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THE MORALITY OF NATIONS 
 
-THE 
 MORALITY OF NATIONS 
 
 AN ESSAY ON THE THEORY 
 OF POLITICS 
 
 BY 
 
 C. DELISLE BURNS 
 
 "Remota iustitia, quid sunt regiia nisi 
 magna latrocinia." De Civ. Dei, lib. iv. 
 
 Xonfcon : 1Hniv>ersit of XonDon press, Xt&. 
 
 AT ST. PAUL'S HOUSE, WARWICK SQUARE, E.G. 
 
 1915 
 

PREFACE 
 
 THE situation during the past year will probably 
 result in changing many of the political ideas by 
 which we are governed : for any intense experi- 
 ence has a tendency to produce new intellectual 
 schemes, or at least to shatter the cherished idols 
 of calmer days. We require new ideas in order 
 to control new forces and direct them as far as we 
 can in the course of which we approve ; and the 
 need of such new ideas becomes urgent at a time 
 which may be either one of reconstruction or of 
 renewed evil. 
 
 It has become obvious that although our 
 political situation, both in domestic and in foreign 
 issues, is unique and new, we have only the con- 
 ceptions of our great-grandfathers with which to 
 master it. But the tools made for simpler tasks 
 are inadequate for the material upon which we 
 must now use them. To deal with the modern 
 State as though it were the TTO^IS of Aristotle or 
 the Leviathan of Hobbes is like .trying to face 
 heavy guns with a Macedonian phalanx or to 
 pierce armour-plate with a cavalier's rapier. Our 
 intellectual weapons are obsolete. 
 
 346882 
 
vi PREFACE 
 
 It is not my purpose, however, to establish a 
 completely new theory of the State nor to deny 
 the correctness of the greater part of what is 
 embodied in our tradition ; but certain con- 
 clusions seem to flow from the situation which 
 has been growing up during the past fifty years. 
 These are of interest first because some German 
 writers have seemed to imagine that German 
 u Kultur " has its source in the German State or 
 that the " expansion " of this State might cause 
 an increase of Kultur among the unenlightened. 
 The merely controversial situation may be put 
 aside : for it is perfectly clear that even if 
 " Kultur " could be attained by the extension of 
 the activities of the German State, we do not 
 propose to endure the benevolent imposition of 
 such compulsory enlightenment. The main point 
 is that our ideas of the State are changing, and 
 that German State-worship is antiquated. 
 
 It was good journalism a few months ago to 
 accuse Treitschke and Nietzsche of poisoning the 
 German mind ; but clearly it is Hegel, and not 
 either of these two, whose influence in State- 
 worship and the Kultur-Staat is most pernicious. 
 Treitschke was a good historian who accepted his 
 political theories ready-made from the Hegelians, 
 and no one hated the State more than Nietzsche ; 
 but Hegel was the official guide for the Prussian 
 bureaucracy, and his philosophy subordinated 
 
PREFACE vii 
 
 every portion of social life to the State. It is 
 known that he was ignorant of science, but it 
 is not generally admitted that he was ignorant 
 of history. His limitations, however, are not 
 of great importance, since it is an idea and not 
 a man which must be attacked. And again, our 
 own philosophy of the State in the Utilitarians 
 is as obsolete as Hegel's. Not all false ideas 
 were made in Germany. Even Plato and Aris- 
 totle are inadequate for understanding the present 
 political situation. 
 
 To all these, however, and to the commen- 
 tators upon them, we acknowledge a debt, for we 
 owe to them the reasoning which we must use 
 against them. It might have been well if some 
 of their dead theories had not been exhumed by 
 diplomatists anxious to find reasons for what they 
 did blindly. But many ghosts stalk the world 
 and lead men on to battle too : such are " Evolu- 
 tion," or " Kultur," or " inevitable conflict," or 
 the " logic of history," or the " Balance of 
 Power," and many more which shall be name- 
 less. Men are still as enslaved to dead ideas 
 as when the barbarians followed the ghost of 
 departed Rome. But these ideas once lived, and 
 we owe to them, if we know them in history, the 
 ability to see the new ideas which are now abroad. 
 
 In no section of political thought, however, 
 will there be greater changes than in that which 
 
viii PREFACE 
 
 relates to the moral obligation of States. Mr. 
 Asquith, quoting Mr. Gladstone, has said that 
 England desires to " see the enthronement of this 
 idea of Public Right as the governing idea of 
 European policy ; as the common and precious 
 inheritance of all lands, but superior to the pass- 
 ing opinion of any. The foremost among the 
 nations will be that one which, by its conduct, 
 shall gradually engender in the minds of the 
 others a fixed belief that it is just." Morality 
 is established as between individuals, but it is 
 still insecure in the relationship between States. 
 We desire to establish it. 
 
 But what are the principles of right ? They 
 cannot be pious opinions that a nation should keep 
 treaties or should be honest. Such principles 
 are too vague. They are like the old Kantian 
 command to do one's duty. The real problem 
 begins in the attempt to discover what is one's 
 duty. So now the chief problem is to find 
 out what the moral relationship between States 
 really is. 
 
 Again, innumerable books and pamphlets have 
 dealt with the causes of the war : and it has 
 appeared as if these causes were all historical, as if 
 what now happens were altogether explained by 
 reference to what happened before. But the 
 causes of the war were partly what men desired to 
 happen. That is to say, principles as well as 
 
PREFACE ix 
 
 events led us to the crisis : principles, therefore, 
 must be considered as a corrective to the tendency 
 of history in making events seem " inevitable." 
 Change your ideas of what is right and half the 
 so-called logic of history evaporates into thin air. 
 
 We must distinguish history from politics, or 
 any subject in which moral judgments are passed. 
 The history of events is no ground for moral 
 judgments ; although the consequence of events 
 may be referred to as indicating why this or 
 that event is to be approved. The historian has, 
 strictly speaking, no special knowledge of the 
 science of moral judgment : he is an authority on 
 what occurred ; but, without special training of a 
 non-historical kind, he is no authority on what 
 ought to have occurred or what ought not to occur. 
 And in passing moral judgments or in the dis- 
 cussion of principles the historian often flounders 
 as ludicrously as the biologist who tries to write 
 metaphysics. 
 
 We need, therefore, a criticism of inherited 
 conceptions of the State, a review of the present 
 moral relationship between States, and an indication 
 of the tendencies which are transforming the 
 whole of International Politics. 
 
 Such are the excuses I have to offer for an 
 attempt which is perhaps too ambitious. It must 
 be regarded as a mere essay in a subject which, 
 despite the efforts of International Lawyers, has 
 
x PREFACE 
 
 been too much neglected. The problems are, of 
 course, more complicated than a statement of 
 general principles might seem to imply ; and, no 
 doubt, there are many mistakes in the solutions 
 suggested. But my purpose is rather to direct 
 attention to facts than to inculcate any doctrine 
 about them. 
 
 I have to thank my friend, Mr. G. P. Gooch, 
 for reading through the proofs and correcting 
 some of my mistakes : and I have also to thank 
 my wife, whose unblushing scepticism has made 
 my statements more careful than they would 
 otherwise have been. 
 
 C. DELISLE BURNS. 
 
 November 1915. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAP. PAGE 
 
 I MORALITY AND NATIONALITY i 
 
 What is a nation ? Does nationality make any 
 difference to moral action? 
 
 II THE STATE AND OTHER INSTITUTIONS . . 26 
 
 Institutions gradually differentiated. In early times 
 the ' ' political " includes other purposes, not now. 
 
 III THE STATE AND OTHER STATES ... 43 
 
 The State used to be considered in isolation : and 
 was at one time more isolated. Now all States 
 interpenetrate. 
 
 IV THE STATE AND NATIONALITY ... 59 
 
 The State a territorial organisation. I,t brings 
 nations together ; it does not and should not keep 
 them apart. 
 
 V FOREIGN INTERESTS . . . . 76 
 
 What interdependence is there ? Trade, investment 
 and ideas. 
 
 VI FOREIGN POLICY 96 
 
 How are these interests maintained and developed ? 
 Secretariats and Embassies : the good and the evil 
 in them. 
 
 VII ALLIANCE . . . . . .120 
 
 Special connection of some States. The moral effect 
 of alliances : good and evil. 
 
xii CONTENTS 
 
 CHAP. PAGE 
 
 VIII INTERNATIONAL RIVALRY . . . . 139 
 
 Independence to be maintained. But individuality 
 of the group can be maintained by a civilised form 
 of rivalry. 
 
 IX THE MORALITY OF NATIONS AT WAR . . 159 
 
 Even war does not destroy the whole moral relation- 
 ship of combatants. Restrictions to the use of 
 force. 
 
 X PEACE RELATIONS . . . . . 179 
 
 Peace not negative but positive. Modern peace a 
 new situation. 
 
 XI NEEDS OF THE STATE . . . .196 
 
 Changing ideas of the relation of the citizen to his 
 own State. The State needs chiefly a growth of 
 moral responsibility. 
 
 XII THE COMITY OF NATIONS . . . .220 
 
 Tendencies towards action in common between 
 States. New ideas of " other" States. 
 
 XIII CONCLUSION . . . . ) . .238 
 
 Social sentiment and institutions. Differentiation of 
 function. 
 
 INDEX ....... 253 
 
THE MORALITY OF NATIONS 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 MORALITY AND NATIONALITY 
 
 IT may be taken for granted that there is a 
 moral relationship between some human indi- 
 viduals. This is quite distinct from an economic 
 or physical relationship. But individuals are not 
 isolated, since groupings of all kinds exist 
 families, nations, states, companies, clubs and 
 labour unions. And the moral relationship holds 
 between all members of the same group, and 
 between members of some different groups. It 
 may hold between all members of all groups ; but 
 this is not generally admitted in practice, and at 
 any rate the moral relationship between citizens 
 of different states seems to be somewhat different 
 from that which holds between citizens of the 
 same state. 
 
 Hence arises an idea of group-morality, or of 
 a special kind of morality, as between nations or 
 States. States are spoken of as acting rightly or 
 wrongly, as a club or company may be supposed 
 
2 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS 
 
 to att. 1 The fact . is; .of course, that individuals 
 sometimes act in the name and for the interests 
 of the group to which they belong, and their 
 action on such occasions is apt to be governed 
 by different principles from those which are sup- 
 posed to govern their action in their own private 
 interest. But group-morality is not simply the 
 governing rule of the action of representatives ; 
 it really is in some sense the morality of all 
 members of the group in so far as these allow 
 action in their behalf to be of this or that kind, 
 or in so far as they are willing to receive the 
 benefit of actions based upon principles which 
 they would theoretically repudiate. The morality, 
 for example, of a company is both the morality 
 of its representatives and that of all the active 
 participants in the action or passive sharers of 
 the result. 
 
 There may be some who would say that the 
 principles governing the relations of citizen to 
 citizen should be the same as those governing 
 the relations of citizen to alien. But, in any 
 case, the existence of groups must make some 
 difference to morality ; and we may be inclined to 
 suppose that a diplomatist, for example, may be 
 
 1 Cf. Westlake, International Law, Vol. I. p. 3. "Indi- 
 vidual men associated in the state are moral beings, and the 
 action of the state which they form by their association is 
 their action, the state then must also be a moral being." 
 
MORALITY AND NATIONALITY 3 
 
 most unselfish in his private action but cannot so 
 readily allow the interests of those he represents 
 to give place to others, except, of course, in cases 
 where justice clearly demands it. Or, again, the 
 individual may be less responsible for the action 
 of his company or state, where the interests 
 of many have to be considered, than he is in 
 considering only his own interests. 
 
 The whole subject of vicarious responsibility 
 and vicarious action is under discussion at present; 
 and perhaps writers on Ethics have too long 
 continued to deal with the hypothetical indi- 
 vidual, for it seems that very few even of our 
 " moral " acts are individual acts in the old 
 Kantian sense. But here we shall speak only 
 of that section of such morality which is con- 
 nected with political life and political institutions. 
 We need to discuss what principles do in fact 
 govern, and what should govern the relationship 
 of citizen to citizen and of citizen to alien. Or 
 we may suppose that our problem is to discover 
 what differences the existence of nationality 
 or of States makes or ought to make to 
 morality. 
 
 The problem is partly that which Hugo de 
 Groot first faced. He found that jurists had 
 considered (i) the municipal law of States, and 
 (2) the law common to all States ; but not (3) 
 the law governing the relationship of State to 
 
4 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS 
 
 State. But in the spirit of his time he began 1 
 the study of law with the discussion of morality^ 
 and in the study and positive development of 
 International Law he has had many successors, 
 but in the study of International Morality almost 
 none. 2 The existence of Law, however, even if 
 ineffective, may be taken as evidence of some 
 sort of morality. We no longer go to the 
 " Law of Nature " as the basis for International 
 Law, but only to the consent of the parties, and 
 though we have gained by the suppression of an 
 abstract Nature we have lost something by not 
 concerning ourselves with that morality which, 
 in some sense or other, must be what is partly 
 embodied in the Law. 
 
 Law is evidence for morality ; but dangerous 
 evidence, because Law deals largely with crime 
 or offences against morality. It is pathological. 
 The more positive evidence for morality is the 
 unwritten and unsystematic sentiment of approval 
 or disapproval. There may be no Moral Code 
 for nations in the sense of formulated principles ; 
 but there certainly is in the minds of civilised 
 man an "ought" and "ought not" with respect 
 
 1 De Jure Belli et Paris, proleg. Jus illud quod inter populos 
 plures aut populorum rectores intercedit . . . attigerunt pauci, 
 universim ac certo ordinetractavit hactenus nemo. The 
 " temperamenta belli " in Book III are based expressly on 
 Christianity. 
 
 2 Cf. Lawrence, International Law y Ch. I. and. II. 
 
MORALITY AND NATIONALITY 5 
 
 to group-action as with respect to the action of 
 individuals. And this distinction of right and 
 wrong and the reasons or evidence upon which 
 it is based may be discovered by considering how 
 far the relationship of States is moral. 
 
 For this purpose we shall have to speak first 
 of the groups which are in relation to one another, 
 since their nature must in some way be decided 
 before any general conceptions of value can be 
 reached as to the principles which do govern or 
 should govern their action. But common speech 
 has established the word " International " as in- 
 dicating a particular kind of law, and it may 
 be used as indicating also a particular kind of 
 morality. We do not speak of " Inter-State " 
 law, because of an inherited confusion of the 
 nation with the State. 1 For this reason we must 
 begin by discussing the nature of a nation. 
 
 The conception of nationality which is accepted 
 almost everywhere at present is comparatively 
 modern, and this because the fact to which it 
 refers is new. For although in one sense nations 
 have existed and nationality has been recognised 
 even in the earliest times, the meaning we give 
 to the terms involves another sense. In this 
 
 1 Thus Westlake (loc. '/.) says that for International Law 
 "a nation means a state considered with reference to the 
 persons composing it " ; but that is not the common meaning, 
 nor is it the best for any subject but International Law. 
 
6 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS 
 
 other sense nations are new and nationality is 
 a new principle. 1 
 
 A summary of the evidence must be given, 
 although the full details must be left for pro- 
 fessional historians. For here what is intended is 
 a discussion of the events of history in view of 
 certain principles which are not those of history. 
 The material, however, which we have to judge is 
 historical. We must consider the group called 
 a nation in the events which are, as it were, the 
 marks of its growth. And as examples of the 
 subject-matter of which we shall have to speak, 
 it is as well to take Germany and Italy and 
 Belgium. 
 
 As a beginning the geographical ghost must be 
 laid. In considering the conflict between nations, 
 the map has so great an effect on the imagination 
 that we tend to think of Germany or Italy as 
 certain portions of the earth's surface. The 
 distinction between nations is thought of as 
 spatial, and the "country" whose growth we 
 watch in history is carelessly identified with a 
 geographical region. But if Germany and Italy 
 are at war it is not clods of earth that fight, how- 
 ever intimate the connection may be between the 
 
 1 Cf. Bluntschli's Theory of the State (English trans. 1901), 
 Book II. Ch. IV. There he speaks of nationality ; but, as 
 we shall see, without sufficient perception of its result on 
 institutions. 
 
MORALITY AND NATIONALITY 7 
 
 blood and bone which makes an army and the soil 
 of the land to which it belongs. The geographi- 
 cal ghost is only dangerous in so far as it tends to 
 substitute an abstract for a concrete conception. 
 If we give a concrete meaning, for history and 
 not for geography, to words such as England, 
 Germany and Italy, we must feel distinctly that 
 ^nations are groups of men and women! The 
 colours of the map are the colours of blood ; and 
 where this is not true the current of common 
 blood tends to change the boundary of States. 
 The men and women who are of one blood, 
 whether or not under a special form of govern- 
 ment, tend to act together. A nation, then, is 
 primarily a group of men and women related 
 physically. The further explanation of the term 
 may be left until we have watched groups of this 
 kind in action, for it is from physical relationship 
 that nearly all powerful nations have arisen. 
 
 Let us take then, first, the growth of modern 
 Germany. That group of men and women which 
 we at present call Germany may be traced back in 
 their ancestors, for our present purpose, to the dim 
 beginnings of European history ; but we shall not 
 retail the well-known adventures of the German 
 tribes, nor the vicissitudes of German towns and 
 Principalities during the Middle Ages. It is 
 sufficient to notice that this descent appears to be 
 of very great importance, even to a politician like 
 
8 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS 
 
 Prince von Biilow. 1 Physical relationship, there- 
 fore, is recognised as one of the bases of a modern 
 nation. In the Renaissance, however, the vicissi- 
 tudes of the Middle Ages in that part of the 
 world were continued. The group of men and 
 women who were the ancestors of the present 
 German people, although physically related, were 
 divided in language and in interests. At the end, 
 as we may call it, of the Renaissance period, at 
 the French Revolution, the ancestors of our 
 present Germans were divided into eight hundred 
 groups. Then came the Napoleonic wars, and 
 the barriers between these groups were broken 
 down. The conqueror could hardly have imagined 
 i he result. He strengthened the groups by 
 uniting them ; by removing dynastic boundaries 
 he permitted the free circulation of blood in the 
 race and enabled the different groups to find their 
 common interest. But for a time the new dykes 
 which Napoleon established kept back the rising 
 flood ; and there were remnants, too, of the old 
 division of the groups. From 1815 to 1830 the 
 Germans oscillated between the separatism of their 
 past history and the tendency towards future 
 union. Movements in the groups of men and 
 women during 1830 and until 1848 were resisted 
 by officials, until at last it became evident that 
 these movements could be used. The question 
 1 Cf. Imperial Germany. Home policy, p. in (ed. 1914). 
 
MORALITY AND NATIONALITY 9 
 
 then arose as to the principle according to which 
 the distinct groups were to be organised, and 
 opposition appeared between the tendencies of 
 Prussia and Austria. 
 
 The war of 1864 against Denmark for Schles- 
 wig-Holstein did not solve the problem, for the 
 allies fell out. The war of 1866 followed, and 
 the grouping of Germans in the North was 
 definitely secured by Prussia. From that year 
 till 1871 the history moves forward along the 
 line of increase of common sentiments and de- 
 crease of separatism. A successful war made all 
 the different remaining groups feel the benefits of 
 union, and the German Empire was established. 
 Without doubt the movement was directed by 
 Bismarck ; but in a sense the statesman was a tool 
 in the hands of the very force he seemed to 
 master. The German nation was being born, and 
 its nature was never quite grasped even by the 
 mind which seemed to the eyes of hero-worship 
 to have created it. A group of men and women 
 whose ancestors were divided in interest is now 
 content to subordinate minor purposes to the 
 ambition which they all feel in common. That is 
 the force which we call a nation. 1 
 
 The making of Italy shows the same features, 
 except that there was in addition an ancient 
 
 1 Jellinek. Das Recht dcs Modernen Staates (p. 115, ed. 
 1905). Das Wesen der Nation 1st dynamischer Natur. 
 
io THE MORALITY OF NATIONS 
 
 political union surviving as a memory, and the 
 struggle towards nationality necessitated conflict 
 with a foreign government. No Rome guided 
 German unity, in spite of the effective use by 
 politicians of the mediaeval ghost of an Empire ; 
 and not many Germans were under foreign 
 domination before the German Empire existed. 1 
 In Italy, on the other hand, more than physical 
 relationship and kindred dialects served as a basis 
 for the uniting of divided groups. Here, too, 
 the Napoleonic wars made insecure the old bar- 
 riers, and the vague sentiments of the French 
 Revolution influenced " the people." But the 
 new force which we call the Italian nation hardly 
 existed until success against Austria had freed 
 Lombardy, until Garibaldi entered Naples, or 
 even until the downfall of Napoleon III made it 
 possible for the North Italians to enter Rome. 
 Here again, then, what we have to watch is the 
 gradual perception by divided groups of men and 
 women that they have a common interest and a 
 common tradition. Their gospeller Mazzini was, 
 indeed, too much aloof from immediate issues to 
 transform the crude elements of national ambition 
 in the way he wished. He said that a nation 
 
 1 Of course, the excuse for the war concerning Schleswig- 
 Holstein was the existence of a German population in the 
 Duchies, and Alsace-Lorraine was supposed to be in some 
 sense " German," having been violently added to France in 
 earlier times. 
 
MORALITY AND NATIONALITY n 
 
 should claim not its own aggrandisement, but its 
 right to serve humanity as a distinct group. The 
 result in Italy, however, was a force with no very 
 idealistic tendency. As a force it still continues 
 and grows, and perhaps is seeking a direction in 
 which to move. 
 
 Lastly, we may quote Belgium as an example 
 of the same sort of force. In 1815 the groups 
 inhabiting what is now Belgium were summarily 
 combined with the groups which now make 
 Holland. Dissatisfaction and a growing percep- 
 tion of distinction from the Dutch led in 1830, 
 at the time of the "July" Revolution in Paris, 
 to risings in Liege, Louvain and Brussels. The 
 result was the formation by European agreement 
 of the Kingdom of the Belgians. The group 
 had asserted their common ambition and their 
 distinction from all other groups. They were 
 not all of the same blood or language, but their 
 traditions and purposes were the same. It is 
 of interest to note that in the eighteen-sixties 
 Napoleon III and Bismarck were bargaining in 
 the old, futile, " pre-nation," way as to whether 
 the Belgians should be absorbed by France. 
 The new group, however, survived : and to such 
 an effect that the attack of August 1914 has 
 cemented bjf common risk diverse races into one 
 complete nation. 
 
 Such is the evidence : and these are but recent 
 
12 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS 
 
 examples of the new force. For much the same 
 may be said of the coming of group-consciousness 
 in the British Dominions over the Seas, or in 
 France or in Russia. From such examples one may 
 judge of the nature of what we now call a nation ; 
 and as a force whether for co-operation or for 
 opposition, this is what is now meant by nationality. 1 
 We may therefore assert that a nation is, first, 
 a group of men and women related in blood. 
 It has been observed that in settled civilisation, 
 where for about a century immigration has not 
 greatly affected a group, every member will be 
 literally a relative of every other. It takes 
 only a few generations of intermarriage to 
 make the duke a relative of the tramp, where 
 social caste is not supreme. Physical formation 
 tends to be like in the members of the group, 
 and this would naturally lead to likeness in 
 language, custom or desires, although we should 
 not speak of physical likeness as the cause of 
 these. It follows that new nations may be 
 formed by intermarriage and that the physical 
 relationship remains important even when it is, 
 as in the case of England, entirely subordinated 
 to the other elements in nationality. 
 
 1 I use " nationality " to mean the quality uniting men and 
 women of the same nation. It is sometimes used to mean 
 what I have called a " nation " when that group is not 
 politically independent. Cf. Bryce, S. America, p. 424. 
 
MORALITY AND NATIONALITY 13 
 
 A common language also seems to be usual in 
 a nation. Other things being equal, a nation is 
 stronger, the group is more closely knit, in pro- 
 portion to the effectiveness and common use of 
 a language. This again gives a special kind of 
 likeness to the members of the group ; for men 
 and women cannot use the same terms without 
 forcing their desires into the same moulds or 
 establishing the same customs. Further, the use 
 of a common language tends to intermarriage 
 and so reinforces the more primitive basis of 
 nationality in blood. And it is to be noticed 
 that a common language is not a merely physical 
 fact. It is not the sound which makes the nation 
 but the meaning. Thus we distinguish language 
 from the cries of beasts and, although beasts may 
 be physically related, they cannot form what we 
 call a nation because of the lack of that sympathy 
 for which language stands. Perhaps also it is 
 necessary to distinguish a language from a dialect ; 
 for not until dialect gives place to language does 
 a nation appear. But this means that the range, 
 subtlety and effectiveness of speech has increased ; 
 for dialect differs in these points from language. 
 Not mere intelligibility, then, makes a common 
 language, but effective co-operation in thought 
 upon universal issues. 1 
 
 1 This does not appear in the ordinary histories of litera- 
 ture, which treat the English language as a mere manner 
 
i 4 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS 
 
 But neither blood nor language have the 
 importance in this matter which belongs to 
 tradition. 1 A common tradition knits a group 
 more closely than physical relationship or common 
 language. Men whose ancestors have fought for 
 the same cause or used peace for the same ends 
 are more securely united than even those of the 
 same physical family. In fact it is a tradition of 
 purpose attempted that gives the human " family** 
 its most potent value. The finest element in 
 aristocracy is the inheritance of some tradition ; 
 and this inheritance the Middle Ages endeavoured 
 to make possible for the lowest-born by monasti- 
 cism, in which one entered the " family " of the 
 founder. Tradition has bound men together 
 even when they were hardly conscious of it ; 
 and the most decadent results of in-breeding 
 among " nobilities " have often been given an 
 artificial stamina by noblesse oblige. In larger 
 societies tradition has brought villages to fame 
 and endowed hill-tribesmen with human dignity, 
 
 of expression with hardly an understanding of what in the 
 subject-matter expressed is characteristic and what is interna- 
 tional and what universal. 
 
 1 For example, the formation of the English Nation by 
 tradition uniting men of alien blood (British, Saxon, Norman) 
 and diverse languages shows how far back this element of 
 Nationality may be supposed to go. There is no clearer 
 statement of this element of Nationality than in Kenan's 
 Qu'esf-ce qtfon nation? (Conf.faite en Sorbomie, 1882). 
 
MORALITY AND NATIONALITY 15 
 
 so much so that we must count it one of the 
 chief formative elements in human grouping. 
 Thus in the case of Belgium a common purpose 
 overrides the distinction of race and language 
 between Walloon and Fleming ; and this is but 
 an extreme instance of the same case which we 
 find in the union of Breton and the Gens du 
 Midi in France. 
 
 To define more clearly what is meant by a 
 common tradition, there must be in the first place 
 a common history. If it is an eventful history, 
 a short period of common adventure will make a 
 group of families into a nation : if not much has 
 been risked, then many centuries will be neces- 
 sary. Thus more was done for the development 
 of the national force in England during the few 
 years of risk in Elizabeth's reign than during the 
 centuries of desultory warfare which preceded. 
 More was done for unifying the confused grovps 
 of Revolutionary France in the few months of 
 risk of foreign invasion in 1792 than had been 
 done by the ardent constitution-makers of the 
 preceding years. 
 
 It is not enough, then, to say that men must 
 have a common memory : for not merely the 
 fact of a common history, but the kind of history 
 is important. Adventure in common is more 
 uniting than a shared commonplace : and this is 
 the reason why war seems to be so important 
 
1 6 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS 
 
 for the making of a nation. The advocates of 
 war do not simply believe it to be a regrettable 
 necessity, but they look to the risk it involves 
 as the only means by which men can learn their 
 common interest as a nation. Risk, and there- 
 fore war, since this has been the chief source of 
 danger to all primitive groups, has been the great 
 formative cause of nationality. It not only 
 makes men forget private interest in a common 
 cause, but it defines more clearly the lack of 
 common interest in an alien group. 
 
 We say, then, that tradition, as the force for 
 national unity and the diversity of nations, has 
 meant war : and war may still act in this way. 
 Of that we shall speak later. It is, however, 
 necessary to say that this by no means proves 
 war to be essential to the realisation of nation- 
 ality. With those who are mentally incompetent 
 to realise any danger but the physical, and with 
 those who are unable to grasp any but the crudest 
 common interests or the crudest differences from 
 others, war will always be thus effective, but we 
 may hope that those who are more developed 
 will not always need to be governed by the 
 necessity for the undeveloped to be taught 
 common interests. 1 
 
 1 Of course, that war has knit men together is no excuse 
 for planning war, as the fact that disease has taught men 
 endurance is no excuse for increasing disease. To praise war 
 
MORALITY AND NATIONALITY 17 
 
 There are other risks besides those of foreign 
 conquest, as, for example, the risk of domination 
 by a caste or a clique ; and this risk also unites 
 men and makes nations. In the English Revolu- 
 tion, and still more in the French Revolution, 
 this danger is seen actively driving the most 
 diverse men together. There is also the danger, 
 most effective in earlier times, of disease and 
 famine. Even the presence of a volcano will 
 make men brothers. And there are dangers, not 
 grasped by the majority but unconsciously effec- 
 tive, of mental decay or moral deterioration, 
 the fear of which is the real reason for men's 
 willingness to support such activities as national 
 Education. 1 
 
 A tradition, however, looks forward as well as 
 back. It implies a common purpose or a common 
 ideal. 2 The group which is united by a living 
 tradition generally holds (i) the same sort of 
 character the best, and (2) the same sort of life 
 the most desirable. Yet neither the ideal character 
 
 is like praising the man who burns down his house in order 
 to be certain of the domestic affection of those who dwell in it 
 (cf. Graham Wallas, The Great Society}. 
 
 1 Perhaps historians will look back to the United States as 
 an example of a nation which has not been formed by war, so 
 much at least as earlier nations have. 
 
 2 I give the word tradition this meaning as well, because 
 it seems that what has united in the past is this common 
 ideal : and it is because it was an ideal that the memory of the 
 past is so valuable. 
 
 c 
 
1 8 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS 
 
 nor the ideal life may be yet in existence : the 
 present circumstances in the group may only tend 
 in the admired direction. The ideals imagined 
 may have only a vague basis in fact, and yet they 
 may unite as if they were established facts. 
 
 It is difficult, of course, to state in a formula 
 the nature of the character admired In England. 
 Nor is any statement of it to be found in treatises 
 on Ethics. It is expressed more clearly than 
 elsewhere in contemporary novels and drama : 
 but to be understood the admiration must be 
 watched in the crowd at a cricket-match, in the 
 audience at a political meeting or in the coteries 
 of clubs and universities. Expressing it inexactly 
 and in a general way one might, we may suppose, 
 contrast the character admired among us with 
 that admired by Prussians, in so far as they do 
 not seem to understand what we should call 
 playing the game, and they set a value upon 
 " dignity " which we do not. The French also 
 differ from us in seeming to think us too solemn, 
 while our popular superstition accuses the French 
 of frivolity. These absurdities stand for the real 
 distinctions in characters admired. Thus character 
 admired unites men. They accept as desirable 
 the existence of human beings of intelligence or 
 sobriety or strong emotion or stern intentness. 
 
 But also the kind of life we hold desirable 
 makes our tradition. Personal independence we 
 
MORALITY AND NATIONALITY 19 
 
 value highly, and we are willing to risk egoism 
 in order to secure individuality. The organisa- 
 tion of the group is a further question which 
 must be dealt with in defining the nature of the 
 State ; but we may say here that all organisation 
 is by us supposed to make the life of the indi- 
 vidual more free ; and we think that the greater 
 the variety of individuals, the finer the life of 
 each in the group. This ideal is clear not only 
 from the arguments of the great English Indi- 
 vidualists, Mill and Sidgwick, but even from the 
 expression of ideals in romance. 
 
 Perhaps it is not fair to summarise the 
 Prussian ideal of life, but it appears to be clear 
 from its expression in literature that independ- 
 ence of the individual is by them somewhat 
 suspected. They seem to think that a group is 
 finer the more homogeneous the individuals are who 
 compose it : and we do not deny that such a group 
 is more easily governed, but they seem to think that 
 orderly and smooth-running government is an end. 
 
 Again, the French desire generally a different 
 kind of life from ours or the Prussian. They 
 appear to us sometimes to tend to bureaucracy 
 and the adoration of petty officials. To them we 
 appear " haphazard." And other like contrasts 
 may be found in the kinds of life desired by 
 Italians, or Spaniards, or Japanese. Thus the 
 kind of life desired is one of the elements of 
 
20 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS 
 
 tradition, in so far as it unites men for a common 
 purpose : and it is not unusual for the ignorant 
 to suppose that there is something deficient in a 
 kind of life which they do not desire. 
 
 Tradition, however, is most powerful when it 
 is embodied in a characteristic form of religion. 
 In early times the group is united and distin- 
 guished from other groups by some form of 
 ritual : the king is the priest and group-customs 
 are rites. 1 Sometimes a religion is enough to 
 keep a " nation " in existence in spite of diverging 
 language. The Jews are an example. 
 
 As civilisation develops and religion becomes 
 more closely connected with morality, the kind of 
 life and character admired (the moral standard) 
 is fixed and developed by religious sanctions. 
 Where the religious group is coterminous with 
 the blood and language group, where the physical 
 or intellectual relatives have the same ritual and 
 creed, the nation is stronger. Patriotism and 
 orthodoxy are inseparable and are, in the minds 
 of the majority, identified. Such is the situation 
 in most of Ireland and in Poland : and even in 
 more complex nations there is often a tendency to 
 reaction by the identifying of national enthusiasm 
 with some special form of creed. 2 
 
 1 The theme is well worn : cf. Frazer, Golden Bough ; Jane 
 Harrison, Themis ; and Durkheim. 
 
 2 As, for example, in Dimnet's France herself again. 
 
MORALITY AND NATIONALITY 21 
 
 Where the religious ritual and creed is not 
 precisely the same throughout the whole group, 
 as in England and in Germany, there is, neverthe- 
 less, a certain general resemblance in the religious 
 attitude of most citizens which is sufficient to 
 support the distinction of the group at least from 
 extremely distant groups such as the Japanese. 
 But in the differentiation which follows a higher 
 civilisation, the national differences are often quite 
 unconnected with religious differences. In every 
 case, however, religion seems to have an important 
 influence on the formation of nationality. So far, 
 then, we may go in indicating what makes a nation : 
 but the nature of nationality may be understood 
 also from the results it has had in the political sphere. 
 
 The result of common blood, language and 
 tradition has generally been the establishment of 
 common institutions, which distinguish this group 
 from the other. And these institutions have been 
 for many different purposes. The first, in the 
 development of history, has been religion : in fact 
 the nation, like the tribe or the family, has often 
 been a religious union, long before it was a 
 political whole. The result is national priesthood 
 and ritual : and when nations arise at a later stage 
 in civilisation the result is a national Church. In 
 a developed culture educational institutions tend to 
 be distinct and characteristic of different national 
 groups. 
 
22 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS 
 
 But for our present purpose the political institu- 
 tions are the most interesting. They are of many 
 kinds, and not all nations have contrived to 
 establish a unique form of the highest political 
 institution called the State. 1 Sometimes the 
 State-organisation is accepted from aliens while 
 the regional administration remains national and 
 distinctive. But every State is the institutional 
 result of some national sentiment or tradition, 
 even when the institution is imposed upon other 
 nations. And it is now often regarded in England 
 as desirable that there should be a closer corre- 
 spondence than there is between the distinctions 
 of nationality and the distinctions of political 
 institutions. 
 
 The consciousness of nationality has produced 
 a plan of action called Nationalism, according to 
 which each nation should have its own supreme 
 political organisation. 2 In its exaggerated form 
 this would mean that every nation should be a 
 State ; and this, whether practicable or not, is 
 
 1 Since there is magic, black or white, in words, it is as well 
 to note that State (Staat, etat, stato) means simply " established." 
 It comes into use from the phrase " status reipublicae." Cf. a 
 full treatment in Jellinek, op. cit., Ch. V, p. 123. 
 
 It is absurd to treat nationality as a political fact only ; it 
 is also a religious or a cultural fact, and is only political in so 
 far as it expresses itself in a political institution. 
 
 2 It is well to remember that this ideal is recent. The 
 French Directorate of 1795, etc., declared a policy of "natural 
 boundaries " which still affects German statesmen. 
 
MORALITY AND NATIONALITY 23 
 
 of interest for our present purpose because it 
 establishes the distinction now accepted between 
 a nation and a State. It has been maintained that 
 every nation should have its own Church, and 
 in every such theory the institutional system is 
 distinguished from the group united by blood, 
 language and tradition. 
 
 When we turn, with this conception of nation 
 and nationality, to discover what difference such 
 facts make to morality we find that nationality 
 which has not resulted in distinct States makes no 
 difference at all. Differences of blood, language 
 and tradition seem to make no difference to the 
 arrangement of conflicting interest according to 
 the same moral criteria which are used between 
 members of the same family. 
 
 But where the political institutions differ, the 
 moral relationships of men seem to differ. No 
 one would maintain that the moral relationship of 
 inhabitants of Scotland and England differs from 
 that of one Englishman to another. Issues to be 
 decided between Englishmen are decided in the 
 same way as between an Englishman and a Scots- 
 man or an Indian, allowing, of course, for peculi- 
 arities of local law. For no one imagines that 
 the Englishman must " expand " as against the 
 Scotsman, or that where it is doubtful whose 
 interests should suffer it must be decided by force 
 of arms. Again, Slavs under Austrian rule are 
 
24 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS 
 
 treated as rebels if they refuse to fight Slavs of 
 Serbia ; and thus it seems that the moral attitude 
 towards people living under different political 
 institutions is supposed to be different from the 
 normal, whether or not these others are of the 
 same nation. Moral criteria, then, are accepted as 
 between nations but not altogether between States : 
 so that it may seem as if the differing institutions 
 created a new moral situation or an absolutely 
 unmoral situation. 
 
 We shall have, then, to examine into the nature 
 of this astonishing institution called the State, 
 which seems to have so strange an effect upon 
 morality. We may put aside altogether the idea 
 that the relationship between citizens of diverse 
 states is unmoral. It has been maintained by 
 Machiavelli ; and although Treitschke and von 
 Billow and even Bismarck were probably not 
 competent to think out what their writings imply, 
 it seems to be maintained also by them. A State 
 is not mere power nor a natural force like electri- 
 city : or rather if anyone chooses to use the word 
 in that sense he is not thinking of what we call 
 the supreme political institution. 1 That such 
 institutions are related morally we take as proved 
 
 1 I need hardly say that the German tradition is opposed to 
 Treitschke, as is apparent in Kant, Fichte and Hegel ; and in 
 Bluntschli's The State has a moral nature (1st eln sittliches Wesen} 
 and moral duties. 
 
MORALITY AND NATIONALITY 25 
 
 by the existence of intercourse and the limitations 
 of warfare ; but what precisely those moral rela- 
 tionships are we shall have to discuss later. It is 
 sufficient to note here that they are moral and are 
 accepted as such by implication even in those 
 works which seem to argue that they are not. 
 
 The fundamental issue first to be decided is as 
 to the nature of the State. And this can only be 
 discovered by noticing the current conceptions of 
 it and making such corrections as the present facts 
 seem to necessitate. The result will be not a 
 finished philosophy of the State, but an indication 
 of present tendencies in the morality of citizens as 
 related to citizens of other States. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 THE STATE AND OTHER INSTITUTIONS 
 
 THE question "What is a State?" has been 
 answered in many great works ; but since new 
 facts have come into prominence in recent years 
 the old answers are quite inadequate. The con- 
 ceptions which arose from Greek city life, from 
 the Mediaeval Empire, from Renaissance Juris- 
 prudence and even from the Nineteenth Century 
 democracy are no longer adequate to explain what 
 we now experience. Each is, as Bacon said of 
 Scholastic philosophy, " subtilitati naturae longe 
 impar " : and all must be replaced or corrected. 
 
 Summarily one may say that there have been 
 four great conceptions of the State not, of course, 
 merely four ways of using the word but four ways 
 of regarding the same fact. These are the Greek, 
 the Mediaeval, the Renaissance and that of the 
 Nineteenth Century. These four philosophies have 
 some common features, since all are really theories 
 of the same fact : and this fact in its general 
 features may be described somewhat as follows. 
 Institutions of many kinds exist, of which some 
 
 26 
 
STATE AND OTHER INSTITUTIONS 27 
 
 are subordinate to others, not necessarily in im- 
 portance but in organisation. That political organ- 
 isation which is not subordinated to any other and 
 which generally unites men of the same race and 
 language is what is referred to in all theories of 
 the State. 1 Organisation, then, is fundamental to 
 the idea of a State and not, for example, to that 
 of a nation. But, further, I think we may say 
 that such organisation must be conscious. In 
 this way State organisation seems to differ from 
 that of the family, although the distinction is 
 perhaps only one of degree. The " democratic " 
 State implies organisation consciously accepted or 
 even originated by the majority of its members, 
 whereas the despotic or oligarchic State is an 
 organisation accepted as unquestioningly by the 
 greater number as is the family or the tribe. 
 
 This also is common to all States, of the Greek 
 as well as of the modern type, that they are 
 organisations for the attainment of the common 
 u political " good of those organised. But a 
 political good is distinct from a religious, in- 
 dustrial, economic, artistic or scientific good : 
 although all these goods may have been attained 
 
 1 I take the sovereign State of International Law as the real 
 State and not, for example, the " State " of New York : but I 
 do not wish to imply that the State is sovereign over organisa- 
 tions of another kind, nor even that " sovereign " implies 
 complete independence. 
 
28 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS 
 
 in the past by the use of one institution. I shall 
 endeavour to show in what follows that the State 
 is not now for the purpose of an undefined or 
 unlimited common good, but only for the common 
 good of a certain kind : and I shall suppose that 
 political good is a civilised life which may pro- 
 vide opportunity for varied interests or activities. 
 The political good, then, does not include the 
 whole of " the good life," as it would to Aristotle 
 or to any Greek, but may be regarded as the 
 necessary condition for attaining the artistic, scientific 
 or religious good. The general will is now organ- 
 ised for different purposes in different ways : or 
 we may be more exact and say that there are 
 different general wills even " in the same person/' 
 But the State is always in all philosophies re- 
 garded as at least the sovereign organisation for the 
 attainment of political common good?- No doubt much 
 more may be included in all past philosophies, 
 but this is all that it is necessary for us to assume 
 as common in order to show the deficiencies of 
 our inherited conceptions. 
 
 Allowing, therefore, for the common features 
 of all " States " in all civilised periods, there are 
 
 1 It will be understood that " sovereign " here means only 
 highest of all institutions (of the same group) which are of the 
 same political order. The State is thus " sovereign " over a 
 municipality which exists for departmental order and liberty : 
 and is not sovereign over institutions which exist for other 
 purposes. 
 
STATE AND OTHER INSTITUTIONS 29 
 
 nevertheless great differences between the modern 
 State and all supreme political institutions of earlier 
 times. But these earlier institutions were the 
 evidence for our inherited theories of the State. 
 It would not then be strange if such theories 
 seemed inadequate for dealing with present prob- 
 lems. Indeed, although there is something common 
 to the modern State and the political institutions 
 of earlier times, there is much that makes the old 
 conceptions difficult to apply to the present situa- 
 tion. In the first place, the present meaning of 
 politics indicates the change, since we now dis- 
 tinguish politics from religion, education or culture. 
 But it is only in recent times that institutions for 
 entirely different purposes have been recognised 
 to exist independently of the State. Churches 
 did not exist in Aristotle's time, international 
 scientific associations were not of much impor- 
 tance in Hobbes's day, and trade unions were 
 negligible in Hegel's day. Now a civilised 
 man belongs to more than one institution, 
 and the different institutions are used for en- 
 tirely different purposes. 1 We must therefore 
 point out the peculiarities of the earlier political 
 institutions in the four great periods of political 
 
 1 " When a body of men . . . bind themselves to act 
 together for any purpose . . . they create a body which by 
 no fiction of law but by the very nature of things differs from 
 the individuals composing it." Dicey, quoted in Maitland 
 (Coll. Papers, III. Body Pol.). 
 
3 o THE MORALITY OF NATIONS 
 
 thought, especially with respect to the purposes 
 for which political institutions were supposed to 
 exist. They have either included much more 
 than we expect of the State or they have implied 
 a sharing of social functions with other institutions 
 which is impossible now. 
 
 (A) The Greek polls. The modern State is so 
 essentially different from the Greek City-State 
 that it will not be necessary to go through all 
 the distinctions. But we must notice that polls 
 stands for an institution supplying nearly all the 
 needs of civilised life religion, politics, music, 
 painting, and part of education. Naturally such 
 an institution is absolute, and its maintenance is 
 the necessity of any civilised life whatever. But 
 no such institution exists now. The theories 
 about it are too vague : for as metaphysics or 
 <c philosophy " once meant what is now divided 
 into astronomy, physics and logic, so " politics " 
 once meant what is now divided up into different 
 studies of social structure. Thus Aristotle on 
 " politics" discusses flute-playing and Plato poetry : 
 for the polls, which no longer exists, was the 
 object of their study. Now, as politics no longer 
 deals with the polls, so the word <c State " does not 
 generally stand now for what supplies our religious, 
 intellectual or artistic needs, and perhaps not even 
 for an institution supplying our food and cloth- 
 ing, although to the modern mind economics 
 
STATE AND OTHER INSTITUTIONS 31 
 
 and politics are not clearly distinguished. So 
 that whatever the institution may be which we 
 call a State, the conceptions due to the absolutism 
 and universalism of the polis do not apply to it. 
 Those ideas of Plato and Aristotle which imply 
 that there is one institution supplying all civilised 
 needs are simply obsolete. The Roman " urbs " 
 was in a sense new, especially when it became an 
 tc orbs " ; and there existed also Cc collegia " which 
 embodied other purposes than the political ; but 
 the old theory of the omnipotent polis which 
 supplied the whole of civilised life still seemed 
 to be sufficient. 
 
 (B) The Mediaeval Regnum. On the downfall 
 of Rome new institutions came into prominence. 
 One, called the Church, was non-racial, and aimed 
 at being Cosmopolitan : it supplied artistic and 
 educational as well as religious needs. There 
 were also the feeble Empire and many half- 
 independent organisations for supplying political 
 needs, particularly order ^ directed and sometimes 
 established by warriors. These came into con- 
 tinual conflict, as to the limits of their functioning, 
 with the universal Church. They were called 
 generally regna ; but no such institution now 
 exists. The conceptions due to mediaeval king- 
 ship, as keeping order and having no direct 
 interest in education or culture, are obsolete. 
 The Greek-Roman conception included too much 
 
32 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS 
 
 in politics, the mediaeval excluded too much from 
 it. The relation to the only other type of institu- 
 tion, the Church, was too simple to apply to our 
 modern situation ', l and other institutions, gilds 
 and universities seemed to exist at the pleasure of 
 the King or the Pope. 
 
 (C) The Renaissance Sovereign State. The medi- 
 aeval struggle practically ended in the defeat of 
 the Church, and the old regna put on the 
 sacredness of their opponent. The new institu- 
 tion was in some sense a reaction towards the 
 polls, in so far as the State then claimed to 
 be supreme over religion. But no State con- 
 trived to become a Church; and men united for 
 political purposes were quite divided for religious 
 or artistic or cultural purposes. The State as a 
 political institution, however, was regarded as more 
 important than any other institution, and every 
 other association or institution for civilised life 
 seemed to owe its existence to this Leviathan. 
 As opposed to egoistic individualism there seemed 
 to be only one social bond, that of citizenship ; 
 so that the only loyalty was patriotism, and the 
 only institution for which a man should give his 
 life was, not church or university, but the State, 
 identified in practice with the King. 
 
 1 Largely because the " Church " included too much among 
 its purposes for it to be regarded as equivalent to any single 
 institution now existing. 
 
STATE AND OTHER INSTITUTIONS 33 
 
 (D) The Nineteenth Century. The French Revo- 
 lution disturbed the Renaissance situation but 
 resulted in little change of the current political 
 conceptions. For the continued growth of new 
 institutions was hardly marked in the new theories 
 of the State. The new political institutions 
 were practically national ; and affection based 
 upon blood, language or tradition, being directed 
 to the maintenance of the State, exalted the State 
 still more as compared with Church, economic 
 unions or cultured societies. Mediaevalists pro- 
 tested against the Erastianism, but the position of 
 superiority to all other institutions was granted 
 to the State grudgingly in England and gladly in 
 France, Germany and Italy. Even in England 
 the suspicion of the omnipotent State, which can 
 be felt in the Utilitarians, was expressed as though 
 the opposite to State-worship could only be an 
 isolating Individualism. There was no word of 
 other social bonds. The new situation had led 
 to a correction of Greek " politics," Mediaeval 
 simplicity and Renaissance absolutism ; but a 
 further change due to industrialism and the closer 
 contact of nations was to make political theory 
 even of the nineteenth century hopelessly inade- 
 quate. The world changed too quickly for the 
 slowly moving wits of the philosophers. 
 
 Present Political Theory. In theory the modern 
 State still continues to be a mixture of Greek 
 
34 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS 
 
 iS) Mediaeval regnum and Renaissance " sove- 
 reign " ; but in fact the modern State gener- 
 ally does not supply religion or food and clothing, 
 even if it makes the supply of such needs possible 
 by law and order. The theory of politics still 
 continues to deal with issues which no practical 
 politician would dare to touch ; whereas in fact 
 men treat politics as being concerned supremely 
 with the State, and in this with one only of their 
 common interests. A man who belonged to a 
 State only and not to a Church or an academy or 
 a company or an artistic society or a trade union, 
 would not be conceived to be a whole man. 
 Clearly, then, one man may belong to many insti- 
 tutions for many different purposes, and the State 
 is one among these ; but only superior to others 
 if the purposes of citizenship are more valuable 
 to us than other purposes, or if we get more of 
 what we value by belonging to the State than we 
 get by belonging to any other institution. But 
 the State is still regarded as sacred by many who 
 have given up the sacredness of kings. And 
 perhaps the theological unorthodoxy of the nine- 
 teenth century will have to be followed by political 
 unorthodoxy in the twentieth. For we are now 
 aware of the genesis of the State, and no longer 
 regard it as descended from heaven. Facts force 
 themselves on our notice, while we still strive to 
 
STATE AND OTHER INSTITUTIONS 35 
 
 believe in a confused medley of the observations 
 of dead thinkers. 
 
 Of all the obsolete conceptions of the State the 
 Hegelian is, perhaps, the most obsolete, in regard 
 to the purposes for which social organisation is 
 supposed to exist. The State is made into an 
 absolute institution, including and transcending 
 all others ; and with such a conception it is 
 natural to conclude that " Kultur " in its widest 
 sense, and everything which makes life civilised, 
 is due to the wonderful State. The last absurdity 
 is reached when this mysterious and all-powerful 
 organisation is identified with Prussian bureau- 
 cracy. But happily no Hegelian State exists ; for 
 even German " Kultur " is not dependent upon 
 the German State alone. The State being one of 
 many institutions, it is well to recognise that its 
 position with regard to other institutions is not 
 that of inclusion or transcendence. A citizen may 
 belong to a Church which counts among its 
 members citizens of other States than his ; or he 
 may belong to a company of scholars much more 
 closely in contact than are the citizens of any State ; 
 or he may belong to a non-national capitalist com- 
 pany or a labour union. To each of these insti- 
 tutions he belongs for a special purpose ; each he 
 maintains for a special gain which he expects from 
 it. And even when, as in the case of some 
 
36 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS 
 
 Nonconformist religious bodies or some trade 
 unions, all the members are citizens of one State, 
 it does not follow that the common citizenship 
 has anything to do with the membership of the 
 other institutions. 
 
 When one man belongs to many institutions 
 the institutions may indeed be unified, but their 
 distinction is not obliterated : just as when one 
 man eats a dinner and hears a symphony, the 
 dinner and the symphony remain distinct. Again, 
 when a man uses many institutions, one insti- 
 tution need not be " superior " to the other, in 
 sense of including the other. 1 The value of this 
 institution may be greater than the value of that, 
 as we value more what we derive from this than 
 what we derive from that : but it does not appear 
 to be obvious that the State is necessarily and 
 in every instance more valuable than any other. 
 And further, if we do make estimates of the 
 value of what we get from different institutions, 
 it does not follow that there is, or should be, any 
 institution which is " sovereign " over all. When 
 many " goods " are compared, there is, of course, 
 an absolute good : but the absolute good is 
 different in kind it is not one among many, 
 
 1 The general thesis is worked out by Mainland, following 
 Gierke (Pol. Theory in the Middle Ages) ; also in Figgis, The Church 
 In the Modern State, the independence of religious association is 
 asserted. In Guild Socialism the same kind of thesis is com- 
 bined with what seems an antiquated view of a federal state. 
 
STATE AND OTHER INSTITUTIONS 37 
 
 it is a universal and can never be a particular. 
 Good dinners, good literature, good music, good 
 order and freedom are all "goods" necessary in 
 the civilised life ; but one could not attain this 
 life by sacrificing all such u goods " and aiming 
 at "the good." When we say, then, that the 
 State is not sovereign over all other institutions, 
 we do not imply that the Church or any other 
 institution is sovereign. Modern life is an 
 orderly democracy of varied interests ; and the 
 relation of the institutions which supply those 
 interests is therefore democratic. The distinction 
 of value between the purposes for which institu- 
 tions exist may indeed subordinate one institution 
 to another when there is conflict ; but normally 
 they exist side by side in co-ordination which is 
 not subordination to anything but the law of 
 their own existence. 
 
 The State, by contrast with other institutions, 
 may be regarded as providing the opportunity for 
 the enjoyment of those " goods " which other 
 institutions supply ; but no special form of State 
 must, as we shall see, be therefore supposed to 
 be the necessary means for other institutional 
 ends. 1 Law and government in general are the 
 
 1 The State is the highest institution for a political purpose, 
 but not the only institution even for this. Subordinate to it 
 are municipal councils, provincial governments, etc. Of course, 
 it is sovereign over these. 
 
38 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS 
 
 means of State-action ; and the purpose is order 
 and liberty as much order as does not involve 
 tyranny, and as much liberty as does not in- 
 volve license. But the State does not provide 
 art or science or religion in modern times, 
 although none of these could exist without order 
 and liberty. The State is one among many 
 institutions which seem to be necessary for the 
 civilised life, and political theory must therefore 
 explain its relation to these. This, however, is 
 not necessary for my present purpose, if it is 
 clear that the relationship will be based upon the 
 purposes for which the different institutions exist. 
 It may be held that although the State does 
 not, it should provide all the needs of civilised 
 life ; but this form of Socialism seems to be as 
 obsolete as Prussian despotism. 1 The refutation 
 of it is to be found in the historical law of the 
 differentiation of function in institutions ; and 
 we take this law as the general statement indi- 
 cating the characteristic purpose of the modern 
 State. To take a non-controversial example : 
 the mediaeval Church supplied music, painting, 
 drama and even, in early times, dancing, as well 
 as what we now call religion and morality. The 
 Church building of the mediaeval town represents 
 
 1 It is, indeed, of German manufacture. State Socialism 
 has direct affinities with the Hegelian State-philosophy, and 
 that again with Prussian administration. 
 
STATE AND OTHER INSTITUTIONS 39 
 
 in its singleness the many different buildings 
 which we now call the concert-hall, the art- 
 gallery, the museum, the theatre and sometimes, 
 as in the festa asinaria y the music-hall. On the 
 plan of a mediaeval city one finds no theatres or 
 art-galleries : not because the needs now supplied 
 in such buildings were not felt, but because one 
 institution supplied them all. Since the Renais- 
 sance, however, learning and art have been 
 supplied by new institutions, and the Church 
 has been more and more limited in its function ; 
 but it has gained by that limitation in definiteness 
 and in effectiveness so far as religion is con- 
 cerned. And the same may be argued of the 
 modern State : for we by no means accept the 
 Spencerian idea that the limitation of State 
 function means that the State does less than it 
 did. Although the function of the State is 
 strictly political, its sphere of action now is much 
 greater than in the days when one institution 
 provided both the political and the other needs 
 of civilised life. The limitation of State function 
 does not, by any means, degrade the State, as the 
 limitation of the functions of a Church does not 
 degrade the Church. We give more, and we 
 expect more of the modern State ; and, indeed, 
 we receive more than even the Athenians did, 
 for specialisation of the institution has increased 
 its power and the range of its effectiveness. 
 
40 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS 
 
 Spencer made the mistake of supposing that if 
 the individual had greater freedom, the State must 
 be restricted ; or if civilised needs were supplied 
 by other institutions, the State must become less 
 powerful. But such an idea implies that there 
 is a fixed amount of shared power, such that if 
 one institution gains the other must lose ; or that 
 there is a strictly bounded sphere of action within 
 which all distribution of function must take 
 place : whereas, in fact, power increases and the 
 sphere of institutional activity is always expand- 
 ing. So that, although there are many more 
 institutions than there once were, each does more 
 than any single comprehensive institution did in 
 the past ; and also but this is a different issue 
 although the individual is " freer," the State, 
 so far from being restricted, is more and more 
 active. Indeed, its power is not merely correc- 
 tive, it has even become directive. The limitation 
 or specialisation of function is therefore by no 
 means a restriction of power. 
 
 When we consider not the English State only, 
 but each civilised State in turn, we see every- 
 where how much more the State has still to do 
 than it has ever yet done, quite apart from the 
 changes in the relationship of State to State which, 
 as we shall see later, are a basis for more action. 
 We have a long way to go in extending liberty. 
 Men are not free who are born under-fed and 
 
STATE AND OTHER INSTITUTIONS 41 
 
 brought up in surroundings which are physically 
 cramping or intellectually barren. And where 
 one man is not free, the whole society to which 
 he belongs is not free, since its development is 
 restricted by the restriction of its citizen. The 
 State, therefore, must extend its activities in this 
 direction. And, again, order is not yet estab- 
 lished among the new economic forces which 
 industrialism has created ; for competition is 
 leading to monopoly and monopoly to discontent 
 and disorder. Supply and demand are hopelessly 
 confused, for there is a glut of some articles and 
 a scarcity of others. The relation of classes also 
 is not orderly, since the law is often at the mercy 
 of caprice and the poor man often appeals in 
 vain. All this, then, is also material for State 
 action. So that when we say that the practical 
 politician is not directly concerned with religion 
 or art, we do not mean that there is less to be 
 done. On the contrary, there is much more to 
 be done than such politicians imagine. 
 
 Again, we are but on the frontiers of the 
 problem which arises out of the control by the 
 State, not of individuals, but of organised groups. 
 Institutions which exist for other purposes than 
 the maintenance of law and order have to submit 
 to regulation for the sake of law and order. 
 Thus a Church may not be a department of 
 State, but it must be prevented from persecuting ; 
 
42 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS 
 
 a trade union may not exist for the benefit of 
 those who do not belong to it, but it must be 
 prevented from injuring them ; a trust or 
 company may not owe its existence to the State, 
 but its action must be limited in the interest 
 of the body of citizens. Indeed, the problems 
 of modern political theory are innumerable 
 although the State is not any longer what 
 it was for our grandfathers. The massing of 
 inhabitants in great cities, the manufacture for 
 a world market, the diversification of modern 
 interests, the subtleties of modern finance, have all 
 gone to produce the new situation. And in that 
 complexity we must distinguish the different 
 groupings of men and the diverse institutions 
 which men use in common for different purposes. 
 One institution has inherited the religious, 
 another the cultural, another the economic, and 
 another the political purpose of the old Greek 
 polis. And the various changes of history have 
 caused a continual redistribution of function until 
 at last we have arrived at the twentieth century 
 which is not, of course, the end of time. 
 
 But whatever the State may be ultimately 
 proved to be, it is clear that it is not, with respect 
 to other institutions for civilised life, what our 
 traditional philosophy has imagined it to be. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 THE STATE AND OTHER STATES 
 
 NOT only by contrast with institutions used 
 for other than political purposes is our State 
 different from the political institutions of the 
 past, but also by reference to its relationship 
 with other States. Supreme political institutions 
 may be said to be of the same order ; and it is in 
 this purely political sphere also that the modern 
 State differs from Trfais and regnum and 
 " sovereign." Its relationship to other institu- 
 tions of the same order is absolutely vital to 
 its nature ; so that it is utterly impossible to 
 regard the modern State as isolated. But the 
 inherited theory of the State implies, even when 
 it does not express, the idea that "foreign 
 relations "are a matter for an appendix or a 
 short chapter, while the " essence " of the State 
 is discussed under the heading of law and 
 government. Obviously the isolation of the 
 State for purposes of discussion is largely due 
 to the importance of the problem regarding the 
 relationship between the group (nation, families, 
 
 43 
 
44 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS 
 
 etc.) and the institutions of the group. In 
 modern times the importance of understanding 
 this relationship has not diminished. There is 
 much thought of nationality and group character : 
 and, of course, political institutions are of great 
 importance for maintaining and developing this. 
 Internal or domestic political problems are not 
 any less important : but, admitting this, we may 
 nevertheless maintain that no State can be under- 
 stood at all if it is, even by implication, imagined 
 to be the only State in existence. 
 
 Let us, then, put aside, for the present, the 
 question of nationality and consider first the 
 false philosophical isolation of the State. 
 
 To the most cursory view of the facts it is 
 obvious that the State, our present organisation 
 for political life, is normally and continuously 
 in contact with other States. The sending of 
 occasional embassies has given place not only 
 to continued diplomatic intercourse but to the 
 most intricate business of the consular service. 
 State organisation is changed in one place because 
 of some method adopted in some other States, as, 
 for example, the influence of " foreign systems " 
 may be seen in English official education. Or 
 again, English parliamentary institutions cause a 
 modification of those in other States. The 
 existence of a military system in Germany makes 
 it necessary for France to adopt the same system. 
 
THE STATE AND OTHER STATES 45 
 
 And the interrelation is not always in the 
 direction of assimilating institutions : for con- 
 tinuous economic intercourse makes the German 
 State resist the growth of industry for the 
 promotion of agriculture, 1 while in the United 
 States industry is more and more protected 
 against "high finance." In the progress of 
 economic differentiation one group tends to 
 become predominantly industrial, another pre- 
 dominantly agricultural, and so on : the institu- 
 tions of the two groups tend, therefore, to differ 
 more and more. But they differ because of 
 their interdependence. This interdependence, then, 
 is of importance in considering the nature of 
 the State. 
 
 When, however, we turn to the traditional 
 philosophy of the State we find no recognition 
 of such facts ; partly, as we must allow, because 
 the prominence of this interdependence is a new 
 fact which has not been so noticeable in the past, 
 but partly because of the concentration of atten- 
 tion upon other facts. If we follow the line of 
 history farther and farther back into the past, 
 the philosophical theory of the State is seen to 
 be more and more inadequate to explain present 
 facts. 
 
 The Hegelian State lives and develops by 
 absorbing its own vitals ; but the metaphysical 
 1 Cp. von Bulow, Imperial Germany, p. 208. 
 
46 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS 
 
 dogmatism of the " Philosophy of Mind " is no 
 worse than the economic dogmatism of Karl 
 Marx. He sees the State in isolation as a 
 changing series of relations between citizens ; 
 and he barely recognises the transference of 
 capital across boundaries or the interchange of 
 industry which was to make of his State 
 Socialism an obsolete ideal. To Spencer and 
 even to Mill and Sidgwick " the State " is the 
 English Government, having an occasional and 
 unimportant contact with mere foreigners. 
 Hence, as Hegel and Marx say, the nature of 
 the State is to centralise, Mill and Spencer say 
 the nature of the State is to decentralise ; and 
 it does not dawn upon either party that one 
 State centralises and the other decentralises 
 because there is a continuous interrelation 
 between them. It is true that the inter-State 
 life was not so great in the early nineteenth 
 century as it now is ; but a philosopher should 
 not require to be hit on the head before he 
 observes a new fact. 
 
 If we go farther back in history we find that 
 the philosophy preceding that of the nineteenth 
 century did recognise the existence of many 
 States. The Renaissance idea of equal sovereign 
 States was an attempt to understand the fact of 
 distinct organisations. Here again, however, only 
 one type of State is considered the monarchical ; 
 
THE STATE AND OTHER STATES 47 
 
 for although a grudging acknowledgment is made 
 by Grotius and by Bodin of republican forms, the 
 tendency for institutions to diverge is not referred 
 to in their final conclusions as to Sovereignty. 
 And this means that the existence of States of 
 entirely diverse kinds is not sufficiently discussed. 
 But more vital still for my present purpose is the 
 Renaissance conception of the almost accidental 
 relationship between States. An organisation 
 which is supposed occasionally, by some diplomatic 
 meeting or agreement or by a declaration of war, 
 to be really influenced by another organisation, 
 is not such an organisation as we know now to 
 be continuously and normally part of a complex 
 organism. Further, " Sovereignty," so far as it 
 was referred to external powers of the State, 
 involved the idea of opposition. Independence 
 was so conceived as if it could not co-exist with 
 interdependence. One State, to the mind of 
 the Renaissance, was as disconnected from another 
 as is the earth from the moon. It might be 
 drawn in the orbit of another, or at certain times 
 move together with another ; but it had definite 
 boundaries and therefore definite divisions from 
 all others. To our minds one State is only so 
 distinct from another as one limb is distinct from 
 another of the same body : and the " interests " 
 of one State are obviously no longer confined 
 within the boundaries of the lands over which 
 
48 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS 
 
 the law and government of that State is 
 established. 
 
 Yet farther back, in the Middle Ages, even 
 the Renaissance distinction of organisations is 
 obscured in the magnificent hypothesis of a 
 single civilised Europe. This hypothesis and 
 the Roman idea of a single World-State, 
 outside of which there is politically nothing, 
 separate our world from theirs completely. But 
 Renaissance Sovereignty and the nineteenth- 
 century isolation of the State are direct results 
 of the Roman fact and the mediaeval dream. 
 A State can only be " sovereign " when there is 
 only one State in existence : hence the difficulties 
 which arise in the books on International Law as 
 to the " limits to sovereignty." The Renaissance 
 took the quality which belonged to the Roman 
 Empire and conferred it illogically upon several 
 States. And to the mediaeval dream we must 
 look for the source of that " theocracy " which 
 is conferred upon the State in all forms of 
 nineteenth-century philosophy. 
 
 Finally, in the Greek conception of the State 
 which still influences modern thought,' the State is 
 completely isolated. For Plato in the Republic 
 there is only one State which, by means of its 
 warrior-guardians, comes into occasional conflict 
 with shadowy opponents who are not even given 
 any definite aims or organisation of their own. 
 
THE STATE AND OTHER STATES 49 
 
 There is not the slightest hint of two such 
 Republics in existence : and since that is unim- 
 portant, the State goes on its own way quite 
 without reference to the groupings or organisa- 
 tions of the rest of humanity. In the Laws 
 Plato acknowledges that peace and not war must 
 be the normal purpose of state-organisation ; and 
 that only seems to make matters worse. War 
 had at least introduced the idea of other groups 
 occasionally influencing " the " State ; but peace 
 seems to involve no interrelation at all. Travellers 
 may indeed come from abroad : we may learn 
 from foreigners, and hints may be given by 
 different actual States as to the method of 
 organisation in the State, but the State is conceived 
 as isolated. 
 
 Aristotle, it might be imagined, with his 
 inductive method, should have grasped the fact 
 that state-organisation was not isolated. He 
 knows of many diverse forms of organisation, 
 and is even said to have collected evidence from 
 many more constitutions than are referred to in 
 the Politics. But for him also there is only one 
 State, when he is discussing any one specimen. 
 He knows many organisations, but each in isola- 
 tion ; and he hardly allows for more than an 
 occasional alliance or a war. Trade is a dangerous 
 experiment largely because it seems to violate the 
 perfect self-sufficiency of the State. 
 
50 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS 
 
 Now it is obvious that these theories, until and 
 after the Renaissance, represented facts much more 
 closely than they do now. The Greek State was 
 almost isolated : not so isolated in fact as our 
 reading of the philosophers would lead us to 
 imagine ; and we should remember that the official 
 relations between States are never quite all the 
 interconnections which exist. But on the whole 
 we may assert that the course of history has 
 brought groups always closer together and that 
 interdependence has followed on contact. The 
 later the philosophy, therefore, the more inade- 
 quately does it represent facts so long as the State 
 is considered to be isolated. Plato and Aristotle 
 are more inadequate than Hegel and Spencer for 
 the understanding of present facts ; but Hegel 
 and Spencer were more mistaken as to their own 
 contemporary facts than were Plato and Aristotle. 
 
 Present facts, then, demand the recognition 
 of continuous and normal interdependence of 
 States. The nature of the State is to be under- 
 stood, at least in part, from its relations with other 
 States : and all philosophies which even imply 
 that the State is isolated are out of date. 
 
 Indeed, one may say that the modern State 
 must be understood by this external reference. 
 In the same sense the individual cannot be under- 
 stood in isolation, but only by continual reference 
 to society or to his relations with other individuals. 
 
THE STATE AND OTHER STATES 51 
 
 The individual, in our sense of the word, does not 
 exist prior to society ; but the contrary rather is 
 true. For the change which we call progress 
 is marked by the appearance of the unique and 
 differentiated " person," after the long period in 
 which the group so overshadows all action and 
 thought that the personality can hardly be said 
 to exist at all. So also the modern States arise 
 after the vague groupings of Feudalism and 
 Mediae valism (whether Western or Eastern) ; 
 and each arises only in close contact with other 
 individualised or distinct States, in definite relation 
 to it. In that sense the modern State is a new 
 fact, and the observations of Plato, Bodin, Hegel 
 and Sidgwick do not refer to it. But we have 
 preferred to be more polite and to say only that 
 some elements in the fact have not been considered. 
 Even the self-regarding or internal organisation of 
 the State is naturally posterior and even logically 
 dependent upon its relations with other States. 1 
 Thus Hegel should have recognised that his ideal 
 bureaucracy was due to the contact with France ; 
 and Spencer should have seen that his view of* 
 governmental " interference " was due to the 
 industrial superiority of England in contact with 
 the Continent. 
 
 The relations of State with State, then, are 
 
 1 It is seen by Sidgwick that taxation for " defence " makes 
 a vast difference to the internal economy of a State. 
 
52 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS 
 
 absolutely vital in the discussion of the nature 
 of the State. What those relations are in detail 
 we shall see later. Obviously the relation most 
 prominent in early State history is that of pure 
 opposition or war. Thus to many war is of the 
 essence of the State. But it is doubtful, to say 
 the least of it, whether even in the earliest times 
 the less prominent and less obtrusive relations of 
 peace are not more genuinely effective in creating 
 the State. Historians have neglected the unobtru- 
 sive and have made what was striking into what 
 was most real ; but even they have not been able 
 to explain the situation as it is at present except 
 by grudging references to non-warlike influence 
 of State on State. Whatever the relations are, 
 or have been, between States, it is clear that a 
 reference to them will profoundly modify the 
 current conception of the State. 
 
 In the first place, it will follow that State 
 systems tend to assimilate but also to differ : to 
 differ in some elements and to assimilate in others. 
 The isolation of the State or a grudging reference 
 to external relations results in a too great emphasis 
 on assimilation. Thus Herbert Spencer senten- 
 tiously announces that State action is gradually 
 restricted with the progress of civilisation, depend- 
 ing, in fact, upon a partial statement of what was 
 occurring in England in a short and exceptional 
 period of history. Had he seen the influences 
 
THE STATE AND OTHER STATES 53 
 
 passing from Germany or France he would have 
 perceived that even the English State was soon to 
 be compelled to take over more and more the 
 direction of private enterprise, if for no other 
 reason, at least in order to stand even with the 
 centralising tendency of France and Germany. 
 
 Hegel, on the contrary, in the manner of his 
 own Absolute, declares to a credulous Germany 
 that the State is absolute. But if he had seen the 
 influences passing from England he would have 
 allowed for the freer play of individuality as one 
 of the results of State organisation. 
 
 Political interdependence, which had really 
 always existed and grew very rapidly in the 
 nineteenth century, has now become obvious. 
 International Law has established itself as a 
 science ; capital and industry pass across State 
 boundaries ; and a shock, whether to credit or 
 to secure government, in one State immediately 
 affects all others. But philosophy lags behind. 
 No new conception of the State has developed 
 out of these new facts ; and, since philosophy 
 affects common life more than the practical man 
 cares to admit, the lack of a new philosophy 
 involves the handling of new situations with the 
 primitive or clumsy conceptions of Plato or Hegel. 
 
 When the interdependence of States is recog- 
 nised it will follow that the philosophical idea 
 of the State will no longer be that of a single, 
 
54 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS 
 
 self-sufficient organism, but rather that of a 
 functioning organ in a grouping more or less 
 organised. The relations of the citizens will not 
 be confined to the boundaries of their State but, 
 through their State, even in the political sphere, 
 they will be seen to be in continuous contact with 
 citizens of other States. And further, the state- 
 organisation itself will be seen to differ progres- 
 sively from that of other organisations with which 
 it is in contact, in proportion as the differentiation 
 of economic function or of religious ideal develops 
 in this or that State. 
 
 It is to be understood that such conscious 
 interdependence is not yet established. The 
 current phrases of politics, whether practical or 
 theoretical, indicate no very new conception of 
 the State or of the relationship between States. 
 To the mind of the average citizen the word 
 State does not normally indicate any reference 
 to his relationship with citizens of other States, 
 although in crises the fact that he is so related 
 by his State is forced upon his attention. The 
 intimate relationship which he then recognises 
 of his State with other States, existed before he 
 recognised it and influenced his own action with- 
 out his being conscious of it. 1 An antiquated 
 theory implying the isolation of the State, ob- 
 scured his view of modern facts : but the new 
 
 1 e. g. in his payment of taxes for Navy and Army, etc. 
 
THE STATE AND OTHER STATES 55 
 
 contact was increasing, and gradually it has forced 
 itself upon our attention. 
 
 The result of the new situation, acting upon 
 ordinary life and not being recognised for what it 
 is, has been disastrous. In the first place, facts 
 unrecognised have been left ungoverned. So 
 long as we neglect what we may call a natural 
 force we are at its mercy : when we recognise 
 it for what it is we may contrive to turn it to 
 our own advantage. By such advances do we 
 "master the lightning." The State has been 
 considered and criticised from the point of 
 view of law and government concerning its 
 own citizens : and the results of criticism have 
 been improvements, for example, in criminal 
 law or in local administration. An institution 
 conceived to exist for a certain purpose has been 
 found to be not fulfilling that purpose well, and 
 new methods have been suggested or tried. This, 
 however, was due to a concentration upon the 
 internal purposes of the State ; which involved a 
 neglect or a complete subordination of the other 
 elements in the same institution. 
 
 We do not maintain that the State was an 
 institution originally devised for bringing groups 
 politically into contact. The historical origin of 
 the present situation is another question. The 
 obvious fact is that the institution does now bring 
 groups into continuous and normal contact, and it 
 
5 6 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS 
 
 is now used for that purpose. But the use of 
 the State for what we call " foreign " relations 
 has not been adequately considered, since it has 
 made no real difference to our conception of 
 what the State is. Being conceived as essentially 
 isolated, it is almost impossible by means of an 
 appendix or an occasional hint to correct the 
 original assumption : and the tacit assumption 
 has been that the modern State is a TTOX^ or a 
 regnum or a "sovereign"; whereas in fact the 
 situation has changed. 
 
 Here, then, is a political institution essentially 
 in contact with other institutions of the same 
 order ; whose internal structure is continually 
 affected by that contact ; . whose utility to the 
 group of which it is the highest political institu- 
 tion is due to the fact that it relates them to other 
 groups so organised ; whose history and character 
 is modified and sometimes developed by long 
 periods of amity and occasional, less important, 
 episodes of war. But that contact has been left 
 to be governed by the play of any accidental 
 or natural forces which might supervene, to be 
 violently transformed by unreasoned passion, to 
 be crudely used for selfish ends. The wonder is 
 that foreign policy in the civilised modern States 
 has not been still more blind and unprincipled 
 than it has. For where reason has not entered, 
 passion fills the void. 
 
THE STATE AND OTHER STATES 57 
 
 The dangerous effects of an obsolete idea being 
 used to master a modern situation may be avoided. 
 It does not follow that evil practical results must 
 necessarily occur. The second and more general 
 reason, then, for supposing that it is important to 
 recognise the non-isolation of the State is that 
 such results might follow even if they have not 
 so far followed. For this reason, quite apart 
 from immediate and obvious difficulties, it is 
 useful to examine the State from a new point 
 of view. 
 
 First, then, we must discover what kind of 
 interdependence has come into existence ; for 
 Grotius knew that States needed one another, 
 and the need, to his mind, was for alliance 
 against foes, keeping off famine or resisting 
 revolution. But our interdependence is some- 
 what more subtle. And next, before we proceed 
 in detail to show how the new situation has 
 changed the idea of the State, we may indicate 
 here the general features of the change. Foreign 
 policy will no longer seem to be a subsidiary 
 interest of citizens. The action of their State 
 with respect to foreign States will seem to be of 
 vital importance in everyday politics. 
 
 Further, the purpose of the State with respect 
 to foreign States will be seen to be not that of 
 mere opposition or exclusiveness. The character- 
 istic individuality of each State will be seen to be 
 
5 8 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS 
 
 best attained by contact with other States. And 
 lastly, the State itself will be seen to be other than 
 an armed band, since all that is of value in its law 
 and government will be perceived to have been 
 attained not through war but in spite of war. 
 Whether any institution can ever embody the 
 new attitude which is growing up in the contact 
 of States, whether Comity will ever lead to Con- 
 cert, may be left undecided ; since whatever the 
 future may bring forth, the present is sufficiently 
 different from the past to demand our closest 
 attention. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 THE STATE AND NATIONALITY 
 
 OF all the institutions and organisations by 
 which we attain to the civilised life the State may 
 seem to be the most fundamental, because of 
 its connection with nationality. Churches even 
 claiming to be national pass beyond any one 
 nationality ; economic or cultural associations 
 make no appeal to distinctions of blood, language 
 and tradition. But the law and government 
 under which the civilised man lives seem to 
 represent that fundamental difference which he 
 generally regards as his nationality. This is not, 
 however, the situation with respect to more than 
 half the civilised world. Not all men living 
 under law and government recognise in that 
 system the expression of their own nationality. 
 In the United States, the new nationality being 
 still formless, the political institutions are regarded 
 in a more abstract way, as essentially good, not 
 as traditionally valuable. In Ireland, India, 
 Egypt, Finland, Poland, the southern portions 
 of Austria-Hungary, in French, German, or 
 
 59 
 
60 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS 
 
 Italian parts of Africa and Asia, men live more 
 or less contentedly under a law and government 
 which is, whether good or bad, certainly not 
 national. And when war breaks out the English- 
 man fights, as he knows, not merely for an 
 institution but for that tradition which he calls 
 England : and yet on the same side fight the 
 Irish and the Indians, as the Algerians fight for 
 < France " and " Italia Irridenta " for Austria. 
 Although some fight for the nation, all fight 
 for the State. The fundamental nature of the 
 State, then, must be discovered in part from this 
 contrast. 
 
 If we seek an explanation of all this in the 
 traditional conceptions of the State, we are left 
 somewhat unsatisfied. Our idea of political in- 
 stitutions is, of course, due to the thought of 
 our ancestors on their own institutions ; and our 
 state is, no doubt, in part the effect of what were 
 their supreme political organisations. But there 
 has been in the past no clear distinction between 
 nationality and citizenship. This was due, per- 
 haps, to the nature of the TTOX^, or the Roman 
 civitas^ or the Mediaeval regnum^ or the Renais- 
 sance sovereign State. And where no distinction 
 was conscious, no consideration could be given 
 to the influence of nationality on government, or 
 of government on nationality. We make no 
 complaint against our authorities. The modern 
 
THE STATE AND NATIONALITY 61 
 
 State, however, depends upon the contact between 
 nationality and State, between the tradition of a 
 group and its political institutions. 
 
 It may be said that the fact of nationality 
 makes no difference to the idea of the State ; 
 the State is a political organisation, whether it 
 be the organisation of Frenchmen or Englishmen. 
 And, of course, we do not deny that there must 
 be some likeness between all organisations which 
 we call States. But we contend that, because 
 the fact of nationality has been inadequately con- 
 sidered, the likeness between States has been 
 exaggerated ; or, to put the same statement in 
 another form, certain elements have been sup- 
 posed to be essential to the idea of the State 
 which were only essential to the organisation 
 adopted by one nation. That is to say, the 
 characteristics of nationality have been taken for 
 the characteristics of state-organisation. 
 
 One example of this may be found in the 
 common confusion of patriotism with loyalty. 
 The difference of words really indicates a dis- 
 tinction in the emotions, for patriotism is more 
 passionate and loyalty more intellectual ; and, 
 again, patriotism is restricted by reference to one 
 object only, one's national group ; but loyalty 
 may be used with respect to one's club or trade- 
 association as well as to the Government under 
 which one lives. Thus, through confusing the 
 
62 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS 
 
 two emotions, we may be led to confuse the two 
 objects to which they generally refer. 
 
 In the development of the theory of the State 
 the confusion leads, in the first place, with Plato, 
 to the conception of physical relationship of 
 citizens as fundamental to state organisation. 
 With Aristotle the State must be an organisation 
 of a number so restricted that each is known to 
 the other. That is to say, the conception had 
 not yet arisen that conscious allegiance to a system 
 of law and government, and not birth, was what 
 made a citizen. Hence the two theories of citizen- 
 ship which confuse International Law : sometimes 
 citizenship is due to birth and is inalienable, but 
 sometimes it is due to free choice and may be 
 changed. Sometimes both theories are worked 
 with, illogically, at the same time in the same State. 
 
 The Roman Empire practically and the medi- 
 aeval Empire theoretically, subordinated or neg- 
 lected the national grouping. And, in the 
 later Middle Ages, being a subject was no more 
 due to conscious choice than was membership of 
 the universal Church. By birth everyone was 
 a Christian, by birth a subject. And when, in 
 the Renaissance, distinct States were recognised, 
 racial or national differences were still regarded 
 as negligible. Even in religion the character- 
 istics of the national group were not in theory 
 acknowledged, for the divergence of religions was 
 
THE STATE AND NATIONALITY 63 
 
 that of distinct rulers, not of races. The Augs- 
 burg " cuius regio, eius religio " does not mean 
 " there shall be national churches," but " the 
 religion of the district shall be that of the man 
 who rules the district." 
 
 Again, in the German theories of the State the 
 fact of national grouping was neglected, so that 
 the peculiarities of the German character are 
 made the grounds for universal laws of state- 
 organisation ; l and Marx, in the true Hegelian 
 manner, omits what his theory cannot explain 
 that national sentiment is stronger than economic 
 common interest. When, therefore, the old idea 
 of the State is corrected by reference to the 
 modern fact of nationality, it is seen (i) that 
 citizenship is more conscious and nationality more 
 emotional, and (2) that the resulting organisation 
 may owe its features, not to the essence of the 
 State, but to national character. 
 
 The relation between nationality and state- 
 organisation has been vaguely recognised by 
 Mill, 2 by Sidgwick 3 and by Bluntschli ; 4 but 
 
 1 As Kant's Categorical Imperative is a German pastor, so 
 Hegel's Absolute is a German official. The transcending of 
 the individual is German, not human. 
 
 2 Representative Government, Ch. XVI. 
 
 3 Elements of Politics, Ch. XIV. The " ought to be " of pure 
 Nationalism is corrected by Sidgwick's fear of revolution, but 
 no justification is attempted of an Imperial State, /. e. one in 
 which there are many nations. 
 
 4 Theory of the State, Bk. II. Ch. IV. 
 
64 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS 
 
 no further correction in the old idea of the State 
 is made than is involved in the ideas that, as far 
 as possible, the national group ought to have a 
 state-organisation of its own. It is seen that 
 where national patriotism does not coincide with 
 State loyalty the established situation tends to be 
 unsafe, whether (as in Germany or Italy before 
 1860) many states divide one nation or (as in 
 the Austrian Empire) many nations divide one 
 State ; and, so far, there is a distinct gain in the 
 recognition of important facts. 
 
 We omit, for the present, the discussion of 
 Empires, but it seems that there is no reason 
 why the same system of law and government 
 should not be for the good of more than one 
 nation. And if the good of the separate nation- 
 alities, in so far as it is common, is attained by 
 the same system, there is no adequate reason for 
 supposing that Nationalism is the only principle 
 of state-organisation. In any case, the import- 
 ance of the nation would have to be recognised 
 as a fact. 
 
 Now, the situation has changed considerably 
 since the last of the great theories of the State 
 was made ; and the importance of nationality, 
 both as affecting the State and as affected by the 
 State, is comparatively new. The new elements 
 in the political situation must, therefore, be given 
 prominence. What relation, in present fact, has 
 
THE STATE AND NATIONALITY 65 
 
 nationality to the State ? It has one relation 
 which has almost everywhere been recognised, 
 so long as the importance of nationality has been 
 known ; but it has some other relations which 
 have been very imperfectly, if at all, perceived. 
 The first and fundamental relation of nationality 
 to the State is expressed in the idea that the State 
 is a territorial organisation. The other relations 
 concern the contact of nationalities in and through 
 state-systems. This second class of relations has 
 not been considered by theorists or by practical 
 politicians, largely because of the false conceptual 
 isolation of States, of which we have spoken. 
 The importance of nationality has been conceived 
 to be sufficiently recognised when each State has 
 been seen to be the expression of some nation- 
 ality. The second issue, the contact between 
 nations, has been left unconsidered. This second, 
 then, we must put aside for the present, until 
 we have summarily expressed the accepted idea as 
 to the intimate relationship of one State with one 
 nation. 
 
 The State is the highest political institution. 
 Its contrasts and contacts with other institutions 
 have been described. Here it is only necessary 
 to say that the State represents not the common 
 interests of those who are intellectual, or musical, 
 or religious, but chiefly the common interest of 
 those who live in the same district. That district 
 
66 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS 
 
 is small when communication is difficult or 
 organisation ineffective (city-states) ; it is larger 
 when the citizen gives place to the subject, making 
 government easier (Mediaeval regna and Renais- 
 sance sovereign States) ; and it is larger still when 
 geographical obstacles are overcome by science 
 (modern States). But always the system of law 
 and government has some reference to the land. 
 Hence the idea of territorial sovereignty. Now 
 that which limits effective political organisation is 
 one of the causes of distinct nationality, geographi- 
 cal environment. Therefore, whereas the common 
 interests of the cultured, or the musical, or the 
 religious, or the " workman," may be represented 
 by what are called " international " institutions, 
 the common interests of those who live together 
 are represented by national institutions. Indeed, 
 the so-called international institutions are really 
 non-national, since for their purposes the distinc- 
 tion of an Englishman from a Frenchman may be 
 neglected. 
 
 For political purposes, however, these distinc- 
 tions cannot be neglected. How then are they or 
 should they be reflected in the State ? To the 
 idea of Nationalism we have already referred. It 
 is recognised that national character ought to be 
 represented in some way in political organisation. 
 Extreme Nationalism might imply that each nation 
 should be a separate "sovereign" State; but a 
 
THE STATE AND NATIONALITY 67 
 
 moderate form of the ideal would not be opposed 
 to an Imperialism which, within one system of 
 law and government, allowed for distinct interests 
 of different nationalities. It remains reasonable, 
 therefore, to suppose that the supreme political 
 organisation should either have within its frontiers 
 only one nation or that, if it has more, the separate 
 local interests should be preserved. Whatever 
 the ideal, however, the facts imply the recogni- 
 tion that the State sometimes is national (Holland, 
 Denmark, etc.) and sometimes is not national. 
 But all the greater modern States are not national, 
 in the sense that within the same state-system 
 different nationalities continue to exist. There is 
 no Great Power at present which has not under 
 the same law and government peoples of different 
 blood, language and tradition. And within such 
 boundaries these distinct peoples, willingly or un- 
 willingly, are related to one another morally, and 
 never as merely opposing forces. All this is 
 recognised. 
 
 We turn now to the effect of state-organisation 
 or nationality. Two different, and perhaps com- 
 plementary, movements have been developing 
 since the Napoleonic wars. One is towards 
 Imperialism ; the other towards regionalism or 
 Nationalism. The first is to be seen in the increase 
 of territory and population under the same law 
 and government (England in Egypt, India, etc. ; 
 
68 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS 
 
 Germany in South-West Africa, the Cameroons, 
 etc. ; France in Tunis and Algeria ; the United 
 States in the Philippines). The second tendency 
 may be found in the increase of distinct national 
 sentiment among the Finns, the Poles, the Slavs, 
 the Irish or the Indians. This second tendency 
 has developed with developing democracy, while 
 the extending of territory has led to the rule of 
 the few. In either case the peculiar importance 
 of nationality, either as a democratic basis for 
 government or as an obstacle to specialist or 
 oligarchic government, has been frequently 
 recognised. 
 
 Now the peculiar fact, not sufficiently recog- 
 nised, is that it is precisely within the vast 
 Empire-states that the sense of nationality has 
 been most consciously developed. Nationalism is 
 the gospel not of small States, but of sections of 
 large States ; and it has generally expressed the 
 vague feeling that the national character was not 
 embodied in the established system. Hence it 
 has been disruptive so far as practical politics 
 is concerned. It aimed at the dissolution of 
 existing state-systems and their rearrangement 
 upon a purely national basis. On the other 
 hand, Imperialism, based upon the proved advan- 
 tage which comes from an identity of law and 
 government established over vast territories, set 
 itself rather to oppose the ambitions of National- 
 
THE STATE AND NATIONALITY 69 
 
 ism. If Nationalism was destructive of inherited 
 state-systems. Imperialism tended to destroy 
 nationality in the name of the State. And both 
 really implied the acceptance of the same idea of 
 the State ; although to one the State was abhorrent 
 and to the other sacred, in particular instances. 
 Hence it was, and is, that Nationalism when the 
 nation is weak so readily turns into Imperialism 
 when the nation is strong. 
 
 In all this both Nationalism and Imperialism 
 have implied the acceptance of an antiquated, and 
 by no means valid, conception that the purpose 
 of state-organisation was to oppose nations one to the 
 other. Nationalism would keep them apart, Im- 
 perialism would suppress one by means of the 
 other. But nations, we must remember, are 
 groups of men and women, not land or territory ; 
 States arise because these groups are separated by 
 land or territory ; and it by no means follows 
 that States must perpetuate the situation out of 
 which they arise in a sphere in which territory has 
 no meaning. 1 If we only make the bold assump- 
 tion that state-organisation, based as it is on 
 
 1 That is the political or moral sphere. The argument is 
 parallel to that in Rousseau's Social Contract. There it is said 
 that the State is to correct physical inequality, giving political 
 equality in order to discover moral inequality. So here, in 
 foreign policy, the -State is to correct physical division by pro- 
 viding political contact, to secure moral development of the 
 group character. 
 
yo THE MORALITY OF NATIONS 
 
 nationality, exists for bringing groups into contact 
 in spite of local division, we shall arrive at a new 
 conception of the State. 1 
 
 But how are the organised groups brought into 
 contact ? The answer must refer to the distinction 
 between Empires and national States. Within 
 Empires the different national groups are under 
 the same system of law and government. The 
 evil tradition of military Empires has affected 
 some modern Empires, so that the system of law 
 and government is directly aimed at the suppres- 
 sion of national differences. The German Empire 
 has led to the attempt to suppress Polish nation- 
 ality ; the Russian Empire has attempted to 
 suppress Finnish. The British Empire has not 
 consciously oppressed nationality, although the 
 tradition of the past hangs about the minds of 
 some of its administrators. In any case, there is 
 no reason, in the abstract, why the use of the 
 same law and government should lead to a sup- 
 pression of national character ; and if it does not, 
 then the state-system would lead to many nation- 
 alities living in contact without recourse to war or 
 without even the desire for war. The contact is 
 so far moral. And further, if the state- system 
 allows for local government, the distinct nationali- 
 
 1 Civilisation develops by this contact : where there is no 
 contact development is slow, as with Incas and Aztecs in 
 America. Cf. Bryce, South America, p. 574. 
 
THE STATE AND NATIONALITY 71 
 
 ties will develop distinct individualities while they 
 are in contact one with the other. The very con- 
 tact, as in the case of persons, will lead each group 
 to a perception of what is really valuable in its own 
 character and tradition. So that the state- system, 
 in this case, develops nationality by amicable 
 contact. 1 
 
 As for the contact between national States and 
 the contact of Empires as wholes with respect to 
 foreign States, the same principle holds good. In 
 fact men living under different systems of law and 
 government are brought into contact by those 
 systems. Every State has a Foreign Office with 
 a continuous business. In theory, the citizen, 
 whether of distinct nationality or not, is brought 
 into contact with citizens of other States, through 
 his own State. 
 
 And contact is not supposed to destroy dis- 
 tinctiveness. The Foreign Office is believed to 
 represent amicably the distinct interests of a 
 separate State ; and although in war national 
 differences of language, custom or tradition, are 
 used for raising antagonism, these differences 
 are (i) not allowed to be noticed when they exist 
 as between allies or within Empires, and (2) are 
 not supposed to justify eternal war although they 
 
 1 This is just as truly a reason for the development of 
 Nationalism within Empires, as the other reason is, the 
 oppression of one nationality by another. 
 
72 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS 
 
 do not end when peace breaks out. During 
 periods of peace this distinction of nationalities 
 marked by the boundaries of States is preserved 
 by amicable contact. One further step only 
 need be made. Let us say that States exist for 
 the development of national distinctions either 
 (i) within the State, or (2) outside the State, by 
 direct, continuous and amicable contact ; and the 
 old idea of the necessary opposition between 
 States breaks down. 1 All opposition is for the 
 purpose of characteristic development, which is 
 normally attained otherwise. The State, then, 
 so far from being an institution which demoralises 
 the contact between distinct national groups, is 
 an institution for relating morally, for political 
 purposes, (i) members of the same national 
 group, (2) members of distinct national groups 
 within one Empire, and (3) members of groups 
 under different States. And this is not pious 
 aspiration, but a statement of fact neglected in 
 the modern theory of the State. This contact 
 between nations, however, maintained and de- 
 veloped through state-systems, will have an effect 
 
 1 It follows that any State which is forced by circumstances 
 into war, fights not because of the nature of the State, but 
 in spite of the nature of the State. It is so forced because 
 it has not adequately perfomed the functions of a State. 
 T. H. Green (Princ. of Pol. Obligation, 167) comes to this 
 conclusion from slightly different premises. 
 
THE STATE AND NATIONALITY 73 
 
 upon the institutions of political life. 1 Isolation 
 would have one kind of result : contact has 
 another. This, therefore, is the further addition 
 we must make to the accepted ideas with respect 
 to state-organisations which in any way represent 
 nationality. If the State is naturally the political 
 organisation of a national group in the sense of 
 representing the national character and tradition, 2 
 then States will tend to differ in certain features 
 of their law and government. The assimilating 
 tendency, due to intercourse, will continue ; but 
 along with this will go a progressive differentiation 
 in certain laws and in certain methods of govern- 
 
 1 That is to say, all the political institutions, not the State 
 only. Within the State, when many nations are within the 
 same State (Empires), the subordinate political institutions 
 (municipalities, provincial governments, etc.) will be affected 
 by contact both to differ in some points and to assimilate in 
 others. When the State has only one nationality (not an 
 Empire) the subordinate political institutions will generally be 
 affected, not directly, but indirectly through the effect of other 
 States upon the state-system under which they are. But even 
 in this case municipalities (subordinate political institutions) 
 sometimes come into contact and affect one another indepen- 
 dently of the States : an example may be found in the visits 
 of London aldermen to Paris, etc. The general thesis is 
 obvious. Nearly all institutions have been considered too 
 much in their relationship to their own members ; whereas 
 they are really used for and their character is influenced by 
 bringing their members into contact with the members of 
 other institutions of the same order. 
 
 2 That is, either by a separate state-system for each nation, 
 or by allowing for the representation of distinct national 
 character within one system. 
 
74 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS 
 
 ment. An example of the same double tendency 
 may be found among the individuals of any 
 progressive community. Certain elements in 
 civilised life tend to assimilate clothes, language, 
 social convention ; but certain other elements 
 belief, knowledge, occupation, tend to be more 
 and more different. It will be found that in 
 state-organisation, although laws of contract, 
 etc., tend to assimilate across the boundaries of 
 nationality, yet laws of inheritance, education, or 
 religion tend to become more and more reflections 
 of distinct national character and, therefore, to 
 differ. 
 
 If this is true, then our conception of the 
 State must be corrected so that the growth of 
 national sentiment shall be recognised as dif- 
 ferentiating organisations ; and, therefore, the 
 State in general will not be considered as neces- 
 sarily and essentially either socialistic or non- 
 interfering. The tendencies in either direction 
 will be seen to be due to national character and 
 not to the nature of the State : and of the State 
 in general we shall say less, in proportion as we 
 recognise that many different organisations may 
 be equally good for the political good of different 
 national groups. 
 
 This will not mean that the community of 
 nations will be destroyed, or that the likeness 
 between races will be made impossible : even 
 
THE STATE AND NATIONALITY 75 
 
 organisations may become more alike. But this 
 will only be one side of the facts. The old 
 opposition between individual growth and social 
 organisation, between national distinctions and 
 cosmopolitanism is due to an entirely false and 
 quite unconscious idea that there is a given 
 quantity of rights ; so that if the individual gains 
 more the society must lose, or if society gains 
 the individual must lose : or, again, to the idea 
 that there is a given inexpansible sphere of action, 
 so that if the nation becomes more distinctive 
 the human race must be more divided. 
 
 Both suppositions are opposed to facts : for it 
 is obvious that rights increase and duties are 
 more various, and that the sphere of human 
 action in separate groups and in the whole race is 
 growing rapidly. We have, therefore, to allow 
 in our theory of the State for progressive dif- 
 ferentiation even of state-institutions. In what 
 directions States will differ and in what assimilate 
 we cannot here establish ; but probably the 
 example of individuals will indicate. In what 
 are usually called " external " matters assimilation, 
 and in internal matters differentiation will occur ; 
 and, according to the first part of our argument, 
 " internal " matters cannot mean what the nine- 
 teenth century used to oppose to " foreign " 
 affairs, but, rather, matters of education, religion, 
 and conduct. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 FOREIGN INTERESTS 
 
 IT follows from what has been so far said that, 
 since the nature of the modern State is to be seen 
 (i) in its contact with other institutions, and (2) 
 in its contact with other States, we shall have now 
 to discuss the economic or intellectual relations 
 between the different groupings of men, and to 
 see these mainly from the point of view of what 
 we have called the supreme political institution. 
 
 The relation between States, as it is at present 
 in normal times, is the result of a process which 
 has been very much accelerated during the last 
 fifty years. Since there is no chasm dividing the 
 changes of human history, we may believe that 
 the situation into which we have been born is the 
 result of the whole of the past ; and yet it would 
 not be untrue to say that the difference between 
 our world and our grandfather's is immeasurably 
 greater than the difference between our grand- 
 father's world and^hat even of the ancient 
 Assyrians. From tr^^kpint, then, we may begin, 
 since the argumejj^epends on the fact that we 
 
 76 
 
FOREIGN INTERESTS 77 
 
 are in a situation so new as to make obsolete or, 
 at any rate, hopelessly inadequate the conceptions 
 of nearly all the past. 
 
 In two ways this situation is new. First, the 
 relations between States are absolutely normal and 
 continuous, and affect no longer only a small 
 class in each, but practically all the citizens ; and, 
 secondly, these relations are world-wide. Before, 
 however, we discuss in detail what these relations 
 actually are, it may be as well to show in what 
 sense the fact of continuous relationship is new. 
 
 The rapidity of communication, its ease and 
 its frequency, are recognised causes of inter- 
 dependence between men. But communication 
 has been in the main not very different, until about 
 1850, from the very earliest times of which we 
 have any record. At different times, as in the 
 great transient Empires of the past, the excellence 
 of roads or the effectiveness of organisation has 
 made communication for a short period more 
 rapid and frequent. The Roman cursus publicus 
 may stand for a type of what could be done ; 
 and in quasi-modern times it is known that 
 stage-coaches left London for the West in the 
 eighteenth century at the rate of one every two 
 minutes of the day. But quite apart from the 
 fact that such advances were transitory episodes 
 in a long darkness of ^Bition both between 
 States and between group^taitizens in the same 
 
78 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS 
 
 State, it was at best the horse and the road upon 
 which men depended for mastering the limitations 
 of space and time. In times of peace a letter or 
 a piece of merchandise travelled not much more 
 quickly in eighteenth-century Europe than it 
 had travelled in ancient Assyria. In war time 
 Napoleon moved his troops not much more 
 quickly than did Assur-bani-pal. And if one 
 refers to the sea, the similarity of the whole past 
 before 1850 is still more remarkable. Sailing 
 to China was not very different in 1815 from 
 doubling the Cape with Vasco de Gama or trading 
 between Tyre and Cadiz with the Phoenicians. 
 Nelson watching outside Toulon was not much 
 freer from wind and wave than was the expedition 
 of Scipio Africanus. 
 
 There were, of course, changes, but nothing 
 comparable for effect with the change since 1850. 
 In half a century our rate of travel on land is 
 ten times increased, and that on sea five times ; 
 not to speak of the possibilities, as yet barely 
 developed, of the air. We need not go further 
 into detail, since the transformation of society due 
 to rapidity and ease of communication is well 
 known. We move troops in war more quickly, 
 and in peace we move merchandise more easily ; 
 and along with this ease and speed has gone the 
 frequency of communication. This, more even 
 than the rate of travel, has made States inter- 
 
FOREIGN INTERESTS 79 
 
 dependent ; for although the communication 
 between New York and Liverpool, for example, 
 is very rapid only for a favoured few in the great 
 liners, yet the immense quantity of the slower 
 shipping makes the relationship between divided 
 groups quite continuous. 
 
 This continuousness has become normal. States 
 which hitherto came into contact by some slight 
 interchange of trade now are affected every day, 
 in normal times, by vast quantities of import and 
 export ; and although the volume of business 
 within each State has, of course, increased rapidly in 
 recent years, proportionately to this the increase 
 of " foreign " business has been much greater. 
 So that the very life of each group seems to 
 depend upon the activities of other state-groups 
 to an extent hardly yet recognised in our practical 
 diplomacy and not at all recognised in our current 
 conceptions of "foreign policy." But such normal 
 and continuous intercourse, even if not officially 
 recognised or promoted, must affect the institu- 
 tions of the groups related : and from the nature 
 of these relations we shall be able partly to judge 
 the probable effect on the institutions. An acci- 
 dental and occasional intercourse might make 
 men only more desperately alien to one another ; 
 a normal and continuous intercourse might create 
 sympathy without destroying distinctions. 
 
 The second great feature of our present situa- 
 
8o THE MORALITY OF NATIONS 
 
 tion is that it is world-wide. For the first time 
 in history during the last fifty years world-politics 
 has been a reality : and we mean by that, not 
 merely the ambitious dreams of world-domination, 
 but the simple fact that nothing can happen 
 politically in any part of the world without its 
 effects being immediately felt in every other part. 
 The surface of the earth now holds no race which 
 is not somehow connected with every other. But, 
 even in Napoleon's time, although, no doubt, 
 Austerlitz made some difference to Egypt and 
 perhaps India, China and Japan were not affected, 
 and Australia was practically not on the ma. 
 And the farther back we go into the past, the 
 more isolated is whatever civilisation we choose 
 to study ; so that the Romans, for example, or 
 the Chinese could afford to disregard the exist- 
 ence of humanity outside the borders of their 
 State. Now, not only is the State continually in 
 contact with other States, but the effect of that 
 contact spreads at once to the farthest corners 
 of the earth. 
 
 This world-politics is not, of course, new, if 
 we are to refer to popular talk or even to practical 
 finance, trade and diplomacy. The situation has 
 been recognised to exist in what we may call a 
 practical' way ; the trouble is that the " practical " 
 men have been dealing with it according to 
 theories which arose in a very different world. 
 
FOREIGN INTERESTS 81 
 
 The fault is not theirs. When they speak of 
 cc a place in the sun," or " the flag of England," 
 they do not recognise that they are talking theory; 
 and there has been no new theory at all com- 
 mensurate in importance with the vital changes 
 which have taken place in fact. The newness 
 of the situation, therefore, is chiefly noticeable 
 from the point of view of theory, if by that we 
 mean our understanding of it. For popular 
 speech, finance and diplomacy have contributed 
 almost nothing to new conceptions for the 
 management of the new facts. But if the new- 
 ness is noteworthy for the purpose of theory, 
 that does not imply any purely academic interest. 
 A theory is desperately practical when it is a tool 
 for the attainment of purposes or the control of 
 forces which we must achieve or perish. This 
 generation, however, has the dangerous and 
 honourable task of making new intellectual tools 
 by which to master the new material. Former 
 generations had tool-theories for a politics which 
 was not in fact world-wide : coming generations 
 will have become accustomed to world-politics. 
 The position, therefore, of this generation is 
 unique. We have to face the fact, for example, 
 that there is no place any longer for " expansion " 
 in the old sense. It must therefore either cease 
 or change its meaning. And we have to grasp 
 the idea that, until communication is opened with 
 
82 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS 
 
 Mars or with the Man in the Moon there can be 
 no further " external " social forces working upon 
 States. Change must hereafter come from within 
 some group : and although new groups will arise, 
 since the whole human earth is explored, we shall 
 not suddenly be faced by fully-developed groups 
 as Europe was faced in the nineteenth century by 
 the Yellow Races. 
 
 The change has affected every State, partly 
 through the many new world-institutions which 
 have come into existence and partly, in a direct 
 manner, by the political effect of continuous 
 political interaction with other States. As for 
 institutions other than political, there are several 
 religious bodies now of which the members are 
 in close contact but belong to different States. 
 Institutional religion, however, even when inter- 
 national, is not very powerful nowadays. The 
 mind of the time is economic. But along with 
 the religious world-institutions we must count 
 scientific and artistic societies. These, too, are now 
 in a position never before known to history : 
 they count their members among men of every 
 State. And there are also the powerful economic 
 institutions called Companies, whether industrial 
 or financial, of which the members are taken from 
 any State. Of these the great Armament Firms 
 are most interesting ; since they are the sources 
 of income to citizens of a State against which 
 
FOREIGN INTERESTS 83 
 
 they rouse hostility in order to gain income. 
 That is to say, certain gentlemen, for example, 
 of English citizenship may be making money by 
 supplying the armies or navies which fight against 
 England with the appliances for destroying Eng- 
 lishmen. German genius and German finance 
 supplied some of the appliances which are used 
 by the Russians for invading Germany. French 
 guns, made under the auspices of the name of 
 Schneider, are used by Turks against the allies of 
 France. 
 
 And not only Armament Firms but also 
 Finance " is in every country, like the Church 
 in the Middle Ages, an illustrious stranger." So 
 that however we are taxed, we may be sure that 
 part of it goes into the pockets of citizens of that 
 State which we are being taxed to oppose. It 
 is not difficult to see how different the modern 
 State must really be from the State our grand- 
 fathers knew, now that it is influenced by these 
 complex and novel forces. The intricate tangle 
 of half-understood appetites, of world-wide money- 
 making and vague idealisms, of ancient shibbo- 
 leths and modern political black-magic, is difficult 
 enough to grasp. And yet we still hear the old 
 cries "inevitable conflict," "balance of power," 
 "arbitrament of the sword " just as though we 
 really knew all that the State is and all that it 
 needs. 
 
84 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS 
 
 It is impossible here to do more than give in 
 briefest outline some features of the world- 
 civilisation as it now exists : and for this purpose 
 it will not be necessary to separate the influences 
 of other institutions from those of the State ; but 
 we shall have our attention chiefly bent towards 
 the result of all the various modern contacts upon 
 the existing political institutions. By this means 
 we shall perhaps see in what direction to look 
 in order to discover what the modern State is and 
 what are its real interests. 
 
 We may divide the relations between organised 
 groups into three : those of trade, of investment 
 and of non-material interest. 
 
 As for trade, it is well known that no civilised 
 State at present is isolated or independent. Either 
 its citizens depend for food upon the activities 
 of " foreigners," or they sell food to foreigners : 
 or again, they export or import the materials of 
 industry. It is recognised as a fact, whether it 
 be judged good or bad, that highly organised 
 nations are not economic wholes ; and it would 
 naturally follow that they are not political wholes, 
 except in the belated dreams of those who still 
 continue to speak of the sovereign State. 
 
 The non-independence of England may be 
 found crudely expressed in the statistics of the 
 Board of Trade. We may take as an example of 
 the change from a normal to an abnormal situa- 
 
FOREIGN INTERESTS 85 
 
 tion the contrast between the trade in September 
 
 1913 and September 1914, when the readjustment 
 to war conditions had not yet been completed. 
 
 To cite articles of food first, in September 1913 
 we had 24,407 worth of wheat from Russia ; 
 in September 1914 only 11,927 worth. In 
 wheat-meal and flour we had in September 1913, 
 from Germany 19,659, from Belgium 1,303, 
 from France 8,297, from Austria Hungary 
 5,064, and from Argentine 5,333 ; from all 
 which countries in September 1914 we had 
 absolutely none. The changes in respect to eggs 
 are also striking. In September 1913 we had 
 from Russia 541,777 worth ; in September 
 
 1914 absolutely none. The figures for all 
 countries give our import of eggs in September 
 
 1913 as worth 910,557 ; and in September 
 
 1914 as worth 38 I >35 1 - What, then, are the 
 interests of the English State as calculated in eggs ? 
 
 In export our supply of the needs of other 
 groups is, of course, a source of income for 
 ourselves ; but we may suppose that what we 
 have sold has been of some value to the buyers. 
 Cotton cc piece-goods " sent to Germany in 
 September 1913 was worth 55,470. In 
 September 1914 we sent none. To Switzerland, 
 in September 1913, what we sent of the same 
 article was worth 112,647; and although we 
 were not at war with that country, in September 
 
86 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS 
 
 1914 we sent absolutely none. War has destroyed 
 the normal interdependence even of neutral 
 nations. 
 
 Materials for industry suffered the same 
 change. In September 1913 we sold textile 
 machinery to our ally France which was worth 
 60,621, in September 1914 absolutely none. 
 The whole of our export of this in the Septembers 
 of the two years compares thus : for September 
 1913, 643,480: for September 1914, 213,841. 
 But in this matter we must allow for the trans- 
 ference of power in engineering from construction 
 to destruction : it takes as much time and labour 
 to make good shells as would be represented by 
 400,000 a month, so that the energy expended 
 is not less though the direction of it is different. 
 
 These figures are taken at random from the 
 innumerable statistics of the Board of Trade. 
 They indicate that England is clearly not any 
 longer independent, in the old Renaissance sense 
 of sovereignty, any more at least than Yorkshire 
 is independent. But if the interests of the State 
 are the interests of the citizens, some new con- 
 ception must arise out of the interdependence 
 of the citizens of all States. Such interdepend- 
 ence as we have so far noticed has regard to 
 food and clothing : and we by no means argue 
 that our interest in foreign eggs is our only or 
 our chief interest. It may be necessary to sacri- 
 
FOREIGN INTERESTS 87 
 
 fice economic interest : but at least we should 
 recognise what it is. 
 
 In the second place, like trade. Capital also 
 has destroyed the old isolation of States. 1 As 
 things stand at present it is calculated that the 
 amount of Capital owned by inhabitants of the 
 United Kingdom which is earning money out- 
 side these islands is 3,500,000,000. Similarly, 
 inhabitants of France are dependent on Capital 
 invested outside France to the extent of 
 1,600,000,000, and inhabitants of Germany are 
 dependent upon the investment outside Germany 
 of 8oo,ooo,ooo. 2 The annual report of the 
 Public Trustee (published April 7, 1915) implies 
 that property of Germans and Austrians in 
 England and Wales alone amounts to over 
 ioo,ooo,ooo. 3 So that it is now impossible to 
 suppose that the financial interest of the citizen 
 is confined to the development of the country 
 over which his State is established. 
 
 1 On this rests the chief argument of Mr. Norman Angell's 
 Great Illusion. His economic statements may be disputed in 
 detail, but not the fact that the banking situation has affected 
 politics. Mr. Angell does not, however, seem to make clear 
 the distinction between economics and politics. 
 
 2 Hobson, Export of Capital, p. 163. 
 
 3 Registered German-Austrian property is 
 
 Held on behalf of " enemies " . . 54,000,000 
 Capital in partnership . . . 1,600,000 
 
 Capital in companies . . . 29,000,000 
 
 Total . 
 
88 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS 
 
 The rapidity in the growth of this situation 
 is one of its most remarkable features : since in 
 1827, even after the great boom in foreign invest- 
 ment following the reconstruction of Europe when 
 "peace broke out," there was only ,93,000,000 
 of English money invested outside of the United 
 Kingdom. 1 Other countries were slow to come 
 into the field as competitors in investment outside 
 their own boundaries ; but the rate of growth 
 has been so rapid that nearly every civilised 
 country now has " interests " in all parts of 
 the world, and the process would normally be 
 accelerated as new countries are developed. 
 
 In the various economic relationships between 
 States we must allow for the existence of creditor 
 and debtor States, 2 as well as for Great Powers, 
 and small States. Diplomacy of the rule-of- 
 thumb and selfseeking Finance already know it. 
 Russia, for example, is a debtor State, as we may 
 see by reading the " Russian Supplements" to the 
 Times, which are published apparently to tell us 
 what our ally really is. There is little reference 
 in it to Russian literature or Russian art, and 
 
 1 Hobson, p. 105. 
 
 2 For political results, cf. the influences in the creation of 
 the Chinese Republic in C. W. Eliot's Some Roads towards 
 Peace (p. 10). Capital cannot exist under despotic govern- 
 ment (p. 15). The whole report (published by the Carnegie 
 Endowment at Washington) is a good study of Peace 
 Relations. 
 
FOREIGN INTERESTS 89 
 
 hardly any to Russian military force ; none, 
 naturally, to Russian political ideas ; but great 
 stress is put upon the possibilities for Capital in 
 Russia. France, on the contrary, is a creditor 
 State, as her position in alliance with Russia 
 proves. She must follow to secure her income. 
 
 All this, perhaps, is brutal economics, but the 
 political structure, even as to domestic affairs, in 
 each group is vitally affected by such facts as 
 these. We cannot speak of the function of law 
 and government without reference to the economic 
 forces which may subserve, but may also subvert, 
 our ideals. 
 
 What conception of the relation between States 
 results from all this ? Certainly not the concep- 
 tion of sovereignty, which means that each State 
 has no interests outside or expects no other State 
 to have interests within its boundaries. The little 
 hedge of frontiers is somewhat obsolete, since it 
 is clear that States interpenetrate. And an inter- 
 penetration even of the purely economic kind 
 must certainly have political effects, for, as we 
 shall see, the creditor State is often compelled to 
 political action in behalf of its debtor : and the 
 influence of foreign Capital has more than once 
 made a difference to a revolution or a popular 
 movement. 
 
 But the interdependence of economics, even 
 .though it is vital for political life, is not the 
 
90 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS 
 
 whole of the present situation. Every civilised 
 State has " interest " in the health, general well- 
 being, education and individual development of 
 its citizens. These may be called non-material 
 interests.,/ We put aside for the present the 
 other non-material interests, independence and 
 " prestige," which are more commonly considered, 
 since these are not new, although their meaning 
 is somewhat changed. 
 
 In the third place, then, the non-material 
 interests of organised groups are, in a sense, well 
 known ; and, in a more definite sense, absolutely 
 neglected. Of these one cannot quote statistics. 
 Even a Foreign Office with prejudices in favour 
 of "prestige" cannot put down upon papef exactly 
 how one group of men and women depends on 
 another for other goods than food and clothing. 
 But the importance of the fact will be recognised 
 if one suggests that the discoveries of Pasteur 
 might have been restricted to France, or those of 
 Lister to England. Let us imagine what an 
 advantage it would be to England in war, and 
 even in industry, if a septic treatment had been 
 kept for Englishmen. How much of the import 
 of non-material goods we can do without may 
 perhaps depend on our civilisation ;/so that we 
 may not presume to say that England would 
 have lost much if the work of Mommsen or 
 Harnack had been protected so effectually as to 
 
FOREIGN INTERESTS 91 
 
 have helped Germans only. We may not presume 
 to count it a gain to the State that Kreisler has been 
 able to play in England. But, speaking with bated 
 breath outside the sacred circle of economics, there 
 is a non-material interdependence of States. 
 
 This interchange of ideas across frontiers was 
 very far advanced even before our ease of com- 
 munication was attained. In the Greek world 
 ideas spread from city to city, and Rome carried 
 Greek thought into far countries : but our 
 modern cosmopolitanism of ideas really began in 
 the Middle Ages. It is well known that in spite 
 of bad roads and feudal anarchy, scholarship, 
 medicine, law, art and religion were able to pass 
 from country to country. A common language 
 did more, perhaps, for the interchange of ideas 
 than even railways and steamboats have done. 
 In any case scholars and men of ideas travelled ; 
 and at Salerno Englishmen might learn medicine, 
 at Bologna law, or at Paris science and theology. 
 So Italians might learn philosophy at Oxford or 
 anatomy at Montpellier. So also the different 
 groups felt the religious impulse originating with 
 the Italian St. Francis or the Spaniard St. Dominic 
 or, slightly later, the Englishman Wyclif. This 
 is not the place to describe what have been 
 the vicissitudes and further developments of the 
 interdependence of groups so far as ideas are 
 concerned. It is sufficient if it be clear that this 
 
92 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS 
 
 interdependence has been obvious for a longer 
 time than that of trade and investment. 1 
 
 The newness of the present situation, however, 
 is not altogether disproved by these facts ; for 
 there is no learned caste now, and all ideas 
 spread more universally within every group ; and 
 again, the store of such ideas is vastly increased 
 since the mediaeval scholar could attain the limits 
 of practically all the knowledge of his day. 
 Finally, not Europe merely but the whole earth 
 is now bound together by common knowledge 
 and a common appreciation of the Arts. So that 
 we are no longer provincial in our culture, as we 
 are no longer limited in our markets. 
 
 In the classification of those ideas which pass 
 across frontiers and continually modify even 
 political institutions we may begin with practical 
 scientific ideas. In medicine and surgery Pasteur, 
 Lister and Ehrlich represent contributions of 
 three different groups to all others. Radium 
 was happily not " protected." And outside the 
 purview of the average citizen are the continual, 
 priceless but unpriced, imports from foreigners 
 in the cure of disease, in sanitation, in surgery 
 and in preventive medicine. Without such inter- 
 
 1 Hobbes (Leviathan, II., Ch. 29) fears this interchange of 
 ideas naturally, for it disproves most of his theory of 
 Sovereignty. Cf. The Unity of Western Civilization : Essays 
 collected by F. S. Marvin. Ch. XI. Common Ideals of Social 
 Reform, by C. D. Burns. 
 
FOREIGN INTERESTS 93 
 
 change the modern State would not be what it 
 is. As for scientific ideas in manufacture, the 
 conception that they should not be exported was 
 at one time acted upon in England. In 1774 
 an Act was passed to prevent spinning machinery 
 from being exported. Skilled artisans were for- 
 bidden to leave the country. In 1823 * c a large 
 seizure of cotton machinery occurred in London." 1 
 The effort was never very effective, and it was 
 found that when the protection was removed and 
 English scientific ideas were allowed to benefit 
 other groups, the demand for English machinery 
 made England wealthier than she could possibly 
 have been if she had kept her ideas to herself. 
 In brewing and in chemical works the import of 
 " foreign " ideas has been recognised to have 
 increased English resources : and, even were it 
 possible, it would be unwise, according to popular 
 conceptions, to keep technical science within State 
 boundaries. But the issue is by no means faced. 
 There is an obvious cash value in this sort of 
 ideas, and thus it attracts the lower type of intel- 
 ligence. Naturally, therefore, there will always 
 be a tendency to secrete technical processes ; 
 although, so far, physicians and surgeons have 
 not kept to themselves their scientific ideas, in 
 spite of their financial value. 
 
 But not only in medicine and practical science 
 1 Hobson, loc. cif., p. 107 se$. 
 
94 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS 
 
 is the interchange of ideas proceeding. In ideas 
 as to social structure there is an interdependence. 
 We may count these as municipal or political. 
 For example, we in the United Kingdom have 
 used ideas applied first in German cities : " town- 
 planning" is derived in part from the German 
 idea of the city beautiful. 1 Municipal control 
 of traffic and municipal supplies are ideas which 
 have crossed frontiers. Political ideas such as 
 that of National Insurance are used in one State 
 and copied in another. Income tax is an idea 
 which seems to spread. 
 
 We may perhaps count representative Parlia- 
 mentary Government as an export of ours : and 
 perhaps Cabinet Government is in part due to 
 an import of ideas. In Education we send Com- 
 missioners abroad to bring us ideas : and we 
 receive many more which do not come through 
 official channels. So also other nations discover 
 whatever value there may be in our Public Schools. 
 
 And outside the sphere in which the average 
 citizen lives there is a no less important inter- 
 change of ideas of a more refined sort, which 
 sooner or later transform the attitude of humanity. 
 Scholarship so disregards state-boundaries that 
 English and French historians can make con- 
 
 1 The great example is in Frankfort. Cf. the general treat- 
 ment in Municipal Government in Great Britain (1897) and 
 Municipal Government in Continental Europe (1898), by A. Shaw. 
 
FOREIGN INTERESTS 95 
 
 elusions from evidence collected by Germans ; or 
 Danes and Dutchmen can comment upon English 
 Literature. In the larger field of scholarship, 
 which concerns our knowledge of the world we 
 inhabit in its most general features, there has 
 been no attempt yet to u protect " Darwin or to 
 exclude Weismann. Such are a few examples 
 of the close interdependence which has been 
 developing not only between the nations of 
 Europe but of the whole world. All this has 
 transformed civilised life, and it must have had 
 its influence upon those institutions, the States, 
 which exist for the protection of such life. 
 
 But if States are thus normally and continuously / 
 in contact, by trade, investment and ideas, and if 
 their organisation or action is affected by this 
 interdependence, our conceptions of the interests 
 of the State must change, and following upon 
 that, perhaps our very conception of what the 
 State is. At least it is clear that the " interest " 
 of a modern State cannot be rendered in the 
 terms of Greek, Mediaeval, Renaissance or even 
 nineteenth-century politics. The intimate and 
 world-wide relationship of States in the midst of 
 innumerable diverse institutions is practically new : 
 and we must in some way contrive to master it, 
 unless we are to leave ourselves to the mercy 
 of natural forces the results of which we might 
 by no means approve. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 FOREIGN POLICY 
 
 IF these are the organised groups and such their 
 interconnection, how are the relations between 
 them to be arranged ? 
 
 The interests of each organised group are to 
 be maintained and developed : and the morality 
 of nations is concerned with such development, 
 just as the morality of individuals must consider 
 the interests of individuals. Economics may seem 
 to be unconnected with morality ; and we should 
 admit that they are distinct from it, since a man 
 may be wealthy or cunning and yet not moral. 
 But morality among individuals involves some 
 reference to material well-being, for it is useless to 
 consider the height of virtue if the possibility of 
 bare life is not secured. A great part of ethical 
 theory is rendered futile by elaborate discussion 
 of free will without any reference to economic 
 conditions in which all men live : and economics 
 itself is often barren of interest because of the 
 exclusion of moral issues. Now in the case of 
 the States, however high our ideals, no one is 
 likely at present to forget the economic interests 
 
 96 
 
FOREIGN POLICY 97 
 
 involved : but here we must suppose them to be 
 subordinated to some kind of morality. Foreign 
 policy, then, is to be considered not so much with 
 a view to the recording of facts, but with regard 
 to the principles upon which it may be supposed 
 to be based. And first, since bare life must be 
 secured, foreign policy is for the maintenance of 
 the material interests of the State. Diplomacy 
 is much concerned with commercial treaties and 
 the arrangement of loans, which are presumably 
 for the benefit of all the States concerned. 
 
 There is also the interest involved in indepen- 
 dence, since it is implied in what has so far been 
 said that foreign domination is unendurable to any 
 organised nation. The most peaceful policy must, 
 none the less, be one which promotes and develops 
 the characteristic differences of the State from 
 other States. The purpose of foreign policy is, 
 then, also to forestall any movements which might 
 diminish national independence, not only those 
 of a warlike nature; just as a man's relationship 
 to his fellows must not be allowed to cause a loss 
 of the man's individuality. There is a point in 
 the art of life, which is the practice of morality, 
 at which it becomes necessary to take measures 
 for self-defence not only against mere danger 
 to life and limb but also against danger to in- 
 dividuality and character. In a sense this is of 
 more importance than economic interest, since it 
 H 
 
98 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS 
 
 is more valuable to be able to do what we like 
 than to have a sufficient income : but one cannot 
 really exist without the other. Foreign policy, 
 then, does not treat the State as merely a 
 financial association. It expresses other interests 
 than wealth in manoeuvring for national character 
 and independence. 
 
 It is often said that self-preservation is the basis 
 of all moral action, and that may be argued : but 
 it is sometimes said that self-preservation is the 
 highest law, and that is false. Even for the State 
 self-preservation is not the highest law, if by that 
 it is meant that the State may do anything in 
 order to preserve its existence. Such a state- 
 ment would imply either that the State is above 
 morality or that morality has nothing to do with 
 actions done in behalf of the State. 1 
 
 This error lies at the root of Treitzschke's over- 
 estimation of the status of an army in a civilised 
 State. He goes so far as to say that for the 
 preservation of a certain kind of organisation all 
 and every means is justifiable. It is not "the 
 people " who must be protected, since their 
 blood does not change if the forms of govern- 
 ment change, but " the State." This involves 
 that an armed force is of predominant importance 
 in the State ; as if the State had no higher 
 purpose than its own security. Its interests, 
 1 Cf. Machiavelli : Discorsi, iv. 
 
FOREIGN POLICY 99 
 
 however, demand a policy which, within moral 
 limits, gives it independence. 
 
 But the interests involved are not all economic 
 and military. The interchange of ideas, the de- 
 velopment of character by contact, the exchanging 
 of medicinal discoveries or educational plans- 
 all these are also interests of every State which 
 aims at civilised life, and foreign policy should 
 subserve these. Thus our ambassador in Berlin 
 reminded Herr von Bethman-Hollweg that if 
 England neglected her treaty-obligation to Belgium 
 her credit would be destroyed. Sir Edward Grey 
 and Mr. Asquith also said publicly that our national 
 reputation was at stake. But this can only mean 
 that a State has other interests than the economic 
 or the military, and interests other than mere 
 independence. 
 
 How are these interests at present expressed 
 and what attempts are made to develop them ? 
 It becomes necessary for an answer to look into 
 the diplomatic system : but this need only be 
 done here in the most summary fashion. 
 
 The general features of the system are two : 
 Secretariats and Embassies. 
 
 Secretariats vary in character in different States. 
 They are sometimes the agencies of autocratic 
 government and sometimes representative of the 
 popular will : and all bear marks of their growth 
 as results of the Renaissance state-system. 
 
ioo THE MORALITY OF NATIONS 
 
 But for our purpose here it makes no difference 
 to whom the Secretaries are responsible, if they 
 are supposed to act in the interest of the whole 
 State. What is of more interest is to discover 
 what moral attitude is implied with respect to 
 other States ; and this will naturally change slightly 
 with the intellectual standing of the representa- 
 tive officials, or with the activity among the 
 citizens in general in managing their officials. 
 The whole system of continuous communication, 
 however, carries with it certain fundamental 
 amenities, and it would be impossible now, as 
 it was in the Middle Ages, for any State to 
 do without special officers for intercourse with 
 other States. 
 
 A Foreign Secretary is generally supposed to 
 promote friendly relations in normal times, and 
 with most countries if not with all. The State 
 for which he acts and other States to which he 
 speaks are generally taken to be in moral relation- 
 ship such that the ordinary difficulties of com- 
 merce, crime or " incidents," may be arranged 
 according to principles of morality rather than 
 the mere appeal to force. 
 
 We may now pass to the consideration of 
 Embassies. The Ambassadorial system was prac- 
 tically contemporaneous in growth with the idea 
 of suzerainty as established in the Renaissance. 
 
FOREIGN POLICY ici 
 
 Louis XI (1461-1483) of France is counted the 
 first to keep permanent agents at foreign courts, 1 
 but they were regarded by both sides as spies. 
 The attitude, however, quickly changed with the 
 appointment of chivalrous gentlemen, until in 
 our day the office of an Ambassador is generally 
 regarded as friendly to the State to which he is 
 accredited. The social amenities are no small 
 matter in the creation of a moral attitude ; and 
 civilised States generally recognise some moral 
 bond between them. The rupture of diplomatic 
 relations with Serbia after the murder of King 
 Alexander, in June 1 903,2 was intended to show 
 moral disapprobation. All the great powers with- 
 drew their representatives ; and Great Britain 
 only renewed diplomatic intercourse in 1906. 
 Thus, even though no clear moral code may be 
 established in the intercourse between States, it 
 is generally taken for granted that the relation- 
 ship is in some way moral. 
 
 The immunities of person and property which 
 are spoken of in Internationa] Law are simply 
 conditions of free intercourse. They are them- 
 selves indications of the progress we have made 
 since (i) occasional intercourse could be arranged 
 by special envoys, and (2) since States could afford 
 to regard all foreigners as prospective enemies. 
 
 From this system, combined with the more 
 1 Lawrence, International Law, par. 121. 2 Ibid., par. 125. 
 
i THE MORALITY OF NATIONS 
 
 modern growth of the Consular System, has arisen 
 a vast amount of business between States, some 
 of it simply solutions of incidental difficulties, and 
 some producing more permanent arrangements on 
 general issues. 
 
 These arrangements are Treaties, and their 
 many kinds are discussed by international 
 lawyers. But since scientific international law 
 is not based upon any supposed law of Nature, 
 but only on the consent of the States which make 
 the treaties, their binding force in law is practically 
 indefinable. 1 It is seen that States must keep 
 their promises ; but it is also admitted that no 
 treaty holds in all circumstances. Morality is not 
 unfairly indicated thus : " On the one hand good 
 faith is a duty incumbent on States as well as 
 individuals, and on the other no age can be so 
 wise and good as to make its treaties the rules 
 for all time." 2 
 
 [n 1878, by the Treaty of Berlin, Bosnia and 
 Herzegovina were given to Austria to u occupy 
 and administer." That treaty was regarded by 
 Austria in 1908 as out of date : and, indeed, 
 circumstances had changed. In October of that 
 year she therefore extended her sovereignty over 
 
 1 Lawrence, 132. When and under what conditions it is 
 justifiable to disregard a treaty is a question of morality rather 
 than of law. 
 
 2 Ibid., I 34 . 
 
FOREIGN POLICY 103 
 
 the provinces, and later, by diplomatic despatches, 
 the new situation was acknowledged. 1 
 
 It is unnecessary to speak of the breaking of 
 the treaty regarding Belgium by Germany in 
 August 1914, since so much has already been 
 written on that point. It is sufficient to note that 
 the real moral issue was not whether treaties 
 in general bind, but whether the circumstances 
 in this instance had been contemplated by the 
 treaty-makers : and it is quite clear that they 
 had. The treaty was therefore morally binding. 
 
 All these moral problems seem to be suggested 
 by the method adopted in Foreign Policy ; but 
 we cannot let the matter rest there, for, whatever 
 the purpose, the system seems to need criticism. 
 It has its good and its bad qualities, not only 
 with respect to economic effectiveness or the 
 other results which are expected to flow from it, 
 but also in regard to morality. 
 
 The present system has undoubted advantages, 
 and any sound political judgment must admit 
 from the evidence that useful work has been 
 done by it. National interest has really been 
 considered both of the economic-military and of 
 the non-material kind. This is true not only of 
 England, but of most civilised countries. 
 
 One cannot deny that Bismarck's policy was 
 really a development of the interests of Prussia 
 
 1 Holland, European Concert in the Eastern Question, p. 292. 
 
io 4 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS 
 
 as a whole, although doubt may exist as to his 
 success in maintaining the true interests of other 
 German States. The political impoverishment 
 of Bavaria and other smaller groups, such as 
 Hanover, is hardly compensated even if they 
 have increased their economic wealth ; and it 
 would in the end be evil for the Germans in 
 general if they sacrificed political liberty to 
 Prussia and received in return only a wage. 
 
 The diplomacy of Cavour, antiquated in many 
 respects, was in the main an establishment of the 
 true interest of all Italians even outside Piedmont. 
 The diplomacy of Thiers, in the formation of the 
 third Republic, was in the best interests of France 
 as a whole. 
 
 With respect to our own Foreign Policy there 
 is great disagreement as to whether the true 
 interests of the majority in the British Isles were 
 developed by Palmerston or Disraeli. But at 
 least as much good as evil has been done by 
 the diplomatic system. There is a tendency to 
 disregard the smooth working of a system for 
 many years and to judge it only by an occasional 
 lapse : and this tendency must be corrected as 
 well as the tendency to regard the established 
 system as sacred. 
 
 Apart, however, from historical facts and moral 
 judgments passed upon them, it is possible to 
 observe certain features of the system which are 
 
FOREIGN POLICY 105 
 
 valuable. The evidence for a judgment of the 
 system is, of course, the nature of the separate 
 judgments passed upon actions in the past directed 
 by its officials : but the system may be judged as 
 a whole in so far as it is an organisation with 
 a purpose. The purpose, then, seems to have 
 been and to be successfully accomplished when 
 the following features of the system have been 
 brought into play 
 
 Specialist Knowledge. The officials, aided by 
 tradition, have used special knowledge of foreign 
 countries which is not in the hands of the ordinary 
 voter or even of the average politician. The 
 great deficiency in all government is not lack of 
 good intention, but lack of knowledge. Men are 
 generally willing to do what is right not merely 
 for themselves, but for their group or even for 
 all humanity, but they do not know what it is 
 right to do. It follows that any system which 
 can preserve and increase special knowledge on 
 any of the issues with which political action is 
 concerned is, so far, good. The benevolent and 
 uninformed amateur is dangerous in morality 
 even of a private kind, and in the complexity of 
 international business it requires special knowledge 
 of the facts even to apply moral criteria to them. 
 
 Mazzini, for example, was a greater man than 
 Cavour, but Cavour had special knowledge which 
 was lacking to the well-intentioned Mazzini. 
 
io6 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS 
 
 One cannot fairly say what would have happened 
 if Mazzini had been in touch with diplomatists as 
 Cavour was ; but, probably, if he had been, Italy 
 would not now be united. An ethical theorist 
 unrivalled in his knowledge of general principles 
 may be unable to deal with the seemingly trivial 
 complexities of domestic life, and a political 
 idealist may not be aware of the amount of primi- 
 tive savagery and low cunning which still exists. 
 Security against Popular Outbursts. A second, 
 advantage of the official system is that it can 
 resist any too sudden or violent outburst of 
 political passion. The voice of " the people " is 
 very often nowadays only the voice of the city 
 crowd, faintly re-echoed, if echoed at all, in the 
 smaller towns. Sometimes also the noise is that 
 of a few editors of newspapers : and a nation 
 would hardly have its true interests developed if 
 it were committed to action whenever or as soon 
 as such clamour arose. We have instances in 
 which the " democratic control " of foreign policy 
 might be shown to be more dangerous than that 
 of the officials. Thus in 1863 our diplomacy 
 did not commit us to the action demanded by 
 many public meetings at the time of the Prussian 
 attack on the Danish Duchies. The English 
 public were much excited by the addresses of 
 Kossuth in 1848, and Austria appears to have 
 feared that England would go to war in behalf of 
 
FOREIGN POLICY 107 
 
 the Hungarians : but the Cabinet was able to 
 keep away from danger in spite of the delicate 
 situation created by the personal sympathies of 
 Lord Palmerston. So also, perhaps, we may 
 imagine that, although the war of 1870 was 
 engineered by Gramont and Bismarck, the 
 popular clamour in Paris and Berlin would have 
 committed the nations to war long before, if it 
 had not been for the diplomatic system. Whether 
 the delay was good for France may be doubtful ; 
 but it was certainly good for Prussia. 
 
 Continuous Attention and Quick Decision. In the 
 method of working, also, the diplomatic system 
 appears to have advantages : for specialists can 
 devote a continuous attention to the issues which 
 would be impossible for the average politician. 
 Palmerston is said to have declared that the 
 business of the Foreign Office needed continuous 
 labour. 1 The cursory attention which the Govern- 
 ments of all countries, involved as they are in 
 efforts for social reform or oppression, in adminis- 
 tration and in law-making, could devote to the 
 relations with Foreign States would be still more 
 inadequate now than it was in the nineteenth 
 century, since, as we have said, the connections 
 of all States are more intimate. A further need 
 in dealing with foreign interests is quick decision. 
 This may not be always the case, but the relation- 
 1 Sidney Low, Governance of England, p. 252. 
 
io8 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS 
 
 ship between alien peoples tends to pass through 
 periods of crisis which are much more sharp and 
 sudden than in the case of social unrest within 
 the State. This fact is marked by the greater 
 frequency of wars as compared with revolutions, 
 and it is due largely to the ignorance which 
 geneVally prevails as to the intentions or the 
 power of " foreigners." Where ignorance is 
 common, panic is frequent. Passion tends to fill 
 those spaces of the mind which are left empty 
 in the progress of education : emotion rushes in, 
 like blood to the head, and eventually swamps 
 even the limited drained land of reason. Thus 
 patriotism seems in moments of crisis to repudiate 
 all calm thought. 
 
 Now this involves the necessity for decided 
 action in crises, either to direct, to subdue, or 
 to use the popular feeling. Hence it was that 
 Palmerston, himself perhaps too hasty, objected 
 to the slow methods of the Prince Consort : and 
 often in a crisis, decided action, quickly taken, has 
 really maintained the interest of the nation where 
 the slower methods of parliamentary debate and 
 still more of a popular referendum would have 
 dangerously imperilled not only our military 
 effectiveness but also our reputation. 1 
 
 1 It may be agreed that the decision to go to war on the 
 ground of Belgian Neutrality was thus well made, and that we 
 could not possibly have put the question to the vote. 
 
FOREIGN POLICY 109 
 
 So far, then, we may count the diplomatic 
 system valuable ; but it has very great deficiencies 
 also, and perhaps more in continental countries 
 than in England. In the first place, the system 
 bears the marks of its birth in a time when the 
 State was not what it now is. 1 The system is 
 hampered by its inheritance. 
 
 But it is not simply that an old organisation 
 deals with an entirely new situation. The 
 organisation which was once used in one way 
 might very easily be applied to other activities ; 
 and of this we have had many examples, especially 
 in English government. Thus the Committee 
 of the Privy Council, which was called the 
 Cabinet, has become a governing body. So also we 
 use the old system of Secretariat and Embassy for 
 dealing with the new relationship between States. 
 But quite apart from the disadvantages in the 
 structure of the organisation, the actual working 
 of such a system carries with it an inheritance 
 of ideas. 
 
 " What can be done and what cannot be 
 done " is often a sacred gospel to officials, 
 although the only meaning in the words is 
 
 1 See "Foreign Policy in Middle Ages," in Stubbs' 
 Lectures on English History y p. 354 sej. 9 publ. 1906. It is 
 amusing to read that Germany and England are always united 
 in Foreign Policy, because they are " non-aggressive nations " 
 which love " order and peace." France is " aggressive, 
 unscrupulous, false," p. 371. 
 
no THE MORALITY OF NATIONS 
 
 " What has been done and what has not." l 
 Every established institution, as the price of 
 preserving a valuable inheritance, tends to " pilfer 
 the present for the beggar past." The methods 
 of secret interview, of pompous despatches and 
 of court functions, valuable as they may be in 
 preserving the personal contact, the polite man- 
 ners, and the decorative dresses of a vanished 
 civilisation, are paid for too highly if they involve 
 the transfer of attention and timely labour from 
 the task of understanding or expressing national 
 interests. 
 
 And as for actual guiding ideas, first, the 
 principle of Balance of Power* belongs to the 
 Renaissance situation, where the relationship of 
 States was not so intimate and continuous, in 
 economics and ideas, as it is to-day. It is not 
 a false principle if applied to the situation out 
 of which it arose ; but that situation has simply 
 disappeared. It continues to exist as a ghost 
 
 1 Cf. letter of Sir R. Morier to Sir W. White, March 21, 
 1877. " The abiding fact ... is the absolute and uncon- 
 ditional ineptitude of our International machinery. . . . The 
 departmental people at the F. O. are the worst offenders. 
 Their hatred of anything that rises above routine or carries 
 with it the promise of a policy would be amusing if one could 
 look at it with indifferent eyes." Life of Sir W. White, by 
 by H. S. Edwards, 1902. 
 
 2 This can only mean in theory that States may be treated 
 as units, to be put together or taken apart as economic or 
 military power changes in each. In practice it is the attempt 
 to overbalance military force in our favour. 
 
FOREIGN POLICY in 
 
 in the corridors of the Foreign Office, and in the 
 portfolios of Imperial Chancellors. It was the 
 primitive method of securing independence of 
 governmental development. Next there is a 
 primitive conception of natural enmity to foreigners 
 which remains in some at least of the Secretariats. 
 Treitzschke calls this a "veiled hostility," and since 
 warfare, according to him, justifies every kind 
 of deceit or trick, it follows that during times 
 of so-called peace any State may deceive or trick 
 its neighbours ; and not only States which pro- 
 fess the Machiavellian immorality suffer from 
 the tendency to treat foreigners as naturally to 
 be deceived. 
 
 The conception which began as that of an 
 Ambassador being a spy in a foreign country 
 continues in so far as the Ambassador may use 
 his privileges to inform his Government of any 
 weakness among their neighbours ; and it would 
 be interesting to know what connection there is 
 between the Secret Service which every civilised 
 State seems to use, and the privileged repre- 
 sentative of that State in the very heart of a 
 foreign country. 
 
 And even more prominently the atmosphere 
 of obsolete ideas hangs round the official concep- 
 tion of national interest. The Secretariats and 
 Embassies have not yet grasped the economic 
 interdependence of recent years among all great 
 
ii2 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS 
 
 nations. They still seem to imagine that the 
 " interests " of the nation are confined to the 
 boundaries over which their State is supreme. 
 Of course, there is an immense amount of com- 
 mercial and financial business transacted through 
 Embassies and Consulates. That is a good point 
 in the system. What is wrong seems to be the 
 intellectual inability to grasp that one State benefits 
 by increasing wealth in another. 
 
 There is also the antiquated tendency to suppose 
 that foreign conquest is to the " interest " of the 
 nation ; although we suppose that ghost is more or 
 less laid, except in the minds of army officers who 
 venture into print. 
 
 And, finally, there is a complete absence of any 
 clear conception that the interest of a nation must 
 be treated, for practical purposes, as the interest of 
 the majority. There is no real calculation among 
 Secretaries of State or Ambassadors as to the 
 results of their action upon the lives and fortunes 
 of the proletariat ; so that the " interest " repre- 
 sented is often only the interest of a small clique 
 or of the governing class. The whole body, 
 perhaps, benefits by the increasing wealth of the 
 few ; but it would be interesting to examine 
 diplomatists on the social situation of the countries 
 which they are supposed to represent. At most 
 they seem to be aware vaguely of " labour unrest," 
 or of discontented people who object to the partial 
 
FOREIGN POLICY 113 
 
 starvation which they might endure for the sake 
 of their beloved country and patriotically say 
 nothing. 
 
 But if the interest represented in diplomacy is 
 to be the interest of the majority, knowledge of 
 such interest must exist among the officials : the 
 diplomatic caste is, however, economically divided 
 from the mass, from the trading class and even 
 from the intellectuals in almost every nation. 1 
 Or, if the interests of these classes are admitted, 
 they are known only from blue books or treatises 
 and not by personal contact. The result is neglect 
 of the consideration of the interest of the vast 
 majority in every nation. 
 
 Finally, in no department of government is the 
 practice of despotism more prominent than in 
 diplomacy. By despotism we mean the govern- 
 ment of others, even, in the case of beneficent 
 despotism, for the good of others, in spite of their 
 wishes or without reference to their wishes. And 
 the objection against such a method is not made 
 on the ground that Foreign Ministers are evil- 
 
 1 The professors and editors used by the United States are, 
 I suppose, less divided ; but elsewhere the diplomatists are 
 allied to the military and land-owning classes only and neither 
 " trade " nor " labour " are closely present to their minds. 
 The proof of this is to be found in the establishment of the 
 Consular system to correct the deficiencies of Renaissance 
 "aristocracy" in Embassies. And even in the case of the 
 United States, personal wealth being often necessary, the choice 
 of ambassadors is restricted. 
 I 
 
n 4 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS 
 
 minded or intend to do wrong, but on the ground 
 that they do not know as much as " the people " 
 do what the people need. " Les hommes droits 
 et simples sont difficiles a tromper " : 1 and again, 
 " the many, of whom each is but an ordinary 
 person, when they meet together are likely to be 
 better than the few good." 2 Thus the objection 
 against despotism is an objection not against 
 clever tyranny but against benevolent incom- 
 petence. 
 
 In a monarchical State the interest of the monarch 
 is chiefly considered, even if it is believed that 
 that interest involves as a result the interests of 
 "the people." And in such a State the person 
 whose interest is primarily considered is definitely 
 consulted. Queen Victoria apparently conceived 
 Foreign Policy altogether in terms of Kings and 
 Queens : but already the world had moved away 
 from that Renaissance situation. With us "the 
 people," whose interest is supposed to be fore- 
 most, are not consulted. This is really due to the 
 historic origin of Secretariats, but a modern excuse 
 is given for it by saying that to consult the people 
 involves publicity. This puts our Secretary at a 
 disadvantage of showing his hand^ which he cannot 
 do without losing in the contest between national 
 interests. But this again implies an interesting 
 moral problem. Are you justified in cheating 
 
 1 Rousseau, Contrat Social. 2 Arist., Pol., izSib. 
 
FOREIGN POLICY 115 
 
 your grocer if "you think he is likely to cheat 
 you ? Or why should there be any secrecy if 
 there is nothing being done of which the nation 
 might be ashamed or to which foreign nations 
 might reasonably object ? 
 
 A clear example of the disadvantages of the 
 present system is to be found in the Reminiscences 
 of Prince Bismarck. It is at first difficult to 
 discover what he imagined the principles of foreign 
 policy to be : but it appears that he accepted the 
 idea that it should be the development of Prussia's 
 interests, and, through this, a development of 
 German interests. He did not go further. The 
 interests of those not German in blood or language 
 were no business of his ; and he implies that they 
 must be opposed to the interests for which he was 
 to act. 1 Prussian-German interests, however, he 
 conceived in the most obsolete way. " Real- 
 politik " is generally the politics of our great- 
 grandfathers, and what are called " facts " are 
 generally the illusions of a still earlier age. Prince 
 Bismarck modelled his policy on that of Frederick 
 the Great. 2 He would use modern guns but not 
 modern ideas. He accepts the description of State- 
 
 1 Bismarck, the Man and the Stafesman, English trans., Vol. 
 II, ch. xxi, p. 56. "I took it as assured that war with 
 France would necessarily have to be waged on the road to our 
 further national development." The purpose of the war (V., 
 p. 291) was "autonomous political life." 
 
 2 Ibid., Vol. II, ch. xii. 
 
n6 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS 
 
 relationship given in Hobbes : l and as for " national 
 interest," it seems to be chiefly keeping things as 
 they are, which is naturally the view of the well- 
 fed and well-clothed who have also the social 
 "position" they want. He treats all expression 
 of dissatisfaction with the established system as 
 a pernicious tendency which must be condoned 
 only in order to fit the whole group for foreign 
 war. He mistakes his idiosyncrasy for a permanent 
 feature of German character. 2 
 
 But Bismarck is not the only specimen of the 
 blind guide, or of the specialist whose knowledge 
 is that of his grandfathers. The system which 
 perpetuates such guidance in so many civilised 
 States must certainly be somewhat deficient. 
 
 We have so far discussed the advantages and 
 disadvantages of the system ; but a word must be 
 said concerning the principles on which the system 
 seems to have been managed. It is impossible to 
 make accusations against contemporaries, for we 
 have not all the evidence ; but it is abundantly 
 clear that in the past the principles of diplomacy 
 have not been moral. The very ancient and 
 
 1 " Upon foreign politics . . . my views . . . were taken 
 from the standpoint of a Prussian officer" (Id., p. 3). 
 
 2 Ibid., Ch. XIII, p. 314. "Never, not even at Frankfort, 
 did I doubt that the key to German politics was to be found 
 in princes and dynasties, not in publicists, whether in parlia- 
 ment and the press or on the barricades." " German patriotism 
 needs to hang on the peg of dependence upon a dynasty" 
 (P- 3i6). 
 
FOREIGN POLICY 117 
 
 Machiavellian method we may omit, although it 
 has undoubtedly vitiated the tradition even until 
 our own day. But in comparatively recent times 
 and as between modern States, diplomacy has 
 been often based upon lying, studied deceit and 
 unblushing theft. 
 
 The point is that the relationship of the citizens 
 of one State to those of another cannot possibly 
 be moral so long as their representatives are either 
 strong enough or are allowed to use immoral 
 means for the attainment of what is conceived to 
 be a national purpose. Yet we know that Lord 
 Beaconsfield in 1878 obtained Cyprus by under- 
 hand means ; that a Prussian King and his 
 statesmen betrayed a trust to obtain their share 
 of Poland. And of all the hopelessly immoral 
 methods those of Austrian diplomacy seem to be 
 crudest, for the annexation of Bosnia was excused 
 by the deliberate forgery of documents in the 
 Austrian legation at Belgrade. 1 
 
 We are not throwing stones at diplomatists. 
 What seems to us more important is that ^ the 
 majority of citizens in the several States which 
 
 1 As an instance of " diplomacy " this deserves a fuller record. 
 It was proved in the Friedjung Trial (Dec. 1909) that the 
 historian Dr. Friedjung had been supplied with documents 
 forged in the Austrian Legation under Count Forgach and the 
 Foreign Minister Count Aehrenthal. Forgach was promoted 
 to Vienna. The forged documents were the only grounds for 
 Austrian action. (Cf. Dr. Seton-Watson in The War and 
 Democracy, Ch. IV, p. 150.) 
 
n8 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS 
 
 benefited financially by immoral practice did not 
 protest or even refuse to receive the property 
 stolen in their behalf. Morality remains at a low 
 stage of development so long as men, who might 
 avoid lying or stealing for themselves, are perfectly 
 willing to benefit by such deeds done by others. 
 And this is not merely a political but also an 
 economic issue. The State is not a trading com- 
 pany ; but even if it were, the position would be 
 no better. It makes no difference that business 
 is often conducted on the same Machiavellian 
 principles as diplomacy. The principles are im- 
 moral. And our much-abused diplomatists are 
 very often angels of light by comparison with 
 some peace-loving business men who continue to 
 raise private fortunes by acting upon principles 
 which they affect to disapprove of when they read 
 Machiavelli or diplomatic despatches. 
 
 Further, as we shall argue later, the principle 
 that foreign policy should be a maintenance and 
 development of the interest of the State must be 
 subservient to the general principle of morality 
 that such development should not injure any 
 other. 1 The principle is implied in what we have 
 
 1 Sedgwick, Elements, Ch. XVIII. " For a State, as for an 
 individual, the ultimate end and standard of conduct is the 
 happiness of all who are affected by its actions. ... In excep- 
 tional cases where the interest of the p^rt conflicts with the 
 interests of the whole, the interest of the part be it individual 
 
FOREIGN POLICY 119 
 
 already said as to the moral character of the State ; 
 but how it can be applied will be seen when we 
 consider the latest tendencies towards the Comity 
 of Nations. 
 
 There is a general principle which seems to 
 arise from such consideration of the system by 
 which Foreign Policy is managed. It is the 
 expression of a need in the developing morality 
 of nations. The increase of popular power over 
 law and government should be accompanied by an 
 increase of knowledge among all citizens of the 
 foreign interests of their group and of the method 
 by which such interests are developed. We must 
 rid ourselves of the barbaric ignorance of foreign 
 peoples which is our inheritance from the time 
 when peoples were separated by geographical 
 features or economic structure. The man of the 
 Middle Ages, by comparison with ourselves, could 
 well afford to neglect the habits and customs of 
 foreigners ; he could with difficulty communicate 
 with them, and he traded with them hardly at all ; 
 but if the minds of our diplomatists seem to 
 belong to the Renaissance, those of " the people " 
 seem to be mediaeval, and the next step forward in 
 making diplomacy more moral must be an increase 
 in the political knowledge of citizens. 
 
 or State must necessarily give way. On this point of principle 
 no compromise is possible, no hesitation admissible, no appeal 
 to experience relevant." 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 ALLIANCE 
 
 THE results of Foreign Policy, so far as they 
 are permanent in the progress of International 
 Morality, are generally of two opposite kinds. 
 There is, first, the promotion of alliance between 
 States, and secondly, the continuance of inter- 
 state rivalry. This second result may seem to 
 be not moral ; but it is clearly a part of morality 
 to develop distinctions of group-character, as of 
 individuality, and not only to work upon the 
 principle of common interest. We shall, how- 
 ever, leave this issue for the present, and speak 
 of alliance. It must be understood that the dis- 
 cussion does not involve any plan for a Concert 
 of the whole civilised world. We must begin at 
 the beginning. There are, in fact, a few States 
 which are acting together for common purposes, 
 however transitory and limited : and this fact is 
 important for a judgment upon the international 
 situation. For alliance has sometimes moral 
 causes or moral purposes, and nearly always 
 moral results. We should not be deceived by 
 
 I2O 
 
ALLIANCE 121 
 
 the purely economic theory, whatever its basis 
 in fact. It is true, of course, that a new distinc- 
 tion has come into prominence in recent times, 
 that of debtor and creditor States. 1 We cannot any 
 longer be content with the old theory of equality 
 of sovereign States or even with the newer dis- 
 tinction between the " Great Powers " and other 
 States. 2 There is the new fact of an economic 
 relationship between citizens or companies of 
 citizens in one State with citizens of another, 
 due to the lending of money. 
 
 We have seen that investment tends to 
 disregard State frontiers : but there is a further 
 important fact that it tends to follow lines 
 partly laid down by foreign policy in the interest 
 of military or non-material security ; and follow- 
 ing these lines it tends to secure a friendship 
 which military reasons alone might be insufficient 
 to make permanent. The standard example is 
 the relationship of Russia and France. French 
 citizens lend money to Russian business ; and 
 foreign policy assists this, at first perhaps with an 
 anti-German intention. But the money once lent 
 is a sufficient reason for the desire of France that 
 Russia should develop successfully. 
 
 In the same way our financiers played their 
 part, in the beginning of the war, by the attention 
 
 1 Brailsford, War of Steel and Gold, p. 221. 
 
 2 Cf. Lawrence, Part II, ch. iv, p. 268. 
 
122 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS 
 
 which was directed to the possibilities of lucrative 
 investment in Russia. 1 But if such investment 
 takes place, it will bind us to Russia far more 
 effectively than any common action in war. 
 
 The creditor-debtor relationship in foreign 
 policy, however, -may not always result in alliance, 
 when the debtor State is very much inferior in 
 military or economic power. For example, the 
 presence of British capital in the Transvaal before 
 the Boer War put the Transvaal Government in 
 a difficult political position. In the same sense, 
 Mexico and China are debtor-States which tend 
 to become subordinated politically because of the 
 superior military or economic power of their 
 creditors. 
 
 Thus we have to allow not merely for the 
 interdependence of all States, but for the closer 
 interdependence of some States and the creation 
 of larger economic and political groups out of 
 two or more States. The cc Balance of Power " 
 alliances of the past, transitory and often for 
 warlike purposes only, are being transformed or 
 replaced by a new form of alliance which, what- 
 ever it excludes, binds more effectively and for 
 longer periods the States which it includes. 
 
 1 The best example of this is to be found in the Times 
 Russian Supplement (published January 1915), of which the 
 whole point was the excellence of Russia as a field for British 
 capital. 
 
ALLIANCE 123 
 
 The whole problem is new. It is vital to 
 foreign policy : but it has no solution in the 
 language and thought of Renaissance diplomacy 
 or our antiquated conceptions of the State. What 
 is the relation between the State as a political 
 institution and a financial company of its citizens 
 who may have interests in foreign countries ? 
 On the one hand, is the State committed to act 
 in order to collect debts for a few powerful 
 citizens, and, on the other hand, should not the 
 State hesitate to act if action would imperil such 
 interests in foreign lands ? These, however, are 
 problems for the practical politicians : perhaps no 
 general principles are established ; and yet from 
 such problems arises one of the important issues 
 in the moral relationship between States. 
 
 At one time the State was regarded as a kind 
 of Church, and wars were fought for religion : 
 now the State tends to be considered as a sort of 
 financial company. But even if the relationship 
 which holds together modern States is at first 
 economic, the result is often of importance morally. 
 The merely financial common interest tends to 
 produce a moral sentiment of sympathy : and 
 such also is the general effect of a merely military 
 agreement. The important point for our present 
 purpose is the result upon the minds of the 
 average citizens in the allied or interdependent 
 States. It makes no difference that the majority 
 
i2 4 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS 
 
 are quite unaware of the reason for their senti- 
 ment of friendliness : nor does it matter that 
 such sentiment is often created by newspapers in 
 the pay of financiers. In a sense, a sentiment of 
 friendliness so formed may be easily destroyed ; 
 and, as we shall see, the Italians could not forget 
 an ancient grudge even though diplomacy seemed 
 to commit them to the Triple Alliance. But 
 sentiments of friendliness are interesting because 
 they prove that there is no insuperable obstacle 
 to intimacy between any nations whatever. And, 
 at least for the few years during which they are 
 active, they give promise of common action 
 between diverse peoples on general principles. 
 
 Now, therefore, we may examine the alliances 
 of recent history and, in tracing their growth, 
 enquire if any general principles can be found 
 which govern the friendship of States. 
 
 The situation in international politics was until 
 recently governed by the groupings of 
 
 1. The Triple Alliance, 
 
 2. The Triple Entente. 
 
 The first may be held to have disappeared, 
 since Italy stood out of the war at the begin- 
 ning. Nevertheless, it may be worth while to 
 say how the situation just preceding the war came 
 into existence. 
 
 It seems reasonable that Germany and Austria 
 should be allied against France, or, at least, for 
 
ALLIANCE 125 
 
 the defence of common interests. The ruling 
 peoples in both empires are Teutonic, and the 
 history of their ancestors binds them to a sort of 
 affection. 
 
 Also they may both be held to have a common 
 cause against Pan-Slavism in Russia or in the 
 Balkans. In fact, it was the Balkan War, and 
 the fear of a Slav preponderance of power in 
 Eastern Europe, which probably moved the 
 Berlin diplomats to force on a war between 
 Austria and Serbia. 1 
 
 But even the Teutonic peoples have not for 
 very long been allied officially. Prussia main- 
 tained a traditional friendship for Russia during 
 the greater part of Bismarck's power. But the 
 current of affairs bringing Russia and France 
 together after the Prussian success of 1866, 
 Bismarck began to secure his position by friend- 
 ship with Austria. In 1879 a treaty was signed 
 between the new German Empire and the Aus- 
 trian Empire which was the beginning of the 
 Triple Alliance. 2 
 
 The third party of the alliance was Italy, in 
 spite of the fact that Italian opposition to Austria 
 had by no means ceased. But in 1881 France 
 declared Tunis her protectorate, and the Italian 
 people were much incensed by it. Old passions 
 flamed up, and the memory of Italian provinces 
 1 Correspondence i etc. 2 Bismarck, II, 257. 
 
126 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS 
 
 (Savoy and Nice) which had been given over to 
 France, served to make the Italian Government 
 able to enter into special arrangements with 
 Austria and Germany. The Triple Alliance was 
 probably in existence as early as October 1881. 
 The terms were like those agreed upon between 
 Austria and Germany : that each Government 
 should aid in the event of the other being 
 attacked. It was a purely defensive alliance ; 
 and Italy was, to all appearance, in exactly the 
 same position as Austria with respect to Germany. 
 If the present war is not purely " defensive," 
 there is no more " treaty reason " for Austria's aid 
 being given to Germany than there is for Italy's. 
 On paper, it would seem that what Italy views 
 as not defensive is viewed by the other two 
 parties to the alliance as defensive ; but in fact 
 it is not a treaty which keeps Vienna and Berlin 
 so closely together. The terms of the treaty 
 may have been exactly the same for all three 
 parties : but two of the three are united by blood 
 and tradition. The real reason for Italy's neu- 
 trality is not because the war of her late allies is 
 regarded as aggressive, but because the treaty 
 obligations entered into in 1881, in a fit of anti- 
 French policy, have not been sufficient to destroy 
 the long tradition of Italian sentiment directed 
 against the Austrian Government. 
 
 The Triple Alliance was formed by a defensive 
 
ALLIANCE 127 
 
 policy against France, and has gradually been 
 turned, owing to events in the Balkans, against 
 Russia. As an expression in diplomatic form of 
 the real interests of two groups or Governments 
 it is a reasonable and, in part, a beneficent in- 
 fluence in so far as it has cemented the friend- 
 ship of Berlin and Vienna, and closed, perhaps 
 finally, the disputes as to predominance among 
 the German States ; but as to the interests of 
 the third group or Government (Italy), it is diffi- 
 cult to see how the alliance subserved any real 
 good except as providing a transitory pause to 
 the anti-Austrian feeling in Italy. 
 
 The history of the Franco-Russian alliance 
 is even stranger than that of the Triple Alliance. 
 We need not go back to Napoleonic times to 
 find out how completely the tradition of France 
 differs from that of Russia. Politically France 
 has been the great experimenter in methods of 
 government, while Russia has been continuously 
 opposed to all such changes. 
 
 In March 1854 France declared war against 
 Russia, since at that time it was conceived to be 
 necessary to restrict the growth of Russian power 
 at the expense of Turkey. The war ended with 
 no very great feeling on either side. 
 
 There had been a faint sympathy between 
 Russia and the French Empire in the promotion 
 of nationality in the Balkans, following on the 
 
128 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS 
 
 Treaty of Paris (March 1856). Russia desired 
 to see the Balkan people free of Turkish rule 
 because of their blood, and Napoleon III had a 
 sentimental regard for the principle of nationality. 
 This tendency for two Empires to come together 
 almost produced an entente in 1861 and 1862; but 
 in 1863 the Poles rose against Russia. French 
 sympathy, even that of the Emperor, was on the 
 side of the national movement, and the Russian 
 Government only wanted to remain as it was. 
 
 In 1866 Russia was friendly with Prussia 
 rather than with the French Empire, and in 1871 
 Bismarck was able to buy off any possible Russian 
 interference with the success of Prussian arms by 
 acting in the interest of the Russian repudiation 
 of the Treaty of Paris. Republican France of 
 1872 and the following years was opposed by 
 Russian autocracy in the League of the three 
 Emperors, and it was not until the reopening of 
 the whole Eastern question and after the anti-Slav 
 policy of the Teutonic powers was revealed at 
 Berlin in 1878, that Russia was drawn again 
 towards France. The common interest was un- 
 doubtedly opposition to the growth of Teutonic 
 influence in Europe, and the result was an 
 alliance which was begun in July 1891. France 
 gave Russia a large loan and freedom of action 
 in the East, and Russia gave France some security 
 against a renewal of 1870. 
 
ALLIANCE 129 
 
 The entry of England into full alliance with 
 France and Russia cannot yet be fully explained, 
 since the necessary documents are not yet public. 
 Officially we were not allied until August 1914, 
 on the outbreak of war ; but the Entente 
 Cordiale, whatever that means, had been followed 
 by a rapprochement with Russia. We acted in 
 concert with Russia in the suppression of some 
 Persian developments, and the future will reveal 
 whether we stood in this case for an order which 
 did not suppress national liberties. We are, 
 however, now committed to a full alliance, and 
 the most prominent moral result is the general 
 sentiment of friendliness and admiration of the 
 allies, each for the other. 
 
 Alliance is of immense importance in interna- 
 tional morality. Indeed, nothing in recent years has 
 been so directly a force in the direction of peace as 
 the present war in so far as it is waged by Allies. 
 We have seen that German States may be reason- 
 ably supposed to have common interests, not 
 only in the economic sense but also in the main- 
 tenance of a special type of government. Thus 
 two great nations, the German and Austrian, are 
 agreed not to fight each other. They are not 
 likely to forget the common experiences of danger 
 or of success. 
 
 But far more important is the situation on the 
 side of those whom we call pre-eminently "the 
 
130 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS 
 
 Allies." The popular voice in newspapers has 
 rightly given prominence to the important fact 
 that such different races as the English, French, 
 Russian, Belgian and Japanese are all fighting on 
 the same side. For to fight together means at 
 least not to fight one another, and that fact is 
 important. 
 
 Nations of very different government and 
 tradition can then be induced to act together at 
 least for a short time : and if they act together 
 in war, why should they not in peace ? But this 
 means that the crude conception of nations as 
 necessarily individualistic competitors is obsolete, 
 for co-operation is possible among very many. 
 And even if this co-operation is transient and 
 only for the primitive need of military effective- 
 ness, even if in a few years we were at war with 
 any of our present allies, the months or years 
 of alliance will have done something towards 
 breaking down the wall of ignorance and barbaric 
 hostility to foreigners which are the fruitful 
 sources of all war. 
 
 For, let us consider the result of our alliance 
 in other ways than its military effectiveness. We 
 have learnt for years, from the " Entente Cordiale," 
 to appreciate the French character and the French 
 point of view. A French invasion of England 
 is to the present generation absolutely unthink- 
 able. Our soldiers may learn to admire their 
 
ALLIANCE 131 
 
 French comrades, and already there is some effort 
 among them to understand the French language. 
 They are proud to receive French medals as a 
 reward for gallantry, and they and all England 
 feel desperately concerned in the security of 
 North-eastern France. Such a sympathetic under- 
 standing between two such different nations, 
 even if it were only forcible in the moment of 
 danger, is nevertheless more valuable than any 
 treaty or covenant between Governments. For 
 it is national sympathy and not merely a soldier's 
 emotion. 
 
 Next, as to Russia, it seems already unkind 
 to refer to our hostility in the Crimean War, 
 and we desire nothing better now than the 
 Russian occupation of Constantinople, which our 
 forefathers fought to prevent. This is not mere 
 inconsistency, for the situation has changed. And 
 already we are learning as a people to appreciate 
 Russian opera, Russian dancing and Russian 
 literature. The Russian character has become 
 more known to us, even the geography of Russia 
 has its interests, and we no longer neglect the 
 virtues of a people which has done and may yet 
 do so much for civilisation at large. 
 
 Doubtless a great part of this popular senti- 
 ment for " our allies " is the superficial friend- 
 liness of mariners adrift in the same boat ; but 
 however superficial, it is a promise of a time 
 
132 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS 
 
 when very different races will learn to appreciate 
 the standpoint of other races, and when the 
 popular voice will not condemn every foreign 
 habit as barbarous and every foreign government 
 as tyranny. It is interesting to notice that those 
 who speak of a " natural " distaste for foreigners 
 also make a distinction between foreigners ; so 
 that some foreigners are now regarded as bar- 
 barous, false and aggressive, and others as amiably 
 different from ourselves. But apparently a few 
 years suffice to transform this natural distaste, 
 so that those who were aggressive fifty years 
 ago are now believed to be kindly, and those who 
 were peaceful then are now ambitious of conquest. 
 It is obvious that this " natural " distaste is simply 
 another instance of how we are governed by 
 illusions in political thinking. Thus with any 
 historical perspective we learn much from the 
 present alliance of England, Russia, France, 
 Belgium, Serbia and Japan. 
 
 More important still for international morality 
 is the fact that the present Alliance shows how 
 force may be exerted in the maintenance of law 
 and order without the existence of any one 
 "World-dominion," Rome in old days dictated 
 peace to the world ; England dictates peace to 
 India ; and in these cases law and order depend 
 upon the predominance of one State. But if the 
 Allies win the present war, peace will be dictated 
 
ALLIANCE 133 
 
 not by any one, but by a large group of very 
 different States : it follows that it will be a peace 
 in which a great number of different interests will 
 be preserved. And, still further, it follows that 
 International Law will be maintained not by 
 the will of one World-power, but by agreement 
 between many equals. 
 
 The principle of independent development 
 contained in the legal conception of sovereignty 
 has so far been effective in securing the right of 
 each separate state-group. The Renaissance con- 
 ception had its value. But States have not, in 
 fact, kept a splendid isolation ; it has been found 
 ever since there were any sovereign States that 
 alliance was necessary and valuable. And we 
 look forward to a further extension of the 
 principle of alliance, although at first sight it 
 might seem to hamper the full independence of a 
 sovereign State to avoid any " individual " action. 
 Thus the mutual pledge of the three Govern- 
 ments of Russia, France, and England not to 
 enter into a separate peace may be extended 
 to cover common action for many years after 
 the War. 
 
 If States are not isolated, it is because of real 
 or supposed interests which they have in common, 
 whether those interests are purely economic or 
 military or non-material. The new commerce 
 and the new finance destroyed the more personal 
 
134 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS 
 
 and accidental alliances of the Middle Ages and 
 the Renaissance. For modern alliance is of a 
 different and more enduring kind. It carries 
 with it economic bonds and the growth of 
 popular sentiment. 
 
 But the interests of the group are the ultimate 
 interests of all the individuals : and, again, the 
 national group is subdivided into smaller groups. 
 Clearly, alliance should not be for the benefit of 
 one small group among many ; unless in helping 
 that group it also helps the others. The tendency, 
 however, to refuse to begin with small gains in 
 order to wait until every one can be directly 
 helped, is like a vague cosmopolitanism which will 
 not begin with the actual friendliness of two or 
 more nations. 
 
 Alliance, nevertheless, may not be altogether 
 good in its moral results. We may pay too 
 highly for success in war or in investment, if we 
 allow the restriction of liberty even among other 
 peoples. It is sometimes implied that other 
 peoples must look after themselves : political 
 and national laissez-faire is advocated even by 
 those who see that as between fellow-citizens 
 laissez-faire is obsolete. But lest it may seem as 
 if the interest in the liberty of other peoples is 
 mere sentimentalism, we must repeat what should 
 by now be obvious, that the State which aids or 
 
ALLIANCE 135 
 
 allows the extinction of liberty in other States has 
 become tyrannical ; and the direct effect is tyranny 
 within the tyrannical State. The taste for tyranny 
 cannot be satisfied with practice upon foreigners 
 or "natives." 
 
 We may then pass to definite instances either 
 of the moral ineffectiveness of alliance, or of its 
 pernicious moral effects. 
 
 Alliances are made by established Governments, 
 not by peoples. Sometimes the Governments 
 consider the interest of the governed ; but some- 
 times only the interest of the established system 
 is considered, or even if the interest of the people 
 is considered by the officials, it is misunderstood. 
 Thus alliance may be made for the suppression of 
 popular liberty by combining the force of two or 
 more bodies of officials ; and it matters nothing 
 that the officials conscientiously believe the sup- 
 pression of popular liberty to be good for the 
 people. The maintenance of a system which 
 the majority wish to change may be good for that 
 majority : but the majority are less likely to be 
 wrong about that than are the officials who are 
 the system. 
 
 In 1854 we assisted Turkey against Russia. 
 The alliance was strange, since many in England 
 held that nothing could be worse than Turkish 
 rule : but the English people, incurably optimistic 
 
136 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS 
 
 as to the character of their friends of the moment, 
 apparently hoped great things from the influence 
 of England's friendship over Turkish rulers. In 
 1867 the Sultan of Turkey visited England, and 
 was received not only with official greetings, but 
 with popular enthusiasm. It was supposed by 
 many that the effect of such a welcome would be 
 to make the Sultan reform his manner of rule ; 
 and, of course, no such result followed. 1 But, 
 whatever sane statesmen may have thought, a 
 great number of Englishmen really seem to hope 
 that English friendship for foreign Governments 
 will affect these Governments in a manner of 
 which we should approve. 
 
 It is said by Germany that England's alliance 
 with Russia is in the interest of barbarism, and 
 we regard that as a charge to be refuted. For 
 even if it were to our interest to ally ourselves 
 with a barbaric power, we could hardly believe it 
 moral to assist in the suppression of civilised life : 
 and, in fact, it could hardly be to the higher 
 interest of any civilised nation to increase the 
 power of barbarism in the world. But, clearly, 
 it is not simply because of our interest that we 
 regard it as just to ally ourselves with Russia : 
 
 1 The best record ot work done upon the principle of 
 friendly influence as a ground for reform in foreign States is 
 to be found in the life of Lord Stratford de Redcliffe (Life, 
 by S. Lane-Poole). 
 
ALLIANCE 137 
 
 not any means is justified in the attempt to 
 maintain the interests of England. So that it is 
 usually urged that the alliance may have a good 
 effect in assisting the forces within Russia itself 
 of which we approve ; and this means that we 
 regard the alliance as useful for the promotion 
 not merely of England's financial or military 
 interests, but also for those non-material interests 
 which every self-respecting nation must consider 
 local independence, popular happiness, and the 
 rest. The alliance would be morally justified 
 if it secured the independence of Serbia without 
 imperilling the liberties of the Russian, Finnish, 
 Polish, or Jewish people. 
 
 The argument, therefore, runs in this way. 
 Alliance may have many different causes or 
 purposes : but it invariably has important and 
 good moral effects, at least as between the allies. 
 Such effects are greater in modern times than 
 they have been hitherto, because of the greater 
 consciousness of the mass of men and the closer 
 contact due to swift and frequent communication. 
 Upon alliance, then, we may rely not merely for 
 securing a new moral attitude in any one nation 
 towards foreigners, but also for the common 
 action of diverse States in matters of principle. 
 Alliance may have evil effects upon certain 
 sections of the States allied, or upon small or 
 weak States not in the alliance. These effects 
 
138 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS 
 
 must be considered and prevented : not only 
 because they injure others, but also because even 
 the good effects upon the allied States will be 
 insecure or absolutely destroyed by the common 
 support of evil. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 INTERNATIONAL RIVALRY 
 
 THE relation of States to one another, even if 
 it be considered with a view to morality rather 
 than for the purpose of merely recording facts, 
 must be acknowledged to depend very much 
 upon the opposition of interests. With the best 
 will in the world, the average man feels that the 
 ideals of cosmopolitanism do not sufficiently allow 
 for divergent claims of different groups. Ab- 
 stractly it may be certain that what is for the 
 good of the whole of humanity must be for the 
 good of each and every group of men and women ; 
 but if it is difficult to find the true interest even 
 of a small group on any wide issue, it must be 
 almost impossible, especially by abstract consider- 
 ation, to discover what is really for the good of 
 all human beings. And in any case it is more 
 likely that we shall promote the general interest 
 by developing the interest of separate groups than 
 that we shall help the smaller group by attempt- 
 ing to act upon some vague general principle. 
 For the intelligent pursuit by each State of its 
 
 139 
 
1 40 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS 
 
 own interest will be the most practical method of 
 attaining the true interest of each ; and yet such 
 pursuit seems to lead inevitably to the attack 
 upon the interest of other States. At all costs, 
 however, we feel that the character of each State 
 should be preserved by that State. 
 
 It is our purpose, then, to discover how far the 
 rivalry and opposition between States is valuable 
 and how far it is not. The ultimate criterion 
 must be again the amount of civilised life which 
 is derived by individuals from such rivalry ; since 
 it is misleading here as elsewhere to speak of 
 States as large persons, or to speak of the contact 
 between States as a sort of Individualism. It is 
 the interest of a definite group of men and women 
 which seems opposed to that of another group. 
 And first we must refer to the astonishing psycho- 
 logical variety in the attitude of nations to one 
 another. For the general attitude of a people 
 reflects at least a vague feeling as to who their 
 rivals really are ; and the result has generally been 
 rapprochement with some other group. 
 
 There always have been transferences of national 
 affection, based not upon common blood or tradi- 
 tion but upon supposed common interests ; but 
 never yet has any affection or national sympathy 
 been without some suggestion of a common 
 enemy. The most primitive form of union is 
 based upon common hostility, and the emotional 
 
INTERNATIONAL RIVALRY 141 
 
 adventures of every people appear in history as a 
 record of changing rivalries. 1 
 
 The differences of national feeling in Prussia, 
 for example, have been remarkable in recent 
 years. In 1853, just before the Crimean War, 
 Prussia was supposed to be in agreement with 
 England and France against Russia ; and during 
 that year Prussia was a signatory to notes which 
 Russia rejected. But the general tendency of 
 feeling in Prussia was by no means anti-Russian. 
 Both the King and Bismarck were more than 
 inclined to support Russia. The rising of the 
 Poles in 1863 gave Bismarck the opportunity of 
 going further than abstract amity, and a Conven- 
 tion was signed which practically amounted to 
 armed alliance between Prussia and Russia against 
 the subject race. Whether one can speak of 
 national sentiments in this matter is doubtful, 
 since the agreement of the new German power 
 with the Slav autocracy was largely managed by 
 Bismarck in accordance with his own conception 
 of national interest. In any case the friendship 
 of Prussia for Russia alarmed both the Austrians 
 and the French so far that an attempt was made 
 in 1867 to establish an alliance against their 
 
 1 Thus in individual morality " scandal " is useful in con- 
 versation because the primitive basis for friendship is a 
 common hostility to some third. So the cementing of amity 
 between groups, by war against a common enemy, provides only 
 primitive friendship. 
 
1 42 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS 
 
 union. In 1870 the Russian friendship still 
 continued to make Prussians think kindly of 
 their Eastern neighbour. As late as 1884 Bis- 
 marck was able to procure a secret treaty of the 
 new Germany with Russia, and this remained in 
 force until 1890 ; although national sentiment in 
 Prussia had by that time completely transferred 
 affection to Austria. 
 
 In much the same way we can watch the 
 Prussian sentiment changing with respect to 
 Austria. In 1849 tne German peoples were 
 much agitated by their attempts to consolidate 
 their union in spite of an obsolete dynastic system. 
 Prussia was regarded by many as the friend of 
 democracy, or at least of progress, as opposed to 
 the absolutism of Austria. The Governments of 
 Germany were in difficulties owing to popular 
 excitement ; but a rivalry appeared none the less, 
 and in 1850 the small German States were with 
 Prussia against Austria, Hanover, Saxony, Bavaria, 
 and Wiirtemberg. In July of that year the 
 Prussians, under vague threats from Russia and 
 Austria, were made to feel that their predominance 
 among Germans was definitely opposed by Austria. 
 A league was actually formed by Austria, Bavaria 
 and Wiirtemberg against Prussia (Oct. 1 1, 1850) ; 
 but by 1 86 1 the Prussians had become deliberal- 
 ised and the Austrians were playing with the 
 principles of popular government. In 1862 
 
INTERNATIONAL RIVALRY 143 
 
 Bismarck was called upon by King William of 
 Prussia to give force to the new anti-liberal 
 regime. At once he took up the solving of the 
 German problem by " blood and iron " ; but first 
 German sentiment was stirred by the affair of the 
 Danish Duchies. The diplomatic subtleties of 
 Bismarck do not concern us here. It is sufficient 
 to say that Austria and Prussia found themselves 
 at one in 1864. It was an accidental difficulty 
 for Austria, the Magyar disturbances and Italian 
 sentiment in Venetia, which led to her alliance 
 with her German rival ; and Prussians seem all 
 along to have suspected the ultimate designs of 
 their ally. Feeling against Bismarck and Prussia 
 ran high in Germany, and in Prussia there was 
 still a certain suspicion of the high-handed 
 absolutism of the Chancellor. He continued, 
 however, to take advantage of Austrian difficulties 
 at home and of German disunion to take over the 
 Duchy of Schleswig. 1 
 
 In 1866 Prussian hostility to Austria resulted 
 in open war. But Bismarck, and perhaps the 
 Prussian Conservatives, did not want the ruin of 
 a kindred nation. It was sufficient, as it seemed, 
 for Prussian interests if predominance in Northern 
 Germany was secured. So that the hostility to 
 Austria was transformed into an affection, which 
 grew steadily after the peace of July 1866. 
 1 Convention of Gastein, August 1865. 
 
i 4 4 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS 
 
 Prussian hostility to France is an old inheritance 
 since Napoleon I roused the national spirit by his 
 success; but by the war of 1870 the Prussians 
 seem to have convinced themselves that France 
 was decadent in military power. The enmity 
 involved in their conception of <c interest " was 
 therefore transferred to England. Since the 
 success of the naval scheme in 1900 their sense 
 of rivalry has implied an opposition to English 
 naval power, which they felt as an unwarrantable 
 world-domination hostile to German development. 
 As the militarism of Prussia seems to us a danger 
 to European independence, although to the Prus- 
 sians it seems a bare necessity of their position, 
 so the naval power of England seems to them a 
 menace to the weaker nations, although to us it 
 seems a bare necessity of our life on an island. 
 
 The hostilities of emotion through which 
 England has passed in recent years provide the 
 same kind of evidence. It is not a matter of 
 open war. The sense of national rivalry may 
 not break out into war, and may be all the more 
 obstructive when it does not. Thus France was 
 our " natural enemy " for most of the Renaissance 
 and until the downfall of Napoleon. 1 In 1852 
 
 1 It is impossible to begin national hostility before that. 
 The mediaeval wars were not " national," and our kings were 
 kings of" France." But Stubbs (vide supra, p. 109) preserves 
 the Napoleonic-Wars attitude in his misinterpretation of 
 mediaeval " foreign " policy. 
 
INTERNATIONAL RIVALRY 145 
 
 our first Volunteer Movement originated in fear 
 of invasion by the French. Two years after we 
 were allied with the French in the Crimean War 
 against Russia. For many years about this period 
 Russia was our " natural enemy " ; and it was 
 " proved " that the two Imperial powers in Asia 
 could not fail to be hostile. France meantime 
 had come into the Russian orbit, and in 1898 our 
 " natural " hostility to France showed itself in 
 connection with the Fashoda episode. A very 
 few years after, the Entente Cordiale bound us to 
 France, and we then began friendly arrangements 
 with Russia. Thus in 1900 our " natural " enemy 
 was Germany ; and it was proved not merely 
 that it was for the moment a convenience to be 
 friendly to France, but that the advanced demo- 
 cratic peoples of France and England were 
 "naturally" to be allied. 1 
 
 All this shows that there is a sense of rivalry 
 between organised nations which, whether it leads 
 to war or not, is of immense political importance. 
 For on it are based the vast expenditure on arma- 
 ment, 2 the panics which disturb industry and the 
 
 1 I need not refer to the popular expression of political 
 rivalry, although it is effective in the formation of general 
 sentiment. German table-manners and domestic life are 
 abhorrent to us now as were French manners and " frivolity " 
 in Nelson's time. 
 
 2 How impossible it is to consider the nature of the State 
 with only a passing reference to " external " relations is seen 
 
 L 
 
146 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS 
 
 transference, especially where there is compulsory 
 military service, of countless energies to the mere 
 waiting for war. 
 
 What, then, is the real basis of international 
 rivalry ? It is unlikely that rivalry is based only 
 on illusions, although the particular forms which 
 it takes at certain times are supported by illusion. 
 Let us therefore examine, first, the current " ex- 
 planations " of rivalry in which the change of 
 rivals is admitted, for we cannot count as reason- 
 able the idea that any rivalry is eternal or funda- 
 mental or natural. It is only a rivalry based upon 
 a definite situation which can be worth explaining. 
 
 The " inevitable causes " of rivalry usually 
 referred to are (i) natural expansion and (2) 
 Evolution. But what is natural expansion ? 
 We connect it with colonies and " a place in the 
 sun." It is held to be " natural " that a country 
 with a high birth-rate should expand: and ex- 
 panding generally is allowed to mean the extension 
 of a state-system. 1 This must be dealt with 
 
 from the fact that taxation based on rivalry (for " defence ") 
 in every civilised country exceeds taxation for " all internal 
 functions taken together" (Sidgwick, Elements of 'Politics, Ch. XV. 
 par. i, note). 
 
 1 It is interesting that this " reason " for expansion is new. 
 The same idea was supported originally by quite a different 
 "reason/' which still affected Neitzsche. The original "reason" 
 is to be found in Machiavelli, that it is the nature of the State 
 to expand (Disc. I. 6, la necessita la conducesse ad ampliare) ; and 
 the evidence for that is Livy's rendering of Roman history ! 
 
INTERNATIONAL RIVALRY 147 
 
 abruptly. It cannot follow that, because within 
 the frontiers of a modern State there are now 
 more inhabitants than there were, the frontiers 
 should be enlarged. For, in the first place, no 
 State has developed fully the land or resources 
 within its frontiers, and until this is done there 
 is no valid reason for demanding more. If 
 there is distress within the frontiers, it is not 
 due to the compression of the inhabitants. The 
 implied metaphor is childish and futile. One 
 would imagine inhabitants to be so thick that they 
 jostled one another. Distress is due to neglect 
 of resources and maldistribution of wealth, not 
 to lack of land. And, secondly, if there are too 
 many inhabitants within the frontiers they can 
 easily cross any frontier without the extension of 
 their own state-system. Against this it is urged 
 that they are u lost to the State " : by which it is 
 meant that they cannot be taxed or made to serve 
 in the army ; and that is no reason for expanding 
 the State to the detriment of other States. It 
 may, however, be urged that the " surplus popu- 
 lation " does not wish to part with its own insti- 
 tutions ; and that would be a reasonable ground 
 for their retaining their own law and government. 1 
 
 1 Either by not naturalising themselves in the new country 
 or by transforming the institutions of the new country in the 
 direction they desire. But the whole idea implied in the 
 word " surplus " is absolute nonsense. 
 
148 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS 
 
 But even that would not excuse the conquest of 
 new lands ; for it is quite reasonable to say that 
 the surplus population must sacrifice either its 
 prospects of wealth or its continuance with the 
 same law and government. The man who is not 
 willing to sacrifice prospects of greater wealth for 
 active citizenship in his old State does not value 
 his citizenship as much as his income ; and the 
 man who values his citizenship so highly as to 
 want his State to expand over him wherever he 
 goes, might reasonably sacrifice a large income to 
 what he values so highly. 
 
 The whole idea of expanding by conquest of 
 colonies is based upon bad history and obsolete 
 politics. 1 England did not conquer colonies in 
 order to find room for surplus population, and 
 the period is long since gone when vast open 
 spaces could be cc possessed " by conquerors. The 
 surface of the earth is now politically a whole with 
 no edges or fringes. 2 
 
 1 As a fruitful source of war the acquisition of seaports in 
 the East for trading purposes is one of the most important (cf. 
 C. W. Eliot, Some Roads Towards Peace, p. 18). 
 
 2 Prussian policy still bears the mark of a rather primitive 
 stage of thought. I do not think that it is simply the state 
 of war which makes us suspect the Prussian diplomatists of 
 ambitions in the direction of foreign conquest. They have 
 learnt, indeed, that such conquest is impossible or in some way 
 undesirable on the continent of Europe : the difficulty of 
 treating a group of men and women in Alsace-Lorraine as 
 conquered property has become evident. But they still seem 
 
INTERNATIONAL RIVALRY 149 
 
 But, undoubtedly, if expansion means the taking 
 over of " spheres of influence " or the superseding 
 
 to imagine that colonies should be captured by the strongest 
 power. Thus they confessed aggressive intentions with respect 
 to the French colonies. 
 
 They appear to imagine that nations inhabiting or govern- 
 ing much land should be regarded as natural enemies of nations 
 with less. They seem to think that England " owns " Canada 
 or Australia and that the ownership can be changed by a 
 successful war. But Canada and Australia are not patches 
 of land, they are groups of men and women who are in no 
 sense owned by the inhabitants of England. Even if they 
 were under the direct government of London officials, they 
 could not be counted as property any more than Yorkshiremen, 
 who are not owned by the offices in Whitehall which collect 
 taxes or take measures for the military defence of Yorkshire. 
 I do not know whether Bavaria seems to be a Prussian 
 possession. 
 
 As to colonies which are really inhabited by what we may 
 call subject races, there may seem to be more ground for the 
 Prussian idea, since even in England there is much careless 
 language about " our possessions." But in practice, even in 
 such cases, we do not treat native races as property. 
 
 Such races are ruled by English system of law and govern- 
 ment for their good and often with the acquiescence of the 
 majority of the governed. They are not held down by military 
 force, nor are they in any sense " possessed " by the English 
 State, even though there may be many evil deeds of dispossession 
 and tyranny on the part of individual Englishmen. 
 
 As a matter of fact the surplus population of Germany has 
 gone largely to South America and to the United States. It 
 has not gone to the German " possessions " in Africa or in the 
 East Indies. And has Germany lost anything by this move- 
 ment ? She gained the immense development of her Atlantic 
 trade, which grew quite independently of the strength of the 
 German Navy or the extent of the German state-system. 
 Even the diplomatists have never said that the growth of such 
 
150 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS 
 
 of a more primitive by a more developed state- 
 system, then, whether it should occur or not, it is 
 occurring and is a real basis for rivalry and a 
 fruitful cause of war. 1 In Africa and farther Asia 
 there is a contact of European States as rivals over 
 the decrepit bodies of native Governments ; and 
 we may see a like situation later in some parts of 
 South America. Why, then, it may be asked, 
 does one State feel that this sort of expansion on 
 the part of another is to be opposed ? First, 
 because States tend to restrict trade in their own 
 interest in countries over which they expand. 
 The conception of restricting trade is based upon 
 the false economics which aims at impoverishing a 
 prospective buyer. 2 When that is no longer used, 
 expansion will not involve rivalry. And, secondly, 
 the State " expanding " does undoubtedly aim at 
 military advantage ; but when the test of value 
 among States is no longer savage this kind of 
 expansion will cease. The conclusion is not, of 
 
 wealth was due to the Navy : the existence of the wealth was 
 made an excuse for the Navy, and it has never been shown that 
 the power of the Navy increased the wealth of Hamburg. 
 
 Germany has also gained a solid body of friends in America 
 in the company of her sons who have lived there for many years. 
 
 1 See Eliot's report to the Carnegie Endowment on the 
 influence of Western ports in China, etc. Also P. S. Reinsch, 
 World Politics at the end of the 'Nineteenth Century as Influenced by 
 the Oriental Situation , 1 900. 
 
 2 Cf. the French " expansion " into Morocco and the secret 
 Conventions of 1 904. 
 
INTERNATIONAL RIVALRY 151 
 
 course, that there is no reasonable rivalry of the 
 physical kind, but only that such rivalry is not 
 natural or inevitable, being simply due to the 
 undeveloped state of international feeling, which 
 again is due to the primitive ideas of government 
 and political institutions. 1 
 
 As for " Evolution," the word is a sort of 
 political " black magic." It means nothing and 
 excuses everything. Even if races were in conflict 
 for survival, as individuals were once imagined to 
 be, there is another and a better conflict than the 
 conflict of brute force. In defiance of Nature, we 
 men apply to individuals the test of character and 
 not that of physical force or low cunning. And 
 if we applied the same sort of test to groups, it 
 would not follow that a State should be hostile to 
 another either because of having more or because 
 of having fewer citizens. Quality, not quantity, 
 is what we hold best. A small State of fine 
 citizens is " better " than a large State of fools. 
 But " Evolution " in such a case is nonsense. 
 " Survival of the fittest " is an obsolete charm. 
 When we ask " who are the fittest ? " we are told 
 " those who survive " ; and when we ask " who 
 survive ? " we are told " the fittest " ! Obviously, 
 
 1 I disagree with Sidgwick here. His conception that the 
 guiding policy of States with respect to each other should be 
 non-interference is undeveloped Individualism wrongly applied. 
 No one now believes that non-interference is the basic principle 
 in realising even the individuality of persons. 
 
152 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS 
 
 then, evolution is neither a justification nor a 
 decent excuse for national rivalries : for even 
 if " Nature " tries races in this way, a proposition 
 by no means proved, we must confess that the 
 process leaves us without any enthusiasm ; and a 
 moral politics cannot be based on mere adoration 
 of natural processes. 
 
 Such are the alleged causes of national rivalry. 
 What are the real causes ? First, there are the 
 sinister and unmentioned causes. States are often 
 persuaded into mutual hostility by financiers for 
 increase in armament trade or for exploiting 
 natives, 1 or by newspapers for copy or sensation ; 2 
 or peoples are engineered into hostility by a 
 Government which feels insecure. 3 All these are 
 causes of dangerous rivalries, and they must be 
 dragged out into the open if we are to distinguish 
 the reasonable and the natural from the artificial 
 contrivances of private greed or personal ambition. 
 
 There is, however, a reasonable ground for 
 rivalry. If States are to remain distinct and 
 
 1 Cf. The War Traders, by E. H. Porris, where the details 
 are given of faked information being used by armament firms 
 to induce Governments to spend more on arms. 
 
 2 The Hearst papers are known to have engineered the 
 Spanish-American War. 
 
 3 Napoleon III was eager to maintain military prestige when 
 his administration was causing discontent. Bismarck, in his 
 Reminiscences, seems to imply that hostility to France was 
 useful to him for the same purpose avoiding internal reform, 
 Russia has often played the same game. 
 
INTERNATIONAL RIVALRY 153 
 
 systems of law and government may continue 
 to differ, for the advantage of all humanity, the 
 independence of state-development must be 
 secured. We have spoken of this above as one 
 of the guiding conceptions of foreign policy. It 
 is the reasonable basis underlying the obsolete 
 methods of a Balance of Power. It is true that 
 no one State can be allowed to predominate over 
 all others : it is true that each State must take 
 measures to secure independent development ; and 
 it is true that possible danger to such development 
 comes now from one State, now from another. 
 The changes in rivalry which we have noticed 
 above are not unreasonable : it was not foolish 
 for England to be afraid of Napoleon III in 
 December 1851, or of Prussian militarism in 
 1914. 
 
 There is rivalry, and so long as States are 
 conceived as " armed bands," the rivalry will 
 take a military form. Politically it is not 
 possible to disarm. That is obvious. But we 
 do not here depend only upon the wrinkled 
 and dotard past, which hobbles upon the political 
 stage. We bow to it and pass on. For there 
 is a new form of rivalry gradually being sub- 
 stituted in the minds of citizens for the primitive 
 rivalry of physical force. 
 
 Individuals do not now think it necessary to 
 preserve their individuality by strengthening their 
 
154 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS 
 
 muscles. Indeed, individuality is more prominent 
 when physical rivalry is set aside : the primitive, 
 who are able to defend themselves from each 
 other, are more like one another than the civilised 
 who have not learnt " self-defence." 1 It is true 
 that the new kind of rivalry is only possible be- 
 cause force is exerted by the State to prevent the 
 old kind from being used. But the point is that 
 the abolition of the use of private force has not 
 resulted in less but in more individuality. One 
 savage is more like another savage in thought and 
 action than is one civilised man like another. 
 
 In the same way military rivalry, so far from 
 securing distinct, independent and characteristic 
 development of each State, tends to make all 
 States more similar. If we wish, therefore, to 
 secure a complete individuality for our State we 
 must contrive to use some other than the 
 military-economic rivalry. 2 The argument is 
 that the physical form of rivalry does not effect 
 the purpose for which alone it could be justified. 
 
 1 The psychological law would be that attention to defence 
 inhibits characteristic development, by concentrating all force 
 upon one purpose. That purpose being the same for all who want 
 to defend themselves, they tend to become all like one another. 
 
 2 Hegel's argument for war thus falls to the ground. He 
 says " individuality must create opposition and so beget an 
 enemy" (Phil, of Right, 324); but if that were so we 
 should still need personal enmity for development of character. 
 His history is simply out of date : but he wrote, of course, in 
 1820. 
 
INTERNATIONAL RIVALRY 155 
 
 We put aside war, then, not because we disap- 
 prove of war, but because warfare and the prepara- 
 tion for warfare do not result in independent 
 development. 
 
 What other form of rivalry is possible ? The 
 future will indicate that more fully ; but we can 
 at present see that it is on the lines of specialisa- 
 tion of function. Individuality of persons has been 
 secured by specialisation of knowledge and special- 
 isation of business. So also " individuality " of 
 groups will be secured by developing the special 
 function of each group in the world polity. 
 This specialisation began with the world-situation 
 reviewed above. England before the war was 
 supplying some needs to the whole world, and 
 Germany others. Russia was supplying some, 
 and France others. This situation in times of 
 peace would tend to develop. And not only in 
 industry but also in ideas is there specialisation of 
 function. 1 The result upon the political institu- 
 
 1 The war has set back the development of this tendency. 
 Every State has had to become suddenly more self-sufficing, i. e. 
 more isolated, /'. e. more primitive. In England we have had 
 to begin the manufacture of articles which before the war we 
 could obtain more economically from Germany. The war- 
 party in Germany foresaw this situation and, by way of 
 preparing for war, set themselves to resist the civilising 
 tendency to specialisation of function. Cf. von Billow's 
 Imperial Germany. The author (p. 209) actually prides himself 
 on resisting the development of German industry because it 
 would make Germany dependent on other States. 
 
156 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS 
 
 tions of the different groups would be inevitable, 
 and they would come more closely into contact 
 and organise themselves more adequately in in- 
 dependence of one another. They would be 
 rivals, but not in warfare. 
 
 It may not be correct to use the word rivalry in 
 this sense. If that is so and the older meaning is 
 the only one possible, then perhaps we shall do 
 without any rivalry. But we continue to use the 
 word State and nation in senses unknown to our 
 grandfathers, and so perhaps we may use rivalry 
 to indicate the independent development of groups 
 organised for different purposes. 
 
 Again, it might be argued that the new and 
 civilised rivalry cannot replace the older rivalry 
 of force until some superior force above all the 
 States is established ; on the ground that the 
 individual does not use force to protect his in- 
 dividuality only because another force, the State's, 
 is used instead. But such an argument overlooks 
 the fact that force used by the State is really based 
 upon the changed attitude of individuals. 
 
 The new idea of individuality comes first, 
 although vaguely, and then the use of physical 
 force is given up by individuals. The conception 
 of the relation between men changed and was no 
 longer that of purely physical conflict : then only 
 could the new political situation come about. 
 And the same is true of group character or of 
 
INTERNATIONAL RIVALRY 157 
 
 national independence. A new conception of what 
 these are must come first ; and then we may con- 
 sider the formation of an international police 
 force. New standards of value in the rivalry 
 of States, not those of purely economic-military 
 kind, must take hold of the minds of the average 
 citizens, and then we may begin to speak of laying 
 down arms. For if an international force were 
 now established it would probably be used only 
 to perpetuate the brute conflict of power which is 
 the greatest obstacle to the progress of civilised 
 life. We must begin, then, from some such idea 
 as this : there is no " danger " to national de- 
 velopment in the increase of interdependence 
 between States, as there is no danger to personal 
 individuality in the doctor's depending on the 
 shoemaker for his shoes. And the sudden 
 refusal of the shoemaker to supply the doctor 
 probably hurts the individuality of the shoe- 
 maker just as much as that of the doctor. 1 It 
 
 1 Independence is a means to individuality of the person or 
 the group. If characteristic development is secured, "in- 
 dependence " may be disregarded. The old individualism 
 obscured the issue by the emphasis on non-interference a 
 purely negative concept. Difference is promoted by differentia- 
 tion of function ; but even independence, in a new sense of 
 the word, may be said to be also promoted by the same 
 differentiation. 
 
 A person is independent in two senses : (i) when he does 
 everything for himself and also (2) when he does what he is 
 capable of doing. The former (primitive) is the independence 
 of the stone, the latter (organic) the independence of the eye. 
 
158 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS 
 
 is the purpose of foreign policy, then, to promote 
 the specialisation of function between States as a 
 f means to real individuality of character. For 
 isolation is not true independence ; or, at least, 
 the most valuable form of independence cannot 
 be arrived at by isolation, since isolation preserves 
 only material independence, whereas co-operation 
 secures independence of thought and character. 
 One of the chief purposes of foreign policy must 
 be the preservation and development of this in- 
 dependence ; but it cannot be conceived any 
 longer in terms of the Renaissance philosophy 
 or the individualistic enlightenment. It will be 
 seen to be in its finest and most human form 
 when it is understood to be simply the complement 
 or corollary of interdependence. 
 
 We are at present working in this matter with 
 two irreconcilable hypotheses. Foreign Policy, 
 in all States, is based at once on the old idea of 
 rivalry and on the new. It promotes military 
 spying and commerce ; but one or the other 
 must cease, if we are not to continue our vicious 
 circle of war after war. 
 
 But the eye does not lose independence because it cannot 
 hear ; for in fact the attending to many functions causes a 
 lessened ability to do what is most suitable and therefore most 
 pleasant. The man who might be an artist is not more 
 independent in life on a desert island where he has to spend 
 most of his time killing and cooking : he has less real freedom 
 to develop what is characteristic of him. 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS AT WAR 
 
 AT certain crises the conflicting interests of 
 States lead to war : and war is not an appeal to 
 any moral criterion. 1 Either the conflicting in- 
 terests cannot be arranged according to the 
 accepted view of moral values, or there is no 
 accepted view according to which it may be plain 
 to all which interest ought to give place to the 
 other. The interests which are in conflict may 
 be either material (economic) or non-material 
 (independence, reputation, development, etc.) ; 
 but even non-material interests leading to war 
 do not make war in itself a moral relationship. 
 For war, being conflict between groups, is essen- 
 
 1 I take it for granted that no one seriously believes that 
 in a contest of physical force the man or men who are better 
 morally are necessarily victorious. Such a belief would be 
 a survival of the mediaeval Trial by battle, etc. All that 
 is decided in war is strength (military or economic) ; and the 
 world is not necessarily better morally because the stronger 
 survive, except according to the confused Evolutionism of the 
 nineteenth century, which does not distinguish a moral value 
 from a physical, or seeks to " transcend" both in an imaginary 
 Absolute. 
 
 *59 
 
160 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS 
 
 tially a setting aside, for the moment and so far 
 as the conflict is concerned, of moral criteria as 
 to which interest should prevail. But the state 
 of belligerency is complex, and many things occur 
 which are not warlike acts : therefore, even when 
 the interests of States are in conflict to such an 
 extent that war becomes possible, the relationship 
 of States does not cease to be moral. If war 
 were mere conflict of brute force, then it would 
 be the end of moral relations, at least between 
 the belligerents ; but, in fact, it is unusual in 
 modern times to find States in conflict of an 
 unrestricted kind, and so long as groups of men 
 are related otherwise than in physical conflict, 
 their relations are in that degree moral. And 
 not only are some moral relationships preserved 
 between belligerent States, 1 but even in the actual 
 exercise of force a most important moral element 
 is to be found. 
 
 The first and most important fact is that even 
 the use of force does not generally compel or 
 induce a civilised group to the use of unlimited 
 force. We must, therefore, discover what the 
 limits imposed are, and then endeavour to explain 
 the grounds on which such limits rest. For to 
 say that the contending parties are, at least, not 
 supposed to go to any lengths, implies that we 
 do not imagine that even in actual conflict the 
 1 In truces, exchange of prisoners, etc. 
 
MORALITY OF NATIONS AT WAR 161 
 
 opponents are without some moral regard for one 
 another : they have not become purely animals 
 or purely machines. In some ways they may 
 be purely opponents in force or cunning ; but 
 in some ways they remain still obedient to a 
 moral criterion : so long, that is, as " there are 
 some things which no fellow can do." 
 
 Of the ameliorations of war, as they are called 
 in International Law, there are two main classes. 1 
 Some relate to the use of force or guile as 
 between combatants, and others relate to a 
 distinction made in comparatively recent years 
 between combatants and non-combatants. This 
 is not the place to describe in detail the con- 
 ventions of war, for our purpose is to discover 
 what moral relationship is implied in the existence 
 of any such conventions, and not merely to classify 
 or to prove that such-and-such conventions exist. 
 
 It will be sufficient to give some examples of 
 the restrictions usually supposed to be made 
 even in the exercise of physical force. Poisoned 
 weapons are not supposed to be used ; explosive 
 bullets are not to be used, nor those which 
 expand on entering the body. There are certain 
 buildings, conveyances and persons marked with 
 the Red Cross : these must not directly be 
 attacked or destroyed. When a combatant is 
 
 1 See Lecture VII in Maine's International Law, and J. E. 
 Holland, A Lecture on the Brussels Conference 0/1874, publ. 1 876. 
 M 
 
1 62 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS 
 
 wounded he must be given " quarter," and may 
 even be cared for by those of the opposite side. 
 Prisoners of war are not supposed to be killed. 
 As for the distinction of combatants and non- 
 combatants, it is a strange development in the 
 history of warfare : at present it is usually sup- 
 posed that only those in a recognised uniform 
 may be directly attacked ; and these alone, on 
 the other hand, are allowed to attack in depend- 
 ence on the conventions covering wounded or 
 prisoners, for if a non-uniformed assailant be 
 captured he may be executed as a criminal. 
 
 The greater number in any civilised group 
 chiefly, of course, women and children are sup- 
 posed not to be directly attacked. They are not 
 to be killed or enslaved. War is, therefore, now 
 defined in International Law, not as the conflict 
 between States but as the conflict between the 
 armed representatives of States. 
 
 Property also is protected by certain conventions 
 in time of war. As between belligerent States, 
 private property on land is not to be directly 
 destroyed or taken. Private property on the sea 
 is not quite so well protected in the mind of the 
 time ; and the point is, not that there are not 
 established " conventions," but that the restriction 
 of physical force in this matter is not supposed to 
 be so great. 
 
 The existence of war changes the relations 
 
MORALITY OF NATIONS AT WAR 163 
 
 even between States which are not at war and 
 those which are at war. Neutrality has become 
 a very elaborate section in International Law. 
 The belligerents are not supposed to interfere 
 with certain Neutral rights even in the exercise 
 of physical force against their opponents. In all 
 this we have not merely much legal interest but 
 the delicate moral issue as to the reason for re- 
 strictions of force. We do not mean the power 
 of conventions : that is no reason. The question 
 is, Why were such conventions ever made ? Why 
 do we suppose that even the omnipotent State 
 should not use every force ? And if not every 
 force, why even such force as is now used ? For 
 nearly every argument against poisoned weapons 
 or explosive bullets is equally valid against 
 modern shell-fire or torpedoes. And if non- 
 combatants are to be recognised, why would not 
 ten combatants on either side be sufficient ? The 
 idea is ludicrous ; but that is only because the 
 whole conception of restricting the use of force 
 in one way and not in another is ludicrous. 
 
 Even the limitation of force in war now 
 admitted, however, is comparatively recent. The 
 greater part of the limitations in the matter of 
 weapons, so far as convention goes, is not older 
 than the nineteenth century. 1 One can hardly 
 
 1 Poisoned weapons only forbidden in 1868 by the 
 Declaration of St. Petersburg. Treatment of wounded agreed 
 
1 64 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS 
 
 imagine what happened to the wounded in 
 Napoleonic and earlier wars. There was no 
 Geneva convention, no Red Cross, no elaborate 
 ambulances. The surgery was primitive, and the 
 care of the diseases incidental to a campaign 
 practically non-existent. On warships the situa- 
 tion was even more terrible than on land ; but 
 here, of course, we have made less change. 
 
 Non-combatants were not likely to fare well 
 when a town was taken by storm, as we may 
 judge from Wellington's remark that he had for- 
 bidden his soldiers to sack and murder in Spain. 1 
 The ancient privilege of conquest was revived at 
 the taking of Pekin by the European nations : 
 but this was generally supposed to be retaliation, 2 
 
 to only in 1864, by the Geneva Convention. This was 
 directly due to private energy in publishing descriptions of 
 the battlefields of Solferino, etc. (1861). Holland, loc. cit., 
 and Maine, loc. cit., p. 199. 
 
 To go further back, our Black Prince caused innumerable 
 murders at Limoges. Henry V executed prisoners. The 
 sack of Magdeburg is famous, in which of 25,000 only 2,000 
 were left when the house-to-house murdering was over. 
 Before the " Red Cross " a black flag was used to cover the 
 work of surgeons, etc., but it was an inadequate protection. 
 The new Geneva convention (Red Cross) was vigorously 
 opposed by military men as tending to lessen the effectiveness 
 of their action (for details and proof, see Holland, loc. a'/.). 
 
 1 He announced to the people, however, that if there was 
 any armed resistance among those not soldiers he would 
 " totally destroy their towns and hang up all the people 
 belonging to them." 
 
 2 Retaliation or retorsion is morally interesting, as the 
 
MORALITY OF NATIONS AT WAR 165 
 
 and most modern armies would not sack or 
 murder in a city taken by storm. 1 Something 
 has been achieved in recent years, after the long- 
 lasting brutalities of human history. Indeed, the 
 farther we go back in history, the more unlimited 
 is the use of available force in war : until we 
 come to a time when the only limitation was 
 made in the interest of the conquerors, who 
 would not slay if they could enslave, and would 
 not burn what they could use. But, whatever 
 the reason, as soon as the limitation of force sets 
 in, it becomes a habit. 
 
 We should have to go very far back indeed to 
 find absolutely unlimited exercise of force, and in 
 those days States could not be held to exist ; 
 so that we may say that war as an official conflict 
 has always implied some restriction in the use of 
 force. Long before conventions existed there 
 were limits imposed by general sentiment which 
 could not be over-ridden even by conquerors 
 except in the supremest crises. It is not usual to 
 poison food or water, to assassinate generals, or 
 
 pain never falls on the actual culprits. In it the citizen is 
 treated as identical with the State : what any agent of his 
 State does, any citizen is supposed to have done. A modifica- 
 tion of this primitive morality is necessary (Westlake, Coll. 
 Papers, p. 259 seq.). 
 
 1 Murder and outrage were common incidents in the 
 Balkan Wars of 1912, 1913. See Report on Balkan Wars 
 (Carnegie Endowment). 
 
1 66 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS 
 
 to do certain quite possible but nameless things 
 which would bring a war to speedy termination. 
 It is quite possible to think of innumerable acts 
 which even primitive States could have done to 
 be successful in their wars, and they have not 
 done them. It is possible still more nowadays 
 to imagine engines of destruction or modern 
 subtleties which could quite easily give us the 
 victory but we dare not use them. 1 
 
 A gradual amelioration of war has excluded the 
 possibility of certain weapons or the prevalence 
 of certain actions. 2 We are in advance of our 
 forefathers, at least in sentiment : since we gener- 
 ally feel that there are some things which should 
 not be done even when we are at war, although 
 this feeling is always in danger of being sub- 
 merged by a sudden access of fear. But although 
 we may congratulate ourselves on the moral 
 progress implied in the Red Cross and the 
 abolition of poisoned weapons, we must also 
 recognise that the present conventions are only 
 
 1 When war has destroyed the normal inhibitions upon 
 which civilisation depends, there is no telling how far men 
 may go. Poison is already used ; there are some few, not less 
 effective, brutalities which have not yet been used in this most 
 " civilised " war. One cannot well describe them ; but it is 
 perfectly possible to prevent the return of the wounded to 
 the firing line. Will calculating barbarism, using modern 
 science, break down that inhibition too ? 
 
 2 The number of these actually excluded lessens as the 
 present war goes on ; but there are still a few left. 
 
MORALITY OF NATIONS AT WAR 167 
 
 a few successful attempts surviving from the 
 innumerable desires of idealists to keep physical 
 force in control of moral sentiment. The record 
 is long of the attempts to ameliorate war which 
 have failed. 
 
 The crossbow was once forbidden, but it came 
 into use : x the musket seemed barbarous to men 
 who used only bows and arrows ; but it was soon 
 common in every army. Shells were supposed 
 to be too barbarous in 1789, but all armies now 
 use them. The rifle, which replaced the old 
 smooth-bore gun, was regarded as hardly to be 
 used in civilised warfare, but it now is everywhere. 
 Men tried to forbid the use of the bayonet ; but 
 that too was introduced, and first made common 
 by Frederick the Great of Prussia. Torpedoes 
 were at first thought barbarous, but were soon 
 adopted by all nations. So that, clearly, two 
 forces have been at work in the making of the 
 present situation an ever-increasing power of 
 destruction and a sentiment which has only been 
 partly successful in limiting the use of that power. 
 If the sentiment had been stronger we should not 
 now be using the bayonet or the torpedo, and 
 who can tell what other mechanical devices ? If 
 the sentiment had not been so strong we should 
 
 1 Pope Innocent III forbade the use of instruments to cast 
 stones, etc. (artem illam mortiferam et odibilem ballistariorum), 
 at least against Christians. 
 
1 68 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS 
 
 now be assassinating generals, poisoning weapons, 
 and slaughtering the wounded. 
 
 He would indeed be a subtle historian who 
 could explain why the civilised State is willing to 
 use certain methods and not certain others in 
 destroying its " enemies " : but whatever the 
 explanation, the distinction exists, and not all the 
 violation of this or that convention can quite put 
 us back to the unlimited use of force. This, 
 however, has not made much real difference to 
 the destructiveness of war. On sea, when Nelson 
 lay alongside his opponent and both pounded 
 away at point-blank range there was less destruc- 
 tion of life than when, as in the Falkland Islands 
 battle, ships travelling at about twenty-five miles 
 an hour sank German ships also travelling at that 
 rate at a range of over eight miles, by firing 
 shell in arcs so high that they could have passed 
 over Mont Blanc. In an action between evenly 
 matched fleets there is no reason why any one at 
 all should survive. 
 
 On land, between dawn and sunset on March 
 10, 1915, at Neuve Chapelle 2,337 men anc ^ 
 1 90 officers were killed : x and we were victorious. 
 
 1 Details in Sir John French's despatch, published April 
 1 5th- 
 
 Officers. Men. 
 
 Killed .... 190 2 >337 
 
 Wounded .... 359 8,174 
 
 Missing .... 23 I >?28 
 
 Total . . . 572 
 
MORALITY OF NATIONS AT WAR 169 
 
 What the enemy lost we do not know. This is 
 only a trivial episode in a really civilised war. 
 In conflict with slightly less effective weapons, 
 however, Bulgaria suffered the deaths of 44,313 
 men and 579 officers killed, in the two wars of 
 1912 and 19 13.* It is clear that they are not so 
 civilised in the Balkans, although they assisted the 
 civilised methods of destruction by the killing of 
 sick and wounded. 2 
 
 In destroying more than lives we are also 
 very much advanced. When men built Rheims 
 Cathedral or Ypres Town Hall they had not 
 the power to destroy them except with much 
 hard labour : now a few well-planted shells lay 
 flat the careful work of many years. 
 
 The power of destruction is greater now than 
 it ever has been, in spite of all conventions and 
 
 1 The whole population of Bulgaria before the wars was 
 4,337,516, of whom perhaps one-quarter (1,084,376) were 
 capable of bearing arms. The losses were 
 
 Killed. Wounded. Missing. 
 War against Turkey 
 
 Officers . . . 313 915 2 
 
 Men .... 29,711 52,550 3,193 
 
 War against the "Alliei" 
 
 Officers . . . 266 816 69 
 
 Men .... 14,602 50*303 4>56o 
 
 Totals (Officers) . 579 1,731 71 
 
 (Men) . . 44,313 102,853 7,753 
 
 44,892 104,584 7,824 
 
 2 For all details see Report on Balkan Wars (published by 
 the Carnegie Endowment, Washington, D.C.). 
 
i yo THE MORALITY OF NATIONS 
 
 sentiments. And there is no reason whatever 
 why our power should not increase even more 
 rapidly in the near future. The probability is 
 that we shall in the next few years be able to 
 destroy much more effectively and at a still 
 greater distance. We may be able to prevent 
 the return of wounded to the firing line. It 
 would shorten wars. We may even be able to 
 destroy whole towns at one blow. It would 
 make victory more certain. One hardly likes 
 to mention what may easily become possible in 
 the near future if States really give their minds 
 to the continuance of war. 
 
 Again, the calculus of pain is difficult to make ; 
 but, allowing for the numbers engaged and the 
 effectiveness of the instruments employed, it is 
 clear that in recent wars the pain has been much 
 increased, in spite of all our conventions and all 
 our kindness to the wounded. That pain, more 
 even than the deaths of many, is a legacy of 
 warfare such that it is infinitely multiplied among 
 our more sensitive populations. The numberless 
 and subtle terrors which may attend on all not 
 merely on soldiers from the air, from bombard- 
 ment at fantastic distances, from chemical poisons, 
 from skilfully manipulated disease all this the 
 future holds in store for us, unless perhaps the 
 restricting sentiment which has so ineffectively 
 limped behind our intellectual ability gains some 
 
MORALITY OF NATIONS AT WAR 171 
 
 new strength. That only can keep us from the 
 use of nameless deeds : but it is a delicate growth, 
 and can easily become callous to the death and 
 maiming of millions. That sentiment, however, 
 has already done something ; and it is difficult to 
 explain why it has not done more. 1 
 
 1 -fj 2A.7ris fieyaXr), It was when war was at its worst that 
 Hugo de Groot made the world listen to his idea of limiting 
 force ; so now, bad as things seem, the new sentiment may 
 rise. 
 
 Compare " The Evolution of Peace " (Essay VI in T. J. 
 Lawrence's Essays on some disputed Questions of International Law, 
 2nd ed. 1883). From 1880-1885 in wars between civilised 
 nations 2,000,000 men were killed. Russell is quoted, from 
 the Times, on the battlefield of Sedan : " Masses of coloured 
 rags glued together with blood and brains and pinned into 
 strange shapes by fragments of bones. Men's bodies without 
 heads, legs without bodies, heaps of human entrails attached 
 to red and blue cloth and disembowelled corpses in uniform." 
 Vice of all kinds arises in the heat of war lust, private 
 murder, theft, hate and brutishness. Insanity is more frequent 
 in our more civilised noises of war. No one has yet put on 
 record the nature of the stench arising from decaying corpses in 
 Poland and France owing to the rapidity with which civilised 
 nations can destroy life. 
 
 Compare also Ch. XI in the Collected Papers of J. West- 
 lake (Camb. 1914), on War: the rules of war, considered as 
 Laws, where it is argued that the sentiment for restricting 
 force is less in modern popular States. There is " a public 
 impatience of any restrictions." The important German theory 
 of necessity is stated in full. Professor Lueder is quoted (from 
 Holtzendorf's Handbuch des Volkerrecht) as saying that " ravage, 
 burning and devastation, even on a large scale, or of a whole 
 neighbourhood and tract of country . . . may be practised " ; 
 when the " necessity " demands it or even when the 
 resistance is " frivol." This is called Kriegsraison (as opposed 
 
172 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS 
 
 Even if war may be supposed to be necessary 
 or inevitable a proposition we do not even con- 
 descend to argue about still, it would not follow 
 that this or that instrument of destruction was 
 necessary or inevitable. If a shell is an inevitable 
 exercise of force, why is not a poisoned weapon 
 inevitable or the murder of wounded ? We 
 " draw the line " somewhere. Why draw it 
 where we now do ? Indeed, when cavalry 
 generals assert that war must be the ultimate 
 test of the conflicting interests of States, they do 
 not commonly define what they mean by war. 
 War might mean very much more than it does 
 in the exercise of the " arbitrament of the 
 sword " ; but it might also mean very much less 
 than it does. In which sense is it " inevitable " ? 
 Is it inevitable that millions of men should fight ? 
 Why not that women and children also should ? 
 
 The answer to all these problems is a simple 
 one. It is not direct : it implies much which 
 
 to Kriegsmanier (law of war). It is clear that the judgment 
 as to when it is necessary and when the resistance of the 
 opposite side is " frivol " must be that of the commander. 
 Besides that, Westlake shows that as no State goes to war 
 except by necessity, necessity is always present to excuse any 
 violence as soon as there is war. " But," says Westlake, " it 
 need not be greatly feared that Professor Lueder's own 
 Government will ever give effect to his doctrine by ordering 
 the devastation of a whole region as an act of terrorism." 
 This was published in July 1914. See the Bryce Report 
 (published May 1915) on what was done in August 1914. 
 
MORALITY OF NATIONS AT WAR 173 
 
 cannot be put into words ; but it shows at least 
 why the sentiment which has excluded poison 
 has not excluded cordite. 
 
 The truth is that our intellectual progress is 
 immense, and our moral progress ludicrously 
 small. Our concepts governing Nature are 
 immensely advanced since the days of Greek and 
 Roman ; but in governing human action we are 
 using obsolete and inadequate theories. Moral 
 progress, however, does not consist of an increase 
 in good intentions. The attention given to cul- 
 tivating goodwill has indeed been one of the 
 direct causes of our moral incompetence ; for it 
 has involved a neglect of knowledge. And it is 
 our moral knowledge which is deficient. We do 
 not know what actions are right and what are 
 wrong, and why : or at least we have made no 
 noticeable advance upon our great-grandfather's 
 conceptions in this matter. The old issues have 
 not been reconsidered and new issues have not 
 been faced. But it is moral progress only which 
 will master and subdue our increasing ability to 
 destroy. 
 
 So obsessed are we with Kantian Pietism in 
 philosophy, or Hegelian confusion of everything 
 in an Absolute, that it is even misleading to 
 speak of moral progress. We do not mean that men 
 should feel more virtuous or should become more 
 saintly than their grandfathers ; we mean that men 
 
174 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS 
 
 must leave good intentions to take care of them- 
 selves and acquire a knowledge of moral facts by 
 the same methods which have been successful in 
 physical science by direct inquiry into evidence 
 and the making of certain and universally valid 
 conclusions. We shall at least have to avoid 
 taking it for granted that conflicting interest be- 
 tween groups makes it inevitable that men should 
 use every power in overcoming. We shall at least 
 discuss, what many appear to take for granted, 
 whether the State has not a higher purpose than 
 even its own self-preservation : and perhaps it 
 may be whispered that in the case of divided 
 allegiance, when a man finds his duty to his State 
 in conflict with other duties, it need not necessarily 
 follow that his duty to his State should take 
 precedence. All kinds of accepted moral plati- 
 tude will have to be dragged out into the open : 
 and we shall stand up at last in our own right to 
 give judgment upon the State. But what solution 
 we find for these problems will depend upon a 
 judgment of evidence : and until we begin to 
 understand what the evidence is, we cannot even 
 approach a conclusion. The empty aspirations of 
 sentimentalists are of no more moral worth than the 
 submissions of the economists to " natural law." 
 
 The present situation, then, in the morality of 
 nations or States has not abolished the use of 
 physical force. Normally the citizens of different 
 
MORALITY OF NATIONS AT WAR 175 
 
 States trade with each other or interchange ideas, 
 in dependence on a moral attitude not essentially 
 different from that of fellow-citizens in the same 
 State. But at certain times it seems impossible 
 to maintain that attitude. Perhaps the interests 
 of the organised groups are in conflict, perhaps 
 one group. is aggressive, perhaps all groups are 
 hypnotised by fear whatever the reasons, real or 
 imaginary, for the declaration of war war is 
 declared. Even that, however, does not altogether 
 destroy the moral relationship of the combatants, 
 since it is felt, however vaguely, that " there are 
 some things that no fellow can do." l That is to 
 say, we treat our enemies as something more 
 than beasts or machines ; which implies that we 
 continue to treat them as moral beings. This 
 restricting sentiment is a comparatively recent 
 growth, and its effectiveness is endangered not 
 only by the tides of passion or fear which arise 
 in war, but also by the unparalleled increase in 
 intellectual power over natural forces. It is of 
 little value that we deny ourselves the use of the 
 crossbow if we can use the rifle ; and it will be 
 of little value that in the future we may deny 
 
 1 It would be an interesting moral investigation to discover 
 how far the average soldier thinks it possible to go, or how 
 far the average citizen thinks the State can command him to 
 go, or how far the women of a State are willing that their 
 defenders should go. Defence would clearly be more adequate 
 if it were more deadly. 
 
176 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS 
 
 ourselves the use of dumdum bullets if we can 
 use modern chemicals. 
 
 The morality of nations can only survive if we 
 are able to subordinate our power over Nature to 
 our knowledge of man. For the power over 
 Nature is morally colourless. The same ability 
 which gives us an exquisite shell might give 
 us greater comforts in peace. Which way the 
 ability is used depends entirely on our conceptions 
 of the nature of man in society and of what is 
 worth while in life. And such conceptions are 
 not inspired or intuitive. They are the results of 
 intellectual labour. The prime need, then, of the 
 present is a continued and universal investigation 
 into our moral conceptions, into the nature of 
 citizenship, of the State and the relationship 
 between States. We have been so obsessed with 
 physical science that we have neglected to develop 
 the other realms of knowledge. In material 
 power we are immeasurably superior to our 
 grandfathers, in political and moral thought 
 we stumble through primaeval darkness. 
 
 In the morality of warfare, however, it is not 
 simply a question of searching in the dark. One 
 principle at least stands out from the facts we 
 have considered. It is not very definite, perhaps, 
 and appears rather as a vast figure in the darkness 
 of our international morality, whose nature is 
 rather guessed at than understood. But it is 
 
MORALITY OF NATIONS AT WAR 177 
 
 there clearly enough for all practical purposes. 
 That principle is the basis of all convention and 
 of all restriction of physical force. 
 
 The moral relationship of nations cannot begin 
 with agreed conventions nor even with the en- 
 forcement of such conventions. It must begin 
 with a firm establishment among the citizens, at 
 least of civilised nations, of the attitude of mind 
 and the habit of action which alone make any 
 conventions possible. If there is anything which 
 stands out from the facts we have recited it is 
 that there are innumerable acts which no civilised 
 nation could do which are not covered by any 
 convention. Destroy every vestige of the Hague 
 Conferences and we should still find that warfare 
 was not the unlimited exercise of force. There 
 is something stronger than the sentiment of 
 respect for wounded or for non-combatants, 
 something which survives even when a calculat- 
 ing brutality throws these to the winds, something 
 which gives pause even to the conventional 
 modern barbarian, who is barbarian by vicious 
 argument and not by accidental impulse. It is 
 the acquired habit of generations. Upon that 
 alone we may rely for the security of many 
 limitations of force which were not mentioned at 
 the Hague ; and upon that really depends the 
 security even of such conventions as are con- 
 scious. For many generations, unconsciously, we 
 
178 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS 
 
 have simply put aside as utterly impossible certain 
 actions which were quite common in primitive 
 times ; and some actions at least no nation would 
 dare to do. How secure the acquired habit is, 
 one cannot tell. A great war, great passion and 
 great fear, endanger old inhibitions. The strain 
 may set us back to utter barbarism. But so far 
 we are safe : and we are safe only so long as 
 acquired habit makes it impossible to use certain 
 forces. The line of progress, therefore, is the 
 securing of this habit of mind and action, in spite 
 of all temptations to retaliate, and the deliberate 
 increasing of the number of those acts which 
 habit makes it impossible to do. 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 PEACE RELATIONS 
 
 WE may presume that, in spite of occasional 
 wars, peace is now the normal situation between 
 most States. That it is still an armed peace is 
 true, but it is peace. The situation, however, 
 needs some examination, both because (i) its 
 nature is entirely different from any peace which 
 preceded 1850, and because (2) ordinarily the 
 word " peace " is supposed to mean only the 
 negative of war. But, conceived as a Renaissance 
 or a mediaeval cessation of hostilities, modern 
 peace cannot be understood ; and so long as we 
 continue to imagine war to be a time for positive 
 action and peace only a time for doing nothing, 
 so long will the old attractiveness of war continue. 
 For men and women, though incurably lazy during 
 most of life, delight in occasional fits of energy ; 
 and peace, being conceived to deny energy, is 
 regarded as something unworthy of the higher 
 aspirations of man. 
 
 Sentimentalists, indeed, have made too much 
 of peace. We are speaking here not of the 
 
 179 
 
180 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS 
 
 supposed beauties or delights of peace, but of 
 its commonplace nature. And first it is necessary 
 to recognise that the contrast between peace and 
 war, as it appears to the popular imagination, is a 
 result of false history. Not only is it false to 
 say that war is a period of activity ; it is a direct 
 reverse of the truth. In periods of war less, 
 not more, is done ; and preparation for war is a 
 well-known cause of the inertia and idleness 
 during years of peace. 1 In peace much more is 
 achieved in producing and using all the higher 
 resources of the civilised life. And again, not 
 merely is less done in war, but less need be done. 
 The activities essential to the prosecution of war 
 are comparatively simple ; but in peace there is 
 very much to be done. How, then, it may be 
 asked, does the morality of a nation seem to receive 
 new impetus from war, in the devotion to unselfish 
 ends and the self-sacrifice incidental to bearing 
 arms ? 2 For in peace it seems that men seek 
 only their own private interests and do nothing 
 for the State : or parties pursue their programmes 
 without subordination to a higher loyalty. But in 
 
 1 Thus Bacon says, " warlike nations are lazy." Essay on 
 Empire. 
 
 2 The misrepresentation ot war is largely due to the ignor- 
 ance of professed philosophers. Hegel makes the army the 
 highest essence of the State, and he says, " The military class 
 is the class of universality," which, besides being an obscure 
 compliment, is also false (Phil, of Right, 327). 
 
PEACE RELATIONS 181 
 
 \var all. this is changed. Therefore war is some- 
 times said to be a moral tonic, in so far as it rouses 
 men to unselfishness or the facing of danger : 
 peace seems to mean inertia or egoistic activity. 
 We cannot deny the truth of this, but the 
 reason for it is instructive. That reason is the 
 undeveloped political imagination. The needs of 
 peace are more pressing, more various and more 
 exalting than those of war ; but few are able even 
 to see them. The moral perception is obscured 
 by conventional ideas ; and indeed the senti- 
 mentalism of the advocates of peace is as nothing 
 by comparison with the sentimentalism of those 
 who accept the ancient idea that the finest service 
 of the community is the bearing of arms. There 
 are opportunities enough for unselfishness, public 
 service, and even danger or death, in the service 
 of the State in times of peace ; but few see them : 
 and this because we do not really consider what 
 we mean by peace, but leave it to mean only 
 cc not war." We do not see that modern peace is 
 not anything specially virtuous or sanctimonious, 
 but only an opportunity for a life of full and 
 varied activity. That the opportunity has not 
 been used by very many may be true : it 
 may even be true that such opportunity will 
 never be used. We cannot tell. But it is 
 nothing against an opportunity of this kind that 
 men are too undeveloped to use it : just as it is 
 
1 82 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS 
 
 nothing against wealth that those who possess it 
 seem to find time hanging on their hands. A 
 subtler imaginative development uses great 
 opportunities more fully and makes much even 
 of very limited means. So it is with the vast 
 majority of the so-called civilised : their con- 
 ceptions of what is enjoyable are indications of 
 the undeveloped imagination. Men do not lack 
 leisure so much as they lack knowledge of what 
 to do with it if they have it. Put a savage 
 in a theatre or a library and he will be " bored " 
 until he can scalp some one : give the semi- 
 civilised peace and they will long for war. The 
 reason is that they cannot see what may be done 
 unless what is to be done is very simple and 
 obvious. It is their understanding of peace itself 
 which is at fault. 1 
 
 What, then, is modern peace ? The answer 
 is to be found partly, as we have already said, 
 in the complex interchange of goods and ideas 
 under the influence of the various ^institutions 
 other than States, which in modern times have 
 become international. This has affected the 
 political situation so as to make it more difficult 
 
 1 " Till all the methods have been exhausted by which 
 Nature can be brought into the services of man, till society is 
 so organised that every one's capacities have free scope for their 
 development, there is no need to resort to war for a field in 
 which patriotism may display itself" (Green, Principles of Pol. 
 ObL, 171). 
 
PEACE RELATIONS 183 
 
 for the State to pass either from peace to war 
 or from war to peace. It is said of organisms 
 that the higher or more complex they become, 
 the more difficult is any structural rearrangement 
 to meet a new environment. And however that 
 may be, the complex institution is certainly less 
 adaptable. It is easier for Serbia to pass either 
 from peace to war or from war to peace than 
 it is for England. There is less dislocation in 
 an agricultural than in an industrial country, and 
 in proportion as the occupations of peace become 
 more diverse and more specialised, in that pro- 
 portion the State suffers by declaring war. For 
 modern peace is the condition or opportunity 
 for the exercise of very complex interdependent 
 functions, political, industrial and cultural ; and 
 the peace which preceded the Napoleonic wars 
 was, therefore, quite different from the peace 
 which preceded the present war, at least as re- 
 gards the more developed States. It must be 
 recognised, therefore, that the very necessities 
 of modern life make peace so full of diverse 
 activities that war becomes more and more 
 dangerous to civilised life as civilised life becomes 
 more complex. 
 
 But not only industrial complexity separates 
 modern from ancient peace. It was, or will be, 
 a new intellectual period. 
 
 The peace preceding this war, at least as 
 
1 84 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS 
 
 between States which we have called " modern," 
 had lasted from 1871 to 1914. That alone would 
 be sufficient to prove it a unique phenomenon 
 in European history ; and during those years the 
 mental and bodily activities of European men 
 and women were habituated to the situation. So 
 consolidated had the peace become that even 
 modern war could not set back belligerents to 
 the state of complete severance which supervened 
 in wars of the non-modern period. For example, 
 in 1904, in the midst of the Russo-Japanese 
 war, Russians and Japanese met at the Scientific 
 Congress at St. Louis, U.S.A. 1 It would not be 
 difficult to quote examples of the same sort even 
 in the present embittered hostility. 2 
 
 During the period 1871-1914 populations in- 
 creased, wealth not only increased but was more 
 subtly and effectively organised according to the 
 principles of the joint-stock company, the mastery 
 over Nature and the supply of human needs 
 developed immensely ; and in the purely political 
 sphere every nation became more conscious of 
 
 1 Reinsch, Intern. Unions, p. 185. The same sort of 
 meeting occurred in the wars of the eighteenth century, but 
 those were dynastic non-popular wars, when feeling did not 
 run very high. 
 
 2 Through the bureaux for communicating with prisoners 
 of war, and contacts of persons in neutral countries, communi- 
 cation is not stopped as it used to be. We even hear what is 
 officially announced to the citizens of the opposing States. 
 
PEACE RELATIONS 185 
 
 its special character and every State moved towards 
 democratic forms of government. 
 
 The conclusion as regards morality is some- 
 what subtle. All the various functionings of 
 modern peace are really services of the com- 
 munity as valuable at least as military service 
 in time of war. In a sense they are not u serving 
 the State " ; for, as we have seen, " the State " 
 is not the only organisation for the civilised life ; 
 but they are not therefore selfish or egoistic 
 occupations. The idea that what is not done " for 
 the State " is done for yourself is due to the 
 old universalism of " the State," and the lack of 
 any theory as to other social bonds besides that 
 of citizenship. Even the Socialists have been 
 misled by obsolete ideas. They have tried to 
 redeem peace by making all occupations state- 
 services ; but in that they have accepted the 
 antiquated conception of the State. Their pur- 
 pose, however, was reasonable. They saw that 
 we suffer from lack of social perceptiveness, and 
 they emphasised the social causes and the social 
 results of all action. 
 
 It is obvious, however, that the business man, 
 or the engineer, or the writer, has generally no 
 conception of " service " ; and a higher moral per- 
 ception is, perhaps, needed in the carrying out 
 of the various social functions during modern 
 peace. But the point now is that, whether they 
 
1 86 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS 
 
 know it or not, those who perform such functions 
 are really " serving the community," and it makes 
 no difference whatever that they make their 
 own living by it. Nor would making livings 
 by such service destroy the moral quality of 
 it, if it were consciously service. As a mere 
 economic necessity it is not moral ; but as a 
 conscious fulfilling of social function the special- 
 isation of modern peace is moral. And perhaps 
 this is more commonly recognised than is be- 
 lieved. Nothing is more remarkable in the 
 period preceding 1914 than the growth of the 
 social conscience, the emotional perception of 
 disease and poverty, not as mere opportunities 
 for benevolence, but as the result of social forces 
 and as causes of social decay. And this conscience 
 is not confined within the boundaries of States. 
 Those who feel any social evils are likely to 
 sympathise with the citizens of other States who 
 feel the same evils. A common suffering sub- 
 ordinates to sympathy distinctions of law and 
 government, and with this fact the statesman of 
 the future will have to reckon. 
 
 The true nature of modern peace, however, 
 can best be seen in the direct influence of States 
 upon one another. The agreement between 
 States on certain methods of arranging life within 
 their own borders is one of the most interesting 
 features of the late nineteenth and early twentieth 
 
PEACE RELATIONS 187 
 
 centuries. Fortunately this has been worked out 
 in detail, and we need not repeat here the results 
 of the investigations of Professor Reinsch. 1 
 
 He counts and gives details of twenty-eight 
 different agreements between States, no one of 
 which was in existence before the middle of the 
 nineteenth century. These comprise agreements 
 on methods of communication, regulation of 
 trade, of prisons, of sanitation, of police (fisheries 
 police and suppression of slavery) besides scientific 
 common work. The point is that this has been 
 done besides whatever is due to private enterprise 
 or voluntary associations. The States themselves 
 have assimilated their institutions or have intro- 
 duced new methods in common ; and this, not 
 because of any sentimental regard for co-op'era- 
 tion, but simply because in practical politics it 
 
 1 Public International Unions, by P. S. Reinsch, 1911. The 
 list includes the International Unions for (i) Telegraphs, 
 (2) Wireless, (3) Postage, (4.) Railway Freight, (5) Auto- 
 mobiles, (6) Navigation ; the Agreements on (7) the Metric 
 System, (8) Industrial and Literary Property, (9) the Publica- 
 tion of Customs Tariffs, (10) Protection of Labourers, (il) 
 Sugar, (12) Agriculture, (13) Insurance, (14) Prisons, (15) 
 Sanitation, (16) Pan-American Sanitation, (17) Opium, 
 (18) Geneva Convention, (19) Fisheries Police, (20) Pro- 
 tection of Submarine Cables, (21) African Slave Trade and 
 Liquor Traffic, (22) White Slave Traffic, (23) South American 
 Police. And there are the following scientific Unions : (24) 
 Geodetic Association, (25) Electro-technical Commission, (26) 
 Seismological Union, (27) Union for the Exploration of the 
 Sea, (28) Pan-American Scientific Union. 
 
1 88 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS 
 
 saves time and money. Thus, the very institutions 
 which according to the ancient hypothesis were 
 self-sufficing and complete in themselves, have not 
 only been influenced by the other interests of 
 civilised life outside the region of politics, but 
 in a strictly political sense and in direct depend- 
 ence upon other States, have adopted governmental 
 action together. No more glaring contradiction 
 could be given to the whole of the ancient idea of 
 the State. It is to be noticed that this is direct 
 peace policy, and not any mere alliance for war 
 or for avoiding war. 1 The States have preserved 
 their independence and have acted together. They 
 have even accepted common institutional arrange- 
 ments (postage, telegraph, etc.), and their char- 
 acteristics have not been obliterated. And all 
 that has been done while the theorists of expansion 
 and prestige and " vital interests " slept or kept 
 their one eye upon possible war. 
 
 But we can only calculate prospects of the 
 future by reference to actual achievement. A 
 peace policy in terms perhaps of the mere avoid- 
 ance of war but really with a new spirit, is 
 embodied in the Treaty between the United 
 Kingdom and the United States of America 
 signed on September 15, 1914. It provides that 
 
 1 Nearly all these Unions or Agreements were originally 
 suggested or contrived by private citizens who used their 
 influence upon officials. 
 
 
PEACE RELATIONS 189 
 
 " all disputes between them, of any nature what- 
 soever, other than disputes the settlement of 
 which is provided for and, in fact, achieved under 
 existing agreements between the High Contracting 
 Parties, shall, when diplomatic methods of adjust- 
 ment have failed, be referred for investigation and 
 report to a permanent International Commission 
 . . . and they agree not to declare war or begin 
 hostilities during such investigation and before 
 the report is submitted." 1 'The security for such 
 a policy is not in the signatures, but in the new 
 attitude which such an agreement indicates. And 
 such an attitude is the result of the years of peace. 
 Since the nineteenth century about one hundred 
 disputes have been decided by arbitration. Arbi- 
 tration agreements of a limited kind have been 
 entered into by the United Kingdom with twelve 
 other States ; 2 and in the two years 1913, 1914, 
 the United States of America entered into Peace 
 Commission Treaties with eighteen different 
 States, chiefly on the American continent. 3 
 
 These are only a few indications of the new 
 relationship between States ; and from them alone 
 it would be obvious that the word State refers to 
 
 1 Treaty, Art. I. 
 
 2 Par/. Papers, Misc. No. 9 (1909), Cd. 4870. 
 
 3 Salvador, Guatemala, Panama, Honduras, Nicaragua, 
 Netherlands, Bolivia, Portugal, Persia, Denmark, Switzerland, 
 Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Venezuela, Great Britain, 
 France, Spain, China. 
 
190 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS 
 
 something very different from the partly isolated 
 and mutually suspicious governments of the early 
 nineteenth century. The institutions themselves 
 are transformed. From such a transformation 
 one may judge of the intangible but more im- 
 portant change which has taken place in the 
 sentiments of civilised men and women ; and 
 although the change in actual politics seems to be 
 small, that change is already having its effect on 
 the sentiments even of the unthinking. 
 
 We may turn now to the problem which is 
 more fundamental in the study of morality. 
 What course of action is to be adopted on the 
 part of institutions so variously related ? It is 
 generally agreed that a peace policy is the only 
 one reasonable ; and we need not trouble to 
 argue with those who advocate, if any do, a 
 policy of war or of aggression. But while 
 diplomatists and statesmen proclaim their ad- 
 hesion to a peace policy, no one seems to inquire 
 what such a policy would be. And we may be 
 bold enougl^ to say that, whatever may be true 
 in future/'there certainly has never yet been a 
 peace policy. For the avoidance of war is not 
 a peace policy. 
 
 In private as well as in public morality we are 
 hampered by an obsolete conception of what 
 morality is. We have inherited, among other 
 mistakes, the idea that there is some " command " 
 
PEACE RELATIONS 191 
 
 implied in the moral " ought " but that is a 
 general issue in Ethics which it would be out of 
 place to discuss here. Along with the idea of 
 command, however, has gone the use of negatives. 
 We have been supposed to know from "the 
 moral law " what we should not do. The Mosaic 
 code reasonably, considering its date, was chiefly 
 insistent on the avoidance of certain actions 
 swearing, coveting, killing, adultery. Morality 
 consisted, as it then seemed, in not doing these ; 
 and although there was a half-hearted command 
 to do something in loving your parents, this 
 seemed an exception in a rule of life which was 
 an inculcation of avoidances. Such, of course, 
 morality is, in a primitive state of society. Taboo 
 is the first law ; and society depends upon inhibi- 
 tions. But by an accident of history this ancient 
 type of law became the embodiment of morality, 
 even when the whole structure of society had 
 changed. Life, therefore, became an obstacle 
 race. The moral man was he who did not do 
 things. The good life was a successful avoidance. 
 It is clear that this is a conception of morality 
 belonging to a primitive time. Civilised morality, 
 as Plato and Aristotle knew, is a doing of actions, 
 not an avoiding. It is positive and not negative. 
 And moral knowledge consists in knowing what 
 to do, not what to avoid ; for life is not an 
 obstacle race, but a fine art. The moral man is 
 
1 92 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS 
 
 he who acts, not he who avoids action. The 
 moral life is varied and complex activity, not the 
 successful escape from temptation. 
 
 The most pernicious effect, then, of the older 
 conception of morality was that " moral instruc- 
 tion " definitely became an instruction in immorality. 
 The knowledge of what not to do involved explain- 
 ing to children the meaning of vice ; for if your 
 commands contain words like " adultery," " theft " 
 and the rest, unless you are to leave them mere 
 sounds, you must explain to your pupils their full 
 meaning. But this involves impressing ideas of 
 vice upon the mind. 
 
 This is all criticism of morality in general, and 
 its importance will depend upon the development 
 of the same theme in elaborating an art of life for 
 individuals. That is another issue. / The same 
 obsolete system, however, has been in vogue in 
 group-morality. We have been made to feel, 
 feebly enough, what we must not do, and no one 
 has considered what we should do. The State in 
 contact with other States should avoid this and 
 that ; but no one has said how the State should 
 act positively in the relation to other States. 
 
 Thus there never has been a peace policy 
 because there has been no conscious official activity 
 in the complexities of peace. The policy of avoid- 
 ing war has been the highest imagined ; and it 
 has had the same effect as the inculcation of 
 
PEACE RELATIONS 193 
 
 avoidances in private morality. For the idea of 
 avoiding an action tends to concentrate the mind 
 upon that very action. The real thought is given 
 to the obstacle, and successful policy seems to be 
 a mere avoidance of it. Hence every one under- 
 stands how great a benefit the State may derive 
 from war, in the knitting together of its citizens ; 
 and no one has ever considered that citizens might 
 be more closely knit in times of peace. For war 
 has been considered at least to be action ; but 
 peace only a time in which not to do what you do 
 in war. Hence also the peace of 1871 to 1914 
 has been an armed peace ; and the ancient lie has 
 survived that one may secure peace by preparing 
 for war. While the current of events has steadily 
 transformed society and, with it, its political insti- 
 tutions, the official mind was still obsessed with 
 the primitive idea of group- morality. Policy was 
 negative ; and the danger of war filled the minds 
 of statesmen who might have turned attention to 
 new and positive action. With a new conception 
 of group-morality, however, we should regard it 
 as our first task to discover what the State should 
 do in times of peace with respect to other States. 
 Something is, as we have seen, already done ; but 
 it is unconscious and hardly part of a settled policy. 
 A real peace policy would involve the increase of 
 official activity in the name of the State and for 
 the benefit of all the citizens, in the direction of 
 
194 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS 
 
 benefiting other States and gaining their trust. It 
 is perfectly well known that some States tend at 
 certain times to hostile feeling. A peace policy 
 would involve action in order to correct that, on 
 the part of the State which is regarded as hostile. 
 And also perhaps, even if the hostility is between 
 two neighbouring States, a peace policy would 
 suggest conciliatory action on the part of some 
 third. This is not Utopian, nor is it some heroic 
 morality to which the average citizens could not 
 rise. It could probably be shown, if we had all 
 the documents, that such a policy has at least 
 fitfully been pursued by some statesmen. 
 
 In any case, the present situation, even in spite 
 of a great war, is so different from that of our 
 grandfathers that we must conceive the moral 
 relationship of States differently and, with a new 
 view of what is done and what can be done in 
 peace, the policy of every State will change. Our 
 conclusion must certainly be that one of the 
 changes of recent years is the change in the 
 meaning of peace. 1 War also has changed, as 
 
 1 Lest the idea of a peace policy should seem new, it is well 
 to be reminded that ever since the early years of Christianity 
 there have been some who stood out against the preparation for 
 war (cf. E. Nys, Les Origines du droit internationeL Bruxelles, 
 Paris, 1894, Ch. Ill, "Christianity and War," and Ch. XVII, 
 " Les Irenistes"). The Friars attempted to preach in this 
 sense ; and a society, the Fratres Pacis, spread through France 
 in the twelfth century to protest against the continual mediaeval 
 wars. At the Renaissance Colet preached directly against 
 
PEACE RELATIONS 195 
 
 we have seen, and to write history or to give 
 ethical judgments which confounded, because of 
 a mere similarity of name, the events of the 
 Hundred Years War with the events of the last 
 few months would be like confusing the Mill 
 on the Floss with Mill on Liberty. The word 
 " war " has absolutely changed its meaning. 1 And 
 so has "peace." The new situation has given to 
 the complex relationship between States which we 
 call peace a colour which was impossible in our 
 grandfathers' time. It is as different from their 
 peace as our finance is different from theirs. 
 
 Henry VIIPs war policy. More, in the Utopia, Erasmus and 
 the other humanists, all protested in the same sense. In later 
 times the protests were even more frequent, but the historians 
 have commonly neglected them. 
 
 1 For the change in the meaning of war, see Hobhouse, 
 Morals in Evolution, Pt. I. ch. vi. New Edition, 1915. 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 NEEDS OF THE STATE 
 
 STATES are organised groups, and such groups 
 are related morally one to another. Such state- 
 ments do not go beyond the actual facts admitted 
 by every one nowadays. But the relations have 
 affected the modern State so that even with respect 
 to one's fellow-citizens the attitude of many is 
 somewhat different from what it was in the past. 
 There is a modern tendency, due in part to the 
 new situation, which is of extreme importance for 
 the future. It concerns, first, the bond by which 
 the modern citizen feels himself held within his 
 own State ; and, next, the relationship in which 
 the few at least in every State feel themselves to 
 be with respect to the citizens of other States. 
 
 This is not the place to discuss the appearance 
 of what has been called the social conscience in 
 matters of social reform. But it is recognised on 
 every hand that, whatever the distresses of the 
 present, the emotional atmosphere with regard to 
 this has been transformed within the last hundred 
 years. It has always been recognised that a 
 
 196 
 
NEEDS OF THE STATE 197 
 
 complex social organisation is accompanied by 
 much poverty and disease. Attempts have often 
 been made to deal with these, and generally on 
 the ground of benevolence or charity. But the 
 modern social conscience is the indefinite feeling 
 of discontent even with the partial success of 
 charity. It is now felt that social distress exists 
 because of forces which can and must be controlled. 
 Prevention, not cure, is our purpose. Charity 
 implies that the recipient has no right to what he 
 gets ; but now we believe that poverty and disease 
 imply disregarded rights. We now feel that the 
 social organism is real and that individuals are 
 not atomic. We seek the re-establishment of 
 human association in place of or beside the merely 
 economic and legal. Contract took the place of 
 Status. Now Co-operation takes the place of 
 Contract. The whole community suffers from the 
 disease and poverty of some ; and the State must 
 conquer such evils or decay. Social reform, 
 development of national resources, education, 
 protection of the weak all these are matters of 
 pressing importance. 
 
 All these, then, may be " needs of the State/' 
 But here our subject must be allowed to limit 
 the discussion of these needs to such as regard 
 immediately the foreign relations of the State. 
 Since the State is not isolated, it has needs other 
 than those of domestic or internal reform. The 
 
198 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS 
 
 other needs arise from the situation created by 
 contact with foreign States ; and they are supposed 
 to be represented and supplied in our foreign 
 policy. And further, such needs are our needs 
 not the needs of a government. Our honour, 
 our interests and our obligations are supposed to 
 govern foreign policy : and the same might be 
 said of the citizens of every civilised State. Their 
 needs also are recognised by their representatives 
 in contact with foreigners. But this is new. 
 
 It would not require much reference to ancient 
 texts to show that foreign policy was once sup- 
 posed to represent not the needs of the governed 
 but rather those of the government. Napoleon III 
 is believed to have been at least not unwilling 
 to undertake war in order to secure his rule in 
 France. But now in every country war or peace 
 is supposed to be contrived in the interests of the 
 whole group of the citizens. For their sake what 
 is done had to be done. 
 
 And when the result of our foreign policy is 
 war, the cry is " Your king and country need you." 
 It may be supposed that the need has existed 
 before : or shall we say that king and country 
 can get on very well without us until there is 
 a war ? And if king and country need us in time 
 of peace, why has it never been said ? Are the 
 citizens not needed by the Government for any 
 common action in times of peace ? Or are they 
 
NEEDS OF THE STATE 199 
 
 only sources of income to the Services ? However 
 that may be, the need is at last acknowledged 
 that the State cannot exist without entire depend- 
 ence on its citizens. And what is needed ? 
 Military service and whatever in engineering or 
 manufacture is subservient to this : in a time of 
 crisis such is really the need. But even the non- 
 warlike employment of citizens is now recognised 
 as a need of the State. Education must go on 
 and the provision of food and clothing : and all 
 this not for supplying individuals who pay or for 
 maintaining individuals who work, but " for the 
 State." This surely involves a change of attitude 
 at least for the moment : and even if it cannot 
 last, its effects will endure. 
 
 But to say that the king and the country need 
 us will obscure the issue, if we do not understand 
 that the need is reciprocal. King and country 
 need us as we need king and country. What is 
 endangered is the institution under which we live, 
 which we fight for because we need it. We need 
 it to make life endurable or pleasant, or because 
 we think that there is more hope for our future 
 in our institution than in others. It is quite clear 
 that in every civilised nation the conscious citizen 
 values his political institutions and is willing to do 
 anything which may be necessary for preserving 
 them. And the danger from foreign aggression 
 only makes the value of our own system more 
 
200 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS 
 
 obvious. The special need being admitted and 
 acted upon, we are driven to consider the more 
 general issue. If these are the needs of the State 
 at present, what are its needs in normal times with 
 respect to foreign nations ? And as soon as we 
 ask, the usual host of antiquated and obsolete 
 conceptions appear to answer. The felt needs are 
 not all the real needs ; and the real needs are often 
 misrepresented by the same limited conception of 
 the State with which we have dealt above. We 
 must, therefore, first examine the rektionship of 
 the citizen to his State, in so far as he may feel his 
 need supplied by the State for his contact with 
 foreigners. We must discover what governing 
 conception makes him support his State in this or 
 that action with respect to foreign States. 
 
 The need with respect to foreign States has 
 always been conceived in terms of opposition. 
 The chief need felt normally by the mass of 
 citizens is the need of independence : this has 
 been consciously accepted even when other needs 
 have really been supplied. So that the average 
 citizen feels his State with regard to foreign 
 States to be chiefly a defence : hence in action 
 for his State, in contact with other States, he feels 
 that the chief need is military. But other needs 
 have existed, and have actually been supplied, 
 without impressing the mind so as to correct or 
 modify the older view of international relation- 
 
NEEDS OF THE STATE 201 
 
 ship. We have always needed, although we have 
 not always wanted, honesty in our dealing with 
 foreigners, suggestions from foreigners in ideas 
 of reform, and goods of foreigners for the amen- 
 ities of life. These are, however, unnoticed and 
 unconscious needs. What is conscious is our 
 need of independence, leading directly through 
 a normal attitude of pure opposition, to such 
 crises as produce war in generation after gener- 
 ation. For these wars have all been effects, at 
 least in part, of the governing conception of what 
 our State needs and what it is. The situation 
 is not very different in the various civilised 
 countries, but we may make our argument more 
 pointed by confining attention to England. What 
 do we think England is ? What, in fact, have we 
 been taught she is ? The answer is to be found 
 in the established conventions of history. 
 
 History is supposed to be the source of patriot- 
 ism, in the sense that from it one may derive 
 some rational idea of what is meant by " King 
 and Country." From history we are supposed 
 to learn what has made England what she is. 
 The theme of the story is the growth of the 
 inheritance into which we have been born ; and 
 if there is any moral judgment implied, as well 
 as mere record of fact, we are supposed to see in 
 history the good and the bad gradually evolving 
 into a better state of things. In the course of 
 
202 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS 
 
 this evolution the modern State has appeared ; 
 and we are supposed to find in history an explan- 
 ation of the institutions under which we live, 
 which we desire to maintain and, at times of 
 crises, are called upon to defend. What sort 
 of State, then, do we find in the established 
 history ? 
 
 History has been for generations the mere 
 record of conflict wars and rumours of wars, and 
 the marriages of kings. We may put aside for 
 the moment the fact that such a record is no 
 explanation of how we come to be as we now 
 are, and we may acknowledge that history in 
 recent times has been by no means altogether 
 a mere list of exceptional events. It is true 
 that historians have, after many generations of 
 mediaeval chronicling, contrived to mention how 
 common men lived and how most men thought 
 in the past. History is not the crude journalism 
 which it once was ; but the crudities of the old 
 history hang about the meaning we give to the 
 name of England. For the "history" of Eng- 
 land's foreign relations is only a record of conflict, 
 or at most an occasional reference to a dynastic 
 alliance. We cannot possibly avoid the conclusion 
 that such foreign relations are in the essence of 
 things. 
 
 Undoubtedly the current conception of the 
 State, as in pure opposition to foreign States, is 
 
NEEDS OF THE STATE 203 
 
 due in part to the idea that the history of Eng- 
 land's foreign relations is to be found in the 
 records of war, or in trivial personal alliances 
 between unintelligent princelings and passive 
 brides. And even the modern historians, while 
 they are no longer date-and-fact journalists, 
 remain provincial in the restriction of their 
 theme. There is very little, if any, acknowledg- 
 ment of the influence of the relations of England 
 with foreign countries in the development of 
 even English thought and habits. The two 
 causes the mistakes of the old history and the 
 limitations of the new combine to prevent us 
 rising to a new conception of the needs of the 
 State. For, first, " England " is supposed to be 
 concerned primarily in such adventures as Crecy 
 and Agincourt. Plans of battles, not plans of 
 towns, are the illustrations of text-books ; armed 
 men, not scholars or traders, are the English of 
 the past. Now, quite apart from the fact that 
 " England," the modern State, was not in exist- 
 ence and that " the enemy " in mediaeval times 
 were certainly not great national groups apart 
 from the fact that the whole conception of organ- 
 ised groups in opposition is an anachronism when 
 applied to the Middle Ages clearly England 
 did not mainly come into contact with the non- 
 English in the adventures of war. Crecy and 
 Agincourt and the rest are merely chance episodes 
 
204 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS 
 
 in the steady current of international growth. So 
 that the foreign relations of England must be 
 looked for in the cosmopolitanism of scholars, 
 of professional classes, of traders and of travellers. 
 Men went from England to learn law in Bologna, 
 or medicine at Montpellier, or science in Paris. 
 Germans, French and Italians came to learn from 
 us at Oxford. There was the cosmopolitanism 
 of trade also. New methods came to us from 
 the Flemings and the Lombards. Fashions came 
 from France and Italy. So that while the official 
 attitude to foreign rulers may have been that of 
 mere hostility, the real growth of England was 
 dependent on continual interdependence. The 
 history, therefore, which relegates all this to an 
 appendix or a short chapter, and dilates upon 
 campaigns and dynastic marriages, is simply false 
 to fact. It is not true that England came to be 
 what she is through battles, or that English 
 institutions are worth defending because of op- 
 position to foreigners. Indeed, this very State 
 which needs us has owed much to foreign political 
 thought and practice. 
 
 But the misreading of historical fact is not due 
 to the date-and-fact historians only, who remained 
 mediaeval in their attitude because their sources 
 were mediaeval. It is due also to the limita- 
 tions of the new historical school. Custom and 
 language cannot be studied provincially. The 
 
NEEDS OF THE STATE 205 
 
 language of England is what it is not simply 
 because of our developed method of expression 
 from " Beowulf " to Meredith, but also because of 
 the matter with which English has been concerned. 
 Now that English contains new subjects, covers 
 a vaster field, and, in fact, is a language and not 
 merely a dialect, is due to the intimacy of the in- 
 terdependence between English and non-English 
 thinkers. 
 
 The history of English thought and custom 
 cannot be rendered with merely occasional refer- 
 ences to "the Continent," any more than the 
 history of thought and custom in York could be 
 rendered without reference to the developments 
 which were taking place outside York. English 
 institutions, then, and English thought are worth 
 defending and developing, not in spite of foreign- 
 ers but because of what we owe to foreigners. 
 The battles of England have kept back the English 
 State : the years of unnoticed and peaceful con- 
 tact have helped it to grow. But these years 
 and these influences passing from State to State, 
 are either unnoticed or are subordinated to the 
 exceptional. The result is that we still think of 
 the needs of the State in regard to foreign States, 
 either in the terms of pure opposition or in the 
 terms of occasional and accidental exchange. 
 Hence the needs of the State in foreign affairs 
 seem to be military organisation or, at best, an 
 
206 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS 
 
 occasional expedition for inquiry into the habits 
 of interesting strangers. And the acquired atti- 
 tude of the average citizen regarding his State 
 as a defence against such strangers is due, in 
 great part, to the misrepresentation of fact in 
 journalistic history and to the misinterpretation 
 of comparative values by the newer school. 1 
 
 Our present attitude is embodied in our institu- 
 tions. For our recognised needs with respect to 
 foreign States we have three great Government 
 offices : the War Office, the Admiralty and the 
 Foreign Office. The guiding conception in all 
 three is that of pure opposition. Of the War 
 Office and the Admiralty that is obvious. 
 Defence and, because " the best defensive is 
 an offensive," also direct hostility, is the pur- 
 pose of these two. Of course they do not 
 exist for aggression. In no country are such 
 offices for anything but pure defence ; and the 
 elaborate organisation of armaments is only 
 for the purpose of maintaining our threatened 
 independence. So the citizens of any civilised 
 country would say of their own War Offices. 
 But who is likely to interfere with independence ? 
 
 1 As far as one can gather from Treitschke the influence of 
 obsolete history has been very great in limiting the German 
 conception of what has made Germany worth defending. Ger- 
 many even more than England owes much to " foreigners " : 
 all her culture is due to such interdependence and has been 
 obstructed by war. 
 
NEEDS OF THE STATE 207 
 
 Foreign States. Why should they ? That no 
 one has been able to explain, and therefore it is 
 said to be inevitable. That is to say, it is regarded 
 as the nature of a foreign State to interfere with 
 the independence of our State. States are in 
 opposition inevitably because they " expand " or 
 because of spheres of influence and all the rest 
 of that fantastic mythology which grows out of 
 an obsolete conception of what the State is. Upon 
 all that is based the importance of War Offices. 
 There is no Peace Office. 
 
 But if the real foreign interests of the State are 
 such as we have outlined in an earlier chapter, 
 and if the needs of the State are to be judged by 
 reference to them, there is no reason why there 
 should not be a Peace Office. Only tradition 
 is against it, and only obsolete conceptions prevent 
 us seeing that the needs of a modern civilised 
 State in foreign affairs are such that deliberate 
 and official maintenance or development of inter- 
 change should not be left to private enterprise. 
 At present war is officially prepared for and 
 carried on : peace is not public business. 1 It 
 may be said that peace, being normal, may be 
 left to take care of itself, or at least without 
 
 1 Another sign of the same attitude is in the training of 
 princes. Machiavelli (Principe, Ch. XIV) says that "War is 
 the only profession worthy of a prince," and even in the 
 twentieth century who ever heard of a prince being trained as 
 an economist or engineer I 
 
208 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS 
 
 official maintenance by a Government Office. 
 But, in the first place, that plan has been tried and 
 has failed ; and secondly, if prevention is better 
 than cure, and it is better worth while to preserve 
 health than to cure disease, surely the official and 
 organised development of the interdependence of 
 States should begin. 
 
 The Foreign Office, however, it may be said, 
 does not exist merely for opposition. It is in 
 fact the source of our official alliances, and is 
 continually in communication with other Govern- 
 ments. It may be said to take a less hostile 
 view of foreign States than is usual in the War 
 Office and Admiralty. But, we must observe, 
 even the War Office and Admiralty have no 
 objection to alliances. In fact, apparently without 
 any governmental sanction, our War Office went 
 so far a few years ago as to secure our entente 
 with France by military agreements ; and, indeed, 
 the War Office has always developed alliances 
 with a view to possible conflict. 
 
 The Admiralty is of a more independent turn 
 of mind ; but the Admiralty also counts upon 
 certain friendliness on the part of some nations 
 when ships are being counted against Germany. 
 The interest in alliances is not peculiar to the 
 Foreign Office, it may co-exist with the obsolete 
 view of foreign relations. And, further, the 
 Foreign Office is very closely in contact with the 
 
NEEDS OF THE STATE 209 
 
 War Office and Admiralty, more closely in fact 
 than it is even with the Cabinet. Whether the 
 Fleet is ready has often made a difference to the 
 manner of the Foreign Office : so that a cynic 
 might be inclined to say that the Foreign Offices 
 in every civilised State are mere departments of 
 the War Offices. 
 
 It is true, nevertheless, that the Foreign Office 
 and the Diplomatic and Consular Service do 
 develop the interdependence of States in time 
 of peace. In so far as this is so the Foreign 
 Office may be our future Peace Office ; but, as 
 we have seen, its interests are certainly not yet 
 confined to the maintenance of peace, and much 
 of its usefulness in this direction is hampered by 
 the tradition of diplomacy which it represents. 
 It is saturated with that false history of the State 
 of which we have already spoken, and even with 
 the best will in the world its present organisation 
 is not likely to embody any definite peace policy. 
 
 The conclusion is inevitable. There is no 
 official organisation for the maintenance or de- 
 velopment of those interests of the State which 
 are not based upon mere opposition to other 
 States. The reason is the current and obsolete 
 conception of the State and its needs. 
 
 But what, in positive terms, are the needs of 
 the State ? We may learn in part from a truer 
 conception of the past. The wealth and well- 
 
 p 
 
210 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS 
 
 being, the moral and intellectual life of the Eng- 
 lish have grown in continuous interchange with 
 foreigners ; and if such are the needs of the 
 State with respect to other States, the first neces- 
 sity is a new conception of foreign policy. And 
 that this may be permanent, a new institution will 
 have to be established or an old one absolutely 
 transformed. 
 
 But the more fundamental need is, of course, 
 a change of attitude among the citizens. A mere 
 institution will be valueless unless it is the result 
 of a new sentiment ; and the sentiment will have 
 to be very much more widespread and powerful 
 than it is before it gives birth to an institution. 
 Such a sentiment must first transform the relation 
 of the citizens to the institutions under which 
 they live. They must feel in some new way the 
 needs of the State or their own need of a State. 
 
 We can, however, be more precise still as to 
 the change of attitude. Sometimes the democratic 
 control of foreign policy is said to be the solution 
 of our present difficulties. The people in every 
 group are said to be likely to arrange difficulties 
 more amicably than the diplomatists : at any rate 
 we may accept completely the statements that 
 " the people " are likely to recognise the incon- 
 veniences of war more than the diplomatists. 
 For these f<w may have to do without their 
 footmen, but the people do without bread ; and 
 
NEEDS OF THE STATE 211 
 
 one is more likely to be careful about a possible 
 lack of food than about a mere deficiency in 
 domestic service. 
 
 But the democratic control of foreign policy \ 
 will be as futile as any other if the people accept 
 the old conception of the State. That conception 
 will certainly be put before them as soon as they 
 are able to exercise any real power, as soon as 
 they show any interest at all, in foreign policy. 
 Wiseacres are always ready to tell the people the 
 thoughts of their grandfathers ; and, as to being 
 believed, the proportion of fools among " the 
 people " is probably not lower than among the 
 " upper " classes. But changes have been made 
 before in the accepted beliefs, and perhaps a 
 change may yet be made in the conception which 
 the average citizen has of his own State. 
 
 This fundamental change of attitude is occurring. 
 Men feel themselves bound together in the State 
 by other than economic or legal bonds. They 
 rise with at least a momentary enthusiasm in 
 every country to the cry " Your country needs 
 you." Differences are for the moment sunk : 
 private or clique interests are for the moment 
 subordinated to the general good, and that not 
 for pay or what any one may make out- of it, nor 
 because of any legal contract between^citizens. 
 
 The bond is clearly emotional/ Our fellow 
 citizens are regarded as living men and women, 
 
212 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS 
 
 not as machines or as types. Less is said about 
 " the working man " of drawing-room fiction or 
 of the " wicked capitalist " of popular rhetoric ; 
 and all are recognised as human. The State, 
 then, is an institution which lives in the conscious 
 emotion of its citizens : it is not an economic nor 
 a legal union. 
 
 But this means that we are recovering from 
 one of the chief deficiencies in the representative 
 system of government. The vast size of modern 
 States has had the effect, first, of producing an 
 extreme of delegated power, and, secondly, an 
 extreme lack of interest among the great body of 
 citizens. The delegation of power meant the 
 dehumanising of state-functions. The imagina- 
 tion was not able to grasp the common interests 
 of the vaster groups as it could when, for example, 
 in Athens every citizen knew every other and 
 soon heard from his neighbour of the effects upon 
 this neighbour of any new law. 1 Now we cry to 
 one another across the chasm of vastness which 
 is not at all bridged by the institutions which are 
 supposed to hold us together. 
 
 The situation, however, is being transformed. 
 The mechanical inventions which have made it 
 
 1 Aristotle was perfectly right in the purpose for which he 
 suggested a limitation in the number of citizens, although we 
 may yet attain that purpose without such limiting. He knew 
 that citizens must be persons to one another, not mere units 
 or machines. 
 
NEEDS OF THE STATE 213 
 
 possible for such vast States to exist may yet, by 
 giving us rapid and widespread communication, 
 enable us to master the machine of government, 
 and to humanise the relation of men by bringing 
 them more closely into contact. Even in normal 
 times there is really a closer contact between the 
 inhabitants of vast Empires now than there was 
 in the much smaller States of Renaissance Europe. 
 And, next, the crisis of war has awakened interest 
 in the common affairs of the group among the 
 mass of citizens. The vastness of the issues, or 
 the remoteness of their connection with one's 
 food and clothing in times of peace, led us to 
 give more and more the judgment and the action 
 into the hands of a few specialists who would 
 represent and look after our interests. But the 
 crisis has taught many that a mistake in diplomatic 
 policy may directly affect one's food. The result 
 is that the action of the State, its interests, honour 
 and obligations, are now felt to be a subject 
 for every citizen's immediate and continuous dis- 
 cussion. We put out our hands to master the 
 machine we have created and have allowed to run 
 its course until it came near to the precipice. 
 Now no plea of inevitableness or necessity will 
 prevent our feeling that the human needs are 
 supreme over the existence of the mere institution. 
 The immense increase in intellectual power and 
 the mastery over Nature has often been referred 
 
2i 4 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS 
 
 to, as it is to be seen either in the modern loco- 
 motive or spinning-machine, or in the exquisitely 
 constructed shells which destroy so effectively. 
 But forces of another kind have also increased. 
 The banding together of great numbers in cities 
 and States has given us social force so great that 
 the group-force of Athens or Rome, or even 
 Revolutionary Paris, becomes trifling by com- 
 parison. The moving together of the vast armies 
 of the last few months is but a sign of the amount 
 of social force which can now be directed to the 
 supply of certain needs. It is true that one 
 cannot imagine yet the raising of such an army 
 for any purpose but conflict : and yet abstractly 
 it is possible that we could now mass millions 
 of men together for the destruction of hideous 
 slums, for the building of cities, or the conquest 
 of disease. The mastery of natural forces has led 
 to the possibility of immense social force ; and so 
 far this immense force has been used either for 
 private manufacture or for public slaughter. But 
 the force is there, and that is something. The 
 human bond between us in England and the army 
 in France is stronger than that which existed 
 between the army at Crecy and the England of 
 their day. Communication and rapid transit keep 
 the more numerous group closer together than 
 the less numerous could manage to be. But it is 
 not altogether due to the mechanical contrivances. 
 
NEEDS OF THE STATE 215 
 
 The emotional crisis is at least one cause of the 
 common interest being perceived and the human 
 relationship therefore being established. There 
 has been no such human relationship between the 
 user of coal and the coal-miner. The common 
 needs are only felt in their crudest form. 
 
 But felt needs, however crude, based upon a 
 human and not a merely mechanical relationship, 
 will produce naturally a new sense of social 
 responsibility. First, we shall have, perhaps, an 
 end of the nonsense which pretends that the 
 morality of individuals cannot govern the rela- 
 tionship of States. That was all based upon 
 the mythological and mechanical-legal State of 
 philosophic fiction. When the relationships are 
 humanised it will be clear that morality holds 
 good and is of fundamentally the same nature, 
 whether between individuals of the same insti- 
 tution or of different institutions. Savages have 
 been said by travellers to be immoral, on the 
 ground that they kill or steal : but scholars now 
 maintain that the lowest savage feels the incon- 
 venience of stealing from men of his own group. 
 Outside the group, of course, no such bond is 
 recognised. The old philosophy of the non- 
 morality of the State was a learned excuse for 
 the savage attitude. In place of this we begin 
 to feel that a man should have as high a moral 
 code when acting in behalf of his group as he 
 
216 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS 
 
 should have in acting for his own interests. 
 We do not excuse a man for lying, cheating or 
 murdering if he says that after all he did not do 
 it for himself but for his wife and family. Why 
 should we excuse him if he says he did it for 
 his second cousins twice removed, which he calls 
 his country ? 
 
 The attitude of officials, however, can only be 
 transformed by the transformation of the attitude 
 of the greater number in the group. The change 
 must come from the citizens before it is effective 
 with their representatives. The majority ^must 
 be able to feel, however dimly, that they should 
 not benefit by the actions which they would be 
 ashamed to do in their own interests. They 
 must object to lying, cheating or murdering by 
 their representatives, even if they get something 
 out of it. And before this comes about, the 
 tendency to say a it is no business of ours " 
 must be corrected. State-morality is of the same 
 kind as the group-morality of trading-companies 
 or dividend-making. But there are very few who 
 do not turn their eyes away from the sources of 
 their wealth. Not merely u wicked capitalists," 
 but great numbers who do not get dividends, 
 maintain a system, by conscious blindness, 
 which reduces all human relationship to merely 
 mechanical arrangement, which depends upon the 
 transformation of great numbers of men into tools. 
 
NEEDS OF THE STATE 217 
 
 This is all part of the same issue, but we 
 must restrict our reference to the responsibility 
 of the citizens for the actions done by others 
 for their interests, honour or obligations. Not 
 merely should the ultimate power be in the 
 hands and the full information be in the minds 
 of greater numbers, but the nature of the things 
 done by this greater number or in their name 
 must be governed by the ordinary rules of 
 morality. We see no reason why the citizens 
 should not definitely object to the lying, cheating 
 and spying system, which is normally carried on 
 by all civilised States in the Secret Service, for 
 the purposes, of course, of self-defence. We 
 need say nothing of the normal purposes of 
 diplomacy or of the " Statesmanship " which 
 keeps a national obligation secret from the people 
 whom it is destined to bind until an emotional 
 crisis makes it certain that no one will be able 
 to object to bearing the obligation. All that 
 has yet to be brought to reasonable limits : but 
 we must begin with the crudest examples of the 
 immorality which is practised in the interest of 
 citizens. Spying is an example. It is not 
 accounted honourable for a man to go in dis- 
 guise into a neighbour's house in order to 
 discover the weak points in his family affairs : 
 but for every civilised State this is done. And 
 it is said that we have to use the weapons of 
 
2i8 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS 
 
 our adversaries to secure ourselves from their pre- 
 datory intentions. It is not, however, regarded 
 as moral to cheat your grocer because you suspect 
 that he has cheated or may cheat you. And in 
 social morality one would not allow the repre- 
 sentative of one's family to lie systematically to 
 neighbours in the interest of the family. How 
 far the average man would go in preventing 
 immorality from which he might benefit we 
 cannot tell. Not long ago a certain company 
 manufactured machines according to their rivals' 
 pattern, so constructed that these imitations 
 would break down. The consequence was that 
 the rival machine soon had the reputation for 
 breaking down ; and the company which so 
 skilfully and indirectly advertised gained great 
 wealth. But we never heard of any of the 
 actual gainers protesting against this method. 
 In State affairs we do not think there was 
 any German protest against the violation of 
 Belgian neutrality : there was practically no 
 Belgian protest against the government of the 
 Congo in its worst days. And in no civilised 
 State is there yet any combined or forcible 
 protest against immoral official actions which 
 either we will not look at, or which we see and 
 see only in their good results for ourselves. 
 Examples would cut too closely in a time of 
 
NEEDS OF THE STATE 219 
 
 difficulty and crisis. We may leave them for 
 the reader to find. 
 
 The State, then, needs in normal times an 
 organised and official maintenance and develop- 
 ment of the inter-relation with other States, 
 based upon a new conception of the nature of 
 States. And it needs most of all the establish- 
 ment and consistent maintenance of a moral 
 attitude by its representatives and an increased 
 moral responsibility in all its citizens. 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 
 THE COMITY OF NATIONS 
 
 OWING to the necessity for an atmosphere of 
 mutual trust in times of peace, for the interchange 
 of ideas or of trade, the problem arises as to the 
 new moral attitude of modern States : and owing 
 to the insecurity of conventions in times of war 
 the problem arises as to the possibility of main- 
 taining moral relations in the face of possible 
 defiance by one group of principles recognised 
 by other groups. We pass then from what the 
 citizen thinks of his own State to what he thinks 
 of other States. 
 
 It must be noticed, to begin with, that moral 
 restrictions to physical force are more and not 
 less insecure as States become larger, since it is 
 more and more difficult, so powerful is the in- 
 stitutional machine, for the citizen even to know 
 what is being done in his name. Governments 
 have a very great power over the information 
 supplied, and, in proportion as the average man 
 is far removed from the actors in any great 
 affair, in that proportion he is unwilling to adopt 
 
 220 
 
THE COMITY OF NATIONS 221 
 
 responsibility. So that the very complexity of 
 modern world-politics might induce the average 
 citizen not to think of other States at all except 
 in times of crisis, or to leave the management 
 of state-relationship entirely in the hands of a 
 few. This might involve the impossibility of 
 securing a moral relationship between States, in 
 so far as citizens will not extend their moral 
 imagination to cover the action of other States 
 than their own. 
 
 There are indications, however, that States 
 have been prepared to act together on moral 
 issues. We may take as an example of this, 
 first, the so-called Concert of Europe. The 
 historical facts with regard to this phrase are 
 well known. It is said to have been invented 
 at a time when established Governments feared 
 the destructive power of the French Revolution. 
 There was then an idea that Governments should 
 act together in suppressing what was believed to 
 be the fundamental immorality of the Revolu- 
 tionaries. But the idea of concerted action 
 disappeared before the sinister diplomacy of 
 Napoleon. Each State fought for itself, at least 
 for a time. In 1815 the Congress of Vienna 
 again expressed a tendency towards concerted 
 action on certain generally accepted principles. 
 The next step was taken in the Holy Alliance, 
 to which England found it impossible to adhere, 
 
222 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS 
 
 since the principles upon which concerted action 
 was to be based were practically those of dynastic 
 despotism if not those of theocracy. 
 
 Until about 1840 nearly all concerted action 
 among the European States was more or less 
 definitely aimed at France : for France was the 
 embodiment of militarism. 1 From that date, how- 
 ever, the phrase " Concert of Europe " always 
 connoted action with reference to south-eastern 
 Europe : 2 and from that date onwards there was 
 the beginning of recognition by Governments of 
 the existence of nationality. A new principle, 
 not that of theocracy, was becoming a basis for 
 common action. 
 
 Greece had been established as a State in i827. 3 
 In 1 86 1 Roumania became partly independent of 
 Turkey, in 1862 Servia ; in 1875 Bosnia and 
 Herzegovina revolted against Turkey. England 
 had been committed by Disraeli to opposition 
 during these years against the principle of nation- 
 ality, because of the supposed English need of 
 supporting Turkey. But at last even England, 
 
 1 By militarism I mean the subordination of all the youthful 
 energies of the State to action for physical attack and defence. 
 
 2 For the change of attitude see Chapter I in The European 
 Concert In the Eastern Question, by T. E. Holland. Superviison 
 in the near East has been " systematically exercised since 
 1856." 
 
 3 Cf. Holland (loc. cit. y Ch. II). Greece was only recognised 
 as a State in 1830, though the battle of Navarino practically 
 gave her independence. 
 
THE COMITY OF NATIONS 223 
 
 in 1877, signed a protocol in agreement with 
 the other Powers of the European Concert, 1 
 warning Turkey of the general interest in "the 
 well-being of the Christian populations." Turkey 
 was disdainful and Russia declared war. The 
 Congress of Powers at Berlin (July 1878) estab- 
 lished Bulgaria, and freed Servia and Roumania 
 from tribute to Turkey. 2 The Powers seemed 
 to be united in principle. But in spite of Con- 
 ferences of the Powers in 1880 and 1881, the 
 Turks did what they pleased. In 1897 British 
 and French warships in the name of European 
 principle bombarded Christian villages in Crete 
 to support the Turks : but they intervened in 
 May of that year to save Greece. Massacres in 
 1896 and 1897 were l e fr unpunished by the 
 Powers, but each Power sought to invoke 
 common principle as a cover for private gain. 
 
 What is of interest here is not the actual 
 ineffectiveness of the European Concert. It pro- 
 posed much and did little. The performers of 
 
 1 The signatories were Great Britain, Germany, Austria, 
 France, Italy, Russia and Turkey. Cf. Holland, p. 277. 
 
 2 At this date there are counted six Great Powers acting 
 together. The Russian diplomacy compares well throughout 
 these years with that of Lord Beaconsfield. No principle seems 
 to have guided the latter except an extended selfishness : and 
 he all but wrecked even the little the European Concert could 
 do. In spite of him, however, the Great Powers held together 
 at least in principle. His most immoral act in our behalf took 
 place in 1878, in the Cyprus Convention. 
 
224 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS 
 
 the Concert had each an axe to grind, and an 
 axe is an unmusical instrument. The result was 
 discord. But the vague feeling remained that 
 civilised States could act together on certain 
 general principles, without alliance and without 
 the stimulus of war directed against themselves. 
 The inherited immorality of Renaissance diplo- 
 macy prevented any common principle being 
 established; and common action was never done 
 for an unselfish end. But the growth of social 
 morality was transforming even the Concert of 
 Europe and sickening even diplomatists with the 
 extended egoism of " foreign " policy. 
 
 Such feelings had a still more interesting embodi- 
 ment in the Hague Conference of 1899. At that 
 first Conference twenty-six different States were 
 represented and the Concert of Europe was seen 
 to be transformed into a Council of the World. 
 At the Conference in 1907 forty-four different 
 States were represented. A Tribunal was estab- 
 lished by sixteen Powers at the Hague in July 
 1899 ; at which representatives of forty-four 
 nations are entitled to sit. At this court since 
 1902 about twelve cases have been decided, which 
 in former days might easily have been reasons for 
 warfare. 
 
 A further example of the same tendency to 
 concerted action upon agreed principles may be 
 seen in the Partition of Africa. Division had 
 
THE COMITY OF NATIONS 225 
 
 begun by the entry of France into Tunis and 
 the military occupation of Egypt in 1882 by the 
 British. German East Africa was established in 
 1884. An agreement was signed between Great 
 Britain and Germany in November 1886, followed 
 by minor agreements and the greatest in 1890. 
 Bismarck had by this time lost power and was 
 not able to engineer anti-English feeling in 
 Germany. By the 1890 agreement Germany 
 received Heligoland and Great Britain the Zan- 
 zibar Protectorate : but most important for our 
 present argument was the settlement of frontier 
 disputes, especially as regards Uganda. With 
 France we signed agreements in 1898 and 1904 : 
 and the whole situation has shown the possibility 
 of peaceful arrangements between those who might 
 have been led into war, if the danger had not been 
 foreseen and avoided. 
 
 The French, Portuguese and Italians have large 
 amounts of African land under their control, and, 
 whatever may be said of the exploiting of natives, 
 at least there has been very little bloodshed of the 
 official and traditional kind. It has been remarked 
 that the gain is immense if we compare this 
 method with the long-continued contest in the 
 Partition of America. For, in effect, civilised 
 States foresaw the possibilities of future conflict 
 in Africa and avoided at least one cause of conflict 
 by agreeing upon boundaries without fighting to 
 
226 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS 
 
 discover where they should be. The result was 
 such as this : the British in East Africa actually 
 were lent a steamer and arms by the Germans 
 in order to suppress marauding tribes, and the 
 Germans received help from the British. 1 
 
 Such events have led some to suppose that 
 there might be continuous concerted action be- 
 tween civilised States on certain general principles. 
 It is imagined that there might even be a sort of 
 international police force, to do for criminal States 
 what the policeman does for the private criminal. 
 It is said that International Law, and perhaps even 
 international morality, needs a " sanction," and 
 clearly no sanction is possible until delinquent 
 States can be punished. Undoubtedly such a 
 force would be desirable. But law is not based 
 upon force. Law gives force its direction. 
 
 Even within every State law is not dependent 
 upon force, but force upon law. For although 
 force may be required to coerce criminals, it is not 
 so required in order to make the majority " keep 
 the law." Law is dependent for its effectiveness 
 much more upon acquired habit than upon force ; 
 and in fact this acquired habit is such that it never 
 enters the head of the ordinary man that he might 
 steal or murder. This habit is itself based upon 
 a kind of half-reasoned sentiment which is the 
 very life-blood of civilised society. But if this is 
 1 Especially in the revolt of natives in 1888. 
 
THE COMITY OF NATIONS 227 
 
 so within the State, the same must be the situation 
 as between citizens of different States. Force may 
 come after to maintain the law, law may come 
 after to express the habit, but the half-reasoned 
 sentiment must come first. For some time before 
 it becomes fixed in a habitual attitude or group of 
 actions this sentiment may be fitful and insecure ; 
 but it is already in existence among the few, and 
 it may spread not only in spite of war but even 
 through war. It is the natural result of human 
 contact, and war has brought great numbers 
 together, even in opposition, who could not have 
 met " foreigners " in our clumsily arranged peace. 
 
 The half-reasoned sentiment is one of funda- 
 mental trust in citizens of other States, and as a 
 confirmed attitude it may be the real force in that 
 international courtesy which goes beyond mere 
 law and even beyond the strict conceptions of 
 national duty. 
 
 But this true Comity of Nations can only be 
 established upon a basis of acquired habit among 
 the inhabitants of different civilised groups a 
 habit of thought and action which would simply 
 make the relationship human across the frontiers 
 of States, and might not even imply a continual 
 interchange of views and goods. It is a matter of 
 attitude, or the establishment of a hypothesis 
 which might perhaps underlie all the superficial 
 economic or political interchange. For even 
 
228 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS 
 
 within our vast States of modern times the actual 
 interchange between citizens is not in fact very 
 great ; but the hypothesis governs all our actions 
 that, whenever there is need, this basal human 
 relationship is there to be depended upon. So 
 even in our great modern cities one never knows 
 many of the people living in the same street ; but 
 an attitude of mind in all the inhabitants is 
 established, so that we do not expect to be stabbed 
 in the back by our neighbour. One may never 
 have said a word to the inhabitant of the house 
 next door, but our hypothesis of civilised life 
 makes us all act as though a human relationship 
 were there all the time. 1 So also with nations, 
 there may be no need of actual contact with 
 foreign races, when we have at last discovered we 
 have nothing to fear from them, in order that we 
 shall feel how absolutely we can depend upon the 
 human relationship surviving all the conflicts of 
 State interests, all the governmental quarrels and 
 all the financially engineered panics. 
 
 We seem to speak of Utopia when such an 
 attitude is explained. Idealists sigh for the 
 
 1 The human relationship to be relied on comes out, of 
 course, chiefly in common danger or in sympathy, as when 
 our neighbour's house is on fire. So among nations an earth- 
 quake in a foreign land soon proves the existence of a human 
 relationship. In such moments the mere governmental insti- 
 tutions are subordinated and yet not neglected ; but to make 
 such subordination more permanent should not be very difficult. 
 
THE COMITY OF NATIONS 229 
 
 Comity of Nations. But it is already in existence. 
 It is only the Comity of States which seems im- 
 possible : for distinct nationality is no bar to 
 comity. In the United States, for example, Ger- 
 mans and English and Turks and Greeks and 
 Russians and Austrians find it possible to enter 
 into moral relationship despite diversity of race. 1 
 In Canada French-born citizens are friendly with 
 English ; and now, in this war, even Indians 
 appear to have entered into an emotional comity 
 with Englishmen. It is not race, language or 
 tradition which is a bar to comity ; not religion, 
 education or trade, but only one institution the 
 State. We have already shown what fantastic 
 ideas concerning the State are generally current, 
 and perhaps the impossibility of a comity between 
 Governments is due in part to the false ideas upon 
 which Governments live. But when we have 
 destroyed even the absolutism and isolation of 
 the theoretical State, there may still remain the 
 idea that the State must, sooner or later, declare 
 war. 
 
 It is worth while to ask whether this is essential 
 to the State or only a transitory effect of past 
 history, or perhaps only the result of a false idea 
 
 1 In the War of Greece against Turkey (1913), Greeks and 
 Turks who had been working together in the United States 
 returned to Europe in the same ships ; and on landing, Greeks 
 at Athens and Turks at Constantinople, marched to fight one 
 another. 
 
230 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS 
 
 as to what the State is. At first sight it is strange 
 that only one institution among all should find it 
 impossible to decide some of its disputes with 
 other institutions of the same kind upon moral 
 grounds. These institutions only are still reduced 
 to physical conflict. 
 
 It is not simply" because the moral criteria by 
 which we may decide how conflicting interests 
 ought to be arranged are not clear. It is not 
 necessary to fight, if we cannot decide the justice 
 of a case. The moral criteria, for example, are 
 by no means clear when there is a conflict 
 of interest between a capitalist company and a 
 trade union ; but we have not yet adopted the 
 " appeal to arms " for such a dispute. 1 Even 
 if no decision can be reached and no power above 
 each is able to enforce a decision, we do not so 
 far find it necessary to " declare war." Nor do 
 we any longer " declare war " because another 
 group of men and women differs from us in 
 religion. We see that religious institutions may 
 
 1 There may be revolutionaries who really mean what the 
 phrase class-war seems to mean ; and, I confess, I see no 
 logical objection to physical conflict of other institutions if the 
 physical conflict of States is regarded as reasonable. It is sup- 
 posed that killing in war is not the act of the individual ; but 
 it would not be the act of the individual if his trade union 
 directed him to kill. This is not abstract speculation. A 
 capitalist company in West Virginia has actually directed its 
 officers to shoot down strikers, and it was done. Not the 
 State, as in England, but another institution has used arms. 
 
THE COMITY OF NATIONS 231 
 
 arrange differences without an appeal even to the 
 God of battles. We do not fight if universities 
 disagree, or scientific or artistic societies. All 
 other institutions arrange their differences upon 
 some plan which omits even the possibility of 
 war ; and no other institution arms its members in 
 case of aggression by other like institutions but 
 the State only is armed and " appeals " to arms. 
 This is fact, and it is useless to say that the State 
 ought not to go to war. The first need is to 
 discover why it does go to war, even occasionally. 
 And this is in part due to what the average 
 citizen thinks of other States : for he is not armed 
 because of the nature of his State, but because of 
 what he believes to be the nature of some other. 
 
 The obstacles to the establishment of a new 
 moral attitude across the boundaries of States are 
 chiefly in the imagination. Here also we are 
 hampered by inherited superstitions, which may 
 once have represented facts, but do so no longer. 
 The reason why the State " must appeal to arms " 
 is not because of the lack of a superior power, 
 nor because of " natural expansion," but simply 
 because of what "that other" State is commonly 
 supposed to be : and the common supposition 
 makes the State actually to be such, although 
 another idea might transform it. 
 
 The view taken of a State from the outside has 
 never adequately been considered. Plato never 
 
232 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS 
 
 thought of his ideal commonwealth from the 
 point-of-view of those who did not belong to it : 
 and at the end of political theorising our thinkers 
 never put themselves in the position of those 
 who do not belong to this or that State. But 
 no object of study can be understood by such a 
 method of " introspection " only. We must con- 
 sider what the average man thinks of States not 
 his own. 1 Every man, except the philosopher, 
 is usually aware that other States do or design 
 certain actions, and it is in view of these that he 
 acts in behalf of his own State./ For " the State " 
 to him means that organised group over there, as 
 he means by a " man " not himself only but other 
 people. 
 
 And when we consider any State from the out- 
 side what do we see ? We see first the astonishing 
 fact that whereas every other civilised institution 
 does not expect physical aggression upon its 
 members, the State alone is armed. No civilised 
 
 1 The psychological argument should be clear. We come 
 to conclusions about ourselves because of what we think of 
 others ; just as much as we interpret the expressions of others 
 by inner experiences of our own. Avenarius even held that 
 our soul-body hypothesis was really due to our theory for 
 explaining other people ; which we then applied to ourselves. 
 I argue, then, that the nature of the State is understood by the 
 average man from his observation of other States (of which he 
 knows almost nothing), which is then applied to his own. 
 Philosophers, not noticing this, have left the mistakes 
 uncorrected. 
 
THE COMITY OF NATIONS 233 
 
 State is confessedly, and viewed from within, ag- 
 gressive ; for even if its guides inculcate aggres- 
 sion, its own people are never asked to fight for 
 anything but self-defen5e. "But viewed from out- 
 side, the State being obviously armed and " we " 
 being as obviously not, aggressive, the armament 
 must be to attack us,/ If there is need of defence 
 there must be evidence of intended aggression. 
 So that every citizen looking at another State 
 expects to be attacked for what purpose is not very 
 clear : but it is necessary to prepare to defend 
 himself. Men do not prepare to fight for their 
 Church or university or trade union, whatever 
 of value they may .derive from such institutions. 
 They are called on to fight only for their State. 
 They may be even fighting against members of their 
 Church or their trade union ; but it is conceived 
 that it is their duty none the less. And it is their 
 duty, until until men begin to perceive that the 
 arming of all States for pure self-defence against 
 other States which protest that they only desire 
 self-defence, is perilously like low comedy. But 
 indeed, the truth is that the State, viewed from 
 the outside, is still an armed band. Another State 
 than ours is aggressive : there is evidence to prove 
 it. Ours, therefore, must be defensive, that is to 
 say " armed ;" and that provides evidence for other 
 States to regard ours as aggressive ; and so the 
 illusion grows as to the nature of the State. A 
 
234 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS 
 
 man, being frightened, may do something by which 
 he frightens himself still more or gives himself 
 good ground for fear. Illusion makes you jump : 
 your jump makes you hit your head, and hitting 
 your head is a proof that there was danger ! 
 
 Let us put it concretely. Here is an alien 
 citizen who belongs to a Church which is not 
 mine, a trade not mine, or a cultural society not 
 mine. I do not expect him to attack me as a 
 Lutheran, or as an engineer, or as a graduate of 
 Harvard ; but as a good citizen I suspect him. I 
 really think that force would be out of place in 
 the attempt to make me a Lutheran or an engineer 
 or a Harvard man, although I might be made any 
 of these by some other means ; but I think force 
 would be not unlikely to be used in the attempt 
 to make me accept some other person's political 
 institutions. 
 
 And I am probably right. He stands armed : 
 and where one State is armed all States will be 
 armed. If one Church were armed, all would be. 
 Why, then, is even one State armed ? Because 
 of the nature of the State ? No. Only because 
 in political imagination we are still in the early 
 Middle Ages, or perhaps even the Dark Ages. 
 We continue to say the State is what it is not. 
 
 For some centuries men believed that the earth 
 was the centre of the universe. And when some 
 few said it was not, many were greatly pained at 
 
THE COMITY OF NATIONS 235 
 
 the apparent insolence, and the established guides 
 elaborately " proved " that it was. But the sky 
 did not fall when the new belief was everywhere 
 accepted : and/perhaps nothing very dreadful 
 would happen if we began to act as if the State 
 were no more an armed band than any other of 
 the many institutions we use. And by such 
 action we do not mean the laying down of our 
 arms, but the believing in the protestation of 
 our neighbours that they are not aggressive, and 
 leaving it to them to prevent their guides leading 
 them into aggression. It would be a dangerous 
 policy, but the sky would not fall. As for dis- 
 armament or even the restriction of armament, 
 that is a problem for practical politics, and it is 
 almost as important. Of course, if you give 
 a man murderous weapons, he may be inclined to 
 use them : but the civilised man has acquired a 
 habit of mind which would make the use of them 
 very unlikely. The fundamental problem, there- 
 fore, is the transformation of the imaginative out- 
 look, not the taking away of murderous weapons. 
 It seems to be true that one State cannot begin. 
 The same argument would show that we could 
 never have reached our normal disarmament of 
 individuals within the State. But what produced 
 the change was not the law or police. Gradually 
 men began to perceive that there was no need of 
 arms, that criminals were few, and that a friendly 
 
236 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS 
 
 attitude towards other men led to no alarming 
 consequences. Comity took the place of armed 
 peace : and we may suppose some one or some 
 few must have begun it. The change did not 
 take place by the laying down of arms, but by 
 the transformation of sentiment among those who 
 still bore arms, until arms were subordinated and 
 eventually forgotten. Meantime, no external 
 change could perhaps be noted, and all men 
 seemed to live in accordance with the inherited 
 illusions which were really believed in only by a 
 few. 
 
 Living among madmen who agree, it is best to 
 agree with them; unless, perhaps, there is some 
 cure for their madness, or unless the majority are 
 not really mad but are simply persuaded to believe 
 in the illusions of the few who are. We are 
 enslaved by the black magic of dead words, and 
 we can only be rescued by the white magic of 
 some new word. But that is the office of poets. 
 The task of analytical philosophy is done when 
 the current hypotheses have been examined. 
 
 When, however, the mistaken results of the 
 primitive view of the State from the outside are 
 corrected there is no reason why a permanent 
 comity of organised nations should not be estab- 
 lished. For then the citizen will consider other 
 States not as possible aggressors but as moral 
 equals of his own. He will, that is to say, believe 
 
THE COMITY OF NATIONS 237 
 
 the protestation of other citizens that they arm 
 only for defence, and, knowing that he himself is 
 not aggressive, he will either lay down his own 
 arms or perhaps preserve them as a decorative 
 symbol of the past. 
 
 For already a certain amount of mutual trust 
 has been established by the years of peaceful 
 commerce, and no one who is really aware of the 
 interdependence of all institutions can go back to 
 the savage suspicion of foreigners. Such trust 
 between citizens of diverse States has not been 
 more abused than trust between citizens of the 
 same State. It ma^y be betrayed in a few in- 
 stances : but the world has held together. When, 
 therefore, we point to a permanent comity even 
 between States we are not speaking of Utopia, 
 but are seeking to develop a movement which has 
 already begun. Nor will even diplomatic subtle- 
 ties be able to keep us back : for trust between 
 the citizens of diverse States is trust between the 
 States, and the official Governments will soon 
 have to submit to the new situation. 
 
CHAPTER XIII 
 
 CONCLUSION 
 
 THERE are some general principles which seem 
 to follow from the argument we have so far 
 developed. One has reference to the relation 
 between institutions and social sentiments, another 
 relates to the assimilation and differentiation of 
 institutions. By a social sentiment we mean a 
 half-emotional, half-reasoned habit of action, which 
 may imply an established attitude, but is very 
 often not conscious until there is a crisis, either 
 danger or a new and strange experience. Such 
 social sentiments are family affection, club or 
 college loyalty, patriotism, human sympathy felt, 
 without regard to frontiers, at the news of an 
 earthquake, and innumerable vaguer habits of 
 action or inhibition expressed in such phrases as 
 " women and children first," " noblesse oblige," 
 " the things no fellow can do." 
 
 It has been seen that an institution generally 
 follows upon a social sentiment and, being estab- 
 lished, transforms the sentiment. Thus the 
 Church or the State follows upon habits of action 
 
 238 
 
CONCLUSION 239 
 
 or inhibition ; and, although when established they 
 maintain or develop, they do not create such 
 habits. Law and government did not create 
 civilisation ; but civilisation created law and 
 government. This alone will explain why law 
 maintains one action and forbids another. 
 
 It is not necessary here to go back to the 
 possible origins of the State. We have dealt in 
 an earlier chapter with the progressive differentia- 
 tion of functions and their distribution among 
 many different institutions as life becomes more 
 civilised. What is now of interest is -to mark the 
 interplay between free sentiment and established 
 institutions. For this is fundamental to the 
 group-morality of which we have been speaking. 
 The organisations or institutions which unite or 
 divide men, which may or may not make immense 
 differences in their moral attitude these both 
 maintain social sentiment and are maintained by it. 
 When such sentiments change they may trans- 
 form the institutions ; but they may, on the other 
 hand, not be strong enough, and may themselves 
 be transformed by the established tradition. Moral 
 progress depends upon such transformations. 
 
 Let us, however, first consider the interplay of 
 sentiment and institution in the case of individuals 
 of any one group. For the same law will, no 
 doubt, with some modification, be applicable to 
 organised groups. 
 
2 4 o THE MORALITY OF NATIONS 
 
 Sentiment maintains institutions. Social feeling 
 combined with habitual action or inhibition is the 
 real guarantee for the continued existence of any 
 form of organisation ; and although a traditional 
 institution may exist for many commonplace years 
 without any appeal to such sentiment, a time of 
 crisis will soon prove whether or not the life-blood 
 is flowing still in the old body. In the religious 
 sphere, perhaps English Monasticism in the six- 
 teenth century was an example of this. The royal 
 power would not have sufficed to suppress the 
 monasteries unless these had already lost their 
 hold upon the popular imagination. In the 
 political sphere, the kingship in France in 1791 is 
 an instance of the same kind. For some time 
 the Revolution was an appeal to the king against 
 <c wicked advisers " : and although the ancien 
 regime of land-owning was hated, the king re- 
 tained the affection of the people. Had Mirabeau 
 lived, the sentiment might have transformed the 
 institution. As it was, the sentiment was alienated 
 and the bloodless body of royalty fell. 
 
 Hence it is that education is given so important 
 a place in the TTO'XJS of Plato and Aristotle. In 
 Plato it becomes the chief business of the magis- 
 trate : 1 and in the Laws the State is not secure 
 till the ministry for education is higher in rank 
 than the ministry for war. Aristotle is even 
 1 Statesman, 306 seq. 
 
CONCLUSION 241 
 
 more clear. The importance of the formation of 
 social sentiment is the ground for the treat- 
 ment of education at the end of the Politics ; l 
 and education in this sense is said to be the 
 one security against revolutions. 2 The stability 
 of the State is seen to depend upon the social 
 sentiment of the citizens. 
 
 Institutions maintain sentiment and habits of 
 mind or action. For all men most of the time 
 and most men all of the time are so institution- 
 alised that if by some impossible freak one could 
 remove the institutions, they would feel that part 
 of themselves was gone. No one who has not 
 lived on the fringe of civilisation, where institu- 
 tions are less omnipresent, can understand how 
 much of ordinary thought and action is simply 
 the expression of an established institution. This 
 is more recognised in literature than in Ethical 
 theory. " Few men realise that their life, the 
 very essence of their character, their capabilities 
 and their audacities, are only the expression of 
 their belief in the safety of their surroundings. 
 Their courage, their composure, their confidence ; 
 their emotions and principles ; every great and 
 every insignificant thought belongs not to the 
 individual but to the crowd : to the crowd that 
 believes blindly in the irresistible force of its 
 institutions and of its morals, in the power of its 
 
 1 Po!., \wjzseq. 2 Pol. 9 13103. 
 
242 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS 
 
 police and of its opinion. But the contact with 
 pure unmitigated savagery, with primitive nature 
 and primitive man, brings sudden and profound 
 trouble into the heart. . . . To the negation of 
 the habitual, which is safe, there is added the 
 affirmation of the unusual, which is dangerous ; a 
 suggestion of things vague, uncontrollable and 
 repulsive, whose discomposing intrusion excites 
 the imagination and tries the civilised nerves of 
 the foolish and the wise alike." l 
 
 Doubtless even the fully moralised man who 
 never thinks of stealing or murdering owes the 
 current direction of his thought in part to the 
 Law ; and for the great majority, who never 
 think out the reasons for action or for inhibitions, 
 the Law is, perhaps unconsciously, the guide. 
 The moral man is ahead of the Law, the non- 
 moral behind it. 
 
 Further, a group consists of men and women 
 of many different ages. It seems probable that 
 social sentiment is regarded as stronger by the 
 young and may be stronger for the young ; and 
 institutions are thought of chiefly by the old, and 
 they may indeed be more important for the old. 
 The change in Plato is striking. In the Republic 
 he relies almost entirely upon sentiment embodied 
 in very vague laws, in the Statesman the two are 
 almost equal, in the Laws he relies almost entirely 
 1 Joseph Conrad, An Outpost of Progress. 
 
CONCLUSION 243 
 
 upon detailed regulations. And this follows from 
 the tendency of the young to admire change and 
 of the old to admire stability, of the young to 
 subordinate traditional habit to feeling and of the 
 old to subordinate feeling to habit. 
 
 But sentiments change. We may cite as an 
 instance the change of attitude since the eighteenth 
 century between husband and wife or parent and 
 child, although one cannot tell how many people 
 in how many nations have really adopted the new 
 attitude. At any rate some, and those not the 
 least important, since they are generally the trans- 
 formers of institutions, no longer treat man and 
 woman as merely male and female : and it is 
 recognised by these also that the rights of children 
 and the duties of parents are far more important 
 than the duties of children and the rights of 
 parents": But even if the sentiment has changed, 
 there is no register of the change in institutions. 
 We go on with our old marriage and divorce laws 
 and our old educational systems. The natural 
 result of a change of sentiment would be a 
 gradual transformation of institutions, for although 
 a few may live for a little according to some ideas 
 which have not been made into laws, the many 
 will not change unless they are changed. And 
 most men can more easily be reached from the 
 outside : that is to say, they will adopt a new 
 method of walking when a new kind of road is 
 
244 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS 
 
 made, but they will not be able to maintain a new 
 habit without a new law. Now one of the most 
 interesting facts in the development of morality 
 is that the " sanction " of law has become less and 
 less violent. We no longer mutilate or brand 
 offenders, but the morality of individuals is not 
 lower. So that the amount of force required as 
 sanction is considerably less as civilisation pro- 
 gresses. And this is of immense importance to 
 the question of a sanction for international moral- 
 ity ; for it would seem that the force required as 
 sanction in this highly developed situation is very 
 small indeed. Institutions change because of 
 changing sentiment ; but the institutional change 
 is subtler and less noticeable the higher the 
 development of sentiment becomes. 1 
 
 When we turn to the morality of nations or of 
 citizens as related to citizens of other States, we 
 find that the present situation is one of transition 
 between a barely organised relationship and an 
 international institution such as might embody 
 and develop a comparatively recent social senti- 
 ment. No such institution may come into 
 existence, at least of so positive and powerful a 
 kind as the States of the world. The tendency 
 towards the new embodiment of social sentiment 
 
 1 The reform of political corruption in England since the 
 eighteenth century is an example of a changing sentiment subtly 
 affecting an institution. 
 
CONCLUSION 245 
 
 may be frustrated either by turning it in other 
 directions or by absorbing it in the older institu- 
 tions : and nothing more definite may appear than 
 a Hague Tribunal or a council of Conciliation. 
 Very obviously the social sentiment of a few is, so 
 far, in advance of the established practice in the 
 relationship of States. 1 This, however, will be 
 ineffective unless it can be embodied in some 
 definite institutional change. It is useless to 
 prophesy. Perhaps the States of the world, by 
 warlike alliance, by recurrent war and by the 
 consequent return towards barbaric isolation, will 
 approximate to the hideous imaginings of the 
 philosophers ; but perhaps they will change in the 
 direction in which other institutions have de- 
 veloped, and arrange their differences otherwise 
 than by war. Whichever the future holds in store 
 for our children, it is as well for us now to recog- 
 nise the modifications which changing events have 
 already made in the nature of the highest political 
 institutions, so as not to be entrapped in the 
 subtleties of our forefathers : and it is as well also 
 to acknowledge that our institutions are still 
 changing more rapidly than the concepts by 
 which we manage them. 
 
 1 It is quite possible that the advanced social sentiment is 
 more widespread than is usually thought. The voice of the 
 newspapers is generally the ghostly voice of a past age which is 
 thought by editors to represent what is generally accepted. 
 
246 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS 
 
 The State is not as bad as the philosophers have 
 imagined it to be. It is not an isolated armed 
 band. But it is not as good as it might be. 
 There is much room for a modification of political 
 institutions by new sentiments. In the contriving 
 of new institutional schemes, however, whether for 
 changing the State itself or its relation to other 
 States, we should not lose sight of the social senti- 
 ment which changes and may be changed, so subtly 
 that the gods of one generation may be the devils 
 of the next. 
 
 With regard to the assimilation and differen- 
 tiation of institutions of the same order, when they 
 are in continuous contact, there appears to be an 
 assimilation in externals and a differentiation of 
 internal character. This, as we have seen, is the 
 rule for individuals. We are more alike than our 
 grandfathers were in clothes and speech, but less 
 alike than they were in creeds and thought. This 
 diversification is due to the greater diversity of 
 occupation in modern times. And in institu- 
 tions also there seems to be the same distinc- 
 tion between external administration and internal 
 character. 
 
 For example, in religious institutions, ever since 
 the old social exclusiveness broke down, there has 
 been an increasing assimilation between the Church 
 of Rome in England and the English Church. 
 Each has adopted some of the external features of 
 
CONCLUSION 247 
 
 the other. But, on the other hand, each has 
 become more conscious of whatever is distinctive 
 in its spirit or inner character. And the conscious- 
 ness of distinct character has led each to be more 
 friendly to the other. In the same way municipal 
 administration has become more alike in different 
 towns, but the character of the towns has been 
 diversified owing to the varieties of industry ; #nd 
 this diversity has bound the towns together, where- 
 as their old similarity caused separation. The 
 supreme political institution, in contact with others 
 of the same order, shows the same development. 
 States are more like one another in military 
 organisation, in police supervision and in their 
 relations to trade than they were when contact was 
 not normal and continuous. Even their legislative 
 methods seem to become more alike : and in 
 government monarchies approximate to republics 
 and republics to monarchies. 
 
 On the other hand, there is no sign that the 
 assimilation of institutions in these points is oblit- 
 erating the distinction between States ; and not 
 merely are the States distinct, but they differ. At 
 first sight similarity of law and even parliamentary 
 institutions might seem to make it a matter of 
 indifference under what government one lived ; 
 and such indifference would be natural in a semi- 
 savage or a loafer ; but our keenness of perception 
 has increased and the really civilised man is able to 
 
248 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS 
 
 notice a difference of " atmosphere " even when 
 the externals of two States are very much alike. 
 We belong to one State or another because of this 
 indefinable " atmosphere." Even if French law 
 and government became more like English than 
 it is now, France would not be England, not only 
 because of distinct language but politically also. 
 And the political diversity would, in part at least, 
 be' due to the difference in occupation or in 
 products which a difference of climate or soil 
 might make necessary. 
 
 Whatever the institution may be which comes 
 out of the growing sentiment of comity between 
 all nations, it will certainly not be a State. There 
 could not be a World-State. In the first place, 
 the constituent elements of this institution will 
 not be individuals but groups. The political 
 equality of all distinct state-groups will be the 
 basis of associationy/and thus a new sense will be 
 given to Renaissance Sovereignty. 
 
 The States of the world would then be bound 
 together not only by their similarity in methods 
 of government, but also by their diversity of 
 character. The economic interdependence would 
 be, as we have already seen, more complete 
 as material inventions become more numerous. 
 But there would also be the new and more 
 civilised comity of nations of different characters, 
 since the savage dislikes what is different from 
 
CONCLUSION 249 
 
 himself but the civilised man is attracted by 
 diversity. 
 
 Again, it is sometimes said that as " England " 
 has resulted from subordination of the local in- 
 terests of Yorkshire, Devonshire, London and the 
 rest, so the separate States will be subordinated to 
 some vaster institution. But the metaphor is mis- 
 leading. The new process cannot be the same as 
 the earlier process in any essential points : for, 
 first, Yorkshire and the rest never had a fully 
 developed political life of their own. And even 
 the analogy of England and Scotland or Prussia 
 and Bavaria will not do. For the component 
 elements in what is now a larger whole were not, 
 before the union, modern States in a complex of 
 world-politics. The new situation has arisen 
 since any subordination of parts of which we have 
 evidence in history. The elements, then, in the 
 new Union are unique in kind, and their unity 
 cannot be modelled upon the unions of the past. 
 The new Union of the States of the world may 
 very well be " looser " institutionally and stronger 
 sentimentally. That is to say, in this matter we 
 may perhaps have reached a stage when we can 
 produce an institution as different from even 
 the modern State as that is different from the 
 Greek TTO?U ; an institution which would hold 
 together rather because of the changed social 
 sentiment in citizens of diverse States than 
 
250 THE MORALITY OF NATIONS 
 
 because of the amount of force by which it can 
 be supported. 
 
 Perhaps this is not practical politics, but perhaps 
 also what seems the veriest dream of idealists 
 may, after all, be practical politics. If there is 
 one proposition which it is safe to deny it is the 
 creed of those who pride themselves on being 
 practical, that what has occurred will occur, or 
 that nothing can be done but what has been done. 
 One may imagine the Renaissance diplomatist 
 proving that what now commonly exists could 
 not possibly come to be ; as mathematicians once 
 proved flying to be impossible. The future is 
 open. And the most skilful statesman will be 
 he who is able to apply some new hypothesis 
 and discover truths in the relationship of States 
 of which we have not the faintest suspicion. 
 The practical morality of nations may be as 
 different in a few years' time as the conceptions 
 of the few in many nations now are from those 
 of the unthinking majority. 
 
 The result will not be a formula or a code : 
 for even if International Law becomes more and 
 more exact or extensive, international morality 
 will never be quite completely expressed in it. 
 The expressions of the Law will perhaps be 
 somewhat in advance of the morality of some 
 States, but they will always be inadequate to 
 render the full meaning of the moral sentiments 
 
CONCLUSION 251 
 
 of others. And within every State there will 
 always be many who take their morality from 
 the law and a few who make the law by their 
 morality. For the morality of nations no less 
 than that of individuals is a continually developing 
 art of life. 
 
INDEX 
 
 ALLIANCE, 120 
 Ambassadors, 100 
 Arbitration, 189 
 Aristotle, 62, 240 
 Armament Firms, 82 
 
 Balance of Power, no, 122 
 Beaconsfield, 117 
 Belgium, 6, n, 103 
 Berlin Treaty, 102 
 Bismarck, n, 107, 115, 141, 
 
 142 
 
 Bluntschli, 63 
 Board of Trade, 84 
 Bodin, 47 
 Bologna, 91 
 Bulgaria, 169 
 
 Cabinet, 109 
 Cabinet Government, 94 
 Capital, 87 
 
 Communication, 77, 78 
 Concert of Europe, 221 
 Conventions, 160 
 Creditor States, 88 
 Crimean War, 141 
 
 Darwin, : 95 
 Debtor States, 88 
 Denmark, 9 
 Diplomacy, 99 
 Disraeli, 117 
 
 Education, 94, 240 
 Ehrlich, 92 
 Eliot, 88 
 
 Embassies, 100 
 Empires, 70, 71 
 Entente, 129 
 Expansion, 81, 146 
 
 Falkland Islands, 168 
 Fashoda Episode, 145 
 Finance, 83 
 Foreign Office, 71 
 Foreign Policy, 96 
 
 German Empire, 9 
 
 German Militarism, 144 
 
 Germany, 6, 144 
 
 Greek Polis, 30 
 
 Green, 182 
 
 Grotius, 47, 57 
 
 Group Morality, I, 2, 210, 217 
 
 Hague, 224 
 Harnack, 9 
 Hegel, 46, 50, 51, 53 
 History, 201 
 Hobbes, 92 
 Hugo de Groot, 3 
 
 Imperialism, 67, 69 
 Innocent III, 167 
 International Rivalry, 139 
 
 Law, 161 
 
 Italy, 6 
 
 Kultur, 35 
 
 Law, 4, 242 
 Lawrence, 101, 171 
 
 253 
 
INDEX 
 
 Liberty, 38 
 Lister, 90 
 Louis XI, 100 
 Loyalty, 61 
 
 Machiavelli, 146, 207 
 Marx, 46, 63 
 Mazzini, 10, 105 
 Mediaeval Regnum, 31, 34 
 Mill, 46, 63 
 Mommsen, 90 
 Montpellier, 91 
 Morality, 191, 192 
 Municipal control, 94 
 
 National Insurance, 94 
 Nationalism, 66, 67, 68, 69 
 Nationality, 5, 6, 229 
 Nations, 5, 6, 12, 13 
 Napoleon III, II 
 Napoleonic Wars, 8 
 Neutrality, 163 
 Nineteenth Century State, 26 
 Non-combatants, 164 
 
 Order, 38 
 Oxford, 91 
 
 Palmerston, 108 
 
 Paris, 91 
 
 Parliamentary Government, 94 
 
 Pasteur, 90 
 
 Patriotism, 61 
 
 Plato, 48, 49, So, 242 
 
 Property, 162 
 
 Prussia, 141 
 
 Radium, 92 
 
 Red Cross, 161, 166 
 
 Regionalism, 67, 68, 69 
 Renaissance State, 26 
 Sovereign State, 32 
 
 St. Dominic, 91 
 
 St. Francis, 91 
 
 Salerno, 91 
 
 Serbia, 101 
 
 Sidgwick, 46, 63, 118 
 
 Slavs, 24 
 
 Socialists, 185 
 
 Specialisation of function, 155 
 
 Spencer, 30, 46, 52 
 
 State organisation, 67 
 
 Statistics (Board of Trade), 
 
 85-88 
 Stubbs, 109 
 
 Town planning, 94 
 
 Trade, 84 
 
 Treaties, 102 
 
 Treaty with U.S.A. (1914), 188 
 
 Treitschke, 98 
 
 Triple Alliance, 124 
 
 United States, 113, 188 
 
 Victoria, 114 
 
 Volunteer Movement} 145 
 
 Von Biilow, 8 
 
 War, 1 6, 159,232 
 Weapons, 167 
 Weismann, 95 
 World-politics, 80, 132- 
 Wyclif, 91 
 
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