A LEAGUE OF NATIONS 
 
A LEAGUE OF 
 NATIONS 
 
 BY 
 
 HENRY NOEL BRAILSFORD 
 
 Author of 
 " The War of Steel and Gold," &c. 
 
 SECOND AND REVISED EDITION 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 
First Eil 1 1 ion . February K)i7 
 Reprinted . . April 1917 
 Second Edition . November /y/7 
 
PREFACE 
 
 THE war has called forth some good books on the 
 future international organization of the world, and 
 others on the settlement of the war itself. To my 
 thinking, these two questions are a single problem 
 which must be solved as a whole. The task which 
 for us exceeds all others in importance, and must 
 be made to include all others, is the making of 
 conditions which promise security from further wars. 
 The settlement of the national, colonial, and 
 economic questions involved in this war, must be a 
 settlement which will help the creation, and ensure 
 the harmonious working of a League of Nations 
 founded to maintain peace. In this book I have 
 tried to consider how far such a League of Nations 
 as President Wilson has proposed, can guarantee 
 the security of Europe. Its success will depend, 
 not merely on the wise drafting of its constitution, 
 but upon the solution reached in the war-settlement 
 of our problems of nationality, colonial expansion, 
 international trade, sea-power, and alliances, I have 
 groped in fhe following chapters for an answer to 
 this question : Under what political and economic 
 conditions would the creation of a League of Nations 
 be a hopeful adventure? 
 
 The book was written during the summer of 1916 
 and finished in the last days of October. Much has 
 happened since the manuscript was completed-^the 
 fall of the Coalition Cabinet, the German o'ffer of 
 negotiation, and the entry of America into the war. 
 While the military position shows comparatively little 
 
 8f6l70 
 
vi PREFACE 
 
 change, the political transformation of Europe has 
 proceeded rapidly. Russia has become a Republic ; 
 Austria under a new Emperor is following a new 
 course, and in Germany the Reichstag is struggling, 
 not without a measure of success, to win supremacy 
 for the representatives of the people. A series of 
 revelations is shattering the old secret processes of 
 diplomacy. The Pope, meanwhile, has taken up the 
 work of mediation which Mr. Wilson was forced to 
 abandon, and the answers of the Central Powers, 
 with their adoption of the ideas of arbitration and 
 disarmament, reveal a change of mind since the 
 fatal days of 1914. How much nearer we are in 
 time to the coming of peace no man can say, but 
 unquestionably the intellectual preparation of an 
 enduring peace has advanced. 
 
 These large events made a new edition of this 
 book desirable. Some fresh material has been 
 introduced, especially in Chapters I, IV, and V. 
 The constructive chapters (VI-X) have been revised, 
 but not substantially altered. I have added in an 
 appendix a note dealing with some historical aspects 
 of the outbreak of the war. 
 
 My warmest thanks are due to Mr. Noel Buxton 
 for his encouragement and help. 
 
 H. N. BRAILSFORD. 
 October IQIJ. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 tHAPTEK 
 
 PREFACE . 
 
 I. FROM FORCE TO CONFERENCE . . .1 
 
 II. AMERICA AND THE LEAGUE OF PEACE . , 39 
 
 III. ON PEACE AND CHANGE . . . . 67 
 
 IV. PROBLEMS OF NATIONALITY -97 
 
 V. THE ROADS OF THE EAST . . . 142 
 
 .VI. THE FUTUKE OF ALLIANCES . . . 178 
 
 VII. ON SEA POWER . . . . '97 
 
 VIII. EMPIRE, SEA-POWER, AND TRADE . . 2IQ 
 
 IX. THE ECONOMICS OF PEACE . . . 257 
 
 X. THE CONSTITUTION OF THE LEAGUE . . 293 
 
 CONCLUSION ..... 323 
 
 APPENDIX . . . . . . 335 
 
 INDEX . . . . . .345 
 
 MAPS 
 
 THE RACES OF AUSTRIA-HUNGARY . Ai tnd 
 
 THE POLISH POPULATION . . 
 
 THE POADS OF THE EAST . . 
 
 vii 
 
A LEAGUE OF NATIONS 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 FROM FORCE TO CONFERENCE 
 
 NEVER since the young levies of revolutionary 
 France marched to encounter the leagued kings 
 of the old order at Valmy, has Europe seen at 
 work an impulse so generous as that which fired 
 the British democracy in the early months of this 
 war. The challenge had found us mentally unpre- 
 pared. Our attention was absorbed in our own 
 Irish controversy. We believed, and believed 
 truly, that our relations with Germany were better 
 than they had been for many years. We had hardly 
 noticed the presages of the coming storm or heeded 
 the controversies over armaments and the Near East 
 in which the select spokesmen of the German and 
 Russian ruling classes had during the spring and 
 early summer declared war upon each other, even 
 before the occasion for war arose. So little was 
 our mood attuned to strife that^the murder of the 
 Austrian Archduke stirred in us only horror and 
 sympathy for a house tracked by the shadow of 
 incessant tragedy. The result was that when war 
 overtook us, after a few days' debate, we entered 
 it without anger, without hate, above all, without 
 desire. So little were we prepared for it that it 
 struck us with surprise as the thing it is, an 
 anachronism, an obsolete barbarity, a blot on 
 
2 A LEAGUE OF NATIONS 
 
 civilization. We had been living our own normal 
 lives, in which the idea of force and power plays 
 little part. We were not thinking on this plane, 
 and the sudden perception that big guns, embattled 
 armies, and colossal ships are the factors which 
 work out the destinies of nations moved us only 
 to an instinctive and all but unanimous revolt. We 
 were consciously doing a thing repugnant to reason 
 and instinct, and we told each other that we were 
 doing it for the last time. The popular mottoes 
 of the day were " Never again " and " A war to 
 end war." A study of the leading articles in 
 which our newspapers and reviews discussed the 
 task before us would show, with rare exceptions, 
 a recurrent emphasis on the idea that out of this 
 war would somehow grow the resolve to organize 
 Europe for the prevention of future wars. When 
 that phrase with the ambiguous mask, " the crush- 
 ing of Prussian militarism," was first adopted as 
 a statement of our aim in the war, it implied in 
 the national mind the belief that Germany alone 
 had resisted the evolution of a peaceful Europe. 
 It did but need a united effort to overthrow this 
 single, this local, obstacle and the way would be 
 clear, if not to the actual federation of Europe, 
 at least to the creation of a friendly and pacific 
 society which would eliminate war. So far were 
 we from meditating any lasting injury to the German 
 people, that we liked to think that our arms might 
 do them a service by discrediting and weakening 
 the ascendancy, as burdensome to them as to us, 
 of the Prussian military caste. We were aware 
 of the immense call which the war made on our 
 energies, and looking around us, we saw and loved 
 the spirit of self-sacrifice and nobility in the eager 
 face of youth. We knew that the will was good 
 which sent these millions of volunteers marching 
 shoulder to shoulder. Our eager reasoning ran 
 
FROM FORCE TO CONFERENCE 3 
 
 forward to complete the argurilent and fulfil the 
 prophecy. When such colossal forces, inspired by 
 a high purpose, were set in motion, could the result 
 fail to correspond to the effort? We dismissed 
 the idea of a little victory, a mean victory. The 
 end, we thought, must resemble the beginning ; 
 it must be, in completed fact, in concrete result, 
 the vision and purpose of peace with liberty which 
 had stimulated our minds at the start. When the 
 first long lists of dead and wounded men bade 
 us count the cost, our estimate of the value of 
 the prize was only heightened. It could be no 
 paltry end, no petty satisfaction of vanity or pride 
 which cost so dear. We knew then that Europe 
 would number the slain by millions before peace 
 came, and our demand was the firmer that the 
 peace must be constructive and enduring. 
 
 Few of us paused to ask the question whether 
 force, even when clean hands wield it with a 
 high aim, can achieve the ideal ends, the spiritual 
 purposes which we reckoned among our tasks. One~7 
 may by force frustrate and annihilate force ; one I 
 may by force take territories, appropriate colonies, 
 delimit spheres of interest and trade ; but as yet 
 we did not ask ourselves whether by force one 
 may change the basis of civilization, or transmute 
 to fraternity the rivalries of Europe. We knew that 
 our power^was great and our aims high, and we 
 scarcely paused to inquire whether the means were 
 appropriate to the end. A nation at war must 
 subordinate its thinking to the necessity of success. 
 It believes whatever will conduce to strengthen its 
 will and confirm its purpose. Some beliefs, some 
 opinions, some forecasts make for confidence and 
 victory. These it selects and adopts. The 
 scepticism which questions the efficacy of force to 
 attain its end becomes for a people at war the 
 subtlest and most disintegrating treason. It was 
 
4 A LEAGUE OF NATIONS 
 
 characteristic of the moral exaltation in which the 
 whole nation lived in this first period of war that, 
 though we were using force to attain the great 
 end of a constructive peace, our thinking as yet 
 scarcely admitted the idea of power. We were 
 very far from the megalomania which cements vast 
 empires with blood. So far were we from it that 
 first among our conscious purpose was the wish 
 to strengthen and multiply the little nationalities 
 of Europe. It became a generous pastime with 
 our scholars to reconstruct the map of Europe on 
 the basis of nationality, and so sure were these 
 idealists that the reign of force would be abolished, 
 that few of them even paused to consider whether 
 a little land-locked Bohemia or a diminished 
 but independent Hungary could maintain their 
 sovereignty under the pressure of the great military 
 empires which would surround them. The explana- 
 tion of this paradox is that we believed that military 
 empires would soon be a thing of the past. We 
 expected a future in which the greatest empire and 
 the smallest nationality would negotiate on equal 
 terms. We meant, in a word, to abolish the idea 
 of power, to eliminate force as the decisive factor 
 in international relations. Precisely how this was 
 to be achieved we should consider at our leisure ; 
 the first step was to defeat in Prussia the arch- 
 exponent of the idea of power. We hoped that 
 defeat would set up a more completely liberal Con- 
 stitution in Germany ; and it did not disconcert us 
 that by a contrary working of cause and effect we 
 predicted that victory would bring the final triumph 
 of constitutionalism in Russia. The world to our 
 hopes was malleable and plastic. The hour had 
 come for all the belated changes, the overdue 
 advances, which the timidity of diplomacy, the dread 
 of war, and the fetish of the status quo had post- 
 poned for moro than a generation. But of all these 
 
FROM FORCE TO CONFERENCE 5 
 
 changes the greatest and the most beneficent would 
 be the new temper of mankind, the new methods 
 in diplomacy, the new structure of the family of 
 nations which the last of wars would forge into 
 an enduring peace. Without that vision of the 
 better future we should have found the carnage, 
 the embitterment, and the waste of this war an 
 unendurable nightmare of horror. Our mood re- 
 sembled very closely that of the French people in 
 the early phases of the Revolution. In hours of 
 energy and resolve a nation's task assumes a con- 
 centrated simplicity. To the men of that day it 
 seemed necessary only to make an end of priests 
 and kings, and the natural goodness of mankind 
 would do the rest. We were fighting to defeat a 
 military caste, and we believed that the idea of 
 force would perish with it. 
 
 The habit of thinking in terms of force and 
 power was in normal times so little developed among 
 us that a stranger, who compared our habits of 
 thought with those of any continental people, would 
 ask himself whether we lacked a sense which other 
 races possess. This peculiarity showed itself in 
 many fields outside the field of foreign policy, and 
 if any people is distinguished by it in a still higher 
 degree, that people is the kindred American 
 democracy. We had a horror of using force, and 
 an even subtler and stronger horror of talking or 
 writing in terms of force. What we condemned 
 in Germany was not merely her abuse of her military 
 power, but the habit in her rulers, and even in < 
 her thinkers, of talking in terms of power. It 
 offended us alike in their academic speculations and 
 in their bullying, sabre-rattling diplomacy. When 
 we used force, an instinct of good manners, and 
 it may also be the rooted English belief that force 
 is itself an evil, taught us to do it quietly. We 
 were distressed, as no other European people is 
 
6 A LEAGUE OF NATIONS 
 
 distressed, when we used force to suppress a strike, 
 above all if bloodshed resulted. We shrank, as 
 no other people shrinks, from the shooting of 
 traitors and rebels. Our embarrassment, on the 
 very eve of war, in dealing with the Ulster ques- 
 tion came from nothing but this typical dislike of 
 using force even to suppress force. Our repug- 
 nance to " paternal " legislation which involves 
 coercion sprang from the same instinct, as our 
 adherence to voluntary military service was its most 
 notable expression. Even when we adopted con- 
 scription we respected, as no other people does, 
 the scruples of the uncompromising pacifist, and 
 refused to apply to him the penalty of death, which 
 is his fate not merely in Germany but in France. 
 The explanation lay, of course, not in any innate 
 racial peculiarity (if such a thing anywhere exists) 
 but in our history and our geographical conditions. 
 The relative antiquity of our Constitution, the rela- 
 tive remoteness of our last civil war, our long 
 immunity from invasion are, of course, its founda- 
 tion. Our vast Empire might have bred in us 
 the opposite temper. In point of fact it only con- 
 firmed us in our dislike of force. The lesson 
 learned from the attempt to dragoon the American 
 colonies was never forgotten, and even in the non- 
 self-governing colonies 'Our pride was that a handful 
 of white men, by tact, by justice, by tolerance 
 towards " native " ways of thought, by the English 
 instinct of letting well alone, could govern without 
 the constant display of force. Let us not assume 
 that all this implied any original virtue in us. These 
 were the tactics which our situation imposed on 
 us. A nation with a vast Empire and a little Army 
 was obliged to economize force. It ended by dis- 
 liking force. Our experience reacted upon our 
 character and formed our standard of conduct, and 
 even our notions of " good form." 
 
I 
 
 FROM FORCE TO CONFERENCE 7 
 
 We possessed, indeed, in the Navy a tremendous 
 instrument of force ; we grudged no expendi- 
 ture upon it, and we kept it in constant readi- 
 ness for war. A nation may, however, maintain 
 a great navy without developing the peculiar 
 habit of mind called " militarism." It does not 
 demand, as a conscript army does, the passage 
 through its discipline of an appreciable fraction of 
 our population. It cannot be used directly for 
 territorial conquest, and few Englishmen thought 
 of the Navy as anything but a weapon of defence. 
 The traditional feeling about it was expressed in 
 our grandfathers' phrase, " the wooden walls of 
 England," and to the inexpert popular mind the 
 perception of its tremendous power as an instru- 
 ment, if not exactly of offence, at least of coercion, 
 has come in this war as a revelation. Continental 
 nations, more accustomed than we are to think 
 frankly in terms of power, had a more lively sense 
 than most of us of the possibilities of sea-power, 
 and understood that the empire which wields it 
 has the ability to veto every movement, to thwart 
 every ambition of the land rival who wishes to 
 act beyond the Continent. We thought reluctantly 
 and haltingly in strategical terms. We lapsed 
 easily into a comfortable habit of regarding inter- 
 national policy as a reasonable exchange of views, 
 crossed, indeed, by conflicting interests, by likes 
 and dislikes, by racial and political affinities, but 
 by no means governed by the concept of force. 
 We indulged from time to time in those purely 
 disinterested preoccupations over the slave trade, 
 Congo misrule, and Turkish atrocities which 
 puzzled our neighbours so deeply that they usually 
 interpreted them as a disguise for some Machia- 
 vellian design. Disinterestedness is the luxury of 
 the secure. We lacked the painful stimuli which 
 have made other peoples alert to perceive and quick 
 
8 A LEAGUE OF NATIONS 
 
 to use force. We had no unguarded frontiers and 
 no history of invasion. We have never developed 
 that vision of the possible movements of fleets and 
 armies behind all diplomatic intercourse, that habit 
 of measuring statesmen's words by the number of 
 army corps behind them. Even more important, in 
 any consideration of our attitude towards force, was 
 the fact that we are a satisfied Power. We have 
 grown up without the hungers and the appetites 
 which dictate the view of other nations towards 
 force. We have never known the passion to 
 liberate kinsmen under a foreign yoke. We have 
 no 1870 to avenge. There is no "unredeemed 
 England " for ever calling to our chivalry. We 
 have no romantic tradition that beckons us, like the 
 Russian ambition to acquire Constantinople. Nor do 
 we feel, as the Germans have felt for a generation, 
 that our industrial future demands the acquisition 
 of colonies and places in the sun. It was easy 
 for us to condemn force, for we possessed all that 
 force can win. 
 
 Out of this singular aloofness from the idea of 
 power and force the war has dragged us roughly. 
 We have gone to a hard school, and the new 
 lessons lie on the surface of our minds, while the 
 ingrained dislike of force survives beneath them. 
 Something we have learned by sympathetic icon- 
 tact with our Allies. We are better able to under- 
 stand why official France, with the problem of the 
 lost provinces unsettled, welcomed the ideal of dis- 
 armament in the past decade no more cordially 
 than Germany. We can understand the primitive, 
 gallant warrior temper of Serbia, looking always 
 to the liberation by arms of the brother peoples 
 severed by the Austrian frontier. We know very 
 well that in the years before the war such problems 
 as those of Alsace and the South Slavs, though 
 statesmanship might have mitigated them, could 
 
FROM FORCE TO CONFERENCE 9 
 
 have received a trenchant solution only by force. 
 The cynical game of guessing when and on which 
 side a neutral would intervene, taught us that military 
 success may avail more to win allies than com- 
 munity of race, political sympathies, or past services . 
 If we have learned much from our Allies and some- 
 thing from the neutrals about force, our chief teacher 
 has been the enemy. We realize, rather vaguely 
 perhaps, how much the German habit of discipline, 
 the German ideal of co-operative work in science and 
 industry, the instinctive subordination of the indi- 
 vidual to the community, and the higher level of 
 education in all grades of society has contributed 
 to his power. We have begun to think about all 
 the concerns of peace, from trade to education, 
 in terms of war. Our normal and habitual atti- 
 tude, that peace is the rule and war the improb- 
 able exception, has been shaken by our sudden 
 experience. When we talk now of the reorganization 
 which will be necessary in every department of 
 life, we mean a reorganization adjusted to the fact 
 that the world is governed by force, and that war 
 is a real and terribly important possibility. We 
 are facing the new facts, and it is proper that' 
 we should do so. We are like a man who was 
 proud to live in his old timbered manor-house. He 
 paid an insurance premium, for he had seen fires 
 in his neighbours' houses. But when his own 
 pleasant dwelling caught fire, he rebuilt it from 
 the foundation with a single eye to this one risk, 
 and sacrificed boldly both beauty and comfort. 
 
 It is possible that instead of loosening the 
 ties of alliance which before the war divided 
 Europe into two hostile groups we shall tighten 
 and strengthen them. It is too early to foresee 
 with certainty whether we shall make compulsory 
 service permanent. But it is already probable that 
 we shall alter the whole familiar structure of our 
 
IP A LEAGUE OF NATIONS 
 
 trade. We have learned in this war to discard for 
 ever the lingering eighteenth -century conception of 
 war as a struggle waged between small profes- 
 sional armies while the nations live their usual 
 lives. We know now that war is a function of 
 the whole people. It is waged with trade and 
 credit and industry as surely as it is waged with 
 armies and fleets. If we had a choice between 
 totally disarming a dreaded rival or making and 
 keeping him poor, we should probably choose to- 
 day, oa purely military grounds, to take his capital, 
 his machinery, and his credit, and leave him his 
 rifles and his guns. There is nothing new even 
 for us in the idea for making war, while war lasts, 
 on an enemy's trade. That is a tradition as old 
 as trade and war themselves. The new idea for 
 us is that even when war ceases in the field it must 
 continue in our factories and our ports. We are 
 realizing more fully the immense political use of 
 exported capital. The continental peoples syste- 
 matized it much earlier than we did. There was 
 certainly a political intention in the vast French 
 exports of capital to Russia, and the smaller German 
 exports to Italy. We alone left our Government 
 without the legal right to control our investments 
 abroad. We are invited by the Economic Con- 
 ference of Paris to subordinate our markets in the 
 same way to a political or military end. The pro- 
 posal is that for a term of years we shall close 
 them, wholly or in part, to the trade of our present 
 enemies, and also (an even more formidable 
 measure) that we shall cut off these enemies, 
 wholly or in part, from the supplies of raw material, 
 minerals, and foodstuffs which they were accus- 
 tomed to draw from Allied territory. Shipping, 
 in its turn, will be controlled and regulated by 
 political considerations. This policy means that we 
 intend to subordinate our lives, for the early future 
 
FROM FORCE TO CONFERENCE n 
 
 at least, to military considerations. This is not 
 Protection in the ordinary sense of the word. It 
 is not a simple proposal to favour the home trader 
 at the expense of the foreign trader. It is a pro- 
 posal to discriminate between foreign traders, 
 according as they are enemies or friends. It 
 brushes aside the questions, whether they are good 
 customers of our own, whether they supply wants 
 which others cannot meet so well, and whether 
 they accord to us a favourable position in their 
 markets. For all these usual considerations which 
 have governed tariff-making in the past it sub- 
 stitutes one simple criterion whether they were our 
 enemies in this war. That criterion implies the 
 belief that the enemy of to-day will also be the 
 enemy of to-morrow. It introduces the idea of 
 force and power, where it had scarcely entered 
 before, into the fabric of British trade. 
 
 It meant a great revolution in our habits and 
 a tremendous breach with the past when we 
 adopted compulsory service. These proposals for 
 the subordination of our trade to continental 
 politics, not under the momentary stress of war, 
 but during long years of nominal peace, carry us 
 infinitely farther. They carry us to a world in 
 which the idea of force, the conception of leagued 
 power, the pitting of one vast coalition against 
 another, must dominate the ordinary course of our 
 lives. The object of one coalition during these 
 early years of " peace " will avowedly be to inflict 
 on the other, at a heavy cost to itself, the* utmost 
 injury which a thorough organization of i ! :s buying 
 and selling power can compass. The purpose will 
 be to weaken and therefore to injure the rival group. 
 Nations are not economic machines. They cannot 
 set out to injure each other without organizing and 
 perpetuating hate. Their hate will be cast like 
 molten anger into guns and armour-plate ; and if we 
 
12 A LEAGUE OF NATIONS 
 
 move, as nations commonly do, from attack to re- 
 taliation, and from retaliation to renewed attack, the 
 new armed peace must issue, so soon as there is 
 a new generation ripe for slaughter, in another 
 general war. That is our outlook. We have gone 
 to school in the college of force, and we are 
 graduates already. If the new facts are real and 
 important facts, it is none the less true that our 
 early mood has not been wholly submerged by the 
 experience of this conflict. We want no further 
 wars. We would still echo the " never again " 
 of the first w'eeks. We would still welcome, though 
 with many reserves, the conception of a system 
 of arbitration and mediation, a Europe united in 
 a League of Peace. We believe, as Sir Edward 
 Grey put it, in " conference," as the only civilized 
 method of settling the affairs of Europe. The 
 generous mood which inspired us in the first weeks 
 of war is not extinct. It is moribund only for lack 
 of resolute and critical self -questioning. There is 
 a contradiction here which must be faced. If we 
 say " conference," we mean, if we mean anything, 
 that we shall confer with our enemies, and settle 
 with them in equity and tolerance our common 
 affairs. But does one sit at a round table with 
 a man with whom one will not even buy and sell ? 
 One may achieve justice and fair dealing where 
 there is little cordiality and little liking. But no 
 mutual consideration of interests is compatible with 
 the resolve to use economic power to weaken and 
 injure the other side. We hold to both these ways 
 of thought. We have not renounced the hope of 
 future peace, though we have embraced the idea 
 of power. We have not rejected conference, though 
 we have adopted boycott. The contradiction in 
 our attitude is the consequence of the terrific 
 emotional experience through which we have 
 passed, Overwhelmed by new facts, oppressed by 
 
FROM FORCE TO CONFERENCE 13 
 
 the horror of the long carnage, indignant at the 
 barbarities of the enemy, we hasten instinctively 
 into measures of retaliation and defence, before the 
 deeper purpose, the older tendency in us can find 
 its clue to the unfamiliar world, and hew out a path 
 that is worthy of itself. 
 
 The motives and calculations which are hurrying 
 us into this comprehensive policy of force are 
 somewhat mixed, but foremost among them is the 
 resolve to achieve security. An honest man would 
 not deny that the desire for revenge, or for 
 punishment (if that word is preferred), finds a place 
 among them. The brutalities to which innocent 
 Belgium was subjected and the savagery of the 
 submarine campaign have left an ineffaceable im- 
 pression. It is possible that when our passions 
 have cooled, our Christian Churches will recollect 
 the New Testament teaching about revenge. Jn 
 default of ethical arguments, however, mere 
 revenge is clearly too costly a policy. There is 
 an idealism of hate as there is an idealism of 
 love, but the commercial world has never shown 
 much inclination to idealism in any form. More 
 general is the feeling that we prefer, for some 
 time at least, to dispense with all intercourse 
 with the enemy. That is a natural, if primitive, 
 feeling. But the stronger it is, the less necessary 
 is it to enforce it by tariffs and prohibitions. 
 There is another motive which weighs and will 
 always weigh in the balance of public opinion. 
 Though no competent judge believes that a policy 
 of commercial boycott of the Central Empires can 
 be profitable from the standpoint of the British 
 consumer, or even from that of the whole body of 
 producers, there are undoubtedly some trades and 
 more financial groups which stand to gain by it. 
 
r;4 A LEAGUE OF NATIONS 
 
 The real motive which is driving us towards the 
 policy of a permanent anti-German alliance, both 
 military and economic, is broader, saner, and more 
 rational than any of these interested or sentimental 
 considerations. What influences us is simply the 
 determination to secure ourselves against any 
 possible repetition of this war. The wider and 
 more formidable we can make our alliance, the 
 less likely is it to be challenged in the future. 
 The inclusion in it of a species of commercial boycott 
 is almost inevitable in a world where military 
 power depends so largely on economic development. 
 Germany, we reckon, will suffer so severely from a 
 restricted market, and still more from the difficulty 
 of obtaining raw materials, that her trade and finance 
 will recover very slowly from the ruin of the war. 
 Her expenditure in armaments will in this way be 
 automatically limited, and she will not again be 
 in our generation the menace which she is to-day. 
 We shall by this policy of striking at Germany's 
 material prosperity compel her, not merely to keep 
 the peace but to abandon the idea of bettering 
 her case by arms. It is possible to challenge this 
 forecast, but assuming that it be sound, it is still 
 far from the idea which inspired us at the outbreak 
 of war. It promises no end to militarism, but 
 only a long reign of force, in which the advantage 
 (such is our reckoning) will have passed to our 
 side. It is the negation of any conception of 
 European fraternity. It is a course which we should 
 adopt only if no other seemed open to us. So 
 long as we talk in abstract words about placing 
 restrictions on German trade, the real bearing of 
 this policy may be disguised. But it must mean, 
 if it succeeds, the. relative impoverishment of a 
 nation, and the loss, we may be sure, will fall more 
 heavily on the working people, most of them 
 Socialists, than upon the Junkers and the financiers. 
 
FROM FORCE TO CONFERENCE 15 
 
 A more repugnant use of force could hardly be 
 conceived. Is there an alternative? Are we pre- 
 pared, on conference and conciliation, to found a 
 League of Nations, and to admit (since that is their 
 wish) the Central Empires to its society? 
 
 Confronted by this difficult choice, the middle 
 voices among Englishmen and Frenchmen would 
 pronounce in our present mood for a temporizing 
 policy. The argument would run somewhat as 
 follows : " We do not despair of constituting such 
 a Society of Nations for the abolition of war. We 
 hope, indeed, that something of the kind may be 
 created in our own day. But he who would build 
 firmly must build slowly. There is no need for 
 haste. If only because the war has exhausted us 
 all, we are secure for a term of years. Time 
 must heal these wounds, and if for a period inter- 
 course is restricted between us and our late enemies 
 at least the friction will be lessened. Let us begin 
 by making our League of Peace among our own 
 Allies. That will be a great society. It will 
 include two -thirds of Europe, the whole of Asia 
 and Africa (for Germany will be banished by our 
 victory from these continents) ; and if the United 
 States would join it our satisfaction would be the 
 greater. But for a term of years at least it is idle 
 to propose the inclusion of Germany. Can we pass 
 a sponge over her misdeeds ? Can we forget a crime 
 for which there is no parallel since the days of 
 Napoleon? Is there to be no penalty for a wrong 
 that has come near to undoing civilization itself ? 
 Let a new generation first arise in Germany. Let 
 her depose her blood-stained rulers, or at least let her 
 fetter their will by adopting {a democratic constitution. 
 When we see at the head of her affairs men whose 
 records are clear of this offence, we may open 
 our League to include them. In the meantime, in 
 no vindictive or revengeful spirit, we must bethink 
 
1 6 A LEAGUE OF NATIONS 
 
 ourselves of our own security. The proposed re- 
 strictions on trade are as purely defensive as the 
 trenches and wire entanglements which will guard 
 our frontiers. We cannot allow Germany (in Mr. 
 Runciman's phrase) to ' raise her head again/ 
 because we fear that if she again acquires the 
 wealth which is the necessary basis of modern 
 warfare, her strength and her intelligence will 
 again be used to disturb the world. We can 
 ensure that our own recovery shall be the more 
 rapid, and that step by step, at each stage, the 
 balance of military and economic power is in our 
 favour. We look forward, after a period of years, 
 to a gradual easing of the tension, to a lowering 
 of our hostile tariffs, and eventually, perhaps, to 
 the restoration of a chastened and penitent Germany 
 to full communion with the Society of Nations. 
 For the rest, we are not impressed by the apology 
 that the German people in this war believes itself to 
 be fighting on the defensive. A people subject 
 to such delusions is for that very reason a danger 
 to the world. If they defend themselves in this 
 way, then we stand in continual peril from their 
 defence. A people which imagines itself to be 
 defending hearth and home when it hurls ultimata 
 at half a continent and tramples (to defend itself) 
 across the innocent soil of a neutral neighbour, 
 can be acquitted of crime only if it is convicted 
 of madness. Finally, when you suggest that 
 Germany might be willing to sign an agreement 
 to settle future disputes by peaceful means, it is 
 plain that you have forgotten 'the scrap of paper.' 
 Shall we, with that example before us of the levity 
 with which German statesmen can repudiate their 
 treaty obligations, stake our own safety and the 
 world's future on the chance that Germany would 
 treat the constitution of a League of Peace as a 
 bond more sacred than the Belgian treaties? No. 
 
FROM FORCE TO CONFERENCE 17 
 
 A treaty to which Germany is a party will be 
 valid and secure only so long as the Allies keep 
 in their hands the means of punishing a breach 
 of faith." 
 
 This answer does not, I think, overstate the 
 blackness of pessimism which weighs upon us. If 
 we do not ourselves perceive how near it comes 
 to a despair of the whole future of civilization, the 
 reason is that our anger is too vivid to allow 
 us to perceive the full meaning of our political 
 bankruptcy. For the speech which I have com- 
 posed, interpreting as fairly as I know how the 
 mood which dominates the hour, is a confession 
 that the war in its larger purposes has been waged 
 
 I in vain. It has brought us to the admission that 
 treaties in the world which emerges from this war 
 
 i will be no more secure than they were in 1914. 
 Their sanctity will depend on the force behind them. 
 The further conclusion follows that this force must 
 ^ be kept always united and always prepared. Assume 
 that the extremer programme of the Entente is 
 realized that Austria is broken up and Turkey par- 
 titioned Germany (especially if the German 
 provinces of Austria were incorporated in her 
 Empire) would still be by population the second 
 Power in Europe, and by her military organization 
 the first. Can such a Power be kept for ever 
 isolated? No alliance and no enmity is eternal. 
 Germany and Austria-, Russia and Japan concluded 
 alliances after embittered wars. Italy and Rumania 
 are fighting their former allies ; Bulgaria and 
 Turkey are to-day in the same camp. We our- 
 selves, in the brief span of years between 1898 
 and 1904, transferred our weight from one scale 
 to the other in the European balance, and within 
 five years of Mr. Chamberlain's public overtures 
 of alliance to Germany entered the Franco -Russian 
 orbit. If we conceive the world after this war 
 
 3 
 
1 8 A LEAGUE OF NATIONS 
 
 governed by the old principle of the Balance (of 
 Power, we must recollect that no balance was ever 
 stable and no alliance eternal. There must be 
 degrees of satisfaction and dissatisfaction even 
 among victorious allies. No victory can give to 
 each of them all they want, for some of them 
 want the same thing. Italy and Serbia, for example, 
 have irreconcilable pretensions in the Adriatic. It 
 needs no very active imagination to conceive how 
 Germany would feel her way among her former 
 enemies, here inflaming a sense of dissatisfaction, 
 there widening a jealous rift in the Entente. It 
 is a law of world -politics that dissatisfied Powers 
 will tend to come together. Isolated, beaten, and 
 impoverished, Germany would still be a formid- 
 able Power, and she would serve as the nucleus 
 round which the discontented and the less con- 
 tented would cluster. Even at the settlement she 
 would begin her work, as Talleyrand did at the 
 Congress of Vienna. There are, even while the 
 war lasts, factions in Russia, Italy, and Japan which 
 stand for an understanding with Germany, and the 
 Italian Pro -Germans were strong enough to delay 
 for two years a declaration of war upon her. 
 When the trade boycott is enforced (if it can 
 be enforced) financial and commercial motives 
 will reinforce the inevitable political diver- 
 gences. For the losses and sacrifices involved 
 in such a policy cannot be equalized. Russia, 
 for example, can ill afford to lose the German 
 market for her grain, and Antwerp would be ruined 
 if it ceased to be a port for German commerce. 
 The problem of Japanese ambitions in China may 
 be mentioned as the type of another set of diffi- 
 culties. To maintain the League intact would 
 demand from the leading Powers and their guiding- 
 statesmen a wisdom and resource that would tax 
 the utmost scope of human wit. The effort would 
 
> 
 FROM FORCE TO CONFERENCE 19 
 
 be made, and for a time it would succeed, though 
 at a great cost in compromises and concessions. 
 The more loyal of the Powers the Powers which 
 held steadfast to the determination to keep the 
 League together for the world's good would be 
 called upon at every turn to make sacrifices to 
 their more exacting partners. A Power which chose 
 to play adroitly within the League for its own 
 hand could by " flirting " with the enemy and 
 threatening to transfer itself to the rival camp, secure 
 for its own ends an almost unlimited toleration 
 and complacency from its allies. 
 
 Towards the weaker members of the combination, 
 the temptation would be to use harsher methods of 
 pressure, involving, as in the Greek precedent, an 
 occasional or habitual interference in their internal 
 affairs. Each ally would be a law unto him- 
 self, for remonstrance would tend to drive the 
 member whose conduct its allies reprobated into 
 the German camp. Neither to vindicate nationality, 
 nor to secure the due observance of treaties, nor 
 even to prevent a minor war with a nation outside 
 the League, would the greater allies venture to 
 impose moral restraints upon each other. The 
 overwhelming consideration of safety, in a world 
 divided into hostile military camps, would paralyse 
 the workings of public opinion. It may seem at 
 first sight that a League which excluded one 
 Great Power need not differ in kind from a League 
 which included them all. But the more the two 
 conceptions of a general League and a League of 
 the Entente Powers are examined, the more clearly 
 will it appear that they differ absolutely in idea 
 and aim and effect. The Entente League would 
 be from the start an anti -German League, and it 
 could with difficulty be evolved into anything larger. 
 Its unity would be limited to that one purpose. 
 It could coerce Germany, and that is all that it 
 
20 A LEAGUE OF NATIONS 
 
 could do. It would be a league of combat and 
 not a league of peace, and it would with difficulty 
 avoid the spirit of narrowness and faction, which 
 ruined the Holy Alliance. So long as its main 
 preoccupation was in trade, in armaments, and in 
 diplomacy to maintain its front, formidable and un- 
 broken against the enemy, it could make no advance 
 towards the ideal of impartial justice which must 
 inform a league of peace. 
 
 This gloomy forecast, it may be objected, fails 
 to reckon with the factor of opinion, and it foi ets 
 that the resolutions of the Paris Conference con- 
 templated restrictions on German trade, amounting 
 virtually to boycott, only for a term of years. The 
 notion that a Germany formally excluded from the 
 European family would sit down quietly under this 
 sentence and spend the years of her isolation in 
 a species of penitential retreat is too ludicrous to 
 deserve discussion. That there will, if the settle- 
 ment be reasonable and just, be a period of sharp 
 reaction in Germany against militarism and the 
 whole tradition of force is probable, if not certain. 
 One may doubt, however, whether even so it will 
 take the form of national penitence and confes- 
 sion. The view of the facts which led up to the 
 war which is current in Germany, has been fixed 
 by the passions of the war itself and by the forcible 
 suppression of the minority view. The theory of 
 a defensive war will probably survive. A nation 
 does not readily turn back to revise its memories 
 when these have been hardened by suffering and 
 loss. The revision, if it comes at all, will be the 
 work of a new generation. The Germans are hardly 
 more likely to realize to-morrow their part in 
 the aggression than we as a nation are likely to 
 modify our own reading of history where it was too 
 summary or too harsh. What one may expect is 
 not so much the sense that Germany has sinned 
 
FROM FORCE TO CONFERENCE 21 
 
 beyond the measure of other nations, as a perception 
 that the whole system of international relations that 
 obtained before the war was anarchical and faulty, 
 that every nation has suffered and erred by turns 
 under this system, and that the future calls for 
 radical reconstruction in a spirit of tolerance and 
 charity. On such a basis a better Europe could 
 be built, and a Germany which entered on the 
 common work in this spirit would be a nation with 
 whom her neighbours could deal. An intellectual 
 perception that the European system was at fault 
 would be, indeed, a more valuable positive con- 
 tribution to the common stock than penitence. It 
 is much to ask for this, when one recalls the pride, 
 the sentimentality, and the mob passion which in 
 all countries obscure the calm and critical study of 
 contemporary history. 
 
 Let us ask ourselves what must be the effect 
 of her exclusion from the Allied markets on a 
 Germany whose opinions, under the chastening influ- 
 ence of loss and disappointment, were moving hope- 
 fully in this direction. Would her Junkers beat 
 their breasts and acknowledge that this was the 
 just punishment for their crimes? No nation, 
 however gross its offence, ever has behaved, or 
 ever will behave, in that way, for no nation ever 
 has admitted the right of its enemies to be its 
 judge. We need not look to Prussia for the first 
 exhibition in history of a Christian poverty of spirit. 
 What the Junkers would say is a secondary con- 
 sideration, but the effect of such measures would 
 'be to make Junkers, Radicals, and Socialists unani- 
 mous. From the first beginnings of Anglo - 
 German enmity in the last years of last century the 
 iless kindly among German politicians and journalists 
 have had their ever -ready theory to explain our 
 supposed ill-will. It was said that we viewed 
 their rapid advance as a manufacturing and sea- 
 
33 A LEAGUE OF NATIONS 
 
 faring nation with jealousy and alarm. We had 
 (so they argued) enjoyed for nearly a century a 
 monopolist's position as the first of trading peoples, 
 and our concern at the challenge of German 
 efficiency was the deeper because we realized that 
 we lacked the science and the habit of organiza- 
 tion which underlay Germany's success. Our 
 uneasiness, to their eyes, betrayed itself in such 
 devices as the Merchandise Marks Act and the 
 " Made -in- Germany " campaign, and in the revival 
 of the Protectionist movement. That we were con- 
 cerned at the increasing German competition is, of 
 course, a fact, and 1 it is also a fact that the 
 less reasonable sections of our public passed 
 rapidly from anxiety to hostility. On the out- 
 break of the war every expression of jealousy was 
 culled from the British Press, and every German 
 knew by heart that monstrous leading article in 
 which the Saturday Review called (September 1 1, 
 1897) for a war with Germany, because the 
 destruction of her trade would add millions to our 
 national income. The theory that we entered on this 
 war with the object of ruining our chief rival in trade 
 became the accepted opinion. Count Reventlow 
 produced a violent but learned pamphlet, " Der 
 Vampir des Festlandes," in which he developed the 
 theory that from generation to generation British 
 policy always has, through three centuries, followed 
 the single aim of ensuring our supremacy in trade 
 by means of war. First, the Spaniards and Dutch, 
 then the French, and now the Germans have been 
 our victims. Every nation has its worse self, which 
 works more often subconsciously than consciously. 
 Our temptation has never been the French love 
 of glory but a calculating use of the material 
 advantages of power. This is the charge to 
 which we stand exposed, a charge which ignores, 
 indeed, all that is great in our record and all that 
 

 FROM FORCE TO CONFERENCE 23 
 
 is fine in our present temper. As an interpreta- 
 tion of the mood in which we went to war, nothing 
 could be more crudely or meanly false. A 
 psychologist, however, would warn us that the 
 whole of a nation's mind never comes to con- 
 sciousness in these hours of exaltation. The meaner 
 impulses do their work below the level of self- 
 knowledge, and influence conduct when the first 
 generous passions have subsided. From an enemy 
 we need expect no fine psychology. (War is sof. 
 little an ennobling experience that every belligerent ; 
 people makes it a virtue to think the worst of its ' 
 enemy. This proposal of a trade war after peace 
 does not surprise our critics and detractors in 
 Germany ; it merely confirms their worst and most 
 malicious interpretation of our policy and motives. 
 They said that our jealousy of German commerce 
 was our motive first, in joining the Franco -Russian 
 Alliance, and then in entering the war. Into that 
 reading of our motives the policy of these Paris 
 Resolutions fits as the natural sequel. This pro- 
 gramme of " a war after the war " gives the lie to 
 those who proclaimed an idealistic purpose in the 
 war, and confirms a calumny which will work against 
 us in the future with a perpetuum mobile of strife. 
 The man who causes it to be said of us that our 
 aim in this war was something lower than a concern 
 for the public law and the liberties of Europe inflicts 
 on us an injury more lasting than any defeat. The 
 injury, however, hurts a wider interest than ours. 
 It must add immeasurably to the difficulties of 
 every progressive party, of every humane thinker, 
 of every charitable mind in Europe. It is only 
 men of an heroic temper who will struggle to be 
 better than their age. Proclaim that this is an 
 age in which one group of nations deliberately 
 schemes how it may, not in war but in peace, 
 injure and impoverish another, and inevitably you 
 
24 A LEAGUE OF NATIONS 
 
 have wrecked the very idea of international morals. 
 The German Radical and the German Socialist 
 who would have struggled towards a better future, 
 who would have combated the fanatics of racial 
 pride and military dominion at home, will find them- 
 selves by this policy silenced and baffled in their 
 internal struggles. In a world given over to 
 organized hatred no man of common sense will 
 dare to raise his voice against great armaments 
 or menacing alliances. The popular statesman will 
 be the man who promises to lead Germany, cut 
 off from the best markets and the amplest supplies, 
 by the shortest and surest road to the reconquest 
 of her lost freedom of commerce. The resentment 
 of the people will turn, not as it might have done 
 against those rulers who led her into this ruinous 
 war, but against the foreign enemy who pens her 
 in. Even the Socialist Party, which declared when 
 it cast its first vote for the supply of the war, 
 that it held German diplomacy blameworthy for 
 its outbreak, will be driven to move with the tide. 
 If the boycott should prove to be as formidable as 
 its advocates reckon, will the workman, as he turns 
 away discharged from his factory, be philosopher 
 enough to blame his own rulers as the authors of 
 his distress? The chances are that he will curse 
 England, and cast his parliamentary vote for the most 
 blatant candidate who offers himself. This is not to 
 crush Prussian militarism, but to destroy German 
 liberalism. The armed peace will have begun once 
 more, but with less disguise than before, and a 
 wider field for every sort of hostility that stops 
 short of bloodshed. That, if the Paris Conference 
 has fixed our policy, will be the final outcome of 
 " the war to end war." Was there ever in history 
 a more tragic frustration of high and disinterested 
 hopes? Driven as it seems by the logic of our 
 situation, we must fasten on mankind a new era 
 of strife, and our challenge to the most forrnidable 
 
FROM FORCE TO CONFERENCE 25 
 
 military system in Europe will inaugurate, not an 
 epoch of goodwill but the reign of a new economic 
 militarism more subtle and pervasive than the old. 
 
 Events have moved since the Paris Resolutions 
 were drafted. Russia has become a Democratic 
 Republic. America has entered the war " to make 
 democracy secure." The German people has defined 
 its war aims. It is possible that the historian may 
 reckon the debate which led up to the passage of 
 its famous Resolution by the Reichistag among the 
 most decisive engagements in the world-war. It 
 was the fruit of a sharp political crisis, and involved 
 a bold use by a Parliamentary majority of the power 
 of the purse, which is the essential weapon of repre- 
 sentative government. The crisis broke out in the 
 Financial (Main) Committee, and had its origin in 
 the hesitation of Herr von Bethmann-Hollweg to 
 adopt the " no annexations " formula of the 
 " Majority " Socialists. When they refused, in con- 
 sequence, to vote the war-credits, the Centre and 
 the Radicals took their stand with the Socialists, 
 and the whole Committee, after an electric debate, 
 declined to proceed further witji supply, until the 
 Government gave the declaration they demanded. 
 The old Chancellor fell : the new Chancellor (not 
 without an ambiguous phrase) endorsed the 
 Reichstag's formula. Only then were the credits 
 voted. Its stormy origin has given to this historic 
 resolution a meaning which similar forms of words 
 rarely possess. It has cost some effort, some de- 
 termination, and a long struggle to say this thing. 
 It is the result of a three years' controversy, and 
 it sums up the German experience of the war. 
 
 Strip the resolution of the dignified and mildly 
 idealistic language in which it is phrased, 1 and it 
 
 1 The essential passage of the resolution runs thus : The Reichstag 
 strives for a peace by agreement and the lasting reconciliation of 
 nations. With such a peace, forcible acquisitions of territory, and 
 
26 A LEAGUE OF NATIONS 
 
 will be found to suggest a bargain between land- 
 power and sea-power. Land -power, thanks to long 
 preparation, efficient organization, a central situa- 
 tion, a unified command, and the ability to strike 
 hard in the first weeks of war, has occupied and 
 still holds large stretches of Allied territory. Sea- 
 power fastens the doors by an impenetrable blockade, 
 seizes colonies overseas, and extends its control over 
 all the distant markets and sources of supply. The 
 threat of land-power is to turn its occupations into 
 permanent conquests. The threat of sea-power is 
 to prolong the blockade into an economic boycott. 
 For three years annexationists and their opponents 
 have debated whether it was to the interest of Ger- 
 many to turn these occupations, or some of them, 
 into permanent acquisitions. At first the Con- 
 servative Junkers and the National -Liberal capitalists 
 of the metallurgical industries were opposed only by 
 the Socialists and by little groups of far-sighted 
 " intellectuals." In the end the Junkers and the 
 industrialists stand isolated, with all the rest of Ger- 
 many against them. The Reichstag has decided 
 that military conquests are not for it a substantive 
 aim : it regards the occupied territories as assets, 
 as pieces to bargain with, as temporary advantages 
 which it will surrender in order to obtain, not a 
 " German " peace, but a peace of " reconciliation." 
 There lies a long and educative experience behind 
 this decision. It is primarily prudence, realism, a 
 clear perception and measuring of facts. There is 
 suffering, loss, and alarm behind it. In victory 
 
 political, economic, or financial domination are alike incompatible. 
 No less does the Reichstag reject all schemes which aim at creating 
 economic isolation and enmity among nations after the war. The 
 freedom of the seas must be assured. Economic peace alone can 
 prepare the ground for the friendly intercourse of peoples. The 
 Reichstag will actively promote the creation of international organiza- 
 tions for public right (Rechtsorganisationen). 
 
FROM FORCE TO CONFERENCE 27 
 
 men learned from hunger, and the advancing 
 phalanx left widows in its rear. The ghastly dis- 
 illusionment of these years has done its work in 
 men's minds. The dreams of dominion have receded, 
 the vanity of a great military machine has been 
 demonstrated. In isolation, before the prospect of 
 economic ruin, the German people is learning the 
 limitations of military efficiency. In some quarters, 
 far outside the Socialist ranks, especially among! 
 Catholics, one detects signs of a moral and religious 
 change. The Austrian Emperor in granting his 
 amnesty to political prisoners deplores " the policy 
 of hate and reprisals which let loose the world- 
 war," and a Catholic Peace League, with the White 
 Cross as its symbol, preaches " the substitution of 
 Christian principles in public life for Machiavellian 
 diplomacy." There is a change, not among the 
 Junkers and the " profiteers," but among the simpler 
 middle and working class of Germany, and in Austria 
 in much higher quarters. A Hapsburg has adopted 
 44 democracy " as his watchword : the fifth 
 Chancellor after Bismarck has talked of " recon- 
 ciliation." 
 
 Without any cynical implication, let us confine 
 ourselves, however, to the more prosaic and realistic 
 side of this movement of thought. What it means, 
 in plain words, is that Germans have begun to 
 think very gravely of the future which faces their 
 commerce and their whole national life, if the pro- 
 gramme of the Paris Resolutions is put into force. 
 They have realized that they must barter their 
 potential conquests against our potential boycott. 
 The alarm grew slowly. The Paris Resolutions 
 were treated somewhat lightly at first. A solid 
 Mitteleuropa seemed to offer a big market. The 
 two Americas stood outside the Allied combination, 
 and there was China, with its vast resources awaiting 
 development. Russia, it was thought, might break 
 
28 A LEAGUE OF NATIONS 
 
 away from the Entente, after peace, if not before 
 it. A different prospect presents itself to-day. The 
 entry of America has changed the landscape. Brazil, 
 the chief alternative source to Africa for the raw 
 materials of the tropics, has followed the Northern 
 Continent, and she is not alone. China, too, has 
 entered the Allied camp, a fact of no military, but 
 of vast economic significance. When the Paris 
 Resolutions were drafted, they suggested conflict in a 
 bisected world. To-day a world -wide combination 
 has made an unbreakable fence. That is the new 
 fact behind the Reichstag's resolution. Some Ger- 
 mans may feel sincerely that a future of boycotts 
 and animosities among nations is morally a repugnant 
 prospect, but all Germans realize that it is materially 
 a ruinous prospect. Sea-power has vindicated itself 
 against land-power. One kind of force has proved 
 itself on the balance more formidable than another 
 kind of force. The military decision is evident, 
 even though the present trench lines should hold. 
 The loss of markets through tariff or shipping dis- 
 crimination would be serious : the control by the 
 Entente of raw materials (cotton, rubber, copper, 
 and vegetable oils) would be fatal to the recovery of 
 German industry. 
 
 The Reichstag's resolution sets for us an urgent 
 and imperative problem. On the assumption that 
 our essential aims of restoration and security will 
 be conceded by an enemy who professes his desire 
 for a peace of reconciliation, are we prepared to 
 grant what clearly is his indispensable condition ? 
 Are we prepared, if wrongs are righted, armaments 
 reduced, and the guarantee of a League of Nations 
 created against future aggression, to concede 
 "economic peace"? The problem is for us 
 parallel to that which has confronted the Germans. 
 They have eventually decided that their military 
 occupations are means to an end, and not substantive 
 
FROM FORCE TO CONFERENCE 29 
 
 aims. Is the ability to prolong the blockade into a 
 boycott for us a substantive aim, or is it a means 
 of extorting a good peace ? The enemy holds 
 Belgium. We hold cotton, copper, and rubber. Are 
 we prepared to abandon the Paris Resolutions, as 
 the Germans will abandon the occupied territories, 
 if the whole scheme of the settlement makes for 
 a secure and reconstituted world? When the Paris 
 Resolutions were published, two tendencies declared 
 themselves in this country. One school regarded 
 them as a satisfaction of its ideal : it positively 
 wanted a " war after War," a competition in boycotts 
 and exclusions, in which it believed that the ad- 
 vantage would lie with our trade. The other school 
 thought the whole plan unworkable and unprofitable, 
 and foresaw that it would destroy any attempt to 
 organize peace on a basis of equity and goodwill. 
 The former school meant to persevere in the plan 
 at all costs. The latter school hoped that it would 
 prove to be an extravagance of our war temper, 
 which would be gradually forgotten and abandoned, 
 as its difficulties were realized. Neither school per- 
 ceived the part which the scheme might play in the 
 larger strategy of the settlement. It is no mere 
 extravagance ; it is the inevitable statement of our 
 sea-power. It is because our naval supremacy makes 
 our combination supreme beyond the European 
 Continent, that the menace of the plan is formidable. 
 Unless we are prepared to use this tremendous threat 
 in a conscious and reasoning way, we shall throw 
 away our chief weapon. The possibility of an after- 
 war boycott will be, at the moment of settlement, 
 what the blockade itself has been during the war. 
 An effective use of it depends, however, on our 
 readiness to give it up. 
 
 The question whether on any terms whatever we 
 are prepared to abandon the Paris Resolutions has 
 
30 A LEAGUE OF NATIONS 
 
 not yet been faced by the Allies. It is still uncertain 
 whether the boycott is for us a substantive war-aim 
 directed to the permanent strangulation of the 
 enemy's trade, or whether we, also, desire a peace of 
 conciliation, and conceive economic pressure only as 
 a means of obtaining the necessary guarantees. To 
 the question what these guarantees are, our answer is 
 not yet decided or unanimous. On the restoration 
 of the conquered territories by the enemy we are 
 all agreed. On the assertion of the rights of 
 nationalities we agree in principle, but not in detail. 
 Since the entry of the United States into our combina- 
 tion, the public opinion of the Entente has tended 
 to lay increasing stress upon a guarantee of a novel 
 kind, peculiarly difficult to enforce. This new demand 
 is that Germany shall, in some form, reconstruct her 
 Constitution upon a Western democratic model. The 
 instinct behind this demand is sound. A great 
 Power, which persists in maintaining a peculiar, and 
 to our thinking, archaic form of government, will 
 always find itself an object of suspicion to its neigh- 
 bours. The effort of other peoples to understand 
 its public life is baffled by these unfamiliar and com- 
 plex institutions, and the impulse of fraternity is 
 checked, when sovereign peoples cannot meet on 
 equal terms. We have, moreover, the admission 
 of leading German Conservatives that the structure of 
 the Prussian Monarchy, with its curious survival of 
 personal rule and its old-world limitations upon the 
 power of the people, is an organization consciously 
 devised and deliberately retained, because, in a dan- 
 gerous world, it is supposed to make for military 
 strength. It was not mere ill-will which led to the 
 well-meaning, if ignorant, hope that a German revo- 
 lution might follow the Russian upheaval. There 
 was beneath that hope the resolve at once to make a 
 lasting and fraternal peace with the insurgent Ger- 
 man people. The hope was vain, for the simple 
 
FROM FORCE TO CONFERENCE 31 
 
 reason that the German people have no such 
 grievance against the Hohenzollerns as the Russians 
 had against the Romanoffs. The Prussian House, 
 with all its faults, stands at the head of an honest and 
 capable civil service, which has given its people 
 a large measure of civil liberty, a remarkable system 
 of social legislation, the boon of a high standard 
 of public education, and a steadily rising level of 
 prosperity. It is only the cruder minds among us 
 which have harboured the idea of dictating to the 
 Germans, as a condition of peace, a change in their 
 Constitution. We all hope for it, but a too frequent, 
 a too dictatorial, a too official expression of our 
 wish is likely to produce the effect we least desire, 
 and to retard the process of internal development. 
 No great people ever did or ever will change its 
 institutions to please an enemy. That is an axiom 
 which most Englishmen understand, but Americans, 
 brought up in an atmosphere remote from the 
 nationalism of our continent, are slow to fathom our 
 European pride. If we set out to enforce democracy, 
 we shall drive the whole German people to rally 
 round its military chiefs in the resolve to resist 
 foreign dictation. 
 
 The constitution of the German Empire is in point 
 of fact a more complex and much less " autocratic " 
 system than popular opinion in the Allied countries 
 supposes. The Kaiser's habit of talking like a 
 mediaeval Emperor, especially before the " personal 
 rule" crisis of 1908, when Prince Billow insisted 
 that the Chancellor should revise his utterances 
 before they were made public, was partly to blame, 
 and it is seldom realized that his power is severely 
 limited by the Federal Council (Bundesrat). On 
 this Council of the Governments of the federated 
 States, Prussia, though she has the presidency, pos- 
 sesses only a minority of votes (17 out of 58). The 
 general control of the Emperor and his Chancellor 
 
32 A LEAGUE OF NATIONS 
 
 over foreign policy is limited by one important 
 provision. Except in case of invasion, the consent 
 of the Bundesrat is required for a declaration of 
 war. To this Council belongs the official initiative 
 in preparing legislation. The chief opposition to the 
 adoption of the Western principle of the responsibility 
 of ministers to Parliament seems to come from the 
 relatively Liberal South German States, and that 
 is a proof that they value their power in the Bundes- 
 rat and see in it a real check upon the Prussian 
 monarchy. Federal constitutions are notoriously 
 difficult to amend. There manifestly is, however, 
 a growing sense in Germany that the plan by which 
 the Emperor may nominate an almost unknown 
 bureaucrat to the immense powers of the Chancellor's 
 office, without even consulting the Reichstag's 
 party leaders, is unworthy of the nation's dignity. 
 It is just so, as Herr Friedrich Naumann remarked 
 when Dr. Michaelis was appointed, that an official 
 is sent from Berlin to govern an African colony. 
 The transformation of German political life has 
 undoubtedly begun. Early in the war the late 
 Chancellor announced that there must be "a new 
 orientation " at its close. Public opinion is insisting 
 on, a prompter re-adjustment. The whole fabric 
 of authority in the Prussian State rested on its 
 notorious Three- Class franchise, a system of voting 
 which has hitherto given the Conservatives in its 
 Diet an unassailable majority. The Kaiser's rescript 
 of Easter, 1917, with the significant supplement, 
 which promises before the next election a measure 
 of equal, direct, and universal suffrage, and the 
 reform of the Upper House, in itself ensures the 
 eventual democratization of Prussia. The spirit 
 which we call " Prussian militarism " owed its 
 power in the State to the supremacy of the Prussian 
 squire and the Prussian capitalist in the Diet. The 
 reform of the franchise means its overthrow. Other 
 
FROM FORCE TO CONFERENCE 33 
 
 changes, which seem to be imminent, foreshadow 
 the removal of the chief grievances of the non- 
 German population. On Alsace-Lorraine there is 
 talk of conferring the full status of an equally privi- 
 leged self-governing State of the federal Empire. 
 The initial steps have been taken by the Government 
 for repealing the more .oppressive clauses of the 
 Language Ordinance, which restricted the use of 
 the Polish, French, and Danish languages, and also 
 to erase from the Statute-book the worst features 
 of the Act which provided for the expropriation of 
 Polish landowners in Prussian Poland. It was 
 these four things, the Prussian franchise, the sub- 
 ordinate status of Alsace, the illiberal Language 
 Ordinance, and the Polish Colonization Law, which 
 had stood in the eyes of the world as the concrete 
 expressions of Prussian reaction. No less interest- 
 ing is the success of the Reichstag in winning for 
 itself a measure of preventive control over the main 
 lines of German foreign policy. It shares this con- 
 trol in the new " Free Commission " with the 
 Bundesrat, but the leaders of its chief parties will 
 sit down at the council table with the votes of its 
 majority in their pockets. They will be privy to 
 contemplated acts of policy before they are irrepar- 
 ably completed, and the Chancellor will be informed 
 authoritatively in advance what view the Reichstag 
 is likely to take of them. The comparative im- 
 potence of the Reichstag during the greater part of 
 its careeer was due much less to the defects of its 
 constitution than to the political immaturity of its 
 parties. It rests on manhood suffrage, and it is 
 armed with ample powers which would always have 
 enabled it to enforce its will, if it had ever had a 
 decided, collective will of its own. It has the power 
 of the purse, the right to refuse supplies. If it had 
 refused vital supplies (as happened in Prince Billow's 
 time), the Kaiser might dissolve it, but if the hostile 
 
 4 
 
34 A LEAGUE OF NATIONS 
 
 majority had come back strengthened from the 
 general election (as on that occasion it did not), its 
 demands must have been met. On fundamental 
 issues, however, it never chose to assert itself. It 
 did, however, modify budgets, alter or refuse 
 taxes, and amend or reject Bills, with considerable 
 freedom, and often with little regard to the 
 convenience of Governments. Up till 1900, for 
 example, it had steadily refused, in spite of the in- 
 sistence of successive Ministers, to assent to any 
 substantial increase of the navy. The Chancellor 
 is not the leader of the Majority, but his chief duty 
 is, none the less, to secure a majority for his policy 
 in the Reichstag, and he is usually obliged to bargain 
 with its groups. Its comparative impotence, in spite 
 of this strong strategical position, was due to the 
 inability of these groups to combine for the purpose 
 of giving a decisive, constructive direction to policy. 
 They allowed themselves to be managed, and bar- 
 tered their votes for detailed concessions. The chief 
 reason why no progressive coalition was ever formed 
 before the v, r ar was that the Socialists, the largest 
 party in the House, adhered to a revolutionary 
 strategy of isolation. The chief reason why such a 
 coalition has come into being during the war is 
 that the " Majority " Socialists are now following 
 " reformist " tactics and have become the driving 
 force in a powerful Socialist-Radical-Centre com- 
 bination. There is now a moderately progressive 
 majority, which has some coherence. It made itself, 
 instead of waiting for 1 a Chancellor to combine it, and 
 it has shown signs of a real resolve to impose its 
 will. Therein lies the real hope of constitutional 
 change in Germany upon the lines of a natural his- 
 torical development. Our public opinion wonders 
 that it moves no faster. The miracle is that in spite 
 of the censorship, in spite of the party truce, in spite 
 of the absence of the German youth in the trenches,. 
 
FROM FORCE TO CONFERENCE 35 
 
 it has already advanced so far. The faster and the 
 surer it moves, the better will be the hope for the 
 world's peace. A Germany that has adapted herself 
 to the democratic ideal will enter more sincerely into 
 the Society of Nations, and without this adaptation 
 she may, indeed, be admitted, but will hardly be 
 welcomed. The first general election after peace 
 is likely to complete her evolution. 
 
 The relation of democracy to peace is a general 
 problem. It is true that the masses of modern 
 European nations seldom desire war spontaneously. 
 The cynic might answer that this is only because 
 they do not spontaneously think about foreign affairs 
 at all. Their passions are too often at the mercy 
 of the demagogue and the less responsible press. 
 Democracy is as yet only an ideal. It nowhere 
 effectively exists, nor can it exist effectively while 
 the general level of education is low, and interested 
 wealth is potent in the making and organization 
 of opinion. Even the more advanced democracies 
 allow the management of foreign affairs to be centred 
 in a few hands, whose doings are veiled in semi- 
 secrecy. Within a few days of his own appeal 
 to Germany to adopt democracy, Mr. Balfour made 
 in the House of Commons an unqualified defence 
 of secret diplomacy, deprecated public debates in 
 Parliament, and resisted the creation of a foreign- 
 affairs committee of the House. The secret treaties 
 which define the Allied war-aims are as crude a 
 denial of democracy as the similar proceedings of 
 the Central Powers. Our national thinking on this 
 question is partial and half-hearted. The same 
 people who will make " no peace with the Hohen- 
 zollerns " were content to live in alliance with the 
 Romanoffs. Are Japan and Roumania democracies? 
 One recalls the retort of Fox to Burke in a similar 
 controversy : " Make peace with no man of whose 
 good conduct you are not satisfied, but make an 
 
36 A LEAGUE OF NATIONS 
 
 alliance with any man no matter how profligate 
 or faithless he may be." If democracy is to be one 
 of the guarantees on which we insist for the future, 
 we must secure it by general undertakings, which 
 will assure us all that in their graver acts of policy 
 the Governments have their peoples behind them. 
 One of these general undertakings might be a uni- 
 versal pledge that a declaration of war requires the 
 consent of Parliament. Another might be the stipu- 
 lation that the treaty constituting a League of 
 Nations must be ratified by all the Parliaments, and 
 even by a referendum of the peoples. 
 
 We come much nearer to the essential guarantees 
 of an enduring peace in the proposals of the Pope 
 and the answers ( to them of the Central Powers. 
 Austria has accepted without qualification the prin- 
 ciple of obligatory arbitration, with its corollary of 
 general disarmament. Germany, with almost iden- 
 tical language, makes an obscure reservation about 
 her " vital interests/' That phrase may be a harm- 
 less expression of diplomatic caution, but it may 
 conceal a qualification which would render worth- 
 less any undertaking to refej- future disputes to 
 the processes of conciliation. While this phrase 
 must put us on our guard, the whole tone of these 
 two documents suggests a revolution in German 
 thinking. 1 Mommsen's phrase that the first Hague 
 
 1 It is not a sudden evolution. Compare with these notes the 
 earlier declarations of Herr von Bethmann-Hollweg (November 9, 
 1916) : 
 
 " When, after the termination of the war, the world will fully 
 recognize its horrible devastation of blood and treasure, then through 
 all mankind will go the cry for peaceful agreements and under- 
 standing which will prevent, as far as is humanly possible, the return 
 of such an immense catastrophe. This cry will be so strong and so 
 justified that it must lead to a result. Germany will honourably co- 
 operate in investigating every attempt to find a practical solution and 
 collaborate towards its possible realization ; and that all the more if, 
 as we confidently expect, the war produces political conditions which 
 
FROM FORCE TO CONFERENCE 37 
 
 Conference was " a misprint in the history of 
 civilization " had summed ;up the thinking of the 
 German ruling classes about arbitration. Their 
 attitude towards disarmament was conveyed in the 
 German veto on any discussion of the subject at 
 the Second Hague Conference. The refusal of the 
 Central Powers up to the eleventh hour of the crisis 
 of 1914 to admit any mediation between Austria and 
 Serbia, was their most fatal contribution to the 
 making of the world- war. What was " Prussian 
 militarism," save the reliance on armed force and 
 the rejection of all the expedients of Conference? 
 The accent is changed to-day. If we can trust the 
 sincerity of these Notes, it is not too much to say 
 that " Prussian militarism " lies discarded and re- 
 nounced amid the ruin it has made. A Government 
 which is prepared to disarm, commits itself by this 
 single concession to a complete revision of its 
 policies and methods. The renunciation of force 
 must bring with it a change, gradual perhaps but 
 complete, in the entire habits of thought of the 
 Prussian ruling caste. 1 Men will no longer think 
 in terms of force when they have dropped their 
 weapons. 
 
 will do justice to the free development of all nations, small as well as 
 great. , . . The first condition for the development of international 
 relations by means of an arbitration court and the peaceful concilia- 
 tion of conflicting antagonisms would be that henceforth no agressive 
 coalitions should be formed." 
 
 1 The problem of disarmament is the most complex of these which 
 confront us, and I have not ventured to discuss it in detail in this 
 book. The Pope appears to contemplate a reform which would have 
 seemed impossibly bold and Utopian before this war. He suggests, 
 the reduction of armies everywhere to the level strictly necessary 
 for the maintenance of internal order. Cardinal Gasparri has 
 explained that he means by this the general abolition of conscription. 
 If this means the creation everywhere of small professional armies, 
 highly trained, and equipped with all the latest devilries, this 
 expedient anight be a potent reinforcement of political and economic 
 
38 A LEAGUE OF NATIONS 
 
 The guarantees which must be exchanged, before 
 the world can abandon the system of force for the 
 system of conference, require exacting and sceptical 
 study. There can be no sound construction with- 
 out ruthless and negative criticism. Disarmament, 
 arbitration, democracy, each of these may be an 
 element in the system that we are seeking to create. 
 They !are not enough. It must provide for change no 
 less than security. It must lay the foundations of 
 economic peace. If it rests on treaties, it must 
 furnish sanctions for their loyal observance. From 
 Belgium to Armenia it must end the reign of force. 
 
 reaction. These professional armies would be everywhere a Pretorian 
 guard at the service of the dynasties, the ruling castes, and of capital. 
 If, on the other hand, the substitute is to be a citizen militia, on the 
 lines sketched by Jaures in UArmtt Xouvclle, then indeed we shall 
 have " made democracy secure." The period of compulsory training 
 might be limited by general consent to six months. A drastic reduc- 
 tion might be negotiated in the total war-like expenditure of all states. 
 The difficulty in any general agreement of denning terms and 
 securing fair dealing, given the varying circumstances of the Powers, 
 is notorious. The future of naval warfare is, moreover, uncertain. 
 Do capital ships retain their old utility? Are not mine-fields and 
 coast defences, as the immunity of the Germans in Flanders suggests, 
 sufficient protection against invasion ? There are, however, two 
 factors which may ease the problem. Our own success in im- 
 provising a great army goes to show that unremitting preparation in 
 peace is less necessary than had been supposed. Further, every 
 Power will be financially exhausted, and the entire adult population 
 is fully trained. It might be easy to agree provisionally to a total 
 suspense of all new armaments for a term of years no building of 
 capital ships, complete demobilization, calling up only of the young 
 recruits for six months' training as they reach the military age. A 
 suspense of this kind is probable even without agreements. If ii 
 could be enforced generally for five or even for ten years, we should 
 all be able to study the question in the interval, and to approach some 
 permanent solution, with the aid of the lesson of this war, but freed 
 from its distracting passions. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 AMERICA AND THE LEAGUE OF PEACE 
 
 No history is so dreary as the annals of a 
 venerable hope. It is the new ideals that allure 
 us. In spite of the mutation and complication 
 which we call progress, men tend to believe that 
 the thing which was will be, that the thing which 
 in vain has struggled to become fact must remain 
 a dream for ever. The idea of a League of 
 Perpetual Peace has a life of three centuries 
 behind it. The Due De Sully laboured to bring 
 it about. William Penn and the Abbe" de Saint- 
 Pierre, Rousseau and Kant employed their genius 
 to keep it alive. Saints and philosophers were not 
 its only votaries. It fired the ambition of Henry 
 of Navarre, and for a moment amused Louis 
 Napoleon ; in his work at The Hague the Tsar 
 Nicholas was but reviving in a timid form the 
 much bolder inspiration of his ancestor, Alexander I. 
 The most elaborate draft of this scheme has lain 
 for two centuries on the library shelves, and Europe 
 with a punctual cynicism has twice celebrated by 
 a universal war the centenary of Saint -Pierre's 
 " Perpetual Peace." This ideal has had too long 
 a history. It must be some new fact, some fresh 
 departure, some shattering of traditions, which will 
 give it life again. 
 
 The new fact is before us. It comes from the 
 New World, and it implies the breaking of the most 
 obstinate tradition in politics. If President Wilson, 
 
 39 
 
40 A LEAGUE OF NATIONS 
 
 when he addressed the League to Enforce Peace 
 at Washington (May 27, 1916) had been content 
 to make an academic speech in favour of the 
 processes of arbitration and mediation, we should 
 have listened with a fatigued and languid attention. 
 Persuasive and cultured orators have exhausted that 
 theme in all the languages of civilization. Rousseau 
 was more eloquent and Kant more acute. On the 
 merits of the question Mr. Wilson said nothing 
 new : there is nothing new to say. He made a new 
 fact by shattering once and for all the tradition 
 of American isolation. Since Washington warned 
 his countrymen against " entangling alliances/' and 
 President Monroe formulated his " Doctrine," the 
 principle that the United States must hold aloof 
 from the politics of the Old World has reigned 
 as an unquestioned dogma. It was more than a 
 preference and an instinct. It was the condition 
 on which Americans hoped to purchase the immunity 
 of their own Continent from the ambitions of 
 European dynasties and the invasions of European 
 armies. The Doctrine was in the first instance a 
 warning addressed to the Holy Alliance, which 
 threatened to carry into Latin America on behalf 
 of Imperial Spain its principle of legitimate 
 authority and its habit of intervention. It survived 
 to hold at arm's length the colonial aspirations of 
 restless Powers. The United States did not meddle 
 in Europe, primarily because it would not allow 
 Europe to meddle in America. The doctrine of 
 isolation had come to be much more than a maxim 
 of statecraft. It seemed to guarantee to North 
 America for all time a peculiar civilization of her 
 own, based on a security unknown to the peoples 
 of Europe. The Republic stood, when our war 
 broke out, on the Atlantic shore, and watched our 
 agony as the landsman in Lucretius watched the 
 shipwreck at sea. The typical American mind is 
 
AMERICA AND THE LEAGUE OF PEACE 41 
 
 not content to disapprove of war ; it barely under- 
 stands it. In the profound peace of its unassailable 
 continent, the belief in the validity of moral 
 judgments and the confidence in the processes 
 of rational conference have acquired such an 
 ascendancy, that even able men seem unable to 
 interpret our international life, dominated as it is 
 by the ideas of force and power. It is a new 
 human type which is evolving in this melting-pot 
 of races, without the old formative influences of 
 nationalism and militarism. It lives virtually without 
 an army, and prizes above all its other advantages 
 the security which permits it to escape the barracks 
 and the taxes of Europe. Mr. Wilson's phrase, 
 " too proud to fight," which stirred some of us to 
 an unpleasant mirth, was the apt expression of this 
 spirit. 
 
 From this aloofness, a policy not merely of 
 self-interest and calculation, but of sentiment and 
 morals, Mr. Wilson is prepared to step down. He 
 has offered, not merely his services to assist Europe 
 to form a League of Peace, but the power of the 
 United States to back the authority of such a 
 League. His speech was a deliberate and explicit 
 pledge, that if a League is formed among the 
 nations to conduct their common affairs by 
 conference, conciliation, and arbitration, the United 
 States will take her place in the League, and use 
 her economic and military resources against any 
 Power which makes war without submitting its 
 cause to one of these processes. He has boldly 
 adopted the idea of using " coercion " in " the 
 service of common order, common justice, and 
 common peace." It was a declaration, in words 
 that consciously echoed the old Stoic maxim, that 
 nothing which concerns humanity can be foreign 
 to any civilized people. ' What affects mankind 
 is inevitably our affair." It means that hence- 
 
42 A LEAGUE OF NATIONS 
 
 forward to be neutral when wrong and aggression 
 are suffered by any nation is a dereliction of duty. 
 That is not a new idea in the world, but those 
 who preached it have hitherto been dismissed by 
 " all the right-minded " as Quixotes and Crusaders. 
 Revolutionary France became an armed missionary 
 of liberty in Europe, but only after her own 
 existence as a republic had been threatened by a 
 coalition of kings. For her own defence she carried 
 the torch into their inflammable palaces. The Holy 
 Alliance in its turn stood for a cosmopolitan ideal 
 of reaction,, but it too was based on a conception 
 of self-defence ; its sovereigns, when they bound 
 themselves to assail revolution, were bent on protect- 
 ing their own rights. More than once in our 
 own history we have approached a cosmopolitan 
 conception of national duty, when we sought to give 
 an idealistic interpretation to the principle of the 
 Balance of Power. When once we have embarked 
 upon a continental war, we profess with an entire 
 sincerity that we are fighting for the liberties of 
 other peoples, but the decisive consideration for us 
 is inevitably and naturally, that if we did not 50 
 fight, our own liberties and our own interests would 
 be threatened by the dominant Power. This self- 
 regarding consideration was only faintly present to 
 the American mind when Mr. Wilson made his offer 
 in 1916 to back a League of Nations with the 
 forces of the Continent which elected him as its 
 spokesman. It was not for him the decisive motive, 
 when in 1917 he translated his offer into action, 
 and entered the world- war to " make democracy 
 secure." His work has been to instill into an 
 isolated and pacific democracy the ideal of inter- 
 national duty. The new .fact in the world's 
 history is that for the first time a Great Power 
 with a formidable Navy, a population from which 
 vast armies might be raised, and an economic and 
 
AMERICA AND THE LEAGUE OF PEACE 43 
 
 financial strength which might alone be decisive in 
 any future conflict, is prepared to stake its own 
 peace, not 'merely to guarantee its own interests, 
 nor to further the partisan aims of its allies, but 
 to make an end in the world of the possibility of 
 prosperous aggression. Whatever may be its fate 
 as a constructive proposal, this American offer 
 makes an epoch in the world's moral evolution. 
 Ambition and fear have masqueraded before now 
 in an international disguise, but the disinterested 
 advocacy of a cosmopolitan idea of duty has been 
 left to academic moralists and to Socialists. At 
 length a Great Power, Jhitherto of all Powers 
 the most isolated and .self-centred, has adopted 
 this idea as the (permanent foundation of its 
 policy . 
 
 The scheme adopted by Mr. Taft's League to 
 Enforce Peace, which President Wilson was 
 addressing at Washington, proposes to unite all 
 civilized nations in a League bound by treaty to 
 settle all disputes which arise among them by 
 peaceable means. Like most kindred societies, it 
 divides disputes into two classes : 
 
 (a) Those which may best be settled by legal process through an 
 International Court ; 
 
 (b) Those larger issues '' affecting the honour and vital interests " 
 of a nation which have usually been excepted from arbitration treaties 
 and clearly do not admit of settlement by legal methods, since they 
 belong to the domain of policy in which no fixed principles are 
 universally recognized. 
 
 The older pacifism had built its faith exclusively 
 on arbitration. Efforts to persuade Governments to 
 pledge themselves in all disputes to obligatory arbi- 
 tration, were usually met by the fatal objection : 
 that " questions of honour and vital interest " must 
 be excluded. There was no way out of this difficulty, 
 .and the fault did not lie altogether with Govern- 
 
44 A LEAGUE OF NATIONS 
 
 ments. Pacifists were slow to realize that arbitration, 
 in the strict sense of the reference of a dispute to 
 a court of law, is not an expedient which can be 
 universally applied. The new movement proposes 
 a new classification. Some disputes are unsuitable 
 for judicial settlement, not because they touch a 
 nation's honour or vital interests, but because they 
 cannot be settled by reference to any accepted legal 
 principle. They are political questions, which may 
 be settled by adjustment or compromise, or by refer- 
 ence to some broad conception of the common good. 
 A mediator acting by the light of common sense 
 rather than on legal principles, or a Council of 
 Conciliation which will bring together the disinter- 
 ested opinion of neutrals, .is the proper instrument 
 for the settlement of these disputes. 
 
 The four articles in which the League summarizes 
 its programme are as follows : 
 
 1. All justiciable questions arising between the signatory Powers 
 not settled by negotiation, shall, subject to the limitations of treaties, 
 be submitted to a judicial Tribunal for hearing and judgment, both 
 upon the merits and upon any issue as to its jurisdiction, of the question. 
 
 2. All other questions arising between the signatories, and not 
 settled by negotiation, shall be submitted to a Council of Conciliation 
 for hearing, consideration, and recommendation. 
 
 3. The signatory Powers shall jointly use forthwith both their 
 economic and military forces against any one of their number that 
 goes to war, or commits acts of hostility against another of the 
 signatories before any question arising shall be submitted as pro- 
 vided in the foregoing. 
 
 4. Conferences between the signatory Powers shall be held from 
 time to time to formulate and codify rules of international law which, 
 unless some signatory shall signify its dissent within a stated period, 
 shall thereafter govern in the decisions of the judicial Tribunal 
 mentioned in Article i. 
 
 It is a simple scheme, differing only in details 
 from that of the kindred English committee, and 
 much less elaborate than the Fabian Society's model. 
 
AMERICA AND THE LEAGUE OF PEACE 45 
 
 But the root idea of all these schemes is the sarue. 1 
 They all suppose a voluntary union of all or most 
 of the civilized States of the world. They all dis- 
 tinguish between the spheres of judicial settlement 
 and conciliation. They all declare that where 
 diplomacy has failed one or other of these pro- 
 cesses shall be applied. They all prescribe coercive 
 action by the member States against another which 
 fails to resort to one of these processes. They 
 are all content to leave optional the further applica- 
 tion of coercive action if a State refuses to carry 
 out the recommendations of the Council of Con- 
 ciliation. They all rely in such cases on the effect 
 of delay, public discussion, and the authority of 
 an impartial finding to make war morally difficult, 
 if not impossible. The crux of the problem of 
 peace is for them to secure a reference to some 
 disinterested authority. 
 
 Mr. Wilson, in his speech at Washington, gave 
 a somewhat wider scope to the idea of a League 
 of Peace. He laid down, like a thinker bred in 
 the tradition of natural rights, these fundamental 
 principles : 
 
 1. That every people has the right to choose the sovereignty under 
 which they shall live. 
 
 2. That the small States of the world have the right to enjoy the 
 same respect for their sovereignty and for their territorial integrity 
 that the great and powerful nations expect and insist upon. 
 
 3. That the world has the right to be free from every disturbance to 
 its peace that has its origin in aggression and disregard of the right* 
 of peoples and nations. 
 
 1 The programme of the British " League of Nations Society " in- 
 cludes this additional article : 
 
 That the States which are members of the League shall make 
 provision for mutual defence, diplomatic, economic, or military, in the 
 event of any of them being attacked by a State, not a member of the 
 League, which refuses to submit the case to an appropriate Tribunal 
 .or Council. 
 
46 A LEAGUE OF NATIONS 
 
 These are broad principles, and this method of 
 approaching the problem of peace has many 
 advantages over the narrower statement of Mr. 
 Taft's League. The question of machinery, im- 
 portant as it is, is really secondary. The world's 
 peace depends in the end on the recognition of 
 these great principles, and, perhaps, of one or two 
 more. To nationality, the equality of States, and 
 the responsibility of all for the prevention of aggres- 
 sion Mr. Wilson afterwards added, in his final 
 summary, the freedom of the seas. He declared 
 that the United States would aim in the settlement 
 of this war at the creation of 
 
 a universal association of nations to maintain inviolate the security of 
 the highways of the seas for the common unhindered use of all the 
 nations of the world, and to prevent any war begun either contrary to 
 treaty covenants or without warning and full submission of the cause 
 to the opinion of the world a virtual guarantee of territorial integrity 
 and political independence. 
 
 The purely pacifist basis of the idea has here 
 broadened out into the conception of an inter- 
 national charter of right. 
 
 A sceptical student of affairs may admit the moral 
 value of this American initiative, and yet retain 
 his doubts about its practical efficacy. The 
 sceptic's case against any league of peace shall be 
 fully and ruthlessly stated as we proceed. Mean- 
 while let us note that if the scheme can be made 
 to work by any power of wisdom and goodwill, 
 the inclusion in it of the United States immensely 
 improves its chances of success. What might have 
 been too difficult without this unexpected aid may 
 now be feasible. That is the new fact. America 
 has become a belligerent, but in the future working 
 of the League she may none the less play the part 
 of a 'mediator. She is too strong and secure to dread 
 the resentment of any of the disputants, as the 
 
AMERICA AND THE LEAGUE OF PEACE 47 
 
 weak European neutrals must do. She has, more- 
 over, in her composite population spokesmen who* 
 can present the case of all the parties to a quarrel,, 
 and visit the action of the Republic's chiefs with 
 their displeasure if it should be partial. So far 
 from regretting that the German -Americans have 
 influence, we should rejoice that they can gain a 
 hearing for their Fatherland. America can do no 
 service to Europe if she becomes permanently a 
 partisan, and allows her opinion and her actions 
 to be governed by an instinctive sympathy based 
 on the kinship of the majority of her population 
 with ours. We must learn, if we look to a world 
 based on rational conference and even-handed 
 justice, to consider what guarantees any scheme 
 offers to our enemy as well as to ourselves. It is 
 of little use that we should trust a mediator or a 
 Council, if he distrusts them. 
 
 A League of Peace must answer two tests : Can 
 it be so composed that in normal times it will 
 assure to all its members such a prospect of fair 
 decisions in disputes, and such a chance of effect- 
 ing reasonable changes in the world when they 
 are due, that war will be unnecessary? Secondly, 
 can it be so composed that there will be in every 
 probable contingency an available superiority of 
 military and naval strength at the command of 
 the League, if any member of it should resort to 
 aggression ? 
 
 A league which cannot satisfy both these tests 
 is doomed to failure if, indeed, it could ever come 
 into being. The chief difficulty in the way of 
 the creation of any effective concert or conference 
 in Europe is notoriously the sharp division of the 
 Great Powers into two groups of allies. So long 
 as these groups are held together by the principle 
 of mutual support, so long as they come to a 
 conference (to use the Kaiser's illuminating phrase) 
 
48 A LEAGUE OF NATIONS 
 
 like " brilliant seconds to the duelling -ground," 
 there can be no real mediation and no honest 
 handling of any question on its merits. " My ally, 
 right or wrong," is the negation of any international 
 ideal. That was our difficulty before the war, and 
 it is likely to be much graver after it. Into this 
 system of close partnerships and unyielding enmities 
 the United States will enter, disinterested and un- 
 committed. We need not ascribe to her more than 
 the European average of political virtue, but in 
 none of the racial, strategic, or colonial questions 
 which are likely to divide the European Powers 
 has she any interest or concern. Beyond the 
 American continent her only interests are the open 
 door to trade, the freedom of the seas, and the 
 maintenance of peace. She has no ally, and she 
 will have none. If, on the one hand, kinship and 
 common ethical ideals link her closely to us, her 
 reading of maritime right separates her politically 
 from us, as her detestation of militarism separates 
 her emotionally from Germany. One may doubt 
 whether, if the group system continued to prevail in 
 Europe as sharply as in the past, a single Great 
 Power could by its casting vote preserve harmony 
 and avert strife. That would mean dn the long run 
 a kind of moral dictatorship, which would be re- 
 sented ; Europe would grow tired of the American 
 Aristides. But in the first stages of the experiment 
 it is indispensable that some Power remote from the 
 territorial disputes of Europe should assume leader- 
 ship. 
 
 But what if the League broke up? What would 
 happen if a Great Power, or, worse still, a group 
 of Powers, defied its authority, and made war with- 
 out first submitting its case to conference, concilia- 
 tion, or arbitration ? It may be said that in this 
 event we should simply be in our present position, 
 and certainly in no worse position. That is rxot 
 

 AMERICA AND THE LEAGUE OF PEACE 49 
 
 a convincing answer. The plain fact must be faced 
 that pacific Powers, who went trustfully and loyally 
 into a League of Peace and then found that a 
 disloyal Power or group of Powers had enjoyed 
 the security which it gave them only in order at 
 a favourable moment to break the peace, might 
 be in a much worse position materially than if 
 they had remained in their isolation and kept to 
 the old ways. For unless the League were a cold 
 formality, which no one regarded seriously, it would 
 in countless ways influence the demeanour and 
 preparations of loyal Powers. No one is going 
 to disarm literally, because a League of Peace has 
 been created ; but if the League means anything, 
 there will be less zeal and less extravagance in 
 armaments than there would be under an armed 
 peace. It is possible that alliances may subsist, 
 but in the effort to be just and reasonable, and 
 to " give the League a fair chance," alliances would 
 tend to become less strict, less exclusive, less 
 exacting, and if the need of them suddenly came, 
 they might be found wanting. A League of Peace 
 would necessarily mean the abandonment of such 
 a hostile policy in commerce as the Paris Resolu- 
 tions contemplate, with the result that the aggressor 
 might enter the fray richer, more prosperous, and 
 better equipped than he would have been if other 
 Powers had boycotted his trade. Finally, if the 
 League had survived for a term of years, and had 
 settled a number of claims or disputed points in 
 international law, it is possible that on the balance 
 the enemy might have won, by this process of 
 conciliation, many considerable advantages which 
 we might be pleased to concede to him if he were 
 a trustworthy and loyal friend, but which we should 
 regret too late if he were to break his bond. These 
 are real objections to any League of Peace. They 
 present us with a familiar dilerrtma. If, on the- 
 
 5 
 
50 A LEAGUE OF NATIONS 
 
 one hand, we adopt a harsh policy of precaution 
 and distrust, if we aim at denying to our adversary 
 even reasonable expansion and liberty to trade, he 
 will certainly, sooner or later, justify our fears, 
 and, spurred by a just resentment, renew the war. 
 If, on the other hand, we decide to treat him 
 as a friend, rely on his word, and trust his loyalty, 
 he may disappoint our politic confidence and one 
 day fall upon us unawares. The first policy is 
 the narrow folly of the worldling, and the second 
 the generous folly of the idealist. The policy of 
 distrust is by far the crasser folly of the two, for 
 it means certain catastrophe. The policy of trust 
 might be splendidly vindicated, but it is unques- 
 tionably a gamble with human nature. 
 
 If the worst should happen, if some Power or 
 Powers should break away from the League and 
 threaten aggression, could the United States redress 
 the balance, and make good to the loyal Powers 
 by its aid what they might have lost by their own 
 previous moderation ? Unless this question is 
 answered in the affirmative, the League will not 
 be formed, or if it is formed, it will be a meaning- 
 less decoration, a plaster ornament which will fail 
 to disguise the sinister old structure of the armed 
 peace. In plain words, would the United States 
 have the will and the power, once the League was 
 formed, to oppose aggression so firmly as to make 
 it unprofitable? To this question Mr. Wilson has 
 given a dramatic answer by his entry into the world- 
 war. When Germany announced her intention of 
 resuming her unrestricted submarine campaign, two 
 courses were open to the United States. Some 
 measure of defence was inevitable, but she mig,ht 
 with honour have limited her defensive operations 
 to certain minor measures at sea. She might have 
 armed her own ships, patrolled the sea routes, and 
 seized the German vessels in her ports, without 
 
AMERICA AND THE LEAGUE OF PEACE 51 
 
 making common cause with the Entente. That was 
 the policy which some able Americans recommended, 
 and it would have been in keeping with her tradi- 
 tions. On this plan she acted a century ago, in our 
 last world-war, when revolutionary France molested 
 her commerce at sea. She then contrived, not with- 
 out some use of force, to protect her own merchants 
 without engaging in formal war with, the French 
 Republic. Mr. Wilson would have no half measures. 
 He declared from the first his solidarity with the 
 Entente, and placed the whole resources of the United 
 States money, food, ships and men at its service. 
 This he did, not because Germany had been guilty 
 of an incidental provocation to the United States, but 
 because he believed that the common interests of 
 civilization demanded the defeat of an aggressive 
 Power. By his choice between these two courses 
 he has given the final proof by action that the isola- 
 tion of America is ended, and that she has the will 
 with the power to back a League of Nations with 
 all her immeasurable resources. America, however, 
 has not become an interested belligerent. It is 
 significant that Mr. Wilson has not signed the Pact 
 of London, which binds the other allies to make 
 war and conclude peace in common. He is com- 
 mitted to assist the Powers of the Entente only in 
 so far as they aim at " making democracy secure." 
 He is no party to any of the secret treaties or 
 informal bargains by which they may have arranged 
 among themselves to divide the fruits of victory. 
 He is free to bring his co-operation to an en!d, if 
 a stage were reached in which the war was being 
 manifestly prolonged for interested and Imperialist 
 ends. He is free at the settlement to oppose such 
 purposes. An ally who seeks some material gain 
 for itself is commonly obliged to assent to the 
 pursuit of similar ends by its associates. If we 
 want to keep Mesopotamia, we cannot object to 
 
52 A LEAGUE OF NATIONS 
 
 an Italian claim to Smyrna. The Entente is an 
 old-world alliance, bound by bargains and mutually 
 balanced claims. To purchase the military support 
 of some of its members, we were obliged to consent 
 to some arrangements against our better judgment. 
 America is immune from these necessities. For 
 herself she seeks no material gain. She is a free, 
 and may be a critical, partner. She has entered 
 the war, but she has kept the right to act on a 
 disinterested view for the world's good. She is 
 no longer a neutral, but she has not become a 
 partisan. Here lies the answer to our dilemma. 
 A policy of trust, with America to back it, ceases 
 to be an idealistic folly. 
 
 Inevitably, we look at this question from our 
 own angle. We want security first of all for our- 
 selves. But we shall ruin the promise of this 
 scheme if we allow ourselves to think and talk 
 of " an Anglo-Saxon alliance." The States are 
 not an Anglo-Saxon community, and the more we 
 talk in this strain the more shall we antagonize 
 the German, Irish, and Scandinavian minorities, who 
 do not propose to give up to Great Britain what 
 was meant for mankind. The American tradition 
 is still adamant against " entangling alliances," and 
 Mr. Wilson has been careful to explain that what he 
 proposes is a " disentangling alliance " a League 
 which will make an end of the old partisan group- 
 ings. The United States will help us in so far 
 as we act as a loyal member of a community of 
 nations : it will not further our self-regarding 
 purposes against our rivals. The American offer 
 is not to back Britain or to enter a permanent and 
 partisan alliance ; it is to use the power of a con- 
 tinent against any future aggressor. 
 
 The offer will avail to found a League of Peace 
 only if it brings confidence in equal degree to 
 all its members. Absurd as it may seem to 
 
AMERICA AND THE LEAGUE OF PEACE 53 
 
 us, the risk to the German 'mind will be that 
 Britain might not be loyal, that 'she might not in 
 every issue consent to a process of conciliation, 
 and might not always accept the award of a Court 
 or the recommendation of a Council. We must 
 consent to smother our natural indignation and 
 examine this hypothesis. Unless the League can 
 reassure Germany, there can be no League of Peace ; 
 there could only be an anti -German alliance of 
 the old-world type. The German would at once 
 give to his doubts a concrete form. ' The League," 
 he would say, " involves presumably some limita- 
 tion of armaments ; at any rate, it precludes a 
 really challenging and resolute attempt on ;my part 
 to build a navy against Britain. While the League 
 works well I am secure, and I save my money. 
 But a moment arrives, ten years hence, when some 
 capital issue of colonial or economic policy brings 
 me into conflict with Britain. She refuses to carry 
 the case before the Council of Conciliation, or else 
 (what is more probable) she does go before it ; 
 but when the decision turns against her, refuses 
 to give it effect. What am I to do then? I have 
 so far trusted the League that I have agreed to 
 keep my navy within moderate limits. I have 
 allowed England to retain her supremacy at sea. 
 I have lost ten years' naval building, and I am 
 now forced in consequence to bow to England's 
 will, though the opinion of impartial judges is in 
 my favour. The League from my standpoint is 
 simply a proposal to stereotype England's naval 
 supremacy, and with it her power to veto every claim 
 and expectation that I may reasonably cherish out- 
 side the Continent of Europe. In such a case I 
 could deal with France or Russia, if they defied the 
 League, and need ask for no one's help. But I 
 am powerless against the British Empire. If I 
 go to war with England, however just my cause^ 
 
54 A LEAGUE OF NATIONS 
 
 she will blockade me and seize my colonies, and 
 all I can do is to sink a few of her ships and 
 harry her towns with my Zeppelins. There must 
 be some guarantee of equal treatment before I 
 enter Utopia." As the world stood before Mr. 
 Wilson's offer, that would have been the German's 
 answer to any proposal for a League of Peace. 
 Convinced that he was acting wisely, he would go 
 on building warships. We should then denounce 
 him as the one obstinate reactionary force in Europe 
 and the one obstacle to the world's peace. We 
 should feel so sure of our own integrity that we 
 should regard his wish for material guarantees of 
 our loyalty as a wanton insult, concealing the worst 
 designs. If the German reminded us that we re- 
 fused in 1899 to go to arbitration in our quarrel 
 with Mr. Kruger, we should reply that there were in 
 this case the usual " exceptional " reasons. The 
 new fact has its bearing on this difficulty. America 
 is already a great naval Power, and she now aspires 
 to the second place. If she believed that Germany 
 had been wronged, if the issue were substantial, 
 and our conduct were really " aggressive," her 
 weight, if we were ill-advised enough to press a 
 bad case to a quarrel, would presumably be thrown 
 into the German scale, and our ability to make an 
 oppressive use of our naval supremacy would then 
 be at an end. An extreme instance of this kind 
 is indeed almost unthinkable. Our cousinly feeling 
 to America is so strong and our respect for her 
 opinion so real, that we are never likely to risk a 
 conflict with her, apart even from the fact that 
 in this case the naval and economic odds might 
 be fairly even. 
 
 The American Navy is therefore, in the last 
 resort, exactly the material guarantee which Germany 
 has the right to ask for as an assurance against 
 the abuse of our superiority at sea. It is an ideal 
 
AMERICA AND THE LEAGUE OF PEACE 55 
 
 form of guarantee, for we on our side know very 
 well that an American -German combination against 
 us is unthinkable, unless we were grossly and un- 
 deniably in the wrong. That imaginary case would 
 never arise, not because we are too virtuous to 
 abuse our power, but because we have too much 
 sense for realities to act in a way that would com- 
 bine such formidable forces against us. That, if 
 the imaginary German in this argument were 
 sincere, would suffice to reassure him. This 
 balancing of future combinations on land and sea 
 is a gross and repugnant exercise of the fancy. 
 Diplomacy is rarely so crude as this. America's 
 power in the League would rest broadly on the new 
 fact of her readiness to intervene against the 
 aggressor and the lawbreaker. No one doubts her 
 ability to wield great power. What has been in 
 doubt was her willingness to use it. Her conversion 
 to the doctrine of international duty brings the 
 League of Peace among workaday realities. 
 
 Before we examine the grave objections to any 
 League of Peace, or consider the conditions in which 
 it might be realized, let us note here that it meets 
 the two chief difficulties in the way of any restora- 
 tion of normal intercourse in Europe which con- 
 fronted us in the last chapter. These were (i) 
 the natural doubt, suggested by her conduct towards 
 Belgium, whether Germany could be trusted to keep 
 a treaty, and (2) the still more paralysing doubt 
 whether her public opinion, which regards this war 
 as " defensive " on her part, can ever be a reliable 
 element in a League whose main purpose is to 
 prevent aggression. The object-lesson of Belgium 
 must inevitably destroy, while our generation retains 
 its vivid memory of these years, any unsupported 
 faith in Germany's respect for her own pledges. 
 There has been in modern times no case of treaty- 
 breaking so gross as this. It was aggravated by 
 
'56 A LEAGUE OF NATIONS 
 
 the innocence of the victim, whose vow of perpetual 
 neutrality made her a vestal virgin, entitled, if her 
 weakness did not sufficiently plead for her, to claim 
 the chivalry of Europe. The breach of a plain 
 treaty shattered the fabric of public law in Europe : 
 the needless brutality which disgraced the execution 
 of an ill deed added to the account its tale of 
 murdered lives, broken families, and ruined homes. 
 Jt is fair to remember, however, that there is 
 no similar instance of the violation of treaties by 
 the German Empire during the forty -four years of 
 peace which preceded this war ; nor should we 
 forget that some instance of the disregard of its 
 pledged word or of- treaty obligations (though none 
 .so gross) can be alleged in modern times against 
 .all of the Great Powers. The problem of good 
 faith in international affairs is a common one, and 
 it depends partly on a general raising of the level 
 of international morality, partly on the reform of 
 diplomatic procedure, and partly on the provision 
 of external sanctions against treaty -breaking. Our 
 experience in 1914 taught us that for this last 
 purpose our influence was limited. It failed to 
 save Belgium, for we could not concentrate on that 
 single issue. We were bound also by honour and 
 interest to France and Russia. We were part of 
 a complicated continental system, with interests and 
 associations wider than the single issue of Belgium. 
 In the much simpler conditions that prevailed in 
 1870, when we stood aloof from European affairs, 
 Mr. Gladstone made our neutrality in the Franco - 
 Prussian War dependent on the single condition 
 that Belgian territory should be respected by both 
 sides. By this concentration he succeeded in saving 
 her from violation. Sir Edward Grey's relation- 
 ship to France (to mention no other reason) forbade 
 him to repeat Mr. Gladstone's tactics. The special 
 advantage of the entry of the, United States into. 
 
AMERICA AND THE LEAGUE OF PEACE 57 
 
 a system of guarantees is that she would come in 
 uncommitted,, without allies, and without local 
 interests of her own. She could act in every 
 question of an imperilled treaty as Mr. Gladstone 
 acted in 1870. Her whole weight would be avail- 
 able against the potential lawbreaker, and her action 
 would turn (as ours could not and did not) solely 
 on the question whether the treaty was broken or 
 observed. It is not enough that a guarantor will 
 certainly resort to hostile action if a treaty is 
 broken : the Power which meditates the breach must 
 also be sure that the guarantor will not acf against 
 him (for other reasons) if the treaty is observed. 
 A European Power can rarely specialize in this 
 way. The United States, on the other hand, is, 
 and will probably remain, outside our system of 
 continental interests and commitments. That it is 
 morally impartial is important, that it has no interest 
 which must drag it into a mere struggle for a 
 Balance of Power or the possession of territory 
 and strategical points is much more important. 
 When it promises its adhesion to a League of 
 Peace, all its members will know that America can 
 afford to be the guardian, not merely of this or 
 that State or of this or other interest but of the 
 idea of right itself. If any Power threatened to 
 make war without resorting to the procedure of 
 the League of Peace, its European neighbours might 
 be perplexed, each of them, by a whole variety 
 of conflicting calculations, and some of them might 
 be tempted to take sides at the prompting of con- 
 siderations wholly irrelevant to the question of 
 formal right. The United States alone could 
 certainly afford to take its stand on the constitution 
 of the League, and on that basis only. In an hour 
 of crisis there will be one Great Power which will 
 certainly say : ' This mobilization, these threats of 
 war, this hurling of menaces and ultimata are 
 
58 A LEAGUE" OF NATIONS 
 
 a breach of our agreement, an offence against 
 civilization, and a clear instance of aggression. To 
 us beyond the Atlantic the rights and wrongs, the 
 grievances and hopes which have induced you to 
 adopt this behaviour are of no interest. For us 
 the only vital fact is that you are threatening war 
 before you have resorted to the processes of con- 
 ciliation. Desist from these threats, demobilize 
 your armies, and await the deliberations of the 
 Council. If you refuse to observe the constitution 
 of the League, if you persist in these appeals to 
 force, then, however good your case, you are for 
 us the aggressor, and our fleet, our army, and our 
 finance will be used against you." President 
 Wilson's speeches are, in effect, an offer to guarantee 
 a League of Peace and to back international treaties 
 by the promise that America will in the last resort 
 intervene against the aggressor arid the treaty - 
 breaker. In other words, she stands security for 
 such treaties in the future. Her intervention is a 
 new fact, a guarantee of a kind with which the 
 past was unacquainted. We need place no implicit 
 trust in Germany's good faith, but with the certainty 
 that America's power would be added to the forces 
 that opposed her, if she should refuse to adopt the 
 procedure of conciliation, it would no longer be 
 necessary to question the value of Germany's signa- 
 ture to the constitution of a League of Peace. No 
 Power will resort to aggression if it must by so 
 doing raise invincible odds against itself. 
 
 It is indispensable that any League of Peace 
 should have behind it the external sanction of a 
 force strong enough to repress a recalcitrant Power. 
 But the world's case would be nearly hopeless if 
 the League had to rely mainly on measures of 
 coercion. Unless there is a general will to peace, 
 unless there is, at least in all the more advanced 
 and powerful nations of Europe, a spirit which 
 
AMERICA AND THE LEAGUE OF PEACE 59 
 
 abhors and condemns aggression, they would labour 
 in vain who sought to build a League of Peace. 
 I believe, for my part, that such a temper exists, 
 that it has been infinitely strengthened by this war, 
 that it has existed for a generation at least in 
 Western Europe, and even that it existed in the 
 minds of the majority of the German people on 
 the very eve of this war. On the last Sunday 
 of peace the German Socialists held in every large 
 town of the Empire impressive demonstrations 
 against war. They number one-third of the German 
 electorate, and in these manifestations they seemed 
 to have with them the good sense and the goodwill 
 of a great part of the middle-classes. How came 
 it that a week later these same Socialists, with 
 heavy hearts perhaps, but still with an unquestioning 
 obedience, donned their uniforms and marched 
 obediently to Belgium or the Eastern frontier ? No 
 one doubts their sincerity : every country presented 
 the same spectacle. Some of the most vehement 
 orators among the Socialist and Radical leaders 
 and Members of Parliament who protested in 
 Trafalgar Square on the first Sunday of war 
 (August 2nd) against our entry into the conflict 
 in association with Tsardom, were addressing- 
 recruiting meetings themselves a few weeks later, 
 or volunteering for the front. Few men in 
 any country, even when they are accustomed as 
 Socialists to the discomfort of belonging to an 
 unpopular minority, keep their cool, critical temper 
 when the rhythm of a nation's feet on the march is 
 in their ears, and each hour brings news of the 
 enemy's hostile acts. A man may think that there 
 is much to censure and more to regret in the past 
 conduct of his own country's diplomacy, but when 
 the enemy is across the frontier the first duty will 
 always seem to be to drive back the invader. The 
 German General Staff (or some of its subordinates), 
 
60 A LEAGUE OF NATIONS 
 
 by exaggerating or ante-dating the news that 
 the Cossacks were across the East Prussian 
 frontier, and by deliberately inventing the news 
 that French aeroplanes had dropped bombs on 
 Nuremburg, aroused this primitive defensive 
 instinct, even before war had begun. A man might 
 think the Invasion of Belgium a crime, but the 
 Russian advance had none the less to be met. Even 
 if a German thought that the chief blame for the 
 outbreak of war lay with his own Government, the 
 danger brought about by its fault created the need 
 of defence, and for some months East Prussia was 
 actually overrun. The facile emotions of war-time 
 presently gave even in Germany an ideal meaning 
 to the war, and the German Socialists talked of 
 destroying the Russian autocracy and liberating 
 Finns, Poles, and Ukrainians, exactly as we talked 
 about destroying Prussian militarism and liberating 
 Alsatians and South Slavs. The details of the 
 negotiations that preceded the war were imperfectly 
 known, and it was easy in a heated atmosphere to 
 ignore half the relevant facts and to over-emphasize 
 the rest. To be sure, it was Austria which first 
 declared war on Serbia, and Germany which first 
 declared war on Russia. But grave as such a 
 responsibility must always be, the mere fact that 
 a Government has taken the last fatal step by 
 sending an ultimatum or declaring war does not 
 always prove that it is morally the aggressor. 
 Neutrals did not so judge the action of Mr. Kruger 
 in 1899, though he was technically the first to 
 declare war. Our public opinion sided with Japan 
 in her war with Russia, though she not only struck 
 the first blow, but struck It without a declaration 
 of war. The German view that Russia was guilty 
 of the prior aggression because she first ordered 
 a general mobilization, is not in the actual circum- 
 stances a complete defence of German policy, but 
 
AMERICA AND THE LEAGUE OF PEACE 61 
 
 theoretically it is reasonable to contend that in 
 some circumstances a mobilization might convict 
 the Power which ordered it of aggressive designs. 
 " Aggression," in short, is a moral idea so equivocal, 
 and so difficult to define, tha,t in a complicated crisis 
 no democracy can be trusted to apply it with 
 certainty. A Power which puts forward unwarranted 
 and oppressive pretensions is aggressive, though it 
 may be slow to strike and correct in its diplomatic 
 procedure. A Power whose case is morally sound 
 may be " aggressive," if it presses it in a provoca- 
 tive way and wantonly forces war. To mobilize 
 troops on your adversary's frontier may be " aggres- 
 sive " in the grave sense that it first complicates 
 and degrades the negotiations by what is, in 
 effect, a threat of force. It may be a justifiable 
 measure of precaution, if your adversary's attitude 
 is disquieting, and he happens to be able to mobilize 
 much more rapidly than yourself. The difficulty 
 of deciding who is the aggressor is sometimes so 
 great, that even in its judgment of wars long past 
 the public opinion of a neutral nation wavers and 
 transfers the blame. Our fathers, on the whole, 
 regarded Louis Napoleon as the aggressor in 1870 : 
 in recent years the tendency has been to throw 
 the chief discredit upon Bismarck. If even neutrals 
 err in their judgments of past events in which 
 their own country was not directly concerned, can 
 we marvel at the fallibility and sophistication of 
 interested contemporary opinion ? 
 
 The unwelcome conclusion presents itself, that 
 the general moral condemnation of aggression is 
 worthless as a deterrent or preventive of war. When 
 war does break out, the public opinion of each 
 belligerent nation can always persuade itself that 
 the war was " forced upon " it, and that it is in 
 a state of legitimate defence. A statesman may 
 dread the retrospective verdict of his country if 
 
62 A LEAGUE OF NATIONS 
 
 the war should be costly and unsuccessful, but even 
 this verdict will not fall sharply or harshly if the 
 country in the early days of the war has worked 
 itself into the belief that it could not have been 
 avoided. Indeed, in that case the success of the 
 enemy increases the presumption that he willed the 
 war and skilfully chose his time. No historian 
 of civilization would hesitate to say that the attitude 
 towards war has everywhere changed since the 
 eighteenth century, though every country may still 
 have its reactionary caste or party. There was 
 no real shame in the eighteenth century"* over an 
 act of aggression, provided that it prospered, and 
 wars were frankly waged by all maritime peoples 
 for commercial ends. Swift and Voltaire in their 
 humanitarian attitude were far in advance of their 
 age. The relative chivalry and the surprising 
 absence of hatred in the eighteenth -century wars 
 meant that the aristocracy on either side was 
 employed in a congenial if dangerous sport, and 
 bore the enemy no ill-will for providing it with 
 the occasion for adventure, promotion, and glory. 
 The rampant hatreds of our war are a consequence 
 of the ascendancy which the habit of moral 
 judgment has won over our minds. It is because 
 every nation in arms regards war as an evil (as 
 the old aristocratic and professional armies did not) 
 that we all hate the enemy whom we regard as its 
 cause. The paradoxical effect of the prevalence 
 of a general condemnation of war from the 
 humanitarian, Christian, or Socialist standpoints, 
 would seem to be, as the world is constituted to-day, 
 not to prevent war, but to make it, when it comes, 
 less chivalrous, less merciful, and more brutalizing. 
 Must we conclude, then, that modern morality will 
 always be impotent to prevent a war of aggression ? 
 We need not pause to point out that the secret 
 conduct of negotiations, and the practice, which 
 
AMERICA AND THE LEAGUE OF PEACE 63 
 
 obtains no less in Britain than in Germany, of 
 postponing any discussion of the issue, or any 
 publication of the dispatches, until the irreparable 
 step has been taken, will alone suffice to frustrate 
 the influence even of a resolutely pacific democracy. 
 But to assume that every nation would judge fairly 
 in its own case, if it had all the documents in good 
 time before it, is to take an excessively sanguine 
 view of human nature. There might in the blame- 
 worthy country be more division of opinion than 
 at present, but the mass mind is nowhere formed 
 as yet for difficult feats of historical criticism. The 
 only hope of " mobilizing " public opinion with 
 1 any effect against an imminent war is to provide 
 | it with some test of " aggression " much simpler 
 \ than is available at present. That is the great 
 merit of the conception which underlies the League 
 of Peace. Its procedure provides a uniform and 
 mechanical test. The democracy need no longer 
 dispute over the merits of the question, nor speculate 
 on the motives of the adversary. The only relevant 
 question for it, is whether its Government has kept 
 its pledge to refer every dispute which baffles the 
 ordinary processes of diplomacy to the arbitrament 
 of a standing Tribunal or Council of Conciliation. 
 No Western democracy is so simple that it cannot 
 apply that test, and none so prejudiced that it would 
 not apply it. A sceptic may point out that Sir 
 Edward Grey did propose an informal conference 
 on the eve of this war, which would have 
 interposed the mediation of neutrals between Austria 
 and Russia. * The Chancellor's delay in accepting 
 this expedient, which history may regard as the 
 heaviest count against him, does not seem (if 
 it was generally known) to have disturbed public 
 opinion in Germany. But it is one thing to reject 
 mediation if the procedure and the Council must 
 be improvized, if you have no security that in a 
 
64 A LEAGUE OF NATIONS 
 
 like case in the future the advantages of this 
 method will be open to yourself, if further you 
 doubt whether the proposed Council can possibly 
 be impartial, 1 and quite another matter to reject 
 conciliation if you and your adversary are alike 
 bound by treaty to resort to it, if the Council 
 is so composed that impartiality may be hoped for, 
 if, finally, it is a standing institution which has 
 proved its utility in other cases. To have accepted 
 mediation in 1914 would have been for a German 
 Chancellor a notable act of grace : to refuse it 
 if a League of Peace is constituted, would be a 
 startling act of perfidy. It requires no excessive 
 exercise of faith to assume that public opinion, if 
 all the Great Powers were pledged to adopt this 
 pacific procedure before resorting to arms, would 
 be in each country sufficiently enlightened to insist 
 upon it, and to condemn as the aggressor the 
 statesman who broke the compact. 
 
 There remains another form of guarantee on which 
 the democracies of Europe will do well to insist. 
 The League must be built up on drastic pledges 
 which seriously fetter the action of Governments. 
 Never to resort to arms until the resources of con- 
 ciliation are exhausted ; always to come to the aid 
 of a State threatened by lawless aggression : these 
 are far-reaching promises. No Government ought 
 to give them without the full assent of its own 
 people : no nation would trust the word of other 
 Governments, unless their peoples stood behind them. 
 An ephemeral Cabinet, which may be replaced by 
 another of wholly different views, is not a body 
 competent to pledge a people to undertakings so 
 large. The French Socialist Party in the valuable 
 commentary on the idea of a League of Nations, 
 
 1 The prevailing view among Germans was that three of the four 
 " disinterested " Powers Britain, France, and Italy were already 
 biased against Austria, and only one (Germany) friendly. 
 
AMERICA AND THE LEAGUE OF PEACE 65 
 
 which it submitted to the Bureau of the Stockholm 
 Conference, made a proposal which deserves to be 
 added to the common programme. It urged that 
 as a matter of obligation, the Treaty in which each 
 State adheres to the League of Nations must be 
 ratified by the Parliament of each State, and further, 
 that it shall then be submitted to a referendum 
 of the whole body of citizens. Only when it has 
 been sanctioned by these two votes will it be com- 
 pleted. There are two advantages in this proposal. 
 In the first place its adoption would warn our states- 
 men that it will be folly to contemplate a settle- 
 ment which revolts the conscience of any people, 
 a settlement which would be signed, as the Treaty 
 of Frankfort was signed by France in 1871, only 
 under duress and without inward assent. In the 
 second place the adoption of this proposal would 
 give us the indispensable assurance that in adhering 
 to the League of Nations, the peoples stand behind 
 their Governments. A referendum of this kind would 
 be more than a mere vote : it would be a solemn 
 league and covenant, a pledge from all the peoples 
 of the civilized world that the Treaty which they 
 had approved should be observed, in letter and 
 spirit. Mr. Wilson has asked that the word of the 
 rulers of Germany, if it is to be "a guarantee of 
 anything that is to endure," shall be " explicitly 
 supported by such conclusive evidence of the will 
 and purpose of the German people themselves, as 
 the other peoples of the world would be justified in 
 accepting." We should all prefer the guarantee 
 of peoples to the unsupported word of Governments. 
 The ratification of a freshly elected Parliament, and 
 if need be, a referendum of the whole people, would 
 give us that evidence of the will and purpose of 
 all the peoples which we have the right to demand. 
 Further chapters will consider the many difficulties 
 which will in practice confront a League of Peace. 
 
 6 
 
66 A LEAGUE OF NATIONS 
 
 We shall find them only too real and only too 
 formidable. It requires for its realization con- 
 ditions which exact from European statesmanship a 
 high and difficult level of wisdom. But in this 
 preliminary statement of the idea we have found 
 the two essentials for the fortunate conduct of a 
 League. The promised adhesion of America pro- 
 vides not merely for an impartial and uncommitted 
 element in its councils, but also for a powerful 
 external sanction for the observance of its constitu- 
 tion and the fulfilment of treaties. The simple and 
 almost mechanical test which it furnishes for the 
 judgment of " aggression " promises for the first 
 time in history to arm the moral conscience of 
 civilized opinion in the service of peace. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 ON PEACE AND CHANGE 
 
 These two methods of settling international disputes, the method of 
 negotiation and the method of war, I ask you to consider in the light 
 of this struggle. Do we not see the disaster of the war method 
 conclusively shown ? How much better would have been a Con- 
 ference, or The Hague, in 1914, than what has happened since. 
 Industry and commerce dislocated : the burdens of life heavily 
 increased ; millions of men slain, maimed, blinded ; international 
 hatreds deepened and intensified ; the very fabric of civilization 
 menaced these form the war method. The Conference we pro- 
 posed or The Hague, proposed by the Tsar would have settled the 
 quarrel in a little time I think a Conference would have settled it in 
 a week and all these calamities would have been averted. More- 
 over, a thing of vast importance, we should have advanced a long way 
 in laying the permanent foundations for international peace. Sir 
 EDWARD GREY, in his interview in the Chicago Daily News, May 15, 
 1916. 
 
 IN these forcible and simple sentences Viscount 
 Grey has said what every civilized man and woman 
 must have thought throughout the months and years 
 of this war. History will say, as it cannot say of 
 our forefathers in earlier wars, that Europe knew 
 in advance into what horror it was rushing, that 
 the way of escape was offered, that it was closed 
 against the conscience and desire of the many, by 
 the evil will of the few. That offer by Sir Edward 
 Grey of mediation by conference during those fate- 
 ful days when he strove so unweariedly for peace 
 will justly be counted a glory in our national 
 records. It is well that we should approach the 
 
68 A LEAGUE OF NATIONS 
 
 question of conference and the League of Peace 
 in this mood of conviction. On behalf of an 
 innovation so momentous, involving as it does the 
 overthrow or transmutation of the most powerful 
 forces in human relations, we have need to enlist 
 all our hopes. It is hard even to reject the services 
 of an illusion which offers to serve in their ranks. 
 Why, then, was it that Sir Edward Grey's pro- 
 posal of a conference failed to avert war in the 
 Serbian crisis of July 1914? Some readers will 
 dismiss this question with the simple answer 
 that Austria was resolved to crush Serbia by 
 force of arms and that Germany was bent on 
 imposing her will on Europe. There is too much 
 truth in that simple answer, but it is not the whole 
 truth. Austria after her first precipitate haste to 
 attack Serbia did, in fact, at the Chancellor's sugges- 
 tion, renew negotiations with Russia, and whatever 
 must be said of some German soldiers, diplomatists, 
 and courtiers, one does not from a candid study 
 of the documents form the impression that the 
 Chancellor himself desired war. It must also be 
 said that the dominant trend of thinking in 
 Germany during the last generation has empha- 
 sized the narrowly nationalist standpoint in politics 
 and morals, and has viewed with cold scepticism 
 all the larger developments of internationalism. 
 This came partly from pure Conservatism, and the 
 Chancellor probably felt in his inner mind the same 
 instinctive dislike of the idea of conference that 
 Castlereagh, Wellington, and Canning felt, a century 
 ago, for the " mysticism " of the Holy Alliance. 
 The " Areopagus " is not a Conservative principle, 
 and Canning's notion of "a wholesome state of 
 things " in Europe " Every nation for itself and 
 God for us all "has been that of every German 
 Chancellor from Bismarck to Bethmann-Hollweg. 
 Behind this honest, short-sighted, slow-moving Con- 
 
ON PEACE AND CHANGE 69 
 
 servatism lay, however, the more sinister calcula- 
 tion that Germany by her efficient and ever -ready 
 war machine could, preferably by threats, but if 
 necessary by deeds, secure more for herself than 
 she could hope to gain by conference. Finally, 
 we must reckon with the tendency of conferences, 
 holy alliances, and leagues of peace to aim at a 
 static peace, to avoid disturbing changes, to patch 
 and compromise and evade sharp issues. To satis- 
 fied Powers this will seem an adequate way of 
 handling the world's problems. It will not meet 
 the ambitions of any restless Power or any aggrieved 
 nationality which has set its mind on radical 
 changes. That is, perhaps, the ultimate and in- 
 clusive reason why the German mind looks coldly 
 on the idea of an Areopagus. To us empire is 
 possession. To the Germans it is struggle and 
 growth. We count the gifts of the past : they 
 dream of the acquisitions of the future. 
 
 It is easy to accept Viscount Grey's belief that 
 his expedient of a conference or the Tsar's pro- 
 posal of arbitration might have averted war. But 
 a conference which might have " settled the quarrel 
 in a week " could have had only a very limited 
 scope. If the real issue had been to decide what 
 guarantees, consistent with her independence, Serbia 
 could give to Austria against the hatching of 
 murderous plots and the fostering of disruptive 
 movements on her soil, a conference might well 
 have ' settled the quarrel in a week." If the real 
 issue was the question of fact, how far some Serbian 
 officials may have been guilty of complicity in the 
 Serajevo murder, the Hague Tribunal was the proper 
 authority to investigate it. Indeed, if this had been 
 all, one interview between the Austrian Ambassador 
 and the Serbian Premier, if there had been good- 
 will, would have sufficed to settle it. But no one, 
 even before the progress of the war had uncovered 
 
70 A LEAGUE OF, NATIONS 
 
 all its hidden causes, was so near-sighted as to 
 suppose that it really turned merely on the question 
 whether an Austrian assessor was to sit on the bench 
 when Serbian conspirators were tried. Even if we 
 confine our view entirely to the East, and leave 
 out of account the Western and colonial questions 
 which would infallibly be raised by a general war, 
 the issue was as broad and as complicated as any 
 which has ever set great empires at strife. The 
 issue, as it appeared to the chief antagonists, was 
 simply the mastery of the East. " Austria's 
 action," said M. Sazonoff, 1 " was in reality directed 
 against Russia. She aimed at overthrowing the 
 present status quo in the Balkans, and establishing 
 her own hegemony there." " If the Serbs," argues 
 the German White Book, " continued, with the aid 
 of Russia and France to menace the existence of 
 Austria -Hungary, the gradual collapse of Austria 
 and the subjection of all the Slavs under one 
 Russian sceptre would be the consequence, thus 
 making untenable the position of the Teutonic race 
 in Central Europe." Each of these statements 
 extracts from a perilous crisis the utmost menace 
 that was latent in it. It may be said with truth 
 that it is exactly at the moment when each side 
 accuses the other of aiming at hegemony for itself 
 and the destruction of its rivals that the services 
 of neutral mediators are of most avail. The cold 
 neutral who insists on disregarding these large and 
 vague alarms, and addresses himself in a matter- 
 of-fact way to the one narrow cause of conflict 
 which cannot be evaded, may render to peace the 
 immediate service of averting war. But how much 
 of this larger issue could any mediating confer- 
 ence "have settled and for how long would war 
 have been avoided by the burial of the memory 
 of Sarajevo ? The tension between Germany and 
 1 British Diplomatic Correspondence, No. 17. 
 
ON PEACE AND CHANGE 71 
 
 Russia had been acute since the whole Eastern 
 question was raised by the Balkan wars. Both 
 empires were marching consciously, with vast and 
 rapid increases in their armaments, towards a trial 
 of strength, and in their public discussions the ablesr 
 writers on both sides had virtually declared the 
 " inevitable war " some weeks before the Archduke's 
 murder. 1 This big issue of the mastery of the 
 East had several aspects. Let us glance at them 
 very briefly one by one* 
 
 i . Austria stood in danger of disruption and 
 collapse from the South Slav movement. The 
 Serbs did not disguise their ambition of one day 
 uniting the whole of the south-eastern region of 
 the Dual Monarchy, with its Serb, Croat, and 
 Slovene populations, under the leadership of Bel- 
 grade. Their military success in the Balkan wars 
 gave them confidence that they would one day be 
 able to repeat on behalf of the Serb race the role 
 which the little kingdom of Piedmont had played 
 on behalf of Italy when it too was under Austrian 
 rule with a Russian Tsar to help Serbia as Louis 
 Napoleon helped Piedmont. So openly were such 
 designs proclaimed that the clever daily news- 
 paper of the military party in Belgrade was actually 
 named the Piemonte. The Russian Panslavists 
 encouraged these ambitions, and M. Hartwig, the 
 Russian Minister in Belgrade, created the Balkan 
 League in 1912, not merely to destroy Turkey but 
 with the ultimate design, which is hinted even in 
 the published treaty of alliance, of one day using 
 the Serbo -Bulgarian combination in a war against 
 Austria. 3 Efforts had lately been made by Russian 
 
 1 Especially in the illuminating controversy between Professor 
 Mitrofanoff , the Russian historian, in the " Preussische Jahrbiicher " 
 and its editor, Professor Hans Delbriick (June 1914 ; see p. 145). 
 
 * For the text of the treaty see Guechoff, " L' Alliance Balkanique ' 
 (Hachette). For a brief but clear confirmation of the above statement 
 
7.2 A LEAGUE OF. NATIONS 
 
 diplomacy to reconstruct the Balkan League. 
 Panslavist propaganda, conducted by Orthodox 
 priests on behalf of Russian patriotic organizations, 
 was meanwhile attempting to undermine the loyalty 
 to Austria of the Ruthenians of Galicia. 1 
 
 Austria felt that she must assert herself if she 
 meant to survive, and the only way to do it, in 
 her view, was to prove that Russia, when it came 
 to the point, would not dare to protect Serbia. 
 Russia had in the past often recognized that Serbia 
 is naturally within the Austrian sphere of influ- 
 ence (notably in the understandings of 1897 and 
 1903). There must be a return to that salutary 
 arrangement. Failing this, Austria would sooner 
 or later go to pieces, and Germany would be left 
 without an ally. Some show of force (so ran the 
 reasoning of the Central Powers) was necessary. 
 It was useless to try to conciliate the Serbs. Indeed, 
 their party of violence had murdered the Arch- 
 duke, who was notoriously friendly to the Slavs, 
 
 as to the real objects of Russian policy in the Balkans in 1912 I would 
 refer the reader to Prof. Paul Miliukoff' s article in the Retch (July 25, 
 1916) on the policy of M. Sazonoff, the late Foreign Minister of Russia. 
 Professor Miliukoff is not merely the leader of the Russian Liberals 
 in the Duma and a distinguished historian ; he is also one of the first 
 authorities in Europe on Balkan affairs. He writes as a personal-friend 
 and admirer of M. Sazonoff. Here is the essential passage : 
 
 "Sazonoff, receiving in heritage a situation thus complicated, formed 
 a new resource an alliance of the Balkan States which finally blocked 
 the path of Austria to the South. First of all Sazonoff, who prepared 
 the alliance against Atistria-Hungary, did not realize in time that it 
 would automatically turn against Turkey, and, together with the rest 
 of Europe, was taken unawares by the Turkish War." 
 
 I am able to confirm this statement, 'as the result of independent 
 conversations in 1913 with both Serbian and Bulgarian diplomatists. 
 The plan of campaign was that the Balkan Alliance should be used 
 first against Austria and afterwards against Turkey. The impatience 
 of the Balkan statesmen upset Russian plans. 
 
 1 See Steed, " The Hapsburg Monarchy." 
 
ON PEACE AND CHANGE 73 
 
 because his scheme of creating a great autonomous 
 united Serbo-Croat province within the Dual 
 Monarchy would have been fatal to their national 
 ambitions. 
 
 2. The Serbian and Russian case against Austria 
 has been rendered familiar by a multitude of per- 
 suasive pens in all the allied countries. The 
 Austrian design to crush Serbia, it can be shown, is 
 of long standing. It dates from 1908 and Count 
 Aerenthal's lawless annexation of Bosnia, and was 
 renewed in the threat of armed intervention in 1913. 
 It disdained no methods to discredit the Serbs, 
 and stooped even to official forgery and hired false 
 witness. Who would trust even documentary 
 evidence of the complicity of Belgrade in the 
 Serajevo plot, if the Austrian police and Austrian 
 Foreign Office had compiled it ? The plight of 
 the Croats under Magyar oppression had been 
 steadily worsening for a number of years, and it 
 was plain that the growth of a new spirit of unity 
 and hope among Croats, Serbs, and Slovenes in 
 the Dual Monarchy only excited the spirit of sus- 
 picion and tyranny in the narrow oligarchy of 
 Budapest. The murdered Archduke, to be sure, 
 had more liberal views, but would he ever have 
 enjoyed power? Even he, under Jesuit influence, 
 favoured the Catholic against the Orthodox Slavs. 
 A genuinely liberal solution in the Hapsburg 
 " police State " seemed hopeless. Austria, in short, 
 as a brilliant English writer has put it, " craved the 
 knife." 
 
 3. With this Austro -Serbian question was closely 
 bound up the future of Turkey. Roumania, under 
 a Hohenzollern King, was the ally of the Central 
 Powers. Bulgaria, under King Ferdinand, marched, 
 on the whole, with Austria. Serbia, alone in the 
 Balkans, stood in the path of a German -Austrian 
 domination of the East. From the Russian stand- 
 
74 A LEAGUE OF NATIONS 
 
 point the question of the Straits was becoming 
 urgent. 1 Russia could not much longer postpone 
 raising it : on a free egress for her warships from 
 the Black Sea she meant one day to insist. But 
 meanwhile Germany was in a fair way to settling 
 the question in her own favour. The arrival of 
 General Liman von Sanders in Turkey, at the head 
 of a military mission charged with executive powers 
 in the winter of 1913-14, seemed to mean that 
 Constantinople was becoming a German and not a 
 Russian city. The two great strategical routes 
 which dominate the East Berlin -Bagdad and 
 Bosphorus -Dardanelles cross at Constantinople, and 
 already the Germans were establishing themselves 
 there with the eager complicity of Enver Pasha 
 and the Young Turks. If Serbia should be brought 
 within the Austrian sphere by the failure of Russian 
 support, the fate of the Near East was settled. 
 The Germans, on their side, saw in the hereditary 
 Russian claim to Constantinople the negation of 
 
 1 The diplomatic history of the Straits question in recent years is 
 much in need of illumination. For a number of years, said Dr. 
 Spahn, the leader of the Centre, in the Reichstag (Times, October 16, 
 1916) the Central Empires had been willing to settle the Straits 
 question with Russia. It has been stated that in his preliminary 
 conversations with Count Aerenthal, M. Isvolsky, on the eve of the 
 annexation of Bosnia, obtained Austria's consent to the opening of the 
 Straits to Russian warships. What was the British attitude then ? 
 Later, when M. Tcharikoff was Russian Ambassador at Constanti- 
 nople, he pursued a Turcophil policy, and made, according to some 
 authorities, considerable progress in inducing the Young Turks to 
 consent to the opening of the Straits, but on the mischievous con- 
 dition that Turkish authority over Crete should be confirmed. He 
 was suddenly recalled, and the statement has been made that this was 
 done at the instance of France, which feared our displeasure if the 
 question of the Straits were raised. If this be true, it is possible that 
 our objection was rather to the Cretan arrangement. The failure to 
 reach a peaceable settlement of this question between 1908 and 1914 
 was one of the root causes of the war, but it is impossible to decide 
 where the responsibility lies. See Reventlow, pp. 358, 359, 441, and 
 " Nationalism and War in the Near East " by a Diplomatist, p. 161. 
 
ON PEACE AND CHANGE 75 
 
 their economic schemes of rail way -building, irriga- 
 tion, mining, oil development, and the like, in 
 Anatolia and Mesopotamia, and they suspected that 
 the Entente Powers entertained definite plans for 
 the eventual partition of Asiatic Turkey into spheres 
 of influence, without according even a share to 
 Germany. The last occasion on which this pro- 
 posal is said to have been put forward was during 
 the Balkan War. 1 Thus their economic future was 
 indirectly at stake in this question of the Serajevo 
 murders. The Russians were beginning to say that 
 the road to Constantinople lay through Berlin. The 
 Germans perceived as clearly that the road to 
 Constantinople lay through Belgrade. 
 
 It requires a robust faith to believe that much of 
 this conflict of vital interests would have been settled 
 if a conference had averted war over the Serajevo 
 murders. It might with ease have found a formula 
 to define the kind and degree of reparation due 
 from Serbia. But the Austrian and Turkish problems 
 would have been no nearer to a settlement. 
 
 Any radical and final solution of the Austrian 
 problem would have involved a revolutionary 
 departure from the practice and usage of the 
 Powers. The South-Slav question (to confine our- 
 selves to that) admitted of two solutions. The Dual 
 Monarchy might have been reconstructed on a 
 federalist or " trialist " basis, with all its Serbs, 
 Croats, and Slovenes united in an autonomous pro- 
 vince or subordinate kingdom, under the Hapsburg 
 crown. That solution, to be quite logical and final, 
 would have involved, in some form or degree, at 
 least by an alliance and a customs union, the total 
 or partial absorption of the Serbian and Montenegrin 
 kingdoms. The other solution would have been to 
 lop off from Austria the whole of her Serb and Croat 
 
 1 See Reventlow, " Deutschlands Auswartige Politik," p. 322. 
 Rohrbach, "Der Deutsche Gedanke," pp. 155, 162. 
 
7 6 A LEAGUE OF NATIONS 
 
 provinces, and to unite them with Serbia and Monte- 
 negro. Either solution would have resulted in the 
 union of the Serbo-Croat race, with every guarantee 
 for its own native culture and its self-government. 
 The former solution would have brought a great 
 access of strength to the Central Empires, the 
 second, a great weakening. It is safe to say that 
 no Congress would have considered either solution 
 for one moment, save at the end of a decisive war. 
 No Great Power would consent to submit its in- 
 ternal reconstruction to the decision of a Concert. 
 Against the cession of the South -Slav provinces 
 Austria and Germany would have fought to the 
 bitter end. The absorption of Serbia (in default of 
 heavy compensations) would have been resisted by 
 Russia no less stubbornly. A Congress dare not 
 have touched the South -Slav question. 
 
 If this conclusion be sound, we have reached what 
 looks at this stage like a fatal obstacle to any League 
 of Peace. There are many questions, some of them 
 large questions, which might have been settled in 
 the Europe of 1914 by the method of conference 
 and conciliation. The problem of Constantinople 
 and the Straits may have been one of them. But 
 no cautious and experienced statesman would have 
 ventured to assert that in 1914 any question of 
 nationality which required either a drastic inter- 
 ference with the Constitution of a Great Power or 
 a considerable diminution of its European territories 
 (save perhaps by exchange) could have been settled 
 by conference without war. One illustration is 
 enough, but it would be easy to multiply cases. 
 Poland, Alsace, and Finland at once present them- 
 selves among those problems of nationality which no 
 one could have raised in 1914 without precipitating 
 war. The conception of the sovereign State stood 
 in the way. No European Power above the level of 
 a Balkan State would have consented to accept from 
 
ON PEACE AND CHANGE 77 
 
 any Congress or Conference, save as the result of a 
 war which had exhausted its powers of resistance, 
 an order 'which required it either to alter its Constitu- 
 tion or to surrender an integral part of its home 
 territory. Nor was the attachment of the Liberal 
 Powers to this tradition less decided than that of the 
 Central Empires. Let us ask ourselves candidly 
 what our answer would have been if Spain, greatly 
 daring, or backed by some first-class Power, had 
 ventured to raise the question of Gibraltar, and 
 invited us (after an angry controversy) to submit our 
 ownership of the Rock and our control of the 
 Straits to the decision of a neutral Council ? The 
 world was not ready in 1914 for any decision of 
 such issues by means other than force. All the 
 great territorial changes of last century came about 
 as the sequels of war, and no one seriously hoped 
 that further changes in Europe could come in any 
 other way. The desire for these great organic 
 changes none the less existed. It burned fiercely 
 as an aspiration in some crushed or divided races : 
 it surged as an ambition in some great empires. 
 We have realized during this war how fierce and 
 fundamental some of these passions were : we look 
 back on the last generation as a time when all these 
 nationalist explosives were accumulated, awaiting the 
 match. Everywhere in Europe there were races or 
 parties in both of its camps who were forced year 
 by year to say to themselves, " The solution of the 
 problem which is vital to our personal happiness and 
 dignity must await the next war." The diplomacy 
 of the Continent was, in fact, a struggle between the 
 conservatism of the sober or satisfied elements, who 
 desired no change, and the radicalism of the .wronged 
 or ambitious elements, who cherished the suppressed 
 wish for change by war. With all its goodwill, with 
 all its humane horror of war, the diplomacy which 
 was driven to a continual support of the status quo 
 
7 8 A LEAGUE OF, NATIONS 
 
 shares the responsibility for war with the restless 
 elements which made it. Our English habit of pro- 
 nouncing moral judgments is apt to lead us into a 
 diagnosis of war and its causes which errs by its 
 inadequate simplicity. We shall not find our way 
 out while we are content to spend our whole minds 
 in denouncing Prussian militarism. No words are 
 too harsh for it, but when all our words are spoken, 
 the fact remains that the European system as it 
 existed in 1914 provided no means by which large 
 and necessary changes could be compassed without 
 war. There lay the root of all militarism. Let us 
 glance at a question in which our passions are not 
 involved. Who was to blame for the war of the 
 Balkan Allies in 1912 against Turkey ? The Turks, 
 who made Macedonia a chaos of misery and oppres- 
 sion ? The Balkan Allies, who deliberately and with 
 foresight planned the war and drew the sword ? 
 Both were to blame, if we must speak of blame a 
 silly habit that darkens understanding. But behind 
 them both was the Concert, which had steadily set 
 its face against any radical and adequate solution 
 of this question. It is idle to blame even the 
 Concert, in the sense of passing moral judgments 
 upon it. The statesmen who did nothing, or did 
 too little, were often called upon to resist fanatical 
 and aggressive cliques, and their decision to allow 
 the wrong to fester, so far from implying callousness, 
 may have meant, on the contrary, a humane shrink- 
 ing from any step which might involve Europe 'in 
 war. Their prudence, however, had its reserves and 
 its limitations. They did not, they could not, 
 renounce the hope of change. But since change 
 must mean war, they armed and formed their 
 alliances for the moment when it should come. 
 Each side professed in these preparations a purely 
 defensive aim, and in a sense the profession may 
 have been sincere. But each side knew that a 
 
ON PEACE AND CHANGE 79 
 
 fortunate war would enable it to achieve the change 
 which without war was unthinkable. 
 
 A survey of the sub-conscious mind of Europe 
 on the eve of the catastrophe would have revealed 
 everywhere these suppressed wishes for war. They 
 were never avowed. They rarely emerged above 
 the threshold of publicity. Good men fought them 
 down, and prudent men concealed them. But like 
 the " suppressed wishes " which Freud's school has 
 taught us to trace in the mental life of the 
 individual, they coloured the dreams of many of 
 the nations, and while they made no war, they 
 subtly and unconsciously ruined peace. In crisis 
 after crisis, when some decision had to be taken 
 on a question seemingly irrelevant, the suppressed 
 wish did its silent work, and the nation deviated 
 a little from the course that might have led to 
 lasting peace, and swerved a little into the course 
 which eventually led to war. How promptly these 
 suppressed wishes proclaimed themselves when at 
 length war broke out ! When the German 
 Chancellor in his proposals for our neutrality l 
 pledged himself not to annex French territory, but 
 added candidly that he could not give the same 
 undertaking about French colonies, who could fail 
 to read the suppressed wish ? Russian Pan -Slavism, 
 the French demand for revanche, Italian, Serbian, 
 and Bulgarian irredentism discovered themselves 
 with equal candour. One may say of these aspira- 
 tions, that while morals or prudence had restrained 
 most of them for a generation or more from any 
 declaration of war, all and each of them had been 
 strong enough to cause the rivalry in armaments 
 and the search for allies which had divided Europe 
 into two camps and made our armed peace. In 
 no case is defence and fear a sufficient explanation. 
 Turn even to the most pacific and democratic of 
 
 1 British White Paper, No. 85. 
 
8o A LEAGUE OF NATIONS 
 
 all the belligerent Powers, the Power which played 
 the least active part in the outbreak of the war. 
 One may say with conviction that in spite of 
 an influential " nationalist " tendency, the French 
 Republic would never, without fresh provocation, 
 havs declared war on Germany to recover the lost 
 provinces. But with the same decision one must 
 say that it was not merely the need of defence, 
 but also the desire to retake Alsace-Lorraine, which 
 caused her to ally herself with Russia and to 
 connect herself with Britain. That desire worked, 
 though it made no war, and it worked in crisis 
 after crisis to render the dualism in Europe more 
 acute. Even the German Government, despite the 
 militarist tradition around it, had too much regard 
 for the public opinion of its own people and 
 the rest of the world to declare war frankly in 
 order to acquire colonies. It let the Morocco 
 question pass without war, and awaited another 
 occasion on which it could point to Serbian 
 murders and Pan-Slavist schemes, to turn aside 
 the condemnation which even its own people would 
 have passed on an avowedly Imperialist war. None 
 of these aspirations was wrong in itself : some of 
 them voiced a sharp cry for justice. We may 
 think the German desire for expansion dangerous 
 and inexpedient, but we who have acquired (thanks 
 to our naval supremacy) one-fourth of the inhabited 
 earth cannot as a people say that it is immoral to 
 cherish such ambitions. Of these many suppressed 
 wishes it was only two, the German wish for 
 economic or < colonial expansion and the Serbian 
 wish for racial unity, which actively and obviously 
 made this war. But all these suppressed wishes 
 played their part in making a durable peace 
 impossible. There was in Europe a cause of war 
 broader and more potent than Prussian militarism, 
 the system or want of system which forbade organic 
 
ON PEACE AND CHANGE 81 
 
 change without war. One may give it another 
 name. It was the anarchic and individualistic 
 tradition of the sovereign State, which regarded all 
 interference from outside or from above as an 
 intolerable infringement of its natural right of 
 independence. 
 
 The historic conception of a League of Peace 
 took no account whatever of the world's need of 
 change, growth, and readjustment. It seemed, 
 indeed, to be a provision against the very possibility 
 of change. The Christian sovereigns, who were 
 to form the Confederation sketched by the Abbe 
 de Saint-Pierre, based their League upon a mutual 
 guarantee, for all time, of all the States which they 
 actually possessed. The map of Europe would have 
 been fixed for ever by such an arrangement, and 
 neither by revolution nor by conquest could any 
 change have occurred in the distribution of territory. 
 That could have come about only by marriage or 
 inheritance. Poland 'would have been saved, but 
 there could have been no united Germany, no Italy, 
 no Belgium, and no Norway. Such a concep- 
 tion was natural in the early eighteenth century, 
 when countries were still only the estates of princes, 
 and peoples were merely their subjects. Even 
 then it provoked from Leibnitz the retort that 
 perpetual peace " is a motto suitable only for 
 a graveyard. The same static view of international 
 existence and the same principle of legitimacy were 
 the fundamental ideas of the Holy Alliance, the 
 child by collateral descent of the Abbe de Saint- 
 Pierre's scheme, on which the Tsar Alexander had 
 pondered (in Rousseau's abstract) during his ideal- 
 istic youth. The tradition of a static peace is 
 deeply rooted even in contemporary pacifist thought, 
 >and it may ruin the effort of the twentieth century 
 to abolish war, as it ruined the Holy Alliance. 
 Pacifist thinking flourishes above all in countries 
 
 7 
 
82 A LEAGUE OF NATIONS 
 
 which have no need of fundamental change in their 
 own national interest, and desire above all things 
 security. Security seen from such an angle is apt 
 to look like repose, and the mere absence of move- 
 ment. A facile philosophy is readily built up to 
 suggest that the factors which make for change 
 are either sinister or unreal. One century blames 
 its kings and priests ; the next curses its capitalists. 
 Both believe that democracies, if they were really 
 self-governing, would never go to war. One 
 thinker traces all our ills to secret diplomacy, 
 another to the illusion that conquest can enrich a 
 people. There js truth, inexhaustible truth, in all 
 these indictments, whether of the vanity of kings, 
 the greed of capitalists, or the devious ways of 
 a secret statecraft. But none of these diagnoses 
 takes account of the fact thaf: change is necessary 
 in the world's structure, and that the pretensions of 
 the sovereign State in its present conception are 
 a fatal obstacle to fundamental change. 
 
 The national changes are the most baffling of 
 all, and we dare not assume that we can foresee 
 all that may ever be necessary. Forgotten races 
 come to consciousness. Did not Kinglake pass 
 through . Bulgaria without realizing that a Bulgarian 
 race existed ? Ten or twenty years ago who took 
 account of Slovacks and Slovenes ? Backward races 
 leap, by industrial and educational development, 
 into the position to claim their rights. Sundered 
 races discover their affinity. Ten years ago, though 
 every student understood the identity of Croats and 
 Serbs, few practical politicians believed that they 
 would surmount their religious and cultural differ- 
 ences, to embrace a single racial aspiration. 
 Emigration, as the decades pass, may make for 
 our children racial problems as grievous as these 
 older European perplexities. It would be rash to 
 say that there can ever be a final solution of the 
 
ON PEACE AND CHANGE 83 
 
 problem of nationality. The economic and colonial 
 problems which give rise to war are even more 
 obviously incapable of permanent solution. The 
 decay of an ancient Asiatic Empire, the bankruptcy 
 of a semi -civilized State, the discovery overseas 
 of a new source of some raw material in great 
 demand, the invention of a new industrial process 
 all of these may at any moment call for some 
 readjustment of the kind that often leads to war. 
 The Old World went out conquering for gold. Iron 
 ore and petrol may be to-day the raw materials 
 of war. Who knows over what rare mineral the 
 syndicated industries of Europe and America may 
 dispute a generation hence? Life is change, and 
 a League of Peace that aimed at preserving peace 
 by forbidding change would be a tyranny as 
 oppressive as any Napoleonic dictatorship. New 
 adjustments of frontiers to meet the real facts of 
 nationality, or, failing these, changes within the 
 Constitution of composite Empires, redistribution 
 of colonial possessions or spheres of influence, the 
 requirements of new trade routes, the 'equitable 
 apportionment of raw materials, access for growing 
 industries to new markets all of these problems 
 shift with the world's growth, call for^ periodic 
 change, and will make war if change should be 
 denied. The peril of our future is that while the 
 need for change is instinctively grasped by some 
 peoples as the fundamental fact of world-politics, to 
 perceive it costs others a difficult effort of thought. 
 We have no unredeemed kinsmen ; we own more soil 
 than we can till. America moves securely within the 
 closed frame of her own vast continent. Pacifist 
 thought flourishes readily among us. But there 
 were no pacifists in Serbia, and few in Germany 
 outside the Socialist ranks. We must cease to 
 attribute this difference to original sin. It depends 
 on the varying urgency of the need which each 
 
84 A LEAGUE OF NATIONS 
 
 people experienced for fundamental change. Unless 
 we can make our League a possible instrument of 
 fundamental change, it will rally the satisfied Powers 
 and repel the peoples which cherish an ambition 
 or suffer from a wrong. Our inevitably static 
 conception of the world must learn to find a place 
 for these restless forces which are bent on change. 
 Unless these forces can see in the League of 
 Peace a hopeful means of effecting needful change, 
 they will see in it only a barrier to their growth, 
 and the pulse of life within them will drive them 
 first to armaments and then to war. Our problem 
 is not merely moral ; it is biological. Granted 
 that all war involves an element of " aggression " 
 which the moralist must condemn : it is no less 
 important to recognize that it involves a need of 
 change which the statesman must satisfy. The 
 failure to see the need for change as the central 
 fact in world-politics may well prevent the formation 
 of a League, and wreck it, if it should be formed. 
 To the " have-nots " among the nations, the 
 proletarian nationalities and the parvenu Powers, it 
 will present itself as a League of all the " haves," 
 to keep, to hold, to stereotype things as they are. 
 Glance at the brief definitions of the ideal which 
 have been given by Mr. Asquith, Viscount Grey, 
 and President Wilson. Admirable and eloquent as 
 they all are, they all of them conceive the functions 
 of the League as negative. It is to prevent action 
 in others ; it will itself act only to repress. It is 
 to stand in the way of the evil will. It is 
 to stop aggression. Nowhere is there any stress 
 on its resolve to do anything to render the world 
 more tolerable for those who otherwise might be 
 tempted to rebel. Such language is natural in the 
 midst of war. The terrific fact in all our minds 
 is that a tremendous act of aggression has been 
 committed. The progress which the idea of a 
 
ON PEACE AND CHANGE 85 
 
 League has made is simply a reaction against this 
 act. We want simply to prevent its repetition. 
 
 In this mood we lapse too easily into the 
 conception of a static and changeless peace. It 
 is significant that some of the authors who have 
 done the most notable service to advance the idea 
 of a League in Britain and America express the 
 opinion that ultimately all matters of controversy 
 among nations may be settled by judicial process, 
 though most of them recognize that at present we 
 must rely very largely on councils of conciliation. 
 This may seem to be a remote and unimportant 
 detail of procedure. But it reveals very clearly 
 the belief that the need of large changes will 
 diminish and can be eliminated. It suggests the 
 analogy of a kingdom with a Constitution so fixed 
 and a Statute Book so complete, that it could be 
 ruled entirely by its magistrates, administering its 
 existing laws, without the need of a Parliament 
 or an Executive. This is to banish all thought 
 of evolution and growth. It is to assume that 
 no new ideas will arise to give fresh shape to 
 international relations. It is to repress all move- 
 ments of the will outside each national frontier. 
 So far from representing an international idea and 
 a Society of Nations, debating with each other, 
 influencing each other, and deciding together great 
 issues for the common good, it seems to picture 
 a condition of isolation, in which nations touch 
 one another only as litigants before a supreme 
 Court. The climax of this way of thinking is 
 to be found in the suggestion that the cure for 
 war is to be sought in the boredom which will 
 overtake us all when international affairs are 
 involved in the intricacies of a quiet, tedious, and 
 quasi-legal procedure. This mode of thought 
 represents the extreme and timorous reaction from 
 war. It offers us a purely negative conception of 
 
86 A LEAGUE OF NATIONS 
 
 peace, which may for the moment, drab and dull 
 as it is, appeal to minds sated with the violent 
 colours of war. In the long run humanity will 
 ask for something more positive and interesting, 
 for something that gives scope to the creative 
 and shaping will, that brings together in the 
 stimulating shock of contention, in debate if not 
 on stricken fields, the diverse temperaments, the 
 mutually complementary political ideals of civilized 
 nations. A peace rich in this conception of co- 
 operation will aim at international changes more 
 daring, more constructive, more interesting than the 
 elementary ambitions of war-time. We shall end 
 by eliminating from our vocabulary the word 
 " dispute," and regard the debates between nations 
 over the conduct of our common affairs, not as 
 dangers to be dreaded, concealed, and avoided, but 
 as the promise and medium of hopeful and stimulat- 
 ing change. That will be a slow development. 
 There is risk in attempting to think and construct 
 too fast. But let us realize the still graver risk 
 of defining peace and its organization in static and 
 negative terms. To do that is to leave still 
 fermenting in the dark places of the European mind 
 its many suppressed wishes for war. The psychic 
 healer who would cure mankind Of these wishes 
 will not attempt the vain task of repressing them. 
 He will bid them to be conscious and vocal. He 
 will summon them into international publicity, and 
 endeavour to transmute them into open and 
 honourable demands for change, addressed to the 
 reasonable goodwill of a Society of Nations, which 
 can, when it is convinced of their urgency and 
 justice, proceed to give them, effect. 
 
 This general argument has carried us beyond 
 the limited but vital question which confronted us 
 
ON PEACE AND CHANGE 87 
 
 when we asked whether a European Congress or 
 Council could have settled the South Slav question. 
 The obstacle to any settlement seemed to be the 
 traditional refusal of the sovereign State, and 
 especially of the Great Power, to allow any inter- 
 ference with its internal questions, or to contem- 
 plate, save after war, any surrender of his home 
 territories. In consequence of this tradition, loyal 
 and pacific statesmen had eliminated from the scope 
 of diplomacy any consideration of problems which 
 could be solved only in one of these two ways. 
 Will a League of Peace be more daring? We 
 have advanced an argument to show that it must 
 be prepared to be very much more daring and 
 more radical, if it intends by peaceful means to keep 
 the world's structure adjusted to the recurrent need 
 of change. But will it, in fact, be more daring? 
 It is probable that the very experience of this war 
 will make us all Conservatives in such matters. 
 While the war lasts it is part of our fighting case 
 to make the most of all these issues of nationality, 
 and to urge its prosecution to the bitter end, lest 
 our victory should fail to provide for the radical 
 settlement of arty of these questions. When peace 
 returns, the contrary mood will set in, and to any 
 one who points out that the Slovenes have been 
 forgotten or the Macedonians wronged, public 
 opinion will oppose a massive indifference which 
 will turn, if he persists, to anger and impatience. 
 The very mention of a neglected nationality will 
 ring to our ears like a proposal to begin once 
 more the slaughter of men by millions. This mood 
 may last for a generation, and it is probable that 
 if any national question which might arouse 
 European strife should be brought before the League, 
 its Council would tend to offer a timid and com- 
 promising solution, which might none the less have 
 value if it eased the strain without provoking deter- 
 
88 A LEAGUE OF NATIONS 
 
 mined resistance. It is even more probable that, 
 however wise the recommendations of the Council 
 might be, there would be little disposition on the 
 part of the Great Powers to take any action what- 
 ever to enforce them, unless, perhaps, it were clear 
 to all of them that only by prompt action could a 
 devastating war be avoided. Much, no doubt,, would 
 depend on the standing and associations of the 
 State against which action was required. The 
 tendency of the cruder public opinion in both camps 
 would be to declare that it was monstrous that the 
 Council should dare to address even a recommenda- 
 tion to an ally ; while 'if the offender were in the 
 other camp the same voices would sound the clarion 
 and summon the whole civilized world to coerce 
 him. It will only be slowly, as the memories of 
 this conflict fade, that an approach to impartiality 
 will be possible. The responsibility of the United 
 States at this early stage will be heavy, and many 
 a long year will pass before the League could 
 venture to use pressure, even moral pressure, against 
 one of the more important victors in this war. 
 For that reason the defeated Powers will be very 
 chary of joining the League, and very slow to 
 believe that they may hope for justice from it. 
 The idea of the League requires for its smooth 
 working, firstly, the loosening, if not the abolition, 
 of partial alliances among its members, and, 
 secondly, some diminution of the arrogance and 
 self-sufficiency which inflate our notion of the 
 sovereign State. 
 
 This admission may seem to some a reason for 
 postponing any attempt to create the League until 
 a number of years have passed. That counsel may 
 be disguised to look like wisdom. But those who 
 advance it must be prepared to show how, without 
 the League, we may hope for a withering of the 
 idea of force, how in default of it alliances are 
 
ON PEACE AND CHANGE 89 
 
 likely to decay, how without any attempt to build 
 up international institutions the sovereign State can 
 begin to lose its repellent individualism. Within the 
 League all these developments will go forward. We 
 must begin, as best we may, realizing the handi- 
 caps of our disastrous past and aware of the in- 
 ordinate difficulties of our task. If we refuse to 
 create the League now because we doubt our ability 
 to overcome these moral obstacles, we are refusing 
 to adopt the principle of conference which our own 
 statesmen have proclaimed. Some principle we must 
 follow, and the alternative to conference is strife 
 and armaments, boycotts and force. Security 
 is the overmastering need, and the Power which 
 will not seek it or cannot find it in a League of 
 Peace, will inevitably work for it by the disastrous 
 methods of the past. It will bend its resources 
 and its statesmanship to two ends the strengthen- 
 ing of itself so that its defensive forces are over- 
 whelming, and the weakening of the enemy so that 
 any attack from him may be disregarded. Seen 
 from the other side, this process means that the 
 Power in question is making itself so strong that 
 it might attack with impunity, while its rival must 
 lack the means for defence. Absorbed in such 
 fears and precautions, Europe could make no 
 advance to a League. The favourable moment for 
 proposing it would never come. The obvious and 
 natural moment to begin is when all the nations 
 are assembled in council for the settlement of this 
 war. If this moment is neglected, each side will 
 see in this neglect a fresh reason for resuming, 
 with the old suspicions, the old precautions. 
 
 If the resistance, inherent in the tradition of the 
 sovereign State, to all organic changes suggested 
 or imposed from without, is the reason which ex- 
 plained the accumulation of so many causes of 
 war, if, further, we may hope only for the very 
 
90 A LEAGUE OF NATIONS 
 
 gradual adoption in really- vital cases of the prin- 
 ciple of international regulation, it follows that we 
 must endeavour in the settlement which precedes 
 peace to effect at least the most urgent and diffi- 
 cult of these necessary changes. One may lay 
 down in theory the most drastic principles of 
 nationality. One may say, as President Wilson has 
 said, that every people has the right to decide for 
 itself under which State it will live. But no empire 
 is going to accept that principle, if at all, without 
 safeguards which will leave it the smallest possible 
 range of application. It is idle to imagine that 
 we could to-morrow conclude peace on the basis 
 of the territorial status quo as it existed before 
 the war, erect our League of Peace, and then 
 through its Council invite Germany to test the 
 allegiance of the people of Alsace-Lorraine by a 
 plebiscite. Entirely reasonable as such a strategy 
 would be, it demands too prompt a departure from 
 the ideas of the past. We should not accept it 
 for Ireland or Gibraltar, nor would Russia submit 
 to it for Finland. Every Power will expect that 
 the settlement shall give it the secure possession at 
 least of its European territories for a long period 
 to come. If there are to be cessions of territory 
 dependent on a plebiscite, they must be defined 
 precisely in the terms of peace. It is probable, 
 indeed, that the victors will ask that the settlement 
 of territory laid down in the treaty of peace shall 
 be accepted by all parties as a final regulation of 
 the map of Europe. If they are disposed to adopt 
 the idea of a League of Peace, there will certainly 
 be a tendency on their part to regard the League 
 as a Federation pledged to maintain the settlement 
 for all time. They will probably require that its 
 terms shall be embodied in the basis of the League's 
 constitution. The utmost which those who realize 
 that some scope for change and readjustment is 
 
ON PEACE AND CHANGE 91 
 
 essential to permanent peace, may hope to secure 
 is that its provisions may be subject to review 
 by the Council of the League after a long term 
 of (say twenty) years. The balance between the 
 dangers and advantages of a settlement which 
 follows war is hard to strike. On the one hand, 
 one may say that there were demands for change 
 in Europe, unattainable without war, so urgent and 
 necessary that permanent peace was barely think- 
 able without them. On the other hand, there is 
 the risk that the victors (whatever principles they 
 profess) will think chiefly of increasing their power 
 and weakening the enemy, and will tend to regard 
 the League simply as a guarantee of their conquests. 
 A peace without annexations is the formula which 
 would lead us most promptly to an end of the 
 carnage. But a peace without some territorial 
 changes would leave us in the grip of many of the 
 acuter problems which made this war. 
 
 Can we find, with the League of Peace as our 
 guiding principle, a clue through these difficulties ? 
 It is obvious that our answer to nearly every ques- 
 tion which confronts us will differ with our faith 
 in the possibility and efficacy of a regulated inter- 
 nationalism. If there is to be no League, then it 
 is reasonable to say that national questions admit 
 only of the trenchant solution by annexation or 
 partition. If a League exists, it may provide us 
 with a super -national authority which can act as a 
 court of appeal for imperilled nationalities within 
 larger empires. In that event the war may stop 
 short of a point at which these composite empires 
 can be " broken up." Again, if there is no League, 
 it is inevitable that Powers bent on achieving security, 
 should press their efforts to obtain territory of 
 strategical value to themselves, even at the cost 
 of overriding nationality and prolonging the 
 struggle. If, on the other hand, we believe 
 
92 A LEAGUE OF NATIONS 
 
 in the attainment of security through a League, 
 we shall see in these strategical aims attempts to 
 reach it by obsolete means as superfluous as they 
 are mischievous. The decision of some economic 
 and colonial questions turns no less clearly on the 
 same pivot. If our only hope of security lay in 
 weakening the enemy and in keeping him weak, 
 then clearly the policy of boycotting his trade, 
 cutting off his supplies of raw material, and destroy- 
 ing his enterprises overseas would deserve careful 
 consideration. If we look to a League, however, 
 as the guarantee of the future, and wish to include 
 him within it as a loyal and willing member, then 
 to play with such proposals as these would be 
 suicidal. Evidently the settlement of the war and 
 the future of the League are inextricably bound 
 up together. A weak settlement which shirked any 
 of the graver issues in the war might compromise 
 the whole future of the League by burdening it 
 with problems which are far too heavy a weight 
 for any new institution to carry during the experi- 
 mental years. The next generation will have grown 
 up, if schools and the Press do their duty, with 
 some sense of loyalty and veneration towards the 
 new super -national structure. Only when this con- 
 fidence and fidelity exist as a real spiritual force 
 behind the League, will it dare to propose solutions 
 of difficult problems which call for large sacrifices 
 from powerful nations. It is easy to exaggerate 
 the uses of war as a means of bringing' about terri- 
 torial changes. One may dictate them, if one has 
 the force to do it, bu,t a nation shrinks especially 
 from the cession of territory at the settlement, be- 
 cause it may look like an admission of defeat. For 
 the solution of some questions of nationality in 
 Europe we may have to trust to the slow operation 
 of mental changes which the creation of a Society 
 of Nations will set in motion. Why is it that every 
 
ON PEACE AND CHANGE 93 
 
 Power instinctively, at any time, resists a cession 
 of territory, even when the task of policing it is 
 thankless and burdensome? The reason is partly 
 sentimental : it might lead to a diminution of 
 prestige. But there are two reasons, which in the 
 present condition of Europe are perfectly rational. 
 A loss of territory involves two things a diminution 
 of the man-power available for the military machine, 
 and a probable shrinkage of markets. Reluctant 
 conscripts do not make the best military material 
 and are always a source of anxiety, but they are 
 indisputably of some military value. Austria, for 
 example, has relied largely on her Slav regiments 
 in the campaign against Italy, and the Prussian 
 Poles fought well against Russia. Moreover, even 
 if such troops are not of much use to oneself, one 
 does not want to hand them over to a possible 
 enemy for his service. Again, it is, to-day, only 
 in one's own territories that one can be always sure 
 of an unimpeded market for one's goods, of free 
 access to raw materials, and of an open door for 
 capital enterprises. Every advance towards the 
 organization of economic peace, every step towards 
 the restriction of militarism, tends to invalidate these 
 two objections to the surrender of territory. If the 
 whole world were to disarm and establish free trade 
 at the close of this war, it is possible that we should 
 still resist the creation of an Irish Republic, that 
 the Russians would assert their suzerainty over Fin- 
 land, and that Germans would dislike the idea of 
 surrendering Alsace and Posen. Habits of thoughts 
 may persist long after their rational grounds have 
 disappeared. We may however anticipate with con- 
 fidence that every advance towards international 
 organization, every decline in military and economic 
 nationalism, will tend in the future to ease such] 
 transfers of territory and allegiance as may be neces- 
 sary. A League of Nations, with its two indispens- 
 
94 A LEAGUE OF NATIONS 
 
 able conditions, disarmament and economic peace, 
 is the key to the problem of change, not merely 
 because it will provide the organization which can 
 devise, promote, and enforce necessary changes as 
 they become due, but also because its whole tendency 
 will be to remove the grounds, only too valid to-day, 
 which cause the sovereign national State to resist 
 territorial change. 
 
 The idea of a League must be our guide in 
 steering the difficult course between a weak 
 settlement which might leave old discords rank- 
 ling, and a violent settlement that would in- 
 ftict new wounds. It is a single organic 
 problem which we have to solve, and both sides 
 of it may be compromised unless it is considered 
 as a unity. No civilized man will hesitate in his 
 choice of the principle of a settlement if a League 
 of Peace is indeec} attainable. Only a savage 
 would sacrifice the future of mankind to the present 
 moment, or condemn his children to peril for the 
 crude emotional pleasure of a glorious triumph, or 
 the still cruder material gains of trade boycotts and 
 indemnities. If the League is attainable, its interests 
 must be the guide and pilot alike of our policy in 
 war and of our statesmanship at the settlement. 
 How to found the League, how to ease its working 
 during the first anxious generation, how to bring 
 within it every Power which might be strong enough 
 to wreck it these are questions which transcend all 
 the details of frontiers, indemnities, and tariffs. It 
 is not enough to see that they transcend them. They 
 must be made to include them. Every demand 
 and proposal must face the test whether it will 
 , ease or compromise the creation of the League. 
 v Two positions are intellectually respectable. It 
 is reasonable (though it may be false) to say that 3, 
 League of Peace is a vain dream : in that case safety 
 depends on our being now and always the stronger. 
 
ON PEACE AND CHANGE 95 
 
 It is reasonable (though again it may be false) to 
 say that a League of Peace is possible, and so 
 desirable that every other consideration must be 
 subordinated to it. The position which is weak 
 and inconsequent is the attempt to mix a settlement 
 by force- with a League based on conference. But 
 it is this third and intermediate position which so 
 far predominates in the current discussions of writers 
 and orators in Allied countries. After crushing 
 the enemy in the field, cutting his Empire in pieces, 
 confiscating his fleet, accumulating punishments on 
 his head, annexing straits, and snatching colonies, 
 these writers will add the -cheerful conclusion " and 
 of course we hope to-morrow, though not to-day, 
 for a League of Nations, and the enthronement of 
 right." By such means we cannot prepare the 
 League of Peace. Even among moderate writers, 
 after a programme which may be wise and far- 
 seeing, the suggestion of a League of Peace some- 
 times appears as an afterthought or a fortieth article. 
 It must be less or more than this. If it matters so 
 little that one may wade through blood for three 
 or four years without regard to it, annex, divide, 
 and restore without speaking of it, it is hardly worth 
 the pains which it will cost us. If it matters pro- 
 foundly, then it matters all the time, and it must 
 guide us in all we do. Our Utopians are not 
 Utopian enough. They do not themselves realize 
 how great a: transformation they are proposing. 
 From force to conference, from armaments to reason, 
 from monopoly to free intercourse, from rival 
 alliances to a society of nations, from the sovereign 
 State to the federal league, from exclusive national- 
 ism to international solidarity it means the re- 
 shaping of all our diplomatic traditions and the 
 broadening of patriotism itself. The experienced 
 and sceptical mind turns from the adventure in 
 despair : it at least thinks clearly in its pessimism. 
 
96 A LEAGUE OF NATIONS 
 
 The hopeless leader is the man who would tinge 
 his vengeance and his caution with a little idealism, 
 the man whose perorations are a wordy picture of 
 the luminous future which all his acts will deny. 
 We must choose our end and with the end the means 
 that fit it. 
 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 PROBLEMS OF NATIONALITY 
 
 THE difficulty of any honest discussion of European 
 problems of nationality during the war is that they 
 have become inextricably confused with the wholly 
 different problem of weakening the enemy. It may 
 be proper to pursue the design of achieving security 
 by taking from the enemy the non -German races, 
 who by their numbers, their aptitudes, and their 
 wealth serve to swell his military and economic 
 power. Our adoption of this aim as our avowed 
 policy will depend partly on our readiness to prolong 
 the war indefinitely, and partly on our despair of 
 reaching security by other means. It is open to the 
 obvious objection that it promises more than it is 
 likely to yield ; for the enemy so weakened may in 
 his turn despair ,of security and a tolerable future for 
 himself and proceed, after an interval for recupera- 
 tion, to arm and intrigue for the recovery of his old 
 power. Certainly that will be the result unless in 
 the meanwhile the world moves from the idea of 
 force to the idea of conference. A settlement which, 
 by numerous annexations and the violent destruction 
 of ancient institutions like the Dual Monarchy, left 
 on the mind of this generation and the next the 
 impression that armed force is a tremendous instru- 
 ment for the achievement of political change might 
 not be the best preparation for an era of peace. The 
 impression which we presumably wish to produce in 
 the German mind is that aggression does not pay. 
 The German mind may not draw that conclusion, for 
 
 8 97 
 
98 A LEAGUE OF NATIONS 
 
 it has been fighting in what it took to be a defensive 
 war. The facts might suggest a different moral 
 that to be very rich, to have a supreme Navy, to 
 gather many allies round oneself emphatically does 
 pay. Permeated with the idea of power, the German 
 mind works under the influence of the belief that in 
 this world a people must be either hammer or anvil. 
 To make Germany the anvil to our hammer would 
 not disprove this reading of life. On the contrary, 
 it would confirm it. The hope of the future depends 
 on the decay of such metaphors. We must root up 
 the assumption that Europe is necessarily a smithy. 
 Our present ambition is to hammer such Thor's 
 strokes on the passive anvil of the defeated German 
 body as never yet were struck in this world, and 
 then to lock the smithy door for ever. But could 
 we reckon on keeping the key? 
 
 Even on the assumption that there is no alternative 
 to the policy of seeking a temporary security by 
 weakening the enemy in the settlement, it is well 
 to make clear to ourselves that our original schemes 
 for the solution of the European problems of nation- 
 ality had other aims than that disinterested purpose. 
 We knew very well before the war that autocratic 
 Russia presented problems of nationality as numerous 
 as those of the Central Empires, and more productive 
 of individual misery. No race in Central Europe, 
 though many of them suffered grievous wrongs, was 
 in the case of the Russian Jews, to whom the law 
 denied the riglht to choose their residence freely, 
 to use the national schools on the same terms as 
 Christians, and to enter the professions, the Civil 
 Service and the commissioned ranks of the army. 
 No race in Central Europe suffered a degree of 
 repression comparable to that which the " Little 
 Russians " (Ukrainians or Russian Ruthenians) en- 
 dured, who might not even use their own distinctive 
 language for the publication of a book of fairy- 
 
PROBLEMS OF NATIONALITY 99 
 
 tales for children. Nor was there in Central Europe 
 a parallel to the systematic persecution of alien or 
 heterodox creeds, which still survived in Russia. 
 If we shut our eyes to these facts, it was because 
 our aim during the war was not so much the im- 
 partial furtherance of tolerance and liberty, as the 
 weakening of the enemy. In the midst of the war 
 an event has occurred which dwarfs the war itself 
 by its immense and beneficent promise. No change 
 which the war may bring about can equal the con- 
 tribution of the Russian Revolution to the democratic 
 progress of Europe. It is no " little nationality " 
 which has been liberated, but the greatest population 
 of our Continent. Russia has been annexed to 
 Western Civilization, and has done for herself by 
 one energetic upheaval, what the rest of us did in 
 the slow centuries that lay between the Renaissance 
 and the French Revolution. Without this event a 
 League of Nations must have lacked something in 
 its moral and intellectual harmony. It might have 
 been a League of Governments, united to keep the 
 peace. It could not have been in its full extent a 
 League of Peoples, united by common ideals and 
 liberties. The Revolution has at one stroke removed 
 from our minds the paralysing knowledge that the 
 worst oppressor of subject races was our partner. 
 
 How in detail Russia will solve her bewildering! 
 problem of nationalities we do not yet know. The 
 degrading system of inequalities and privileges is 
 already a thing of the past. The Jews are free. 
 The Poles are assured of independence. Finland 
 enjoys her autonomy once more. Letts, Lithuanians, 
 Ukrainians, and the peoples of the Caucasus know 
 that their languages and their religions are now as 
 secure as their political rights. The danger, indeed, 
 is that the momentary weakness of the Central 
 Government, acting on the bitter memories of the 
 past, has encouraged a separatist movement, especi- 
 
ioo A LEAGUE OF NATIONS 
 
 ally in Finland and the Ukraine. The centralized 
 Empire of the Tsars has been dissolved, and the 
 free association of the peoples who suffered within 
 it, must be built up anew by statesmanship under 
 the pressure of common needs. It is certain that a 
 free Russia can survive only as a federal Republic, 
 which will include within itself several communities 
 enjoying a distinct national life of their own. 
 
 The consequences of the Russian Revolution will 
 not be confined to Russia. The subtraction, tem- 
 porary or permanent, of ^Russia's power from the 
 effective striking powers of the Entente has 
 diminished the prospect of achieving those violent 
 territorial changes in Central Europe which a section 
 of our public opinion desired. Russia is no longer 
 willing, even if she were able, to fight for the 
 dismemberment of Austria- Hungary. She has re- 
 nounced Panslavism, but her Revolution promises 
 to effect much more for the Austrian Slavs than all 
 her- efforts in the field. It has in the first place 
 perceptibly weakened the tie which bound the 
 Hapsburg monarchy to Berlin. Austria-Hungary was 
 fatally bound to lean on Germany as an ally, only 
 because she dreaded the hostile assaults and the dis- 
 integrating manoeuvres of Panslavism. That danger 
 is gone, and Vienna is no longer bound in the same 
 degree by the imperious need of safety, to sub- 
 ordinate her whole policy to German inspiration. 
 When in 1905 Russia made her first abortive move- 
 ment towards freedom, the reaction in Austria was 
 instantaneous : the old Emperor conceded manhood 
 suffrage. The influence of the successful Revolution 
 is even more evident. The youngi Emperor Karl 
 has dismissed the men who made the war, restored 
 the Parliament of Austria, insisted on franchise 
 reform in Hungary, and in a manifesto which had 
 the ring of sincerity, has proclaimed his belief in 
 " democracy," and his resolve to make Austria a 
 
PROBLEMS OF NATIONALITY 101 
 
 community of " equally privilege!, rations'.*'' -The 
 future is obscure, and no prophet would dare to 
 predict the victory of these new moral forces, save 
 after a difficult, and it may be lengthy, conflict, 
 over the traditions of reaction, the fanaticism of all 
 the races, both oppressed and oppressors, and the 
 entrenched obstinacy of the Magyars. The Russian 
 Revolution, none the less, has transformed the whole 
 European problem of nationality. It may even help 
 us, stirred by a sense of shame, to hasten the solution 
 of the Irish question. Nor has it been without effect 
 in Germany. Everywhere the example of Free 
 Russia is achieving what the arms of the Autocracy 
 could never have brought about. It is liberalizing 
 Europe. The case for a violent settlement grows 
 weaker : the hope of a real change in men's minds 
 grows brighter. 
 
 ANTI -NATIONAL CLAIMS. 
 
 The disentangling of motives is an uncomfort- 
 able exercise. The importance of it in this instance 
 is that if we deliberately adopt the weakening of 
 the enemy by annexations and dismemberment as 
 our aim, it may lead us in some important instances 
 to solutions which gravely infringe the principle 
 of nationality. We need not dwell on extravagances 
 which, have been advocated only in a part of the Allied 
 Press. The official programme involves, however, 
 some serious departures from the principle of nation- 
 ality. The Russian claim to Constantinople was one 
 of them, the French designs on the Left Bank of the 
 Rhine are another. The Italian programme aims 
 primarily at securing the control, for strategical 
 and commercial reasons, of both shores of the 
 Adriatic. The object is to bring about the dis- 
 appearance of the Austrian flag from the waters 
 of the Mediterranean, and more especially to make 
 
102 A -LEAGUE OF NATIONS 
 
 the Italian Navy, irrespective of its quality, supreme 
 beyond challenge and rivalry in the Adriatic. 
 Whether even from the narrow strategical tand- 
 point this is a wise scheme is primarily a question 
 for the Italians themselves. They might be secure 
 at sea, but they would be subject on land to the 
 resentment and ultimately to the military pressure 
 of all the races Germans, Magyars, and Slavs 
 whom they were excluding from the sea. Security 
 at sea seems a doubtful gain at the cost of these 
 new perils on land. One may doubt whether even 
 an arrangement to make Trieste and Fiume into 
 free ports for the use of Central Europe would 
 reconcile these people to the loss of the sea. This 
 Italian strategical claim involves a flat denial of 
 nationality. The Trentino is, of course, a purely 
 Italian district, and there can be no objection to its 
 union with Italy. But while the towns of Trieste and 
 Fiume are peopled by a majority of Italians, as also 
 are parts of the peninsula of Istria, their hinterland 
 and the whole province of Dalmatia is overwhelm- 
 ingly Slav (Slovene, Croat, and Serb). 1 Dalmatia 
 contains less than 4 per cent, of Italians, yet Italy 
 claims all its northern half. The Slovene popu- 
 lation predominates even in the suburbs of Trieste, 
 and in all the rural districts east of the Isonzo. 
 While this Italian claim is questionable as strategy, 
 and egoistic as economics, it also involves a gross 
 overriding of national rights. 
 
 Farther south a new problem arises over Albania. 
 Italy claims the port of Vallona. The Serbs and 
 Montenegrins demand Scutari, Durazzo, and the 
 whole northern half of the country, and the Greeks 
 the whole southern half. The- national rights of 
 the Albanians were stoutly defended in 1912 by 
 Sir Edward Grey. Backward as they are in civi- 
 
 1 See Dr. Seton-Watson, " The Balkans, Italy and the Adriatic " 
 
PROBLEMS OF NATIONALITY 103 
 
 lization and politically immature, they have some 
 qualities which other Balkan races lack a sense 
 of honour, truth, and personal dignity ; they often 
 develop high intellectual and administrative capacity 
 so soon as they are removed from the depressing 
 conditions of their native land, and there is no 
 people of the peninsula which wins the regard of 
 Europeans who have lived among them so readily. 
 It must be remembered that they live on several 
 distinct levels of civilization. The northern moun- 
 taineer clans are what our Scottish Highlanders in 
 the remoter regions were hi the days of the Stuarts, 
 but even they require only opportunity to become 
 civilized Europeans. The southern Albanians 
 (Tosks), both Moslems and Christians, are in no 
 respect inferior in enlightenment to Greeks or Slavs 
 reared in provincial conditions. Large numbers 
 of them have lived in America, where they retain 
 their nationality, hoping always to return to their 
 Fatherland. The Albanian race was slow in 
 acquiring a sense of its political identity, but in 
 the last generation many devoted men laboured 
 against the persecution of the Turkish State and 
 the Greek Church to reduce their peculiar language 
 (a distinct Indo-European speech, rather nearer to 
 Latin than to Greek) to writing, and to spread the 
 use of it as a vehicle of education. They may not 
 yet be ripe for independence, without a preliminary 
 period of foreign guidance and education, but to 
 deny their nationality for ever by partitioning their 
 ' country among Serbs, Greeks, and Italians would 
 be a cruel and unworthy sentence. The Serbs, in 
 particular, are their hereditary enemies : no Balkan 
 people can be trusted to respect the language, 
 religion, landed property, and political rights of 
 another. Albania, as defined by the London Con- 
 ference of 1912, was already a remnant, which 
 had lost large districts, both in Epirus and in Kos- 
 
.104 A LEAGUE OF. NATIONS 
 
 sovo, peopled by a majority of Albanians. It ought 
 not to be diminished further. 1 If it is difficult to 
 restore the Albanian Principality, Italy might be 
 named as its protector for a term of (say twenty) 
 years. She would be a tolerant mistress, and the 
 only risk in this arrangement would be that she 
 might attempt to plant colonies of her own people 
 in Albania an unjustifiable course in a poor country 
 whose native population is forced to emigrate in 
 great numbers. If this concession were made to 
 Italy in Albania, she might be the less reluctant 
 to abandon her claim to Dalmatia. 
 
 It is, moreover, only the principle of weakening 
 the enemy (in this case Bulgaria), and not respect 
 for nationality, which could prompt the Allies to 
 reconquer Macedonia for the Serbs. In the autumn 
 of 1915 the Bulgarians occupied some districts to 
 which they have no just claim, but the greater part 
 of the country is not Serbian by race or language, 
 and it is emphatically, even fanatically, Bulgarian 
 by allegiance and choice. It will be said, and 
 said truly, that Bulgaria has deserved no considera- 
 tion from the Allies. Undoubtedly a heavy 
 account may be laid at King Ferdinand's door, for 
 he shared the blame with the military parties of 
 Serbia and Greece for the fratricidal second Balkan 
 war. Allied opinion is, however, too ready to forget 
 that the war of 1913 broke out because the Serbs 
 refused to give effect to the treaty of partition, 
 which assigned the greater part of Macedonia to 
 the Bulgars. Nor should it be forgotten that 
 
 1 The Greek claim to Northern Epirus and the town of Koritsa 
 (to which German}^ has given her sanction) has no sound basis in 
 ethnography. The people of this district (which I have visited) are 
 Albanians by race, and Albanian is their home language. Among the 
 Orthodox Christians there is undoubtedly a large pro-Greek party. 
 It cannot be the majority. The nationalist Christians and the Moslems 
 together outnumber it. 
 
PROBLEMS OF NATIONALITY 105 
 
 Russian military governors and diplomatists were at 
 great pains, after the liberation of Bulgaria, to 
 obliterate the claim of gratitude which their armies 
 had won These agents of Tsarist policy ex- 
 pected that a liberated Bulgaria would be a vassal 
 dependency of the Russian Empire, and when they 
 realized that Bulgaria meant to be independent, they 
 acted too often on the maxim that in that case they 
 would prefer that she should be small and weak. 
 But the people whom we have to consider are not 
 primarily the Bulgarians but the Macedonians. It 
 may be said that Bulgaria is " ungrateful," and 
 King Ferdinand an " adventurer " ; does that 
 obliterate the national claim of this Macedonian 
 population ? One might as well say that the folly 
 of Louis Napoleon extinguished the rights of the 
 people of Alsace-Lorraine. I will not attempt to 
 add another page to the extensive controversial 
 literature which deals with the ethnography and 
 history of Macedonia. I will merely record my 
 personal testimony, based on many months spent 
 in intimate contact with the peasantry of Monastir 
 and Ochrida as the agent of a British Relief Fund, 
 after their rebellion in 1903, and on three visits to 
 Macedonia at other times. These peasants, whose 
 language and education is Bulgarian, felt them- 
 selves to be Bulgars, and there was no suffering 
 from which they would have shrunk to become 
 citizens of Bulgaria. Many of their villages were 
 prosperous, and, judged by Balkan levels, well 
 educated. Illiteracy is far less common than in 
 Roumania or in Serbia. The secondary schools 
 gave a fair modern education, especially in natural 
 science, and through the teaching of the Russian 
 language opened an avenue to a great contem- 
 porary literature. , These young students eagerly 
 read any books of Tolstoy or Tourguenieff which 
 they could obtain. I beg the reader to realize 
 
106 A LEAGUE OF, NATIONS 
 
 that this is not an abject or degraded population 
 (save, indeed, in villages which lived directly under 
 Turkish landlords). It thought and read and specu- 
 lated, and it had its own sharply defined ideals, 
 which it expressed in ballads and songs. Some 
 writers have maintained that the Bulgarian aspira- 
 tions of this Macedonian population were imposed 
 on them by the revolutionary bands. I knew some- 
 thing of the structure of that organization, and was 
 in a position to hear the genuine local view of it. 
 It did terrorize, and it did contain some grossly 
 criminal elements. But on the whole idealism and 
 patriotism predominated in it, and most of the 
 peasants looked up to it with pride, loyalty, and 
 hope. It did not create their Bui gar patriotism : 
 it grew out of it. The alternative to a Bulgarian 
 Macedonia is a restoration of Serbian rule. The 
 Serbs, who occupied the country in the winter 
 of 1912 and held it till the winter of 1915, did 
 nothing to win the regard of its Bulgar inhabitants. 
 Their rule was based on the denial of all political 
 and some civil rights, under a peculiarly drastic 
 form of martial law, and it aimed, by the suppres- 
 sion of the Bulgarian Church, schools, and language, 
 at a forcible denationalization of the people. 1 The 
 Serbian tenure of this country cannot claim the 
 prestige of long -established fact. It had lasted 
 for barely three years. The Entente, moreover, 
 in its offers to Bulgaria, admitted the truth about 
 the nationality of Macedonia : on that it cannot 
 
 1 For a full description of the misery of Macedonia in 1913 see the 
 Report of the Carnegie Commission (of which I was a member). 
 The Report, based on inquiries on the spot, is signed, among others, 
 by Professor Paul Miliukoff, the leader of the Liberals in the Russian 
 Duma, and by M. Justin Godart, a member of the present French 
 Ministry. For fuller details about Macedonia and Albania I may 
 refer to my " Macedonia " (Methuen, 1905), or for a brief account to 
 " The War and the Balkans " by Noel and Charles Buxton. 
 
PROBLEMS OF NATIONALITY 107 
 
 honestly go back. The past teaches two lessons. 
 One of them is that there is small hope of happi- 
 ness for these Macedonian Bui gars under alien rule. 
 The other is that there is little prospect of tran- 
 quillity in the Balkans while its frontiers violate 
 nationality. 
 
 THE FUTURE OF AUSTRIA-HUNGARY. 
 
 The principle of weakening the Central Empires 
 and their Eastern allies coincides only partially and 
 by chance with the dictates of the principle of 
 nationality. It ignored half the problem, and in 
 some grave instances it promises to lead to an 
 iniquitous violation of nationality. It has other 
 inconveniences. The maximum Allied programme 
 contemplated the dismemberment of Austria- 
 Hungary. Its more consistent exponents allow the 
 union of the German provinces of Austria with the 
 German Empire. Western Galicia was to be re- 
 united, together with German Posen, to a more 
 or less autonomous Poland under Russian rule, and 
 Eastern Galicia to be merged in Russia proper. 
 Bohemia and a diminished Hungary become inde- 
 pendent kingdoms. To remedy the strategic isola- 
 tion of land-locked Bohemia it is proposed by no 
 less an authority than, Professor Miliukoff, to connect 
 it with an Adriatic port, by means of a " corridor," 
 100 kilometres broad by 200 long, which is to be 
 cut through territory inhabited at present solely by 
 German Austrians. Transylvania with its large 
 Magyar and German minority, the Banat (largely 
 Serbian) and a part of Bulgaria axe to be 
 annexed to Roumania. The Trentino and the 
 Adriatic coast (including much Slav country) are 
 Italy's share. The rest of the South Slav lands 
 are to be united to Serbia. It is easy to draft 
 such a programme on the map, though there are 
 
loS A LEAGUE OF. NATIONS 
 
 some competing claims to satisfy. But a young 
 State asks for something more than frontiers. It 
 wants internal harmony, external peace, and some 
 outlet for its trade. Conceive the case of Bohemia. 
 Without a port, wedged between two vast military 
 Powers, it must somehow so arrange its tariffs 
 and its alliances that it could live and trade. Lean- 
 ing on Russia for military protection, it must adopt 
 the Paris Resolutions and join in the trade war 
 against Germany. The result might be beggary. 
 Hungary would be in a still worse case, for it is 
 racially isolated. It is easy to denounce Austria- 
 Hungary as a " ramshackle Empire " and to call 
 for its dismemberment, but the more one contem- 
 plates the strange fact of the union of these many 
 races in one political unit, the more one is 
 driven to the conclusion that there is a solid and 
 natural reason for their combination. The reason 
 is geographical and economic. This big conti- 
 nental region is ill-provided with ports. For ocean 
 traffic there are only Trieste and Fiume, and for 
 local traffic the Danube. National independence 
 is a spiritual luxury, but access to the sea is an 
 economic necessity. The ultimate reason for the 
 existence and survival of Austria-Hungary prob- 
 ably was that, whatever were its political demerits, 
 it was an economic system which enabled its mingled 
 races to trade freely over its rivers, railways, and 
 roads, and preserved for Germans, Magyars, and 
 Slavs alike the common use of Trieste and Fiume. 
 The abler advocates of the policy of dismember- 
 ment realize the difficulty which confronts them. 
 Mr. Toynbee, after destroying an Empire which 
 took some blood and brains in the making, pro- 
 ceeds to create a new Austria, composed on an 
 original recipe. He calls it a Balkan Confedera- 
 tion, and it is to include a diminished Hungary, 
 an enlarged Roumania, a great Serbia, with Bulgaria, 
 
PROBLEMS OF NATIONALITY 109 
 
 Albania, and Greece . It is to be based on a customs 
 union, and to evolve towards a defensive alliance. 
 The United States of Europe is a less Utopian 
 idea. Soaked with their mutual blood, poisoned 
 by accumulated hatreds, each busy in the task of 
 oppressing conquered fragments of the others* popu- 
 lation, these States, on their primitive level of morals 
 and culture, will forgive the past less easily than 
 France and Germany. Britain and Germany will 
 fall more readily upon each other's necks. More- 
 over, if Italy takes Trieste and Fiume, and Russia 
 Constantinople, the motive and incentive to union 
 is gone, for the Balkan States can no longer share 
 these ports. Austria -Hungary has the merit of 
 existing. One cannot make a substitute at will. 
 The " independence " promised to these little nations 
 would be at best illusory. These little States would 
 be * forced, as they always have been, to oscillate 
 between the German and Russian systems. Nothing 
 would be changed in principle, and independence 
 would still be for them an unattainable ideal, though 
 their fate would now depend more on Russia and 
 less on Germany. And what of their internal 
 harmony? Most of these national States would 
 include an " Ulster." There is in Bohemia a 
 German minority which amounts to 35 per cent, of 
 the population (the Irish Ulster is only a quarter 
 of the whole), and it has the superiority in wealth 
 and education. In the whole province of Posen, 
 part of which must be restored to Poland, if its 
 three sundered fragments are to be reunited, the 
 Germans form a considerable minority. A just 
 and skilful redrawing of frontiers might somewhat 
 reduce the numbers of the German (minority in 
 the case of Bohemia and Posen. But if Roumania 
 is to expand at the expense of Austria -Hungary, 
 there is no means of avoiding the subjection of a 
 high percentage of Magyars and Germans to foreign 
 
Iio A LEAGUE OF NATIONS 
 
 rule. If Transylvania alone were annexed to 
 Roumania, the proportion of Roumanians in the 
 new province would stand as high as 55 per cent. 
 But King Ferdinand's proclamation lays claim to 
 a much wider area, bounded by '* the line of the 
 Theiss." There is no conceivable justification for 
 this claim, unless it be that the River Theiss was 
 the boundary of Roman Dacia. So far as I can 
 ascertain from a careful study of the statistics, there 
 are barely 40 per cent, of Roumanians in this 
 large area. Three of the counties on the eastern 
 bank of the Theiss, which it is apparently pro- 
 posed to include, contain 98 or 99 per cent, of 
 Magyars. 1 This is an anti -national claim, and the 
 destinies of any alien population in Roumania must 
 be considered in the light of the fate which has 
 befallen the Jews of Roumania, who are denied 
 citizenship and forbidden to own land, but are none 
 the less conscripted in the army, and of the Bulgar 
 farmers of the recently annexed Dobrudja, who have 
 endured, not merely the suppression of their national 
 churches and schools but in many cases the loss 
 of their lands. A secret treaty, moreover, assigned 
 to Roumania a large slice of Bulgaria including 
 the port of Varna. The negotiations with Roumania 
 were left apparently to Russia, and she may have 
 allowed Roumania to make excessive claims at the 
 expense of Magyars, Germans, and Bulgars, because 
 she herself refused to surrender the Roumanian 
 province of Bessarabia. The drawing of frontiers, 
 in short, is the least part of the solution of the 
 problem of nationality. The language difficulty, 
 for example, in Bohemia would only have entered 
 on a new phase, and what would happen when the 
 
 1 The statistics for the Theiss area can be given only approximately. 
 The Hungarian census figures are given by counties, but since the 
 Theiss cuts two of these counties in half, one can only guess from the 
 map how much of the population lies on either side of the river. 
 
PROBLEMS OF NATIONALITY 1 1 1 
 
 Czech majority conscribed the German youth to 
 serve in an army which would fight (if it ever had 
 to fight) against Germany, and obliged the German 
 manufacturers to boycott German trade? Each of 
 these little States would reproduce in little the 
 hatreds and confusions of Europe. Our continental 
 strife would simmer within them as a provincial 
 civil war. There might be migrations of minorities 
 fleeing from the new conditions, as there were in 
 the Balkans in 1913, but a tough rearguard would 
 remain (as, on the whole, the Bulgars remained 
 in Serbian Macedonia), hoping for the next war 
 and redress. The dismemberment of Austria would 
 not conjure racial strife. It xvould alter nothing 
 fundamentally, save the balance of military power. 
 Tolerance alone can solve these problems of 
 nationality, and the principle of weakening the 
 enemy and keeping him weak cannot make for 
 tolerance. In these expedients there is no promise 
 of a happier Europe. 
 
 These problems of nationality move in a vicious 
 circle. Europe will never have peace as a con- 
 tinent so long as racial strife distracts certain mixed 
 _a_reas within it, and scatters its contagion beyond 
 their frontiers to the greater masses of the kindred 
 races which live outside them. That is the half 
 of the truth on which we have all been dwelling 
 during the war. It is equally true, however, that 
 racial peace is impossible within these areas so long 
 as the antagonism between the greater masses con- 
 tinues. One may say that Teutons and Slavs 
 as a whole will never be at peace while Germans 
 and Czechs are at each other's throats in Bohemia. 
 But it is just as true to say that Germans and 
 Czechs will go on struggling in Bohemia so long 
 as Teutons and Slavs, organized as Great Powers 
 with their centres at Berlin and Petrograd, con- 
 front each other with their armaments and their 
 
H2 A LEAGUE OF NATIONS 
 
 rivalries in world policy. The local cause of strife 
 and the general cause act and react on each other 
 with alternate stimulation. Slavs and Teutons might 
 have lived at peace if they had not happened to 
 dovetail and penetrate geographically into each 
 other. Czechs and Germans might have found a 
 modus vivendi long ago in Bohemia if neither of 
 them had been influenced by the larger rivalry, 
 outside them. This vicious circle could best be 
 seen in all its elementary simplicity in Turkey under 
 the old regime. The Balkan States were never 
 at peace with each other or with Turkey, because 
 they were a sounding-board for the local strife in 
 Macedonia. The local strife in Macedonia never 
 came to a pause, partly because the Balkan States 
 pulled the strings, and partly because the local races 
 looked to them for support. The practical con- 
 clusion is as easy to state as it is difficult to realize. 
 Peace in Europe cannot be achieved merely by a 
 settlement of the national problems the various 
 " Ulsters " stand in the way. Nor can the national 
 problems be solved so long as there is the strife 
 of " Powers " in Europe. It would be cjuite easy, 
 if our victory were sufficiently complete, to make 
 the German element the " under -dog " in all these 
 mixed areas Alsace, Bohemia, Posen, and Transyl- 
 vania but the consequence would only be a new 
 phase of the dual struggle, * the local strife of the 
 races, and the continental strife of the Powers. Our 
 problem, in short, cannot be solved merely by 
 annexations and redistributions of territory, and it 
 might by these means be aggravated. If our dream 
 is durable peace, we must somehow contrive both 
 to reconcile the Powers and to compose the strife 
 of the races. We come back, therefore, from this 
 summary survey of the question of nationality to 
 the other question of the League of Peace. If 
 we mean to settle nationality, the principle of 
 
PROBLEMS OF NATIONALITY 113 
 
 weakening the enemy is no help : it may even be 
 a hindrance to our best intentions. The tolerance, 
 the easing of the hostile tension which will enable 
 majority and minority to live together in mixed 
 areas, will hardly be attained until the two stocks 
 to which they belong, organized as *' Powers," have 
 eliminated force from their relationship. If pur 
 aim is a general conciliation, it follows that the 
 settlement of nationality must be fitted into the 
 framework of a League of Peace. Some methods 
 and schemes of settlement which might seem natural 
 and almost inevitable, if we could solve the question 
 of nationality without regard to the future relations of 
 the Powers, may seem questionable when we realize 
 that these mixed areas in their tranquillity or strife 
 are likely to reflect the general condition of Europe. 
 The plan of settling questions of nationality by 
 the trenchant methods of cession and annexation 
 has its attraction. It sounds final : it seems to 
 make clean work. We have seen, however, . that 
 in the mixed areas there is no possibility of clean 
 work. There will always be a minority, often a 
 considerable minority, for whose rights some pro- 
 vision must be made. In some degree every thinker, 
 however ardent his nationalism, who really faces this 
 difficulty, is obliged to have recourse at some stage 
 to internationalism. There must be some system 
 of guarantees and safeguards by which an inter- 
 national organization of Europe will watch lover 
 the rights of these minorities. That is to say, 
 however complete our victory, however free iour 
 redrawing of the map of Europe may be, we must 
 still, even for this limited problem of nationality, 
 have recourse to some Concert or League of 
 Peace. It is not enough to say "some Concert." 
 It must be an organization much more vigilant and 
 effective than existed in the past. The old Concert 
 was liberal with its stipulations, and they remained 
 
 9 
 
U4 A LEAGUE OF NATIONS 
 
 dead letters. How often was Turkey enjoined to 
 introduce autonomy of one sort or another in Crete 
 or Macedonia ! A classical instance of futility is 
 the international guarantee of the rights of the 
 Roumanian Jews, which has always been " a scrap 
 of paper." Admittedly we need such safeguards, 
 but to enforce them we must have a much stronger 
 and more harmonious international organization. A 
 reflection and a query follow at this point. If we 
 must, even for the sake of nationality, bring and 
 keep the Powers together in a working Concert 
 or League, it is plain that we must avoid in the 
 settlement those forceful solutions which would tend 
 to keep them apart. The query is this : If in any 
 case we must trust to a Concert to protect; minorities, 
 is anything gained by the creation of many new 
 independent States, each of which must be, to some 
 extent, supervised ? The two points tend to one 
 concrete question, and that is, whether we should 
 really do better for nationality and peace by " break- 
 ing up " Austria -Hungary, provided we could secure 
 its reorganization on a federal basis. One need 
 not here attempt to sketch the reconstruction in 
 detail. The chief offenders are the Magyars, and 
 the main point to secure is that the Croats, Serbs, 
 Slovacks, and Roumanians, who at present suffer 
 from their tyranny, should manage their own affairs, 
 subject only to the Hapsburg crown and a Federal 
 Parliament. How large and how numerous the 
 units should be, need not concern us here : there 
 is much to be said for large groupings of Czechs 
 .with Slovacks in the north, and of all the Serbo- 
 Croats in the south. The advantage of a federal 
 solution is that it would throw upon the central 
 Government and Parliament in the first place the 
 duty of watching over the interests of minorities. 
 Vienna would see that the Czechs did not oppress 
 the Germans in Bohemia, and Budapest would be 
 
PROBLEMS OF NATIONALITY 115 
 
 vigilant for the Magyars in Transylvania. One 
 need hardly pause to point out that such a solution 
 would abbreviate the war immeasurably. To dis- 
 member Austria one must first have occupied it, 
 from Prague to Semlin and from Lemberg to 
 Trieste. But to procure from the Emperor a 
 solemn declaration made to Europe of his inten- 
 tion to introduce a federal Constitution without 
 delay would be comparatively easy. In Austria, but 
 not yet in Hungary, the official study of such a 
 Constitution has already begun. The difference 
 might be measured in millions of casualties, and 
 enough has been said to suggest that the easier 
 solution is in many respects the better solution. 
 It is better because it spares us some nearly 
 insoluble problems of defence, communications, 
 tariffs, and national rights. It is better, also, because 
 the annihilation of Austria would mean a dictated 
 as opposed to a negotiated peace. From negotia- 
 tion, from conciliation, from an adjustment of 
 interests and claims, a permanent system of con- 
 ference, a League of Peace, might arise. From 
 war to the bitter end, and a peace based only on 
 triumphant force, the transition to conference would 
 demand a miracle. The League of Peace might 
 never be called upon to interfere in the internal 
 concerns of a Federal Austria. It would do so 
 only in the last resort and with reluctance. But 
 if the settlement on which the League is based, 
 includes as one of its terms this declaration to 
 create a Federation, it clearly would be within the 
 competence of the League to interfere, if the 
 declaration were not carried into effect. Some right 
 of interference in such extreme cases the League 
 must reserve to itself. Absolute sovereignty means 
 irremediable anarchy. A guarded right of inter- 
 ference, where there is gross and clamant wrong, is 
 the civilized alternative to war. 
 
 
1 1 6 A LEAGUE OF, NATIONS 
 
 The problem of Austria- Hungary is so compli- 
 cated, that even after the principle of its survival 
 with a federal constitution has been accepted, we 
 are still confronted by pleas for the exceptional treat- 
 ment of certain races. Even if these races, it will 
 be said, are assured of tolerant treatment within 
 a Federal Austria, the fact remains that they desire 
 to be united to the greater kindred masses outside 
 it. The Poles, Italians, Roumanians, Ruthenians 
 and South Slavs are in this case. The Polish 
 question is discussed in the following pages. Trite 
 Roumanian claim seems to me the weakest of these 
 five, because (i) their majority in Transylvania is 
 only a bare 55 per cent., (2) the Magyar and 
 German minority cannot be excluded by any possible 
 geographical re -arrangement, and (3) Roumania it- 
 self is politically and socially so far from being a 
 model State, that the gain from transference to the 
 Roumanians is doubtful. Against the cession of the 
 Italian Trentino to Italy there are no strong argu- 
 ments, except the apparent military difficulty at the 
 moment of imposing it. The Ruthenians, who would 
 undoubtedly have preferred Austrian to Russian rule 
 before the Revolution, may possibly now desire to 
 join an autonomous Ukrainian (" Little Russian ") 
 State within a federal Russian Republic. 
 
 Two solutions of the South Slav question would 
 be durable and satisfactory, either ( I ) the creation 
 of a wholly independent Serbo-Croat -Slovene King- 
 dom, uniting the entire race, or (2) the inclusion of 
 the whole race, not excepting the people of the 
 Serbian and Montenegrin Kingdoms, in a fully 
 autonomous " trialist " South Slav State under the 
 Hapsburg Crown. We cannot achieve the former 
 solution without an immense prolongation of thq 
 war and the active aid of Russia. From the latter 
 solution we are debarred by a sense of honour. 
 iWe should be perjured and disgraced, if we made 
 
PROBLEMS OF NATIONALITY 117, 
 
 peace without restoring Serbia to her independence. 
 This claim is a first debt upon us, like that of 
 Belgium. Honour points in one direction, the 
 interests of peace and of the whole Serb race iii 
 another. For if the Serb race is divided between 
 Vienna and Belgrade, it is doubtful whether either 
 centre will acquiesce permanently in an unnatural 
 partition. Moreover, the people of the much more 
 primitive and oriental Belgrade Kingdom will lose 
 the stimulus of contact with the much more advanced 
 and occidental Croats. Here is a possible solution : 
 We must restore the Serbian Kingdom and arrange 
 for the reparation of the damage it has suffered. 
 It must cede the * uncontested zone " of Macedonia 
 to Bulgaria. By way of compensation it must 
 acquire a free outlet for its trade in an Adriatic port, 
 and free railway communication with it. Thei 
 simplest way of attaining this end would be ( i ) 
 by the union in a single kingdom or close federation 
 of Serbia with Montenegro, and (2) by the cession by 
 Austria of the narrow strip of Montenegrin coast, 
 which belongs to Austria ; Spizza in this strip is a 
 possible port. This done, let us say to the Serbians, 
 " Our debt of honour is now discharged. We will 
 see that this treaty is rigidly observed, but only on 
 condition that you renounce irredentism, and become 
 a good neighbour to Austria." On these terms it 
 is possible that the Serbs might prefer some form 
 of union with Austria to perpetual isolation. It 
 might even be agreed that within some stipulated 
 term after the conclusion of peace, a referendum 
 or constituent assembly of the Serbs of the Kingdom 
 shall freely decide on any offer of union which! 
 Austria might make to them. 
 
 THE POLISH QUESTION. . 
 
 It is not the least auspicious consequence of the 
 Russian Revolution that it has relieved us from 
 
.118 A LEAGUE OF. NATIONS 
 
 the duty of insisting that the Independence of Poland 
 must be restored. The Poles have suffered in this 
 war, from the alternate devastations of both sides, 
 more grievously than any other race, and starvation 
 has left them wondering how many of their children 
 will survive to enjoy the brighter future. None 
 the less, alone of all the races which entered this 
 war submerged, they are assured by both sides of 
 liberation at its end, whatever its military issue 
 may be. The long historic complicity of Russia 
 and Prussia in their suppression has been violently 
 terminated, and nothing can now prevent their 
 restoration to the status of a sovereign people. What 
 is at issue is whether this restoration shall come 
 about on the niggardly German, or the generous 
 Russian scale. The Russian Provisional Govern- 
 ment, with a dramatic and chivalrous gesture, has 
 proclaimed not merely the independence, but thje 
 reunion of the Polish people. It is a great ideal, 
 but unless the will of the Russian people should 
 change, and with it the whole military balance on 
 the Eastern Front, we must assume that Russia is 
 not disposed to prolong the war in order to realize 
 it. The answer of the Poles themselves must be 
 weighed in this connection. In its reply to the 
 proclamation of the Russian Provisional Government, 
 the Polish Provisional Council rejected its invitation 
 to fight for the full restoration of a United Poland. 
 Deliberating in Warsaw with the German armies 
 in overwhelming force around it, it could give no 
 other answer. Tnere is no doubt, however, that 
 it spoke its mind with sincerity, when it went on 
 to add to its rejection of the Russian summons 
 to arms, the comment, "It is not a long war, but 
 peace which the European peoples, who are bleeding 
 from their wounds, ardently desire." The powerful 
 Polish Socialist Party issued at the same time a 
 still more emphatic declaration, in which it implored 
 
PROBLEMS OF NATIONALITY 119 
 
 the peoples of Europe not to prolong, the war in 
 order to complete the liberation of the Poles. In 
 the Austrian Reichsrath, it was the Polish " Club " 
 which took the initiative, on its reassembly in May 
 1917, in tabling the strongest possible resolution 
 in favour of an immediate peace. Statements made 
 by any people living under alien military rule are 
 subject to a liberal process of interpretation. If 
 the Poles of Warsaw and Galicia wished the war 
 to continue until Germany is defeated, they mani- 
 festly could not say so. They could, however, keep 
 silence, and at least refrain from such appeals as 
 these. When we read the statement of American 
 relief agents, that as a result of the Russian and 
 German devastations and of the Allied blockade, 
 few children under the age of seven are left alive 
 in certain Polish districts, it is easy to believe that 
 the Poles prefer an early peace to the certainty, 
 of further sufferings, qualified only by the 
 problematical chance of recovering Posen. 
 
 None the less the disadvantages of the German 
 scheme for Poland are not to be lightly dismissed. 
 It means the perpetuation of the dismemberment 
 of this race. One may doubt whether there can 
 be lasting peace in Eastern Europe while this in- 
 justice continues. The Galician Poles will enjoy, 
 indeed, full self-government under Austria, and the 
 Prussian Poles are promised the lightening of their 
 heavy burden. But the instinct for reunion will 
 survive, and it may destroy the hope of harmony 
 around and even within the Polish State. A sort 
 of compensation is suggested to Poland : she may 
 conceivably secure Lithuania. The satisfaction of 
 that Imperialist claim would, however, injure her 
 future relations with Russia, and it would burden 
 her own prospects with a difficult internal problem 
 of nationality. The gravest disadvantage of all, 
 is that whereas the Russian Proclamation promised 
 
120 A LEAGUE OF NATIONS 
 
 that a Polish Constituent Assembly should freely, 
 decide the form of the future Polish State, the 
 German proclamation limited the choice of the Poles, 
 by stipulating that Poland shall be an hereditary 
 monarchy. That might matter little, if the Poles 
 were free to choose their King, but it is probable 
 that Berlin and Vienna intend to impose upon them 
 as their sovereign a German prince or an Austrian 
 archduke. Behind that intention stands the purpose 
 to make the Polish Kingdom a subordinate ally or 
 satellite of the Central Powers. Its German- 
 or Austrian King will ensure that its military, 
 diplomatic, and commercial policy shall be subordi- 
 nated to the interests and will of Berlin. Independ- 
 ence it may enjoy, in the sense that it will be free, 
 as it has not for a century been free, to develop 
 its own culture, and to conduct its own internal 
 affairs, but in all its dealings with the outer world 
 it will obey a will more powerful than its own. 
 
 It is easy to state the ideal alternative to this 
 narrow German scheme. We should wish to see 
 Poland not only independent, but reunited. She 
 should be free to choose for herself her own form 
 of government, whether monarchy or republic. She 
 must, by the guaranteed use of Danzig as a free 
 port and of the waterway of the Vistula, acquire 
 unhampered economic and commercial liberty. She 
 must be free to conduct her own foreign and military 
 policy at her own discretion, to ally herself with 
 whom she pleases, or to maintain a proud isolation. 
 That is independence, and nothing less than this is 
 independence. Let us ask ourselves honestly whether 
 this is what we really intend, and whether it be a 
 practicable ideal. It is not what the Russian Pro- 
 visional Government intended. In its historic mani- 
 festo (March 30, 1917) it revealed its expectations 
 clearly. " Bound to Russia by a free military union, 
 the Polish State will be a solid rampart against 
 
PROBLEMS OF NATIONALITY 121 
 
 the pressure of the Central Powers against the Slav 
 nations." This can only mean that Russia stipulates, 
 or at least expects, that the Polish State will become 
 its military ally. The modern military alliance tends 
 to an ever-increasing intimacy. It cannot be merely, 
 a promise to fight in certain eventualities. The 
 danger must be warded off by diplomatic policy, 
 military preparations and economic organization. No 
 more as the ally of Russia than as the satellite 
 of Germany, could Poland act in her foreign policy 
 entirely by her own initiative. Her safety would 
 depend on Russian protection, and she would have 
 to accommodate her policy to Russian interests. Her 
 finance would depend on Paris, London, and New 
 York. Her tariffs and her commercial policy would 
 be governed by the Paris Resolutions. However 
 much she might wish to live at peace with her 
 German neighbours, to trade with them, or to deal 
 with their banks, she would have to follow the 
 general policy of the Group to which she belonged, 
 that is to say of the Group which at the end of the 
 war happens to occupy her territory. Her armies 
 will be its vanguard : her custom-houses will be 
 the advanced posts in its tariff- wars. The Russian 
 programme is more liberal and more generous than 
 the German, but it does not provide for the reality 
 of Polish independence. Even for Russia in the 
 first fervour of her revolutionary faith, Poland is 
 primarily a " bulwark " against German pressure. 
 Kant said that men ought to regard each other 
 always as ends and never as means. When one 
 people thinks of another as a " bulwark," it fails 
 to realize this moral ideal. We must face the fact 
 that the moral ideal of national independence is, 
 in the full sense, unobtainable under the armed 
 peace and the system of hostile alliances. Under the 
 imperious dictates of safety, we must all scheme 
 how to bend small nations to our own uses, how 
 
122 A LEAGUE OF NATIONS 
 
 to employ them as weapons and shields. We are 
 compelled to think in these military terms. For 
 Europe to-day the Polish question is primarily one 
 of bayonets. Twenty millions of Poles mean two 
 million bayonets located in a vital strategical position. 
 Each European Group thinks chiefly, and is bound 
 to think chiefly, of the means by which it may 
 bring these bayonets into its own ranks. 
 
 The solution of the problem of Polish Independ- 
 ence (and for that matter of Belgian or Bulgarian 
 independence) depends on our ability at the settle- 
 ment to move beyond this phase of military calcu- 
 lation. Under the system of the Balance of Power 
 and allied groups, the independence of small States 
 can only be nominal. It will be real, when we 
 have substituted conference for force, and co-opera- 
 tion for strife. An independent Poland is possible 
 only within a League of Nations. She must be 
 free to look to east and to west, and to answer 
 any overtures for an alliance, with the bold reply, 
 " My obligations are to all my fellow -members of 
 the League. My armed forces are at the disposal 
 of the League alone. They will defend impartially, 
 my eastern or my western neighbour, if either of 
 them is threatened by a lawless aggressor. I 
 expect in return that not only my neighbours, but 
 also distant America and insular Britain will rally 
 to my support if my liberties should be threatened." 
 The small State which is to enjoy liberty must live 
 in a world organized for peace. 
 
 When we turn to the practical consideration, how 
 rrruch we may be able to achieve at the settlement 
 to ensure the reality of Polish Independence, the 
 answer must clearly be, that if we have to economize 
 our bargaining power, it is more important to secure 
 effective independence for the majority of the Polish 
 race, than to insist at all costs on reunion. With a 
 League of Nations once firmly created, no problem 
 
PROBLEMS OF NATIONALITY 123 
 
 is finally closed, and a secure peace may bring more 
 rapidly and easily than we imagine, the solution of 
 some questions which war has left unsettled. Above 
 all, we must make our League. We must place 
 Poland as a free and equal member within it. Our 
 chief insistence should be that the Poles shall freely 
 choose their own form of government. They must 
 have their free port at Danzig. It may be that our 
 bargaining power will not extend so far that we can 
 insist on the reunion of Posen and Galicia with the 
 " Congress-Kingdom " (Russian Poland), but the 
 League will exist as a court of appeal, if Prussia 
 should fail to carry out her own promises towards 
 her own Poles. A compromise on these lines does 
 not imply that the Poles need despair of their 
 eventual reunion. On the contrary, the effect of the 
 breaking down of military and economic chauvinism 
 under the slow intellectual influence of a League 
 of Nations, must be to diminish the resistance to 
 their reunion. As militarism declines and com- 
 mercial liberty advances, the grounds of resistance 
 to territorial change must be sensibly weakened. A 
 generation of peace may bring the mental change 
 which will render easy the solution of this and 
 similar questions. 1 
 
 1 Though it conflicts with the argument of these pages, it is well to 
 bear in inind, as a possibility, the " Austrian " solution of the Polish 
 question. This is that Russian Poland should be united with Galicia, 
 to form a third kingdom, equal in status with Austria and Hungary, 
 under the Hapsburg crown. This "personal union" would not 
 interfere with the effective internal independence of the Poles. It 
 would, moreover, partly solve the question of re-union. Unfortunately 
 Germany, before consenting to this relatively good solution, would 
 try to annex a large northern strip of Russian Poland. The con- 
 sequences to the Czechs, who would thus be in a permanent minority 
 as against the Germans in the Austrian Reichsrath, would also be 
 serious. But Bohemia (with Slovakia) might be made into a fourth 
 kingdom under the Hapsburgs. If this "Austrian" solution of the 
 Polish question were adopted, other territorial changes at the expense 
 of the Hapsburgs for the benefit of the Italians, Ruthenian?, and South 
 Slavs might be regarded as compensations. 
 
124 A LEAGUE OF NATIONS 
 
 ALSACE AND THE PLEBISCITE. 
 
 The most obstinate of all these European ques- 
 tions of nationality remains, in Alsace-Lorraine. 
 It is a small question when we measure it 
 by the numbers of the population affected. The 
 " lost provinces " have only two million inhabi- 
 tants, while there are twenty million Poles, 
 thirty million Ukrainians, and twelve million South' 
 Slavs. But as so often happens, economics 
 complicate nationality. Lorraine is the richest 
 source of iron-ore in Western Europe, and 
 German industry, if it were deprived of it by 
 cession, and cut off from it by such a monopoly 
 of raw materials as the Paris Resolutions prescribe, 
 would find its production seriously hampered. Iron 
 and steel are to any modern people, but especially 
 to the Germans, as indispensable as corn, and the 
 two proposals taken together the annexation of 
 the Reichsland and the economic boycott are 
 a tremendous threat to German prosperity. The 
 Paris Resolutions have in this particular enormously 
 complicated the solution of the European problem 
 of nationality. If the cession of Alsace-Lorraine 
 involved only a political change it would be suffi- 
 ciently difficult. But while the Paris Programme 
 stands as the declared policy of the Entente, every 
 proposal to alter frontiers in the interests of 
 nationality may also conceal a menace of economic 
 disturbance which must double the resistance to 
 any transfer. That is true of the restoration of 
 German Silesia to a reconstituted Poland, but 
 it applies especially to Alsace-Lorraine. In these 
 provinces Germans have sunk their capital ; local 
 trade has linked itself by the close German organiza- 
 tion of syndicates and cartels to the organiza- 
 tion of the Empire ; buying and selling have settled 
 into well-worn channels ; the cotton mills of Upper 
 
PROBLEMS OF NATIONALITY 125 
 
 Alsace have a large place in the economy of 
 German industry, the Saar coal-field and the Alsatian 
 potash beds are important, but above all, German 
 industry has become dependent on the iron-ore of 
 Lorraine, which supplies three-fourths of the iron 
 got in Germany. 1 If there were to be Free Trade 
 after the war between France and Germany, the 
 re-drawing of the frontier need involve little 
 economic disturbance. Even if the usual system 
 of the free export and import of raw materials 
 which has hitherto been the general rule among 
 modern States were to prevail, then, in spite even 
 of a high tariff on manufactures, the Germans could 
 still draw their iron-ore from Lorraine in time of 
 peace as, indeed, they used to draw large supplies 
 before the war from the French part of this big 
 iron-field. They would lose it, indeed, in time of 
 war, but that restriction might be a guarantee of 
 peace. Indeed, the more they are dependent ori 
 foreign supplies of essential things, the less likely 
 are they to go to war. But the clause in the 
 Paris Programme which prescribes a monopoly in 
 " natural resources " for the benefit of Allies means 
 that Germany could not reckon, if she surrendered 
 Lorraine, on access to its mineral wealth. By 
 this proposal the Entente has ensured the 
 maximum resistance of Germany to its more ideal- 
 istic programme, and if a moment should come 
 when she might be willing to do full justice to 
 nationality, she would still be compelled to resist 
 us to save the future of her industry. Indeed, as 
 the war goes on, and both sides betray in their 
 controversial publications their passionate interest in 
 the minerals of Lorraine and Alsace, one begins to 
 suspect that the issue of nationality is altogether 
 secondary to the economic conflict. It is the 
 
 1 See a paper by Professor Gregory on " Geology and Strategy," 
 Contemporary Review, December 1915. 
 
126 A LEAGUE OF NATIONS 
 
 ambition of the German industrialists, for whom 
 the notorious Six Economic Unions speak, to 
 acquire the whole of the Lorraine iron-field., 
 together with the coal-fields of Belgium. They 
 even propose to expropriate the French and Belgian 
 owners, compensating them for the loss of their 
 property with the proceeds of an indemnity to 
 be imposed on France. The French extremists, 
 reckoning that they can lame Germany for ever by 
 recovering Alsace and Lorraine, and adding to them 
 broad districts with a purely German history and 
 population, are no whit behind them. The mineral 
 riches of the Saar valley have tempted them to 
 propose the annexation to France of districts which 
 were not French before 1870. There is no doubt 
 that the secret treaty concluded early in 1917 
 between President Poincare and the ex-Tsar, in- 
 cluded as one of its provisions the wrenching from 
 Germany of the Left Bank of the Rhine, in order 
 to form, against the will of its purely German popu- 
 lation, some species of autonomous buffer State, 
 which would serve as a strategical barrier for 
 Belgium and France. The explanation of the 
 furious assaults on Verdun may well have been 
 that Verdun and Metz are the two strategical 
 keys to the Lorraine iron-field, which the German 
 extremists were bent on holding. For these sordid 
 gains is human blood poured out. Once more, we 
 must face the fact that the problems of nationality 
 cannot be solved in isolation. If we dream of 
 any League of Peace, we must drop this Paris 
 Programme ; in the act of dropping it we shall 
 have made a fair settlement of the question of 
 Alsace-Lorraine incomparably easier. 
 
 Even without this economic complication the 
 question would still be inordinately difficult. It 
 has held so long the central place in European 
 politics, it has so concentrated the passion of the 
 
PROBLEMS OF NATIONALITY 127 
 
 French and the stubbornness of the Germans, that 
 it has become, above all others in the world, a 
 question of honour. A question of honour may, 
 be defined as one which men will not solve by 
 reason. It awaits the hand of force, and even 
 when it slumbers in the interludes of peace it 
 leads to the accumulation of force. The transfer of 
 Alsace, if it takes place without a plebiscite and 
 compensations, will mean the unqualified victory of 
 France and the unqualified defeat of Germany. 
 That to many readers will seem to be the best of 
 all reasons for insisting on it, though it should 
 mean the slaughter of more men than there are 
 people in Alsace-Lorraine. But unluckily the 
 question is not so simple as our wishes. In the 
 first place the French feeling about the provinces 
 involves something more than the sense that their 
 inhabitants have been wronged : a leading element 
 in it was always the natural human wish to w ; ipe 
 out the military reverses of 1870 which so deeply 
 wounded French pride. If the annexation is 
 reversed, as it was carried out, by a simple applica- 
 tion of the rights of the stronger, we must expect 
 that the Germans in their turn will suffer from the 
 elementary desire for their " revenge." 
 
 A mature nation of grown-up men and women 
 might in time live down such boyish emotions, 
 if there were no real wrongs to keep alive the 
 sense of humiliation. The French might possibly 
 have outgrown the wish for " revenge," if the 
 Germans had conceded much earlier than in fact 
 they did (1911) a large measure of autonomy 
 to the Reichsland, and if the autonomy, when it 
 came at length, had been somewhat more generous. 
 Their resentment was kept alive by petty efforts 
 to restrict the use of the French language, and 
 still more by an oppressive passport system imposed 
 on travellers from France with a view to checking 
 
128 A LEAGUE OF NATIONS 
 
 military espionage. The Reichsland was treated 
 as a conquered country, not so much because it 
 had been won by arms, as because the French 
 would never relinquish their ambition to reconquer 
 it. There was a moment when the Kaiser, 
 shortly after his accession, made his attempt to 
 conciliate France. Always that most dangerous 
 figure in history, the impulsive romantic, he was 
 then passing through a phase of youthful and self- 
 confident idealism. He talked peace. He dismissed 
 Bismarck. He promoted social legislation. He 
 gave a new and most promising development to 
 international institutions by the Berlin Conference 
 on the regulation of the hours and conditions of 
 labour. He did as much for colonial Free Trade 
 in the Berlin Conference 0n the Congo Question, 
 and he was one of the promoters of the Brussels 
 Conference on the Slave Trade. His ambition 
 seemed to be to lead a European movement towards 
 internationalism and peace. In this mood he paid 
 special court to the French delegates who attended 
 the Berlin Labour Conference. Nor did he confine 
 himself to empty courtesies ; he introduced a milder 
 passport regime in Alsace. His next move l was 
 an attempt to break down the French intellectual 
 boycott of Germany, by a special effort to induce 
 French artists to exhibit at the coming Berlin 
 Exhibition. With this object, his mother, the 
 Empress Frederick, went to Paris, ostensibly to visit 
 French studios, really, as the comments of the 
 German press showed, to promote a social and 
 political reconciliation. Paris gave its answer with 
 fury and decision. There were hostile crowds in 
 the streets, angry articles in the newspapers, and 
 at mass meetings of protest orators declared that 
 France refused a reconciliation with " the gaoler 
 
 1 For all these facts see Debidour, " Histoire Diplomatique de 
 1'Europe," vol. iii. pp. 165-8. 
 
PROBLEMS OF, NATIONALITY 129 
 
 of Alsace." So ended a well-meant effort for 
 peace, and like the headstrong and emotional man 
 he is, the Kaiser allowed his anger so far to master 
 him, that he again aggravated the lot of the 
 Alsatians, and even (it is said) talked of mobilizing 
 his army against France. Another episode is worth 
 our attention. Russia proposed during the Boer 
 War to bring together the chief neutral Powers 
 to mediate, or, if necessary, to intervene by force. 
 The motive may have been rather hostility towards 
 the British Empire than a sincere concern for a little 
 nationality struggling to preserve its independence, 
 for the United States had already offered friendly, 
 mediation in vain. The case is interesting, if we 
 can bring ourselves to regard it from the outside, 
 as an illustration of the difficulty of creating a 
 league of neutrals to enforce peace. Here was a 
 war in which neutral opinion was unanimous in 
 thinking that right was with the weaker side. It 
 was none the less impossible to bring about inter- 
 vention, and the reason was that the slumbering 
 question of the " lost provinces " made co-opera- 
 tion between France and Germany impossible. 
 When Russia brought her proposal to Berlin, Prince 
 Biilow suggested that if the three Powers were to 
 act together, they must give each other a mutual 
 guarantee for the preservation of their European 
 possessions. That condition broke up the proposed 
 coalition it may have been put forward by Germany 
 with that intention since France would not give 
 an undertaking which would have involved the 
 renunciation of her claim to Alsace-Lorraine. 1 It 
 may be for us a matter of profound satisfaction 
 that in this instance the French desire for the 
 revanche rendered the solidarity of European 
 opinion ineffectual. These two incidents carry, 
 however, a larger moral. If Alsace-Lorraine should 
 1 See Reventlow, p. 147 ; Debidour, iii. 264. 
 IO 
 
130 A LEAGUE OF. NATIONS 
 
 again change rulers by an act of force, it is dismally 
 probable that the future will repeat the past. 
 Twenty years hence some pacific French President, 
 weary of armaments and trade boycotts, may attempt 
 to court German friendship, only to be rebuffed 
 with the answer that no reconciliation is possible 
 while a German race is held under French rule. 
 .When the next war threatens us, an attempt to 
 improvise a coalition to enforce peace may founder 
 on the refusal, this time of a German Government, 
 to enter a league with a France that holds Alsace. 
 The capacities of this perpeiuum mobile of European 
 strife will not be exhausted in this war, if the 
 Power which retains Alsace holds it by the right 
 of conquest. 
 
 One may be satisfied that the population of 
 Alsace-Lorraine was almost unanimously opposed in 
 1871 to the German annexation. Thanks to its 
 own stubborn and gallant temper, and even more 
 to the harshness of Prussian rule, it remained, 
 though a generation went by, loyal in its affection 
 to France. But Germans will repeat that 85 per 
 cent, of the population is German by language 
 and race. They will say that it was an integral 
 part of the old German Empire, until the conquests 
 of Louis XIV united it to France. They will 
 point out that since 1870 there has been a consider- 
 able immigration of Germans into these provinces. 
 They may say and there is a good deal of evidence, 
 French, 1 English, and Alsatian, as well as German, 
 to back the statement that the younger generation 
 in Alsace on the eve of this war had ceased to 
 desire a violent solution, that it accepted annexation 
 as an accomplished fact, and asked only for a fuller 
 measure of autonomy and an equal status as a 
 member of the German Federal Empire. A declara- 
 
 1 See especially- Marcel Sembat, " Faites un Roi, sinon faites la 
 Paix." M. Sembat was a member of the first French War-Cabinet. 
 
PROBLEMS OF NATIONALITY 131 
 
 tion to this effect was addressed a few months before 
 the outbreak of this war by the Socialist deputies 
 of the Diet of Alsace-Lorraine to the French people, 
 and to this declaration other Alsatian parties gave 
 their adherence. There is another fact which points 
 in the same direction. The first elections for the 
 German Reichstag which were held in 1873 in 
 Alsace-Lorraine, resulted in the return by all its 
 fifteen constituencies of deputies who belonged to 
 the uncompromising Party of Protest. For a 
 generation this party kept its ascendancy, refusing 
 with a determination that recalls the Sinn Fein atti- 
 tude, to take any real share in the political life of 
 Germany. It gradually dwindled, until in the elec- 
 tion of 1907 the original fifteen had dropped to two. 
 The younger generation had found mere protest 
 barren, and began to take its place in the ranks 
 of one German party or another, especially in those 
 of Social Democracy. Such facts as these may 
 mean only that Alsace had ceased as a matter of 
 expediency to reckon on any solution of her question 
 more trenchant than full autonomy : they do not 
 authorize us to conclude that autonomy was her ideal. 
 They do, however, suggest that we must not assume 
 without proof that because the fathers protested 
 against annexation in 1870, the sons and the grand- 
 sons demand " dis-annexation " in 1917. As a 
 matter of political principle, no democrat can sub- 
 scribe to the view which M. Ribot has put bluntly, 
 that Alsace is the " property " of France. Alsace 
 is, or ought to be, the property of the Alsatians, 
 who must be free to dispose of themselves, what- 
 ever their real wish may be. To proclaim the 
 rights of property as the key to the problem of 
 nationality, would make short work of most of the 
 claims which have won our sympathy. Even in 
 this instance the German Empire has the older legal 
 claim, while the Hapsburgs can show a perfect title, 
 
132 A LEAGUE OF, NATIONS 
 
 by all the laws of property, to the Trentino. Even 
 Bosnia on this principle would belong not to the 
 young Kingdom of Serbia, but to Turkey. Theory 
 apart, the simple re-annexation of Alsace-Lorraine 
 to France will cause her grave embarrassments, if 
 she is ever in a position to bring it about without 
 first testing the will of its people. She will find 
 that a large part of the working-class population 
 of Alsace speaks no French. She may encounter, 
 some opposition from the clerical element in 
 Catholic Upper Alsace, which may not rally willingly 
 to a secular Republic. The manufacturing districts 
 may regret the change, if they experience a 
 serious disturbance to their trade. Exceptional 
 measures to prevent espionage may be necessary 
 against German travellers, and against residents of 
 German sympathies. All this, added to the 
 rancour which commonly follows defeat, may 
 prevent Germans from writing off the two provinces 
 as a final loss, and they in turn may cherish a 
 sentiment which will be as deadly when it is called 
 Rache as it was when we knew it as revanche. 
 
 Is political wisdom impotent in the face of such 
 a situation as this ? It is only because Europe, 
 influenced by the spectacle of Prussian success, has 
 itself fallen under the empire of Prussian ideas that 
 the solution of a plebiscite seems difficult or 
 visionary. Yet one may say of it, without exaggera- 
 tion, that in the restless and eventful decade which 
 preceded the final triumph of Bismarck's statecraft, 
 it was the accepted method for effecting transfers 
 of territory. Louis Napoleon submitted to its test 
 before he finally annexed Savoy to France. Italy, 
 as she grew, followed the same principle. There 
 is, however, an even more instructive precedent. 
 After the Austro -Prussian War, which settled the 
 fate of Schleswig-Holstein by annexing it to Prussia, 
 Austria proposed and Prussia accepted the condi- 
 
PROBLEMS OF NATIONALITY 133 
 
 tion that the Danish minority should not be incor- 
 porated in Prussia against its will. The stipulation 
 in the Treaty of Prague (1866) ran "that the 
 people of the northern districts of Schleswig 
 shall be ceded to Denmark,, if by a free vote they 
 manifest a desire for union with that country." 
 That clause remained a dead letter, and Denmark 
 accepted the accomplished fact. It ought to 
 be revived at the coming settlement. In those 
 days even the Prussian people did not yet accept 
 the Bismarckian theory of conquest. When at the 
 same time Bismarck was engaged in incorporating 
 Hanover, Frankfort, and other minor German States 
 in the Prussian system, the Lower House of the 
 Prussian Diet replied to his proposal of direct 
 annexation, that *' mere force alone now no longer 
 suffices as a basis of national ownership : no pro- 
 fessor of international law recognizes it as giving 
 title." l If our aim, when we speak of defeating 
 Prussian militarism, really is to break the ascendancy 
 of Prussian ideas, we shall find no better means of 
 demonstrating the return of Europe to a more liberal 
 tradition, than by reviving the principle that no 
 population shall be transferred from one sovereignty 
 to another, save with its own assent recorded in 
 a free vote. The principle is French in its origin, 
 and it is difficult to believe that the French Republic 
 will be less liberal than the French Empire. To 
 its lasting honour the French Socialist Party has 
 now proclaimed the referendum as its expedient for 
 the solution of this question. The German Minority 
 Socialists have done the same thing, thereby re- 
 storing in spirit the shattered " International." The 
 details of a referendum are not easy to determine. 
 Obviously it must be taken under normal conditions 
 of peace, without military pressure. Certainly some 
 
 1 Seignobos, " Political History of Contemporary Europe " 
 (English translation), vol. ii. p. 472. 
 
134 A LEAGUE OF, NATIONS 
 
 impartial body must preside over it, fix the con- 
 ditions and watch over their executive. The French 
 Socialists suggest The Hague Tribunal. It is harder 
 to determine who ought to vote. Nearly one-third 
 of the original population, if French figures may be 
 trusted, migrated at the annexation, and as time 
 went on, four hundred thousand followed them, in 
 order to avoid military service in the German 
 Army. Most of them are now settled in France, 
 many of them permanently. For them the question- 
 able right is often claimed to vote in any Alsatian 
 plebiscite, though only the youngest of them would 
 be likely to return. Their places in Alsace have 
 been taken by immigrant Germans. Ought they 
 to vote ? Many of them have intermarried with 
 native Alsatians ; such mixed marriages, according 
 to the German census, are 12^- per cent, of all the 
 marriages in Alsace. Many, if not most, of these 
 immigrants are permanent settlers. We fought our 
 war against the Boers to assert the right of the 
 44 Uitlander " to a share in deciding the destinies 
 of the country to which he had migrated. These 
 debates show that both Frenchmen and Germans 
 realize that the issue of a plebiscite is uncertain, 
 and may depend on the inclusion or exclusion of one 
 class or another which has a real or sentimental 
 interest in the issue. These delicate questions should 
 be left to the decision of The Hague Tribunal (if 
 it is the impartial presiding authority) after hearing 
 the arguments of all the interested parties. The 
 question to be placed before the people of Alsace 
 should not be limited to the two simpler solutions 
 re-annexation to France or full autonomy in the 
 German Empire. There is a third alternative : the 
 creation of a neutral " buffer " State, which ought, 
 of course, to enjoy access to the markets of its 
 neighbours, and might be allowed to form (if they 
 desired it) a loose confederate union with Switzer- 
 
PROBLEMS OF NATIONALITY 135 
 
 land, Luxemburg, Belgium, and Holland. That 
 solution might be the easiest of all, for it avoids 
 even the appearance of conquest. This " buffer " 
 State would separate the two traditional enemies, 
 and might at the same time serve to reconcile them. 
 If its trade enjoyed special advantages in the German 
 Empire the economic difficulties of any violent 
 laceration would be avoided. The Francophil 
 emigres might return : the German immigrants need 
 not depart. The people of Alsace have always 
 had a strong sense of local independence. This 
 has increased in the last generation, so much so 
 that some able neutral writers, notably Dr. David 
 Starr Jordan, maintain that their real wish is to 
 be neither French, nor German, but Alsatian. 
 France is a liberal but a highly centralized Republic, 
 and under her rule this sentiment of individuality 
 would find little scope. Either of the extreme 
 solutions would be unwelcome to a large minority. 
 The middle course of neutralization might be, to 
 the population as a whole, the most acceptable of 
 all. The creation of this neutral State, under the 
 guardianship of the League of Nations would lay 
 the coping-stone on its structure. It would end 
 the most obstinate feud in Europe by a change 
 which would leave no sense of wrong behind it. 
 If Germany would herself propose it, she would 
 by this large-minded act end her moral isolation 
 in Europe. She might conceivably agree to the 
 neutralization and independence of the whole of 
 Alsace-Lorraine in return for some concessions in 
 Equatorial Africa, or to the cession to France of 
 French-speaking Lorraine on the same condition. 
 She would certainly consent to a solution by 
 plebiscite (which she thinks ( or affects to think 
 that she would win) much earlier in the war than 
 she would face annexation without conditions. In 
 that connection it is essential to remember that the 
 
136 A LEAGUE OE NATIONS 
 
 attitude of Germany to this and every other un- 
 palatable proposal, will be influenced by the whole 
 character of the proposed settlement. The loss of 
 territory, even with the qualification of a plebiscite, 
 will be resisted to the bitter end, if it is combined 
 with a harsh colonial readjustment, with the closing 
 of Turkey to German enterprise, and with a system 
 of boycotts and the economic war. Even some 
 loss of territory may be accepted as an evil that 
 is still compatible with a tolerable future if the 
 rest of the settlement, and especially its economic 
 chapters, contain no menace to the prosperity and 
 growth of a peaceful Germany. This question must 
 be solved if Europe is to have peace. The 
 importance of insisting, here and elsewhere, on a 
 plebiscite lies in this, that it would make an end 
 of the rule of unqualified force in Europe. It 
 must be an honest test of opinion. It must be held 
 in conditions that allow free public discussion in 
 meetings and in the Press, and the vote ought to 
 be taken under the supervision of neutral commis- 
 sioners. If a substantial majority declared its will, 
 no movement for a revanche could thrive either 
 in France or in Germany. The un teachable military 
 party might still cherish hopes of another war. But 
 it is inconceivable that the mass of either nation 
 should countenance any party or any leader of 
 opinion who proposed to disturb the world's peace 
 in order to reverse the declared will of a people. 
 
 NATIONALITY AS CULTURE. 
 
 Public opinion in all the Allied countries has 
 been fixed so firmly on the settlement of national 
 problems by territorial change, that it may seem 
 an arrogance to suggest that in this respect war 
 has driven us back upon the more primitive and 
 less civilized solution. Before the war the trend 
 of liberal thinking about nationality was moving 
 
PROBLEMS OF NATIONALITY 137 
 
 in the opposite direction. We saw the content- 
 ment of the Boers in South Africa and the French 
 in Canada with a settlement .which respected their 
 national identity and culture within a tolerant 
 Empire. Austria (as distinct from Hungary) was 
 evolving, happily, in the same way : her Poles 
 were contented and loyal, and even the Czechs were 
 inclining to rally to her. She had managed, when 
 she conceded manhood suffrage, to introduce an 
 ingenious expedient which promised to prevent racial 
 conflicts in the working of representative institu- 
 tions. She created for the Reichsrath, distinct 
 electoral units, confined to one race, and of these two 
 or more might co -exist in the same area. Within 
 each of these the normal political struggle between 
 Socialists, Clericals, Agrarians, and' Liberals went 
 on without the racial complication. Thus in a 
 mixed area Germans and Czechs voted separately, 
 each returning their own member, who stood for a 
 solid racial constituency, though the races might be 
 living intermingled. The result was to wean them 
 in some degree from their barren racial strife, and to 
 turn their minds to the more constructive questions 
 which interested the whole community. What is 
 the essential element in nationality ? Or, rather, does 
 nationality necessarily include the State idea, and 
 require the sovereign control of a definite territory 
 by a single race ? Our answer on the eve of the 
 war inclined^. I think, to the view that on the [ultimate 
 analysis the essential thing in nationality is not 
 territory but culture. A race which nowhere rules 
 may none the less find in its Church, its schools, 
 and in the cultivation of its distinctive spirit in 
 literature and art a corporate life which can keep 
 its national consciousness alive. The typical Western 
 mind does not readily adopt this idea, and for 
 races which do not control some fatherland 
 politically the Jews, Armenians, and Parsers, for 
 
138 A LEAGUE OF NATIONS 
 
 example we feel a certain pity. When one has 
 had some experience of the East, this Western 
 association of nationality with sovereignty comes 
 to seem less inevitable. Grouped round their 
 Churches, the various Christian races of Turkey 
 had no difficulty in preserving their nationality, and 
 perhaps because all the manifold life of their com- 
 munity its Church, its schools, its charities, and 
 (of late years) its political party and its clubs 
 was voluntary, it was really more interesting and 
 intense than that of a State organization. The 
 national temperament and the national idea are ex- 
 pressed richly and vitally in the peasant art, the 
 ballads, even in the newspapers and the party 
 politics of the Balkan States ; but they do not 
 really shape the organization of the States them- 
 selves. They all based their Constitutions on Western 
 models. Nationality does not in the East need 
 the State for its expression, and where it has the 
 State it seems to fail to mould it in its own like- 
 ness. One may have an elaborately organized 
 society without the State. The essential for 
 nationality is that it should be wholly free to culti- 
 vate its own language, to worship in a national 
 or " autocephalous " Church, to express itself with 
 entire sincerity and without external restraint in 
 literature, journalism, and the arts, to maintain its 
 own tradition in a complete educational system 
 under its own management, ranging from the village 
 school to the University, and, finally, to associate 
 with full liberty in parties, clubs, and in literary, 
 commercial, co-operative, or charitable societies. If 
 it has all this, if its schools receive their fair share 
 of any national grant, if it is subject to no legal 
 disabilities and inequalities, its destinies are in its 
 own hands, its culture is secure, its soul is its own. 
 With this minimum even a highly conscious 
 nationality may lead a tolerable existence. It is 
 
PROBLEMS OF NATIONALITY 139 
 
 no longer " an oppressed nationality," and while it 
 may regret, and we may regret for it, that it lacks 
 the outward symbols and power of nationhood, the 
 conditions which deny it these good things may 
 not be the intolerance of other peoples, but the 
 confused ethnography and the difficult geography 
 of Central and Eastern Europe. If it should be 
 able to acquire autonomy or national independence, 
 it would presently discover that its new status made 
 it no easier than before to solve the real political 
 problems which confront every modern community 
 land tenure in an agricultural State, the relations 
 of labour and capital in an industrial State while 
 it brought new burdens and perplexities over arma- 
 ments, tariffs, and communications. 
 
 These are one-sided reflections. They do not 
 alter the fact that on the whole every distinct 
 European race does desire national independence. 
 But this line of thought does suggest that where 
 we would not or dare not or cannot insist on terri- 
 torial autonomy or independence, there is a certain 
 minimum standard to which all the members of 
 a League of Nations will be expected to conform. 
 It will be, in a sense, a League of mutual insurance, 
 and, to use a homely metaphor, it ought not in 
 prudence to insure any rotten or inflammable 
 structure. It has the right to insist on this mini- 
 mum, not so much because abstract political doctrine 
 requires it, as because the peace of Europe demands 
 it. It seems indispensable that the Powers should 
 adopt in the Treaty of Peace, or in the Constitution 
 of the League, or in both, some general declaration 
 designed to secure the cultural liberties of all sub- 
 ject nationalities. It would require skilful drafting, 
 but some such formula as this may serve meanwhile 
 to give a rough idea of its scope : 
 
 The signatory Powers, convinced that the interests of peace require 
 the free cultural development of all the races of Europe, hereby 
 
140 A LEAGUE OF NATIONS 
 
 declare that they will not in their European territories impose any 
 political or civil disabilities on the ground of race or religion, and 
 further, that in their European territories they will accord to every 
 race reasonable facilities and rights for the use of its language, for 
 the development of schools in which its language is the chief medium 
 of instruction, for every form of association consistent with the order 
 of the State, and for the free exercise of its religion. 
 
 If every Power adopted this article, it could not be 
 regarded by any as a humiliation. The formula 
 is elastic ; but while it would allow of the suppres- 
 sion of openly [seditious organizations, and would per- 
 mit a composite State to insist that its official language 
 should be thoroughly taught in all schools, it would 
 remove such elementary wrongs as the oppression of 
 the Roumanian Jews. It would also secure the rights 
 of racial minorities in such mixed areas as Bohemia. 
 Its application is confined to Europe so as to avoid 
 raising difficult colonial questions. A Europe based 
 on this minimum might not be an ideal, but it 
 would be a habitable Continent. The effect of 
 such a clause would be felt gradually but surely. 
 A reactionary Government would try to ignore it. 
 But the setting of a standard which the Government 
 had itself adopted would be no small gain. The 
 opposition at home would appeal to it. Critics 
 abroad would make a polemical use of it. Friendly 
 Governments, dreading an international scandal, 
 might in grave cases remind the defaulter of his 
 obligations. In the last resort, if domestic opposi- 
 tion, foreign criticism, and friendly remonstrance 
 had all failed, if the oppression were gross enough 
 to cause European unrest, and so notorious as to 
 overcome the habitual inertia of diplomacy, some 
 member of the League would be entitled to bring 
 the case before the League's Council of Conciliation. 
 The traditional school of jurists and diplomatists 
 will object that this is to propose an intolerable viola- 
 tion of sovereignty. That may be true. Sovereignty, 
 
PROBLEMS OF NATIONALITY 141 
 
 in the old absolute sense of the word, is the very 
 principle of anarchy, and no reading of it which 
 in the last resort forbids the intervention of the 
 collective conscience to redress gross wrongs to 
 nationality, can on a long view be consistent with 
 European peace. To forbid intervention to-day is 
 to invite war to-morrow. 
 
 THE MAP OF POLAND. 
 
 An ethnographical map of Poland, for which I am indebted to 
 the Polish Information Committee, will be found at the end of this 
 book. The percentages of the Polish population indicated on it 
 were compiled with the utmost care, but the data may be 
 insufficient for absolute accuracy. Later figures give for Posen 
 75 instead of 62 per cent., for the Kingdom of Poland 89 instead 
 of 92 per cent., and for the district of Kholm 39 instead of 57 per 
 cent. I do not feel competent to discuss in detail what the 
 frontiers of an independent Poland ought to be. Some portions of 
 the race must probably be sacrificed. It is not possible to include 
 the Poles of West Prussia, since this would cut the two portions of 
 Prussia in half. The Masurian Poles of East Prussia, who are Protes- 
 tants, are for the most part Germanized. A moderate war-settle- 
 ment will probably exclude Lithuania from the Polish Kingdom, and 
 in spite of the long association of the two races in history, the 
 doctrine of nationality will insist rather on the liberation of the Poles 
 than on the restoration of their kingdom in its ancient limits. I have 
 not discussed the Baltic Provinces, for Russia will certainly insist on 
 retaining them. The German element is too small to justify a claim 
 based on nationality. The native Letts (ethnologically the same 
 people as the Catholic Lithuanians), in spite of their Lutheran religion 
 and German culture, would certainly prefer Russian to German rule. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 THE ROADS OF THE EAST 
 
 A LONG war is apt to change not merely the mtoods 
 of the combatants, but the objects for which they 
 fight. New dangers emerge as the wrestling nations 
 sway hither and thither ; new problems are created 
 by the entry of fresh champions to the lists ; diffi- 
 cult tasks are discarded and compensations for their 
 abandonment are sought in other fields. Above all, 
 the constructive, idealistic purposes, which men 
 emphasized at first in the effort to reconcile them- 
 selves to the horrors of war, fade from their inner 
 vision ; they adjust themselves to the hatreds of 
 the moment, persuaded that these hatreds must 
 govern the world for the rest of their lives. The 
 hope of any permanent international organization 
 grows dim while we submit to this mood, and in its 
 absence (since we must somehow solve our 
 problems) the cruder methods of settlement by 
 partition and annexation find increasing favour. 
 There is a risk that if this state of mind endures, 
 the war, which was hailed as a war of liberation, 
 may degenerate into a harsh struggle of competing 
 empires. 
 
 The competing empires had a clear understanding 
 of their war-aims from the first days of the crisis 
 of 1914, and for long before it. For Russia and 
 Germany the chief stake in the combat was Turkey. 
 Our own public opinion, preoccupied with Belgium, 
 
 was slow to perceive this fact. It began to dominate 
 
 142 
 
THE ROADS OF, THE EAST 143 
 
 our thinking only when Serbia was overrun. It 
 receded again when the Russian Revolution re- 
 nounced the purpose proclaimed by Tsardom of an- 
 nexing Constantinople. When the annals of these 
 years come to be written there will be in them no 
 page more impressive than that which recounts the 
 brief duel between M. Miliukoff and the Council of 
 Workmen's and Soldiers' Delegates. The Liberal 
 Minister, one of the ablest and one of the most 
 deservedly respected statesmen in Russia, stood for 
 the old technique of professional diplomacy, and for 
 a policy of expansion and imperialism. The 
 " Soviet " realized that democracy is incompatible 
 with secret diplomacy, and an enduring peace with 
 a policy of conquest. In the capitals of the older 
 world, the mob has often filled the streets with the 
 echoing catchwords of national pride. For the first 
 time in the history pf civilization, a populace marched: 
 under the banner of " No annexations." Its triumph 
 has made one of the strangest and one of the 
 greatest pages in European history. The question 
 of Constantinople and the Straits still calls, however, 
 for a constructive solution. The Imperialist ten- 
 dencies of Britain, France, and Italy have not yet 
 followed Russia in renouncing their schemes for the 
 dismemberment of Turkey, and these aims of expan- 
 sion and strategy are defined in secret treaties which 
 still bind the Allies. One cannot oppose a bare 
 negative to these ambitions. The economic future 
 of Turkey makes a problem, even if the design is 
 abandoned of settling it by force. Finally, these 
 purposes of dismemberment have been received with 
 a certain tolerance by public opinion in the West, 
 because the abominable cruelties of the Young Turks 
 towards the Armenians, and the apparent arrest of 
 their once promising movement of reform, have 
 reminded us once more of the failure of the Ottoman 
 Empire to adjust itself to any Western conception 
 
144 A LEAGUE OF NATIONS 
 
 of humanity and liberty, however rudimentary. Let 
 us inquire whether in the idea of a League of 
 Nations we have a clue to the solution of these 
 Eastern problems of strategy, economics, and 
 humanity . 
 
 I. THE HIGHWAY OF THE STRAITS. 
 
 The significance in the political geography fof 
 the world of the two narrow straits which link 
 the Black Sea and the Mediterranean has become 
 familiar to the simplest English mother, since the 
 lads of Dorset and Lancashire died in vain on the 
 Gallipoli peninsula to cut a way to Constantinople. 
 In Russian history these straits recall more distant 
 memories and older dreams. Since the days of 
 Peter the Great Russian statesmen and soldiers 
 have held it as the manifest destiny of their 
 Empire that it should one day acquire Constan- 
 tinople. Its opponent in Europe has always been 
 the Power which stood behind the Turks as their 
 protector. In that part Germany to-day is the suc- 
 cessor of Great Britain. The chief motive which' 
 had always influenced the more realistic sections 
 of Russian opinion was, of course, that the Power 
 which holds Constantinople controls the Bosphorus 
 and the Dardanelles, and with them the highway 
 of the sea that leads to Odessa and Batoum. If 
 this Power were only a weak Turkey, standing- 
 alone, and easily overawed by the superior power 
 of Russia, her guardianship of the Straits might 
 be tolerated. But Turkey in modern times has 
 never been left to stand alone. The decisive 
 fact for Russian opinion was the arrival at Con- 
 stantinople, shortly after the second Balkan ;War, 
 of General Liman von Sanders at the head of a 
 large military mission, charged with the reorganiza- 
 tion of the Turkish Army. The [Russian Press 
 
THE ROADS OF THE EAST 145 
 
 took this to mean (rightly, as it turned out) that 
 Turkey had in a military sense definitely entered 
 the German camp. A Turkish control of the Straits 
 might be tolerated, but a German control involved 
 a direct negative to Russian ambitions. Nothing 
 that is Turkish is permanent, but Germans build 
 solidly. The emphatic diplomatic protest which 
 Russia entered against the large executive powers 
 entrusted to this mission (1913-14) was really the 
 overture to the coming world -war. It was followed 
 by a series of panics and crises throughout the 
 spring and summer of 1914. The extensive 
 military programme of Russia, her increased peace 
 effectives, her new artillery, and her strategical 
 railways were held to point to a plan for making 
 war somewhere about 1916. At intervals the 
 German Press directed its attention to the efforts 
 of Russian diplomacy to reconstitute the Balkan 
 League, this time as a Slav vanguard against 
 Austria. In the midst of this tension a controversy 
 broke out in the influential pages of the Preussische 
 Jahrbiicher between Professor Mitrofanoff, of Petro- 
 grad, and Professor Hans Delbriick, its editor. The 
 distinguished Russian historian wrote already as 
 though war were imminent and almost inevitable, 
 and his thesis was that Russia must control the 
 Straits, and that unless Germany made terms with 
 this historical ambition, then the road to Constan- 
 tinople would lie through Berlin. 1 Europe was 
 
 1 Professor Mitrofanoff, who had been in youth a student under 
 Professor Delbriick in Berlin, wrote at the latter's invitation to explain 
 the anti-German tendency in Russia. His article, which appeared 
 in the June number, opens with a brilliant historical analysis of the 
 causes, social and political, of the Russian dislike of Germany and 
 Germans. The section on Turkey concludes with the sentence, 
 " It is now clear to Russians that if everything remains as it is at 
 present, the road to Constantinople lies through Berlin." There 
 follow some confident sentences in which Germans are warned 
 that the Russia of 1914 is a much stronger Power, in the military, 
 
 II 
 
146 A LEAGUE OF NATIONS 
 
 already in peril of war on the eve of the Serajevo 
 murders, and the issue which dominated both Russian 
 and German opinion was the question of Constan- 
 tinople and the Straits. When Turkey entered the 
 war (as was indeed inevitable) on the side of 
 Germany, Russia arranged her claims with her 
 Allies. M. Trepoff has told us that in March 1915 
 Great Britain and France gave their full consent 
 to a Russian annexation of Constantinople. 
 
 It is not easy to decide how far this ambition 
 was a strategical demand, prosaic, intelligible, and 
 eminently natural, and how far it sprang from senti- 
 
 financial, industrial, and political senses of the word, than the Russia 
 of 1904. The grievance of the tariff (soon to be renewed) is touched 
 upon. " If we fail to meet with a disposition to understand our case 
 and make concessions, things look ugly " (so ist die Sache schlimm}. 
 ..." We have no desire to attack Germany ; we have too much 
 admiration for German civilization, and for the contributions of the 
 German people to the world's development, to wish for ourselves an 
 Attila's victory." (The Germans are not yet the Huns !) " We are also 
 fully convinced that Germany is far from having directly aggressive 
 tendencies ; but we feel ourselves on all sides hampered and hemmed 
 in by German pressure, on our flanks, in Turkey, in Sweden, in 
 Austria : we meet with no recognition of our present situation, no 
 reckoning with our present strength, and we are resolved to win 
 for ourselves the position which is due to us. ... War with Germany 
 would be a misfortune, but one cannot escape from a bitter necessity, 
 when it is really necessary." 
 
 Soon after Professor Mitrofanoff had addressed this startling 
 warning to the German reading public, a certain Prince Kotchubey, 
 a Marshal of the Russian nobility, contributed a similar article 
 to the Paris Correspondant (June 26, 1914). It covers much the same 
 ground, with the addition of an exhortation to France to adopt three 
 years' service and to us to adopt conscription, and the usual hint that 
 Russia, failing this support, may after all enter the German camp. The 
 chief feature of this article is an assurance, bluntly phrased, that an 
 attack by Russia on Germany would be enormously popular in Russia : 
 " On what tremendous forces could the Russian Government rely 
 if one day the Duma were to compel it to declare war on Germany ! " 
 These two articles were written in time of peace, before the Serajevo 
 murders. They helped to confirm the German belief that Russia was 
 preparing for an aggressive war. 
 
THE ROADS OF. THE EAST 147 
 
 ment and romance. The foundations of Russian 
 civilization were Eastern, and throughout the East 
 Constantinople has always been regarded as the 
 Imperial City, ;< Tsarigrad," the New Rome, the 
 goal of conquerors, and the centre of world power. 
 It is, moreover, the seat of the (Ecumenical Patriarch 
 of the Orthodox Church, and though his authority 
 and prestige are far less than those of the Pope in 
 the more centralized Western Church, the posses- 
 sion of his seat and the planting of the Cross 
 once more on the dome of St. Sophia would mean 
 more to the Russian Church and to the simpler 
 sections of Russian opinion than the opening of the 
 Straits. A diplomatist would state the case for the 
 annexation of Constantinople in plain prose. The 
 historical pressure of Russia towards an jce-free 
 port is one of the commonplaces of world -politics. 
 It carried her across Siberia to Vladivostock and 
 Port Arthur. It has in the past turned her atten- 
 tion towards the Persian Gulf, and it has made 
 Sweden deeply anxious. All the while there was 
 an ice -free port at no great distance from Petro- 
 grad, Alexandrovsk, waiting only the building of 
 wharves and the construction of a railway. The 
 plans for its construction lay for years in the official 
 pigeon-holes, and were brought out only in the stress 
 of this war. But an empire of so vast an extent 
 needs many ports. For commercial purposes, of 
 course, in time of peace the ports of the Black 
 Sea are always open. But this question of a Russian 
 port, like the German demand for " the freedom 
 of the seas," has reference, not to peace but to 
 war. The high seas are perfectly free while the 
 world is at peace, and so is the sea road to Odessa. 
 The Russian grievance is primarily this, that while 
 the Straits are always open in time of peace to 
 the merchantmen of all nations, the Sultan has the 
 right, and exercises it, to dose them both in peace 
 
148 A LEAGUE OF NATIONS 
 
 and war to warships. That means that the Russian 
 Black Sea Fleet is confined within its waters as 
 effectively as though the sea were an inland lake. 
 During the Japanese War, for example, it could 
 not sail out to reinforce the Russian squadron in 
 the Far East. If at any time Russia wishes to 
 -"- show her flag " in the Mediterranean, to inter- 
 vene in some Balkan complication, or to take part 
 in those international naval demonstrations which 
 were common during the reign of Abdul Hamid, 
 her ships must sail from the Baltic ports (closed 
 during part of the winter) and pass on their way 
 through the narrow straits of the Sound, Dover, 
 and Gibraltar. This restriction on the movement 
 of her ships (and therefore of her armies) is a 
 serious limitation to the immense potential military 
 power of Russia. It means that she cannot act 
 effectively anywhere to the west of her own terri- 
 tory. It has made her primarily an Eastern Power. 
 She could not, for example, in this war bring effec- 
 tive succour to Serbia, though she, and not the 
 Western Powers, was the champion on whom the 
 Serbs relied. The ability to use the Straits freely 
 in war -time would mean, in short, a doubling of 
 Russia's military range of action, and her entry 
 by a new road into the European system. Such an 
 increase of power would be felt, of course, in peace 
 as well as in war, for in diplomacy the reach of 
 a Government's arm is accurately measured. To 
 this primary reason for the acquisition of the Straits 
 some others must be added. The closing of them 
 in this war has cut off Russian exports to the 
 detriment of her credit, and excluded military sup- 
 plies to the peril of her armies. Nor are the 
 disadvantages which flow from the Turkish owner- 
 ship of the Straits entirely limited to Russia's 
 military interests. If Turkey is herself at war, 
 while Russia is neutral, and Turkey is obliged to 
 
THE ROADS OF THE EAST 149 
 
 defend the Straits against a naval attack, she may 
 be compelled to close them 1 , or at least to limit 
 traffic. That happened at awkward moments during 
 the Turco -Italian and Balkan Wars, when the Italian 
 and Greek fleets threatened the Dardanelles. Some 
 vexatious delay resulted in the export of the Russian 
 harvest. 
 
 The reasons why Russia desired to control the 
 Straits are so eminently intelligible that we need not 
 dwell further upon them. It remains only to add 
 that in the view of the old regime no control would 
 be satisfactory unless Russia were physically in 
 possession of the shores of the Straits themselves. 
 That involves, of course, the possession, not merely, 
 of Constantinople but of some territory on both con- 
 tinents. To suggestions that the control of the 
 Straits should in some form be internationalized, 
 the official Russian answer used to ; be that Russia 
 wanted some better security than " a scrap of paper." 
 She would feel sure that the Straits would always 
 be open to her warships only when her own guns 
 commanded them. 
 
 War is a state of absolute partisanship, and the 
 tendency, while it lasts, is to assume that every- 
 thing which an ally may claim is a proper object 
 to pursue. The Revolution has released us from 
 that obligation, and opened the road to a better 
 solution. If the world is to be freed from the 
 reign of force, we must school our minds to 
 abandon the habit of thinking strategically. We 
 could never have fitted into our ideal of the 
 future Europe this Russian claim for the means 
 to exert power far beyond her own frontiers. To 
 bring into the Mediterranean, as a factor in its 
 naval and military balance, a Power which has 
 neither province nor colony on its shores would 
 be a questionable innovation. The real bearing 
 of this question is primarily on the future of the 
 
150 A LEAGUE OF, NATIONS 
 
 Balkan States. Entrenched at Constantinople, able 
 to strike at will by land or sea, holding the 
 exit of the Black Sea, and sending her ships freely 
 into the ^Egean and the Adriatic, Russia would con- 
 trol the Balkan peninsula, and dispose at her pleasure 
 of the destinies of its people. There are many 
 reasons which explain the choice of Bulgaria in 
 joining the Central Empires, and the long -continued 
 neutrality of Roumania and Greece, but among the 
 considerations which weighed most heavily with them 
 all was their reluctance to see any great empire 
 established at Constantinople. Roumania is wholly 
 dependent on the Straits for her commerce with 
 the outer world, and, though Bulgaria now has a 
 worthless and isolated port on the ^gean, her com- 
 merce still depends entirely on Varna and Burgas, 
 both of them Black Sea ports. Finally, the Turkish 
 population would prefer almost any other foreign 
 rule to that of its hereditary enemy. 
 
 There are several alternative solutions which 
 would give to Russia the free use of the Straits, 
 to which she is entitled. The essential point is 
 really, not that Russia should possess the Straits 
 but that Germany should not dominate them. Sir 
 Edwin Pears has sketched an ideal scheme the 
 creation of a small international State, guaranteed 
 by the whole Concert of Europe, under executive 
 officers nominated by it, which would control both 
 shores and guarantee a free passage to all the world. 
 This plan would guarantee the inhabitants of 
 Constantinople against any form of foreign rule 
 which might aspire to denationalize them, and 
 under it they might develop to the full their own 
 municipal and communal institutions. The city 
 might become with security and freedom of trade 
 the great centre of education and affairs for 
 the Balkans and Anatolia, the intellectual and 
 commercial capital of the Near East. One does 
 
THE ROADS OF THE EAST 151 
 
 not readily abandon oneself to flattering 1 dreams 
 amid this war, but I confess that a vision sometimes 
 shapes itself in my mind of a still greater future 
 for Constantinople. When the League of Nations 
 is firmly established, it must acquire some social 
 centre, some capital which will impress the imagina- 
 tion and focus the intercourse of the nations which 
 compose it. It could find no nobler site for 
 its capital than Constantinople, and the imperial 
 traditions of New Rome would give to it a 
 glorious foundation in the past, and make for it 
 a claim on our veneration. Its distance from 
 Western Europe may seem an objection. Western 
 Europe is, however, inclined to be provincial, but 
 on the shores of the Bosphorus no one could forget 
 how momentous for the destinies of mankind is 
 the recovery of the East for civilization. With 
 one of the smaller Western cities, The Hague, for 
 example, as its site, the international capital might 
 be dwarf _ " by Paris, London, and Berlin. Placed 
 in the Near East it would swiftly raise the whole 
 level of East - European culture. It must be 
 admitted, however, that the idea of an international 
 State is adventurous and difficult. What would 
 happen if war again broke out among, the Great 
 Powers who controlled it ? Who then would assure 
 the freedom of the Straits ? For this reason there 
 is everything to be said for the suggestion, urged 
 by Mr. Toynbee and others, that the United States 
 of America should be entrusted, as the mandatory 
 of the League, with the guardianship of Constanti- 
 nople and the Straits. It has no material or political 
 interests in this part of the world, and its great 
 educational work in Turkey has already won the 
 gratitude and confidence of all the Near Eastern 
 peoples . 
 
 Unhappily, this plan, by far the best of all, 
 might require for its realization a great prolongation 
 
152 A LEAGUE OF NATIONS 
 
 of the war, for it presupposes the expulsion of the 
 Turks. It is possible, however, to suggest modi- 
 fications of it, which would meet the legitimate 
 requirements of Russia without presupposing the 
 annihilation of Turkey. The Turks might be left 
 in undisturbed possession of the city and its shores. 
 They would be required, however, to demolish all 
 the fortifications of the Straits, and an International 
 Commission would be charged with the duty of 
 watching over them, to assure at all times their 
 free navigation, in war as in peace, for merchant 
 vessels of all nationalities, and for the warships 
 of the States bordering on the Black Sea. This 
 Commission, on which the United States might be 
 largely represented, should have the right to call 
 upon the naval or military forces of neutral 
 Powers, if on the outbreak of war force should 
 be necessary to maintain the provisions of the 
 treaty. It is probable that Russia, while she greatly 
 values the right of free exit through the Straits for 
 her own warships, is no less anxious to possess 
 the right to close them, to the navies of other 
 Powers. That also might be provided for in 
 the treaty. It was, indeed, on this claim to ex- 
 clude the warships of other Powers that M. 
 Miliukoff based his opposition to neutralization. 
 In other words, the guardianship of the Straits 
 would pass from the Sultan to an International 
 Commission, and the arrangement might be more 
 acceptable to Russia if this Commission were 
 to consist only of the representatives of States 
 which have no competing interests in the Near 
 East. By this plan, or by some variant of it, 
 an assured access to the seas may be guaranteed 
 to Russia in a way which would not menace 
 the political liberties of the Balkan States, the 
 national autonomy of the population of Turkey 
 and Thrace, or the freedom of the world's trade. 
 
THE ROADS OF THE EAST 153 
 
 It is, of course, an indispensable corollary to this 
 plan that the territory bordering the Straits must 
 be neutralized, so that in the event of war between 
 Russia and Turkey it shall not be a legitimate 
 field for warlike operations. Unless the world is 
 prepared to put its faith in such " scraps of paper," 
 the battle over the rights of Belgium will have 
 been fought in vain. 
 
 Our attitude towards the Straits problem will 
 depend in the last resort on whether we believe 
 that the future of Europe must resemble its past. 
 If we believe, with Lord Grey, that international 
 questions must be settled by " conference " and 
 " negotiation," we shall have listened unmoved to 
 M. Miliukoff's argument. If we want to have 
 done with the diplomacy whose success is measured 
 by the reach of the arm behind it, the main 
 item in this case falls to the ground. If, on 
 the other hand, we see nothing before us but a 
 dismal prolongation of the rivalry for a balance 
 of power and a balance of armaments, the struggle 
 always in diplomacy and trade, and periodically 
 in war, of one group of Powers against another, 
 then, on one condition, we shall regret the dropping 
 of the Russian demand. That condition is, that we 
 are quite sure that the present grouping will persist, 
 and that Russia will be for all time our ally. The 
 answer of the average statesman would hesitate 
 between these sharp alternatives. " I liope" he 
 would say, " that we shall manage to set up an 
 Areopagus, and all that sort of thing. I am all 
 for conference and negotiation. But I don't trust 
 the other side. I must, therefore, strengthen myself 
 and my friends, so as to be ready for every 
 contingency. I shall, accordingly, build fleets, 
 fortify straits, and, when necessary, annex the shores 
 that control them, but, of course, I hope that we 
 shall all live happily ever afterwards, and arbitrate 
 
154 A LEAGUE OF NATIONS 
 
 before we fight." That is the attitude which, above 
 all others, curses life with a duality of purpose, 
 poisons sincerity, destroys confidence, and arrests 
 progress. If a man hopes he must also believe. 
 If he intends he must have faith. If he has turned 
 his back on the evil past, he must discard its 
 calculations. The probability of future war turns 
 largely on the expectations of mankind. If the 
 world believes that war will come, the belief will 
 realize itself. So long as that belief dominates us, 
 our actions will be busied with all the preparations 
 that almost fatally make war the armaments, 
 and, still worse, the diplomatic groupings. Array 
 Europe in two hostile groups, and it is idle to talk 
 of conference, for no conference could meet in that 
 mood of coolness and impartiality from which alone 
 a just settlement of any conflict can result. What 
 makes the belief of mankind in such a case? 
 Deeds rather than words make it. A whole library 
 of books, by all the Bernhardis of all the nations, 
 would have done less to create the belief that a 
 future war is inevitable, than the insistence of Russia 
 on annexing Constantinople and the readiness of 
 the Entente to back her claim by months or years 
 of warfare. We could hardly say more plainly 
 that all the talk of " the war to end war " was 
 nothing but self-deluding rhetoric. An international 
 solution is possible, and our answer is that we have 
 no faith in " scraps of paper." That would be an 
 admission that the war had been fought in vain. 
 If we desired to show that our purpose had been 
 achieved, if we meant boldly, like strong men, to 
 imprint our will upon the world's history, we should 
 take the exactly opposite course. We should set 
 up our " scraps of paper " with a defiant and 
 gallant gesture. We should call them a monument 
 more lasting than armour-plate. We should give 
 them validity by, our faith, and keep our arms, 
 
THE ROADS OF THE EAST 155 
 
 if need be, to defend them. A coalition which acts 
 on this principle will have destroyed the belief in 
 the next inevitable war, and by so doing it will 
 have made the intellectual basis of an enduring 
 peace. 
 
 II. THE ROAD TO BAGDAD. 
 
 If the central object of Tsardom in this war was to 
 open for itself the; naval road to the Mediterranean, 
 the Germans are no less bent on securing for 
 themselves unhampered military access to Turkey. 
 Russia's interest in the Straits was mainly strategic, 
 though her strategical thinking was coloured by 
 sentiment. German policy, on the other hand, 
 shows the characteristic modern combination of 
 strategy with economics. Coming very late into 
 the colonial field, and unable to secure for herself 
 any sphere capable of development by white settlers, 
 her attention since the opening of this century has 
 turned increasingly to Turkey. Into this sphere, 
 also, her traders came late, and found it occupied 
 mainly by French educational and financial and 
 British commercial influences. They enjoyed, 
 however, certain advantages. Prussian soldiers, 
 beginning with the great Von Moltke and then with 
 Von der Goltz, had done much for the Turkish 
 Army. They had no past to overcome in appealing 
 to Turkish sympathies, and when our policy after 
 the occupation of Egypt became definitely anti- 
 Turkish, they rapidly acquired a predominant 
 position in Constantinople. It was won, like all 
 their achievements, by method, intelligence, and 
 perseverance. Their great ambassador, Marschall 
 von Bieberstein, worked while others idled, and was 
 friendly, accessible, helpful, where others were stiff, 
 contemptuous, and indifferent. The Kaiser's more 
 theatrical methods of proclaiming himself the friend 
 of Islam in general and of Abdul Hamid in par- 
 
156 A LEAGUE OF. NATIONS 
 
 ticular served their immediate end. From all the 
 demonstrations, reforms, and intrigues that centred 
 round Armenia, Macedonia, and Crete, German 
 diplomacy stood aloof, and if this was bad political 
 morals it was also good business. " We pursue 
 in Turkey only economic ends," was the invariable 
 answer of Baron Marschall to any attempt to enlist 
 his interest in such questions. The answer was 
 true as a statement of motive, but economics cannot 
 in Turkey be divorced from politics. The exploita- 
 tion of a backward country on the great scale of 
 modern capitalism depends far more upon contracts, 
 concessions, and loan operations than upon the direct 
 pushing of their wares by private merchants. In 
 Turkey, as in China, all these larger operations of 
 finance are the concern of diplomacy, and every 
 alert Embassy persuades, bribes, negotiates, or even 
 threatens in order to push the interests of its 
 country's financiers. The Germans were particularly 
 successful in the sale of their armaments, and with 
 the final granting of the Bagdad railway concession 
 in 1903, they became economically the predominant 
 Power in Turkey. French finance still held by, 
 far the larger passive stake in Turkey, but the new, 
 and more enterprising power was the Deutsche 
 Bank. This position was not won without careful 
 political nursing. The Young Turks, when first 
 they made their revolution (1908), were anxious 
 to conclude a defensive alliance with Great Britain. 
 Their overtures were coldly received. The dispatch 
 of the German Military Mission to Turkey, after 
 the Balkan wars, meant that Enver Bey's pro- 
 German policy had prevailed over the pro-French 
 and pro-British inclinations of his more liberal 
 colleagues, and shortly after the outbreak of the 
 world- war the Turco -German alliance, already 
 secretly concluded, became the decisive fact in the 
 Eastern theatre of war. 
 
THE ROADS OF THE EAST 157 
 
 The Bagdad railway was not originally a German 
 scheme. In the middle years of last century certain 
 Anglo-Indian engineers eagerly promoted the idea 
 of a railway linking the Mediterranean with the 
 Persian Gulf. It was to have run from Alexandretta 
 by an easy desert route to Basra. A Parliamentary 
 Commission reported in its favour, and the Turks 
 welcomed the scheme. Capital, however, was shy, 
 and after our occupation of Egypt, which gave us 
 control of the Suez Canal, it ceased to interest us. 
 Our concern in it had been purely strategic, for 
 we regarded it as an alternative road to India. 
 While favouring the scheme, the Turks had always 
 tried to induce its British promoters to expand it 
 into a more ambitious project, a Constantinople- 
 Bagdad railway. 1 From the Turkish point of view 
 this railway was an administrative and military 
 necessity. Railway-builders who considered only 
 the needs of trade would not have been attracted 
 by it. The denser population in Turkey is to be 
 found clustered in limited areas near the coast. 
 There was everything to be said for such a rail- 
 way from the Turkish standpoint, but much less 
 from that of the foreign trader. It followed that 
 the railway could be built only under the usual 
 Turkish system of subsidized profits, by a kilometric 
 guarantee, and as always happens in the land of 
 baksheesh, the foreign capitalist drove an un- 
 conscionable bargain. The railway may never pay 
 its way, but its promoters have none the less secured 
 a rich return for their outlay. They reckon, 
 also, on larger and more legitimate profits from 
 subsidiary enterprises. A radlway concession 
 commonly carries with it the expectation that other 
 large enterprises, mines, harbours, and the like, will 
 be conceded to the same group of capitalists. The 
 promoters secured from the first a monopoly over 
 
 1 See David Fraser, "The Short Cut to India,"] p. 33. 
 
158 A LEAGUE OF NATIONS 
 
 the rich oil-wells of Mesopotamia, and they reckoned 
 that their undertaking would serve as a basis for a 
 future claim, to be founded, first, upon accomplished 
 facts, and, finally, perhaps, on treaty, that the whole 
 region served by the Bagdad railway is a German 
 economic sphere. If this were to include the 
 irrigation of Mesopotamia, it would be probably 
 the most valuable privilege still open in any 
 undeveloped country. It was this indefinite 
 possibility of extension which really made the 
 Bagdad railway an attractive economic opening to 
 German enterprise. Since Germany was in a fair 
 way to make the greater part of Turkey her 
 economic preserve, she had an imperative interest 
 in maintaining its " integrity and independence." 
 Other Powers might wish to partition Turkey. 
 Germany wished to absorb it whole. We had our- 
 selves followed the same logic during the greater 
 part of the nineteenth century ; but while we valued 
 our gallant Turkish allies and turned a blind eye 
 to their misdeeds, we were too busy with more 
 promising commercial possibilities elsewhere to con- 
 centrate our minds, as the Germans have done, on 
 the economic exploitation of Turkey. 
 
 The sinister aspect of the Bagdad railway as a 
 strategical line has been amply illustrated in the 
 present war. It means two things strategically. It 
 is first of all the Turkish military high-road, essential 
 to any development of Ottoman power. Turkey, 
 however, is too weak to stand alone, and inevitably 
 the idea of the line has expanded until every German 
 to-day thinks of it as the Berlin -Bagdad connection. 
 The present relationship of Germany with Turkey 
 repeats in all essentials the older Anglo -Turkish 
 tie. Any Power which comes into intimate touch 
 with Turkey is forced to become her protector, and 
 the protector who takes risks on her behalf will 
 naturally wish to use her as an ally, and to pay 
 
THE ROADS OF THE EAST 159 
 
 himself by exploiting her undeveloped economic 
 resources. The risk of a forcible partition of Turkey 
 has been real for the best part of a century. The 
 Tsar Nicholas I proposed an amicable agreement to 
 partition Turkey on the eve of the Crimean War. 
 The Germans believe that Nicholas II and 
 Edward VII discussed some similar scheme at Reval 
 in 1908, and reached an understanding about jit. 1 
 That plan (which had some existence in fact, at 
 least as a scheme of reforms to be imposed on 
 Turkey) was abandoned when the Young Turks made 
 their revolution to escape it. The Germans allege 
 that it was revived during the Balkan War, and that 
 it took the shape of a proposal to delimit the 
 " economic spheres " of the Powers in Turkey on 
 the Persian model. Such plans were undoubtedly 
 in the minds of some of the Allied statesmen, though 
 there was probably no thought of attempting to 
 realize them, save by a European agreement. They 
 revived when the war broke out and Turkey became 
 involved in it. It is said by those who should know, 
 that the secret compacts of the Allies contemplate 
 a partition on this basis : Constantinople goes to 
 Russia, with the Armenian provinces as a vassal 
 State under her suzerainty ; Syria up to the Taurus, 
 is to be French ; Mesopotamia and Arabia, British ; 
 and the coast region of Asia Minor, with Smyrna, 
 Italian ; Palestine may be internationalized. The 
 Entente offered the greater part of Asia Minor, 
 with Smyrna, to Greece, but failing her acceptance, 
 it is to be supposed that Turkey may be allowed 
 to retain so much of Anatolia as the other Allies 
 do not claim. The conception of a Turkey 
 protected, developed, and strengthened by German 
 influences stood opposed to these ambitions of the 
 Entente Powers. The issue jwas simply one of power, 
 
 1 See Reventlow, " Deutschlands Auswartige Politik," p. 322 
 Rohrbach, " Der Deutsche Gedanke," pp. 155, 162. 
 
160 A LEAGUE OF NATIONS 
 
 a Machtfrage, which could hardly be settled without 
 war. It was " the Eastern Question " which dis- 
 tracted the lives of our fathers and grandfathers, with 
 Russia still in her old r61e, and Germany filling the 
 traditional part of Great Britain. 
 
 This exchange of parts between Germany and 
 Britain involved a disastrous strategical complication 
 in the Balkans. Our command of the seas enables 
 us to act in the East without possessing' a continuous 
 land route. It suffices for our purpose that we 
 hold Gibraltar, Malta, Cyprus, and Egypt. Our 
 statesmen have always held that the vital interest of 
 our, communications justified us in disregarding in 
 these cases the doctrine of nationality. Germany 
 has no such command of the seas, and if in any 
 conflict over Turkey to which we are a party, she 
 must be able to reach Turkey, the only route open 
 to her lies by land across the Balkans. An inde- 
 pendent and hostile Serbia is a fatal obstacle to any 
 full use for strategical purposes of the Berlin -Bag dad 
 line. Once more, as in the case of the Straits, the 
 problem is not commercial, and has no bearing 
 whatever on Germany's right to use such a road 
 freely for the export of her manufactures. For that 
 purpose the line was always open to her, and, in 
 point of fact, the bulk of her trade has always gone, 
 and is always likely to go, to Turkey by sea. What 
 she required was a road, or, as it is often called, 
 a " corridor," by which she could at all times send 
 troops and munitions from Berlin to Constantinople 
 and Bagdad. Without that facility she could neither 
 protect nor dominate Turkey. It was not necessary 
 that she should suppress Serbia and Bulgaria s 
 independent States, but it was absolutely necessary 
 for her Eastern policy that they should both be com- 
 placent and friendly neutrals, if not actual allies. 
 The obstacle of a hostile Serbia is of recent date, 
 and did not exist when the Bagdad line was first 
 
THE ROADS OF THE EAST 161 
 
 planned. At that time Serbia, under the Obreno- 
 vitch dynasty, was a nearly negligible factor in 
 Balkan affairs, the satellite of Austria and the friend 
 of Turkey. It is a grave mistake to suppose that 
 Serbia had always been the protege of Russia. 
 Again and again, and for lengthy periods, whenever 
 it suited Vienna and Petrograd to come to an 
 arrangement, Serbia was explicitly recognized (e.g. 
 in the pact of 1897 and probably again in 1903) as 
 within the Austrian sphere of influence. It is too 
 often forgotten that Russia actually agreed to the 
 Austrian occupation of Bosnia and Herzegovina as 
 the price of Austrian neutrality during the Russo- 
 Turkish War. The change began with the murder 
 of the Austrophil King Alexander (1903) and the 
 return of the Russophil Karageorgevitch dynasty, 
 and it was completed only with the open breach 
 between Austria and Russia, which Count Aerenthal 
 and M. Isvolsky brought about in 1908. From that 
 moment Serbia was the vanguard of Russian 
 influence in the Balkans, an isolated outpost thrown 
 across the route of any Austro -German advance. 
 The German motive was partly the desire to 
 strengthen her ally Austria against the South -Slav 
 danger, and partly the wish to open the military road 
 to Turkey. That object has for the moment been 
 attained by the obliteration of Serbia during the 
 swift autumn campaign of 1915. The Berlin - 
 Bagdad line is to-day wholly under the control of 
 the Central Empires. Control would be permanently 
 attained if, as the result of this war, Turkey and 
 Bulgaria remained the allies of the Central Powers, 
 while Serbia was either annexed to Austria or 
 reduced to a condition of vassalage. So long as an 
 independent Serbia remains, free to ally herself with 
 the Western Powers and Russia, the Berlin -Bagdad 
 line does not exist as a strategical road. The 
 Serbian question is the key to the mastery of the East. 
 
 12 
 
1 62 A LEAGUE OF NATIONS 
 
 If we aim in this war at a settlement which will 
 assure permanent peace, it follows that the one kind 
 of success which we must labour to prevent is a 
 gain based solely on strategical requirements. The 
 Berlin -Bagdad idea is the obverse of the Russian 
 Constantinople idea, and both of them are based on 
 the conception of a Europe still dominated -by force. 
 It follows that we are bound in policy, as we are 
 pledged in honour, to see an independent Serbia 
 restored. With the restoration of Serbia, the strate- 
 gical menace of the Berlin -Bagdad line would be 
 destroyed, and it would become, with the settlement 
 of the world's peace, an innocent highway of 
 civilization. 
 
 There remains the further question whether our 
 opposition to the strategical idea Berlin -Bagdad 
 need involve us in a denial of a German ambition 
 to lead the economic development of Turkey. A 
 truly independent Turkey cannot exist by its own 
 strength in our generation. It must either be par- 
 titioned or controlled. Partition means the indefinite 
 prolongation of the war, and when it is achieved, 
 a triumph rather for Imperialism than for freedom 
 and nationality. The Turks themselves, or at least 
 their dominant party, have made their choice. They 
 have placed themselves under German direction. To 
 disturb that choice, if we are resolved upon it, we 
 must face an indefinite destruction of the best man- 
 hood of Europe. Is the end desirable in itself? No 
 one who knew the mind of Germany before this war 
 can doubt that her ruling class, including her 
 financiers and industrialists, drifted into the attitude 
 which made this war under a sense of thwarted 
 economic ambitions. They saw the greater part of 
 the world that is capable of colonization divided 
 between Britain, France, and Russia. With an 
 economic development immensely more advanced 
 than that of France and Russia, conscious of great 
 
THE ROADS OF, THE EAST 163 
 
 energies, and counting their growing population, they 
 had turned restlessly for a generation hither and 
 thither in the search for new outlets, spheres to 
 develop, and "places in the sun." They saw the 
 great empires growing bigger Morocco and Persia 
 were the last object-lessons while the combination 
 among the three World -Powers had seemed for 
 a long series of years to forbid their own expansion. 
 This mood undoubtedly eased the sudden plunge 
 into the crime of this war. If European statesman- 
 ship had been far -sighted, it would have realized 
 that a nation of such energies and power must sooner 
 or later be tempted to seize a field for those energies 
 corresponding to its power. There were two ways 
 of averting such a catastrophe. If all the Powers 
 could have been brought to treat their dependencies, 
 not as estates to be exploited but as trusts held for 
 the world and the native inhabitants ; if the tariff 
 walls around most of them had been broken down, 
 and the opportunities for mining, railway construction, 
 and the like thrown open impartially to the enter- 
 prise of all nations, then, indeed, the Germans would 
 have had no reason to desire, still less to conquer, 
 exclusive markets and spheres for themselves. Fail- 
 ing that solution, which our Empire alone had ever 
 approached, and only then in part, the prudent course 
 would have been to further the moderate realization 
 of German economic ambitions, and by an amicable 
 arrangement to find for her a sphere worthy of her 
 energies which she might develop as her own. That 
 was at two periods the policy of British statesman- 
 ship, and for the injury to European concord we must 
 look to the long interval occupied by the Morocco 
 Question (1904-11) which lay between them. Lord 
 Salisbury facilitated the acquisition of the German 
 African colonies in 1886. Sir Edward Grey, on 
 the very eve of this war, had all but completed a 
 treaty wliich would have met the German claim for 
 
1 64 A LEAGUE OF, NATIONS 
 
 the chief share in the development of Turkey. After 
 a decade of friction and jealousy we withdrew all 
 opposition to the Bagdad line, and took precautions 
 in our own interest only where it will approach the 
 Persian Gulf. Sir Edward Grey even went so far 
 in withdrawing from competition with Germany that 
 he declined as a matter of policy to press for con- 
 cessions to British subjects in Turkey. 1 The struggle 
 for the mastery of the Near East lay in 1914, not 
 between Germany and Britain, but between Germany 
 and Russia. 
 
 The war has destroyed the feeling of goodwill 
 with which Sir Edward Grey drafted that statesman- 
 like arrangement over Turkey. On sober grounds of 
 policy there is, however, as much to be said for it as 
 in the days before the war. We know better than we 
 did then what formidable energies are latent in the 
 German people. Now, as then, the chief problem 
 for European statesmanship is to turn those energies 
 into a harmless and productive course. Thwart 
 them, deny them their outlet, and once more they 
 may overflow in a destructive flood ; prepare their 
 channel for them, and they will help to turn the 
 wheels of civilization. The natural field for 
 German expansion lies in Turkey. The simplest 
 solution would be at the settlement to revert 
 to the British policy of 1914, and tacitly or 
 explicitly to recognize the " predominant interests " 
 of Germany in Turkey. That is, of course, merely 
 to accept an accomplished fact, or, rather, to refrain 
 from prolonging the war until the fact has been 
 altered. The Straits must be opened under an inter- 
 national guarantee. The railroad through Serbia 
 must be politically under Serbian control in the sense 
 that only by her free consent may it be used for the 
 transit of troops ; it might be well to arrange that 
 this and other trunk railways and ports of the East 
 
 * See his speech in the Foreign Office debate, July 10, 1914. 
 
THE ROADS OF THE EAST 165 
 
 should be subject, like the waterway of the Danube, 
 to an International Commission, whose duty it would 
 be to ensure equality of treatment for the commerce 
 of all nations which use them. There must be no 
 interference with the existing rights (including equal 
 treatment in the Customs -house) of other foreigners 
 in Turkey. But with these reservations the Powers 
 should agree not to interfere with the economic con- 
 trol which Germany has acquired over the greater 
 part of Turkey, and not to oppose such further 
 schemes of railway building, mining, or irrigation as 
 the enterprise of her subjects may promote. 1 The 
 development of the country under German guides 
 would bring great material gains to its inhabitants, 
 and their orderly, if too rigid, discipline would be a 
 prompt cure for the Turkish habit of slovenly and 
 indolent disorder. The absorption of German 
 energies in this fruitful but very difficult task would 
 in itself be a guarantee for the world's peace. 
 Before we dismiss this remedy for a destructive 
 militarism, let us ask ourselves in all candour how 
 long we should have kept our warships in home 
 waters and our Army at Aldershot, if we had lacked 
 
 1 It may be urged that the claims of France to Syria as " a sphere 
 of influence" should be enforced. Economic aims must be weighed 
 against the claims of nationality in Europe. The more the French 
 urge their pretensions to Syria, the harder will it be for them to 
 secure Alsace-Lorraine. Until we know more of the Arab rising 
 in the Holy Cities, it seems premature to raise the question of the 
 Caliphate. My own impression is that we exaggerate its importance. 
 A Sultan under German influence has clearly ceased to wield 
 any real authority outside his own dominions as the spiritual and 
 political head of Islam. On the other hand, to set up an Arab 
 Caliph who would appear to owe his position to British protection 
 would be (if any one were so foolish as to contemplate it) an entirely 
 delusive success. A puppet Caliph is a useless ally to any Christian 
 Power. The plain fact is that the Caliphate is to-day, morally, an 
 obsolete institution, and could only be revived by a Moslem prince 
 who possessed the reality of independence, and power with prestige. 
 
1 66 A LEAGUE OF NATIONS 
 
 the vast estate of India and Africa, Canada and 
 Australia, in which the energies of Empire -builders 
 and capitalists, the ambitions of Pro -Consuls, and the 
 high spirits of adventurous youth find an innocent 
 outlet and a beneficent field of work ? 
 
 III. THE ROAD TO INDIA. 
 
 11 By the exercise of cool judgment and Christian 
 charity," the reader may say, " I can just grasp 
 your argument that Germany has, not indeed a 
 right but a reasonable claim to some share in the 
 work of developing half -civilized countries. Three 
 years ago the idea of a German Turkey might not 
 have seemed more monstrous to the world than 
 the idea of a British India, a British Egypt, a 
 French North Africa and Indo -China, and a Russian 
 Siberia and Central Asia. But you have forgotten 
 that Mesopotamia touches the Persian Gulf, and 
 that the Bagdad line is the short cut to India. 
 If you allow the Germans to hold that line, what 
 security have you, that when they have spent a 
 generation in recuperating from this war and in 
 drilling the Turks, they will not lead a Turco- 
 German army to the conquest of India?" There 
 can be no absolute security against such a danger. 
 At various periods between the Battle of the Nile 
 and the Battle of Jutland the French, the Russians, 
 and the Germans (or some aggressive elements 
 among each of them) have coveted India. There 
 is only one security, which would be nearly absolute, 
 the contentment of the people of India with our 
 rule. If we know how to win that content- 
 ment and to deepen it by the adaptation of 
 our institutions to their progress, we have little 
 to fear from any aggressive empire. There are 
 other guarantees (apart from the moral guarantee 
 that the Germans have suffered lessons in this war 
 
 
THE ROADS OF THE EAST 167 
 
 which will not be forgotten for a generation), 
 notably distances, deserts and mountains, and our 
 command of the seas. 
 
 Let us consider briefly what a Turco-German 
 attack on India, with Bagdad and Basra for its land 
 and sea bases, would involve. Note in the first 
 place that such an attack could not take place without 
 the aid, or at least the very friendly neutrality, of 
 Russia. If the Germans, then, are going to march 
 on India, they can do it only with Russian goodwill, 
 for Russia would have to sit complacently neutral 
 while the Turco-German armies, with their flank 
 all the while exposed to Russian attack, prepared 
 their advance by land or sea or both. Without 
 Russian connivance a German march on India would 
 be a mad adventure. 
 
 The fear of an invasion of India from Mesopo- 
 tamia must be put to the test of a large-scale 
 map. There are 3,000 miles of railway from 
 Berlin to Bagdad. From Bagdad by land across 
 Persia there are 1,300 miles before our outer 
 defences could be reached at the frontiers of 
 Beluchistan. There is no railway along the Persian 
 shore ; there is no road, and the country is a 
 sparsely peopled desert, arid, torrid, and unhealthy. 
 Or, if the fear is of attack by sea from Basra or 
 Koweit, there are two remarks to be made. In 
 the first place, the naval police of the Gulf must 
 remain in our hands, and with it some guarantees 
 for the free navigation of the Shat-el-Arab. Koweit 
 is and should remain a British Protectorate. 
 Secondly, the Turkish ports could not be made 
 into a naval base without long preparation. Such 
 preparation could not be hidden, and it would be 
 a legitimate occasion for protest and interference. 
 The naval use of Basra, a port accessible only to 
 vessels of light draught, might, if necessary, be 
 forbidden by treaty. If the treaty were broken, 
 
1 68 A LEAGUE OF NATIONS 
 
 then ours would be the right to strike first. At 
 the worst, a glance at the map will show that the 
 Persian Gulf is far from offering a favourable base 
 for a naval attack on India. The shore of its 
 narrow entrance is in our recognized sphere, and 
 its ports and islands are at the disposal of our 
 Navy. The Power that holds Bunder Abbas and 
 the islands could close the Gulf with minefields 
 without so much as exposing its fleet to attack. 
 From the standpoint of strategy, the wiser course, 
 if ever India has to be defended against an attack 
 from the West, is not to expose ourselves far from 
 our own base, whether in Mesopotamia or in Persia, 
 but, on the contrary, to compel the enemy to attack 
 us as far from his own base as possible, and to 
 make of distance and desert, obstacles which he, 
 and not we, must overcome. The art of trench 
 warfare developed in this war, and the discovery 
 that defensive lines can be drawn across a narrow 
 sea ought to leave us few anxieties about our 
 ability at need to close the Persian Gulf and to 
 defend the natural mountain frontiers of India. Our 
 dangers would begin only if we insisted on taking 
 our stand in the plains of Mesopotamia or the 
 deserts of Persia. 
 
 Mesopotamia has a long military history, iand 
 even for a modern Power the records of Babylon, 
 Assyria, and Bagdad are full of instruction. It 
 was always easy to build up a powerful civiliza- 
 tion between the two rivers, but its wealth made 
 it a dazzling lure to all its poorer neighbours, and 
 its flat plains were never easy to defend. Babylon 
 and Nineveh were forced to expand and to become 
 conquering empires, simply because they could find 
 security only by holding the distant mountain chains 
 which bar the roads to the Garden of Eden. If 
 we held Mesopotamia still worse, if we held only 
 its lower half so far from having made our posi- 
 
THE ROADS OF THE EAST 169 
 
 tion in the East secure, we should merely have 
 acquired new frontiers to defend, and given our- 
 selves as neighbours Powers with a greater military 
 organization than our own. The case for the per- 
 manent adoption of conscription would be immensely 
 strengthened, and our new acquisition, profitable 
 to a few financiers and contractors, would prove 
 to be a heavy burden to the masses of our popula- 
 tion. It is a dangerous policy for a sea Power 
 to plant itself on distant coasts with the object 
 of barring the access of land Powers to the water. 
 We curse the folly which led us to play that part 
 against Russia ; let us not adopt it towards 
 Germany. The land Power in such a case will 
 bend its mind to the task of breaking through, 
 and we shall find that we must meet it on land 
 with a great army, and not merely on sea. It is 
 a mad military logic which makes the defence of 
 India a pretext for extending our Empire over un- 
 limited stretches of the earth. We took the Cape, 
 Gibraltar, Malta, Cyprus, Egypt, and South Persia 
 under the spur of that strategical argument. We 
 have roads enough to India. 
 
 But is it really the strategical argument which 
 has led our Imperialists to propose to themselves 
 the acquisition of Mesopotamia? They are at least 
 well aware of its vast potential wealth. Restore 
 its ancient canals, and there is little doubt that 
 its deserts would soon attract a population and pro- 
 duce a wealth as great as those of Egypt. It 
 is the granary and the cotton -field of the future. 
 I would urge no moral argument against its 
 acquisition. The Ottoman Empire can plead no 
 right against the civilized world to keep this garden 
 for all time a wasted and disorderly desert. Its 
 native Arabs and Kurds have little love for the 
 Turks, and few moralists would care to defend the 
 right of this sparse and backward population to 
 
1 70 A LEAGUE OF NATIONS 
 
 exclude the millions who might live by tilling the 
 soil which they neglect. 
 
 It is idle to talk of building up in Mesopotamia 
 an Arab national State under British protection. 
 The population, to begin with, is mixed, including 
 Persians, Kurds, Jews, and Syrian Christians, as well 
 as Arabs. It is certain that the Arabs do not wel- 
 come lour advent : they opposed it hotly. Their 
 ideal is certainly not the orderly modern dependency, 
 dominated by vast capital enterprises, which we 
 should create. Nor could the Arab character of 
 the country survive for long, for its rapid develop- 
 ment "would soon promote immigration, and the 
 Indians, whether settlers or coolies, would soon out- 
 number the Arabs. This romantic devotion to 
 Arab nationalism (a thing 1 which does not in 
 any Western sense exist) is a very thin disguise 
 for the economic and strategical motives which 
 really explain our interests in this potentially 
 wealthy region. Mesopotamia must be reclaimed, 
 and will be reclaimed, and the only question 
 is whether the work shall be done by British or 
 German or international enterprise. A strong argu- 
 ment might be put forward for an attempt to set 
 up a system of control and development by inter- 
 national institutions. Turkish suzerainty might be 
 retained, and might even again become effective, 
 if Turkey should in the interval reform. A Com- 
 mission might be named by the League of Nations 
 to develop this rich source of raw materials for the 
 good of its inhabitants and the benefit of the world. 
 It is worth considering whether the Armenians might 
 be assisted to settle here. If Indians are introduced, 
 it ought to be as free settlers and not as indentured 
 coolies. The share of the capital of the various 
 Powers in the work of development must be adjusted 
 equitably. The irrigation contracts, railway and 
 harbour construction, the oil-wells and the like 
 
THE ROADS OF THE EAST 171 
 
 afford ample scope for a reasonable division among 
 British, German, and other contractors. All these 
 enterprises ought to be treated not as sources of 
 profit for foreigners, but as the means of civilizing 
 and building up the whole of Turkey : every 
 concession ought after a term of years to revert 
 to the State. This sphere of work must not 
 be closed to our present enemies, still less must 
 it be monopolized for ourselves. In the long 
 run, our children and children's children will have 
 cause to regret our decision if we should insist 
 on adding Mesopotamia to our own Empire. An 
 impartial tribunal, if it were to allot the still un- 
 appropriated " places in the sun," would have some 
 regard to " equality of opportunity " among the 
 Powers. It would not always give " to him who 
 hath." It would remind us that we already hold 
 sway over a fourth of the inhabited earth. It 
 would ask us whether with Egypt and India already 
 in our possession, we need another great dependency 
 of the same type. Our people ;went into this war 
 with a disinterested purpose. History will judge 
 us, not by our mind as we went in, but by our 
 hands as we come out. A nation which wages 
 war for an idea must come out of it with empty 
 hands. Its reward must be the triumph of the idea. 
 A similar strategic problem, crossed with a 
 romantic national idea, presents itself in Palestine. 
 The younger school of our soldiers insists that 
 Egypt and the Suez Canal will never be secure, if 
 the Turks, with the Germans behind them, are left 
 in possession of the Holy Land. The older school 
 held, on the contrary, that the desert of Sinai was 
 the best protection which the Canal could have. 
 Strategical arguments are always apt to lead to an 
 infinite process. Suppose that we secure Palestine : 
 it would have a northern frontier. To make this 
 secure, we must encourage the French to take Syria, 
 
172 A LEAGUE OF NATIONS 
 
 and so, step by step, we reach the total dismember- 
 ment of Turkey. There is no finality in this search 
 for security. If we allow it to lead us into annexa- 
 tions, we cannot resist similar claims by our Allies. 
 In the end every one will be " secure," except the 
 enemy (who by hypothesis has been defeated), and 
 his " insecurity " will then become for him a motive 
 for new wars. The answer to all these arguments, 
 whether they apply to Palestine or Constantinople, 
 to the Adriatic or the Rhine, to Mesopotamia or 
 to Belgium, is that security in the future must be 
 sought not by material guarantees buf by the cove- 
 nanted co-operation of nations. There is another 
 reason for distrusting these confident arguments 
 which promise us security if we acquire this or the 
 other frontier. Who can foresee the developments 
 in the next twenty years of aircraft and the sub- 
 marine? Invention laughs at our strategical lock- 
 smiths. 
 
 While we must resist any thought of turning 
 Palestine into a British dependency, the idea of 
 promoting Zionist hopes at the settlement must not 
 be lost sight of. It is incomparably more important 
 in the interest of the Jews to secure a general charter 
 of equal rights for them, than to promote their settle- 
 ment in the Holy Land. But these two purposes 
 are not exclusive and both deserve attention. The 
 Zionist claim is for some corner of the earth in which 
 they may build up a self-governing Jewish society, 
 where they may develop their own language, their 
 own culture, their own institutions, overshadowed 
 by no other civilization. Palestine in their hands 
 would become a hearth and focus of national, in- 
 tellectual, and religious life, for this people scattered 
 in two hemispheres. Their agricultural colonies have 
 done miraculously well, and one would wish to make 
 all the necessary conditions for their development. 
 As yet, however, it must not be forgotten that the 
 
THE ROADS OF THE EAST 173 
 
 Jews are not the majority in Palestine. The least 
 that should be done would be to place these colonies 
 under the special fostering protection of the League 
 of Nations, which would name a Commission to 
 promote Jewish immigration and to watch the 
 interests of the settlers. Eventually, as the Jewish 
 population increased, a Jewish State might be 
 created, with the guarantee of the League. The 
 intermediate stage would be to make it an area 
 directly administered by the League. The objec- 
 tions of the Turks to this and other infringements 
 of their sovereignty would yield readily to united 
 pressure, if it were accompanied by financial com- 
 pensations which will relieve them from bankruptcy. 
 
 IV. THE REFORM OF TURKEY. 
 
 Strategy and economics do not exhaust the long 
 chapter of problems which Turkey will present to 
 the world at the Settlement. Let us beware of 
 using the claims of humanity as a thin cloak for 
 Imperialism, but let us not on that account forget 
 them. The Concert of Europe was throughout last 
 century a miserably ineffective instrument of reform. 
 It was ruined by the shifting and competing am- 
 bitions of the Great Powers. Undeterred by the 
 comparative failure of internationalism in the past, 
 we are proposing to give it everywhere a bolder 
 extension. In Turkey also we must return to the 
 principle of international control or guidance, striving 
 only to make it more disinterested, more harmonious, 
 and less galling to the Turks. Russian ambitions 
 are eliminated. British ambitions have no need of 
 this field. If the general idea is that Turkey as a 
 whole shall be recognized as the natural sphere of 
 German commercial expansion, it follows that Ger- 
 many should be allowed to lead in the work pf 
 economic development, without, however, acquiring 
 a monopoly or excluding the influence of others. 
 
174 A LEAGUE OF NATIONS 
 
 It would be rash to sketch any detailed scheme at 
 this stage, for we know little of the internal life 
 of Turkey during these years of war. It has not 
 all been retrograde : the position of women, for 
 example, has immensely improved, and the Germans, 
 in their own interests, have done, or tried to do, much 
 for the development of agriculture. Their experts 
 are already installed in the various ministries, and 
 this innovation may be permanent. The old inter- 
 national control over finance will probably be 
 revived, and might be extended. German influence 
 may be trusted to do its work ably on the material 
 side. Whatever scope may be conceded to the 
 Germans in Turkey, the general scheme of European 
 disarmament must be applied with rigid precautions 
 to the Ottoman Empire. It must not become a 
 German military auxiliary. 
 
 The special function of the League of Nations, and 
 of international as distinct from German control, 
 would naturally be to watch over the interests of 
 the non-Turkish races. For my own part I expect 
 but moderate benefits from the introduction of 
 parliamentary institutions : a generation may pass 
 before they bear fruit. Nor is it desirable to insist 
 in many cases on the creation of autonomous areas. 
 That policy always looks like the beginning of 
 dismemberment, arouses Turkish suspicions, promotes 
 Imperialist intrigues, and exposes any part of the 
 favoured race which may be left outside the protected 
 area to persecution. The key to reform lies, to my 
 thinking, in a development of the ancient Turkish 
 institution of the " Millet." Every nationality in 
 Turkey, grouped around its Church, had in the 
 past its own extensive and comparatively secure 
 privileges, especially in the field of education. If 
 the central lay synods or councils of the nationalities 
 could be democratized somewhat further, they would 
 yield a representative system with more reality and 
 
THE ROADS OF THE EAST 175 
 
 promise in it than the pseudo- occidental parliament 
 of the Young Turks. If the Arabs of Syria and the 
 Kurds were recognized, like the Greeks, Armenians,, 
 and Jews as separate " Millets," their national 
 development would begin on a secure foundation. 
 The supreme mistake of the Young Turks was to 
 break down this traditional oriental system of tolera- 
 tion, instead of developing it. The League of 
 Nations might well take over the work of the old 
 Concert, by nominating a small expert " Com- 
 mission of Nationalities " to evolve and watch over a 
 plan of reform on this basis. Each " Millet " or 
 nationality would have its own elected council 
 to administer its own schools and communal asso- 
 ciations, to present its grievances to the Porte, and 
 to consider legislative proposals. Collectively these 
 councils might form an Ottoman Senate. This 
 scheme may look puzzling and unattractive to the 
 Western reader. It would please Greeks and 
 Armenians, however, and it would not alarm the 
 Turks, as any plan of territorial autonomy will 
 always do . 
 
 It remains to consider the terrible special case of 
 the Armenians. Some data are lacking. HQW 
 many, after the last unexampled massacre, are left 
 alive ? Can Russia be induced to modify her formula 
 of "no annexations " so far as to take over some 
 part at least of the Armenian area? The real diffi- 
 culty is, of course, that even before the massacre 
 the Armenians were a scattered minority. In none 
 of the six " Armenian Vilayets " (provinces) were 
 they a majority. Their numbers are now so much 
 reduced that it seems futile to talk of reviving the 
 ancient Armenian State. The wiser course might 
 be to promote the migration of the survivors. An 
 International Commission might be set up which 
 would assess the value? of their lands and properties 
 as it stood before the massacre, pay this over to 
 
17.6 A LEAGUE OF NATIONS 
 
 those who remain alive, and find for them in Turkey 
 a suitable place of refuge, expropriating compul- 
 sorily with full compensation the Mussulman in- 
 habitants of this selected area. The chosen area 
 must be large enough to allow for the natural in- 
 crease of population, and it must be situated on the 
 coast or next to the frontier of the Russian Caucasus 
 so as to ensure European protection. This area 
 might be found in the zone occupied by the Russians 
 (Erzeroum, Van, and Trebizond), or in Mesopotamia, 
 or perhaps in " Lesser Armenia," round Adana and 
 Mersina. Whether under Russian or international 
 control, this New Armenia must be wholly withdrawn 
 from direct Turkish rule. The promotion of migra- 
 tion, as far as possible by direct exchange of lands, 
 under international auspices, might indeed be at- 
 tempted generally, and on a large scale, especially 
 in the Balkans, as a means of curing, without need- 
 less hardships, the desperate mixture of races which 
 often renders a just partition impossible. 
 
 If this war should end, as other wars that arose 
 from the Eastern question have ended, without the 
 creation pf any permanent International Society, 
 these proposals would be hopelessly inadequate. 
 This war must end, however, in the creation of an 
 organism which can work steadily upon the problem 
 of reform. It must begin by eliminating the rivalries 
 based on strategy and economics . These have always 
 been the disturbing and distorting factors in the past. 
 The Powers never dealt sincerely with the problem 
 of reform, because most of them were thinking only 
 of their military and commercial interests. To 
 these the interests both of the Turks and of the 
 subject races were heartlessly sacrificed. It was 
 not so much intolerance as the Turkish dread of 
 European Imperialism, which led to the historic 
 massacres of Bulgarians and Armenians. They were 
 slaughtered, not so much because they were Chris- 
 
THE ROADS OF, THE EAST 177, 
 
 tians as because they were the partisans and 
 proteges of Powers which coveted Turkish lands. 
 When these rivalries have been satisfied or re- 
 nounced, the path will be clear to the disinterested 
 work which humanity demands from us all in 
 Turkey. 
 
V, 
 
 THE FUTURE OF ALLIANCES 
 
 IN his sketch of a Christian commonwealth which 
 should ensure perpetual peace, the Abbe* de Saint - 
 Pierre laid it down as an axiom that no partial 
 league would or could be formed within the great 
 Confederation. This stipulation reminds us of the 
 deadly sentence in which Rousseau damned at once 
 the scheme and the contemporary world. There 
 was, he said, nothing impossible about the scheme, 
 save that it should ever be adopted by princes. 
 On this question of alliances or leagues within the 
 great alliance, theory and reality seem to stand in 
 the sharpest contradiction. From the standpoint 
 of principle, any student who attempted to work 
 out the plan of a league .of peace would be driven 
 to Saint -Pierre's position : partial alliances within 
 the League of Nations would menace it with dis- 
 ruption. If they were offensive, they would imply, 
 a willingness in some conditions to make war in 
 spite of the League. If they were defensive, they 
 would imply a doubt of the goodwill of other 
 members, and also of the League's ability to carry 
 out the general obligation of mutual defence which 
 is its foundation. If I really believe that, should 
 I be attacked, all my neighbours will rush to my 
 defence, I shall not be at pains to bind one rather 
 than another by a special promise to defend me. 
 The line, moreover, between defensive and 
 
 offensive alliances is notoriously hard to draw. 
 
 173 
 
THE FUTURE OF. ALLIANCES 179 
 
 From the moment that the making of alliances 
 began, each alliance would call forth its counter- 
 acting alliance, and the League would be what 
 Europe was before this war, an uneasy collection 
 of groups, arming and intriguing against each other, 
 divided by mutual suspicions and partisanships. 
 Since each Power must care first of all for its own 
 allies, the hope that conferences or Councils of 
 Conciliation would ever render an impartial or 
 objective decision would be slight. A Power, like 
 the United States, standing outside the two chief 
 groups might, indeed, mediate between them ; but 
 that responsibility might in the long run prove 
 toos, onerous, and the Power which attempted to 
 take this duty on itself might come to be regarded 
 as an aspiring dictator. The belief that the system 
 of groups might by creating a balance in Europe 
 preserve the peace, since each must be so for- 
 midable that an attack would always be risky, was 
 very generally held on the eve of this war. It was 
 often advanced as a tenable theory, and WSLS put 
 forward by official and inspired writers in all 
 countries whenever it was necessary to answer the 
 critics of the system. The Balance of Power 
 is in some contexts a peculiarly British policy, 
 but it was adopted universally in the last genera- 
 tion. No one knows what exactly are the terms 
 of the Franco -Russian Alliance (contracted in 
 ;i894), but the most authoritative of contemporary 
 French historians states that it is a pledge to give 
 mutual support if the diplomatic concert had failed 
 "to maintain peace and the European balance."' 1 
 References to peace and the Balance of Power 
 became commonplaces in royal toasts. Statesmen 
 really believed in the salutary effect of " the group - 
 ing of the European Powers, whose value for the 
 preservation of the Balance of Power and peace 
 
 1 See Debidour, " Histoire Diplomatique," vol. iii. p. 193. 
 
i8o A LEAGUE OF NATIONS 
 
 is proved." ' It is generally supposed that idealists 
 have a monopoly of illusions. Those of the prac- 
 tical man are as fantastic, and they are commonly 
 duller. Need one point out to-day why a Balance 
 of Power is always a precarious nay, an impos- 
 sible expedient for the preservation of peace ? No 
 one sincerely wants a balance, in the sense of an 
 exact equilibrium of forces. Each side strives to 
 make a balance favourable to itself. No Power 
 or group of Powers was ever known to refuse an 
 accession of strength, lest thereby it should disturb 
 the balance. Calculation of the balanced forces 
 does not suffice to prevent war, because the hope 
 is always present that some part of the enemy's 
 structure of alliances will break down, as the Italian 
 and Roumanian outworks of the Triple Alliance 
 did, or else that his armaments may prove to be 
 less formidable than they appear. The group system 
 seemed to prevent some wars. Thus it is known 
 that Germany twice vetoed aggressive action by 
 Austria in the Balkans during the crisis of 1912-13. 
 But we may make too much of such a service. 
 If there had been no strong ally behind Austria, 
 she would not have dared on these two occasions 
 even to dream of aggression ; nor would she have 
 ventured on her Bosnian coup in 1908, and, above 
 all, she would not have challenged Russia by her 
 ultimatum to Serbia in 1914. A" strong Power 
 cannot always veto the forward policy of an ally ; 
 if it invariably did so, its alliance would not be 
 in request. The common apology for alliances, 
 that they are always defensive, need hardly detain 
 us. In modern times there is no such thing as 
 aggression : it is understood that every war is for 
 every participant in it defensive in motive. Even 
 the alliance contracted by the Balkan States in 1912; 
 
 1 From the official communication issued after the meeting of the 
 Tsar and the Kaiser in July 1912 (Reventlovv, p. 440). 
 
THE FUTURE OF ALLIANCES 181 
 
 for the dismemberment of European Turkey was 
 based on a treaty which was in form purely defen- 
 sive. Defence may be defined as the movements 
 of one's own sword. But even if an ally feels 
 in his own inner mind that his partner is acting 
 aggressively, he may not feel free to leave him 
 to his fate. The consequences of allowing one's 
 ally to be destroyed might be fatal to oneself. If, 
 for example, Germany had said in 1914 that Austria 
 was behaving aggressively, and had refused to sup- 
 port her (at one moment the German Chancellor 
 did threaten to use such pressure), Austria might 
 have drawn back ; but if she had chosen to persist, 
 Germany could hardly have remained neutral, for 
 the collapse and dismemberment of Austria would 
 have left Germany isolated and weakened. If we 
 had chosen to think (it would have been a 
 grotesquely perverse view) that France acted aggres- 
 sively in 1914, could we have afforded to remain 
 neutral to the end? Some of the considerations 
 which weighed with us when we held France to 
 be innocent of aggressive motives would have been 
 as cogent if she had been guilty in neither case 
 could we have allowed her to be weakened 
 beyond a certain point without grave danger to 
 ourselves. The Balance of Power is a non-moral 
 idea, and one cannot import moral conceptions into 
 it. If an alliance is a necessary part of one's 
 own defensive system, it follows that one cannot 
 allow one's ally to be weakened, whatever one may 
 privately think of his conduct. Of the system of 
 alliances which prevailed in Europe before this war 
 one can say only one thing with complete confi- 
 dence : it made it certain that any European war 
 must be a universal war. Alliances, moreover, are 
 open to all the grave moral objections which Tolstoy 
 raised against oaths the objections which that un- 
 deservedly neglected philosopher Godwin advanced 
 
1 82 A LEAGUE OF NATIONS 
 
 against all promises. 1 It was plain to us all that 
 alliances frustrated the Concert since, on each issue 
 that arose, they made every Power in advance a 
 fettered and committed partisan. They would make 
 a League of Peace unworkable. 
 
 If this theoretical objection to alliances be sound, 
 it is plain that the League of Peace lies in the 
 dim future, if it is even there. The whole trend 
 of our thought is to render alliances more per- 
 manent, more intimate, and more pervasive. So 
 far from proposing to dissolve them after this war, 
 the study of all our practical statesmen is how 
 we may deepen and extend them 1 . It is pro- 
 posed to carry them from warfare into commerce. 
 We are to base upon them our tariffs, our shipping 
 legislation, our whole system of production and 
 exchange. This is more than policy : it answers 
 to a deep sense of comradeship. Nations which 
 have mingled their blood in one trench will never 
 hereafter think of each other as strangers. This 
 tendency is as marked on the other side as it is 
 on ours. The ideal of a "- Central Europe " united 
 for war and trade was preached with lofty 
 eloquence and glowing sentiment by Dr. Naumann 
 long before our own programme had been defined 
 in the Paris Resolutions. If the Allies impose 
 terms on Germany, they will have to maintain their 
 bond, in order to ensure to themselves the fruits 
 of their victory. If they acquire territory, their 
 next thought will be how best to defend it. The 
 suggestion that we should dissolve the Alliance 
 
 1 If my promise contradicts n?y duty, it is immoral ; if it agrees with 
 it, it teaches me to do that from a precarious and temporary motive 
 which ought to be done from its intrinsic recommendations. ... By 
 promising we bind ourselves to learn nothing from time, to make 
 no use of knowledge to be acquired. . . . Promises deprive us of a 
 full use of our understanding. Political Justice. 
 
THE FUTURE OF ALLIANCES 183 
 
 would certainly excite to-day in most men's minds 
 a mingled fear and indignation. It is not so certain 
 that this feeling will be permanent. Their co- 
 operation in the Crimea was far from leaving a 
 sense of mutual trust in the breasts of British and 
 French statesmen sixty years ago. The Allies will 
 all be heavily in our debt, and the relation of 
 debtor and creditor is rarely the happiest. The 
 working out of the Paris Programme will demand 
 from every one a continual sacrifice of legitimate 
 interests. Large coalitions composed of partners 
 whose risks and services, whose development and 
 resources are markedly unequal, inevitably develop 
 jealousies and the sense of imperilled inde- 
 pendence. The current Allied view of the hostile 
 coalition is that it is composed of a bully and his 
 vassals. The Germans take an equally unflattering 
 view of our own combination. These are the 
 exaggerations of enmity ; but it is true that every 
 coalition must impose unequal burdens and require 
 some measure of subordination. But whatever the 
 future of alliances may be, it is in the last degree 
 unlikely that Europe will, after the war, dare to 
 dispense with them. The architect of a League, 
 of Peace who set out with the axiom that alliances 
 are treason to the League, would write himself down 
 a hopeless doctrinaire. If alliances are to be shaped 
 on the aggressive lines of the Paris Programme, 
 then it is idle to speculate about any League of 
 Peace. But alliances may survive in the sense that 
 some Powers will continue to shape their external 
 policy in common, and to concert together their 
 means of defence. Are such bonds necessarily a 
 barrier to any general League ? 
 
 In theory any alliance within a League is at 
 best superfluous, as at worst it must be subversive. 
 Let us beware, however, lest we fall victims to 
 theory. The same individualist reasoning led 
 
.184 A LEAGUE OF. NATIONS 
 
 Rousseau to the doctrine that any association of 
 citizens within the State is implicitly treason against 
 it. That view has been the parent of much oppres- 
 sion from the days of the French Revolution down- 
 wards. An international League, like a national 
 State, can tolerate many associations and parties 
 within itself, provided there be loyalty in all to 
 the conception of the general good and obedience 
 to the general will. The surest way to destroy this 
 loyalty or to prevent its growth would be to frown 
 iupon associations which have an historical or 
 emotional meaning. Within our League there must 
 be room for temporary and even for permanent 
 groupings among States which have a common past, 
 which pursue identical ends, share common interests, 
 and are conscious of close affinity in race or civi- 
 lization. If we must admit so much, is it possible 
 in practice to forbid States which are aware of 
 these closer bonds and habitually act in accord- 
 ance with them, to express their unity by contract- 
 ing military obligations towards each other ? In 
 practice such alliances will imperil the League, but 
 if we must take the view that they would utterly 
 destroy it, then it seems that the creation of the 
 League must be postponed. To postpone it may 
 well be to refuse it altogether, for if once the 
 process of competitive arming starts again, aggra- 
 vated by the trade war, Europe will not move 
 towards the League, and only a miracle or a 
 revolution would bring it within our tgrasp. 
 
 There were not wanting, in the past, expedients 
 by which the Powers sought to modify the apparent 
 menace of their hostile confrontations. Of reassuring 
 declarations there was never any lack. We always 
 maintained that while the Entente Cordiale implied 
 a special intimacy with France it had no " point " 
 against Germany. When, however, " conversa- 
 tions " of our military and naval representatives 
 
THE FUTURE OF ALLIANCES 185 
 
 were followed by significant changes in the dis- 
 positions of the two fleets, it was plain that while 
 the Entente might be defensive in intention, its 
 defence was adjusted to the assumption , that 
 Germany was the common enemy. The intimate 
 links between the German and Russian Courts were 
 another device which probably did achieve much 
 to soften political and military rivalry, but the ex- 
 change of telegrams between the Kaiser and the 
 Tsar on the eve of this war showed how frail a 
 support of peace such personal relations must always 
 be when national passions are aroused. The various 
 interpenetrations that went on between the two 
 systems ought to have lessened their latent 
 antagonism, but the general effect of these partial 
 approaches was rarely happy. When Italy com- 
 posed her long feud with France, and entered into 
 friendly arrangements with her in Mediterranean 
 questions, the German comment was that Italy was 
 being " debauched " from her alliance, while {he 
 French congratulated themselves that they were 
 " dislocating " the Triple Alliance. 1 The same 
 moral discomfort followed for a time the close 
 approach of Russia, under M. Sazonoff's .guidance, 
 to Germany in the Potsdam agreement of 1910. 
 Our own attempts to reach an Anglo -German under- 
 standing in 1912 and 1913, though they resulted 
 
 1 Indeed, the equivocal position of Italy may well have been one 
 of the reasons which led the German Chancellor to dislike Sir 
 Edward Grey's proposal of mediation by the four neutral Powers 
 in July 1914. In a dispute between Russia and Austria, it seemed 
 at a first glance that Germany and Italy, Great Britain and France 
 would constitute a well-balanced jury. Two of the four were allies 
 of Austria, a third the ally and the fourth the close friend of Russia. 
 But Italy was an ally only in name, and perhaps the least likely of all 
 the four Powers to adopt an attitude friendly to Austria. The German 
 Chancellor may possibly have thought that he was being invited 
 to enter a council in which the voting would be three to one 
 against him. 
 
1 86 A LEAGUE OF NATIONS 
 
 in real good feeling and in a comprehensive set 
 of understandings between the two Governments, 
 and served to bridge the dangerous Balkan crisis, 
 did not avail to improve the general relations of 
 the two groups. Franco -German, and eventually 
 Russo-German, relations grew in 1913 and 1914 
 steadily worse, and the rivalry in land armaments 
 reached a phase of intolerable menace. 
 
 There always was in the minds of our statesmen 
 a sharp distinction between an entente and an 
 alliance. We were not (after the close of the 
 Morocco episode) bound by any formal treaty to 
 support France or Russia. None the less, by the 
 general trend of our policy, but above all by 
 the contingent military and naval arrangements 
 which we had made with them, we had led them 
 to form well-grounded hopes of our support, while 
 we had allowed or encouraged France an the dis- 
 posal of her Fleet to act on these hopes. When 
 the crisis came, there seemed to be a chance that 
 an expert diplomatist might make use of the un- 
 certainty of our attitude in the interests of peace. 
 If Germany and Austria were sure that we should 
 oppose them by arms, while Russia and France were 
 left in doubt whether we should support them, each 
 side would have the appropriate motive for 
 moderation. The Foreign Office probably aimed 
 at producing these two distinct impressions. It 
 would have been an almost impossibly difficult feat, 
 and as a matter of fact it did not succeed. France, 
 if we may judge by the tone of President 
 Poincare's letter to the King, really was for a few 
 days in painful doubt, but she was not formally 
 a principal in the quarrel, and could do little to 
 avoid it. Russia, on the one hand, did by some 
 means reach the conviction that she could rely on 
 our naval aid, and this undoubtedly strengthened 
 her attitude at the critical moment. Germany, on 
 
THE FUTURE OF ALLIANCES 187. 
 
 the other hand, whether because her Ambassador 
 was too sanguine, or because our marked friendli- 
 ness since 1912 had impressed her unduly, or 
 because she misread the national character, did not 
 believe until the last moment that we would fight. 
 Her surprise and fury, when at last she realized 
 the truth, do not authorize any criticism of our 
 good intentions, but they do suggest that the loose, 
 uncertain tie of an entente has grave disad- 
 vantages which render it a doubtful instrument of 
 peace. When the Germans blamed Sir Edward 
 Grey for the outbreak of the war, they implied 
 that if they had realized in time that he would 
 fight on the side of Russia and France, they 
 would and could have avoided the war. It is 
 from their standpoint a deadly admission, for it 
 convicts them, at the first stages of the crisis of 
 bullying. At the risk of passing moral condem- 
 nation on themselves, they succeed in making a 
 technical criticism of us. The loosely knit 
 entente was not, as things turned out, an 
 improvement in diplomatic technique on the old 
 alliance. It may, indeed, have been adopted, not 
 because our Foreign Office supposed that it was 
 preferable to the conventional continental defensive 
 alliance, but because public opinion, and especially 
 Liberal opinion, was not prepared for a closer tie 
 even with France and did not, in fact, realize how 
 close the tie had become. As an instrument designed 
 for the preservation of peace the entente had all 
 the disadvantages of an alliance, for no allianca 
 could have dug a sharper and deeper chasm across 
 Europe than that which the creation of the entente 
 caused from 1905 to 1911. It lacked, however, 
 the one advantage of an alliance, since it did not 
 so surely warn the enemy that he would have to 
 meet united forces. An open alliance, based on 
 a published and clearly drafted treaty, might, in 
 
1 88 "A LEAGUE OF. NATIONS 
 
 fact, have been less risky than a vague entente 
 which depended for its interpretation on the per- 
 sonal relations of a little circle of Ministers and 
 Ambassadors . 
 
 The subtlest method of depriving an alliance of 
 any appearance of aggression was an invention of 
 Bismarck's. His famous Treaty of " Re -insurance " 
 has been rather generally condemned, but it is 
 the inevitable fate of a genius who wrought much 
 ill, that even his good or harmless actions are likely 
 to be harshly judged. The case has more than 
 a theoretical interest for us, because it throws light 
 on the working of the German official mind in 
 1912, when the Chancellor proposed a similar 
 arrangement to Lord Haldane. The facts are these. 
 In 1879, immediately after the Berlin Congress, 
 which had left in the Russian mind a deep resent- 
 ment against Germany, Bismarck concluded the 
 alliance with Austria which gave place three years 
 later to the Triple Alliance. It was a purely 
 defensive alliance ; it was to be kept secret and 
 to come into force only if Russia should attack 
 Germany or Austria ; the two parties in concluding 
 it actually recorded in its text their hope that 
 it would never be necessary to invoke it, or to 
 publish it. In 1884 the three Emperors met at 
 Skierniwice, and gave each other an undertaking 
 that they would observe benevolent neutrality if 
 any of them should be attacked. They had in mind 
 in all probability the chance of a French attack 
 on Germany (the Deroulede-Boulanger movement 
 had just begun), or of a British attack on Russia. 
 In 1887 this pact was renewed for a further 
 period of three years, this time between Germany 
 and Russia alone, though the Austrian Emperor was 
 informed of it. Once more Germany and Russia 
 promised benevolent neutrality towards each other 
 if either of them should be attacked by a third 
 
THE FUTURE OF ALLIANCES 189 
 
 Power. At this time Austro- Russian relations were 
 strained, owing to the Bulgarian Question, and when 
 long afterwards the treaty became known, it was 
 commonly held that Bismarck, while allying himself 
 to Austria, had promised Russia his neutrality 
 specifically in case of an Austrian attack on Russia. 
 But would Austria ever have dreamed of attacking 
 Russia alone? Even had she done so, was 
 Germany, which had made only a defensive alliance 
 with her, bound in any way to countenance her 
 aggression? It is really more probable, as Count 
 Reventlow argues, 1 that Bismarck was promising 
 Russia that in case of an Anglo -^Russian war (always 
 in those years a possibility) he would remain neutral, 
 and so relieve Russia from any anxiety about her, 
 European frontier, while in return he received in 
 effect an assurance that Russia would not intervene 
 for her own profit in a Franco- German war. 
 However this may be, the Treaty of " Re -insurance " 
 might have meant, and in certain conjunctions 
 would have meant when read in connection with 
 the Triple Alliance, that Germany would defend 
 Austria if Austria were attacked by Russia, but 
 would show benevolent neutrality to Russia if 
 Austria attacked her. Was there any duplicity 
 here? Personally I cannot see it. It seems to 
 me an ingenious way of underlining the defensive 
 character of the Austro-German alliance. " So 
 genuinely defensive is it," said Bismarck in effect 
 to the Tsar, " that I'll be your friend if Austria 
 attacks you." But undoubtedly the arrangement 
 was felt even by Germans to be riskily subtle, while 
 Austrians considered it treacherous. Certainly, if 
 an alliance means " my ally right or wrong," if 
 it is a] pledge of mutual support irrespective of 
 the merits of the case or the conduct of the ally, 
 then *-' re -insurance " was an act of very questionable 
 
 1 " Deutschlands Auswartige Politik," pp. 18-26. 
 
A LEAGUE OF. NATIONS 
 
 faith. If diplomacy always includes " attack " when 
 it says " defence," then certainly the treaty was 
 treacherous. Count Caprivi, partly because he was 
 a blunt and honest man, and partly because he was, 
 on the whole, pro-British and anti-Russian, would 
 not have renewed it even if the Tsar had been 
 willing. Baron Marschall (as Foreign Minister) 
 gave in the Reichstag this interesting retrospective 
 explanation : " In a critical emergency Germany 
 would have had to settle the difficult question 
 whether it was a case of attack OIT defence, and 
 in either event when Austro-Russian friction 
 occurred, would have been under the unpleasant 
 necessity of flinging away either Russia's friendship 
 or Austria's." This is noteworthy because it makes 
 the useful admission that in such cases it is not 
 easy to discriminate between aggression and 
 defence. 
 
 This ambiguity was the real objection to Herr 
 Bethmann-Hollweg's attempt to revive Bismarck's 
 " re -insurance " device in 1912. The facts about 
 Lord Haldane's mission to Berlin are much more fully 
 known to us than those relating to most diplomatic 
 episodes of the kind, and there is no appreciable 
 difference between the British and 'German official 
 versions. 1 If the German proposal, that we should 
 pledge ourselves to neutrality if war should be 
 forced upon Germany, had been read in the light 
 of this historical Austro -German -Russian precedent, 
 it might, perhaps, have been regarded with less 
 suspicion. It was not a new device. It was 
 a return to an old Bismarckian technique. His 
 intellect, which so oddly compounded subtlety 
 with bluntness, revelled in that complex triangular 
 arrangement. Bismarck may have cared nothing 
 for peace in the abstract, but there is no 
 
 1 For the former see our newspapers of September i, 1915, and for 
 the latter our newspapers of September 9, 1915. 
 
THE FUTURE OF ALLIANCES 191 
 
 doubt whatever that he desired peace between 
 Germany, Austria, and Russia. His method of 
 securing it was to tie them up by these com- 
 plicated treaties which made aggression on the part 
 of any of them almost unthinkable. On a charitable 
 view of German policy in 191 2, Herr von Bethmann- 
 Hollweg aimed at a similar system of " re-insurances " 
 in the still more elaborate diplomatic structure of 
 our time . ( I ) Germany, Austria, and Italy were 
 bound by alliance for mutual defence. (2) Russia 
 and France were similarly bound to each other. 
 (3) Great Britain was to promise Germany her 
 benevolent neutrality if she should be " forced into 
 war." This would have left us free to aid France 
 and Russia if they should be attacked. Our weight, 
 therefore, seemed to be reserved as a penalty against 
 aggression ; an arrangement which, on the surface 
 at least, promised to be a powerful guarantee for 
 peace. The offer was refused. Sir Edward Grey 
 was willing to declare that we would not join in 
 any act or pact of aggression against Germany, 
 but to neutrality he would not bind himself. The 
 reason which our Government gave to the German 
 Ambassador was (as he quoted it) that it " did 
 not wish to jeopardize friendly relations with France 
 and Russia," and " could not incur the risk of 
 losing French friendship." It may also have had 
 another entirely legitimate reason. A war might 
 begin by an unprovoked attack by Russia or France 
 on Germany, and end with an equally criminal 
 attempt by Germany to crush and destroy one or 
 both of these Powers. It might be proper that 
 we should be neutral at the start, but we might be 
 compelled to intervene before the end. In that 
 difficulty there lay a good reason for rejecting the 
 German formula. The reason commonly given 
 that Germany would always dishonestly pretend that 
 a war had been " forced upon her " is hardly 
 
192 A LEAGUE OF NATIONS 
 
 decisive. We should have been the judges of our 
 own conduct, and it would always have been open 
 to us to say in any, given case that in our opinion 
 war was not " forced *' on Germany. 
 
 These two experiments in reinsurance are proof 
 enough that it is not a satisfactory expedient. The 
 device, however honestly meant, is too subtle to 
 escape misinterpretation. It is, however, a concep- 
 tion too natural to be dismissed in this summary 
 way. It evidently was in Sir Edward Grey's mind 
 that some general promise, of the kind which 
 Germany desired, ought to be given, not merely 
 by Great Britain to Germany but by the whole 
 Triple Entente to the whole Triple Alliance . This was 
 apparently what he meant by his famous " Utopian 
 proposal." l It may be doubted, however, whether 
 a general undertaking by all the Powers, jointly and 
 singly, to avoid aggression or aggressive pacts 
 would have any practical value until " aggression " is 
 defined, and further, until there is an organization 
 of Europe which can supply a simple and auto- 
 matic test to distinguish aggression from defence. 
 Instead of thinking that Bismarck and Bethmann- 
 Hollweg were treacherous, the historian who surveys 
 these two tentative approaches will say, I think, that 
 they were feeling after some technical expedient 
 which would extract the sting from alliances, and 
 reconcile the system of mutual defence with a 
 measure of general goodwill. But so long as 
 the terms " aggression " and " defence " retain 
 their fatal ambiguity, every defensive alliance is 
 potentially aggressive, and every pact for defence 
 
 1 If the peace of Europe can be preserved and the present crisis 
 is safely passed, my own endeavour will be to promote some arrange- 
 ments to which Germany could be a party, by which she could be 
 assured that no aggressive or hostile policy would be pursued against 
 her or her Allies by France, Russia, and ourselves, jointly or 
 separately (British White Paper, No. 101). 
 
THE FUTURE OF ALLIANCES 193 
 
 will be interpreted by the Power against which 
 it is directed as a deliberate menace. 
 
 There emerges from this brief study of the efforts 
 which the Powers have made to escape the risks 
 of the system of alliances an inevitable conclusion. 
 The penetration of one system by a member of the 
 other leads only to suspicion : the loose structure 
 of an entente produces dangerous uncertainty : 
 " re-insurance " is not in practice workable. But with 
 the conception of a League of Peace in our minds, 
 it may be possible to adapt Sir Edward Grey's 
 " Utopian proposal/' so that if defensive alliances 
 survive, their purely defensive intention shall no 
 longer be equivocal. Aggression must mean in 
 the future one of two quite definite acts. A Power 
 is the aggressor, firstly and most obviously, if it 
 goes to war or becomes involved in war through 
 its own refusal to conform to the procedure of the 
 League. If A is willing to arbitrate or to state 
 a case for the League's Council of Conciliation, 
 or to accept any similar procedure laid down by 
 the Council of the League, whereas B refuses any 
 of these methods of settlement,, then B is aggressor, 
 and it will be idle for him to argue that war 
 has been " forced upon " him. In the second place, 
 it is equally clear that if the International Tribunal 
 has given its verdict, or the Council of Concilia- 
 tion issued its recommendation, or the Concert or 
 Conference of the Powers laid down its view, andi 
 war still results, the aggressor is the State which' 
 becomes involved in war through its refusal to 
 adopt the verdict or recommendation of an impartial 
 body. There may be a third case, if both parties 
 to a dispute refuse conciliation, or if both reject 
 the findings of the impartial body. This third 
 case sometimes occurs in Labour disputes, and if 
 the League of Peace is weak, and passions on both 
 sides are hot, it may occur in international disputes. 
 
 14 
 
194 A LEAGUE OF NATIONS 
 
 In this third case both parties are aggressors, and 
 neither is entitled to the respect due to defence. 
 The problem is to devise some general formula 
 which will cover all these cases, a formula which 
 must override all past or future obligations con- 
 tracted in partial treaties of alliance. A special 
 formula repudiating aggressive designs or pacts is 
 hardly necessary, since all the Powers adhering to 
 the League will have bound themselves not to go 
 to war without submitting to the procedure (arbi- 
 tration or conciliation) appointed by the League. 
 The formula governing alliances might run some- 
 what as follows : 
 
 The signatory Powers hereby declare that in no case will they give 
 armed support to any Power, notwithstanding any treaty of alliance 
 or any understanding which they may have contracted or may here- 
 after contract, if that Power has declared war without first submitting 
 to the procedure appointed by the League, or has become involved in 
 war by reason of its failure to submit to this procedure, or to give 
 effect to the award or recommendation of a Court or Council of 
 the League. 
 
 Such a formula seems an indispensable supple- 
 ment to the general pact on which the League is 
 based. Without it the survival of alliances within 
 the League would render it helpless when any 
 serious crisis arose. With such a formula; if it 
 were honestly observed, the survival of alliances, 
 though it would always be a source of anxiety 
 and a cause of division, need not destroy the utility 
 of the League. The effect of this formula would 
 be that an innocent and loyal Power would be 
 able to reckon on the support of allies. A disloyal 
 and aggressive Power would be isolated. The 
 whole influence and pressure of allies on both sides 
 would be used to deter a partner from action which 1 
 would break up the alliance. If it should happen 
 that both parties to a dispute refused to submit 
 
THE FUTURE OF ALLIANCES 195 
 
 to the procedure of the League, or to give effect 
 to an award or recommendation, the effect of this 
 clause would be that while the rest of the civilized 
 world might intervene forcibly to prevent or arrest 
 the conflict, neither of them would be supported 
 by allies. At the worst, if no joint intervention 
 could be organized, the conflict would be " local- 
 ized " and confined to the two disloyal Powers. 
 It may not prove to be easy to organize the League 
 on the basis of an undertaking to enforce the 
 awards of its Courts or Councils. A Power may 
 be willing to submit its case to conciliation, but 
 not to promise in advance to accept the finding' 
 of the Council. Similarly the League as a whole 
 may be willing to use coercion in order to require 
 a Power to submit to conciliation, but it would 
 not so readily agree to enforce the award. But 
 the effect of this proposed clause governing 
 alliances would commonly be to supply a certain 
 automatic sanction to any finding or recommenda- 
 tion of the League. The State which agreed to 
 give effect to it might call upon its allies for 
 support, even if it proposed itself to take up arms 
 to enforce the award. The State which ignored 
 or repudiated the award would find itself isolated-. 
 This arrangement in most cases would probably 
 suffice to ensure that the award would be 
 respected . 
 
 The whole conception of the League implies a 
 certain general average of good faith and good- 
 will. If we may assume this, then we may also 
 claim that this formula for the regulation of 
 alliances has solved our problem and conciliated 
 the claims of theory with the facts of reality. 
 Theory forbids alliances within the League. Reality 
 warns us that defensive alliances may survive this 
 war. They may be tolerated (though they will always 
 cause anxiety) if it be agreed that no Power is in a 
 
196 A LEAGUE OF, NATIONS 
 
 state of legitimate defence, or is entitled to invoke 
 the casus fcederis, unless it is willing to submit 
 its case to some process of conference or arbitra- 
 tion, and to carry out the findings of the League's 
 Councils and Courts. 
 
 This proposal, one may add, is not without a 
 precedent. The revised version of our Treaty of 
 Alliance with Japan, which was adopted in 1911, 
 contained a provision which was conceived in the 
 spirit of this formula. It stipulated that nothing con- 
 tained in this Agreement should entail an obligation to 
 go to war with a third Power, which had concluded 
 a treaty of general arbitration with either of the 
 contracting parties. Diplomacy can by such ex- 
 pedients minimize the danger of military alliances . 
 Their survival need not be an insuperable barrier 
 to the creation of a League of Nations. The ideal 
 at which we should eventually aim, and towards 
 which we should work is, none the less, that no 
 Government should be tied by any military obligation 
 save that which binds it to all the States that adhere 
 to the League. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 ON SEA-POWER 
 
 THE questioning mind which attempts to work out 
 the transition from a system 1 of force to a systelm 
 of conference in the relations of civilized peoples 
 encounters on the threshold a difficulty which may 
 well seem insuperable. However sincerely the 
 nations may turn their minds towards the ideal 
 of an equal and reasonable intercourse, the fact 
 remains that for generations to come these nations 
 will possess in unequal degrees the means of using 
 force, and in their dealings some sense of this 
 inequality must persist. Confidence will come 
 slowly as the League of Peace proves its efficacy. 
 We may live to see a point at which the small 
 State will maintain its rights against the Great 
 Powers, thanks to the vigilance and the impartiality 
 of the League, as boldly and successfully as a 
 working-man, when his trade union is behind him, 
 will defend his personal rights in a just court against 
 a wealthy employer. It is a high and difficult ideal, 
 and manifestly the ease or difficulty with which 
 it will be realized, depends partly on the incalculable 
 growth of moral forces and the slow education of 
 the international mind, partly, also, upon the measur- 
 able physical inequality of the Powers. The League 
 will mean nothing at all unless it means that in 
 some measure the weaker States will no longer 
 experience a sense of constriction and foreboding, 
 
 or think a calculating modesty incumbent upon them, 
 
 197 
 
198 A LEAGUE OF NATIONS 
 
 when they contemplate the power of their greater 
 neighbours. It will contribute to this end if the 
 legend of the invincible military might of Germany 
 is dissipated by the war, and the power of a coalition 
 proved against the overgrown strength of a single 
 empire. But in some measure every great empire 
 overshadows its neighbours. One must have known 
 Swedes and Bulgarians to understand what thqy 
 felt when they looked at the colossal bulk of Russia. 
 Even Spaniards had and still have (as Senor Maura 
 has reminded us) the sense that Britain and France, 
 the two Powers which by their sea and land power 
 and by their financial resources might dispose of 
 the destinies of Spain, have not treated her on 
 a footing of equality. Equality, in fact, there is 
 not, and cannot be, in such cases, but it is possible 
 none the less (especially where there is equality 
 in civilization, though not in power) to conduct 
 negotiations without reference to this disparity of 
 forces, precisely as men and women who are free 
 from vulgarity deal with each other without refer- 
 ence to their inequality in wealth. 
 
 The concrete problem which we in this country 
 have to face, if we mean to promote an era of 
 equality and conference, is to reconcile with it our 
 overwhelming naval supremacy. It is probably wise 
 to assume, as a given fact, that it is the national 
 will at any cost and under all circumstances to 
 maintain this supremacy. When Mr. Asquith and 
 Lord Grey spoke of abandoning the ancient prin- 
 ciple of force which has hitherto ruled the world, 
 they probably did not mean that they would be 
 willing to enter into any arrangement which 
 diminished our relative superiority at sea. To a 
 general reduction of the scale of armaments they 
 and their successors would doubtless consent, but 
 always on the understanding that it recognized 
 and even stereotyped our naval supremacy. For 
 
ON SEA-POWER 199 
 
 some sacrifices we may be prepared, when the 
 moment comes for the revision of the law of the seas, 
 but no one who has watched public opinion during 
 this war will expect a British Government to assent 
 to any reading of international law which gravely, 
 impairs the value of a fleet. Nor is it likely that 
 in our day, however we may apply the doctrine of 
 nationality elsewhere, we shall surrender the exclu- 
 sive control of the Straits of Gibraltar and the 
 Suez Canal, or abandon any of the numerous islands, 
 coaling-stations, or other territories which are essen- 
 tial to our purpose. From this temper we shall 
 not be moved until a new race has come to maturity, 
 capable of the generous thought that it is a greater 
 deed to contribute to the difficult spiritual adven- 
 ture of the world's concord than to add territory 
 to its own empire. When that day comes, it will 
 be easy to transfer Gibraltar, Malta, and Suez to 
 the guardianship of an international Council. Our 
 faith in the regulation of the common life of nations 
 by international institutions might not stand that 
 test as yet, and perhaps it would be extravagant 
 to demand it. We ought none the less to realize 
 that our own hesitation to make this heavy sacrifice 
 will react formidably on the minds of other nations. 
 The authority of any international Council will be 
 largely fictitious, and the confidence which it in- 
 spires will be limited, until we can bring ourselves 
 to this surrender. There may be a general hope 
 that the new order will be solid and effective, but 
 this hope will be rather the inspiration of idealists 
 than a belief on which practical statesmen will 
 venture to act. The world will hope that it has 
 entered a secure era of rational intercourse, but 
 it will not dare to dispense with the means by 
 which Powers sought, under the old regime, to 
 assure their safety. Mankind may rejoice that a 
 Court is sitting somewhere to dispense justice, but 
 
200 A LEAGUE OF NATIONS 
 
 every one will still think it prudent to carry a 
 " six-shooter." We shall live in the familiar tran- 
 sitional stage of precarious security familiar to new 
 and unsettled communities. This dangerous and 
 uncertain phase will last until some Power steps 
 out of the vicious circle by an act of faith which 
 demonstrates that it believes in the new international 
 life, and will stake something upon its belief. Mean- 
 while we must expect to hear from other nations 
 outside the immediate circle of our allies the com- 
 ment that our *' navalism " is only militarism which 
 has suffered a sea-change. We shall show candour 
 if we recognize frankly that our insistence on our 
 supremacy at sea is a handicap to the creation 
 and development of a League of Nations. 
 
 At this point an objection probably shapes itself 
 in the reader's mind, as it does in my own. May 
 we not say, on the contrary, that with our sea- 
 power we bring the greatest possible contribution 
 to an international League ? We might go farther, 
 and say that without it such a League would be 
 almost unthinkable. We are offering in effect, if 
 we .unreservedly join the League, to place at its 
 disposal a supreme Fleet, served by a nation which 
 inherits a unique tradition of seamanship, backed, 
 not merely by the wealth and technical skill neces- 
 sary to a great navy, but by all the strategical 
 adjuncts in the shape of vital straits and bases 
 which are necessary for its effective worldwide use. 
 The range of action of a purely military Power 
 is severely limited ; its pressure, is more to be 
 dreaded than that of sea -power, but it can over- 
 awe only its own neighbours. Sea -power is the 
 type of mobility and can strike in all the four 
 quarters of the earth. By enabling the leagued 
 nations to impose an embargo on the trade and 
 communications of a disloyal member or of an 
 aggressive outsider, our Fleet would suffice almost 
 
ON SEA-POWER 201 
 
 unaided to make the authority of the League 
 respected. May we not claim that we are endowing 
 the League from the start with an invaluable force, 
 and turn the objection to our naval supremacy by, 
 claiming that, so far from insisting on an egoistic 
 predominance, we shall be placing our unmatched 
 resources at the service of the commonweal of 
 nations ? This is a consoling and plausible view 
 to take of a claim which by hostile critics is some- 
 times confused with a pretension to worldwide 
 dominion. Nor is it merely a self -deluding view. 
 The League could not be formed if we and our 
 Fleet were outside it ; and if it is ever necessary 
 to take overt action against a powerful lawbreaker 
 to vindicate the League's authority, unquestionably 
 sea -power is an instrument which has in general 
 many advantages over land -power. It can -effect 
 much by bloodless pressure : an embargo is com- 
 monly a less cruel measure than an invasion. 
 
 It is not so easy, however, to argue that the 
 League will more easily wield its authority, if it 
 can command our supreme Navy, than if it could 
 summon three or four great and approximately equal 
 fleets to its service. The difficulties which may 
 follow from a very unequal distribution of force 
 are obvious. The most obvious of all is, of course, 
 the doubt, which may seem' less extravagant to 
 others than it does to us, that we might happen 
 to be the Power which did not choose to submit 
 to the decisions of the League. Even our Fleet, 
 however, would not avail to protect us from a 
 kind of pressure which in the long run might bei 
 decisive, for if we had all or most of the world, 
 against us, even though our Navy protected us 
 against military measures, a trade boycott, on the 
 lines of Napoleon's continental blockade, might 
 eventually bring us to terms. But the objection to 
 the predominance of one Power in force is based, 
 
202 A LEAGUE OF NATIONS 
 
 not so much on fanciful calculations of what might 
 happen if the actual use of force were necessary, 
 as on a jealousy of the excessive influence which 
 a Power possessed of disproportionate force inevit- 
 ably acquires. We most of us tend to think of 
 military and naval power as a force which slumbers 
 inoperative during peace, and wakens to achieve 
 the ends of policy only when war is declared. That 
 is a delusive misconception. Under the armed peace 
 the big guns, though they were never fired, kept 
 up a muffled obligate to the conversations of diplo- 
 macy. Every diplomatic note was worth the number 
 of army corps and battleships which its author com- 
 manded, and ambassadors in a crisis, as they went 
 in and out of the Chancelleries of the Powers, were 
 simply the heralds and parlementaires of their 
 armies. While statesmen seemed to be reasoning 
 over equities and rights their minds were all the 
 while working out their calculation of the numbers, 
 resources, and equipment of their allies ,or oppo- 
 nents. From this obsession by the idea of force 
 in its crudest form the League may deliver us. 
 But in a subtler form the dread and jealousy of 
 force will return upon us even within the League. 
 It may not interfere at all with the legal decision 
 of justiciable disputes. It is more likely to disturb 
 the minds of delegates sitting in a Council of Con- 
 ciliation. It will work most surely of all whenever 
 the Powers meet in a conference which may be 
 required to act as an executive of the League. 
 If it is necessary to take decisions which cannot 
 be equally welcome to all the Powers, above all, 
 if these decisions might commit the Powers to action, 
 it will be impossible to eliminate considerations of 
 force. To use a homely illustration : every one 
 has remarked that societies and committees which 
 depend unduly on the financial support of some* 
 individual member are apt to be dominated by 
 
ON SEA-POWER 203 
 
 that member. His colleagues do not like to insist- 
 on a policy to which he is opposed, for it would 
 hardly be fair to expect him to pay for it, yet 
 without his contributions the society would collapse ; 
 on the other hand, if he is willing to pay for 
 some line of action about which the majority is 
 not enthusiastic, the tendency of a weak society 
 will usually be to let him have his way. The 
 same considerations would have weight within a 
 League of Nations. No Power would venture to 
 press a course of action which might at some stage 
 depend on effective naval or economic pressure, 
 unless Great Britain were decidedly favourable to 
 it. The knowledge, moreover, that Great Britain 
 could usually take effective naval action Without 
 troubling to ask the League for its assent, would 
 commonly dispose most of the Powers, if they wished 
 to keep the League together, to give their consent, 
 reluctantly and grudgingly perhaps, to the course 
 which we proposed. This is perhaps too simpl;e 
 a presentation of the difficulty, but it may serve to 
 illustrate what really is axiomatic, that in any 
 association for common ends, the Power which com- 
 mands a relatively large proportion of its means 
 of action, will tend to dominate its policy. It is 
 not a sufficient answer to say that we have faith 
 that our statesmen would use this preponderance 
 modestly and for the common good. Unless that 
 conviction were shared by all the other Powers, 
 the fear might formulate itself in some of their 
 minds that a League of Peace would tend to be 
 in practice the political counterpart of our naval 
 supremacy. The Germans, with their overtrained 
 habit of translating all human relationship into terms 
 of force, would undoubtedly &ay that if Britain were 
 to be in effect the Lord High Admiral of a League 
 of Nations she would thereby achieve a wo rid - 
 dictatorship. Force is an equivocal gift to any 
 
204 A LEAGUE OF NATIONS 
 
 League of Peace. It promises to arm the right, 
 but it seems to create an ascendancy for the Power 
 which brings it. 
 
 For this reason, and for other reasons which 
 are equally entitled to respect, some of the ablest 
 and sincerest advocates of international organiza- 
 tion have urged that internationalism ought not to 
 be an armed doctrine, and that the League ought 
 not to contemplate the use of force as one of the 
 regular methods by which it proposes to make its 
 will respected. To my thinking, this line of thought 
 is more helpful to the League than the opposite 
 tendency. The muscular pacifism of the Roosevelt 
 school, which delights in brandishing a " big stick," 
 and thinks of the Great Powers, especially the 
 ** Anglo-Saxon " Powers, as " policemen " licensed 
 by Providence to act as special constables to the 
 universe, would wreck any League in a single speech. 
 This attitude of megalomania is the characteristic 
 form which militarism has assumed in a Puritan 
 atmosphere. To set in the foreground the aspect 
 of the League as organized force is probably the 
 worst mistake which its friends could make. The 
 more it is conceived as overwhelming force the 
 greater is the risk that it will inspire dread rather 
 than loyalty. This would be a grave risk if its 
 force were supplied by several nearly equal Powers ; 
 a still graver danger is that one or two Powers 
 may be forced into a position of " leadership," 
 which would soon be called " dictatorship " by the 
 jealousy of others. But to renounce the use of 
 force in extreme cases seems equally impossible. 
 A League which took no measures against brutal 
 and lawless aggression would not maintain its hold 
 on the imagination of mankind. It would be for 
 ever calling on strong and weak alike to give up 
 much of their traditional sovereignty, yet there would 
 be no compensation for this sacrifice, since there 
 
ON SEA -POWER 205 
 
 would be no certain increase of security. Unless 
 the League will itself, after due patience and the 
 use of all the milder means of persuasion, enforce 
 in very grave cases the changes necessary to the 
 world's development, there can be no decay of 
 militarism, for nations will, in default of the 
 League's action, be driven to make these changes 
 for themselves. It may be that the compact on 
 which the League is based should rather pledge its 
 members to meet together to concert common action 
 when war is threatened, or the findings of its Council 
 are disregarded, than exact from them in advance 
 a promise to take military action. Much, and 
 usually enough, will be gained if the aggressive 
 Power can be isolated, deprived of allies, and sub- 
 jected to a general boycott. In that condition he 
 might yield without the use of any military measures 
 at all, or it might suffice that one or two States 
 (with the general approval) should repell his aggres- 
 sion or right his victim. The first definitely hostile 
 measure of the League (after the failure of friendly 
 action) might normally be to apply economic 
 pressure ranging from prohibitive tariffs on his 
 exports as a first step, up to complete blockade, 
 embargo on all trade, and absolute non -intercourse. 
 But this economic pressure could not be used 
 effectively unless adequate force stood mobilized and 
 ready behind it. The boycotted Power, if he had 
 a big fleet or a formidable army, would treat the 
 boycott as an act of war, and he would retaliate 
 by striking at the more vulnerable members of 
 the coalition which surrounded him. It would be 
 unfair to ask the weaker and more exposed members 
 of the League to join in economic pressure against 
 a strong Power, unless the League had its fleets 
 and armies ready on a war footing to protect them. 
 Economic pressure is a formidable wieapon, and 
 humane opinion does w,ell to lay stress on it, for 
 
206 A LEAGUE OF NATIONS 
 
 it may coerce a brutal Power without bloodshed 
 or devastation. But it would be a fatal error to 
 regard it as a substitute for military preparedness. 
 An armed coalition might use it with deadly effect. 
 An unarmed coalition which relied on boycott alone 
 would dissolve at the first invitation which it 
 addressed to the neighbours of a powerful wrong- 
 doer. 
 
 The true way of escape from the difficulty, that 
 a League which may sometimes have to use force 
 will be dominated by its more powerful members, 
 lies, to my thinking, in the chance that it may 
 gradually evolve some kind of federal Parliament, 
 though it might have but a consultative voice, which 
 would act as the representative, not of armed 
 Powers but of opinions which unite civilized peoples 
 across the barriers of their frontiers (see below, 
 p. 319). Wherever Governments deal with each 
 other it will be hard to exclude the idea of force. 
 When Governments vote at a round table the ballots 
 which they drop into the box are counters repre- 
 senting fleets and armies. Though it must retain 
 the eventual right to the use of force, the League's 
 future depends on its ability somehow to evolve 
 a corporate personality independent of the Govern- 
 ments which adhere to it. Though it must have 
 for action its executive, which can pledge Govern- 
 ments and organize their powers, it must strive 
 by its councils of conciliation, its courts, and finally, 
 perhaps, when time has somewhat healed our 
 wounds, by its Parliament, to rally round itself 
 the moral force of opinion, and to win for itself 
 a veneration which will command obedience. 
 
 We have passed too lightly over the various pro- 
 posals which may be put forward to mitigate the 
 political dangers inseparable from a naval supremacy 
 vested in any one Power. The hopeful line of 
 
ON SEA-POWER 207 
 
 approach is in a revision of the law of warfare 
 at sea. The reduction of armaments does not 
 touch the question of the use and abuse of 
 force. That we shall have to face when the time 
 of settlement comes, and the demand for the revision 
 of sea -law, or rather for its re-creation, will come 
 with as much urgency from the United States and 
 from neutrals as from the enemy. It would be an 
 impertinence for a writer who is neither a lawyer 
 nor a close student of naval history to attempt any, 
 detailed inquiry into this most intricate subject. Nor 
 is there yet beyond official circles any adequate know- 
 ledge of the real facts about the war at sea. Our 
 policy must to some extent be guided by considera- 
 tions of which the layman can know little or nothing 
 for example, by the probable future development of 
 the submarine. There does, however, emerge from 
 the Anglo-American controversies during this war a 
 broad conflict of principle, which affects the whole 
 conception of sea -warfare, and in no sense depends 
 on the view which competent lawyers may take of 
 " juridical niceties." 
 
 We have carried in this war our claim to interfere 
 with enemy trade, and incidentally with neutral trade, 
 far beyond anything that had been practised as 
 expedient or defended as legitimate in the latter 
 half of the nineteenth century. It would be pedantic 
 to inquire how far these extreme measures the novel 
 embargo on enemy trade, the '* black list," the 
 examination of neutral mails, and the '* rationing " of 
 the smaller neutral nations, whose whole commerce 
 has been by one means or another brought under 
 our control were a legitimate extension of recog- 
 nized principles. We defended our sharper deviations 
 from acknowledged rules as " reprisals," justified 
 by the grosser excesses of the enemy. It is true that 
 our measures have involved no inhumanity to 
 neutrals, as the German measures do, but they have 
 
208 A LEAGUE OF NATIONS 
 
 involved some loss to neutral commerce, and worst 
 of all, an offence to the national dignity of small 
 but highly civilized peoples. They have, in fact, 
 caused resentment of which our censored press has 
 not kept us adequately informed. It is probable that 
 we should not have ventured to go so far, had 
 not the enemy by his barbarities at sea put himself 
 out of court. Whatever the view of impartial jurists 
 may be, it is unlikely that the dominant opinion in 
 this country will be willing to surrender the advan- 
 tages which this extreme exercise of sea -power has 
 seemed to bring us. Even were the surrender to be 
 made for some equivalent, the precedent of this 
 war would remain in the national memory, and the 
 tendency in any future war would be to stretch 
 definitions, until the Navy had once more recovered 
 its maximum power. On no subject is our public 
 opinion so imperious or so little disposed to consider 
 the views of other nations, and Mr. Asquith's con- 
 temptuous reference to " juridical niceties " when 
 he spoke of neutral rights at sea, will live in history 
 as a sort of footnote (in very small print) to the 
 German Chancellor's remark about " scraps of 
 paper." On a calm review of tendencies it seems 
 probable that this extreme development of naval 
 power against commerce is part of an inevitable 
 social evolution. Commerce is becoming more than 
 ever a function of the organized nation, if not of 
 the State, and it is difficult to-day to exempt it from 
 the operations of warfare on the individualistic 
 grounds which were the basis of the doctrine of the 
 Manchester school and its American forerunners. 
 
 The thesis of this school is, in brief, that 
 civilized warfare is a relation of hostility between 
 States and their armed forces. 1 It seeks to screen 
 
 1 By far the ablest recent statement of this view is the essay by 
 Mr H. Sidebotham in " Toward a Lasting Settlement." My own 
 opinion has changed in some degree since the publication of " The 
 War of Steel and Gold." 
 
 
ON SEA-POWER 209 
 
 the private citizen from its operations, and to protect 
 the continuance during war of innocent trade. It 
 maintains that enemy ships should be free to con- 
 tinue their commerce to and from neutral ports un- 
 molested, provided that they carry no contraband. 
 It would leave the traffic in food absolutely free. It 
 is extremely jealous of the whole doctrine of 
 blockade, and inclines to allow the blockade only 
 of fortified places, and then only as an extension at 
 sea of siege operations on land. Needless to say, 
 it would prohibit all those interferences with enemy 
 trade through neutral ports and in neutral vessels 
 on which the success of our embargo has depended. 
 According to this rigid and logical doctrine, the 
 functions of a navy are solely to combat the armed 
 vessels of the enemy, to stop his transports and mili- 
 tary supplies, and on occasion to play its part in the 
 siege of his naval bases. With the normal pacific 
 commerce of an enemy, with the export of manu- 
 factures and the import of the raw materials of 
 civilian industry, with the supply of the wants of his 
 civil population, a navy must not interfere. The 
 part which remains to a navy is still large though 
 severely limited. It will keep open the seas for the 
 military use of its own country, and deny the military 
 use of them to the enemy : above all, it may enable 
 the stronger Power to seize the colonies of its 
 opponent. 
 
 The debate round these proposals turned in the 
 years before this war too exclusively on the right to 
 capture the enemy's merchant ships at sea. But even 
 before the war our expert opinion had weakened 
 on this limited issue. Sir Edward Grey indicated 
 that we might be willing to abandon capture if we 
 had satisfaction for our reading of the rights and 
 methods of a modern blockade. The -event has 
 shown that wireless telegraphy will usually enable 
 the enemy's merchantmen to escape capture on the 
 
 15 
 
210 A LEAGUE OF NATIONS 
 
 outbreak of war, while our own ships, which keep the 
 seas, are exposed to the submarine danger. The 
 real question of the future turns partly on the 
 functions of the submarine in commerce destruction, 
 but chiefly on the future of the blockade, expanded 
 as it has been by our practice into a general embargo 
 which involves no close besetting of the enemy's 
 coasts. It is really idle to insist that an enemy's 
 own ships shall not carry his trade, if his cargoes 
 may travel safely in neutral vessels, and his goods 
 pass freely overland in and out of neutral ports. The 
 trifling loss inflicted on him by depriving him of his 
 profits as a sea -carrier (for that is all that capture 
 means in practice) is hardly worth considering, if 
 we allow neutrals to conduct his trade for him. The 
 issue is to-day far wider than the limited question of 
 capture. The real choice lies between two clear 
 principles, of which one insists that innocent trade 
 at sea ought not to be suspended by war, while the 
 other claims the right by every means consistent with 
 humanity to stop every form and outlet of the 
 enemy's commercial activity. 
 
 The naval policy which we have followed in this 
 war seems at a first glance to mark a reaction : it 
 is certainly a return to eighteenth -century usage. 
 The stoppage of food supplies for the civilian popu- 
 lation adds a new horror to war, though it does not 
 in principle differ from the traditional siege. In 
 any estimate of the value of these methods some 
 balancing considerations must be kept in mind. Our 
 own shipping has suffered, in fact, from the right to 
 capture and sink, more heavily than that of Ger- 
 many, and our trade will be handicapped by the 
 scarcity of ships when peace returns. Germany, 
 moreover, will certainly take steps, which may be 
 effectual, to make herself independent of foreign 
 supplies in any future war, partly, by developing her 
 agriculture and .partly, perhaps, as Dr. Naumann 
 
ON SEA-POWER 211 
 
 and others have proposed, by the creation of great 
 permanent national stores of rubber, copper, petrol, 
 and other indispensable imported articles, with the 
 double object of providing against a blockade and 
 of stabilizing prices in time of peace. If we con- 
 template the permanent adoption of the embargo 
 as the basis of our strategy, we must face the fact 
 that not every war in which we might be engaged 
 would be so favourable to its exercise as this has 
 been. If we alone had been engaged in war with 1 
 Germany alone, an embargo would have been wholly, 
 impracticable. We could not have stopped her over- 
 land trade to and from Russia, Austria, and France, 
 and no Great Power would have allowed us to put 
 it on "rations." It is probable that we exaggerate 
 the gain to be derived from stopping an enemy's 
 external trade. In great measure, in such a war 
 as this, exports, at least, will be checked auto- 
 matically, because the male population is under arms. 
 That happened in France, though her ports were 
 open. If, moreover, a nation believes (though the 
 belief may be a fanatical exaggeration) that it is 
 really fighting for its life, it will fight as long as it 
 has men and food and munitions, and will not be 
 deterred by the fear of financial ruin. The im- 
 portance of the economic factor varies, of course, 
 with the character of each State ; it is vital to us, 
 and a little less serious to Germany, while it matters 
 least of all to Russia and the Balkan peoples. None 
 the less, the force of the argument that trade is a 
 national interest which cannot be exempted from the 
 operations of war, is powerful to-day and certain to 
 grow. The English and American authors of the 
 opposite doctrine visualized war as a struggle 
 between small professional armies, whose limited 
 strife did not suspend the normal life of the nation. 
 They were usually individualists, who regarded trade 
 as the private concern of merchants, and their view 
 
212 A LEAGUE OF NATIONS 
 
 that it should be nearly immune from interruption 
 by war, was part of their general doctrine that it 
 should be nearly free from interference by the State. 
 This economic individualism no longer reflects either 
 the actual facts of trade or the working principles 
 of modern States. Industrial efficiency has become 
 a prime factor in military success. The " private " 
 merchant, and the " non-combatant " civilian popu- 
 lation, women no less than men, contribute to the 
 State's power of endurance, even when they are en- 
 gaged in " innocent " trade. It is a commonplace 
 that credit, exchange, and the balance of trade are 
 vital factors in victory. It seems impossible to dis- 
 regard these notorious facts, and to urge that a 
 State which has the physical ability to stop an 
 enemy's external trade can be expected to allow him, 
 by pushing his commerce, to prolong his power of 
 resistance. There was, I think, some exaggeration 
 in the argument of the Manchester school that a 
 civilized and humane age ought to renounce the 
 predatory practices of sea warfare. It may be bar- 
 barous to confiscate enemy ships and enemy goods 
 captured at sea. A reform in the sense that enemy 
 ships and cargoes may be stopped, but not destroyed 
 or confiscated, deserves consideration. But the 
 analogy from land warfare does not bear the weight 
 which some exponents of this view have laid upon 
 it. No army will allow the enemy to continue his 
 external trade by land, in so far as it has power to 
 stop it. A naval Power affects to-day to treat the 
 sea as an occupied territory, and in this war we have 
 seen a development of mine -fields at sea which 
 resembles the permanent entrenchments on land. 
 
 So long as we consider only the enemy and our 
 relations to him, these extreme developments of 
 sea -power seem inevitable and defensible. Our 
 moral, legal, and political difficulties begin when 
 we face the fact that every .effective restriction on 
 
ON SEA-POWER 213 
 
 the enemy's trade is also an interference with the 
 convenience and rights of neutrals. When we say 
 that parts of the high seas are " a war zone;/' and 
 treat them as we might treat occupied territory, 
 we meet at once with the counterclaim 1 that the 
 seas must always be a free highway for all the 
 world. Our claim to lay an embargo on all trade 
 between neutrals and enemies is thus brought into 
 irreconcilable contradiction with the American 
 doctrine of the Freedom of the Seas. That 
 doctrine means much or little, but at the least 
 it means that (blockade apart) neutral flags cover 
 innocent enemy cargoes, and that neutral ships may, 
 trade freely in everything but contraband between 
 two neutral ports. It matters little whether our 
 ingenious stretching of the ideas of blockade and 
 continuous voyage be good law or clever sophistry. 
 In either case it involves an injury to neutral 
 interests which is not likely to be tolerated as a 
 permanent method of warfare, if neutrals should 
 ever have the power with the motive to resist it. 
 This extreme use of sea -power is a standing 
 challenge to other maritime peoples to combine 
 against our naval supremacy. 
 
 Our moral defence of these practices is, none 
 the less, impressive, and implies a half-developed 
 principle which may point to the solution of the 
 difficulty. We have invited neutrals to endure the 
 inconveniences of our irregular blockade, because 
 we claimed to be fighting the battle of civiliza- 
 tion and defending principles which are as vital 
 to them as to us. There has been no determined 
 protest against our methods, partly because the 
 neutrals lacked the necessary sea -power for an effec- 
 tive resistance, partly because their increased trade 
 with the Entente has more than balanced their lost 
 trade with the enemy, and partly because they recog- 
 nize an element of truth in our claim that we are 
 
214 A LEAGUE OF NATIONS 
 
 fighting for civilization. Long before the entry of 
 the United States into the war, American sympathy 
 was, on the whole, overwhelmingly with Britain 
 and France against Germany ; but it made large 
 reservations as to some of the other Allies and 
 their purposes. The view of the abler and cooler 
 Americans, while they were still neutrals, might per- 
 haps be summarized as follows : " We unhesitatingly 
 prefer the British and French conception of civiliza- 
 tion to the German conception, and therefore we 
 desire the victory of the Entente and acquiesce in the 
 inconvenience to which it has subjected our trade. 
 We mean, however, to adhere to our own reading of 
 public right at sea. But we also think that if neutrals 
 are to be asked to submit in the name of civiliza- 
 tion to such losses, they ought to be consulted. 
 We had no opportunity of giving our voice before 
 this war broke out. We have no share in deter- 
 mining either the duration of the war or the policy 
 of the victors, and we perceive already, in the threat 
 of a permanent trade war, the danger that its out- 
 come may imperil some of the principles which 
 in our view are vital to civilization. If civiliza- 
 tion is in future to be defended, at some cost to 
 all civilized States, the effort ought from first to 
 last to be a common enterprise." In plain words, 
 if there are to be wars to defend civilization, either 
 all civilized States must take part in them, or at 
 least they must give their mandate to those who 
 claim to be their champions. If civilization is really 
 at stake, then plainly neutrality is a dereliction of 
 duty. 1 On the other hand, if a coalition of allies, 
 
 1 Compare these two sentences from President Wilson's " accept- 
 ance address " : " No nation can any longer remain neutral as against 
 any wilful disturbance of the peace of the world. The nations of the 
 world must unite in joint guarantees that whatever is done to disturb 
 the whole world's life must first be tested in the court of the whole 
 world's opinion." 
 
ON SEA-POWER 215 
 
 some liberal, some autocratic, reinforced by calcu- 
 lating partners who were originally in the other 
 camp, chooses to add together all the private 
 interests of its several members, it must not assume 
 that these interests collectively are the concern of 
 civilization, or expect remote neutrals to endure 
 without remonstrance the losses and humiliations 
 incidental to its war. There was great force in 
 the adroit appeal which Mr. Arthur Balfour 
 addressed to the United States, when he asked it 
 to remember that if it insisted on disarming 
 sea -power, by depriving it of the right to strike 
 at an enemy's trade, it was on the whole favour- 
 ing the land arm against the sea arm and 
 strengthening the relative power of militarism. But 
 we certainly cannot with sincerity proceed as far 
 as this unless we are prepared to go much farther. 
 It is too high a claim to make on the world that 
 it should leave this tremendous weapon of sea- 
 power in our hands, a weapon capable of destroy- 
 ing the trade of any rival and ending with ease 
 all his ambitions or achievements overseas, unless 
 we mean to offer guarantees that we shall never 
 use it for egoistic ends. 
 
 We shall eventually, if we follow this line of 
 thought candidly, come in sight of these two 
 conclusions : 
 
 1 . It is indecent, and may in the long run be 
 impossible, in any war undertaken by the uncon- 
 trolled will of a single State in pursuit of its own 
 national interests, however legitimate these may be, 
 to expect neutrals to submit to the onerous and 
 humiliating infringements of their sovereignty, which 
 are necessary to the effective use of sea-power. 
 
 2. It is, on the other hand, expedient for civi- 
 lization to preserve the right to make this drastic 
 use of sea-power, provided that civilized peoples 
 as a whole have the means of determining whether 
 
21 6 A LEAGUE OF NATIONS 
 
 any given war is really waged in the common 
 interest. 
 
 In short, the idea of a League of Nations pro- 
 vides the solution of a problem which might 
 otherwise seem insoluble. Civilized peoples might 
 agree to retain the embargo on enemy trade in 
 its most drastic form, in any war undertaken with 
 the sanction of the League, against an enemy who 
 had defied its principles. Given such a League, 
 none of its members in a war of this kind has 
 the right to be neutral. All of them, even if they 
 do not aid with arms, must be willing at least 
 to give the passive assistance involved in renouncing 
 trade with a Power which is recognized as the 
 enemy of the whole League. We abolish the diffi- 
 culty of respecting neutral rights by abolishing 
 neutrality itself. In other words, these questionable 
 methods, of which the embargo is the full expres- 
 sion, must be forbidden to any single Power 
 engaged in a private war ; an embargo may be 
 declared only by the authority of the League against 
 some enemy who by rejecting its procedure of 
 conciliation has been guilty of deliberate aggres- 
 sion. If, on the other hand, private wars should 
 break out without the intervention of the League 
 in a case, for example, where neither belligerent 
 would submit to its good offices then the League 
 would insist that no neutral can be required to 
 suffer loss in order to further the egoistic aims 
 of either belligerent, and it would collectively 
 maintain a stiff reading of neutral rights. A war 
 of this latter kind, so far from being of any con- 
 ceivable service to civilization, would be an offence 
 against the world's order, a danger to the con- 
 tinuance of the League, and an uncompensated 
 nuisance to neutrals. In such wars the whole 
 society of neutrals, acting through the League, 
 would combine to uphold " the freedom of the seas," 
 
ON SEA-POWER 217 
 
 and their right to trade with belligerents, subject 
 only to the prohibition of contraband and the 
 blockade of fortified places. If this suggestion is 
 workable, the law of sea -warfare must be revised 
 under the auspices of the League, and the revision 
 would take the form of recognizing three distinct 
 chapters : 
 
 1. Certain provisions of humanity (a revised Hague Convention), 
 applicable to all wars. 
 
 2. A stiff definition of the right of neutrals to trade with belligerents 
 in the sense of Cobden's doctrine, with articles abolishing capture at 
 sea, freeing food, and confining blockade to fortresses. This chapter 
 is applicable only to u private " wars, in which the League as such 
 is disinterested. 
 
 3. The embargo, in its most drastic definition. This the League 
 alone may proclaim, and when it is proclaimed, every member of the 
 League is pledged to prohibit and prevent all trade and all dealing 
 with an enemy whose defiance of civilized procedure has placed him 
 under an interdict. 
 
 These will seem to the English reader large and 
 hazardous proposals. They involve none the less 
 the highest compliment which can be paid to a 
 nation. They imply a belief in our sincerity. If 
 we defend our naval supremacy on the ground that 
 by it alone can a League of Nations be armed 
 for the defence of right, if we justify our infliction 
 of injury on neutral trade on the ground that w!e 
 are defending civilization, these limitations on our 
 power are not merely what we should be prepared 
 to endure ; they are what we should ourselves invite. 
 If it is our high purpose never oursielves to refuse 
 the settlement of disputes by conference and con- 
 ciliation, if it is no thought of furthering our egoistic 
 ends which arms and launches the armadas (that 
 command the seas, if we mean to dedicate our 
 strength to the common good of civilization, there 
 is no sacrifice for us and no surrender here. Our 
 sea -power remains intact in any war of defence, in 
 
218 A LEAGUE OF NATIONS 
 
 any war of right. It will be confined to bounds 
 only if in some momentary aberration of self- 
 seeking, we should in the pursuit of ends that 
 promise no good to the world, engage in war with- 
 out exhausting the resources of conciliation. The 
 proposal is put forward on the assumption that the 
 enemy on his side subjects his formidable land- 
 power to like restraints, and binds himself on his 
 side to enter the League in a spirit of loyalty. 
 Lord Grey has hinted that we may be prepared 
 to consider the restriction of our naval power when 
 Germany in her turn abandons her militarism. These 
 proposals are an attempt to give that offer a con- 
 crete shape. Our naval supremacy is the key to 
 the future of the League nay, to the future of 
 civilization. If we mean to use it only to exclude 
 our rivals from colonial expansion, and to give 
 its sanction to the prohibitions and boycotts of a 
 trade war, if for these ends we make our interests 
 the canons of sea-law, then it is the most potent and 
 the most pervading of all forms of militarism, and 
 its maintenance will be the negation of any inter- 
 national advance. If, on the other hand, we will 
 nail the flag of a commonweal to our masthead, 
 and renounce the use of oppressive force for private 
 ends, the League is made, and made by an act 
 of faith. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 EMPIRE, SEA-POWER, AND TRADE 
 
 IT has been suggested that our example will count for nothing because 
 our preponderant naval position will still remain unimpaired. I do 
 not believe it. The sea-power of this country implies no challenge 
 to "any single State or group of States. I am persuaded that through- 
 out the world that power is recognized as non-aggressive and innocent 
 of designs against the independence, the commercial freedom, and 
 the legitimate development of other States, and that it is therefore a 
 mistake to imagine that the naval Powers will be disposed to regard 
 our position on the sea as a bar to any proposal for the arrest of 
 armaments or to the c.Uling of a temporary truce. The truth appears 
 to me to lie in the opposite direction. Our known adhesion to these 
 two dominant principles the independence of nationalities and the 
 freedom of trade entitles us of itself to claim that if our fleets be 
 invulnerable they carry with them no menace across the waters of 
 the world, but a message of the most cordial goodwill, based on a 
 belief in the community of interests between the nations,. SIR HENRY 
 CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN, in the Nation, March 2, 1907. 
 
 The passage which stands at the head of this 
 chapter expresses with clearness and eloquence the 
 view which the better elements of British public 
 opinion hold, and for long have held, about pur 
 sea -power. Though the writer was perhaps the 
 sincerest and the most enlightened Liberal of our 
 time, his words might stand as well for that liner 
 tradition of Conservatism incarnated by Lord 
 Salisbury in the last generation and by Lord Robert 
 Cecil in our own day. The personality of tha 
 man lies behind the words, and the record of his 
 policy stands for a proof of the loyalty and straight- 
 forwardness of his declaration. It is a familiar 
 
220 A LEAGUE OF NATIONS 
 
 position, but just because it has woven itself inex- 
 tricably into all our thinking, it is imperative that 
 we should make clear to ourselves exactly (what 
 it implies. It starts from the frank admission that 
 we possess, and intend to maintain, " our prepon- 
 derant naval position." Sir Henry Campbell - 
 Bannerman in this appeal, which he addressed 
 to the world, and especially to Germany, shortly 
 before the second Hague Conference, was inviting 
 our rivals to enter into an arrangement with us for 
 the limitation of navies. The scale of building 
 was to be reduced all round and the competition 
 was to cease, a proposition which meant that our 
 preponderance or supremacy must be tacitly recog- 
 nized, and that other Powers should abandon the 
 ambition to overtake our traditional superiority at 
 sea, or to lessen the disparity in strength between 
 their navies and ours. Look at that proposition 
 for a moment with continental eyes, and it 
 may not seem that its acceptance was altogether 
 so easy as our public opinion supposed. Our case 
 for the maintenance of a supreme Fleet in the 
 interests of defence is from our own standpoint 
 unanswerable. A land Power strengthens itself 
 against definite perils : it can be attacked only 
 by its immediate neighbours, yet even a land Power 
 aims at the maximum of security by conscripting 
 every able-bodied man. An island nation is open 
 to attack by any and every sea Power : a second- 
 rate fleet to it is useless, and the only possible rule 
 of safety for it is to build against " any reason- 
 ably probable combination of Powers." We can 
 point to the length of our coastline, to the im- 
 portance of our commerce, to our scattered overseas 
 possessions, to the smallness of our professional 
 Army, and to the fate which would overtake us if 
 our food supply were cut off by a successful blockade. 
 Our geographical position and our dependence on 
 
EMPIRE, SEA-POWER, AND TRADE 221 
 
 overseas commerce obliged us to create our naval 
 preponderance, and until the world has changed, 
 not merely its laws but its habits of thinking will 
 oblige us to maintain it. The argument of Sir 
 Henry Campbell -Bannerman was that, in spite of 
 this preponderance of force, our character, our 
 policy, and our record ought to reassure the world 
 as to its use. We are an unaggressive Power : 
 we grudge to no other State its legitimate expan- 
 sion and development ; we respect the claims to 
 nationality even of the weakest people ; we shall 
 never use our Fleet to interfere with the commercial 
 freedom of others. This tremendous instrument 
 wakens into life only to defend our good right, 
 and while no other State attacks us, our force 
 slumbers, vigilant but harmless. 
 
 These are the only grounds on which the posses- 
 sion by one Power of this vast potential force can 
 be rendered tolerable to the rest of the world. 
 It is the whole argument of this book that we 
 must endeavour to* give to our resolve to avoid 
 aggression, to our respect for nationality, and to 
 a generous reading of commercial freedom some 
 international sanction and organization. But to ask 
 the world, without any binding treaties or perma- 
 nent declarations from us, to accept our character 
 and record as a sufficient guarantee that we should 
 never abuse our supremacy at sea was to make a 
 heavy draft on our moral credit. The British over- 
 tures for disarmament failed ; and from Germany's 
 refusal in 1907 to discuss an agreement which 
 must have stereotyped our supremacy and her in- 
 feriority at sea dates the first deep impression among 
 us that she is, and for long has been, the one 
 incorrigibly reactionary element in Europe, and the 
 chief, if not the only, obstacle to international 
 organization. It is worth while to inquire what 
 were her reasons for this attitude. 
 
222 A LEAGUE OF NATIONS 
 
 The hostile analysis of German political thought 
 has been pursued during this war with learning 
 and assiduity by multitudes of capable writers. It 
 is well that we should understand what the school 
 of Treitschke stood for in morals and policy. Its 
 work is written to-day in blood and fire across 
 a continent, and its memory will be execrated with 
 an ever -increasing vehemence as the sense of 
 international solidarity in the world grows at the 
 expense of national egoism. It is possible, however, 
 that while we have pursued this line of thought, 
 we have not sufficiently considered the external facts 
 which gave this Prussian tradition its ascendancy 
 in Germany. It had behind it a disastrous ipast 
 of weakness and disunion. The devastations of 
 the Thirty Years War, the French and Russian 
 invasions of the eighteenth century, and the 
 Napoleonic conquests explain why a land exposed 
 to powerful neighbours had to evolve a strong 
 military power. The provincialism of the petty 
 German States and the division between the two 
 creeds are the reasons why a race with only a 
 weak sense of its own unity had to realize it through 
 the mechanism of a paternal and bureaucratic State. 
 In our own day the comparative failure of thej 
 democratic elements in Germany to overcome the; 
 Prussian tradition was due in great part to another 
 factor the dissatisfaction which patriotic Germans 
 increasingly felt at the modest part which their 
 country played in colonial expansion. They were 
 secure at last in Europe, and might have relaxed 
 the iron discipline of the armed camp, when a 
 new motive arose to keep alive the mentality of 
 strife. In the following pages I propose to set 
 forth, as fairly as I can, the general position of 
 German Imperialism. I shall draw on writers of 
 two opposite schools. Count Reventlow, the able 
 but fanatical exponent of the anti -British policy of 
 
EMPIRE, SEA-POWER, AND TRADE 223 
 
 the Tirpitz faction, represents neither the German 
 Foreign Office nor the German masses, but in an 
 exaggerated form he does state a view of naval 
 and colonial problems which was widely held. His 
 " Deutschlands Auswartige Politik " was in its first 
 edition a careful and comparatively sober history 
 of German foreign policy in the Kaiser's reign. In 
 its third edition, issued during the war, it has 
 become less honest, less objective, and in some 
 passages merely fantastic. Dr. Rohrbach and Dr. 
 Naumann represent a much less sinister tendency, 
 a popular democratic Imperialism, which is con- 
 sistent with a frank admiration for British institu- 
 tions and a critical attitude towards the Junker 
 tradition. I shall try to interpret these writers 
 rather by summary than by quotation, and I will 
 beg the reader to remember that in many of the 
 following pages I am not speaking in my own person, 
 but am deliberately stating, or rather reproducing, 
 one side of a case. The immense indictment against 
 German policy needs no further repetition in our 
 language, but some understanding of the continental 
 attitude towards our sea -power is essential for our 
 own future guidance. On a long view, over wide 
 spaces of time, British policy towards our chief 
 rivals in the colonial field has usually in the end 
 righted, recovered, and vindicated itself, after 
 periods during which it seemed to depart from 
 the spirit of Sir Henry Campbell -Bannerman's 
 declaration. Our dealings first with France and then 
 with Germany suggest that we are very slow to 
 grasp the inevitable feelings of a land Power when 
 confronted with our supremacy at sea, and our diplo- 
 macy, though in both instances, after a weary 
 struggle of armaments and some near approaches 
 to war, it ended the friction with a generous 
 arrangement, is apt to move slowly and seems to 
 reach with difficulty its final perception of the real 
 
224- A LEAGUE OF NATIONS 
 
 issue. That issue will confront us once more at the 
 settlement. A review of the reasons which led Ger- 
 many to challenge our ascendancy at sea has there- 
 fore a direct bearing on our immediate problem. 
 
 Confronted by such a declaration of British 
 policy as this statement by Sir Henry Campbell- 
 Bannerman, a German critic would make his first 
 point by reminding us that our policy is subject 
 to fluctuation. If he were honest and well-informed 
 he would frankly admit its sincerity, but for how 
 long, he would ask, will such counsels guide us? 
 To go into an arrangement with a great naval 
 Power implies something a little more than a belief 
 that this Power will not act in a crudely aggressive 
 way. Short of a wanton and forcible attack, such 
 a Power may make a very formidable use of its 
 strength. The claim, for example, that Britain 
 respects " the independence of nationalities " came 
 a little oddly in 1907 from the Power which in 
 1902 had annexed the Boer Republics. To be 
 sure, Sir Henry Campbell -Bannerman himself nobly 
 combated that wrong, and went far to repair it 
 by conceding full self-government. The fact 
 remains that his predecessors suppressed two 
 civilized independent States, and achieved their end 
 only because the naval force which they wielded 
 forbade the interference of other Powers. Nor 
 does the case stand better with freedom of trade. 
 Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman spoke for himself 
 and for a great and victorious majority, but who 
 could feel sure that the tendencies which Mr. 
 Chamberlain represented would never, by the normal 
 swing of the pendulum, attain to Power? If " Tariff 
 Reform " should triumph, the whole meaning of our 
 vast overseas Empire would be changed. The self- 
 governing colonies already set up barriers against 
 German trade, but India and the tropical colonies 
 were still open. Our naval supremacy might come 
 
EMPIRE, SEA -POWER, AND TRADE 225 
 
 to mean that we should hold these vast markets 
 for a British monopoly. 
 
 One simple perception of a physical fact 
 dominates all German writing about sea-power, 
 empire, and trade. A Power which possesses an 
 indisputable mastery of the seas is free itself to 
 act as it pleases in most of the distant regions 
 of the earth, and can defy the jealousy or the moral 
 disapprobation of its rivals. It can expand at will 
 in any region removed from the direct access of 
 a rival land Power. That is much. But further, 
 it can control and prevent the expansion of other 
 Powers. It was by the operation of these two 
 principles that our Empire grew up in the eighteenth 
 century on the ruins of its French and Dutch 
 predecessors. To-day, not only can we continue 
 to expand at will ; we can veto the expansion of 
 any continental rival. Captain Mahan did much 
 to elucidate this connection between sea-power and 
 empire, and his books have been at least as 
 influential in Germany as in England. This war 
 has worked out this theoretical thesis in actual 
 practice. By the simple fact that we closed the 
 seas against reinforcements and supplies from 
 Germany, we have been able at our ease and leisure 
 to occupy all the German colonies. What we have 
 done in this case we might also have done in a war 
 against the other colonial Powers, France, Italy, 
 Holland, and Portugal. We could, moreover, have 
 done it much more easily in a single-handed war 
 than in this struggle. In this war we have had 
 to divert the greater part of our resources to help 
 France and Serbia and to attack Turkey. Single- 
 handed against any other colonial Power, our 
 success overseas would have been prompter. The 
 reader may dismiss such strategical forecasts as a 
 typical instance of the German mania for thinking 
 in terms of force. That is too summary a dismissal. 
 
 16 
 
226 A LEAGUE OF NATIONS 
 
 We may feel sure that we shall never succumb to 
 the temptation to use our sea-power in this purely 
 predatory way. The fact remains that it gives us 
 in all our dealings with colonial rivals a tremendous 
 leverage, and a power of attack which is balanced 
 by no corresponding vulnerability. There is no 
 disputing the plain physical fact that our sea-power 
 means that other Powers hold their colonies at our 
 goodwill, and can expand only with our goodwill. 
 Our sea-power gives us the physical basis for a 
 potential ascendancy which might be nearly absolute 
 over Africa, over all the richer and more populous 
 regions of Asia, and over all the islands of the 
 seas. The perception of this physical fact has 
 penetrated all German political thinking in our 
 generation. It did not trouble the quiet, unenter- 
 prising nation which was content to limit its 
 ambitions to its home territories. It gripped and 
 obsessed the nation which felt itself compelled by 
 the growth of its population and the almost 
 miraculous expansion of its trade to adventure in 
 a wider world, to embark on " world-politics," 
 and to become itself, like its older rivals, a 
 "world-Power." For a generation after 1870 
 Bismarck's expression that Germany was " gorged " 
 (saturiert) held true, and throughout this period 
 the Triple Alliance, with the Russian " re-insurance " 
 treaty sufficed to guarantee her position on the 
 Continent. The desire for overseas expansion 
 became an acknowledged and conscious tendency 
 shortly before the Kaiser's accession (1888), and 
 it was dominant by the end of the century. 
 Hitherto, we had been an informal and semi- 
 detached adherent of the Triple Alliance, and both 
 Bismarck and Caprivi regarded our Navy as a kind 
 of supplement or completion (Ergdnzung) of its 
 forces. When Germany aspired, however, to 
 colonial expansion, a choice had to be made. She 
 
EMPIRE, SEA-POWER, AND TRADE 227, 
 
 might expand by our permission and with our aid, 
 taking what we chose to assign to her as her share ; 
 or she might build up a fleet, and make her own 
 way in the world. The reasons which governed 
 her choice were partly sentimental and partly 
 practical. She disliked the idea of being beyond 
 the seas a satellite in some sense of our Empire 
 " the junior partner in the British world-firm," in 
 Naumann's phrase. She dreaded, moreover, that 
 we should exact a heavy price for our goodwill 
 by requiring her aid in a policy certainly of hostility 
 and possibly of war against Russia. Something 
 of the kind seemed to be in our minds, for the 
 series of speeches in which Mr. Chamberlain invited 
 Germany and America to form with us a Pan- 
 Teutonic alliance were full of menace and ill- 
 will towards France and Russia. The history of 
 this period is not yet fully disclosed. We know 
 only that in 1901, when Germany did definitely 
 offer us her alliance, we no longer cared to accept 
 it probably because Germany stipulated that it 
 should not be applicable to the Far East. 1 The 
 Kaiser was certainly friendly so long as Queen 
 Victoria reigned. On two occasions at this time 
 we played into the hands of the school of which 
 Admiral von Tirpitz came (from 1897) to be the 
 determined and capable leader. We replied in 1896 
 to the telegram in which the Kaiser congratulated 
 Mr. Kruger on his escape from Dr. Jameson's 
 freebooting raid, by sending out the " Flying 
 Squadron " to cruise at large. Our intention, 
 doubtless, was to suggest to the Germans that 
 it was idle for a people without a navy to dream 
 of interfering even with such a lawless outrage 
 as Dr. Jameson's. When the Boer War eventually 
 fulfilled the promise of the Jameson raid, the 
 lesson was learned. The seizure of their liner the 
 k x See Sir Valentine Chirol, Quarterly Review, October 1901. \ 
 
228 A LEAGUE OF. NATIONS 
 
 Bundesrat in that war completed the education 
 which the " Flying Squadron " had begun. Count 
 Reventlow is not always a trustworthy historian ; but 
 when he states that the agitation for a great navy, 
 of which he was the chief literary spokesman, could 
 not have succeeded without these two object-lessons, 
 he is probably a reliable and competent witness. 1 
 The whole course, first, of the Boer, and then of the 
 Russo-Japanese, War fixed the humiliating impres- 
 sion of Germany's impotence. Germany realized 
 that she had been " attempting to conduct world- 
 politics with insufficient means." That, indeed, is 
 commonly the effect of the spectacle of war upon 
 neutrals. This war fostered the American movement 
 of " preparedness," and led to an increase of the 
 American Fleet. By the same process of thinking 
 the Boer War made it possible, after many earlier 
 failures, for the Tirpitz school to impose the first 
 plan of a great navy upon the Reichstag (1900). 
 We have gone far enough into the origins of 
 the Anglo -German naval rivalry to realize that the 
 crucial point in the claim which Sir Henry Camp- 
 bell -Bannerman put forward on behalf of our sea- 
 power is that " throughout the world that power 
 
 1 We continued to supply object-lessons. Shortly after his fall 
 (1905) M. Delcasse divulged to the Gatilois, in an interview, the 
 fact that Lord Lansdowne had promised him in a Moroccan com- 
 plication the aid of the British Fleet. The Matin and M. Jaures 
 both supplied the details of the plan a few weeks later, and both 
 claimed ministerial authority for their statements. The plan of 
 campaign included a landing by a British Expeditionary Corps in 
 Schleswig and the occupation of the Kiel Canal. It so happened 
 that immediately after this crisis, for the first time since the Crimean 
 War, we sent the Channel Fleet to cruise in the Baltic (August 1905). 
 It visited the Danish ports, and actually (so ran the German reports) 
 practised landing exercises on the coast of Jutland. This was a 
 startlingly dramatic way of reminding Germans of the meaning 
 of our naval supremacy (see Reventlow, pp. 263, 277-9). Tne reason 
 for it was presumably the Kaiser's proposed continental coalition 
 against our action in the Russo-Japanese War, 
 
EMPIRE, SEA-POWER, AND TRADE 229 
 
 is recognized as ... innocent of designs against 
 . . . the legitimate development of other States." 
 Have we, as the greatest of colonial Powers, 
 watched without jealousy the attempts of younger 
 rivals to build up modern empires overseas ? It 
 is not easy to see ourselves as others see us. Our 
 feeling as we watched the growth of Russian power 
 in Asia before 1907, or of the French colonial 
 Empire before 1904, may not have been so much 
 jealousy as alarm. Our possessions are so scattered 
 that it is difficult for any rival to take a forward 
 step without approaching some route or position 
 that seems vital to our safety. We were sensitive 
 when a rival approached the Afghans or the Boers 
 or bestrode our road to India. Our long rivalry 
 with France lasted for twenty years and culmin- 
 ated in the Fashoda incident. It may be worth 
 while to recall the impression which * that incident 
 made upon Frenchmen. M. Debidour, 1 in his 
 admirable " Histoire Diplomatique de 1'Europe " 
 (iii. p. 67), opens his narrative thus : 
 
 England, which had long been the first'colonial Power in the world, 
 had acquired the habit of watching jealously the overseas policy of 
 France, and was disturbed when she carried her flag and sought to 
 establish her dominion both in Asia and in Africa, in the neighbour- 
 hood of her own possessions. When she saw her, so soon after her great 
 disasters of 1870 and 1871, undertaking and carrying out methodically 
 numerous conquests, which might permit her to rival her own power, 
 she naturally made no attempt to conceal her alarm and her annoy- 
 ance. The stolid opposition which she maintained to her in Tonkin, 
 in Madagascar, and in the interior of Africa, during the last years 
 of the nineteenth century, was one of the most singular elements in 
 the diplomatic history which we are about to sketch. 
 
 1 One of the leading French historians and a Professor of :the 
 Sorbonne. His book is commended by M. Leon Bourgeois as a 
 " classic " and has been " crowned " by the Academy. This praise 
 is perhaps too high, but it is a careful and laborious book. He 
 is a warm partisan of the Entente Cordiale, and wrote or completed 
 this section of his work during this war. 
 
230 A LEAGUE OF, NATIONS 
 
 The details which follow in M. Debidour's record 
 are often singular and sometimes incredible. They 
 range from a long series of frontier disputes and 
 boundary questions in Africa, through incidents in 
 which it is said that we aided savage chiefs with 
 arms against France, up to such official acts of un- 
 friendliness as our refusal at the time of France's 
 disasters in Indo -China, to allow her ships to coal 
 at our stations. In the end, as M. Debidour, and, 
 indeed, all Frenchmen recognize, Lord Lansdowne 
 brought the long and bitter rivalry to its close 
 in a handsome and generous settlement, to which 
 Sir Edward Grey adhered with scrupulous and un- 
 flinching loyalty. The end blots out the record, 
 but the moral remains that for the future we should 
 seek in our dealings with colonial rivals rather 
 to avoid such episodes than to repair them. For 
 our unfriendly attitude towards French colonial 
 expansion we had, of course, reasons more solid 
 than jealousy. It was partly retaliation for the 
 opposition of France to our permanent occupation 
 of Egypt. It was governed, even more, by the 
 fact that the guiding principle of French colonial 
 policy was then, and still is, commercial monopoly. 
 Wherever France expands our merchants know only 
 too well that their trade is doomed. 
 
 Neither of these reasons can be advanced to 
 explain the repetition of the same phenomenon 
 during part of the period of German expansion. We 
 had no serious political quarrel with Germany before 
 1905, and even then we were not principals in 
 the Moroccan affair, but merely France's second. 
 The commercial policy of Germany in her colonies 
 is, moreover, as enlightened as our own. Not only 
 is there no tariff preference for German over foreign 
 goods, but the administration invariably welcomes 
 the foreign merchant. 1 It would be the reverse 
 
 * Nothing in West Africa is more striking than the attitude 
 
EMPIRE, SEA-POWER, AND TRADE 231 
 
 of the truth to say that our early attitude to German 
 expansion was unfriendly. On the contrary, Lord 
 Salisbury did much to facilitate it. We acquiesced 
 in it in East and West Africa, in Samoa, and in 
 Kiao-Chau. Nevertheless, we seemed to be anxious 
 to set limits to it. After some hesitations, we 
 withdrew our early opposition to Germany's estab- 
 lishing herself in South-West Africa, but we would 
 never give up its natural harbour, Walfisch Bay, 
 and the arrival of the Germans in South Africa 
 was the signal for a rapid advance of British 
 Imperialism, first in Bechuanaland, and then in 
 Rhodesia, with the manifest object of preventing 
 any further extension of the German sphere in the 
 unoccupied interior. What we dreaded was, of 
 course, their junction with the Boers. The "lead- 
 ing case," however, in this chapter of our history 
 turns on the ambition of the Germans to acquire 
 the Portuguese colony of Angola and the northern 
 part of Mozambique. These colonies are almost 
 derelict for lack of enterprise, capital, and orderly 
 administration. They are based, moreover, on a 
 system of scarcely disguised slavery and slave - 
 trading, which has been described by Mr. Nevin- 
 son, and denounced in the plainest language by 
 Lord Cromer. Portugal was in a condition of 
 chronic insolvency, and sooner or later must have 
 realized her assets. In 1898 we concluded, or 
 all but concluded, a bargain with Germany, by 
 which we, as the protector or " ally " of Portugal 
 
 adopted by the several colonizing Powers towards commerce. At 
 present Germany is easity in the front rank : her policy towards 
 business men is the most enlightened of any Power. . . . The British 
 merchant knows with absolute certainty that he may rely on receiv- 
 ing a warm welcome and every assistance in German colonies. He 
 knows too that none will be given a preference before him (" Dawn 
 in Darkest Africa," by the Rev. John H. Harris ; Smith, Elder & Co., 
 1914). 
 
232 A LEAGUE OF NATIONS 
 
 and the reversionary heir to her African estates, 
 agreed to facilitate the purchase of the greater part 
 of them by Germany. Some authorities state that 
 a secret treaty was actually signed to this effect in 
 September 1898. l Nothing camle of it, and the 
 reason is not fully known. We helped Portugal 
 out of her financial difficulties, and prevented her 
 selling to Germany a coaling-station in Madeira. 
 With King Edward's accession a definite step was 
 taken in somewhat dramatic form, which was inter- 
 preted in Germany as a warning that we had ceased 
 to favour her colonial expansion. The King's first 
 ceremonial visit abroad was to Lisbon, and there, in 
 public and emphatic words, he announced that the 
 maintenance intact of the Portuguese colonies was 
 the object of his best wishes and endeavours. The 
 effect on German opinion was considerable, 2 and it 
 served to underline what was already guessed re- 
 garding the King's personal relations with the 
 German Court. The Foreign Office still followed 
 for a time a pro -German policy in the unpopular 
 Venezuelan affair, the abortive Chinese Treaty, and 
 even in the early stages of the Bagdad negotia- 
 tions. In the end it refused the overtures of 
 Germany for an alliance. Our uneasiness at our 
 isolation among the Powers, which the Boer War had 
 taught us to consider rather perilous than splendid, 
 the refusal of the German Government to enter 
 into any alliance which might involve it in a war 
 with Russia, the pro -French leaning of our Court, the 
 anti -German tendency of some of our commercial 
 circles, and our very natural alarm at the progress 
 of German naval building, all combined to range us 
 definitely in 1904 in the continental system and 
 within the camp opposed to Germany. 
 
 1 See Reventlow, 121 ; Debidour, iii. 263. 
 a Reventlow, p. 199. 
 
EMPIRE, SEA-POWER, AND TRADE 233 
 
 From this moment until the end of the Moroccan 
 affair in 1911 the relationship was one of open 
 antagonism, and it turned primarily on the use 
 of our sea -power to prevent what Germans regarded 
 as their " legitimate development." A full survey 
 of the Moroccan period would involve us in a 
 lengthy digression. It has been reviewed by Mr. 
 E. D. Morel with equal knowledge and courage 
 (" Ten Years of Secret Diplomacy "), and more 
 briefly by Mr. Lowes Dickinson (" The European 
 Anarchy ") : the attitude of almost the whole Liberal 
 Press in England, and of the Socialist Press in 
 France, was, throughout it, uneasy and critical. The 
 Germans contrived by the bad manners of their 
 diplomacy, their preference for dramatic and chal- 
 lenging strokes, and their vulgar, sabre-rattling, 
 bullying procedure to destroy the sympathy to which 
 on the merits of the case they had some title. 
 It is fair to point out, however, that if they had 
 really been bent on war the favourable moment 
 for them was 1905, when Russia could have played 
 no part and France was admittedly unready. It 
 is interesting to find that a " realist " like Count 
 Reventlow censures his Government in this connec- 
 tion for its excessive devotion to peace. There 
 was much to regret in the Anglo-French conduct 
 of the case the assumption, for example, at the 
 start that we had the right without consulting other 
 Powers to dispose of the destinies of Morocco, and 
 the reluctance of France to enter a conference. 
 Worse still was the equivocal honesty which pub- 
 lished a treaty guaranteeing the independence and 
 integrity of Morocco, while secret clauses and a 
 secret Franco -Spanish treaty provided for its 
 eventual partition. Such dealings are fair neither 
 to the nation at home, nor to other Powiers, nor to 
 the victim nationality, and when once they are 
 divulged, they expose every subsequent treaty to 
 
234 A LEAGUE OF NATIONS 
 
 similar suspicions. 1 When at length the Confer- 
 ence met at Algeciras, the French, British, and 
 Spanish representatives solemnly negotiated with the 
 Germans for a species of international regime in 
 Morocco, knowing all the while that they had 
 arranged among themselves for its eventual par- 
 tition. The Conference over, France, disregarding 
 the spirit of its decisions, set to work promptly and 
 efficiently to make a partition of Morocco inevitable, 
 and she achieved it in the brief period of five 
 years. Did the German Government itself wish 
 to make Morocco, in whole or in part, a German 
 colony, as the Pan-Germans certainly did? Prob- 
 ably it did not, and by its reserve it earned the 
 criticisms of the Reventlow school. But if it had 
 done so (as our Foreign Office during the Agadir 
 crisis suspected), would there have been anything 
 monstrous in that ? Why is it legitimate for France 
 to expand and a capital crime in Germany to wish 
 to expand? We were ready, as Mr. Lloyd George 
 in his Guildhall speech (1911) told the Germans, 
 with a menacing publicity worthy of the Kaiser 
 himself, to go to war to prevent the realiza- 
 tion of this design. Why? Morocco is important 
 for two reasons. It was one of the few regions of 
 the earth still unappropriated, which are suitable 
 for white settlement. It is also rich in iron-ore. 
 Consider the two claimants (if Germany really had 
 been a claimant) . France, with a stationary popu- 
 lation, has already two colonies of the same type 
 (Algeria and Tunis), while Germany, with a yearly 
 increase in her population of nearly a million, has 
 none. France exports iron-ore : Germany must 
 
 1 Thus we find Dr. Rohrbach speculating as to what are the secret 
 clauses in the Anglo-Russian Agreement of 1907. What was in the 
 mind of the Turks when in September 1914 they refused the Entente's 
 guarantee of Turkish integrity and independence ? They may have 
 remembered the fate of Morocco and Persia. 
 
EMPIRE, SEA-POWER, AND TRADE 235 
 
 import. The real concern of trie German Govern- 
 ment, which knew, as we also well know, the 
 tendency of French colonial administration to com- 
 mercial monopoly, was that this potentially rich area 
 should be closed to her merchants, contractors, and 
 mining prospectors. What angers, suspicions of 
 " encirclement," armaments, and threats of war this 
 sorry quarrel over a rich field for speculative 
 exploitation caused in Europe we know too well : 
 the present war is in some sense its aftermath. 
 Read this episode in connection with our opposition 
 to the Bagdad Railway, and we have the clue to 
 the reasons for the refusal of the Germans in 1907 to 
 accept as final the existing ratio of naval strength. 
 They had decided to arm at sea because they wished 
 to expand overseas. They realized, in the Kaiser's 
 phrase, that " Empire means sea -power and sea- 
 power means empire (Reichsgewa.lt}"- At that 
 moment, with their experience in the Angola 
 bargain fresh in their minds, and the Moroccan 
 affair still unsettled, a hopeful approach to the 
 limitation of naval armaments demanded negotia- 
 tions of a much larger sccff)e than our Govern- 
 ment then contemplated. If a nation is arming 
 for a definite end, there is only one pacific way 
 of inducing it to disarm, and that is to offer it with 
 goodwill some part at least of what it means to 
 attain by struggle. The problem, in other words, 
 was to offer some tangible guarantee that our naval 
 supremacy, if the Germans would acquiesce in it, 
 should not be used to thwart their legitimate 
 expansion or to limit the world's area of commercial 
 freedom. 
 
 The second approach of our diplomacy to 
 Germany was more comprehensive : it was inspired 
 by a man who understood the workings of the 
 German mind, and it succeeded in creating real 
 goodwill between the two Governments. Lord 
 
236 A LEAGUE OF NATIONS 
 
 Haldane in these negotiations performed a notable 
 service to his country, and there is nothing in Lord 
 Grey's long record which will serve him better with 
 history than his adoption of the new policy which 
 he followed from the end of 1911 down to the 
 outbreak of the war. 1 A final settlement of the 
 naval question was not reached, though the com- 
 petition was greatly eased. The formidable 
 personality of von Tirpitz (then, as later, the 
 Chancellor's determined opponent) stood in the way, 
 and it was impossible for us to accept the con- 
 dition on which even at that early stage it might 
 have been settled a " re -insurance " treaty based 
 on mutual neutrality. Our reasonable economic 
 and colonial concessions sufficed, however, to change 
 the whole atmosphere. The generous terms on 
 which the Bagdad Railway question was finally 
 settled are known from public declarations made 
 by both sides. The conclusion of a secret agree- 
 ment over the Portuguese colonies, which apparently 
 was actually initialed, is not so generally known 
 in this country. It seems to have been substan- 
 tially a repetition of the abortive bargain of 1898, 
 based on the understanding that when German 
 capital had sufficiently " penetrated " these colonies 
 to lay the foundations of a claim, we would facilitate 
 their purchase by Berlin. Looking back upon the 
 past, one may reflect that if in 1904 it had been 
 possible to conclude an arrangement on these lines 
 with Germany, our happy approach to France need 
 not have involved the sharpening of the rivalry in 
 
 1 The goodwill of the German Chancellor and of Herr von Kiderlen- 
 Waechter deserves equal recognition. Neither of them (as Count 
 Reventlow deplores, pp. 386 and 456) belonged to the naval school, 
 and their policy (according to this hostile witness) was based on the 
 resolute maintenance of peace, an approach to Russia, an approach 
 to Britain, the removal of the Franco-German friction, and German 
 expansion in the East. 
 
EMPIRE, SEA-POWER, AND TRADE 237 
 
 Europe. If, further, at any time between 1904 
 and 1914 Russia had been able to come to terms 
 with the Central Powers over the freedom of the 
 Turkish Straits, this war might have been avoided. 
 It was these concrete issues which underlay the 
 rivalry of the two groups of Powers. But in 1904 
 we were in no mood for an arrangement with 
 Germany, and the Kaiser's love of posing in 
 " shining armour " made it at all times difficult. 
 It was a great achievement that, in spite of all 
 the moral and material difficulties, Sir Edward Grey 
 did contrive in 1912 to ease and even to end the 
 overseas rivalry between the two Empires, and to 
 this we may point with confidence as a proof that 
 our policy did not permanently aim at using our 
 sea -power to check the expansion of others. The 
 significance of this colonial arrangement for our 
 present argument is, that from it the terms emerge 
 on which our naval supremacy may be rendered 
 tolerable to the rest of the world. Sir Henry 
 Campbell -Bannerman foresaw what these condi- 
 tions must be. It remained to translate his declara- 
 tion into concrete and binding undertakings. A 
 League of Nations, if it is to use and sanction our 
 sea -power, must work on the same lines. It must 
 offer safeguards against aggression and assure 
 nationality. But it is equally imperative that it 
 should guarantee freedom of trade and provide for 
 the legitimate expansion of growing nations. 
 
 The reader may object that the argument of this 
 chapter has assumed that the kind of Imperialism 
 exemplified in the German ambition to lead the 
 economic development of Turkey and to administer 
 Angola is "legitimate expansion." Why, it may 
 be asked, if Germans may freely trade with our 
 colonies should they wish to have colonies of their 
 own? That is a two-edged question. We might 
 and did trade freely with their colonies ; why, then, 
 
23 8 A LEAGUE OF NATIONS 
 
 should we object to their increase? Even if we 
 take the question on this purely material level, it 
 cannot be dismissed so simply. No nation has any 
 guarantee, in the present state of the world, that any 
 other colonial Power will continue to follow an 
 enlightened policy of commercial freedom. There 
 were limits, moreover, to the enlightenment of the 
 best colonial Powers. The trade of foreigners in 
 goods might be encouraged, but on the whole every 
 Power preferred to reserve for its own subjects the 
 big opportunities for profit " political " concessions 
 as they are sometimes called railways, telegraphs, 
 harbour works, roads, oil-wells, and mines. It is 
 on these concessions far more than upon the mer- 
 chants' trade in goods that the politics of Imperialism 
 turn to-day. The flag follows these capital invest- 
 ments, and the investments follow the flag. There 
 is more involved in this process of appropriating 
 concession areas than the simple desire to invest 
 profitably in regions where labour is cheap and un- 
 protected. There is the desire to obtain a secure 
 supply of raw materials. The need of our Navy to 
 obtain a supply of oil-fuel which would always be 
 under our political control, goes far to explain the 
 partition of Persia and our appropriation of the oil- 
 bearing southern sphere. The need of the German 
 steel industry to obtain a cheap and ample supply of 
 iron-ore underlay the Moroccan question, as it com- 
 plicates the problem of Lorraine. But in peace, at 
 least, the reader will object, the Germans could always 
 have bought iron -ore from a French -Moroccan 
 syndicate. Yes, at the French price, which might 
 in some circumstances become a monopoly price. 
 They would naturally have preferred to eliminate 
 middlemen's profits, and to avoid the risk of artificial 
 prices by working the mines themselves through a 
 syndicate representing the consumers. If there is 
 any risk of the adoption of the Paris Programme, this 
 
EMPIRE, SEA-POWER, AND TRADE 239 
 
 question of raw materials will dominate the whole 
 politics of the world, for rival alliances will control 
 these natural resources, and use their control frankly 
 and avowedly to combat the economic prosperity of 
 their commercial rivals and political opponents. The 
 reader may object that even this real difficulty over 
 raw materials is not a decisive reason why Germany 
 should insist on having colonies or spheres of her 
 own. We live in an age when all trade, and 
 especially overseas trade, tends to be managed by 
 syndicates, trusts, and cartels. There seemed before 
 the war to be no valid reason why these financial 
 groups should be exclusively national. If Germany 
 needs iron -ore, and desires to have some control 
 over its production, why should not a Franco - 
 German or international syndicate develop the mines 
 of Morocco, and ensure a fair 4i striDU tion of the 
 product to the various national industries which con- 
 sume it ? That probably is the only possible formula 
 for the equitable solution of such questions. But it 
 encounters grave difficulties in practice. A conces- 
 sion was actually given by the colonial administra- 
 tion of Algeria to a Franco -German syndicate for 
 the working of the rich Ouenza ore -field. It was 
 revoked by the Chamber on political grounds. 
 Arrangements were actually made for the association 
 of French, German, and other capital in the working 
 of the Moroccan mines. They came to nothing in 
 circumstances which suggested that the French 
 Government could not bring itself to tolerate German 
 enterprise in Morocco. These unfortunate essays in 
 co-operation need not be accepted as decisive proofs 
 that it must always fail. But they do suggest that 
 guarantees for good faith are necessary. On paper 
 a colonial Power inspired by a tradition of monopoly 
 may promise an open door to the foreign trader and 
 to the foreign capitalist ; it may even refrain from 
 imposing differential tariffs. But in a hundred ways 
 
240 A LEAGUE OF, NATIONS 
 
 an administration may by a sedulous attention to detail 
 render these undertakings of no effect. Officials who 
 do not mean to welcome foreigners can, in colonies 
 where the whole administration is bureaucratic and 
 personal, so hamper their activities as to render 
 them difficult and unprofitable. The French Congo 
 is the classical instance of this policy. The only 
 safeguard is reciprocity and the possibility of retalia- 
 tion. Unless Germany is somewhere in a position 
 to say to France, " If you hamper my access to your 
 colonial raw materials and markets, I shall reply by 
 forbidding mine to you," she clearly is at the mercy 
 of a competitor's goodwill. She could not, in fact, 
 bargain on these terms, and this weakness in her 
 position drove her to desire colonies and spheres of 
 her own. The adoption of a policy of commercial 
 freedom by all the colonial Powers ought in theory 
 to check the desire for empire, but a too unequal 
 distribution of coveted areas is an obstacle in practice 
 to its general adoption. If each of the chief in- 
 dustrial competitors had something which they could 
 deny to others, the exchange of opportunity would 
 come about by the natural pressure of interests. 
 
 The economic motives were in Germany, as I 
 believe they are in every modern community, the 
 chief forces which drove it to desire expansion over- 
 seas. They were not the only forces. The pressure 
 of a rapidly increasing population must also be 
 taken into account. The figures do not at first sight 
 bear out this argument. The mass emigration which 
 was so marked a feature of German social life in 
 the middle decades of last century diminished and 
 almost ceased with the progress of German industry. 
 Before the foundation of the Empire, Germany was 
 a poor country, with a low standard of comfort and 
 an urgent problem of unemployment. To-day her 
 industry and her agriculture can together absorb all 
 the skilled labour of her growing population, and 
 
EMPIRE, SEA-POWER, AND TRADE 241 
 
 more than all its unskilled labour. There is, in fact, 
 a contrary process at work, and unskilled labour, 
 most of it migratory, .is imported from Russian 
 Poland and from Italy. None the less the problem 
 of emigration is acutely felt. It is not usually the 
 artisan or the peasant who goes abroad to seek his 
 fortunes. The modern phenomenon is an immense 
 exodus of educated men from the middle classes, 
 merchants, clerks, teachers, expert technicians, 
 chemists, and metallurgists. Germany no longer 
 exports labour : she exports brains. It is a more 
 valuable export, and rightly or wrongly it is felt to 
 be a more serious loss. It is an inevitable conse- 
 quence of a worldwide trade, and without it her 
 commerce could not be developed or maintained. 
 We have the same experience, but in our case this 
 exodus is directed largely to British colonies. It 
 involves for us no expatriation, no abrupt passage 
 to an alien civilization, no sacrifice of patriotism. 
 These German emigrants have a hard choice. In 
 their African colonies they cannot make a per- 
 manent home. They may go abroad for a term of 
 years, endure exile, make a competence and return ; 
 or else they may settle, become naturalized subjects 
 of another State, and rear children who will speak 
 the language and think the thoughts of another 
 nation. The German patriot finds small consolation 
 in the thought that his country in this way adds its 
 quota to a cosmopolitan civilization : he deplores 
 the loss in man-power to his own Fatherland. There 
 is here a real hardship to the individual and a real 
 grievance for the nation. The explanation is to 
 be sought, of course, in history. Prussia was busy 
 up to 1870 in creating a German Empire in Europe, 
 and even after 1870 Bismarck, until the last years 
 of his long career, despised overseas expansion 
 and allowed chance after chance to go by. When, 
 however, Germany did at length ardently desire it, 
 
242 A LEAGUE OF NATIONS 
 
 she found obstacles in her path, first in South Africa 
 and then in Morocco. Some Germans complained 
 of the unflinching application of the Monroe 
 Doctrine, and it is possible that the establish- 
 ment of a German colony in South America would 
 have helped to ease our European problems. We 
 do not, in fact, need all the territory we have appro- 
 priated. Generations will pass before Canada and 
 Australia are fully peopled. Even to-day the vast 
 Northern Territory of Australia, which Mr. Hughes 
 describes as "a fertile land of almost illimitable 
 potentialities," with an area as great as France, 
 Germany, and Italy put together, has a population of 
 only 1,182 Europeans. The retort will come hotly 
 that Prussian militarism and its grasping ways for- 
 bade not only us but our colonists and the Americans 
 to welcome any extension of German power. There 
 is a vicious circle in this reasoning. It is precisely 
 this opposition to German expansion which in our 
 generation has perpetuated Prussian militarism. It 
 is hard to suggest a way out of this difficulty at the 
 moment, but a step will be gained if we can bring 
 ourselves to understand why it is that the Germans, 
 as they watch the free expansion of Britain, France, 
 and Russia, in illimitable spaces, feel that our sea- 
 power throttles and confines them. 
 
 The requirements of Germany's growing trade 
 and population afford explanation enough of her 
 desire to possess an overseas empire. There are 
 other motives at work which it is not so easy to 
 estimate. The economic motive has always been 
 the pioneer of empire, and the more ideal con- 
 siderations make themselves felt only when the 
 primitive hunger for land or trade has been satis- 
 fied. The sentimental or idealistic element in 
 German Imperialism may not, in fact, be its driving 
 f orce that comes from the industrialists and the 
 financiers who think m terms of markets, raw 
 
EMPIRE, SEA-POWER, AND TRADE 243 
 
 materials, and dividends but it is powerfully at 
 work to create acquiescence or even enthusiasm 
 among the " intellectuals/' and even in the masses, 
 who are not conscious of a direct material 
 interest in the question. Much of this sentiment is 
 the simple and intelligible human instinct which 
 enjoys the sense or even the illusion of wielding 
 power. Much of it is the universal megalomania 
 of our species, which feels that its personality is 
 enlarged and enriched, when it can contemplate great 
 territories on the map and call them its own. It 
 is not for us to censure this tendency, or even to 
 smile at it. With all our enthusiasm for little 
 nationalities, we have taken some pains not to be 
 one ourselves. English children reared in slum 
 dwellings are supposed to derive some emotional 
 satisfaction from contemplating on the schoolroom 
 wall the map of the Empire on which the sun 
 never sets. It is eminently natural that the Germans, 
 with a population that exceeds ours by twenty 
 millions, a trade which is rapidly overtaking ours, 
 a higher general standard of education, and a 
 capacity for applied science and social organiza- 
 tion, which has been cultivated far beyond our 
 present level of achievement, should think that their 
 estate in the world ought to correspond more closely 
 to their national stature. Dr. Friedrich Naumann, 
 in " Mitteleuropa," perhaps the most powerful book 
 which the war has called forth in any European 
 country, points out that even the realization of the 
 dream of " Central Europe," in its fullest sense as 
 a coalition for trade and defence of Germany, 
 Austria, and Turkey, would still leave this com- 
 posite structure much inferior in extent and popu- 
 lation to the estates of the other world -Powers. 
 Such ambitions, neither better nor worse than those 
 which made the British, French, and Russian colonial 
 empires, are capable either of a vulgar or of an 
 
"244 A LEAGUE OF, NATIONS 
 
 idealistic statement. The more idealistic and liberal 
 statements are undoubtedly popular with the German 
 reading public. My copy of Dr. Paul Rohrbach's 
 very readable book, " The German Idea in the 
 World " (" Der Deutsche Gedanke in der Welt ") 
 first published in 1912, but since rewritten is 
 marked " Qoth thousand." Dr. Rohrbach is a 
 pastor, whose interest in Eastern and colonial ques- 
 tions began with his work as a missionary in 
 Turkey. He supports this war (which he con- 
 siders, with evident sincerity, defensive), and advo- 
 cates an extension of the German colonial empire 
 in Africa and of German enterprise in Turkey and 
 China. He is opposed to annexations in the West, 
 and feels so little bitterness against England that 
 he is continually reminding his readers that our 
 success as a colonizing Power depends primarily 
 on character ; in his final chapter he even proposes 
 a programme for the future of close Anglo -German 
 co-operation in China. He is very far from the 
 self-complacency of the average Imperialist in most 
 countries, and writes some eloquent and penetrating 
 chapters on the various moral and intellectual defects 
 of German civilization the survival of class barriers 
 and feudal exclusiveness in German society, the 
 spirit of caste in the German Protestant Churches, 
 the aristocratic tradition in diplomacy and the lack 
 of any popular control of foreign policy, the decline 
 of German culture and the growth of " spiritual 
 illiteracy " (inner e Unbildung) in our generation 
 through an excessive specialization, the noisiness 
 and assertiveness of German manners ; and, finally, 
 he traces the unpopularity of Germany abroad to 
 the fact that she is regarded as an anti -democratic 
 State. I refrain from quoting his frank and scathing 
 pages, because it seems to me that our present 
 need is rather to see the good elements of German 
 culture than to be helped to diagnose its defects. 
 
EMPIRE, SEA -POWER, AND TRADE 245 
 
 It is worth noting, however, as a sign of the times, 
 that Germans read such self -criticisms eagerly, and, 
 further, that German Imperialism is not necessarily 
 the purely materialistic tendency which we com- 
 monly suppose it to be. It is an inspiration to 
 minds which are, according to their lights, liberal, 
 Christian, and democratic. It is fair to note in 
 this connection that Dr. Friedrich Naumann (also 
 a pastor and a democrat) includes in his equally 
 popular book some frank passages of confession 
 as to the " meanness " of German policy towards 
 Alsatians, Danes, and Poles. These things are not 
 the moralizings of defeat : they were written partly 
 before the war and partly in the full tide of German 
 military success. These writers (but more especially 
 Rohrbach) see in German expansion primarily the 
 means of winning scope and ground for the working 
 out of "the German idea" in the world. One 
 suspects that Rohrbach's Imperialism was largely 
 a reaction from the flamboyant, pretentious British 
 Imperialism of the nineties of last century, when 
 we moved from the conquest of the Soudan to 
 the conquest of the Boer Republics, the phase 
 incarnated in Cecil Rhodes and his prophet, 
 W. T. Stead. Rohrbach quotes continually what 
 he describes as a current English saying, " The 
 world is rapidly becoming Anglo-Saxon." Certainly 
 that was the Rhodes -Stead-Kipling attitude. For 
 Rohrbach the crucial question is whether the British 
 Empire, which at present dominates the world 
 beyond the European continent, will make room 
 for Germany beside it. Both these writers dis- 
 claim any thought of dominating the world : their 
 claim is for a share in shaping its destinies. They 
 cannot stand still, they argue : they must win a 
 place by the side of the Anglo-Saxons or perish. 
 How can they renounce the thought of expansion 
 when in every three years they add to their popu- 
 
246 A LEAGUE OF, NATIONS 
 
 lation as many Germans as there are Swiss in the 
 world, and in a generation create a second nation 
 to increase their former numbers, as numerous as 
 the Spaniards and Portuguese together? The 
 decisive and absorbing questions which confront the 
 world are, to Rohrbach's thinking, these three : the 
 civilization of the negro races, the adaptation of 
 Islam to modern conditions, and the reawakening 
 of the ancient civilizations of the East. These 
 three questions, it seems to him, are at present 
 receiving a solution in an Anglo-Saxon sense. Our 
 hands are guiding the most decisive movements of 
 the human race. He pays a generous tribute to the 
 capacity of these hands of ours, but he has the 
 not ignoble ambition to use his own. What is 
 the German idea which he desires to see at work 
 in the world? It is primarily an ideal of intense, 
 thorough, co-operative labour, in science, in pro- 
 duction, and in social organization. Rohrbach 
 dwells especially on German accuracy and industry. 
 Naumann has an almost lyrical passage on the com- 
 munal social spirit which causes German scientists 
 and German industrialists to work together, with 
 a pride in the merging of the individual in the 
 greater social organism, and a sense of patriotism 
 which permeates all they undertake. It is for him 
 the antithesis of the traditional British individualism 
 in thought and trade. The German " idea," in 
 short, is not merely an infinite capacity for taking 
 pains : it is a social genius. The desire to set 
 this tradition to the solution of African, Turkish, 
 and Chinese problems is not unworthy of practical 
 idealists. I confess to some mistrust of efforts, 
 be they British or German, to disguise the plain 
 economic meaning of Imperialism. The " intel- 
 lectuals " who gild it with an exalted ethical inter- 
 pretation are, however, helping to create a sentiment 
 which can and will bring the more predatory 
 
EMPIRE, SEA-POWER, AND TRADE 247 
 
 elements of Imperialism under control. Facile as 
 their idealization too often is, it has its uses in 
 helping to build up a high standard of administra- 
 tion. For Rohrbach the noblest application of the 
 creative power of human nature is the shaping of 
 States. The Imperialism which conceives its task 
 as a supreme architectural achievement may claim 
 respect as a movement which partakes, in some 
 degree, of idealism. 
 
 The question which Dr. Rohrbach has stated is, 
 indeed, not the least of the many that confronts 
 us. What will be our attitude towards .German 
 Imperialism ? The ability always latent in our sea- 
 power to frustrate it, to thwart and even to veto 
 it, is now actuality. We occupy all the promising 
 beginnings of a German overseas empire. We hold 
 the seas ; we can forbid this career to our enemies 
 at a price certainly of a prolongation of the war, 
 possibly of a bad settlement of European ques- 
 tions, and beyond a doubt of much future rancour. 
 It is well to put the choice in concrete terms. If 
 we mean to keep all or any of Germany's colonies, 
 if, further, we are bent on taking Mesopotamia, 
 and, still more, if France must have Syria if, in 
 short, our overseas gains are regarded, not as pawns 
 to be bartered in the settlement but as permanent 
 acquisitions, then plainly we must either continue 
 the war until the enemy is literally prostrate, or else 
 we must abandon some of our purposes for the 
 better settlement of questions of nationality. We 
 may have to choose between taking colonies or 
 liberating Poland and Lorraine. Let us, however, 
 for argument's sake, dismiss this consideration, and 
 suppose ourselves omnipotent at the moment of the 
 settlement. Is our policy then to be to oppose a 
 universal negative to German expansion, and to 
 confine the most energetic and the most prolific 
 
248 A LEAGUE OF NATIONS 
 
 of West -European peoples in an era of world-trade 
 and world -politics to its own home territories ? What 
 in that case will be its reply to our veto? It is 
 possible (though extremely doubtful) that the con- 
 sequence might be to end or at least to postpone 
 indefinitely the ambitions cherished by the naval 
 school. The idea of forcing a way through the 
 Straits of Dover might be forgotten : the idea of 
 challenging our supremacy at sea might be aban- 
 doned ; the hope of expanding in Africa or of 
 taking a share in the development of China might 
 fade. All this would be, the reader may say, an 
 inexpressible relief to ourselves. Possibly, but at 
 the cost of turning German energies in another 
 direction. " Empire is sea -power and sea-power 
 is empire " is not perhaps so axiomatic as it sounds 
 to us. There are some achievements within the 
 scope of land -power alone. The vast Russian 
 Empire, which up till the Revolution was still 
 active in the Far East, is one illustration. Though 
 Dr. Naumann nowhere states it expressly, the direct- 
 ing thought which led him and his school to the 
 conception of " Central Europe " must have been 
 a perception of the difficulty of competing with 
 our naval power, in the hope of creating a wide- 
 flung empire, scattered in many seas. The line 
 of least resistance for Germany, the path dictated 
 by her speciality of military efficiency, is the shaping 
 of a continuous continental empire. With Germany 
 and Austria -Hungary as its nucleus, it would first 
 consolidate itself by linking itself through Bulgaria 
 with Turkey. It might hope to add a vassal 
 Poland, and in time to draw into its system Holland 
 and perhaps the Scandinavian kingdoms. Its political 
 structure might be loose, but it would form a single 
 economic and military unit. To that alternative 
 the German imagination will infallibly turn, if we 
 deny to it a future beyond the seas. It did, in fact, 
 
EMPIRE, SEA- POWER, AND TRADE '249 
 
 turn to it, because the necessity of seeking our 
 permission to expand was galling, and the chances 
 of obtaining our permission doubtful. This ambi- 
 tion is not one which a good European would wish 
 to see fulfilled. It would perpetuate the division 
 of the world into two camps, and overshadow the 
 life of the Continent by its immense military power. 
 Its internal structure, moreover, would rest, not on 
 federation but on German dictatorship. None the 
 less it is not as Naumann outlines it, in the worst 
 sense of the word, an aggressive conception. It 
 presupposes the voluntary adhesion to the system, 
 for mutual advantage, of its various component units. 
 It aims at creating a great area of internal Free 
 Trade. Its central idea is purely economic the 
 extension over this large and wealthy region of 
 the German commercial system, its cartels, its enter- 
 prising banks, its national organization of produc- 
 tion and exchange. It would mean primarily the 
 " speeding up " of Austrian and Eastern economic 
 life to " the rhythm of German work " ; nor should 
 it be forgotten that in the wake of the German 
 capitalistic cartel there would follow the German 
 socialistic trade union. It is a more constructive 
 ideal than our schemes of "war after the war"; 
 it contains no suggestion of a tariff war, of hostile 
 or punitive measures against the enemy, or, indeed, 
 of any raising of trade barriers against the out- 
 side world. Its aim is positive to develop a great 
 estate : it is not, as our answer is, negative, to 
 prevent an enemy from ever " raising his head." 
 It is none the less a conception full of menace 
 to the world. It is founded on the negation of 
 any international ideal : it cannot be fitted into 
 any framework of a League of Nations. Naumann 
 may give to it a comparatively liberal and un- 
 aggressive statement, but under the conduct of ruder 
 and cruder minds and amid the stress of the alarms 
 
250 A LEAGUE OF NATIONS 
 
 and retaliations which it would evoke, it would 
 split the world and doom it to intolerable strife. 
 It is probably, in its fullest and completest sense, 
 an unrealizable conception, partly because the weaker 
 members of the partnership are jealous of German 
 predominance, and still more because German trade 
 itself would not find within Central Europe an 
 equivalent for its overseas trade, which the inevitable 
 reprisals and counter -coalitions would threaten. 
 
 To these alternatives we must oppose a third 
 possibility a return to Sir Edward Grey's pre-war 
 policy, an attempt by definite arrangements to 
 reconcile our sea-power with commercial freedom, 
 and the claims of others to a reasonable expansion. 
 We must, in short, make room for German ambitions 
 beside our own in the world, for their trade, for 
 their colonies, and for their participation in the 
 development of such countries as Turkey and 
 China. If we refuse to do this, our " navalism " 
 will stand at the bar of history to answer a heavy 
 charge, and it needs no prophet to warn us that 
 our refusal will impose upon us and our children 
 the burden of continual armaments to defend our 
 veto on German expansion, and that in the end 
 all our precautions may fail to prevent another 
 explosion of the human forces we have sought to 
 repress. We shall consider in the next chapter 
 what measures a League of Nations might take 
 to enlarge commercial freedom, and regulate the 
 development of half-civilized countries, and the use 
 which it might make of the economic advantages 
 which it would confer upon its members to ensure 
 peace. In regard to Germany, the first step towards 
 the realization of this policy must be the restora- 
 tion of her colonies, as an item in the general 
 balance of the settlement which may be set off 
 against the heavy sacrifices which, even on a con- 
 servative reading of it, the doctrine of nationality 
 
EMPIRE, SEA-POWER, AND TRADE [251 
 
 must impose upon the Central Powers. There are 
 some grave difficulties in the way of this policy. 
 Japan will not tolerate the restitution of Kiao-Chau 
 (Tsing-tau) to Germany. Its original seizure was 
 a predatory act, and if it is restored in good faith 
 to China, there will be for international morality 
 a real gain. It is also said that under no circum- 
 stances will our colonies yield up the lands in the 
 Pacific and in Africa which they have won from 
 Germany at some cost in blood. General Botha 
 has a delicate internal situation to consider, and 
 the German effort to foment a Boer rebellion from 
 South-West Africa left the natural impression 
 behind it in the colony that the Germans are not 
 desirable neighbours. It is difficult to see any 
 similar justification for a claim (if it should be 
 officially made) from Pretoria to retain German 
 East Africa. It lies far beyond the natural 
 geographical limits iof South Africa, and its conquest, 
 though a difficult operation, demanding skill and 
 endurance, is not to be compared in human cost 
 with one day's " push " in France. If the 
 colonial forces should demand that they shall keep 
 all that they have taken, they may be imposing 
 on the Allies further efforts which may cost in 
 blood many times over what they have spent. If 
 we cannot reckon East Africa as a piece to bargain 
 with, then we, or the French, or the Russians may 
 have to take at vastly greater cost some region 
 of the enemy's home territory, which will serve as 
 an equivalent element of barter. East Africa is 
 a comparatively new colony, and its seizure cannot 
 be compared with the forcible annexation of the 
 smallest strip of a nation's home territory ; none 
 the less, to take away by force a piece of work on 
 which men have spent much labour and thought 
 is not an act which should be lightly contemplated, 
 nor would it be readily forgotten. It may be, 
 
252 A LEAGUE OF. NATIONS 
 
 however, that the restoration of all the German 
 colonies will be impossible. In that case we must 
 be prepared to find equivalents for them. This 
 ought not to be inordinately difficult. It is doubt- 
 ful whether the Belgians, as a nation, are really 
 anxious to carry on the heavy burden of the 
 Congo. Their Liberal Party and most of their 
 Socialists, except M. Vandervelde, were originally 
 opposed to its transference by King Leopold to 
 Belgium. The genius of this home-loving people 
 does not turn readily to colonial enterprise. 
 Experts warn us that the Congo ought to cost 
 Belgium annually at least a million sterling for 
 twenty years, if it is to be administered on any 
 plan consistent with the happiness of the natives. 
 At present the reform' of King Leopold's night- 
 mare rule has been only partial, and the burden is 
 probably beyond the resources of a small State. 
 If it should turn out that Belgium is inclined to 
 part with her rights for a fair price, any transfer 
 must, of course, be made outside the framework 
 of the Belgian settlement itself. Germany owes 
 an indemnity to Belgium, and full compensation 
 for the devastations of her armies. If she cared 
 to purchase the Congo or part of it, the price 
 must be something distinct from the indemnity, and 
 additional to it. France might be willing to 
 consider some rearrangement of the confused dis- 
 tribution of French, British, and German areas in 
 West Africa. There is also to be considered the 
 problem of the Portuguese colonies. If the Allies 
 propose to retain for themselves the German Pacific 
 colonies and South-West Africa, the equivalent 
 might be found by concentrating German coloniza- 
 tion in the wide area of Equatorial Africa, and 
 if something more than an exact equivalent were 
 offered, the settlement of European questions would 
 be the easier. In any arrangement of this kind, 
 
EMPIRE, SEA-POWER, AND TRADE 253 
 
 if we retain some German colonies for ourselves 
 and allow her to acquire others in their stead, the 
 purchase price would, of course, fall on us. 
 
 An arrangement of this kind must satisfy several 
 tests. Historically the Great Powers engaged in 
 colonization for their own advantage, and the 
 predatory element, which began with slave-raiding 
 and persists in various forms of forced labour, has 
 been brought only slowly and not everywhere 
 completely, under the control of a humaner opinion. 
 One half of our duty in colonial affairs lies in 
 insisting that no Power ought to monopolize oppor- 
 tunities of profit and gain. But it would be 
 monstrous to discuss colonial rivalries on the 
 assumption that our duty is ended when we have 
 dealt fairly with our European rivals in the process 
 of capitalistic expansion. The native has also to 
 be considered. Long experience and the slow 
 victory of humane opinion over predatory impulse 
 may have made our rule the best for the natives, 
 especially in tropical Africa. That might in some 
 extreme cases tempt us to dispossess other 
 colonial Powers ; but if we were to act on that 
 risky principle, there are unhappy regions of Africa 
 which would claim our attention before any German 
 colony. I have no first-hand knowledge on this 
 subject, but the available records go to prove that 
 German policy towards the natives, relatively bad in 
 some colonies at first, and still only moderately good 
 in the best, has profited by experience ; it has lately 
 been much improved by reforming colonial secretaries 
 from Berlin, and there is growing, even outside the 
 Socialist ranks, an organized humanitarian opinion 
 which has even now some effect in controlling it. 
 I am content to be guided by the opinion of a 
 man whose comparative knowledge of the West 
 African colonies is intimate and extensive, and 
 whose zeal for. native welfare has inspired the 
 
 
254 A LEAGUE OF NATIONS 
 
 whole of his career. The Rev. John H. Harris, 
 whose services to the Congo are second only to 
 Mr. Morel's, in a book published shortly before 
 this war broke out, proposed that we should support 
 an immense extension of Germany's rule in Central 
 Africa. He wished that we should facilitate her 
 purchase of the whole or the greater part of 
 the Belgian Congo, and he even added the still 
 more daring suggestion that in return for some 
 concessions in Alsace, Germany might take over 
 the whole or the greater part of the French Congo. 
 During the war, he has, for other detailed reasons, 
 modified his programme, but it is still fair to 
 quote his opinion that " on the whole, both from 
 the commercial and native standpoint, the Congo 
 basin stands to gain by a transfer to the German 
 Empire." l So far from losing their value as the 
 result of the war, these proposals rather gain a 
 new significance. There will come a point in this 
 war (if indeed we have not reached it already) 
 when France will have to face the fact that to 
 conquer Lorraine (to say nothing of Alsace) she 
 must be prepared to fight on for six or twelve 
 
 1 "Dawn in Darkest Africa," p. 301. The reason advanced by 
 Mr. Harris against the return of any of her African colonies to 
 Germany is that many of the tribes and their chiefs, who have 
 supported our troops, would be exposed to reprisals. This difficulty 
 must be met, but it is surely too small to outweigh the many objec- 
 tions to the permanent seizure of these colonies. The Treaty of 
 Peace must stipulate for an amnesty. It might even go on to provide 
 that our Consuls should have the right to watch over the due observ- 
 ance of the amnesty. Where a chief is heavily compromised, we 
 might be able to offer him land and financial compensation in our 
 own sphere. Such cases occur in most wars, and there are probably 
 some Flemings, Serbs, and Roumanians who will have reason to fear 
 the return of their own Governments. It argues a want of the sense 
 of proportion to make this difficulty an excuse for destroying the 
 German Colonial Empire. I discuss in the next chapter the general 
 question of the military and commercial regulation of Tropical Africa 
 
EMPIRE, SEA-POWER, AND TRADE 255 
 
 months more, at the cost of half a million lives 
 at least. The same equation will present itself in 
 regard to Poland and every other claim of 
 nationality. If we know that an extension of 
 German rule in Africa might be a gain to the natives 
 in the French, Belgian, and Portuguese colonies 
 of the Congo area, if we know also that it would 
 be a gain to commercial freedom, if we realize 
 that to occupy German energies here is to give 
 them an employment which must make for peace 
 in Europe, what hinders us from proposing an 
 honourable exchange of colonial expansion against 
 the satisfaction of nationality? From a sullen 
 peace, which closed the avenues of national 
 energy to one great nation, and deepened its 
 sense that it is hemmed in by the jealous prosperity 
 of others, we can hope no good. The best peace 
 will be the peace which removes the enemy's 
 grievance as well as our own. We can achieve 
 this double end by exacting from him concessions to 
 the wronged nationalities of Europe, while in Africa 
 and Turkey we find scope for his reasonable 
 economic aims. In Turkey, as the war map stands 
 to-day, he is already in possession, and there we can 
 only assent to his existing economic predominance, 
 while removing from it, by opening the Straits, 
 any element of menace to Russia, and, by restoring 
 Serbia, any threat to Balkan liberties. If Armenia 
 is liberated (as it must be), and some reservations 
 made in regard to French interests in Syria, 
 Turkey, on our present showing, cannot be reckoned 
 to the credit side of the Allied account in a bargain. 
 Our asset in a bargain of economics against 
 nationality is Equatorial Africa. 
 
 What, then, are to be our gains from the war ? 
 An enduring peace, an advance from the era of 
 force to the era of international organization, the 
 gratitude of liberated nationalities, the respect of 
 
256 A LEAGUE OF NATIONS 
 
 our Allies, and even of our enemies, when they 
 realize that we have fought with clean hands, and 
 come out with empty hands are these no gains? 
 There is in the history of an allied nation an 
 example which might inspire us. When, on the 
 eve of her own Revolution, a chivalrous France sent 
 her army and gave her treasure to assist the cause 
 of liberty in America, the question twice arose 
 whether she would accept compensation for her 
 sacrifices. The Americans suggested, after the 
 triumph of Rochambeau at Yorktown, that they in 
 turn might help the French to recover Canada. 
 When the treaty of peace was negotiated, they next 
 proposed in their natural gratitude to confer some 
 advantages upon French as against British trade. 
 With a fine gesture of generosity, both proposals 
 were rejected, and the Government of France 
 proved itself worthy of the enthusiasm of Lafayette 
 and the nobility of Rochambeau. Her motive was 
 as simple as it seems unworldly. She would not 
 sully a noble action by self-seeking". That was 
 the great deed of an aristocracy, which would not 
 forget magnanimity, because it had learned to love 
 liberty. Must a democracy be less generous? 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 THE ECONOMICS OF PEACE 
 
 THERE stands in the way of any discussion of the 
 economic policy of a League of Nations the hard 
 fact that the Allied Governments have officially 
 adopted the Paris Programme. That programme, 
 in its frank declaration of a war of tariffs and 
 exclusions after the war of flesh and blood, and 
 in its refusal to admit the enemy peoples at the 
 return of peace to the society of nations, is indeed 
 a flat negation of that " partnership " to which 
 Mr. Asquith had bidden us look forward. There 
 is one hopeful way of explaining this contradiction. 
 Statesmen do not disdain the minor arts of " bluff," 
 and it is possible that the Allied Governments, in 
 fact, conceive this nightmare of a " war after the 
 war " rather as a means of putting pressure on the 
 enemy at the settlement, than as a policy which they 
 desire, on its merits, to enforce. They may regard 
 it as a kind of imaginary prolongation of our 
 blockade. It is possible that some at least of the 
 Allied statesmen intended to use it primarily as a 
 means of bargaining. We may threaten to refuse 
 " most favoured nation " treatment to German trade, 
 to starve her of raw materials, and to penalize her 
 shipping, as a means of inducing her to accept 
 certain conditions. What are those conditions? 
 That depends on the open question what our war 
 aims really are. We shall not know until the treaty 
 of peace is signed, whether, in fact, we have been 
 
 1 8 2 57 
 
258 A LEAGUE OF. NATIONS 
 
 fighting to create a better Europe, or merely, in the 
 spirit of the past, to weaken an enemy, to crush a 
 commercial rival, and to achieve conquests of ter- 
 ritory which our capital may exploit. If anything 
 survives of the exalted spirit with which we began 
 the war, then the only bargain which can suggest 
 itself is that to Germany we concede commercial 
 freedom in return for her adhesion to a League of 
 Nations. Let us barter the Paris Resolutions against 
 her militarism. It follows that if this strategy is 
 adopted, the League of Nations must be more than 
 an association bound by a promise to arbitrate. It 
 must be also a League which removes economic 
 opportunity from dependence on military and naval 
 power. 
 
 THE SENTIMENTAL TARIFF. 
 
 Before we attempt to develop this constructive 
 idea, it is necessary to consider some subsidiary 
 arguments which are advanced in defence of a trade 
 war against Germany. In the first place let us 
 dismiss the muddled notion that such a " war " 
 would be a logical application of the economics of 
 Protection. The issue is much narrower than the 
 general dispute between Protection and Free Trade, 
 and a Protectionist is no more committed by his 
 premises to " the war after the war " than a Free 
 Trader. A " scientific " tariff follows, or attempts 
 to follow, certain aims which are in flat contradiction 
 to the scheme of this " war." It may try, by impos- 
 ing disabilities on foreign imports, to win a more 
 favourable position for our own exports in foreign 
 markets. Any idea of such a bargain, aiming at 
 reciprocity through retaliation, is excluded by the 
 new political Protection, which seeks, not to obtain 
 advantages for ourselves but to inflict injury on 
 others. The skilful constructor of a tariff considers 
 minutely what is the minimum stimulus, in the shape 
 
THE ECONOMICS OF PEACE 259 
 
 of a protective duty, that he must administer to a 
 growing, a struggling, or a decadent trade in order 
 to ensure its development or recovery, and he will 
 not allow himself to be driven by the least fraction 
 above that minimum, lest he demoralize instead 
 of strengthening the trade in question, and enable 
 it to advance its prices, to the detriment of 
 the consumer, far beyond what a reasonable margin 
 of profit demands. The new Protection is debarred 
 from such nice graduation of duties as this : against 
 German goods, at least, it must impose, not the 
 minimum duty which might stimulate our own trade, 
 but a prohibitive maximum. Finally, the attempt 
 might be made (as the Trade Union Congress 
 desires), if we are going: to adopt Protection, to 
 discriminate against certain foreign goods because 
 they are produced by underpaid or overdriven labour, 
 to exclude " sweated goods," and to realize some- 
 thing like that abortive Australian conception of a 
 quasi-Socialistic " new Protection " which is, of 
 course, only a project even in Australia, for the 
 Law Courts have defeated it in action. This, too, 
 would be impossible under the Paris plan, which 
 would oblige us to favour, for example, the 
 " sweated " produce of Japanese industry against 
 German goods manufactured under an enlightened 
 system of labour legislation and the check of well- 
 organized trade unions. One need not pause to 
 insist that " war after the war " would be an 
 especially flagrant departure from Free Trade. It is 
 no less to the point that it would defeat every object 
 which a rational or " scientific " Protection might 
 pursue. Under it there could be neither bargains 
 for reciprocity, nor the skilful graduation of duties, 
 nor the use of tariffs to protect labour. The con- 
 ception, in short, is not merely one irrelevant to 
 economics, it is anti -economic. Based on hatred, 
 envy, and fear, it proposes to subject economics to 
 
260 A LEAGUE OF NATIONS 
 
 politics. The popular conception of a sentimental 
 tariff, which will give a preference to Colonies over 
 Allies, to Allies over neutrals, and to neutrals over 
 enemies, assumes that we are prepared to subordinate 
 our business to our emotions, and to make of our 
 likes and dislikes the foundation of our trade. The 
 chaos into which this principle would lead us is 
 beginning to be recognized to-day ; in its extremer 
 form it can hardly survive the annihilating argument 
 of Mr. Hobson's analysis in " The New Protection- 
 ism " (Cobden Club, 6d.). There is no guarantee, 
 there is barely a possibility, that Russia and France, 
 devoted, both of them, to high Protection, will so 
 lower their duties in our favour as to compensate us 
 for the loss of the German market. Nor can Russia 
 (which especially valued the German market for 
 her grain, because geographically it is, for some of 
 her provinces, more accessible than her own ports) 
 hope for compensation in our market, if we are going 
 to give a preference to Canadian wheat. If we 
 discriminate against neutrals, it is to be foreseen that 
 they will retaliate against our goods, a situation of 
 which the Germans will know how to take advantage. 
 British trade under such a system would find itself 
 obliged to confine its hopes of expansion mainly 
 within our own Empire. America and Germany 
 would be united against the Allied policy, and might 
 eventually be driven, in spite of their present 
 hostility, into an economic alliance against us. This 
 crazy scheme can hardly outlive the emotional exal- 
 tation of war. If we are destined to adopt Protection 
 (it is to be hoped devoutly that we are not), its 
 mischiefs will be redoubled, and its alleged 
 benefits frustrated, unless we are free to confer 
 advantages and erect barriers on economic grounds 
 alone. 
 
THE ECONOMICS OF PEACE 261 
 
 KEY INDUSTRIES AND "RESTORATION." 
 
 Some special reasons (apart from the anger and 
 fear which are the real reasons) are advanced in 
 support of "the war after peace." Most of these 
 arguments are inadequate ; while they may suffice 
 to support some minor changes in our traditional 
 fiscal system, they will not carry the weight 
 of the case for a general boycott of German 
 trade. 
 
 The more we act on the assumption that future 
 wars are probable, and proceed, at some incon- 
 venience to ourselves, to reorganize our manufactures 
 and our commerce on a war basis, the more likely 
 is it that this anxious expectation of war will realize 
 itself. The dilemma is familiar. If a nation refuses 
 to prepare adequately for war, its unreadiness (if 
 it is rich, ambitious, and possessed of vast and 
 enviable estates) may invite attack. But if it so 
 prepares that its preparations overshadow peace with 
 the ever-present thought of war, it will sooner or 
 later militarize the minds of its citizens as well 
 as its institutions. These special adjustments of 
 our trade to the possibility of future war all involve 
 some departure from the ethical ideal of Free Trade, 
 which sees in the interdependence of nations an 
 image of their fraternity and a pledge of peace. 
 If we should ever realize the militarist ideal of 
 national independence in trade, wars might indeed 
 be fought with less risk of commercial loss, but 
 the restraint on the war -makers which comes from 
 the fear of commercial loss would be correspondingly 
 diminished. To the idealistic Free Trader the whole 
 world is a co-operative society. He aims at a 
 natural division of labour, so that each nation shall 
 produce, for the good of the whole human society, 
 the things which its genius, its resources, and its 
 climate best fit it to produce. He sees in protec- 
 
'262 A 1 LEAGUE OF. NATIONS 
 
 tive tariffs, and in the endeavours of militarism 
 and nationalism to limit the free exchange of 
 goods, interferences with this natural division of 
 labour which inflict a double injury. They mean 
 that, by one expedient or another, a people whose 
 aptitudes or resources have not naturally led it to 
 produce a particular kind of goods, are stimulated 
 or obliged to make these things which others were 
 producing elsewhere better and more cheaply. 
 There is a money loss, for the goods so produced 
 behind a tariff wall will commonly be dearer than 
 those which had been imported freely. That is 
 the smallest part of the injury. What really happens 
 is that something has been added wantonly to the 
 sum of the world's labour. The effort to make 
 dearly in England what had been made cheaply 
 in Germany, implies that there is some addition to 
 the world's unnecessary toil and some subtraction 
 from the world's possible leisure. A man (may 
 be justified in producing dear vegetables in ,his 
 own garden, though a market -gardener can do it 
 better and more cheaply, because gardening is good 
 exercise and a pleasant recreation. But if we insist 
 by means of a tariff on growing in England with 
 much toil what can be produced with less toil in 
 a more genial climate, we are laying a burden on 
 the backs of our countrymen. Protection must 
 nearly always mean that on the whole something 
 is added to the sum of a nation's hours of labour. 
 That is the ethical aspect of dearness and high 
 prices. No one would dispute this principle where 
 climate is the prime factor in cheapness : only a 
 lunatic would suggest that we ought to tax foreign 
 bananas and grow them at home under glass. But 
 it applies also to national aptitudes. The taste and 
 manual deftness of the French give them a pre- 
 eminence in producing for the world beautiful articles 
 of luxury. The scientific training of the Germans 
 
THE ECONOMICS OF PEACE 263 
 
 gives them a similar superiority in the chemical 
 industries. Other specialized trades, like the watch- 
 making of Switzerland, depend on a local organiza- 
 tion which has become traditional and a skill which 
 is almost hereditary. To insist on interfering with 
 this natural division of labour among nations is to 
 increase toil wantonly, to diminish the total wealth, 
 comfort, and leisure of mankind, and to destroy 
 its sense of solidarity and mutual inter- 
 dependence. 
 
 This general argument is so strong that every 
 plea for a departure from it in special cases demands 
 a critical and sceptical scrutiny. It may be pushed 
 unreasonably far. If we left the whole production 
 of beautiful things to the French, we should starve 
 our own aesthetic aptitudes for lack of exercise. 
 If we abandoned the trades that require scientific 
 knowledge to the Germans, we should be depriving 
 ourselves of an intellectual stimulus. A nation 
 which lives by exporting dyes and drugs will 
 develop its brains somewhat further than a nation 
 which lives by exporting steam coal. There are, 
 of course, other means of stimulating our intelli- 
 gence, but clearly, if this consideration weighs with 
 us, we shall wish that British chemical industries 
 should achieve success by merit, and not by 
 monopoly. The surest way to fit ourselves to 
 succeed is to diffuse scientific education, and that 
 not only among the salaried experts, but among 
 the capitalists and managers who conduct our manu- 
 factures. A subsidy or a guarantee of profits would 
 be infinitely preferable as a means of stimulating 
 these new trades to a prohibitive tariff, for if 
 all foreign competition is excluded, the consumer 
 has no check upon the inertia of the producer, who 
 might be content with high profits on a dear and 
 inferior article within a closed market. A man 
 who has built himself a wall may be tempted to 
 
'264 A LEAGUE OF NATIONS 
 
 go to sleep behind it. But State aid involves State 
 control over prices and conditions of labour, and 
 it ought to be limited to a few years. Another 
 alternative would be to nationalize the industry. If 
 our concern were solely to provide against the 
 eventuality of war, it would suffice to accumulate 
 large stocks of these products of the so-called 
 "key" industries under State control. That plan 
 is under consideration in Germany, where it is pro- 
 posed to concentrate grain, rubber, copper, oils, 
 and other necessities of foreign origin in national 
 stores. These stores may be so managed by the 
 State in time of peace as to stabilize prices, while 
 in war they will serve to defeat a blockade. We 
 might adopt the same plan in the case of dyes 
 and drugs, to supplement any possible deficiency 
 during war in our home production. There are, 
 to sum up, several alternatives to the imposition 
 of a tariff. If we should in the end adopt the worst 
 method of protecting these few " key " industries 
 a duty on certain imports even this is far from 
 committing us to a general tariff on all manufactured 
 goods. Further, if our aim be, for military reasons, 
 to foster the home production of these few articles, 
 the duty ought logically to be imposed impar- 
 tially on all imports of these goods, and not 
 merely upon imports from Germany. A few 
 exceptional duties, if levied impartially, would not 
 seriously modify our fiscal system, and though, in 
 fact, they would injure some important German 
 trades, they need not by their form or their inten- 
 tion commit us to the principle of the boycott and 
 the " war after peace." 
 
 Finally, it is urged that in order to stimulate 
 the recovery of the districts of France which have 
 been occupied by the enemy, the Allied countries 
 ought for a period to exclude German trade, and 
 in some degree to penalize neutral trade. The 
 
THE ECONOMICS OF PEACE 265 
 
 logic of this argument eludes me. By shutting out 
 German competition we should do little to stimulate 
 the lamed industries of these devastated regions, 
 which would have to meet in the Allied markets 
 the concentrated competition of uninjured Allied 
 rivals. It is by other expedients that the industry 
 and agriculture of the devastated regions must be 
 revived direct subsidies, the supply of necessary 
 materials as gifts or at reduced prices, the remission 
 of taxes for a term of years. The burden must not 
 fall on France. The problem, moreover, is general. 
 The Russians devastated Galicia and East Prussia. 
 The Grand Duke Nicholas stripped Poland of every- 
 thing portable before he evacuated it, and the Allied 
 Staffs insisted (a legitimate precaution) on wreck- 
 ing the Roumanian oil-wells. Elsewhere the damage 
 is due, not to policy, but to the inevitable effect of 
 artillery in the area of conflict. Save in the case 
 of Belgium, which calls for separate treatment, most 
 of the Allied Governments have renounced any 
 thought of claiming penal indemnities. Theoretically 
 it would be just to insist that all damage due to 
 measures which the Hague Convention does not 
 sanction, ought to be repaired by the guilty Power. 
 But the cost, the delay, and the friction would be 
 intolerable before investigation and litigation could 
 decide the exact facts and the exact law in the -case 
 of every wrecked farmstead. The Pope proposes 
 the usual solution familiar to history mutual con- 
 donation. By far the humaner plan is that which 
 some Russians have put forward. They suggest 
 that an International Commission should assess all 
 the devastation suffered by all the belligerents, that 
 a common fund for repairing it should be constituted 
 by all the belligerents, and that each of them should 
 contribute to it in proportion to his total war ex- 
 penditure. All Europe would thus bear collectively 
 the cost of enabling these ruined populations to start 
 
'266 A LEAGUE OF NATIONS 
 
 life again, and each Power would contribute on a 
 ratio which would approximately correspond to its 
 relative wealth . 
 
 THE RETURN TO MERCANTILISM. 
 
 None of these subsidiary arguments, even if 
 all of them were sound, supply any reason for 
 the adoption of the policy of the trade war ; they 
 may at the most convince us that there is a case 
 for. some modification of our traditional system of 
 free trade, to encourage " key " industries, and 
 protect ourselves against " dumping." The real 
 reasons for the adoption of the Paris policy are 
 simpler and cruder. Clausewitz said that war is 
 a continuation of policy by other means. The Paris 
 Programme means the continuation of war itself 
 by other means. Its design is plainly by an 
 economic combination to pursue the aims of war, 
 to weaken, if not to subjugate, the enemy. The 
 authors of this policy have given us an object- 
 lesson of its working. Mr. Bonar Law, not content 
 with drastic measures which have rooted out all 
 the agencies of German trade in our African 
 colonies, winding up their firms, and selling their 
 warehouses, lands, and wharves, has taken steps 
 to deprive them for a term of years of the use of 
 one of the most important raw materials iwhich 
 West Africa produces. To exclude, or at least 
 to discourage, the German buyer in our colonies is, 
 be it noted, an injury, not merely to German trade 
 but also to the native producer. The Germans 
 had been prompter than we were to grasp the value 
 of the oil derived from palm -kern els as the basis 
 of margarine, soap, and cattle cake. They had 
 installed powerful crushing mills, and by attention 
 to the details of through rates, efficient handling 
 at their ports, and canal transport had got the trade 
 almost entirely into their own hands. The war gave 
 
THE ECONOMICS OF PEACE '267, 
 
 to our "infant industry 1 " its opportunity, which 
 it was prepared to take ; but the usual argument 
 was advanced, that a monopoly during three or more 
 years of war would not suffice to establish it 
 securely. One way of ensuring its future would 
 have been (if good machinery and a reform of 
 our ports were not enough) to place a duty on 
 imported palm-kernel oil. Mr. Bonar Law pre- 
 ferred the much more drastic method of refusing 
 to the German industry all access to the raw 
 material. Note the meaning of this choice. 
 Either measure would have involved a sharp 
 departure from Free Trade. An irriport duty on 
 the oil would have protected our own industry. 
 An export duty on the kernels aims at two objects : 
 it protects our industry, but it also destroys the 
 German industry. The old Protection was com- 
 monly a defensive policy : the new Protection is 
 avowedly offensive. Its aim is not merely to benefit 
 ourselves, but also to weaken and injure others. 
 That is not the only objection to this method. It 
 inflicts injury at the same time on the native 
 colonial producer, nor does the injury to him involve 
 a benefit to the home consumer. The duty of 
 2 a ton to be imposed for five years after the 
 end of the war on all kernels exported from West 
 Africa to foreign countries will probably be pro- 
 hibitive, and Mr. Law has stated that if it should 
 not prove to be so it will be raised. It will con- 
 tinue in peace the conditions which war had already 
 brought about. The German buyer was eliminated, 
 and the British buyers, representing a very small 
 number of firms, were able to combine to lower 
 the price paid for kernels. The price paid to the 
 native rapidly fell, but the price paid by the home 
 consumer at Liverpool did not fall with it. 1 The 
 
 1 See the Commons debate of August 3, 1916, Mr. Molteno's speech 
 in Hansard. The price per ton at Lagos fell from 19 in 1913 to 
 
268 A LEAGUE OF NATIONS 
 
 shipping interest was not to blame ; what happened 
 was what might have been foreseen : the few dealers 
 made a " corner " in kernels to the equal disad- 
 vantage of the native producer and the British 
 consumer. The result must be a rapid decline in 
 the prosperity of the colony. 
 
 We have in this instructive object-lesson an 
 illustration of the comprehensive reaction which 
 war commonly brings with it. The Coalition raced 
 backwards, not to the Protection of the early 
 nineteenth but to the mercantilism of the eighteenth 
 century. This is the policy denounced by Adam 
 Smith, the policy which destroyed the Spanish 
 colonial empire, and with its '* impertinent badges 
 of slavery " jeopardized our own. It started from 
 the premise that colonies are estates controlled by 
 the mother country for its own exclusive commer- 
 cial advantage. It applied this principle chiefly 
 by drawing up ample lists of " enumerated " articles 
 of colonial produce, which our colonists were for- 
 bidden to sell to any but British purchasers. The 
 calculation was simple. By limiting the market 
 open to the colonial producer our forefathers 
 reckoned on keeping prices low for their own 
 advantage, while by monopolizing many important 
 raw materials they gave to our manufacturers an 
 advantage over those of other nations. Mercantilism 
 caused, while it dominated the world, an endless 
 series of colonial wars between the French, the 
 Spanish, the Dutch, and the British peoples for 
 it meant that only by seizing colonies for itself 
 could a trading nation hope to thrive and an 
 endless series of colonial revolts, for it drove the 
 colonists to protest against its doctrine of exploita- 
 tion. If we are about to revive it in the twentieth 
 
 9 and 10 in 1915, and finally to 6 153. When kernels cost 
 .19 in Lagos, they stood at 24 in Liverpool. When they fell to 
 10 in Lagos, they rose to 25 35. 9d. in Liverpool. 
 
THE ECONOMICS OF PEACE 269 
 
 century, the consequences can hardly be less disas- 
 trous to the world. It may be objected that one 
 mischievous tax does not make mercantilism. But 
 we have pledged ourselves in the Paris Resolutions 
 to continue in this course. The Allies are there 
 bound to " conserve for the Allied countries before 
 all others their natural resources " during the 
 " transitional period of reconstruction," which is ap- 
 parently to last for five years. If these words mean 
 what they say, they imply that we shall refuse' to 
 supply Germany with coal, and that France will stop 
 her former exports of iron -ore. They also mean 
 (if they are applied in the spirit of the palm- 
 kernel tax) that the Allies, who among them con- 
 trol Africa and subtropical Asia, will deny to 
 German industry the raw materials which their over- 
 seas dominions produce. In some cases (e.g. palm- 
 kernels) there is no alternative source of supply. 
 In other cases the Germans will inevitably turn 
 to the alternative sources of supply in South 
 America, and the Dutch Indies, and endeavour by 
 bargaining or by pressure to draw these neutrals 
 within their economic camp, and even to monopo- 
 lize their raw materials for German use. Indians 
 and Egyptians might not be quite so helpless as 
 West Africans, if we should forbid them to sell 
 their cotton to German buyers : the new mercan- 
 tilism would not be more conducive to loyalty than 
 the old. But the worst consequence of this policy 
 will be its reaction on international relations. It 
 means that the whole politics of the world, its 
 alliances, its sympathies, and its armaments will 
 revolve inevitably round the question of raw 
 materials. We shall arm and intrigue, and 
 eventually we may have to. fight, over iron and coal, 
 copper and tin, oil and rubber. The attempt to 
 destroy German industry (to prevent it " raising 
 its head " is the correct ministerial phrase) by 
 
270 A LEAGUE OF NATIONS 
 
 denying its access to raw materials m!eans primarily 
 that possessions beyond the seas and sea-power, 
 which Mr. Churchill once described as a " luxury " 
 for Germany, will have become for her a dire 
 necessity. Sooner or later, with the aid of one 
 ally or another, she would be driven, if only 
 to recover her pre-war level of commercial pros- 
 perity, to challenge our supremacy at sea. The 
 Paris policy means the frank abandonment of that 
 condition which, to Sir Henry Campbell -Banner- 
 man's mind, rendered our sea -power tolerable to 
 the rest of the world : it means the end of com- 
 mercial freedom. This forecast is perhaps too 
 pessimistic. Formulas rarely mean what they say, 
 and statesmen, when they have spoken a phrase to 
 amuse the gallery, forget it when hard facts con- 
 front them. The danger is not so much that wie 
 shall really follow the policy of " war after peace " 
 with a consistent, ruthless, and intelligent purpose : 
 it is that by playing with it in a spirit of demagogic 
 levity, we shall stimulate the resistance of the enemy, 
 prolong the war, and miss at the settlement the 
 opportunity for a healing and constructive peace. 
 There will be no League of Nations while a vestige 
 of this policy remains, and that for two reasons : 
 Germany will not enter such an association if wei 
 menace her future ; America will not help to 
 guarantee the peace of Europe if we make peace 
 impossible by an egoistic policy. But even if this 
 policy should survive the settlement, I refuse to 
 believe in its permanence. Those dismal phrases, 
 " war after war " and " war after peace " which 
 to-day excite our elderly non-combatants and amuse 
 our sedentary men of letters, stir in our soldiers a 
 movement of contempt and disgust. They feel no 
 hate (as one of them has put it) against " the men 
 who sat opposite to us in the mud." They know 
 what war is, and they want no more of it. They 
 
THE ECONOMICS OF PEACE 271 
 
 enlisted in the pathetic hope of making an end 
 of wars. Their votes, when they can cast them, 
 will turn the country to a policy more worthy of 
 its traditions and ideals. Flesh and blood will 
 not for ever submit to be sacrificed in wars of 
 tariffs and trade. 
 
 A CONSTRUCTIVE ECONOMIC POLICY. 
 
 Let us turn from these controversial discussions 
 to inquire what the economic policy of a League of 
 Nations must be. The reader may object on the 
 threshold that he sees no reason why a League of 
 Nations should adopt any economic policy at all. 
 " Each nation or group of nations," he may contend, 
 " must settle its economic policy for itself. A 
 League of Peace must pursue the limited but all- 
 important object of securing peace, by enforcing 
 the obligation to refer all disputes to some process 
 of peaceful settlement. Commercial freedom may 
 be a matter of the first importance, but it is no 
 concern of the League's. Its only aim must be to 
 enforce peace." This objection implies a curiously 
 negative conception of peace. Peace must mean 
 something more positive than the existence side 
 by side of nations which just contrive to avoid 
 bloodshed. If it be only the bare avoidance of 
 war, it will stir no enthusiasm and enlist no loyalty. 
 It must come to mean for us some conception of 
 a worldwide human society, within which a sense 
 of solidarity may grow up. It must learn to impose 
 checks on national egoism, not merely because this 
 egoism leads in the end to the horror and waste 
 of war, but even more because nations are aware 
 of a certain solidarity, and desire to exchange 
 services, intellectual and economic, for their mutual 
 good. This sense of corporate unity cannot be made 
 by treaties or leagues : what these outward bonds can 
 
27,2 A LEAGUE OF NATIONS 
 
 do is to create the material conditions in which it 
 may develop. It will not develop (save by reaction) 
 while Great Powers are using their military success 
 and their sea-power to refuse any reasonable expan- 
 sion to their rivals, to monopolize for themselves the 
 profitable enterprises of undeveloped countries, to 
 close the markets of their colonies, and to reserve 
 for themselves the raw materials which force has 
 brought within their control. The attempt to 
 enforce peace under such conditions would be 
 impossible. No League, however powerful, can in 
 the long run enforce peace, unless it will also 
 enforce justice. It will be a hopeful undertaking 
 to enforce peace, only when we have first removed 
 the more general causes of war. Of these general 
 causes the failure to recognize nationality is one, 
 and we have argued that the League must be 
 prepared to require from its members at least some 
 elementary tolerance for the language, the culture, 
 and the religion of racial minorities. No less 
 important, as a general cause of war, is the failure 
 to recognize commercial freedom. The world is 
 not yet ripe for a proposal to establish universal 
 Free Trade, though to me it seems that those who 
 in all countries aim sincerely at peace must direct 
 their thoughts and unite their efforts to this end. 
 Short of this broad solution, however, there are 
 some elementary economic principles which must 
 even now be laid down, if nations are sincerely 
 resolved to live in harmony. 
 
 The narrower conception of a League of Peace 
 as an organization which functions only when it 
 is called in to prevent a dispute from becoming 
 a war, would hardly succeed for long in avoiding 
 these economic issues. They would arise in dispute 
 after dispute, and to attempt to solve them 
 empirically, in each case as it arose, would be 
 hazardous and unsatisfactory. Judge-made law is 
 
THE ECONOMICS OF PEACE 273 
 
 rarely an adequate substitute for legislation. Let 
 us imagine a case. We will suppose that in spite 
 of the Paris Resolutions the League of Nations has 
 been founded,, and that Germany has joined it, 
 and further that the war has ended as Allied opinion 
 hopes that it will end. Germany has lost Lorraine. 
 Her industries struggle to recover, but as the 
 months go by, she finds that without an adequate 
 supply of iron-ore she is faced with ruin. Her 
 capitalists become clamorous, and her workers 
 desperate. France, however, has forbidden the 
 export of iron. Germany attempts to negotiate with 
 France for the free export of the ores which she used 
 to control in Lorraine. France refuses, and 
 Germany thereupon calls upon the League to con- 
 sider the dispute. The Council of Conciliation meets, 
 and the neutral votes upon it are just numerous 
 enough to lay down the general principle that no 
 nation ought to be starved of an essential raw 
 material in this way, and to recommend that France 
 shall allow the free export of ore. France again 
 refuses, appeals to the Resolutions of the Paris 
 Conference, protests her loyalty to her Allies, and 
 calls upon them for support. They give her their 
 support how could they do otherwise ? She is 
 carrying out their common policy. That would 
 mean the disruption of the League. Such questions 
 cannot be left to be solved step by step as the 
 League develops. There must be some agreement 
 at the start on the essentials of peaceful intercourse 
 among civilized nations. 
 
 The case for a constructive economic policy as 
 the basis of any League of Nations may be 
 approached from another angle. Our thinking, 
 while the war lasts, is inevitably preoccupied with 
 questions of force. Force is to-day the only power 
 at work in Europe. Even the current ideas of a 
 League turn to force as its foundation. The 
 
 19 
 
274 A LEAGUE OF NATIONS 
 
 American propagandist society has laid stress on 
 this aspect in its title : it calls itself a League to 
 " enforce " Peace. We seem unable to conceive 
 any international association which rests on any- 
 better than threats. To some of its advocates 
 in the American press the League is merely an 
 international court of criminal justice, which is to 
 deal, perhaps justly but certainly sharply, with any 
 aggressive offender. The machinery for redressing 
 grievances preoccupies these thinkers very little. 
 They will recommend some kind of settlement when 
 a dispute arises, but they will take no steps to 
 ensure its adoption. They care more about stop- 
 ping wars than about removing injustice. That 
 commonly is the spirit of criminal justice. It will 
 prevent a starving man from stealing a loaf, but 
 it will not help him to earn his bread. Unless we 
 can evolve somewhat beyond this harsh conception 
 of international relations, the League may do some- 
 thing for law, it will do little for justice. A basis 
 of force is indispensable as the world exists to-day, 
 and a league which was not prepared to use 
 concerted force to repress anarchic force would 
 hardly be worth creating. For the moment we 
 divide mankind into allies, enemies, and neutrals, 
 and the sense of common interests and a common 
 purpose in civilization has deserted us. As our 
 thinking becomes more normal, we may realize that 
 all fruitful associations, whether of individuals or 
 of nations, must, in the end, find their sanction and 
 their justification rather in advantages than in 
 threats. Unless the nations Who compose it can 
 look upon the League with a sense of gratitude, 
 they will never come to feel loyalty towards it. 
 It must be their benefactor before it can hope to 
 command their obedience. If it is ever regarded 
 merely as an overwhelming association of forces 
 too strong for resistance, it will, even at the height 
 
THE ECONOMICS OF PEACE 275 
 
 of its power, bear the seeds of its dissolution within 
 itself. Nations must think of it as the once sundered 
 fragments of nations think of the United Kingdom, 
 of United Italy, of the German Empire. It must 
 be an association which, with a new security, has 
 also given them an ampler intellectual life and a 
 larger and more prosperous economic existence. 
 Every union which has in the course of history 
 .commended itself and achieved permanence has had, 
 in fact, this dual basis of advantage, spiritual and 
 material. The ampler intellectual life will come 
 of itself : it will be largely independent of 
 organization, and will make its own organization 
 as it comes to self-consciousness. The basis of 
 material advantage must be organized, and some- 
 thing of its foundations must be apparent at the 
 start. It would be futile to propose at this stage 
 anything resembling the immense advantage of 
 economic unity and complete internal freedom of 
 trade which the United States, the United Kingdom, 
 the German Zollverein, and United Italy were able 
 to offer to their component States. But something 
 of the kind we must offer. We are engaged in 
 a difficult adventure. We are trying to make, 
 consciously, artificially, a great association of 
 peoples. There is no unity of race beneath it, 
 nor of religious faith. So far from possessing the 
 unifying influence of a common history of struggle 
 and comradeship, it will inherit the memory of a 
 bitter feud. There has been no slow growth of 
 the spirit of unity as there always was in history. 
 Bismarck and Cavour did not make Germany and 
 Italy : they merely executed the aspirations of 
 millions of Germans and Italians. Perhaps the 
 aspiration towards the unity of civilization is deeper 
 to-day than we can see. But the obstacles to the 
 factitious creation of a League are so serious that 
 we cannot afford to neglect the lesson that emerges 
 
2j 6 A LEAGUE OF NATIONS 
 
 from more natural and less conscious achievements. 
 The narrower, parochial, provincial minds among 
 Germans and Italians were reconciled to union, 
 because it carried with it evident gains to their 
 commerce. To-day there are interests which 
 imagine that they are going to derive immense 
 advantages from a policy of commercial egoism : 
 that it will be very profitable to destroy our chief 
 commercial rival, to keep her colonies, and to 
 monopolize the world's raw materials. They may 
 be right. To some groups of financiers it wjill 
 be profitable. Against them we must appeal to 
 a broader calculation. It must be evident to most 
 of mankind that the organization of peace does 
 promise something to the general prosperity, not 
 merely because it will diminish the waste of 
 armaments, and may end the waste of wars, but 
 also because at the same time it promises a measure 
 of commercial freedom. The statesmanship of the 
 League must learn to rely on this calculation. It 
 must seek to keep nations loyally within it, not 
 because they dread superior force and bow to 
 threats, but because they see their interest in 
 remaining within it. Inevitably we shall have to 
 ask sacrifices from them. It will not always be 
 easy for a strong Power to refrain from war when 
 victory seems certain, nor to accept an award that 
 tells against it, nor to keep its word to its own 
 hurt. They must be made to feel that these 
 sacrifices are trivial in comparison with what they 
 gain. Is it not enough that they gain peace? 
 Peace, to the generation which will grow up with 
 no memory of this hideous war, may not appear a 
 gain so clear as it seems to us. We live in an iron 
 age, and the ideal advantages of peace are little 
 regarded in comparison with the economic advan- 
 tages. The surest way of keeping the League to- 
 gether will be to attach to membership of it economic 
 
THE ECONOMICS OF PEACE 277 
 
 advantages so evident and so large that no sane 
 nation will venture to forfeit them by, secession, 
 or by disloyal conduct to bring about its own 
 eviction. Commercial freedom must be realized if 
 the world is to have peace, and clearly it ought to 
 come as the gift of the League. It has often 
 been pointed out with much reason, especially by 
 American writers, that an economic boycott of a 
 self-willed Power might, if the world were united, 
 avail as effectively as war to reduce it to reason. 
 That is true only on one condition. The condition 
 is that, before committing or meditating its offence 
 against civilization, the Power in question were 
 living in a condition of reciprocal intimacy with 
 its neighbours, that it depended on its trade with 
 them, and enjoyed in their markets advantages 
 whose withdrawal would threaten its prosperity. If, 
 on the other hand, we are all moving towards the 
 conception of national economic independence, if 
 we give few favours to others and receive few in 
 return, if half the world is normally boycotting the 
 other half, then clearly no use could be made of 
 the economic weapon to ensure peace, and war 
 would be the only effective means of enforcing 
 the general will. The more the League of Nations 
 can bring about a general condition of economic 
 interdependence, the larger the diffused advantages 
 of mutual commerce which it has secured to its 
 members, the greater will be its power in an 
 emergency to act through economic pressure and 
 without the use of force. Nor need this strategy 
 be confined to the future. On the contrary, the 
 moment of all others when it may be used with 
 the greatest effect will be at the settlement of 
 this war. If the Allies of the Entente, with 
 America behind them, can say to Germany : "Our 
 purpose is to make an end of militarism, both 
 yours and ours. Our terms include here and there 
 
2;8 A LEAGUE OF NATIONS 
 
 some sacrifices, even it may be some territorial 
 sacrifices in the interests of nationality which you 
 may be reluctant to make. On the other hand, we 
 offer you, in addition to a reasonable colonial 
 settlement, a degree of commercial freedom which 
 the world has not hitherto known, assured by 
 general and permanent conventions. Agree on your 
 side to come into the League of Peace, and to 
 discuss with us measures of general disarmament, 
 and we, on our side, will work out with you a 
 general charter of commercial freedom. Refuse 
 your consent to the international organization of 
 peace, and we withdraw our offer of an economic 
 charter. The answer to your militarism, if you 
 insist on maintaining it, will be on our side the 
 withholding of the generous economic concessions 
 which we are ready to discuss with you." Let 
 us consider what such a charter of commercial 
 freedom might include. It must touch on these 
 four questions at least : ( I ) tariffs in home markets, 
 (2) tariffs in colonial markets, (3) the regula- 
 tion of the export of capital, and (4) guarantees 
 for the access on equal terms of all industrial 
 peoples to raw materials. 
 
 A CHARTER OF COMMERCIAL FREEDOM. 
 
 i . It must be assumed that no European Power is 
 prepared to give up its sovereign power of de- 
 vising tariffs for its own home market. None of the 
 European Powers seem to be moving towards Free 
 Trade, and our own attachment to it appears to 
 be weakening. It is useless at this stage to suggest 
 any restriction on the right of each Parliament to 
 protect its own home trade by imposing such duties 
 as it may see fit to fix. There is, however, one con- 
 dition which ought to be laid down as the basis 
 of any League of Nations : that its members shall 
 
THE ECONOMICS OF PEACE 279 
 
 not discriminate from any motive of political hostility 
 against each other. It is our right, for example, 
 if we wish to develop our manufacture of dyes, 
 to impose a duty, even a prohibitive duty, on all 
 foreign dyes. That is an economic duty. Clearly 
 if our intention is to protect the British producer, 
 we must protect him as much against French and 
 American dyes (if there are any) as against German 
 dyes. A general, impartial duty involves no political 
 hostility. A special duty imposed only on German 
 dyes, or a differential duty with varying levels 
 according to our sentimental affinities, is not 
 economic Protection at all : it is political warfare. 
 That we shall continue to feel political disapproval, 
 distrust, and even resentment after the peace may 
 be inevitable, but to perpetuate it and proclaim 
 it by Act of Parliament is to destroy any hope of 
 a League of Peace. Our tariff would be a prosaic 
 Hymn of Hate. There is only one recognized and 
 traditional guarantee against hostile political dis- 
 crimination in trade, and that is a return to the 
 general practice of the past, by which virtually 
 every State, while it lived in outward friendship 
 with its fellows, accorded to them and received 
 from them " most favoured nation " treatment. The 
 phrase sounds almost emotional in its generosity. 
 It means, in fact, very little, but it does, at any 
 rate, forbid tariff wars and boycotts. It would 
 not prevent us from destroying the German trade 
 with Great Britain in drugs and dyes, for, since we 
 imported them from no other country, a duty, how- 
 ever general in form, would strike in effect only 
 at German trade. All it does is to impose upon 
 us a certain decency in the form of doing the 
 thing. Germany would doubtless answer with a 
 counter-blow at some speciality of ours, but still 
 with the same appearance of impartiality. An 
 agreement that all members of the League will 
 
280 A LEAGUE OF NATIONS 
 
 accord " most favoured nation " treatment to each 
 other in their home markets would, however, pre- 
 clude boycotts and differential tariffs, and that is 
 virtually all that it would do. It is a negative but 
 indispensable sign of peace. 
 
 Two difficulties arise in applying this formula. 
 We accept tariff preferences from our colonies, 
 though we allow none to them. When this policy 
 was first originated it led to a tariff war between 
 Germany and Canada, and to some rather delicate 
 diplomatic passages between London and Berlin, 
 In the end the status of our colonies as independent 
 States in the matter of their tariffs was accepted. 
 Plainly on this basis we could not on our side in 
 the future give a preference to colonial trade with- 
 out risking our own " most favoured nation " posi- 
 tion in foreign markets. None the less to give 
 favours to a colony is hardly an act of political 
 hostility towards other peoples certainly not in the 
 same sense as a discrimination between foreign 
 States would be. The difficulty would disappear, 
 of course, if the whole British Empire were a true 
 Customs LTnion (Z olive rein), with a single tariff 
 (high or low, protectionist or for revenue only) 
 against all outsiders. The other difficulty turns 
 on the peculiar relations of Austria and Germany. 
 They are not merely allies of long standing ; they 
 are also neighbours, with somewhat similar insti- 
 tutions, a partial identity in race, and a common 
 language in general use for trade. This is a much 
 closer tie than exists between any of the Allies of 
 the Entente. The Central Empires will certainly 
 fail to create immediately the system of internal 
 Free Trade which Dr. Naumann advocates. They 
 may possibly (though not probably) agree on a 
 common tariff against the outer world, while adopt- 
 ing a lower tariff against each other. If we should 
 object (as of course we should), and claim for 
 
THE ECONOMICS OF PEACE 281 
 
 ourselves equal treatment as " most favoured 
 nation " with Austria, the German answer might 
 be : " We have no colonies to compare with your 
 Canada and Australia. Legally they may be your 
 colonies. In fact, they are independent sister 
 nations. That is really our relation to Austria. 
 She relies on us for military and economic support 
 in a unique way. It is rather unreasonable that you 
 by a legal quibble may receive preferences from 
 your colonies, while we by the fiction of Austria's 
 independence are debarred from accepting the same 
 favours from her." There is some reason in this 
 argument (which may never, in fact, be presented, 
 for it is doubtful whether Austria-Hungary will 
 accept the Central Europe idea), and it is worth con- 
 sidering whether in fairness such cases can be treated 
 on different lines. If we object to Germany's 
 receiving favoured tariff treatment from Austria, we 
 probably ought to surrender the preferences which 
 our self-governing colonies accord to us. The 
 effect in both cases of this surrender of special 
 privileges would probably be some desirable 
 lowering of tariffs generally. 
 
 AFRICA AND COLONIAL FREE TRADE. 
 
 2. The suggestion put forward by the Belgian 
 economist M. Henri Lambert, and also by the New 
 York Reform Club, that all colonial Powers should 
 agree to impose in their non-self-governing colonies 
 tariffs for revenue purposes only, is far from being 
 visionary, nor would it involve any violent or general 
 change. It was our rule in India and the Crown 
 Colonies, and it had been followed also in the 
 German and Dutch colonies. 
 
 In none of these did the trade of the home 
 merchant enjoy any advantage in the customs -house. 
 The Berlin Convention of 1885 forbade all monopo- 
 
282 A LEAGUE OF NATIONS 
 
 lies and made the impartial treatment of all over- 
 seas trade, whether from the mother country or 
 from foreign countries, in respect of the free use 
 of rivers and ports, as well as in the matter of 
 tariffs, an obligatory rule in the " conventional 
 area " of the Congo a wide term which covered 
 all Equatorial Africa, including German East Africa. 
 In practice it was ill -observed by the French, 
 Belgians, and Portuguese, though even by them it 
 was rather circumvented than defied. Formal 
 pledges (whatever their value may be) of a similar 
 kind have applied also to Morocco and Tunis. There 
 seems to be no insuperable difficulty in extending 
 this or some similar Convention to all colonies and 
 spheres administered by Powers which adhere to the 
 League. The chief opposition would come from 
 France, but her objections might be overcome if 
 as an article of the same settlement she recovered 
 Alsace. Russia is in an anomalous position, for 
 though Siberia and Central Asia resemble colonies, 
 they are legally on the same footing as any other 
 part of Russian territory. If this case were not 
 pressed against Russia, that might stand to her 
 credit side in the balance of the settlement. If the 
 proposal seems too large (and why should it be -so?), 
 it might at least be adopted, by way of a beginning, 
 as a general rule for Africa 'excluding the Medi- 
 terranean colonies and the self-governing Dominion 
 of South Africa. The case for it follows so neces- 
 sarily from our previous argument that it needs no 
 enlargement here. Apart from the fact that all 
 experience proves that colonies do not thrive under 
 a system of monopoly, it is clear that only by allow- 
 ing to all comers a general use of the advantages 
 of colonial trade can the Powers which chanced, by 
 the good fortune of past history or the use of their 
 greater sea-power, to acquire great colonial estates, 
 protect themselves against the inevitable jealousy of 
 others . 
 
THE ECONOMICS OF PEACE 283 
 
 The problem of Equatorial Africa offers itself 
 as the most fruitful field in which the international 
 idea can work. The British Labour Party has seen 
 this possibility, but its proposals err by excess. It 
 would abolish all the existing national administra- 
 tions south of the Sahara and north of the Zambesi, 
 and create in their place a single International State., 
 administered by the League of Nations. The burden 
 is too heavy, the task too large to thrust upon a 
 League which has yet to be created. It is easy to 
 construct on paper an International Civil Service, 
 composed of Englishmen, Frenchmen, Germans, and 
 Americans, 'but it would start \vork without a common 
 tradition, or rather with a set of extremely various 
 traditions. Each of these races has its own notion 
 of dealing with natives, and each is critical of the 
 methods of the others. Put a Frenchman as junior 
 under a British senior or vice versa, and the result 
 will be friction ; introduce Germans into the mixture 
 and the case will be much worse. Do we really 
 want to disturb the good work which is being done 
 in Nigeria or Uganda by British officials ? Some of 
 them might remain, it will be urged. But the British 
 tradition is conserved by the Colonial Office, and by 
 the control of public opinion at home. A number 
 of white men, isolated in Africa, cut off from the 
 home tradition and from home control, and with no 
 fear of debates and questions in Parliament before 
 them, would be unlikely to maintain their present 
 standard. International finance would be busy in 
 this inevitably bureaucratic State, and with no Par- 
 liament in Europe to call attention to scandals, the 
 League's colony might come to resemble King 
 Leopold's. There are other objections to the plan. 
 It would wipe out the German Colonial Empire 
 while leaving to us and the French most of our more 
 valued possessions. But there is no likelihood that 
 British public opinion would consent to make over 
 
284 A LEAGUE OF NATIONS 
 
 our colonies to the League. In this form there is 
 no immediate future for Internationalism in Africa. 
 
 The path of advance is to carry somewhat further, 
 and to extend more widely the method of the Berlin 
 Convention. We do not want to wipe out national 
 administrations. 4 What is wanted is rather to lay 
 down certain principles to which all of them must 
 conform in the interest alike of the native, of Euro- 
 pean trade and of ^European peace . ( i ) The first 
 of these principles must be the recognition of the 
 native's right to his traditional property in the land 
 and its produce. Equatorial Africa can never be 
 a white man's country. Its future depends on thie 
 success of the administration in encouraging the 
 natives to develop its resources. They must work 
 for their own profit. Only as they become pro- 
 ducers, will they in return demand European goods. 
 The plantation system is destructive alike to native 
 freedom, to native progress, and to trade. With 
 some instruction and some organization and with 
 improved transport, the natives are capable of cul- 
 tivating or collecting all the raw materials which 
 European industry requires from Africa. This prin- 
 ciple presents a direct negative to the schemes which 
 certain British Imperialists have recently advanced 
 for the exploitation of Africa as a tributary posses- 
 sion. (2) The second of these principles is that 
 all discrimination must be forbidden throughout this 
 area, whether in customs or in transport rates, be- 
 tween traders of any nationality adhering to the 
 League. (3) Something might be done by inter- 
 nationalizing the more important railways, as they 
 are constructed, to equalize opportunities for the 
 capital of different countries. (4) Finally, the 
 neutralization of part of this area which the Berlin 
 Convention recommended but did not enforce, ought 
 to be extended to the whole area, and made obli- 
 gatory. Neutralization must be defined to mean 
 
THE ECONOMICS OF PEACE 285 
 
 much more than the immunity of Tropical Africa 
 from warlike operations. It must include a general 
 prohibition of the arming 1 and training of native 
 levies. The number of native troops who may be 
 raised for purposes of police ought to be rigidly 
 limited by agreement. In default of this, the next 
 chapter in the history of militarism and imperialism 
 will be the conscription of the negfo races and 
 their employment in the next European war. That 
 hideous proposal has been discussed in Paris, in 
 London, and in Berlin : it would mean the final ruin 
 of civilization . 
 
 Subject to these four general principles, the Ger- 
 man colonies should be restored, and there need be 
 no objection to some rearrangement of African 
 territory, by purchase or exchange, which might 
 ease the European settlement. To watch over the 
 observance of these principles it would be desirable 
 to create a permanent African Commission under the 
 League of Nations. There are many ways of cir- 
 cumventing free trade, and the charter of native 
 rights in the land and its produce would require 
 expert study of native customs. This commission 
 would send its travelling inspectors to Africa, and 
 would deal with complaints that might be made 
 under any of these four heads against any of the 
 national administrations in this area. 
 
 CHINA AND THE EXPORT OF CAPITAL. 
 
 3. It is much more difficult, but it is hardly 
 less important, to devise some means by which the 
 capital of the various industrial peoples may enjoy 
 some approach to equality of opportunity overseas. 
 The case for creating some organization to secure 
 this end is in principle the same as the case for 
 the opening of the non -self -governing colonies to 
 equality of trade in goods. In the modern world 
 
286 A LEAGUE OF NATIONS 
 
 the export of capital has becomfe perhaps more 
 important, and certainly more contentious, than the 
 trade in goods. The opportunities for large invest- 
 ments in loans, railways, harbour works, and mines 
 are peculiarly valued, and because they involve direct 
 dealings with the Government (native or European) 
 of the territories in question, they inevitably engage 
 the attention of diplomacy, and lead almost as inevit- 
 ably to international rivalry, not merely between 
 national groups of financiers but also between their 
 Governments. The struggle to " develop " some 
 potentially wealthy area commonly ends (after it 
 has done its full tale of mischief to the relations 
 of the competing Powers and left its mark on their 
 naval and military budgets) in an agreement by 
 which " spheres of influence " are recognized as 
 monopoly areas for the enterprise of a particular 
 nation. The result is commonly fatal to the inde- 
 pendence of a weak State which is monopolized or 
 partitioned in this way, and the Power which has 
 got the big concessions is also in a privileged 
 position in pushing its ordinary trade in goods in 
 the local market. Most of the rivalry of the Powers 
 in the past generation has turned on this economic 
 issue of the export of capital, in Egypt, Morocco, 
 Asiatic Turkey, Korea, Manchuria, China, and Persia ; 
 and the struggle for a Balance of Power in Europe, 
 with its restless groupings, combinations, and arma- 
 ments, had for one of its chief motives, probably 
 its chief motive, the decision of the question which 
 of them should control the economic development 
 of these great areas overseas. 1 To break down the 
 
 1 There is a brief but masterly statement of this question in Mr. 
 Hobson's essay on "The C ; " in "Towards a Lasting Settle- 
 
 ment " (Allen and Unwin, 2.s. 6d.) and a! .-o in "The New Protectionism." 
 It is the principal subject of my book "The War of Steel and Gold" 
 (Bell, 2s. 6d ). See also Walter Lippmann, " The Stakes of Diplomacy " 
 (Henry Holt & Co.). 
 
THE ECONOMICS OF PEACE 287 
 
 customs barriers which protect some of the colonies 
 of certain Great Powers is not a complete solution 
 of this question. No Power does in practice admit 
 foreign contractors or financiers to a share in the 
 construction of public works or allow them to build 
 commercial railways. In this respect even our own 
 policy is one of monopoly (perhaps inevitably), both 
 in India and tropical Africa. Such enterprises are 
 now regarded as " political," and in respect to them 
 it cannot be said that we practise without large 
 reservation the policy of the " Open Door." While 
 this is so, the pressure from other Powers, especially 
 from Germany, to obtain " places in the sun " 
 and monopoly areas of their own is bound to con- 
 tinue. 
 
 So long as the dread of war remains, every 
 Power will maintain its objection to the participa- 
 tion of foreign finance in enterprises within its own 
 territories which are political or strategical, especially 
 in railways. 
 
 Africa is partitioned, and an one way or 
 another the destinies of Turkey will be determined 
 by this war. The rest of Asia is occupied or 
 annexed, with one large exception China. The 
 political problem of the export of capital relates 
 now primarily to two great regions of the world, 
 China and Latin America. The Monroe Doctrine 
 for the present excludes South America from the 
 arena of strife. 
 
 The question of China cannot be postponed. 
 Japan has used the opportunity lof the war 
 to demand for herself a general hegemony in 
 China, with rights over the appointment of 
 " advisers " and " instructors " which amount to a 
 claim to exercise a protectorate. The Chinese have 
 managed to resist Japan's more sweeping claims, 
 but she will emerge unexhausted from this war 
 in a very strong position. This immense area for 
 
288 A LEAGUE OF NATIONS 
 
 capitalistic development will not be abandoned by 
 Great Britain, the United States, and Germany with- 
 out a struggle. The real issue is whether a solution 
 will be sought by delimiting spheres of influence 
 or on international lines. The former solution would 
 mean in the long run the partition and the disrup- 
 tion of the Chinese Republic, which of itself tends 
 to split up. The latter solution would conserve 
 the independence and integrity of China, avoid a 
 dangerous scramble for spheres between the Powers, 
 and test the ability of the League of Nations to 
 follow a constructive policy of internationalism. It 
 is not feasible, in dealing with a weak, corrupt, 
 and disunited Republic, to propose that diplomacy 
 should stand aside and leave the Chinese Govern- 
 ment itself to treat directly with financial groups, 
 whose morals are often predatory. One plan would 
 be to encourage European, Japanese, and American 
 financiers to form international syndicates for bank- 
 ing, railway, and mining development which would 
 operate over the whole territory of the Republic, 
 thus avoiding the delimitation of national spheres. 
 Questions arising between these syndicates and the 
 Chinese Government might be decided by an Inter- 
 national Commission, nominated by the League of 
 Nations. It might (following a slightly different 
 line of thought) be possible to create for them an 
 international legal status to invent the conception 
 of an international legal personality so that they 
 might sue or be sued before the Court of The 
 Hague. In any event, it seems essential to create 
 for a term of years an International Commission, 
 composed of men who, while understanding finance, 
 could be trusted to deal honourably with China. 
 This Commission must represent all the Govern- 
 ments chiefly concerned (Great Britain, the United 
 States, Japan, Germany, Russia, and France), and 
 enjoy full powers to control the operations of 
 
THE ECONOMICS OF. PEACE 289 
 
 foreign capital in China, with a mission to avoid 
 international conflicts and preserve the political 
 independence of China. 
 
 ACCESS TO RAW MATERIALS. 
 
 4. The war has familiarized us with the control 
 of raw materials by the belligerent Governments, 
 and with the use of this control as an instrument of 
 policy. Shall we, after the war, relapse into the 
 old habit of free, individualistic trading? In other 
 words, when an " enemy " German firm, an Allied 
 Italian firm, or a neutral Greek firm want to buy 
 steam coal, will they all compete freely on equal 
 terms with the British buyers at Cardiff and pay a 
 price which is regulated solely by supply and 
 demand ? If that should be so, and if the sale of 
 iron -ore, copper, rubber, palm-kernels, arid other 
 important raw materials is equally free, there is no 
 acute political problem. But the Paris Resolutions 
 contemplate the continued official regulation of the 
 international supply of raw materials. The Allies 
 not only agree to "- conserve " these resources for 
 each others' use, but " undertake to establish special 
 arrangements to facilitate the interchange of these 
 resources." That means, if it is anything more 
 than verbiage, an end of " commercial freedom " 
 altogether, and the establishment in a period of 
 nominal peace of a militaristic quasi -socialism 
 which must subject all the chief articles of inter- 
 national exchange to rigid regulation. Raw materials 
 will no longer move freely across the seas from 
 producer to consumer in obedience to economic 
 demand : they will have become pawns in the diplo- 
 matic game. The intention is, of course, to starve 
 German industry . But have the architects of this 
 policy reflected on the consequences to other nations ? 
 Take, for example, the case of Italy, which has no 
 
 20 
 
290 A LEAGUE OF, NATIONS 
 
 coal of her own and depends almost absolutely on 
 supplies bought from us. German writers, who 
 enjoy cynical plain speaking, sometimes predicted, 
 even before this war, that this single fact, which 
 placed her whole economic life at our mercy, would 
 force Italy to remain in our camp. It is wiser not 
 to inquire too closely into the diplomatic mysteries 
 of the recent past. Looking into the future, how- 
 ever, it is plain that, up to a certain point, our 
 Foreign Office, if it can control Italy's coal supply, 
 can control Italy's foreign policy. Repeat this illus- 
 tration indefinitely, and it is plain that an alliance 
 which will control a great proportion of the world's 
 raw materials may dictate to the world. The system 
 of " rationing " little neutrals must continue, and 
 diplomacy will not be diplomacy if it doles out our 
 " natural resources " without some political equiva- 
 lent. The system might normally be administered 
 slackly and mildly. In times of tension it would 
 be tightened, and it might then become the most 
 terrific instrument of oppression which the world has 
 known. There could be no freedom in such a 
 world, and if there is no freedom there will be no 
 peace. 
 
 Can we go back to free exchange and the open 
 market? It is doubtful whether we can. War has 
 given an impetus to the consolidation of trade into 
 national groups, and there will be more trusts, 
 cartels, and syndicates in the world than ever before, 
 and inevitably Governments will have to control 
 them. Even without a diplomatic motive there was 
 a good deal of this undesirable control of natural 
 resources before the war. Brazil restricted the 
 export of the coffee crop ; Germany limited the 
 output of artificial fertilizers in both cases solely 
 to keep up prices. Much worse was the conduct of 
 those ingenious persons who, having discovered in 
 India the only workable deposit of the rare mineral 
 
THE ECONOMICS OF PEACE 291 
 
 required for the manufacture of incandescent mantles, 
 sold it cheaply to the German and charged a pro- 
 hibitive price to the British manufacturer. If 
 national syndicates of consumers can monopolize 
 raw materials in this way, the effect, though not 
 political in intention, may be extremely irritating 
 and destructive of good international relations. The 
 effect of the war has been to make it probable that 
 all these essays in monopoly will be extended, organ- 
 ized, and dominated by a definite political purpose 
 here to control and there to ruin another nation. 
 A League of Nations could not ignore this fruitful 
 source of resentment and oppression. The way out 
 has been indicated by the Paris Resolutions. There 
 must be " special arrangements to facilitate the inter- 
 change of these resources." But over the conduct 
 and control of these arrangements all the nations 
 which adhere to the League, the small peoples as 
 well as the Great Powers, the " enemies " as well 
 as the Allies, must have a share. The less inter- 
 ference there is with free exchange the better : 
 " rationing " is at best a cumbersome, offensive, 
 and risky system. But wherever there is inter- 
 ference, above all, wherever there is an attempt to 
 use the pressure of monopoly for diplomatic ends, 
 there the aggrieved nation must have a right of 
 appealing to a standing International Commission on 
 Raw Materials, which will administer and enforce 
 the League's principle of commercial freedom. If 
 any Power should persistently defy that principle, 
 and frustrate the work of the Commission, it 
 would have to answer an indictment before the 
 Courts and Councils of the League itself, and the 
 penalty for its continued defiance would be the 
 withdrawal from it of the privileges secured to it 
 in this charter . '- Most favoured nation ' ' treatment 
 in the home markets of the member States, and 
 equality of treatment for its trade in their colonies, 
 
292 A LEAGUE OF NATIONS 
 
 are valuable privileges. The power to cancel them 
 where there is gross and continued offending and 
 to expel the offender from the League, will be the 
 chief sanction at its disposal. The ability of the 
 League to control offenders, to redress oppression, 
 and to check aggression must not be measured in 
 terms of its military power alone. The less we 
 parade that, the sooner shall we reach the atmosphere 
 of reasonable discussion and conference. The real 
 power and the ultimate authority of the League must 
 rest on its ability to confer benefits. If it assures 
 to the world, not peace alone but commercial free- 
 dom, not commercial freedom only but with it the 
 political freedom which commercial monopoly in 
 the hands of diplomacy would threaten, it will 
 command the loyalty of nations by its title to 
 their gratitude. 
 
CHAPTER X 
 THE CONSTITUTION OF THE LEAGUE 
 
 THE difficulty of drafting a formal constitution, 
 real as it is, is perhaps the least of all the obstacles 
 which confront a League of Nations. No promise 
 to arbitrate and no machinery to enforce arbitra- 
 tion will preserve the world from war, unless it has 
 first removed by a bold treatment of the questions 
 of nationality and economic expansion the chief 
 causes of war. If the elementary rights of nation- 
 ality are still insecure, if the Powers are still divided 
 into two unyielding groups of allies, if sea-power 
 can be so used as to impair commercial freedom 
 and check the legitimate expansion of growing 
 nations, the task of a League which attempted 
 from crisis to crisis to impose reason upon an 
 anarchical world would be impossible. Whether 
 at the settlement of the war, or in Congresses which 
 immediately follow it, some general principles must 
 be laid down for the ordering of our chaos, and 
 these principles must serve as the basis of the 
 League of Nations. In the previous pages an 
 attempt, inevitably hasty and tentative, has been made 
 to explore this difficult ground. The suggestions 
 which have so far been discussed may be summarized 
 briefly as follows : ( I ) That every adherent of 
 the League must agree to respect the cultural liberty 
 of racial minorities ; (2) that the obligations of 
 allies to each other must, in case of conflict, yield 
 to their obligation to the League; (3) that the 
 extremer uses of sea-power shall be reserved for wars 
 
 293 
 
'294 A LEAGUE OF NATIONS 
 
 declared or sanctioned by the League ; (4) that 
 a general recognition of commercial freedom and 
 commercial amity shall obtain within the League, 
 which will by international commissions safeguard 
 the " Open Door " for capital and trade, and ensure 
 free access to raw materials in an open market. 
 A world which recognized these principles might 
 contrive to work the difficult machinery of 
 conference and arbitration. A world absorbed in 
 the pursuit by rival alliances of the balance of 
 power, a world distracted by the spectacle of 
 oppressed and persecuted races, a world abandoned 
 to the greeds and hatreds of a trade war, would 
 profess in vain its zeal- for the abstract principle 
 of arbitration. No promise will hold nations who 
 pursue an ideal of national egoism, and no common 
 action for a disinterested end could be organized 
 among them. These principles, or something like 
 them, are the indispensable charter of any League 
 of Nations which hopes to maintain an enduring 
 peace, If we can start from this basis, but not 
 sooner, we my go on to consider the specific 
 question of the obligations into which the members 
 of the League shall enter, the Courts, Councils, and 
 Conferences by which it shall conduct its common 
 life, and the sanctions by which their decisions shall 
 be enforced. These constitutional questions have 
 already been the subject of close study, both in 
 our country and in America. In the sketch which 
 follows, I shall attempt to give a brief outline of 
 the results of these discussions, and to note certain 
 divergencies and doubtful points in the schemes 
 which are generally accepted. 
 
 THE FUNDAMENTAL OBLIGATION. 
 The problem of stating the fundamental obliga- 
 tion which must underlie any League of Nations 
 would seem to be the most difficult of all, but it is 
 
THE CONSTITUTION OF THE LEAGUE 295 
 
 precisely here that the fullest measure of unanimity, 
 exists. It seems to be agreed that no Sovereign 
 State will, as yet, so far abandon its own self- 
 determined independence as to renounce the right 
 in the last resort to go to war for the maintenance 
 or advancement of its own interests. ; There is, 
 however, a general belief that even to-day civilized 
 States will pledge themselves to submit to a certain 
 delay in order to allow of the discussion on its 
 merits of every dispute, by the appropriate process, 
 before the most suitable Court or Council. That 
 is the minimum on which any League of Peace could 
 be founded. There is also agreement in dividing 
 disputes into two categories, ( I ) those which are 
 justiciable, and can be decided by legal process 
 before such an arbitral tribunal as the Permanent 
 Court of Arbitration at The Hague, and (2) those 
 which involve broader questions of policy and are 
 unsuitable for legal settlement. 
 
 The first class of disputes will include questions 
 of the interpretation of treaties, all questions covered 
 by international law, questions of fact as to 
 breaches of international obligation, questions of 
 the reparation due for such breaches, and boundary 
 disputes in so far as they depend upon treaties. 
 Such questions rarely lead to war, unless they are 
 deliberately used as pretexts to cover wider differ- 
 ences. It should lie with the Permanent Court 
 of The Hague, or with any Court which may replace 
 it, to decide whether a dispute is of a justiciable 
 character. Some propose that members of the 
 League should pledge themselves in the general 
 treaty to abide by the decision of the Court. This 
 would be in form a great step in advance, but 
 it is not strictly necessary, for a long experience 
 of arbitration shows no instance of a refusal by 
 any Government, when once it has gone to arbitra- 
 tion, to accept the award of the Court. 
 
296 A LEAGUE OF, NATIONS 
 
 The disputes of the second category include all 
 the wider questions of policy which in fact lead 
 to war the questions of " honour and vital interest " 
 which are commonly excluded from the scope of 
 treaties of arbitration. These must be submitted 
 to a Council of Conciliation, which will have no 
 recognized code of political wisdom to apply to 
 them, and can only make a recommendation based 
 on common sense and the political morality of 
 the day, a decision which will not claim to 
 render ideal justice, but will aim in the given 
 circumstances at a practical adjustment which may 
 avail to keep the peace. It is not proposed that 
 the States involved shall pledge themselves to accept 
 the Council's recommendations, nor that the League 
 itself shall be bound to enforce them. The essence 
 of the obligation is simply that no member of the 
 League will go to war until his case has been 
 submitted to the Council of Conciliation, and for 
 some short period after it has made its report. 
 The exact definition of the time limit need not 
 detain us at this stage. There must be some 
 provision against dilatory procedure by the Council, 
 and there must also be some period of grace after 
 it has reported, in which further steps may be taken 
 to renew negotiations and permit public opinion 
 to act. The Council must report, say, within twelve 
 months perhaps too long a limit. The period of 
 grace after the issue of its report ought not to be 
 less than six months. Nor is it sufficient to forbid 
 actual war within this period of delay. It has 
 been suggested that all " hostile preparations " 
 against any signatory Power should be forbidden. 
 Certainly mobilization must be forbidden. 
 
 THE MORATORIUM. 
 
 On the novel principle of a moratorium for 
 hostilities all these schemes are based. There 
 
THE CONSTITUTION OF, THE LEAGUE 297 
 
 is, I think, a tendency to place too much faith 
 in the benefits of mere delay. American writers 
 commonly refer to it as a " cooling-ofT ' time, 
 and beneath their insistence on it there lies a 
 somewhat optimistic psychology of war. The 
 suggestion is that nations go to war only in hot 
 blood, often over trifles, and always under the 
 influence of the sensational press or the demagogue. 
 Allow time for passions to cool, and no nation will 
 go to war. There are two assumptions here. The 
 first of them is that on a cool view, and "with 
 sufficient deliberation, nations will rarely go to war, 
 and the second is that delay will promote coolness. 
 Both assumptions are questionable. Some nations 
 will cherish for a generation the project of some 
 necessary change, scheme and arm for the inevitable 
 struggle, bend all their minds to it, and march 
 with full knowledge into a war of which the last 
 details have been thought out. That is what 
 Bulgaria did in 1912 against Turkey in order to 
 win Macedonia, and no moratorium would have 
 " cooled " her perfectly cold and deliberate resolve. 
 The only way to prevent that war would have been 
 to liberate Macedonia without war. Further, w,ill 
 delay make for coolness ? Perhaps it will when 
 the Atlantic separates the disputants. In Europe, 
 however, across conterminous land frontiers the year 
 of inquiry and delay would commonly be a period 
 of tension and apprehension. Each side would 
 wonder week by week what the other was doing. 
 "Is he inventing a new battle-plane, a ' tank/ a 
 submarine, a new explosive ? Is he stealthily 
 mobilizing? Is he laying up great stores of 
 munitions? " Rumours and lies and suspicions would 
 heat the air to an intolerable temperature. It is 
 proposed to forbid " hostile preparations," including 
 of course, chiefly mobilization. Could any human 
 power secure the literal observance of this provision ? 
 
298 A LEAGUE OF NATIONS 
 
 Any Power, in such a case, would at least 
 insist on overhauling its equipment, completing its 
 railways, perfecting its plans, and drilling every 
 available man. Nor would this prohibition tell 
 impartially. It puts a premium on a state of 
 constant preparedness. A militarist Power, always 
 armed and ready, would lose nothing by it. An 
 easy-going, pacific Power would be condemned to 
 remain unready during the crucial year. Two 
 morals emerge from this brief examination of the 
 idea of a moratorium, (i) To dwell on the gains 
 of delay unduly may lead us to think too much of 
 the means of preventing an outbreak of war, and 
 too little of the means of enforcing the changes 
 which can alone avail to make war unnecessary. 
 (2) To ensure the observance of the rule as to 
 41 hostile preparations " demands a much higher 
 development of international organization than most 
 of these schemes contemplate. A query should be 
 marked against this particular phrase. Mobilization 
 by Powers engaged in arbitration or conciliation 
 must, certainly be forbidden, but it would be 
 difficult and it might be unfair to forbid them 
 to furbish up their equipment, and to lay up 
 stores. 
 
 When a dispute turns on an alleged injury by 
 one Power against the subjects or possessions of 
 another, the aggrieved Power may be unwilling to 
 await the result of arbitration unless the injury ceases 
 while the case is tried. If disputed territory has 
 been entered, the invaders must stay their advance, 
 or if wrongful arrest is alleged, the victim must be 
 liberated on bail. In such cases the Hague Tribunal 
 must have power to act instantly as a court of 
 summary jurisdiction, which can issue an interim 
 edict pending the trial of the case. 
 
THE CONSTITUTION OF THE LEAGUE '299 
 
 THE SANCTIONS OF THE OBLIGATION. 
 
 The fundamental obligation is, then, that no 
 member of the League shall go to war [or mobilize 
 its army or fleet ?] until it has submitted its case to 
 arbitration or conciliation and allowed an interval 
 [of six months?] to elapse after the Council or 
 Tribunal has issued its recommendation or award. 
 What is to happen thereafter we shall presently 
 discuss. The first question is to consider what 
 steps the League will take to ensure that this fun- 
 damental obligation shall be observed. It is un- 
 necessary to repeat the argument scattered through- 
 out the previous chapters, that in the last resort the 
 League must be prepared to enforce this obligation. 
 That is the whole meaning of President Wilson's 
 teaching, that in a world conscious of its international 
 obligations, no nation can henceforward stand by 
 indifferent when another violates international right. 
 We may hope that the mere knowledge of this 
 resolve would usually avail to ensure loyalty to the 
 fundamental pledge of the League. Against some 
 Powers it might suffice to use economic pressure 
 first to refuse them loans and forbid the sale of 
 munitions to them, and, finally, to lay an embargo 
 on all their communications. The last measure 
 would be apt to lead to war, unless the State 
 in question were 'a small one. The possibility of 
 a war by the League against some defiant Power 
 cannot be ignored, and ought not to be minimized. 
 However the obligation to join in such a war may 
 be worded, it would be cowardly to shirk the central 
 fact that the League must contemplate the possi- 
 bility of such common wars. It follows that it must 
 prepare for them, and the risk that they will occur 
 will be the greater in proportion as the organization 
 to conduct them is weak and unready. 
 
 One way of securing the necessary cohesion and 
 
300 A LEAGUE OF, NATIONS 
 
 decision within the League may be to make its 
 statutory obligation extremely definite and drastic. 
 This is the basis both of the American League 
 to enforce Peace and of the British League of 
 Nations Society. They say bluntly f< the signatory 
 Powers shall jointly use forthwith both their 
 economic and military forces " against the offender. 
 Another way of defining the undertaking would be 
 to say that the members of the League will support 
 any fellow-member who may be attacked in 
 defiance of the fundamental obligation of the League 
 with such concerted measures, economic or military, 
 as may be most effective and appropriate. This 
 implies an obligation in certain circumstances to go 
 to war. It is still too vague, however, for it does not 
 yet tell us what organ of the League shall decide 
 what measures are effective and appropriate (whether 
 an economic boycott, for example, will suffice), nor 
 does it attempt to define to what extent each Power 
 is committed to share in the common war. The 
 latter point is crucial, for clearly little is gained by 
 extracting in advance a promise to go to war, if 
 the obligation can be discharged by a formal 
 declaration of war, followed by the dispatch for 
 the sake of appearances of a gunboat to the scene 
 of operations, or a small expeditionary corps to one 
 of the enemy's colonies. From some of the minor 
 members of the League this, perhaps, is all that 
 would be required. But the common war might 
 come to a lamentable end if the Great Powers were 
 to act in this spirit. An alliance which " means 
 business " commonly stipulates that each ally shall 
 make a certain minimum contribution, and put a 
 certain number of men in the field. Stipulations of 
 this kind would be of little use, however, to a League 
 of Nations, which, unlike most alliances, might have 
 to act anywhere and (theoretically) against any 
 Power. It will break down unless several of the 
 
THE CONSTITUTION OF THE LEAGUE 301 
 
 greater Powers are prepared to use their whole 
 strength at need in its service, while the others join, 
 at least passively, by maintaining a boycott of the 
 enemy. The exact conditions of such a war cannot 
 be foreseen, which means that effective action will 
 depend on the League's possessing a strong and 
 vigilant Executive Council, which will assign to each 
 member his part in the common effort. None of 
 the published schemes, as it happens, provide for 
 the creation of any executive authority whatever. 
 
 This academic argument may be sound in theory, 
 but it takes no account of the prejudices of Sovereign 
 States. One would expect that they will be chary 
 of promising to take part in a common war, that 
 they will be still more reluctant to define their 
 contribution to it in advance, and most reluctant 
 of all to allow any executive to dictate to them what 
 part they will play in it. None the less Lord Grey 
 has laid special stress on the obligation to take part 
 in common wars. Two difficulties especially present 
 themselves : ( i ) Will any Power (if alliances survive 
 the war) really promise to take an active part in 
 applying forcible coercion to an ally ? Are we going 
 to invade France in co-operation with a German 
 army, if France should make war on Germany on 
 some " question of honour " over which she refused 
 to arbitrate? Is Germany going to join Italy, in 
 similar circumstances, in an invasion of Austria ? 
 If the undertaking were given, it would be only 
 because both allies were convinced that the case 
 would never arise. (2) More delicate still is the 
 position of the smaller European States. Are 
 Holland and Denmark going to promise to make 
 war (if the case should arise) on Germany, knowing 
 very well that their geographical situation might 
 expose them to the fate which befell Belgium in 
 this war, before the lumbering forces of the League 
 could come to their aid? It is easy for British and 
 
302 A LEAGUE OF, NATIONS 
 
 American advocates of the League to lay down these 
 onerous obligations in drastic and absolute terms, for 
 we run little risk of enduring the worst horrors of 
 war. But Holland and Denmark are unlikely to 
 face such risks lightly against Germany, while 
 Sweden and Roumania would feel equally prudent 
 in regard to Russia. Is it likely that Japan or the 
 Latin -American Republics will promise to share in 
 every common war in Europe, or necessary that they 
 should do so ? A League of Nations might perhaps 
 be formed without these small States, but in that 
 case, dominated as it would be by the Great Powers, 
 it might be tempted to follow towards the smaller 
 nations an overbearing or contemptuous policy, while, 
 for want of the element of impartiality which they 
 can contribute, it would in its turn suffer heavily by 
 their absence. A Leagtie of Nations from which 
 the smaller peoples were excluded might come 
 to bear an unpleasant resemblance to the Holy 
 Alliance. 
 
 The fact is that we are not yet sufficiently in 
 possession of the continental view to carry this dis- 
 cussion very far as yet. It mtist inevitably differ 
 somewhat from the British and American view. The 
 question whether the League is workable depends 
 very little upon paper treaties. This war has offered 
 us the spectacle of two States, one of them a Great 
 Power, actually engaged in hostilities with the 
 Central Empires to which in August 1914 they were 
 still bound by treaties of alliance. Peoples must 
 pledge themselves as well as Governments. The 
 League will be a reality only if the chief nations 
 adhere to it with sincerity. If the peoples of 
 Britain, France, Russia, Germany, and the United 
 States mean that it shall succeed, formulse are a 
 secondary consideration. On the whole, the best 
 formula might be one which pledged the League to 
 secure the desired end, while leaving its Executive 
 
THE CONSTITUTION OF THE LEAGUE 303 
 
 to devise the means. It might be worded some- 
 what as follows : 
 
 When a breach of the fundamental obligation of the League is 
 threatened, the Executive of the League shall forthwith determine 
 by what means, military or economic, its observance may be secured. 
 The States which adhere to the League shall give their support to 
 such common measures as the Executive may prescribe in accordance 
 with the undertakings which each of them shall have given on its 
 entry into the League. 
 
 This form of the pledge contemplates the probability 
 that some States may make reservations that some 
 will not bind themselves in advance in all cases to 
 join in military measures against an ally, that 
 some will share in economic but not necessarily or 
 in all cases in military measures, or that they will 
 share to a limited extent, in certain fields, or with so 
 many ships and so many army corps. Better such 
 reservations honestly made at the start than faithless- 
 ness when the emergency arises. It may be neces- 
 sary to make some distinction in status between the 
 Great Powers and the smaller nations. The former 
 alone may be willing to promise in all cases to 
 enforce the fundamental treaty by arms, and they 
 alone would be represented on the Executive. The 
 latter would adhere to the League and enjoy its 
 advantages, but their share in its common military 
 operations would depend on circumstances and their 
 own free will. They cannot, however, escape all 
 contributions nor all risks : the strategic use of their 
 territory, for example, and their help in an embargo, 
 might be necessary for the conduct of an effective 
 campaign. 
 
 These military questions lead us into difficult 
 ground. They must be faced, but it is possible to 
 exaggerate their importance. In practice I believe 
 that the provision on which Chapter VI laid stress 
 that allies shall not support each' other against the 
 
304 A LEAGUE OF NATIONS 
 
 League is really the clue to the military problem, 
 and would of itself suffice in all the graver cases to 
 ensure the authority of the League. If a lawless 
 Power can be isolated, there is force enough to 
 ensure its defeat in the rest of the world, even if its 
 own allies and the smaller States took no active 
 military part against it. Let us not lose sight of 
 the possibility of using a more persuasive strategy 
 to hold the League together. It cannot dispense 
 with arms. But it will go ill with it if it comes to 
 rely on force alone. Its best course is to link its 
 members by internal cohesion, to attract and hold 
 them by economic advantages which they will be 
 loath to forfeit by disloyalty. 
 
 THE LEAGUE AND OUTSIDERS. 
 
 The American draft of the principles of the 
 League provides for no means of defence, if a 
 member of the League is attacked by a State which 
 has not adhered to it, or by a State which has 
 seceded from it. This oversight would wreck any 
 League from the start. If any Power wished to 
 behave aggressively, all it need do is to remain 
 outside the League, or to step outside it, in order 
 to enjoy complete immunity. The League will be 
 called upon to coerce its own members only if they 
 adhere to it insincerely. If it has to act, it will 
 usually be against outsiders or seceders. We cannot 
 at present foresee what States will adhere to the 
 League : that may depend on how far it uses 
 economic privileges as its force of attraction. No 
 commercial Power could afford to remain outside 
 it, if the enjoyment of large commercial advantages 
 is dependent on membership. But clearly it cannot 
 be assumed that all States will join it. If the 
 League is to maintain peace in the world, it must 
 pledge its members (as in Article IV of the 
 
THE CONSTITUTION OF THE LEAGUE 305 
 
 British version) to mutual defence against outsiders. 
 Should it fail to do this, it will never replace the 
 old alliances, and if it is to these that nations must 
 look for security, the League will maintain a feeble 
 academic life beside them, forgotten and ignored. 
 
 THE ENFORCEMENT OF AWARDS. 
 
 So far we have considered only the steps by which 
 the League may seek to prevent the outbreak of 
 lawless war. It will by these measures ensure a 
 period of delay before disputes can culminate in 
 war. The Council will issue its recommendations, 
 and the constitution of the League then requires 
 a further delay of six months, during which the 
 Council's report may be considered by Parliament 
 and public opinion in the nations concerned. They 
 may resume direct negotiations and agree between 
 themselves to settle their dispute more or less on 
 the lines recommended. They will be aware that 
 the civilized world expiects from them some defer- 
 ence to an impartial report ; they will be subject 
 to considerable moral pressure, and each will know 
 that if it becomes involved in war through its failure^ 
 to adopt the Council's report, the public opinion of 
 the rest of the League will be against it. 
 
 In all minor disputes and in some grave disputes 
 this would suffice (if the Council's recommenda- 
 tions were themselves equitable and moderate) to 
 bring about a peaceful settlement. Neither the 
 British nor the American draft proposes any further 
 action to ensure peace or to enforce the Council's 
 recommendation. Some reserve is essential in this 
 matter. It is neither possible nor desirable that 
 the nations of the League should bind themselves 
 to enforce the report of the Council. One cannot 
 bind millions of men to act on the opinions of a 
 bare majority of a non -elected Council, however 
 
 21 
 
306 A LEAGUE OF NATIONS 
 
 distinguished it may be. Moreover, if this 
 tremendous responsibility did attach to the de- 
 cisions of the Council, it would with difficulty confine 
 its thoughts to the merits of the question, nor would 
 the Governments behind the Councillors be will- 
 ing to allow them to speak and vote freely. A 
 Councillor must not be hampered by the thought that 
 if he votes for an equitable settlement, he may be 
 committing his own country to war. On the other 
 hand, it seems a mockery of justice that the civilized 
 world should hold back two States from war, call 
 upon its ablest men to recommend a settlement 
 of their dispute, and then wash its hands of the 
 consequences if the stronger of the two (after wait- 
 ing for the prescribed term) laughs at the Council's 
 proposals and proceeds to fall upon the weaker. 
 Morally the Power which ignores the voice of 
 impartial justice is as clearly the aggressor as the 
 Power which goes to war without waiting for it 
 to speak. When in any dispute one of the parties 
 will accept the Council's decision and the other 
 will not, the League can hardly fail to discriminate 
 between them. It seems essential that from the 
 moment that the Council has reported, the League's 
 Executive must prepare itself for some possible 
 action. The two disputants may negotiate directly 
 with success, but a further offer of mediation by 
 one or more of the Powers may now be a hopeful 
 step, for, by some adroit modifications, the Council's 
 report may be made acceptable to them both. If 
 one of the two is clearly in the right and the other 
 as clearly in the wrong, then it can hardly be dis- 
 puted that the League ought to defend the former 
 and repress the latter, and that it must enforce, if 
 not the Council's actual recommendations, at least 
 some minimum based upon them. Unless, in the 
 long run, and by one expedient or another, the 
 League can ensure some elements of justice to its 
 
THE CONSTITUTION OF THE LEAGUE 307 
 
 members, and bring about changes in the status 
 quo which are urgent and necessary, it will not 
 succeed in preventing wars. In some cases, how- 
 ever, the issue may not be clear, and in others both 
 disputants may reject the Council's decision. There 
 are many courses before the Executive. It may 
 announce that it will make common cause on behalf 
 of the League with one of the disputants, if neces- 
 sary by arms. It may threaten to expel one or 
 both of them from the League and cut them off 
 from its economic privileges. It may be content 
 to apply temporary economic pressure a boycott 
 or embargo to one or both of them. It may 
 wash its hands of their quarrel, hold the ring, and 
 enforce the strictest reading of neutral rights against 
 them both, refusing to either of them the right to 
 have recourse to an embargo or a blockade (see 
 p. 216). At the least it must remind the allies 
 of the State which becomes involved in war, by 
 reason solely of its own failure to adopt the Council's 
 decision, that it expects them to remain neutral 
 (see p. 194). It seems essential to add to the 
 two model drafts a provision to this effect : that 
 if any Power should fail to accept or to give effect 
 to the award of the Tribunal, or the report of the 
 Council of Conciliation, the Executive of the League 
 shall meet forthwith to devise such collective action 
 (if any) as it may be expedient to take to meet 
 this situation. 
 
 THE EXECUTIVE OF THE LEAGUE. 
 
 A League which intends to act must acknow- 
 ledge some executive authority. Neither of the 
 drafts before us provides for it, and presumably 
 the^drajLigjitsmen assumed that when action was re- 
 quired, the Governments of the member States would 
 confer among themselves, either by telegraphing 
 
308 A LEAGUE OF NATIONS 
 
 right and left to one another or by summoning a 
 conference. Discussion by telegram between eight 
 or more centres involves time and is apt to lead to 
 misunderstanding. Conferences, if they must be 
 called for each special occasion, involve still more 
 time. Unless we make some provision to the 
 contrary, the smallest of civilized States would have 
 a right to be consulted. Must the League wait, 
 before it can act to prevent an outbreak of war 
 in the Balkans, until it has consulted the Latin - 
 American republics, or until an envoy from Buenos 
 Ay res or Tokio has travelled to The Hague ? If 
 the League starts with such a constitution, it will 
 either find that it cannot act and will fall to pieces, 
 or else three or four of the greater Powers will 
 form a habit of acting for it. It seems essential 
 that the League should have a permanent Executive, 
 that it should sit at a fixed centre ; and probably 
 it ought to represent only the Great Powers, though 
 it should summon others to consult with it when 
 their interests are directly affected. 
 
 The term " executive " is perhaps a misnomer. 
 The real Executive will always be the Cabinets of 
 the Great Powers. No Government would place 
 in the hands of any representative the right to 
 commit it to steps which might involve war. If 
 the Executive consists of eight men, representing 
 the six European Great Powers, the United States, 
 and Japan, 1 each of the eight will, in fact, be an 
 Ambassador, who will keep in constant telegraphic 
 communication with his Government. In effect he 
 might come to be regarded as a more important 
 personage than the Foreign Minister, for in his 
 hands would lie all the graver issues of policy ; 
 but clearly he must be the nominee of his Govern- 
 ment, obeying detailed instructions and subject at 
 
 1 Japan may not wish to take part where the issue at stake is 
 purely European. 
 
THE CONSTITUTION OF THE LEAGUE 309 
 
 any moment to recall. From time to time certain 
 Ministers of the Great Powers might attend the 
 Council, as the leading statesmen of the Allies have 
 met in this war. The Executive of the League 
 would be, in short, a Cabinet of the Cabinets of 
 the Great Powers. 
 
 The alternative of telegraphic communications 
 through ambassadors between the eight capitals 
 would throw us back upon the dilatory procedure 
 of the old Concert. It would, moreover, be no 
 one's business to set it in motion if motion be the 
 name for its actions and inactions. The model 
 for the League's Executive is to be sought rather 
 in the Conference of London which sat during the 
 Balkan wars. It might move in rotation among the 
 capitals of the Great Powers, sitting in each of 
 them, under the presidency of the Foreign Minister. 
 That would have awkward consequences when the 
 Power in question was involved in a current dis- 
 pute. It seems better that the Executive should 
 have a fixed seat in some city, which should come 
 to be regarded as the capital of the League. This 
 city might be Constantinople, if any sort of inter- 
 national regime is established there. No other city 
 save Rome would make the same appeal to the 
 world's imagination. Strasburg is a possibility (if 
 Alsace should be neutralized), or Berne, or 
 Geneva. Probably the best choice (failing Con- 
 stantinople) would be The Hague, which already 
 has its associations. The Executive would then 
 consist of the Ministers (raised, of course, in 
 their standing) accredited to the Dutch sovereign, 
 and its chairman and convener must be either 
 that sovereign's delegate or, preferably perhaps, 
 one of the Ministers themselves, chosen by vote, 
 rotation, or seniority. They would necessarily 
 have a capable suite of military, naval, legal, 
 and commercial attache's. The military and naval 
 
310 A LEAGUE OF NATIONS 
 
 attaches would form an Advisory General Staff for 
 the League, which would watch over any arrange- 
 ments it may make for the reduction of armaments, 
 and conduct communications when forcible action 
 was required. The commercial attaches would be 
 charged in the same way with a watching brief 
 over the League's policy of commercial freedom. 
 If a Commission is nominated to deal with raw 
 materials, its seat would be here. Here, too, would 
 sit the Tribunals and the Council of the League, and 
 here would naturally be gathered the offices of the 
 Postal Union and other existing international insti- 
 tutions. 
 
 THE CAPITAL OF THE LEAGUE. 
 
 The chosen city would come to be the physical 
 embodiment of the international idea. Let us not 
 neglect the task of endowing the League with some 
 imaginative appeal to the masses of mankind. It 
 must seem to exist somewhere, to have some 
 corporeal form, if it is to impress the plain man 
 and the growing child. The conception which 
 children in elementary schools all over Europe form 
 of it, when teachers try to explain to them that 
 the Great War ended in the creation of a League 
 of Nations to maintain a lasting peace, may in the 
 end matter more to the future of the League than 
 all the details of its constitution. If the children 
 of the European masses grow up with some definite 
 cosmopolitan idea which has gripped their imagina- 
 tion and touched their emotions, as the idea of the 
 Fatherland does to-day, then, and only then, will 
 the League exist in the hearts of mankind. The 
 child must be able to visualize the League under 
 some figure : his thoughts must be fixed on some 
 centre. He must turn to this favoured city when 
 he prays for peace, as the Moslem turns to Mecca 
 and the Christian to Jerusalem. No detail of archi- 
 
THE CONSTITUTION OF] THE LEAGUE 311 
 
 tecture should be neglected which can give to the 
 idea some concrete form. One would wish to see 
 in the capital a cathedral dedicated to the idea of 
 humanity and peace might it be St. Sofia ! An 
 international University, devoted especially to social 
 studies the history of civilization, economics, 
 anthropology, and international law might attract 
 the learned world. Labour would fix here its inter- 
 national headquarters, and congresses, whether of 
 Socialists or of learned societies, would naturally 
 be held here. It must be the meeting -place of 
 nations as well as the capital of the League. 
 
 THE COUNCIL OF CONCILIATION. 
 
 The conception of a Standing Council of Inquiry 
 and Conciliation for all non -justiciable disputes is the 
 big experimental idea through which the British and 
 American movements have made a new contribu- 
 tion to the constructive mechanism of peace. It 
 marks a reaction against the old diplomatic expe- 
 dient of conferences and congresses. At these there 
 sat only the official delegates of Governments, "diplo- 
 matists by profession, bound hand and foot by 
 instructions, and tied to the telegraph-wire. They 
 bargained, they bartered, they bought and sold 
 nations and populations. Their whole training 
 taught them to think only of the interests of the 
 Powers they represented. Rarely or never were they 
 guided by the plain resolve to find a solution just 
 on its merits and acceptable to the nations con- 
 cerned. If the League's Council continues this 
 tradition, it will register only the fluctuating 
 calculations of the Great Powers. The new con- 
 ception is that the members of the Council shall 
 be appointed by the Governments adhering to the 
 League for fixed terms, and without reference to 
 current disputes, that they shall not be tied by, 
 
312 A LEAGUE OF NATIONS 
 
 instructions from home, and, save in rare cases, 
 it is not desirable that they should be professional 
 diplomatists. It follows that their decisions will 
 in no case bind their Governments. On this Council 
 the small States must be represented as well as 
 the Great Powers. Som'e elaborate schemes have 
 been drawn up to fix a basis of representation by 
 population, or by wealth, or by volume of trade, 
 or by some cunning combination of these factors. 
 There are difficulties in all these schemes. Perhaps 
 the simple proposal that the ; eight Great Powers 
 shall each send three representatives, and other civi- 
 lized States one each, may be as good* a working 
 basis as any. Italy and Japan would be over- 
 represented and Spain under -rep resented, but no 
 possible scheme can reflect quite accurately the real 
 relative importance of nations as factors in civi- 
 lization. Such a Council would not be an 
 unmanageably large body, and it would probably 
 conduct its business largely through sub -committees, 
 which would report to it. Where disputes arise 
 between members of the League and outside States 
 the Council must be free to report on them also, 
 and in that case should admit a representative of 
 the outside State for the special occasion. 
 
 The Council must be free to act on its own 
 initiative, not merely when an international dispute 
 has arisen, but when a condition of unrest threatens 
 to lead to a dispute. It ought also to be free to 
 draw up recommendations of a general scope when 
 the state of the world calls for legislation or for 
 the reform of international law, to make proposals 
 for the reduction of armaments or for the better 
 organization of commercial freedom. It might 
 deliberate also on matters referred to it by the 
 Executive of the League, or at the request of the 
 Government of any civilized State. When its report 
 is drawn up it will communicate it to all the Govern- 
 
THE CONSTITUTION OF THE LEAGUE 313 
 
 ments which adhere to the League, and especially 
 to the Executive of the League. Its procedure 
 will be public or private at its own discretion, 
 but its completed reports must be published to the 
 whole world, for an appeal to public opinion is the 
 whole meaning of its existence. 
 
 MEMBERSHIP. 
 
 It is common ground that the membership of 
 the League must be open to all civilized sovereign 
 States. Since its essence is that it is a voluntary 
 association of nations, the right of secession from 
 it must be acknowledged and respected. It seems 
 inevitable, especially if full use is made of the 
 idea that it will confer valuable economic privileges, 
 that it should have the right of expulsion against 
 any State which has violated its constitution in the 
 letter or the spirit. It remains to determine which 
 of its organs shall decide the delicate question 
 whether a State e.g. China or Mexico is " civi- 
 lized " and may be admitted, and when a State must 
 be expelled. This power might be vested in the 
 Executive, but perhaps it would be well to add the 
 provision that if the Executive is not unanimous, 
 it shall take the opinion of all the Governments 
 adhering to the League, and expel or exclude only 
 if there is a majority for this course both among 
 the Great Powers and among the lesser States. The 
 Great Powers must not be permitted to establish a 
 dictatorship, but scope must be allowed to their 
 leadership. 
 
 THE LIMITS OF THE CONSTITUTION. 
 
 In discussing any scheme it is often as important 
 to consider what it omits as what it includes. The 
 American and the British plans for the constitution 
 of a League of Nations are agreed in this, that they 
 
314 A LEAGUE OF NATIONS 
 
 are confined to the one central task of defining the 
 machinery by which wars may be prevented. Mr. 
 Wilson went much farther, and evidently had in his 
 mind a larger and more organic scheme. His 
 League will do more than assure peace. It will 
 establish the principle of nationality, and guarantee 
 the freedom of the seas (see p. 45). One 
 imagines that a thinker who started from these 
 premises would be willing to assent to the argu- 
 ment of this book, that the League must also in 
 some sense and to some degree assure to its member 
 nations some elementary measure of commercial 
 freedom. The objection is to be anticipated that 
 to add provisions of this kind to a simple scheme 
 to assure peace by arbitration and conciliation is 
 to confuse and overload it, I would answer to 
 that objection that a scheme which omits these 
 essential conditions of any real peace is delusive 
 in its simplicity. One wants to know before one 
 insures a man's house against fire whether he keeps 
 a powder-magazine in his cellar and habitually 
 smokes on top of it. To my thinking, a world 
 which respected nationality and acknowledged com- 
 mercial freedom would hardly need any elaborate 
 coercive machinery for arbitration. Its whole 
 atmosphere would make for peace. The machinery 
 is wanted, firstly, to ensure these two real condi- 
 tions of peace, and, secondly, to provide a channel 
 for change. To this I imagine two answers will 
 be offered. In the first place, it will be said that 
 an agreement for commercial freedom may very 
 well be reached outside the League, or perhaps in 
 due course within the League, but why aim at it 
 from the start or embody it in the constitution ? 
 There are two practical reasons. The first is that 
 no League can be formed until the idea of " the 
 war after the war " is definitely negatived. The 
 second is that by including certain commercial privi- 
 
THE CONSTITUTION OF, THE LEAGUE 315 
 
 leges in the terms of membership of the League we 
 gain a new sanction for its decisions. To rely 
 solely on military coercion is risky and a positive 
 encouragement to a new phase of militarism. The 
 power to expel a disloyal member is a sanction 
 easier by far to apply than military coercion. But 
 it will not be effective unless expulsion entails the 
 loss of valued privileges. 
 
 It must be borne in mind that the League will 
 be from the start and throughout its career engaged 
 in a very delicate conflict with the idea of 
 sovereignty. The presumption will be that it entails 
 no restrictions on sovereignty other than those which 
 expressly figure in its constitution. The sovereign 
 State promises to adopt a certain procedure in dis- 
 putes. That, as these two drafts stand, is the only 
 limitation imposed on its sovereignty. If the 
 attempt were made to deal empirically and by the 
 light of common sense with questions of nationality 
 and commercial freedom in the Council of Con- 
 ciliation, the offending State would certainly answer 
 that such infringements of sovereignty were never 
 contemplated by it, or by any one else, when it 
 joined the League. It would maintain that it is a 
 prerogative of sovereignty to fix the rights of racial 
 minorities, or to determine the conditions in which 
 raw materials may be exported. British and 
 American jurists are accustomed to courts which 
 enjoy a much wider latitude in interpreting and 
 even, in effect, in making law than continental States 
 allow. Our law rests in the main on precedent. 
 It is natural, therefore, for us to imagine that the 
 Courts and Council of the League might build up 
 a system of case-law for the League and settle 
 questions without an appeal to accepted principles. 
 An international Court or Council, influenced by 
 continental traditions, might not be so bold, and 
 continental Governments might be less complacent 
 
316 A LEAGUE OF NATIONS 
 
 than we anticipate, in bowing to it, if it did venture 
 on pioneer decisions. The first question which every 
 Government will ask about the League will be : 
 11 In what particulars does it limit my sovereignty? " 
 If we intend that it shall be limited to the extent 
 that it may not grossly oppress iracial minorities 
 or aggressively infringe commercial freedom, we 
 must say so in plain words. For these reasons I 
 would urge the inclusion in the constitution of 
 elementary charters of national rights (p. 139) 
 and of commercial freedom (p. 278). 
 
 LEGISLATION. 
 
 The American draft lays stress on the conferences 
 which the League will call from time to time to 
 elaborate a code of international law. It does not, 
 however, enter into the difficult question of their 
 composition. The model of the Hague Conferences 
 clearly stands in need of radical reform. They 
 are too large, including the representatives of States 
 which are neither truly civilized nor effectively 
 sovereign. Their whole procedure is vitiated by, 
 the antique theory of the equality of sovereign 
 States. Venezuela counts for as much as the United 
 States, and Montenegro for as much as Russia. 
 The result is that these Conferences do not in 
 reality vote at all, and are dominated by the Great 
 Powers. They can do nothing unless they are 
 unanimous, and their legislation has no binding 
 force on any State which omits to adopt it. The 
 first step towards reform is to exclude the half- 
 civilized and half-sovereign States. The next is 
 to devise some method of voting which recognizes 
 the plain fact that nations are not equal, either by 
 adopting the rough rule that a Great Power has 
 three votes and a small State one, or by attempting 
 some more accurate measurement. This done, the 
 
THE CONSTITUTION OF THE LEAGUE 317 
 
 question arises in what circumstances, if any, a 
 majority vote can establish legislation which the 
 Courts of the League may enforce, irrespective of 
 its ratification by Governments a tremendous 
 infringement of the tradition of sovereignty. These 
 questions have been worked out in great detail by 
 the Fabian Society, and the results are available 
 in a brilliant book edited by Mr. Woolf. 1 This 
 problem, however, does not affect the League in 
 its initial stages, and I do not propose to discuss 
 it here. One note of interrogation, however, must 
 be appended to its able scheme. It proposes to 
 unite in one body the functions of a Legislative 
 Council and of a Council of Inquiry and Concilia- 
 tion. This is a risky proposal which might in 
 effect destroy the utility of the Council of Concilia- 
 tion. It ought to be a body whose authority rests 
 on its independence and the individual distinction 
 of its members. On the other hand, a Council 
 which is going to legislate for the world cannot 
 be independent. Its members would inevitably act 
 for their Governments and under their instructions. 
 Governments will not leave their representatives free, 
 if they may be bound by what their representa- 
 tives do. 
 
 THE REPRESENTATION OF PEOPLES. 
 
 By mechanism alone we shall never unite the 
 world, yet without mechanism its best impulses, its 
 instincts of fraternity, and its craving for peace 
 may be squandered and frustrated. The best 
 achievement of a rational constitution is that it will 
 constantly bring the Powers together, and link them 
 in undertakings which will develop the perception 
 of common interests, and strengthen the devotion 
 
 1 See " International Government," by L. S. Woolf (Geo. Allen and 
 Unwin, Ltd.), 6s. 
 
3 1 8 A LEAGUE OF NATIONS 
 
 to common principles. Is it only the Powers that 
 can be united ? The word itself is sinister : it 
 calls up only the vision of battleships and great 
 guns, of parks of artillery and legions of uniformed 
 automata. Is it impossible to evolve an international 
 organization which will unite nations as well as 
 Powers ? We have brought together a few eminent 
 men nominated by Governments in a Council of 
 Conciliation, seated judges of many races on the 
 same Bench, gathered Ambassadors in an Executive, 
 and foreseen the meeting in World-Congress of 
 legislators who will be the instructed delegates of 
 their Governments. Nowhere in all this mechanism 
 will nations come into touch. Not a single 
 spokesman of the working class is likely to find 
 his way into any of these gatherings. They will 
 all be composed of rather elderly and highly 
 successful men of the professional and ruling 
 classes, and comparatively few of them are likely 
 to hold even moderately liberal or progressive 
 opinions. It is inevitable that we should begin in 
 this way. On Governments it will depend whether 
 any League of Nations can come into being, and 
 in foreign affairs all Governments are jealous of 
 sharing their authority even with the Parliaments 
 to which they are responsible. Unless the war 
 should bring in its wake as conceivably it may 
 a revolutionary mass movement for peace, we must 
 be content to act through Governments, and to press 
 no proposals to which Governments will object. 
 Better an orderly and peaceful world secured by 
 Governments, than the anarchy and strife which 
 Governments have made in the past. 
 
 So long as our Councils, Executives, and 
 Congresses represent Governments directly, it is 
 inevitable that they should bring together only 
 delegates who each stand for the idea of a State 
 and for nothing more. The several delegations 
 
THE CONSTITUTION OF THE LEAGUE 319 
 
 may come together with more or less fraternity, 
 but it will only be because they speak for States 
 which have certain common interests. The danger 
 will be that the British, French, and Russian delega- 
 tions will form the habit of acting together en bloc. 
 The Germans and Austrians will do likewise. Each 
 faction will endeavour to win over neutral votes, 
 not by argument but by barter and concession. 
 The only hope of moderation and fair play may lie 
 in constituting for each dispute special panels of 
 neutrals chosen from the whole body of the Council 
 of Conciliation. 
 
 There is a way out of this difficulty, and probably 
 there is only one. It is to adopt a system of 
 representation which will give play, not merely to 
 national interests, but to opinions which cut across 
 the lines of nationality. Men are not merely 
 Britons or Germans. They are also Liberals, 
 Conservatives, and Socialists, with an outlook on life 
 curiously similar, in spite of the differences of 
 nationality. If in our common Councils we could 
 devise a means by which our several representatives 
 should speak, vote, and group themselves, not 
 merely according to nations but according to 
 opinions which are broader than nationality, the 
 Councils themselves would come to represent some- 
 thing more than a balance and compromise between 
 States : they would reflect the real opinion of the 
 population of Europe. There is., I believe, a simple 
 device by which this end can be attained. All 
 the States which are likely to adhere to the League 
 have Parliaments. Each of these Parliaments 
 represents a population of so many millions of 
 human beings. Let us say that for each five 
 millions represented by it a Parliament shall send 
 one delegate to an International Council or twice 
 that ratio, as might be determined. In that case 
 the British House of Commons would have to elect 
 
320 A LEAGUE OF NATIONS 
 
 nine international members. How should it choose 
 them? By some better process, one hopes, than 
 the manipulation of " whips," who would nominate 
 only tame official personalities. Let us suppose that 
 the House voted for the nine by a system of 
 proportional representation. They would then reflect 
 its oalance of parties and opinions. We should 
 have to-day (roughly) four Conservatives, three 
 Liberals, an Irish Nationalist, and a Labour Member. 
 Each of the other national Parliaments would act 
 on the same plan, and in the result the International 
 Council would reflect (albeit indirectly) the real 
 balance of opinions in Europe. At first, perhaps, 
 the national delegations would hold together, and 
 seek associations according to national alliances. 
 But little by little as debates proceeded, and the 
 members came to know each other, loose inter- 
 national groups would be formed. The Socialists 
 of all countries would be the first to come together. 
 The clericals would soon find a common bond. 
 Liberals, anxious on the whole to develop the inter- 
 national idea, would tend to unite. Conservatives, 
 jealous for the rights of sovereign States, would 
 associate for their defence. Free Traders and 
 Protectionists would form groups. Leaders would 
 presently be recognized. All over Europe Socialists 
 would think of Kerensky, or Branting, or Bernstein 
 not merely as a distinguished Russian, Swede, and 
 German (if they should be elected), but as European 
 leaders. Such a figure as M. Briand or Professor 
 MiliukofT might come to lead European Liberalism, 
 while Mr. Balfour, or perhaps Bethm'ann-Hollweg, 
 would rally European Conservatism^. No one would 
 think of a vote of such a Council as a victory for 
 some nations over others. The delegations would 
 rarely vote solidly. What would happen would be 
 that British Liberals, Russian Cadets, German 
 Radicals, and French Radical Socialists, and 
 
THE CONSTITUTION OF THE LEAGUE 321 
 
 Socialists of all nations might unite against British 
 Conservatives, the German Centre and Right, and 
 the Russian Octobrists and Nationalists to prefer 
 some more progressive to some less progressive 
 plan. Is the idea fantastic? Fantastic it is not, 
 but shocking and subversive it may be, to minds 
 which cling to national separation and an exclusive 
 patriotism as the foundations of world-order. 
 
 A true Parliament of this type, which would 
 prepare schemes of world -legislation and appoint 
 a standing committee to act as a Council of 
 Conciliation, may not come into being in our day. 
 The opinion of experienced and sagacious men is 
 rightly fixed on schemes more easily realized, and 
 more likely to commend themselves to Governments. 
 It would be unwise at this stage to press a more 
 democratic ideal, but it would be weak to forget 
 it. There is nothing, however, to prevent the early 
 creation of a Parliament as a consultative body 
 within the League, but not at first as its sovereign 
 body. The various national Parliaments, if one of 
 them would lead, have the right to act. They 
 need only proceed by resolution, on the plan 
 suggested, to elect their delegates. If once these 
 delegates came together, and met annually for two 
 or three months, the Parliament constituted in this 
 informal way would soon come to attract the 
 interest of the European peoples. It might send 
 up resolutions on disarmament, on commercial 
 freedom, on international labour agreements, or 
 sketches of reforms in international law to the 
 League's Executive. It could not be ignored, for 
 its representative character could not be questioned. 
 Little by little it would establish itself as a 
 recognized consultative Council, and eventually, 
 though not perhaps in our generation, it would 
 become the sovereign authority of the League. We 
 may begin with a workable official scheme, but with 
 
 22 
 
322 A LEAGUE OF NATIONS 
 
 the firm intention of evolving towards democracy. 
 Our advance to peace and the organization of 
 international life will depend more on education 
 than upon the work of the makers of Constitutions. 
 This battle is to be won in the schools, in the 
 universities, in newspaper offices, and in associations 
 of working men and women. Of all the instruments 
 which may hasten it, the Socialist " International " 
 will be the most powerful and the most helpful. 
 Without an international opinion we are helpless. 
 But let us not forget that for the average man and 
 woman, and above all for the child, opinion depends 
 on the concrete realization of an idea. The average 
 human being believes in what he sees. Ideas for 
 him must wear a human face and stand upon the 
 earth. They must be embodied in institutions. 
 When we have housed our League in its capital, 
 and given it a voice in its Parliament, then and then 
 only will simple men begin to think an international 
 thought . 
 
CONCLUSION 
 
 THROUGH its wandering course this book has pur- 
 sued a single idea. The meaning of the war was 
 changed from the moment that the conception 
 of a League of Nations became, through the 
 prophetic declarations of Mr. Asquith, the eloquent 
 hints of M. Briand, the reasoned support of Lord 
 Grey, the determined advocacy of President Wilson, 
 -and the support of the German Chancellor, the pro- 
 gramme of statesmen who have power to realize it. 
 Defeat means our failure to achieve international 
 organization, and victory means our success. It 
 is impossible any longer to measure our accomplish- 
 ment by any scattered tests. We may acquire 
 colonies, impose indemnities, conquer regions of 
 Turkey, and effect territorial changes in Europe, 
 but if we fail to create the organization of an endur- 
 ing peace we have failed in the only aim which 
 could compensate the world for these years of 
 heroism and misery, of endurance and slaughter. 
 The settlement of the war and the creation of the 
 League are not two separate problems. They are a 
 single organic problem. The League cannot be 
 based on a settlement which merely registers the 
 claims of successful force. The settlement must be 
 the preparation for the League, and its guiding prin- 
 ciple must be to make the changes, and only those 
 changes, which are indispensable for an enduring 
 peace. If we despair of a League of Nations, then 
 perhaps no other choice might be open to us but 
 to follow the weary precedent of other wars, to 
 
 323 
 
324 A LEAGUE OF NATIONS 
 
 weaken the enemy and to strengthen ourselves, to 
 isolate him and to consolidate our own faction in the 
 world. From that logic follow " wars after peace," 
 trade boycotts, armaments, and permanent conscrip- 
 tion. If, on the other hand, we have reason to 
 believe that the solid structure of a League of 
 Nations can be created, we must find in it a place, 
 not for ourselves only but for the enemy also. We 
 must face the thought that he, too, will be a partner 
 in a co-operative task. The world which creates a 
 League of Nations must be a world in which all 
 may labour freely and fruitfully, cherishing neither 
 the hope of revenge nor a grievance which will 
 prompt them to break the peace. Without the 
 promised co-operation of America we might well 
 have despaired of making this League in our own 
 generation. Her aid is indispensable; but if we know 
 that we must come to her to countersign our bonds 
 and guarantee the enemy's observance of the treaty, 
 it follows that the settlement must make a world 
 which has in her view the elements of permanence, 
 order, and goodwill. She will not guarantee a peace 
 which is based on exclusions and boycotts, on con- 
 quests and punishments. Her offer is to ensure the 
 idea of international right. 
 
 We have to choose between two conceptions of 
 security. One is a world in which victorious force, 
 always prepared, always united, imposes its will on an 
 enemy whose numbers and talents and spirit cannot be 
 destroyed, a world which would pass from exhaustion 
 to a renewal of strife, and from strife to war. The 
 other is a world which has used the shock and dis- 
 turbance of war to purge itself of its worst mischiefs, 
 and on that foundation of contentment has built a 
 society of co-operative work and international con- 
 ference. - This better world is within our reach. Our 
 own statesmen desire it. America will help us to 
 create it. The enemy, himself, through his chief 
 
CONCLUSION 335 
 
 spokesmen had declared his assent. We set out to 
 destroy Prussian militarism. It will be destroyed at 
 the moment when a German Government pledges 
 itself to enter a League based on arbitration and con- 
 ciliation. Short of that we may slaughter Prussians, 
 but we cannot destroy militarism. 
 
 In the remaining pages I propose to sum up and 
 set together in a balanced whole the various sug- 
 gestions scattered throughout the book for a settle- 
 ment designed to prepare a League of Nations. Two 
 preliminaries must be assumed. The first is that the 
 enemy will agree to restore without reserves the in- 
 dependence of Belgium and to indemnify her for the 
 wrong done to her, to render back to France (if he 
 still holds them) the occupied Departments, and to 
 restore the Kingdom of Serbia. In these pre- 
 liminaries the positive designs of his militarism are 
 overthrown, for he will have given up the military 
 road to Calais and the military road to Bagdad. The 
 second is that he has agreed in principle to enter a 
 League of Nations, and has thereby with his own 
 hands (no others can do it) destroyed the moral 
 spirit of his militarism. After these preliminaries 
 the Powers may proceed to a negotiated peace. 
 Nothing else is for us a vital question of honour, 
 and the extent of the concessions which we may 
 secure will depend on the extent of the concessions 
 which we are prepared to make. The formula which 
 would best answer the real needs of both sides would 
 be : concessions from the Central Powers to the 
 idea of nationality in Europe ; concessions from 
 the Allies to the idea of commercial freedom and 
 colonial opportunity beyond Europe. The war 
 settlement must come first, and in it the ideas of 
 a League of Peace, of commercial freedom, of 
 the reduction of armaments, and of the reform 
 of the law of war at sea would be defined only in 
 outline. To work out these conceptions would be 
 
 
A LEAGUE OF NATIONS 
 
 the task of further Congresses over which America 
 would naturally preside. The order of these Con- 
 gresses might be so arranged that our final assent 
 to a charter of commercial freedom might be delayed 
 until the enemy on his side had ratified a satisfactory 
 Constitution for the League of Nations, and assented 
 to a reasonable plan for the reduction of armaments. 
 With the reminder that nationality may be secured, 
 not merely by partitions and annexations but by 
 the concession of autonomy, let us proceed to trace 
 this settlement in broad outlines. If the form of 
 the sketch seems dogmatic, that is only because to 
 say at each sentence " I venture to suggest " or 
 " perhaps we might consider " would consume space 
 and time. 
 
 I. THE WAR SETTLEMENT. 
 
 1. Guarantees. The signatory Powers agree to meet in congress 
 after the conclusion of this treaty, to evolve permanent plans for the 
 future organization of international relations. They will draw up 
 (a) a plan for the prevention of wars by enforced recourse to arbitra- 
 tion or conciliation ; (b) a plan for the general reduction of arma- 
 ments ; (c) a scheme for the reform of the laws of war on land and 
 ea ; and (d) a general charter of commercial freedom. Ratification 
 shall follow only when all these Guarantees are settled. 
 
 In the interval the communications between the belligerents shall 
 be resumed provisionally, on the bnsis of the commercial treaties in 
 force before the outbreak of this war. 
 
 2. Restoration. Germany will recognize the independence, in- 
 tegrity, and neutrality of Belgium, and pay to her as Reparation an 
 indemnity to be fixed by an international Commission. 
 
 The belligerents will on the signature of this treaty evacuate the 
 occupied territory held by them, save as provided below. 
 
 A Common Fund shall be constituted, to which each belligerent 
 shall contribute in proportion to his total war-expenditure, for the 
 compensation of the populations of the devastated districts, whose 
 losses shall be assessed by an International Commission. 
 
 3. Nationality. The recognition of the rights of nationality in 
 Europe shall be ensured by the following territorial and political 
 changes. Commissions shall be nominated under neutral presidency 
 to delimit frontiers, to conduct plebiscites in cases where either 
 party contends that the wishes of the population are in doubt, and 
 
CONCLUSION 327 
 
 to arrange, with the minimum of hardship, for the migration of such 
 portions of their population as may desire to remove. 
 
 (a) The population of Alsace-Lorraine shall decide its own destiny 
 by a referendum. [Alternative solutions include (i) the cession 
 of the French-speaking districts to France, with full equality as a 
 federal state of the empire for the rest of the province, or (2) the 
 erection of the whole province into a neutral independent state.] 
 
 (6) The Italian-speaking districts of the Trentino shall be ceded 
 to Italy. Trieste to be made a free (autonomous) city within the 
 Austrian Empire. 
 
 (c) Poland shall be constituted an independent State. A Conven- 
 tion directly elected by universal suffrage shall determine its Con- 
 stitution, and elect its sovereign (if it decides for a monarchy). The 
 Polish State consists of the Duchy of Warsaw [the western region of 
 Galicia and certain regions of Posen and Silesia]. 
 
 (d) Austria-Hungary undertakes that it will forthwith so remodel 
 its Constitution as to ensure full autonomy to all the component 
 nationalities of both monarchies. Russia will give a similar under- 
 taking. 
 
 (e) The restored [and united] kingdoms of Serbia and Montenegro 
 shall, by the necessary rectification of frontiers, obtain access to the 
 Adriatic. 
 
 (/) To Bulgaria shall be restored the " uncontested zone " of Mace- 
 donia as fixed by the treaty of 1912, and her former Dobrudja frontier. 
 
 (g) Albania is restored within its former limits, and placed for a 
 period of twenty years under the protectorate of Italy. 
 
 (//) Cyprus shall be ceded to Greece. 
 
 (/) Turkey shall cede suitable territory in which an Armenian State 
 may be founded, either as an independent creation with the guarantee 
 of the League, or as part of an autonomous Armenia included in 
 Russia. 
 
 (;' ) Kiao-Chau is restored to China. 
 
 4. The Slraits of the Bosphorus and Dardanelles shall be open 
 in peace and war to the navigation of Russian vessels whether naval 
 or commercial. They shall be neutralized, and their shores dis- 
 armed, and placed under the guardianship of an international 
 Commission. 
 
 5. The Powers recognize the priority of German claims to 
 the development of industrial enterprises requiring concessions 
 in Asiatic Turkey generally. Neither by customs nor by railway 
 or harbour rates shall Turkey discriminate or allow discrimination 
 against any signatory Power. Palestine shall be created an auto- 
 nomous province with a Jewish Administration under an international 
 guarantee. Mesopotamia is placed under international control. The 
 League assumes the guardianship of the non-Turkish races of Turkey. 
 
328 A LEAGUE OF NATIONS 
 
 6. East Africa is restored to Germany. The Allies, if they elect to 
 retain the other occupied German colonies, shall, among themselves, 
 whether by purchase or exchange, arrange to cede a convenient and 
 accessible zone of Equatorial Africa to Germany, equivalent in value 
 and extent to her annexed colonies. [The further extension of this 
 zone may be provided for by understandings conferring on Ger- 
 many the right of pre-emption over certain adjoining regions under 
 French, Belgian, or Portuguese rule, or by the exchange of the 
 French Congo, in part or whole, against Alsace-Lorraine.] 
 
 The European Powers which have territory in Tropical Africa shall 
 undertake to observe in it the principles of neutrality, freedom of 
 trade, and respect for native rights in the land and its produce. The 
 natives shall not be armed, save for purposes of police. 
 
 The passages within square brackets in the above outline include 
 questionable items, some of which are not within the scope of a 
 negotiated settlement as the military balance now stands. Details 
 manifestly depend on the course and duration of the war. It is 
 difficult to secure an exact balance of gain and loss between allies on 
 either side. This might be achieved within each group by a division 
 of the financial costs of the war. It should be noted that though 
 Serbia and Roumania will not on the balance gain territory, Serbia 
 achieves her ambition of an outlet to the Adriatic, and both States 
 secure the liberation of their kinsmen in Austria- Hungary by the 
 gift of autonomy. Russia surrenders Poland, but only to the Poles. 
 
 II. THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS. 
 
 The constitution and principles of the League of Nations shall 
 be determined by a Congress which shall sit [within one year from 
 the conclusion of peace]. To this Congress, in addition to the late 
 belligerents, such other civilized sovereign States as the American 
 President may name, shall be invited. The following sketch conveys 
 suggestions for the constitution of the League : 
 
 I. The Prevention of War. 
 
 The signatory States agree to refer all disputes incapable of adjust- 
 ment by diplomacy (a) if justiciable, to a court of arbitral justice ; 
 (6) if non-justiciable, to a standing Council of Inquiry and Concilia- 
 tion, to which their Governments will nominate representatives for 
 a term of years. They undertake neither to make wars nor to 
 mobilize against each other until the Cotirt or Council has, within 
 a stipulated time, issued its award or recommendation, nor for a 
 stipulated time thereafter. 
 
 The Executive of the League [representing the Governments of 
 
CONCLUSION 
 
 the Great Powers] shall, in case of a threatened breach of this 
 fundamental obligation, concert effective measures, military or 
 economic, to ensure its observance. The signatory States will 
 support this common action, subject to the several undertakings into 
 which each of them may enter on their adherence to the League. 
 
 The Executive will concert measures for mutual defence when a 
 signatory State is attacked by any State which refuses to submit its 
 case to the appropriate Tribunal or Council. 
 
 Should any State fail to accept and give effect to the recommenda- 
 tions of the Council of Conciliation or the award of the Tribunal, the 
 Executive will forthwith determine what collective action, if any, 
 is required to meet this situation. 
 
 The Executive, subject to safeguards to be agreed upon, shall 
 determine the right of any State to be admitted to the League, and 
 may expel, subject to safeguards and the right of appeal, any State which 
 has violated its constitution. The right of secession is recognized. 
 
 No treaty of alliance, past or future, shall bind any State adhering 
 to the League to support an ally who has engaged in war without 
 submitting his case to a Court or Council of the League, or has 
 become involved in war by reason of his failure to accept or give 
 effect to the award or recommendation of a Court or Council of 
 the League. 
 
 a. Ratification. 
 
 The above obligations shall not only be assumed by the Govern- 
 ments adhering to the League, but shall be adopted by tht vote of 
 their Parliaments and a referendum of their populations. 
 
 3. A Charter of Commercial Freedom. 
 
 (a) The signatory Powers shall accord to each other in their home 
 markets " most favoured nation " treatment ; (b) in their non-self- 
 governing colonies they will impose tariffs (if any) for revenue 
 purposes only ; (c) they will concert measures to secure " the Open 
 Door" to all foreign enterprise in undeveloped regions, particularly 
 in China ; (d) they will appoint as an organ of the League an 
 International Commission to ensure free access for the trade of all 
 the signatory Powers to raw materials and other natural resources. 
 
 4, Nationality. 
 
 The signatory Powers will define in a declaration, to be embodied 
 in the constitution of the League, their resolve to accord to all racial 
 minorities in their European territories full liberty for the use of 
 their language, the development of their culture, and the exercise of 
 their religion. 
 
330 A LEAGUE OF NATIONS 
 
 5. Reduction of Armaments. 
 
 The Powers will consider measures for a general reduction of 
 armaments on land and sea. [This might provide (a) for the limita- 
 tion of the term of service in national armies, say to six months in 
 the infantry ; (6) for the suspense of all building of capital ships for 
 a term of years, until a permanent agreement could be reached as 
 to ratios of building.] 
 
 6. The Law of War at Sea. 
 
 This may be remodelled on the principle that embargoes on com- 
 merce, blockades, and the capture of enemy merchant vessels are 
 permitted only in public wars sanctioned or declared by the 
 Executive of the League. In private, unauthorized wars the strictest 
 definition of neutral rights as maintained by the American school will 
 be enforced. 
 
 /. Humanity in Warfare. 
 
 The conventions regulating warfare shall be revised, particularly 
 as regards aircraft, submarines, floating mines, the use of gas, and 
 the exception of food destined for a civilian population from the 
 rigours of a blockade. 
 
 A writer who attempts amid the noise and passion 
 of war to frame some sketch of the better organiza- 
 tion which we hope to build on the sacrifices and 
 heroism of those who have fallen, works in the dark 
 and questions the unknown. It may be that agree- 
 ments concluded in secrecy commit the peoples of 
 Europe to protracted warfare for very different ends. 
 It may be that the passions which strife has kindled, 
 have obscured in the minds of statesmen the aims 
 which still survive in the hearts of the volunteers 
 who took up arms to make an end of wars. That 
 early impulse of idealism still lives, but it struggles 
 with the resentments, the fears, and the appetites 
 which have grown up in three years of bitterness 
 and disillusion. It is easier to believe in victory 
 than to cherish faith in the organization of peace. 
 The danger is not that we shall deliberately reject 
 the programme of a League of Nations : it is that 
 we shall postpone it. Because the noise of strife 
 
CONCLUSION 331 
 
 has distracted our efforts to think of it at leisure, we 
 are tempted to thrust it into the remoter future. To 
 postpone it may be in effect to reject it. Unless 
 we know ourselves what we intend by it, unless our 
 plans, through neutral channels, are known to our 
 enemies, unless America, encouraged by both sides, 
 will push her advocacy of the scheme, we shall reach 
 the settlement undecided and unprepared. Without 
 the firm resolve to make the League itself an article, 
 and the first article, in the settlement, our need of 
 security will drive us inevitably to other expedients. 
 The settlement, unless the idea of the League 
 penetrates it and inspires it, must draw its principle 
 from the older statecraft of anarchy and force. It 
 will not make the Europe that could enter into a 
 League. The hope may still haunt us, but the 
 moment of creation will have passed. Each side 
 v*ill turn away, sullen and alienated, from the Con- 
 gress which will have ended the war only to make 
 an armed peace. We shall return to our normal 
 lives only to resume the old precautions. Naval 
 programmes must be drafted. Alliances must be 
 renewed. Conscription must become a permanency. 
 Treaties of commerce must be negotiated, and if 
 they cannot be based on the idea of co-operative 
 work and commercial freedom, they will announce 
 the " war after peace." Amid recriminations and 
 retaliations, our movement will not be towards a 
 League of Nations. There are those who contem- 
 plate five years of a penal and hostile peace, a time 
 for boycotts and punishments, a time for the passing 
 of resentments which the slaughter and pain of the 
 battlefield had not sated. In five years, they say, 
 the world will be purged of its crimes and its hatreds, 
 and we may turn with relief to the organization of 
 peace. Men's passions will not keep these time- 
 tables. The blows we dealt would be answered. 
 Boycott would reply to boycott, and wherever the 
 
3J2 A LEAGUE OF NATIONS 
 
 enemies met in the wide world, it would be as foes 
 who would add new counts with each embittered 
 year to the indictments of the past. The five penal 
 years would bring no healing, and at their end we 
 should be farther from the League of Nations than 
 we are on the battlefields of to-day. The hope of 
 the world is in our grasp. At the settlement of 
 this war we may realize it. If that moment escapes 
 us, we and our children may expiate our cowardice 
 and our indecision in an epoch which will turn to 
 revolution as a mild alternative to war. 
 
 We are nearer to our goal than we know. In both 
 camps men have fought for it, died for it, and slain 
 each other to realize it. The enduring peace is the 
 hope which has sustained the enemy's soldiers no 
 less than our own. The will to realize it is more 
 massive and more general than the will for strife. 
 The future of Europe is irredeemably dark only to 
 the pessimist who has seen in this war nothing but 
 the working of forces of destruction. Violent and 
 egoistic as the impulses were which ranged the 
 nations in antagonisms that could issue only in war, 
 these impulses were in themselves a proof of vitality. 
 They have driven countless legions to death, they 
 have squandered the productive forces of hand and 
 brain, and poisoned civilization itself. It is possible, 
 none the less, to look on all this ruin and yet to 
 hope. It sprang from many passionate resolves to 
 extort change from destiny. It was an act of insur- 
 gence against the death in life which acquiesces in 
 hampered conditions and unsolved problems. There 
 was in this concerted rush to ruin and death the force 
 of a rebellious and unconquerable life. It was bent 
 on change, for it knew that the real denial and sur- 
 render of life is not physical death but the refusal to 
 move and progress. The evil in Europe was not so 
 much the statement of these positive demands for 
 change, reckless and self -regarding as some of them 
 
CONCLUSION 333 
 
 were. It was rather the inertia, the impotence, the 
 suspicion, the lack of social sense which stood in the 
 way of these necessary changes. The way of hope 
 is not in the retrospective moralizings which dis- 
 tribute blame and to blame would add punishment. 
 The way of hope is to accept these impulses which 
 uttered a genuine tendency of living men, to find 
 for them by adjustment and compromise the satis- 
 factions which are possible in the settlement, and to 
 prepare in the future organization of the nations, the 
 promise and possibility of regulated and ordered 
 change. Let us defeat anything rather than a genuine 
 impulse of life. The settlement will be fragile and 
 temporary if it leaves any nation thwarted and frus- 
 trated. Some ambitions must be content with partial 
 satisfaction. Some must be realized with less than 
 that dramatic completeness which flatters the vanity 
 of one people, while it condemns the other to the 
 bitterness of revenge. For all the warring nations 
 we must make the conditions of present life and 
 future growth. On a peace which aims at general 
 contentment we may build the League of Nations. 
 From penalties and retaliations it will not come : 
 these are the means by which an ill past perpetuates 
 itself. It will come when each nation turns to its 
 fellow and speaks, though it be still in bewilderment 
 and pain, the wish to create the co-operative world in 
 which all may live and grow. 
 
APPENDIX 
 
 THE TWO WAR-PARTIES 
 
 IN several passages of this book, notably on pages 145-6, I have 
 referred to the part which Russian Imperialism played among the 
 causes of this war. A frank treatment of this subject was difficult 
 before the fall of the Autocracy, and some essential data were 
 absent when this book was first written. 
 
 A chance question addressed to a witness at the trial in Petrograd 
 of General Sukhomlinoff, ex-Minister of War, for corruption and 
 treason, has uncovered this obscure chapter of contemporary history. 
 Like the Tsar-Kaiser telegrams of 1904, it reveals the mind and 
 character of men who were in power at the outbreak of the world- 
 war. A vacillating and incapable but well-meaning autocrat, sur- 
 rounded by soldiers who disobeyed him and lied to him that was 
 the circle which, on one side of the frontier, played its part in the 
 making of the world-war. I will try to summarize these disclosures. 1 
 The Chief of the Russian General Staff. General Januschkevitch, 
 stated in his evidence that during the last week of peace he held 
 the conviction that war was inevitable, and since Germany stood 
 behind Austria, he insisted that Russia must mobilize generally 
 i.e. against Germany as well as against Austria. On the 29th of 
 July, 1914, he had an audience with the Tsar at Peterhof, convinced 
 him that this opinion was sound, and obtained from him a Ukase 
 for a general mobilization. The Tsar instructed him to go and see 
 the German Ambassador. With this Ukase he drove back to 
 Petrograd, found the Cabinet sitting, and obtained the counter- 
 signatures of three Ministers to the Ukase, which were necessary 
 for its validity. M. Sazonoff suggested that he should arrange 
 an interview with the German Military Attache instead of the 
 Ambassador. This must have been fixed for 2 p.m. on the 29th, 
 for the Attach6 came, an hour late, at 3 p.m. At this interview 
 
 1 The evidence was published from Russian sources in the 
 Manchester Guardian of September 22, 1917, and from German 
 sources in The Times of September 6 (p. 5, col. 6). See also the 
 Cambridge Magazine for October 6th. 
 
 335 
 
336 APPENDIX 
 
 Januschkevitch assured the Attache^ on his word of honour as a 
 soldier, that the position was unchanged, and that no mobilization 
 had taken place. He added that he could give no guarantee for 
 the future, but that on the fronts directed towards Germany the 
 Tsar desired no mobilization. The Attach^ did not believe him 
 (compare German Denkschrift, p. 410. I will throughout refer 
 to the pages of the British Red Book, " Collected Diplomatic 
 Documents"). In point of fact, as Januschkevitch said in the 
 witness-box, he had the Tsar's mobilization edict " in his pocket " 
 as he spoke. He told no verbal untruth, but undoubtedly his 
 communication was intended to mislead. That same even- 
 ing (agth) the Tsar received the Kaiser's second telegram, which 
 according to Prince Troubetski, " made a deep impression " upon 
 him (430). It well might do so. It accepted the role of mediator 
 but urged the Tsar not to mobilize against Austria (432) : 
 
 " I believe that a direct understanding is possible and desirable 
 between your Government and Vienna, an understanding 
 which, as I have telegraphed you, my Government endeavours 
 to aid with all possible effort. Naturally, military measures by 
 Russia, which might be construed as a menace by Austria- 
 Hungary, would accelerate a calamity which both of us desire 
 to avoid, and would undermine my position as mediator, 
 which, upon your appeal to my friendship and aid, I willingly 
 accepted." 
 
 As yet the Kaiser was aware only of the mobilization against 
 Austria ; the Tsar knew that the case was worse than that. He 
 telephoned about u p.m. on this same night (29-30) to the two 
 generals. He asked Januschkevitch, to whom he mentioned the 
 Kaiser's telegram, to stop the general mobilization and to proceed 
 only with the preparations in the four south-western districts 
 against Austria. To this the answer was that there were 
 technical objections. The machine was already at work and 
 could not be stopped ; 400,000 men had already been called up. 
 To Sukhomlinoff the Tsar had been more peremptory and gave a 
 " definite order, which admitted of no objections/' to stop the 
 mobilization by which this General understood him to mean any 
 mobilization whatever. The two Generals then telephoned to each 
 other. Sukhomlinoff gave the advice, " do nothing," i.e. allow the 
 general mobilization, already in process, to go on. He heard a 
 sigh of relief on the telephone. Meanwhile, Januschkevitch had 
 consulted M. Sazonoff, who was of the same opinion. Next day 
 (3Oth) about 4.30 p.m., M. Sazonoff met the two Generals, and in 
 "ten minutes' conversation" they decided that the mobilization 
 must go on. In the course of the morning of this day (soth) the 
 Tsar had been ^brought round by M. Sazonol to hii Ministers' 
 
APPENDIX 337 
 
 opinion. From tho dock, Sukhomlinoft trankly admitted that 
 he " lied to the Tsar, and explained to him that the mobilization 
 was going on only in the south-western districts." The weakest 
 of all the autocrats even congratulated Sukhomlinoff on his 
 performance. As a social picture all this is interesting. Let us 
 now attempt, by placing it in its full context, to estimate its 
 historical importance. 
 
 Up till July 28th the history of the crisis showed on the side of the 
 Central Powers a reckless but calculated and ruthless reaction to 
 the provocation of Serajevo. The provocation, indeed, was gross. 
 The murder of the Archduke and his consort by two Bosnian Serbs 
 was the climax to a series of similar murders. Some part of the 
 Austrian charges that the assassins came from Belgrade, used 
 bombs from the Serbian arsenal, and were aided by various minor 
 Serbian officials and soldiers is probably true. Behind the South- 
 Slav irredentist movement stood the entire Serbian nation, far too 
 proud and far too reckless to conceal its ambition of repeating the 
 part of Piedmont. Behind Serbia stood the Pan-Slavist party in 
 Russia, with considerable official backing. The Balkan League 
 had been created in 1912 by M. Sazonoff, rather to oppose Austria 
 than Turkey. To all this Austria reacted with the resolve to 
 deal with the Serbian menace once for all. It was for Viennese 
 public opinion, as Sir M. de Bunsen put it, a choice between subduing 
 Serbia or submitting to mutilation at her hands (116). Save 
 by the adoption of a Liberal policy towards her own South Slavs, 
 there was no radical cure for this Austrian difficulty, but some 
 action against Serbia was probably inevitable. Our own diplomacy 
 admitted that Austria had legitimate grievances, and that Serbia 
 must submit to some degree of humiliation. The result of a war 
 or punitive expedition would be to tear Serbia out of the orbit of 
 Russia, and bring her back to her old place in the Austrian sphere 
 of influence. This involved a challenge to Russia, and a tremendous 
 blow, if it succeeded, to Russian prestige. Some degree of risk was 
 admitted, but the universal opinion in Central Europe was that 
 Russia was not ready for war, and would not move. So Vienna 
 believed (148, 281). So the German Ambassador in Petrograd 
 reported (101). So the German Foreign Office thought (29, 207). 
 This also was the general view in diplomatic circles in Constantinople 
 (186). A dangerous, a criminal gamble, one must say, and a 
 characteristic piece of bullying and bluff, but not a calculated 
 march into a general war. There was, however, even at this stage 
 a Moderate party, which had been overruled and bided its time. 
 The most violent of the war-makers, the German Ambassador in 
 Vienna, stated that the German Chancellor was not " in entire 
 agreement with him" (No. 18 p. 151. See also No. 24, p. 382). 
 
 One may sum up this period in a few words. Austria (with some 
 German participation) slowly and secretly concocted an exctssive 
 
 23 
 
338 APPENDIX 
 
 ultimatum to Serbia, refused to delay its execution, to eoniider 
 Serbia's surprising concessions, or to discuss her proceedings with 
 Russia. On this she was adamant : it was the whole point. Her 
 real contention was that Serbia was her vassal, not Russia's. In 
 all this Germany backed her, and rebuffed Sir E. Grey's offer of 
 mediation. Even from the Chancellor there were, as yet, some 
 words perhaps, but no decisive acts of moderation. On the 28th 
 Austria had declared a state of war with Serbia, and had refused 
 a courteous and pressing Russian invitation to renew the interrupted 
 conversations. So ended the first chapter of war-making. 
 
 The second chapter records a powerful rally by the German 
 Moderates, and it culminates in Berlin on the 29th. One may 
 detect earlier signs of moderation, if one searches for them (see 
 documents 13-15, p. 429), and it was on the 28th that the Kaiser 
 sent his useful first telegram to the Tsar. On the 29th, however, 
 the Chancellor, after a Potsdam Council, initiated two parallel lines 
 of action. One proceeded on the hypothesis that a European war 
 might result, and it ranged from accentuated military preparations 
 (which fell short, however, of actual mobilization) to the bid for 
 our neutrality. The other line of action was a desperate last attempt 
 to ensure peace. Two telegrams had reached the Chancellor on this 
 day from London (67). One was Sir E. Grey's sharp warning that 
 Germany must not reckon on his neutrality, the other was his final 
 proposal that Austria should arrest her advance at Belgrade, hold 
 it as a pledge for the satisfaction of her legitimate demands, and then 
 await the mediation of the Powers. The Chancellor now saw the 
 abyss before him, and sat down to " press the button " in real 
 earnest (78, 84) ; in other words, to compel the Austrians to behave 
 reasonably. The text of his telegram was divulged, only after 
 two years of war, in his Reichstag speech (Nov. n, 1916), and its 
 immense significance has hardly been realized in this country. 
 
 " Should the Austro-Hungarian Government refuse all 
 mediation, we are confronted with a conflagration in which 
 England would go against us, and Italy and Roumania, accord- 
 ing to all ndications, would not be with us ; so that, with 
 Austria -Hungary, we should confront three Great Powers. 
 Germany, as the result of England's hostility, would have to 
 bear the chief brunt of the fight. The political prestige of 
 Austria-Hungary, the honour of her arms, and her justified 
 claims against Serbia can be sufficiently safeguarded by the 
 occupation of Belgrade or other places. We must therefore 
 urgently and emphatically ask the Vienna Cabinet to consider 
 the acceptance of mediation on the proposed conditions. 
 Responsibility foi the consequences which may otherwise 
 arise must be extraordinarily severe for Austria-Hungary and 
 ourtelvM." 
 
 ; 
 
APPENDIX 339 
 
 This seems emphatic enough, but the Chancellor knew that ail 
 his messages had to pass through the deflecting medium of Herr 
 von Tchirchsky, and some hours later, on the morning of the 3Oth, 
 he sent off the still more peremptory telegram (published in the 
 Westminster Gazette of August i, 1914) which concludes thus : 
 
 " As an ally, we must refuse to be drawn into a world-confla- 
 gration through Austria-Hungary not respecting our advice. 
 Your Excellency will express this to Count Berchtold, with all 
 emphasis and great seriousness." 
 
 This was the maximum form of pressure, for it conveyed a clear 
 threat. It told at once. On the 3oth, Count Berchtold resumed 
 the interrupted conversations. Sir M. de Bunsen (117) has recorded 
 the result. Austria "conceded the main point at issue." She had, 
 in fact, " finally yielded," for she had renounced her tacit claim to 
 treat Serbia as her own sphere of influence. So far as Austria was 
 concerned, peace was in sight. No thanks for this are due to her. 
 It was the work of the Chancellor and Sir Edward Grey. 
 
 Turn now to the doings of the 29th in Petrograd. What was 
 M. Sazonoff's real attitude ? He had every reason to be alarmed 
 at Austria's intransigeance. He believed that " war was probably 
 inevitable " (287). He was impatient of the diplomatic delays, an 
 impatience which the French Cabinet echoed (283, 288). He was 
 aware that the Central Powers doubted his will or ability to fight 
 (101), a knowledge which may have driven him to strong action. 
 Oddly enough, however, he himself doubted whether Germany 
 wanted war (22). His is a complicated character and a tortuous 
 record, ranging from the somewhat treacherous Pro-Germanism of 
 the Potsdam Convention (1910) to the Pan-Slavism of 1912 and the 
 disastrous Balkan policy of 1913, a shifty, but not in the best 
 sense an intelligent mind. His uncertainty as to the attitude of 
 Great Britain during these days must have been torturing, and 
 several of his expressions in the recorded conversations suggest a 
 state of extreme nervous tension. He was charged at the Council on 
 the 25th (174) with the duty of fixing the date of mobilization, but 
 only against Austria. He came to the decision to put it into force 
 on the 28th, and his circular telegram of that date arrived in the 
 European capitals on the 29th, with the news that mobilization would 
 be publicly declared on that day in the four South-Western Districts 
 (55). On the 2Qth, as we now know, the influence of the Chief of 
 the General Staff prevailed with the Tsar to secure a much more 
 extensive measure, an order for general mobilization, which included 
 the districts bordering on Germany. The prime mover in this de- 
 cision was apparently not M. Sazonoff, but General Januschkevitch, 
 and it seems beside the point to look for any precise diplomatic 
 cause for it. The General, by his own account, acted on the im- 
 
340 APPENDIX 
 
 preesion that war was inevitable.* The decisive factor with the 
 Russian General Staff may have been that about this time, as the 
 Belgian Minister reported, the Russian War Party acquired in some 
 way the inner conviction that Great Britain would not remain 
 neutral, and it laid great stress upon our naval support. Officially 
 M. Sazonoff can have had no warrant for this belief, if in fact he 
 held it, for Sir Edward Grey had steadily refused to commit himself, 
 and at this period the majority of the British Cabinet was very far 
 from contemplating our share in the war. Russia was the first 
 Great Power to order a general mobilization, an act which always 
 degrades negotiations by the appeal to force. Against Austria, 
 M. Sazonoff had some reason for this action : she had refused to 
 negotiate further. Against Germany, he had no such excuse : 
 she had offered her mediation. 
 
 Mobilization was in this case more than buckling on the sword : 
 it was drawing the sword. From the earliest days of the crisis 
 
 The suggestion that Russia decided on a general mobilization 
 in consequence of a communication made by Count Pourtales, 
 the German Ambassador, to M. Sazonoff, is untenable. This 
 communication, as the Count has explained in an interview (see 
 Temps, 13 September. 22 September, 14 October, 1917), was made 
 at 7 p.m. on the 29th. The order for a general mobilization, as 
 we have seen, must have been signed by the Tsar on the morning 
 of the 29th, and counter-signed by the Ministers well before 2 p.m. 
 The communication was delivered five hours later. It is repre- 
 sented in the Russian and French accounts as a blunt threat. The 
 paraphrases which they supply (287) are exaggerated. The German 
 Government has now published its exact terms (North German 
 Gazette, October 7, 1917). It was an instruction from the Chancellor 
 to his Ambassador, and ran thus : 
 
 " Please point out again to M. Sazonoff, that any fresh 
 development of the Russian measures of mobilization would 
 oblige us to mobilize. It would then be almost impossible 
 to avoid a European War." 
 
 It is possible that this rather vague but not unfriendly warning may 
 have been tactlessly delivered by the Ambassador. Late on the 
 same night (2 a.m. on the 3oth) he was, however, discussing with 
 M. Sazonoff the conditions on which Russia would consent to 
 demobilize. M. Sazonoff at this interview produced his unsatis- 
 factory formula of conciliation, which he afterwards stiffened and 
 sharpened, raising his terms as the crisis went on (76). It had no 
 sequel, for the German Chancellor preferred, as a basis, the far 
 more reasonable formula proposed by Sir Edward Grey. 
 
APPENDIX 341 
 
 warnings had reached M. Sazonoff of the consequences. They came 
 from Berlin, from Paris, from London, from Count Pourtales (503), 
 from Herr von Jagow (39, 187), and from Sir George Buchanan (22, 
 40, 60). It was known, it was frankly advertised, that if Russia 
 mobilized on the German front Germany would mobilize too, and 
 her mobilization was equivalent to war. The warnings did not 
 always distinguish between a partial and a general mobilization. 
 Germany would have preferred to prevent any Russian mobiliza- 
 tion, and the General Staff was probably anxious to act on the 
 minimum of provocation. It was not easy, by making too sharp 
 a distinction, to authorize Russia, as it were, to mobilize against 
 Germany's ally. None the less it is clear that the German 
 Moderates, i.e. the Chancellor and Herr von Jagow, had come to a 
 decision as to what the casus belli would be. It would be a mobili- 
 zation on the German front, and this was a provocation which 
 Russia could easily have avoided. This decision was communi- 
 cated by Herr von Jagow to the British and French Ambassadors 
 on the 27th. To the former he said (No. 43, p. 39) : 
 
 " that as yet Austria was only partially mobilizing, but that 
 if Russia mobilized against Germany the latter would have to 
 follow suit. I asked him what he meant by ' mobilizing 
 against Germany.' He said that if Russia only mobilized in 
 the south Germany would not mobilize, but if she mobilized 
 in the north, Germany would have to do so too." 
 
 The conversation with the French Ambassador (p. 187, Yellow 
 Book, No. 67) was even more explicit. " I asked him," writes the 
 Ambassador, " if Germany would regard herself as bound to mobil- 
 ize in the event of Russia mobilizing only on the Austrian frontier : 
 he told me " No," and authorized me formally to communicate this 
 limitation tq you." The reason for this German decision was a 
 perfectly rational, if brutal, technical calculation. Germany had 
 to fight on two fronts, and must deal with France before the Russian 
 millions had time to concentrate. The Chancellor was fighting a 
 battle with his own war-party, and he knew very clearly at what 
 point it would pass beyond his control. It would become unmanage- 
 able if Russia mobilized on the East Prussian front. (See M. Jules 
 Cambon, 214.) The attacks made upon the Chancellor during 
 1916 by the clique of Admiral von Tirpitz show clearly that the 
 war-party wished to mobilize on the 29th or 3oth. They blamed 
 him bitterly, especially in the pamphlet by Junius Alter, for 
 delaying their action, and his reply in the Reichstag was that 
 be was unwilling to incur the responsibility for causing a 
 European war. 
 
 The German Chancellor's diplomacy in this rapid and complicated 
 eriiii wae not adroit. Though his decisive action for peace on 
 
342 APPENDIX 
 
 the 29th is now beyond dispute as a historical fact, he did little 
 directly to convince M. Sazonofif of his change of attitude, and 
 trusted too much to the Kaiser's telegraphic correspondence with 
 the Tsar. The Chancellor may have been uncertain as to how 
 long he could hold his own War-party back ; thus we find Herr 
 von Jagow telling M. Jules Cambon (217) that the undertaking 
 not to mobilize, unless Russia first mobilized on the German 
 front, must not be regarded as a " firm engagement," though 
 the context shows that on this day it still held good. If we 
 had to judge by the texts alone, we might be in some doubt as 
 to what the German Government exactly intended. Any doubt 
 is removed by a simple reference to what it did. It knew 
 officially on the 2gth that Russia was mobilizing against Austria. 
 It refrained from counter-measures. It waited till the 3ist, when 
 it learned officially that the Russian mobilization was general. It 
 then sent its ultimatum, and, after waiting for a reply (which 
 meant nearly a day's delay), itself mobilized on August ist. The 
 facts make it clear that Russia might with impunity have mobilized 
 against Austria alone. Had the Tsar been obeyed when on the 
 evening of the zgth he ordered the general mobilization to be stopped, 
 there would have been no war. It was the action of the Russian 
 War-party, in forcing a general mobilization, which undid the 
 effects of Sir Edward Grey's patient efforts, and of the Chancellor's 
 intervention in Vienna. The warnings of Herr von Jagow duly 
 reached Petrograd. Whatever else is doubtful, it is clear that 
 M. Sazonoflf did on the 29th, with his eyes open, the one thing 
 which to his full knowledge was certain to precipitate war. 
 
 There is another aspect to this intricate story. General 
 Sukhomlinofif frustrated the Tsar's pacific intervention by lying 
 to him about the mobilization. M. Sazonofif frustrated the moder- 
 ating counsels of his Allies by similar tactics. The impression 
 made on the French Government is well reflected in Sir F. Bertie's 
 despatch (No. 134, p. 98), in which President Poincare defends 
 Russia, on the ground that so far from being in a hurry to mobilize 
 generally, she had waited (as he supposed) until Austria ordered 
 a general mobilization. In point of fact, the Austrian general 
 mobilization was ordered nearly two days after Russia's, in the 
 early morning of the 3ist. The worst deception of this whole 
 crisis was that which the Russians practised on their Allies. From 
 the 29th onwards they represented themselves as the patterns of 
 pacific moderation, and, thanks to this, they dragged France into 
 their war, and we followed France. Thus we find M. Sazonofif on 
 the 29th, fresh from signing the order for a general mobilization 
 assuring our Ambassador, in reply to one of his many warnings, 
 that the mobilization " would be directed only against Austria " 
 (p. 60, No. 78). This untruth stands in all its perfection in this 
 despatch to his Govwnmwit from th French Ambassador (211), 
 
APPENDIX 343 
 
 dated July soth, while the general mobilization wa actually in 
 full swing (I have corrected a mistranslation in the Red Book) : 
 
 " M. Sazonoff, to whom I communicated your desire that 
 every military measure that could offer Germany the pretext 
 for general mobilization should be avoided, answered that in 
 the course of last night the General Staff had suspended some 
 measures of precaution, so that there should be no misunder- 
 standing. Yesterday the Chief of the Russian General Staff 
 sent for the Military Attache of the German Embassy, and 
 gave him his word of honour that the mobilization ordered 
 this morning was exclusively directed against Austria." 
 
 If the French had known the truth, if Jaures had known it 
 and had lived to use it, the West of Europe would have been 
 spared this war. 
 
 The historical conclusion emerges clearly from this tangled chapter. 
 In 1914 there were two war-parties in Europe, and between them 
 they made the war. It is the story of 1870 over again: the 
 Russians were as unready as Louis Napoleon, but inefficiency did 
 not make for sobriety. The time-table kept no parallelism. 
 On the 2gth moderation had prevailed in Berlin, while the war- 
 makers triumphed in Petrograd. The practical conclusions are 
 harder to draw. One of them is, that the belief of the German 
 people that it is fighting a defensive war has more warrant for 
 it than we have ever admitted in this country. It is not an 
 adequate reading of the facts, for it ignores the criminal gambling 
 of the Austro-German procedure during the earlier part of the 
 crisis. In its last days, however, a heavy responsibility falls on 
 the Russian war-party. Our own popular view, that one evil will, 
 the will of the rulers of Germany, deliberately planned the world- 
 war, must be discarded with all its consequences. Two war- 
 parties, both of them unscrupulous, acted and reacted on each 
 other, within a European system which fostered antagonisms and 
 thwarted goodwill. Our problem is to change that system. 
 
INDEX 
 
 Adriatic, 101 
 
 Aerenthal, Count, 73, 74 ., 161 
 
 Africa, Equatorial, 281-5, 328 
 
 Aggression, equivocal idea, 61 ; 
 test of, 63 
 
 Albania, 102, 327 
 
 Alexandrovsk, 147 
 
 Algeciras, 234 
 
 Alliance, Franco-Russian, 179 ; 
 Holy, the, 20, 40, 42, 81, 302 ; 
 Triple, 185, 188, 226 ; Pan- 
 Teutonic, 227 
 
 Alliances, future of, 176-96 ; 
 within the League of Nations, 
 194 
 
 Alsace-Lorraine, 33, 80, 124 seq., 
 
 327 
 America and the League of 
 
 Nations, Chap. II passim, 324 
 America, Latin, 287 
 American " preparedness," 228 
 Anglo-French rivalry, 229 
 Anglo-German rivalry 21, 230 
 Anglo-German understandings, 
 
 163, 185, 190 
 
 " Anglo-Saxon Powers," the, 204 
 Angola, 231, 236 
 Antwerp, 18 
 Arabs, 165 ., 170 
 Archduke Francis Ferdinand, 73 
 Armaments, reduction of, 198, 
 
 330 
 
 Armenia, 175, 327 
 Asquith, Mr., 198, 208, 323 
 Australia, 242 
 
 Austria-Hungary, 68 seq., 100, 107 
 scq., 136, 180, 181, 188, 189, 280, 
 327 
 
 Bagdad Railway, 155-66, 236 
 Balance of power, 179 seq. - 
 Balfour, Mr. A., 35, 215 
 Balkan League, 71, 145 
 Balkan wars, 78, 105 
 Basra, 167 
 
 Belgium, 55 seq., 126, 326 
 Berlin Congress, 188 
 Berlin Convention, 281, 284 
 Bessarabia, no 
 Bethmann-Hollweg, Herr von, 25, 
 
 36 ., 63, 79, 190, 192, 236 
 Bismarck, 61, 133, 188, 266, 
 
 241 
 
 Blockade, 209 seq. 
 Boer War, 54, 129, 224, 227, 228 
 Bohemia, 107 seq. 
 Briand, M., 320,323 
 Bulgaria, 104 seq., 150, 297, 327 
 Biilow, Prince, 31, 129 
 Bunder Abbas, 168 
 Bundesrat, 32 
 
 Caliphate, 165 n. 
 Campbell-Bannerman, Sir H., 219 
 
 seq. 
 
 Canning, 68 
 
 Capital, export of, 10, 238, 285 
 Caprivi, Count, 190, 226 
 Carnegie Commission, 106 n. 
 Cecil, Lord R. t 219 
 
 343 
 
346 
 
 INDEX 
 
 " Central Europe," idea of, 182, 
 
 243, 245, 246 
 
 Chamberlain, Joseph, 224, 227 
 Charter of Commercial Freedom, 
 
 273 scq. 
 
 China, 285 seq., 321 
 Chirol, Sir V., 227 . 
 Coal, 289 
 
 Colonial preference, 280 
 Congo, Belgian, 252, 255 
 Congo, French, 240, 255, 282 
 Constantinople (see also Straits), 
 
 75, 101 seq., 309 
 
 Council of Conciliation, sec League 
 Crete, 74 n. 
 Croats (see also South Slavs), 73, 
 
 82 
 
 Cyprus, 327 
 Czechs, sec Bohemia 
 
 Dalmatia, 102, 103, 104 
 Danes, 133 
 Debidour, M., 229 n. 
 Democracy and Peace, 35 ; in 
 
 Germany, 30 
 
 " Der Deutsche Gedanke," 244 
 " Deutschlands Auswartige 
 
 Politik," 223 
 
 Dickinson, Mr. Lowes, 233 
 Disarmament, 36, 37 H. 
 Dobrudja, no 
 
 Edward VII, King, 159, 232 
 Embargo, 211, 216, 217 
 Entente Cordial e, 184-8 
 Epirus, 103, 104 n. 
 
 Fabian Society, 44, 317 
 
 Fashoda, 229 
 
 Ferdinand, King, of Bulgaria, 
 
 104 
 Ferdinand, King, of Roumania, 
 
 no 
 
 Finland, 99, 100 
 Fleet, British, 7, *oo, 201 
 
 " Flying Squadron," 227 
 
 France, 79, 80, 124-36, 165 //., 
 
 181, 186, 264, 265 
 Franco-Russian Alliance, 179 
 Frederick, the Empress, 128 
 Free Trade, ideal of, 261-4 
 Freedom, Charter of Commercial, 
 
 278 
 
 Freedom of seas, see Seas 
 French colonies, 234 seq. 
 French Congo, 240, 254 
 
 Galicia, 119, 123, 327 
 Gasparri, Cardinal, 37 it. 
 George, Rt. Hon. D. Lloyd, 
 
 234 
 
 German attitude, to British sea- 
 power, 225 ; on eve of war, 
 186, 187, 191, 192 ; to League 
 of Nations, 36 ., 53 ; to the 
 war, 16 ; commercial policy in 
 colonies, 230 ; economic am- 
 bitions, 162-6, 222, 227, 240 
 seq. ; emigration, 240 seq. ; 
 idealism, imperialist, 244 seq. ; 
 naval rivalry, 233 ; population, 
 
 245 
 
 Germany, and Angola, 231, 236 ; 
 and her colonies, 253, 281 ; and 
 Morocco, 233; and South Africa, 
 231 ; and Turkey, Chap. V 
 passim ; as Colonial Power, 238, 
 254 ; British attitude to, 21, 22, 
 163, 232, 233 ; democratization 
 of, 31-5 ; restoration of colonies 
 to, 251, 252; see also Central 
 Europe 
 Gibraltar, 199 
 Gladstone, W. E., 56, 57 
 Godwin, Wm., 181 
 Greece, 19, 102, 104 n., 327 
 Grey, Viscount, and Sir Edward, 
 56, 63, 67, 164, 187, 192, 198 
 209, ai8, 330, 236, 237, 250, 
 
INDEX 
 
 347 
 
 Hague, The, 309, 316 
 
 Hague Conference (second), 220 
 
 Haldane, Lord, 188, 190, 236 
 
 Hartwig, M., 71 
 
 Harris, Rev. J. H., 230 /*., 254 
 
 Hobson, Mr. J. A., 260, 286 . 
 
 Hungary, 108, 114, 115 
 
 Indemnities, 265 
 
 India, the road to, 166 scq. 
 
 Ireland, 101 
 
 Iron-ore, 124-6, 234, 273 
 
 Isvolsky, M., 161 
 
 Italy, 18, 101, 102, 103, 185, 289 
 
 Januschkevitch, General, 335 scq. 
 Jaures, 38 ., 342 
 Japan, 18, 35, 196, 287, 308 
 Jews, 172, 327 ; Roumanian, no, 
 
 140 ; Russian, 98 
 Jordan, Dr. D. S., 135 
 
 Kaiser, the German, 31, 47, 128, 
 
 185, 227 
 Kant, I., 121 
 Key industries, 264 
 Kiderlen-Waechter, Herr von, 
 
 236 n. 
 
 Kinglake, 82 
 Koritsa, 104 
 
 Kotchubey, Prince, 146 n. 
 Kruger, P., 54, 60, 227 
 
 Labour Party and Africa, 283 
 
 Lambert, H., 281 
 
 Lansdowne, Lord, 228 n., 230 
 
 Law, Bonar, 266 
 
 Law of sea-warfare, 207 
 
 League of Nations or of Peace, 
 alliances under, Chap. VI 
 passim, 301 ; American scheme 
 of, 44, 304 ; basis of repre- 
 sentation, 312, 316 ; British 
 scheme of, 45 n. ; capital of, 
 151. 309-11 ; and change, Si, 
 
 92 ; and commercial freedom, 
 271 seq., 314; constitution of, 
 293 seq. ; Council of Concilia- 
 tion, 311 ; economic policy, 
 271 ; enforcement of awards, 
 305 ; executive of, 307 ; funda- 
 mental obligation, 294; German 
 adherence to, 36 ; justiciable 
 questions, 295 ; legislation, 316 ; 
 membership, 313 ; moratorium, 
 296 ; and nationality, 139, 293, 
 314 ; non-justiciable questions, 
 296 ; and outsiders, 304 ; parlia- 
 ment of, 317 scq. ; and public 
 opinion, 15 ; ratification of, 36, 
 65 ; sanctions, 273 seq., 299 ; 
 sea-power, Chap. VII passim ; 
 sovereignty, 315 ; summary, 
 328-30 ; tests of success, 47 
 seq. ; when to create, 88, 330 ; 
 without Germany, 19 
 
 Leibnitz, 81 
 
 Letts, 141 11. 
 
 Lithuanians, 141 n. 
 
 Lorraine, 124 scq., 273, 327 
 
 Macedonia, 104, 327 
 
 Magyars, 114 
 
 Mahan, Capt., 225 
 
 Malta, 199 
 
 Manchester School, 208 
 
 Marschall v. Bieberstein, 155, 156, 
 
 190 
 
 Mercantilism, 266 
 Mesopotamia, 158, 167-71 
 Metz, 126 
 
 Michaelis, Dr., 25, 32 
 Miliukoff, 72 n., 106 n., 143, 152, 
 
 320 
 
 Mitrofanoff, Prof., 71 ., 145 n. 
 Mobilization, 296-8 
 Mobilization, Russian, 60, 335 
 
 seq. 
 
 Molteno, Mr., 267 . 
 Mommsen, 36 
 
348 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Monopolies, 237-40 
 Monroe Doctrine, 40, 287 
 Morel, E. D., 233 
 Morocco, 1 86, 233-5, 239 
 " Most-favoured nation," 279 
 
 Napoleon Bonaparte, 201 
 Napoleon, Louis, 61, 71, 105, 132 
 Nationality and culture, 136 scq. 
 Natives, African and settlement, 
 
 253 
 
 Naumann, Dr. F., 32, 182, 210, 
 
 223, 227, 243, 245 
 Naval policy in the war, 210 
 Navies, limitation of, 220 
 Xnvy, British, 7 
 Neutrality and League, 2 16 
 Nicholas I, Tsar, 159 
 Nuremburg, 60 
 
 Open door, 285 seq. 
 
 Palestine, 171, 327 
 Palm kernels, 266 
 Pan-Teutonic alliance, 227 
 Paris, economic conference of, 
 
 10, 20, 25 seq., 124 seq., 183, 
 
 257 scq., 289 
 Pears, Sir Edwin, 150 
 " Perpetual peace " (Projet de 
 
 paix perpetuelle), 40, 81 
 Persia, 167 
 Persian Gulf, 168 
 Peter the Great, 144 
 Piedmont, 71 
 Plebiscite, 124 seq. 
 Poincare, President, 186 
 Poland, 33, 117 seq., 141 n., 327 
 Pope Benedict, 36, 265 
 Portugal, 225, 231, 232, 236 
 Posen, 109, 123 
 Potsdam agreement, 185 
 Preferences, colonial, 280 
 Preparedness, American, 228 
 Protection, n, 258 
 
 Raw materials, 8, 269, 289 
 Reichstag, 25-8, 33, 34 
 Reinsurance, 188 
 Reval meeting, 159 
 Reventlow, Count, 22, 222, 228 
 Revolution, French, 5 
 Rhine, Left Bank, 101, 126 
 Rohrbach, Dr. P., 223, 234 n., 244, 
 
 245 
 
 Roosevelt, T., 204 
 Roumania, no, 150 
 Rousseau, 178, 184 
 Runciman, Rt. Hon. W., 16 
 Russia (see Mobilization, Straits, 
 
 Constantinople), 186 
 Russia and Bulgaria, 105 ; and 
 
 India, 167 ; and Serbia, 161 ; 
 
 and Siberia, 282 ; on the eve 
 
 of war, 145 n. 
 Ruthenians, see Ukrainians 
 
 Saint- Pierre, Abbe de, 39, 81, 178 
 
 Salisbury, late Lord, 163, 219, 231 
 
 Sanders, General L. v., 74, 144 
 
 Saturday Review, 22 
 
 Sazonoff, M., 70, 72 ., 335 seq. 
 
 Schleswig-Holstein, 132 
 
 Sea policy, American view of our, 
 
 214 
 Sea -power, 7, 160-1, 169, 
 
 Chaps. VII and VIII passim ; 
 
 and commercial freedom, 250 ; 
 
 legitimate use of, 215 ; and 
 
 expansion of other nations, 
 
 224, 226 ; and League, 200 seq. ; 
 
 and neutral trade, 207, 209, 213 
 Sea, right of capture on, 209, 210, 
 
 213 
 
 Seas, freedom of, 46, 213, 224 
 Secret agreements, 233, 236 
 Serajevo murder, 69, 73 
 Serbia, 68 seq., 104 seq., 160, 164, 
 
 325, 327 
 
 Sidebotham, H., 208 n. 
 Silwia, 114, r4 
 
INDEX 
 
 349 
 
 Smith, Adam, 268 
 
 Socialists, German, 24, 34, 59, 
 
 133 
 
 South Slavs, 72 s^.,76, 123 . 
 
 Spain, 198 
 
 Straits, the Turkish, 74, 144 seq. t 
 
 327 
 
 Suez, 199 
 
 Sukhomlinoff, General, 335 seq. 
 Syria, 165 w. 
 
 Taft, ex-President, 43 
 
 Talleyrand, 18 
 
 Tariff Reform, 224 
 
 Tcharikoff, M., 74 . 
 
 Theiss, no 
 
 Thirty Years War, 222 
 
 Tirpitz, Admiral von, 227, 228, 
 
 236 
 
 Tolstoy, 181 
 Toynbee, A., 108, 151 
 Trade and war, 10, 211 seq. 
 Trade as motive of war, 21-3 
 Transylvania, no 
 Treaties, insecurity of, 16, 56 ; 
 
 America as guarantor of, 52, 56 
 Treitschke, 222 
 
 Trentino, 102, 107, 116, 337 
 
 Trieste, 102, 107 
 
 Tsar of Russia, 335 seq. 
 
 Turkey, Chap. V passim, 327 ; 
 reform of, 173 seq. ; partition 
 of, 159, 162 ; British concessions 
 in, 163-4 
 
 Turkish Straits, freedom of, 237 
 
 Turks, Young, 156 
 
 Ukrainians, 99, 116 
 Ulster, 6 
 
 " Ulsters " in Europe, 109 
 United States, see America 
 University, international, 311 
 
 Verdun, 126 
 Victoria, Queen, 227 
 
 " War after war," see Paris Con- 
 ference 
 
 Washington, G., 40 
 Wilson, President, 39 seq., 214 ., 
 
 3H 
 Woolf, Mr. L. S., 317 
 
 Zionism, 165 ., 327 
 
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