and so on and so on--in fact +independent thinking men--into the legislature. Consider the value of +Lord Curzon's statement that London "rose in revolt" against the +project. Do you remember that day, dear reader, when the streets of +London boiled with passionate men shouting, "No Proportional +Representation! Down with Proportional Representation"? You don't. Nor +do I. But what happened was that the guinea-pigs and solicitors and +nobodies, the party hacks who form the bulk of London's +misrepresentation in the House of Commons, stampeded in terror against a +proposal that threatened to wipe them out and replace them by known and +responsible men. London, alas! does not seem to care how its members are +elected. What Londoner knows anything about his member? Hundreds of +thousands of Londoners do not even know which of the ridiculous +constituencies into which the politicians have dismembered our London +they are in. Only as I was writing this in my flat in St. James's Court, +Westminster, did it occur to me to inquire who was representing me in +the councils of the nation while I write.... + +After some slight difficulty I ascertained that my representative is a +Mr. Burdett Coutts, who was, in the romantic eighties, Mr. +Ashmead-Bartlett. And by a convenient accident I find that the other day +he moved to reject the Proportional Representation Amendment made by the +House of Lords to the Representation of the People Bill, so that I am +able to look up the debate in Hansard and study my opinions as he +represented them and this question at one and the same time. And, taking +little things first, I am proud and happy to discover that the member +for me was the only participator in the debate who, in the vulgar and +reprehensible phrase, "threw a dead cat," or, in polite terms, displayed +classical learning. My member said, "_Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes_," +with a rather graceful compliment to the Labour Conference at +Nottingham. "I could not help thinking to myself," said my member, "that +at that conference there must have been many men of sufficient classical +reading to say to themselves, '_Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes_.'" In +which surmise he was quite right. Except perhaps for "_Tempus fugit,"_ +"_verbum sap._," "_Arma virumque_," and "_Quis custodiet_," there is no +better known relic of antiquity. But my member went a little beyond my +ideas when he said: "We are asked to enter upon a method of legislation +which can bear no other description than that of law-making in the +dark," because I think it can bear quite a lot of other descriptions. +This was, however, the artistic prelude to a large, vague, gloomy +dissertation about nothing very definite, a muddling up of the main +question with the minor issue of a schedule of constituencies involved +in the proposal. + +The other parts of my member's speech do not, I confess, fill me with +the easy confidence I would like to feel in my proxy. Let me extract a +few gems of eloquence from the speech of this voice which speaks for me, +and give also the only argument he advanced that needs consideration. +"History repeats itself," he said, "very often in curious ways as to +facts, but generally with very different results." That, honestly, I +like. It is a sentence one can read over several times. But he went on +to talk of the entirely different scheme for minority representation, +which was introduced into the Reform Bill of 1867, and there I am +obliged to part company with him. That was a silly scheme for giving two +votes to each voter in a three-member constituency. It has about as much +resemblance to the method of scientific voting under discussion as a +bath-chair has to an aeroplane. "But that measure of minority +representation led to a baneful invention," my representative went on +to say, "and left behind it a hateful memory in the Birmingham caucus. I +well remember that when I stood for Parliament thirty-two years ago _we +had no better platform weapon than repeating over and over again in a +sentence the name of Mr. Schnadhorst,_ and I am not sure that it would +not serve the same purpose now. Under that system the work of the caucus +was, of course, far simpler than it will be if this system ever comes +into operation. All the caucus had to do under that measure was to +divide the electors into three groups and with three candidates, A., B., +and C., to order one group to vote for A. and B., another for B. and C., +and the third for A. and C., and they carried the whole of their +candidates and kept them for many years. But the multiplicity of ordinal +preferences, second, third, fourth, fifth, up to tenth, which the single +transferable vote system would involve, will require a more scientific +handling in party interests, and neither party will be able to face an +election with any hope of success without the assistance of the most +drastic form of caucus and _without its orders being carried out by the +electors_." + +Now, I swear by Heaven that, lowly creature as I am, a lost vote, a +nothing, voiceless and helpless in public affairs, I am not going to +stand the imputation that that sort of reasoning represents the average +mental quality of Westminster--outside Parliament, that is. Most of my +neighbours in St. James's Court, for example, have quite large pieces of +head above their eyebrows. Read these above sentences over and ponder +their significance--so far as they have any significance. Never mind my +keen personal humiliation at this display of the mental calibre of my +representative, but consider what the mental calibre of a House must be +that did not break out into loud guffaws at such a passage. The line of +argument is about as lucid as if one reasoned that because one can break +a window with a stone it is no use buying a telescope. And it remains +entirely a matter for speculation whether my member is arguing that a +caucus _can_ rig an election carried on under the Proportional +Representation system or that it cannot. At the first blush it seems to +read as if he intended the former. But be careful! Did he? Let me +suggest that in that last sentence he really expresses the opinion that +it cannot. It can be read either way. Electors under modern conditions +are not going to obey the "orders" of even the "most drastic +caucus"--whatever a "drastic caucus" may be. Why should they? In the +Birmingham instance it was only a section of the majority, voting by +wards, in an election on purely party lines, which "obeyed" in order to +keep out the minority party candidate. I think myself that my member's +mind waggled. Perhaps his real thoughts shone out through an argument +not intended to betray them. What he did say as much as he said anything +was that under Proportional Representation, elections are going to be +very troublesome and difficult for party candidates. If that was his +intention, then, after all, I forgive him much. I think that and more +than that. I think that they are going to make party candidates who are +merely party candidates impossible. That is exactly what we reformers +are after. Then I shall get a representative more to my taste than Mr. +Burdett Coutts. + +But let me turn now to the views of other people's representatives. + +Perhaps the most damning thing ever said against the present system, +damning because of its empty absurdity, was uttered by Sir Thomas +Whittaker. He was making the usual exaggerations of the supposed +difficulties of the method. He said English people didn't like such +"complications." They like a "straight fight between two men." Think of +it! A straight fight! For more than a quarter-century I have been a +voter, usually with votes in two or three constituencies, and never in +all that long political life have I seen a single straight fight in an +election, but only the dismallest sham fights it is possible to +conceive. Thrice only in all that time have I cast a vote for a man whom +I respected. On all other occasions the election that mocked my +citizenship was either an arranged walk-over for one party or the other, +or I had a choice between two unknown persons, mysteriously selected as +candidates by obscure busy people with local interests in the +constituency. Every intelligent person knows that this is the usual +experience of a free and independent voter in England. The "fight" of an +ordinary Parliamentary election in England is about as "straight" as the +business of a thimble rigger. + +And consider just what these "complications" are of which the opponents +of Proportional Representation chant so loudly. In the sham election of +to-day, which the politicians claim gives them a mandate to muddle up +our affairs, the voter puts a x against the name of the least detestable +of the two candidates that are thrust upon him. Under the Proportional +Representation method there will be a larger constituency, a larger list +of candidates, and a larger number of people to be elected, and he will +put I against the name of the man he most wants to be elected, 2 against +his second choice, and if he likes he may indulge in marking a third, or +even a further choice. He may, if he thinks fit, number off the whole +list of candidates. That is all he will have to do. That is the +stupendous intricacy of the method that flattens out the minds of Lord +Harcourt and Sir Thomas Whittaker. And as for the working of it, if you +must go into that, all that happens is that if your first choice gets +more votes than he needs for his return, he takes only the fraction of +your vote that he requires, and the rest of the vote goes on to your +Number 2. If 2 isn't in need of all of it, the rest goes on to 3. And so +on. That is the profound mathematical mystery, that is the riddle beyond +the wit of Westminster, which overpowers these fine intelligences and +sets them babbling of "senior wranglers." Each time there is a debate on +this question in the House, member after member hostile to the proposal +will play the ignorant fool and pretend to be confused himself, and will +try to confuse others, by deliberately clumsy statements of these most +elementary ideas. Surely if there were no other argument for a change of +type in the House, these poor knitted brows, these public perspirations +of the gentry who "cannot understand P.R.," should suffice. + +But let us be just; it is not all pretence; the inability of Mr. Austen +Chamberlain to grasp the simple facts before him was undoubtedly +genuine. He followed Mr. Burdett Coutts, in support of Mr. Burdett +Coutts, with the most Christian disregard of the nasty things Mr. +Burdett Coutts had seemed to be saying about the Birmingham caucus from +which he sprang. He had a childish story to tell of how voters would not +give their first votes to their real preferences, because they would +assume he "would get in in any case"--God knows why. Of course on the +assumption that the voter behaves like an idiot, anything is possible. +And never apparently having heard of fractions, this great Birmingham +leader was unable to understand that a voter who puts 1 against a +candidate's name votes for that candidate anyhow. He could not imagine +any feeling on the part of the voter that No. 1 was his man. A vote is a +vote to this simple rather than lucid mind, a thing one and indivisible. +Read this-- + +"Birmingham," he said, referring to a Schedule under consideration, "is +to be cut into three constituencies of four members each. I am to have a +constituency of 100,000 electors, I suppose. How many thousand +inhabitants I do not know. _Every effort will be made to prevent any of +those electors knowing--in fact, it would be impossible for any of them +to know--whether they voted for me or not, or at any rate whether they +effectively voted for me or not, or whether the vote which they wished +to give to me was really diverted to somebody else_." + +Only in a house of habitually inattentive men could any one talk such +nonsense without reproof, but I look in vain through Hansard's record +of this debate for a single contemptuous reference to Mr. Chamberlain's +obtuseness. And the rest of his speech was a lamentable account of the +time and trouble he would have to spend upon his constituents if the new +method came in. He was the perfect figure of the parochially important +person in a state of defensive excitement. No doubt his speech appealed +to many in the House. + +Of course Lord Harcourt was quite right in saying that the character of +the average House of Commons member will be changed by Proportional +Representation. It will. It will make the election of obscure and +unknown men, of carpet-bag candidates who work a constituency as a +hawker works a village, of local pomposities and village-pump "leaders" +almost impossible. It will replace such candidates by better known and +more widely known men. It will make the House of Commons so much the +more a real gathering of the nation, so much the more a house of +representative men. (Lord Harcourt's "faddists and mugwumps.") And it is +perfectly true as Mr. Ramsay Macdonald (also an opponent) declares, that +Proportional Representation means constituencies so big that it will be +impossible for a poor man to cultivate and work them. That is +unquestionable. But, mark another point, it will also make it useless, +as Mr. Chamberlain has testified, for rich men to cultivate and work +them. All this cultivating and working, all this going about and making +things right with this little jobber here, that contractor there, all +the squaring of small political clubs and organizations, all the +subscription blackmail and charity bribery, that now makes a +Parliamentary candidature so utterly rotten an influence upon public +life, will be killed dead by Proportional Representation. You cannot job +men into Parliament by Proportional Representation. Proportional +Representation lets in the outsider. It lets in the common, unassigned +voter who isn't in the local clique. That is the clue to nearly all this +opposition of the politicians. It makes democracy possible for the first +time in modern history. And that poor man of Mr. Ramsay Macdonald's +imagination, instead of cadging about a constituency in order to start +politician, will have to make good in some more useful way--as a leader +of the workers in their practical affairs, for example--before people +will hear of him and begin to believe in him. + +The opposition to Proportional Representation of Mr. Sidney Webb and his +little circle is a trifle more "scientific" in tone than these naive +objections of the common run of antagonist, but underlying it is the +same passionate desire to keep politics a close game for the politician +and to bar out the politically unspecialized man. There is more conceit +and less jobbery behind the criticisms of this type of mind. It is an +opposition based on the idea that the common man is a fool who does not +know what is good for him. So he has to be stampeded. Politics, +according to this school, is a sort of cattle-driving. + +The Webbites do not deny the broad facts of the case. Our present +electoral system, with our big modern constituencies of thousands of +voters, leads to huge turnovers of political power with a relatively +small shifting of public opinion. It makes a mock of public opinion by +caricature, and Parliament becomes the distorting mirror of the nation. +Under some loud false issue a few score of thousands of votes turn over, +and in goes this party or that with a big sham majority. This the +Webbites admit. But they applaud it. It gives us, they say, "a strong +Government." Public opinion, the intelligent man outside the House, is +ruled out of the game. He has no power of intervention at all. The +artful little Fabian politicians rub their hands and say, "_Now_ we can +get to work with the wires! No one can stop us." And when the public +complains of the results, there is always the repartee, "_You_ elected +them." But the Fabian psychology is the psychology of a very small group +of pedants who believe that fair ends may be reached by foul means. It +is much easier and more natural to serve foul ends by foul means. In +practice it is not tricky benevolence but tricky bargaining among the +interests that will secure control of the political wires. That is a bad +enough state of affairs in ordinary times, but in times of tragic +necessity like the present men will not be mocked in this way. Life is +going to be very intense in the years ahead of us. If we go right on to +another caricature Parliament, with perhaps half a hundred leading men +in it and the rest hacks and nobodies, the baffled and discontented +outsiders in the streets may presently be driven to rioting and the +throwing of bombs. Unless, indeed, the insurrection of the outsiders +takes a still graver form, and the Press, which has ceased entirely to +be a Party Press in Great Britain, helps some adventurous Prime Minister +to flout and set aside the lower House altogether. There is neither much +moral nor much physical force behind the House of Commons at the present +time. + +The argument of the Fabian opponents to Proportional Representation is +frankly that the strongest Government is got in a House of half a +hundred or fewer leading men, with the rest of the Parliament driven +sheep. But the whole mischief of the present system is that the obscure +members of Parliament are not sheep; they are a crowd of little-minded, +second-rate men just as greedy and eager and self-seeking as any of us. +They vote straight indeed on all the main party questions, they obey +their Whips like sheep then; but there is a great bulk of business in +Parliament outside the main party questions, and obedience is not +without its price. These are matters vitally affecting our railways and +ships and communications generally, the food and health of the people, +armaments, every sort of employment, the appointment of public servants, +the everyday texture of all our lives. Then the nobody becomes somebody, +the party hack gets busy, the rat is in the granary.... + +In these recent debates in the House of Commons one can see every stock +trick of the wire-puller in operation. Particularly we have the old +dodge of the man who is "in theory quite in sympathy with Proportional +Representation, but ..." It is, he declares regretfully, too late. It +will cause delay. Difficult to make arrangements. Later on perhaps. And +so on. It is never too late for a vital issue. Upon the speedy adoption +of Proportional Representation depends, as Mr. Balfour made plain in an +admirable speech, whether the great occasions of the peace and after the +peace are to be handled by a grand council of all that is best and most +leaderlike in the nation, or whether they are to be left to a few +leaders, apparently leading, but really profoundly swayed by the obscure +crowd of politicians and jobbers behind them. Are the politicians to +hamper and stifle us in this supreme crisis of our national destinies or +are we British peoples to have a real control of our own affairs in this +momentous time? Are men of light and purpose to have a voice in public +affairs or not? Proportional Representation is supremely a test +question. It is a question that no adverse decision in the House of +Commons can stifle. There are too many people now who grasp its +importance and significance. Every one who sets a proper value upon +purity in public life and the vitality of democratic institutions will, +I am convinced, vote and continue to vote across every other question +against the antiquated, foul, and fraudulent electoral methods that have +hitherto robbed democracy of three-quarters of its efficiency. + + + + +XI + +THE STUDY AND PROPAGANDA OF DEMOCRACY + + +In the preceding chapter I have dealt with the discussion of +Proportional Representation in the British House of Commons in order to +illustrate the intellectual squalor amidst which public affairs have to +be handled at the present time, even in a country professedly +"democratic." I have taken this one discussion as a sample to illustrate +the present imperfection of our democratic instrument. All over the +world, in every country, great multitudes of intelligent and serious +people are now inspired by the idea of a new order of things in the +world, of a world-wide establishment of peace and mutual aid between +nation and nation and man and man. But, chiefly because of the +elementary crudity of existing electoral methods, hardly anywhere at +present, except at Washington, do these great ideas and this world-wide +will find expression. Amidst the other politicians and statesmen of the +world President Wilson towers up with an effect almost divine. But it +is no ingratitude to him to say that he is not nearly so exceptional a +being among educated men as he is among the official leaders of mankind. +Everywhere now one may find something of the Wilson purpose and +intelligence, but nearly everywhere it is silenced or muffled or made +ineffective by the political advantage of privileged or of violent and +adventurous inferior men. He is "one of us," but it is his good fortune +to have got his head out of the sack that is about the heads of most of +us. In the official world, in the world of rulers and representatives +and "statesmen," he almost alone, speaks for the modern intelligence. + +This general stifling of the better intelligence of the world and its +possible release to expression and power, seems to me to be the +fundamental issue underlying all the present troubles of mankind. We +cannot get on while everywhere fools and vulgarians hold the levers that +can kill, imprison, silence and starve men. We cannot get on with false +government and we cannot get on with mob government; we must have right +government. The intellectual people of the world have a duty of +co-operation they have too long neglected. The modernization of +political institutions, the study of these institutions until we have +worked out and achieved the very best and most efficient methods whereby +the whole community of mankind may work together under the direction of +its chosen intelligences, is the common duty of every one who has a +brain for the service. And before everything else we have to realize +this crudity and imperfection in what we call "democracy" at the present +time. Democracy is still chiefly an aspiration, it is a spirit, it is an +idea; for the most part its methods are still to seek. And still more is +this "League of Free Nations" as yet but an aspiration. Let us not +underrate the task before us. Only the disinterested devotion of +hundreds of thousands of active brains in school, in pulpit, in book and +press and assembly can ever bring these redeeming conceptions down to +the solid earth to rule. + +All round the world there is this same obscuration of the real +intelligence of men. In Germany, human good will and every fine mind are +subordinated to political forms that have for a mouthpiece a Chancellor +with his brains manifestly addled by the theories of _Welt-Politik_ and +the Bismarckian tradition, and for a figurehead a mad Kaiser. +Nevertheless there comes even from Germany muffled cries for a new age. +A grinning figure like a bloodstained Punch is all that speaks for the +best brains in Bulgaria. Yes. We Western allies know all that by heart; +but, after all, the immediate question for each one of us is, "_What +speaks for me?_" So far as official political forms go I myself am as +ineffective as any right-thinking German or Bulgarian could possibly be. +I am more ineffective than a Galician Pole or a Bohemian who votes for +his nationalist representative. Politically I am a negligible item in +the constituency of this Mr. Burdett Coutts into whose brain we have +been peeping. Politically I am less than a waistcoat button on that +quaint figure. And that is all I am--except that I revolt. I have +written of it so far as if it were just a joke. But indeed bad and +foolish political institutions cannot be a joke. Sooner or later they +prove themselves to be tragedy. This war is that. It is yesterday's +lazy, tolerant, "sense of humour" wading out now into the lakes of blood +it refused to foresee. + +It is absurd to suppose that anywhere to-day the nationalisms, the +suspicions and hatreds, the cants and policies, and dead phrases that +sway men represent the current intelligence of mankind. They are merely +the evidences of its disorganization. Even now we _know_ we could do far +better. Give mankind but a generation or so of peace and right education +and this world could mock at the poor imaginations that conceived a +millennium. But we have to get intelligences together, we have to +canalize thought before it can work and produce its due effects. To that +end, I suppose, there has been a vast amount of mental activity among +us political "negligibles." For my own part I have thought of the idea +of God as the banner of human unity and justice, and I have made some +tentatives in that direction, but men, I perceive, have argued +themselves mean and petty about religion. At the word "God" passions +bristle. The word "God" does not unite men, it angers them. But I doubt +if God cares greatly whether we call Him God or no. His service is the +service of man. This double idea of the League of Free Nations, linked +with the idea of democracy as universal justice, is free from the +jealousy of the theologians and great enough for men to unite upon +everywhere. I know how warily one must reckon with the spite of the +priest, but surely these ideas may call upon the teachers of all the +great world religions for their support. The world is full now of +confused propaganda, propaganda of national ideas, of traditions of +hate, of sentimental and degrading loyalties, of every sort of error +that divides and tortures and slays mankind. All human institutions are +made of propaganda, are sustained by propaganda and perish when it +ceases; they must be continually explained and re-explained to the young +and the negligent. And for this new world of democracy and the League of +Free Nations to which all reasonable men are looking, there must needs +be the greatest of all propagandas. For that cause every one must +become a teacher and a missionary. "Persuade to it and make the idea of +it and the necessity for it plain," that is the duty of every school +teacher, every tutor, every religious teacher, every writer, every +lecturer, every parent, every trusted friend throughout the world. For +it, too, every one must become a student, must go on with the task of +making vague intentions into definite intentions, of analyzing and +destroying obstacles, of mastering the ten thousand difficulties of +detail.... + +I am a man who looks now towards the end of life; fifty-one years have I +scratched off from my calendar, another slips by, and I cannot tell how +many more of the sparse remainder of possible years are really mine. I +live in days of hardship and privation, when it seems more natural to +feel ill than well; without holidays or rest or peace; friends and the +sons of my friends have been killed; death seems to be feeling always +now for those I most love; the newspapers that come in to my house tell +mostly of blood and disaster, of drownings and slaughterings, of +cruelties and base intrigues. Yet never have I been so sure that there +is a divinity in man and that a great order of human life, a reign of +justice and world-wide happiness, of plenty, power, hope, and gigantic +creative effort, lies close at hand. Even now we have the science and +the ability available for a universal welfare, though it is scattered +about the world like a handful of money dropped by a child; even now +there exists all the knowledge that is needed to make mankind +universally free and human life sweet and noble. We need but the faith +for it, and it is at hand; we need but the courage to lay our hands upon +it and in a little space of years it can be ours. + +THE END. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of In The Fourth Year, by H.G. Wells + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 10291 *** |