Towards a lasting settlement...

Preface

The writers of this book are united in one predominant aim : that of securing that a worldcatastrophe such as the present shall never recur. We discuss neither the responsibility for the war nor the conduct of it. Our main concern is with the broad problems which will inevitably arise for discussion both at the settlement of the war and for long afterwards. These are the problems of nationality and territorial rearrangement, of the revision of maritime law, of economic opportunities in the colonial world, and, above all, of a real guarantee against war, based on general international co-operation.

While offering no final solution, we believe that there exists, however little it may as yet be defined, a common European policy which would be acceptable to reasonable men in all countries, if only the present atmosphere of panic and prejudice could be dissipated. Already the outline of such a policy is discernible behind the thick veil of half a dozen censorships, each striving to suppress every sign of reason and moderation among the people it controls. Our book will help, we believe, to make the outline clearer.

6 PREFACE

We deal, further, with the reasons why the new international system, if it is to provide security for the peace and progress of the world, must be founded upon the consent, not merely of the governments but of the peoples. We touch upon some deeper questions which it is impossible to ignore in considering the foundations of permanent peace — the relation of war, for example, to self-government and to the interests of womanhood.

We do not profess to treat all these vast problems exhaustively. Our aim is rather to set people thinking upon them, and so to assist in building up a public opinion capable of appreciating and solving them.

It is natural that there should be many divergences of opinion among the writers of a book covering so wide a range of subjects. We have made no attempt to impress upon our book an artificial uniformity. Each contributor is responsible only for the opinions which he or she expresses.

C. R. B.

Contents

The Basis of Permanent Peace By G. Lowes Dickinson

By Charles Roden Buxton

The Freedom of the Seas By H. Sidebotham

II

It will be as well to recognize at the outset that there are several difficulties in the way of a full application of our principle. Roughly, they may be divided into two classes — those which make the observance of strictly national frontiers inconvenient on economic and strategic grounds, and those which are inherent weaknesses in the principle of nationality itself. Let us take these in order.

Nature, migration, and conquest have disposed the population of the world without any regard to the best economic units or the most defensible boundary lines. The most obvious examples of the economic difficulty are the Poles, Bohemians, and Hungarians, who do not occupy any point on the sea-coast, and who do not possess within their own borders a sufficient variety of raw material. Tariff walls, again, often run counter to the national principle. The producers and business men of Alsace-Lorraine have for years past made all their arrangements on the basis of the tariffs, the markets, the railway, the banking and credit systems, and the business connections of Germany. The same may be said, in a lesser degree, of the economic position of Poland in relation to Russia. Some of these difficulties could only be completely surmounted by freeing such ports as Fiume, Trieste, and Danzig, and the navigation of rivers like the Danube, Vistula, Elbe, Scheldt, and Rhine, from all restrictions, others by commercial treaties or free exchange.

With regard to strategic questions, there are obvious reasons why, in a world dominated by the fear of war, the desires of a people for a national government should have to give way to the exigencies of fleets or armies. Frontiers have been settled again and again with a view, not to the desire of the inhabitants but to military or naval needs. If we are to escape from this necessity, we must ask ourselves the question, mu.st the world be always dominated by the fear of war?

These are difficulties which might conceivably be surmounted in time ; but is there not, it may be urged, something in the nature of nationality itself which is fundamentally opposed to the kind of progress we are aiming at? We sympathize with an oppressed nation, but when we have set it on its feet, does it not become in its turn an oppressor, using the arts of its own former tyrants with an ingenuity born of long experience? Does not " nationality militant," to borrow a term from the ecclesiastical world, pass over into something odious and repulsive when it becomes " nationality triumphant "? In nations that have acquired and established their freedom, in France, in Germany, and in Italy, is not the very word " Nationalist " applied, and naturally applied, to the Imperialist parties, which aim at extending the sway of the nation over other nations? Is not the desire of a successful nation to spread its particular type of civilization essentially the same desire as that which inspires a subject race to defend its culture against that of its rulers? Is not the claim to national self-expression invariably followed by the claim to world-power? In a word, is not the intense desire for national independence, with all that it entails, the direct enemy of internationalism, that wider conception which must inspire the next great step in the progress of the world?

I cannot answer these questions in a manner wholly favourable to the cause of nationality. Nor do I wish to strike a balance between the merits and the demerits of that cause, for the factors are very numerous and perhaps in part incommensurable, and to think out the problem for oneself, unaided and unguided by some one else's personal opinion, is perhaps the most useful process from the point of view of building up an enlightened public opinion. I will content myself with pointing out some practical considerations which have a bearing on the problem.

When nationalities are mixed in fairly equal proportions, as are the Hungarians, Germans, Roumanians, and Serbo-Croats of Southern Hungary, it is true that the principle of nationality is an inadequate guide. But such districts are not common, and we are far from having reduced our problem to these narrow limits. The ordinary case is that of a preponderant nationality with an " Ulster " enclosed in it or mixed up with it. This case can be met, partially at least, by distinct and recognized provisions for the linguistic and ecclesiastical rights of the minority in connection with local government bodies, churches, schools, and other institutions. There is always, no doubt, a difficulty in making these provisions effective ; in the long run this can only be done by assuaging inter-racial hatreds and diminishing the danger of war.

Many of the difficulties which attend the realization of nationality would be avoided if autonomy, rather than complete national sovereignty, were the object aimed at. There is undoubtedly something crude and primitive in the latter claim, in spite of the almost axiomatic character with which long usage has invested it. In point of fact, the farther West we go, the more we find that autonomy, or a freedom restricted by the requirements of some larger political unit, is proving a sufficient answer to the national claim. Irish history during the past century provides a good example of the change from the one idea to the other. The farther East we go, on the other hand, the more we have to admit the dangers and difficulties which spring from the demand for unfettered sovereignty. Cruder tyrannies have produced a cruder reaction. We cannot blame the Balkan peoples for this. It is unreasonable to expect them to skip over a stage which has hitherto seemed indispensable in political development. But it is probable that even in the East nationalist ideas will become increasingly tinged by the conception of autonomy.

Ill

And now, having faced the admitted difficulty of applying our principle without considerable exceptions and reservations, we may turn to the positive contribution which nationality makes to the progress of the world. The matter must be looked at from the point of view both of each nation and of civilization as a whole.

To nations in an early stage of development, particularly those formerly subject to Turkey, nationality stands for many things that we in the West have ceased to associate with the term, and now value under other names. It means the attainment for the first time of culture, of refinement, of education for their children, of the right to worship as they think fit. To most subject peoples the realization of nationality means the realization also of democratic government. The two aims are largely inspired by the same feelings. In 1848 the French and German struggles were mainly directed to the latter, while the Italian and Hungarian were mainly directed to the former, but neither struggle was exclusively democratic or exclusively national.

So inextricably does the aim of nationality become bound up with other aims, that there is a tendency to think that none of them can be realized until national self-expression has been secured, and to neglect the steps which might be taken, even under present conditions, to realize them. This is especially noticeable in the Balkans. The whole energy of the nation, both in thought and action, is too often turned into the one channel. Nothing else counts. Education, social reform, honesty in public life, economic development — all lag behind, because all are subordinated to the overmastering passion of nationality.

When it becomes a question, not so much of securing self-government and culture but of securing a particular type of these things as opposed to another type, we are dealing with something a little less tangible, the need for which is sometimes disputed by political thinkers. The members of races subject to Austria and Germany, for example, do not as a rule suffer very seriously if they are content to live a quiet life apart from all public interests, to shut themselves up within the circle of their family and friends, to follow their daily business, and not to take any part whatsoever in " movements," whether political or otherwise. If they do, then it is a matter of police spies, perpetual interference, the suppression of newspapers, the imprisonment of editors and thinkers and political leaders, the extinguishing of every manifestation, however slight it may be, of anything distinctively national — flags, meetings, exhibitions, processions, pamphlets, songs, and books. It means the creation, in a word, of an atmosphere intolerably depressing and irritating to men with a belief in progress and in human fellowship. Some will say that the question whether a certain type of thought and of public life and social habits shall or shall not prevail 1 , whether the type shall be French or German, Polish or Russian, is not a point worth fighting about. Few would say this, however, if they had experienced what it means to a people to be denied all political and " cultural " self-expression. To Englishmen that experience is so remote that they find it difficult to comprehend. It is for this reason, coupled perhaps with a certain contempt for teachers and artists, that we have actually no equivalent for the word " cultural," without which the Polish or Bohemian nationalist would hardly know how to express himself.

Nationality stands, then, in the mind of a people struggling to be free, not indeed for the whole, but for a large part, of what we feel to be good and desirable in human life. It stands for selfdevelopment and self-expression, in so far as these ends require for their realization a wider sphere than that of individual or family life — the sphere of combination and association, above all of government. It stands for the cultivation of those national habits of life and thought which are dearer to us than others because they are in a fuller sense " our own " — just as family customs and family words have a peculiar savour for us, creating as they do a whole atmosphere, and calling up, without any need of explanatory speech, a hundred common memories and familiar ties. This self-expression, this cultivation of things so dearly prized, is the object upon which a nation's hopes are concentrated in the days of its servitude.

Does the experience of liberated nations justify such hopes? Some think not. They point to tyranny in Hungary and corruption in Italy. They say that the dreams of 1848 and i860 have faded into something tame and grey, sordid and disappointing. Perhaps the disappointment is only the fruit of an exaggerated expectation. In South - Eastern Europe, where liberation has meant a change from disorder to order, and the reclaiming for civilization of a desert, no one could possibly question the reality of the progress made. But even where the change has been less complete and striking, there has been a gain. Life is wider and fuller for a nation in which the people accept the form of the government and co-operate in working it. Such a nation is a higher political organism than an empire, however vast its extent or however overwhelming its power, in which the citizen is denied the free exercise of his political and associative faculties, except in the heated and morbid atmosphere of resentment and intrigue. There is a gain of inward satisfaction, the removal of a sense of wrong. True, a people no sooner gains its freedom than it begins to crave and strive for something further. Whitman has told us that " from any fruition of success shall come forth something to make a greater struggle necessary." But at least a step on the road has been taken, and we in the West, who conceive all life as a road, feel instinctively that that means an advance to something better.

IV

But it is when we take the point of view of civilization as a whole, not that of individual nations, that we appreciate most fully the value of the national spirit. When our grandfathers and great-grandfathers were fired with enthusiasm for Greece and Italy and Hungary, they conceived themselves to be maintaining, not merely the rights of Greeks, Italians, and Hungarians, but some common and fundamental interest of mankind. It is, in fact, to the interest of mankind that there should exist the greatest possible variety of types of thought and action. The world progresses most when it is able to choose between a wide range of different courses. Those which are inherently good will tend to survive. Those Which are trivial or useless will be ignored. No one can judge which should be encouraged and which suppressed

—least of all a single imperial Power or a group of such Powers. The best chance is to let all the varieties bloom and flourish, and to trust to the free choice of humanity to take or leave them. This, the essential doctrine of Liberalism, is not a bloodless abstraction as applied to the matter now in hand. What a treasure-house of civilization is revealed to us in the national life of our fellowpeoples, whether those which have won their freedom already, or those whose dreams and hopes derive more brilliant colour and deeper emotional meaning from the very fact that they are still unsatisfied. Just as England contributes her sense for political liberty, France her intellectual honesty and lucidity, Germany her industry and discipline, Italy her aesthetic aptitude, so Finland has her advanced democracy, Poland her music and art, Bohemia religious independence, the Serbs their warm poetic temperament, the Greeks their subtlety and their passion for the past, the Bulgarians their plodding endurance and taciturn energy, the Armenians their passion for education and progress. And each of these characteristics is merely a faint indication of what is distinctive in the people concerned. Peoples are not, in fact, to be distinguished from one another by a single mark, detaching itself from a background of pure similarity. It is the total combination of qualities, of historical events, of natural surroundings, which makes them what they are— conglomerations of various and conflicting personalities and parties, touched nevertheless with some unifying character which makes even their very divisions distinctive.

National culture may some day give place to cosmopolitan culture, but meantime it is a richer and intenser thing. The poetry of a nation, for instance, gains more from the deep roots of national memory and tradition than it loses from the political boundaries which fence it from the air and sun that might come to it across neighbouring gardens. The whole gains by the fuller development of every one of its parts.

It will be noted that the question hitherto discussed is that of nationality, rather than that of 11 small nationalities." The difference in size has far-reaching consequences. A large nation may be content to rely upon its strong arm' ; but if we are to have any hope at all of placing the smaller nationalities, in Mr. Asquith's words, " on an unassailable foundation," we must work out some system of international relations which will secure the right of the weaker State against the aggression of the stronger. ,We must, in other words, substitute law for brigandage and private defence. We must do in the international sphere what the woman's movement demands that we shall do in the national sphere — recognize that inferiority in physical strength shall be no reason for any kind of disability. Just as inter-individual war, or the possibility of it, precludes the equality of women with men, so international war, or the fear of it, precludes the equality of small nations with large. This shows at a glance the absurdity of supposing that war in itself— the victory of one group of armies and fleets over another — can possibly place the rights of the smaller nationalities on an unassailable foundation. It might for the moment protect Belgium, or Serbia, or Poland ; but it would leave these and all other small peoples in the same position as before, so far as security for the future is concerned. War, and the fear of war, inevitably puts a premium upon large centralized States, because large centralized States are the best means of wielding force. If a few small peoples refuse to yield to this general tendency, they do so at their peril. An international agreement to prevent war would place small nations in a position of security, and nothing else would do it. The ideal of the nationalist, 11 the independent existence and free development " of all the peoples, would thus be attained.