The things men fight for, with some application to present conditions in Europe

Author's Preface

I have written this book because I could not help it. No professional or other necessity calls me away from the tranquil field of art into the turmoil of modern strife. But who does not scorn tranquillity in a time like this? Into this titanic struggle my heart enters with all the passionate sympathy of which it is capable. Were I young and free to follow the heart's behests, I should long ago have found my place in the trenches or in a soldier's grave. I know what my colours would be.

But I am neither young nor free, and my lot is cast with a people who, although all unwittingly in the storm centre, has another and a more difficult task. It is theirs to awake to the fact that their isolation is gone forever, theirs to accustom themselves to the strange consciousness, half irksome and half exhilarating, of contact with growing peoples, theirs to learn the laws of growth and the logic of its inevitable pressure. As the chief custodian of the world's future peace, we must understand the nature of war. We shall not bridle its violence so long as we see in it only the tyranny of monarchs or the caprice of naughty nations. It is folly to parley with protoplasm. It is wicked to malign the intelligence and the integrity of peoples.

Can I contribute ever so little to that deeper invi THE AUTHOR'S PREFACE

sight and juster judgment which shall save our people from criminal confidence and from fool's errands across the sea? A single fact encourages me to make the attempt. I am more or less familiar with every country now at war except Servia. I was for some years a resident in Paris, and a like period in Berlin. I have mingled with the crowds in their thoroughfares, studied in their universities, learned their speech and made friends within their gates. I know the byways of Britain from Dover to Aberdeen. I have seen the shrines of the Moslem and the minarets of Stamboul, and have travelled through the empire of the Czars from the Caucasus to the Baltic and the far eastern sea. Italy I know better than I know my own country, and Greece is my Holy Land. I have found shelter in the homes of Nippon, and looked down from the Black Mountain of Montenegro. And I know that these folk are human, men of like passions and like virtues with ourselves. As I have their case from their own lips I have been compelled to recognise the inexorableness of the destiny that confronts them. The wanton selfishness and unprovoked aggression of their policy, the cunning deception of their leaders and the stupid delusion of the led, all this of which we hear so much at home, has a far away and unreal sound to one in whose ears still linger the accents of these human voices. To such an one it is easy to accept the premise which is fundamental to our inquiry. All peoples are serious and sincere, and their governments as well. There is probably not a monarch in Europe who would not surrender his throne in the interests

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of his people. It is doubtful if there is one who does not understand better than we what those interests are. Every nation in the present war has its case, a case which it need not be afraid to present before the bar of humanity. Each has done the only thing that it could do, as judged by the standards which we habitually apply to our own national conduct. Any other assumption than this would be supremely unplausible ; any other would be highly unjust. This assumption must be our working hypothesis. The passions of partisanship will not teach us the lessons of the war.

Can I, feeling these passions to the full, hold them in abeyance, and give each of these peoples its due? Such is my contract with the reader. What will be his contract with me? Will he listen patiently, even though righteous indignation ebbs, and the fervid glow of partisanship fades into the dull grey of commonplace justice? Or will he throw the book aside, impatient of one who thus gives aid and comfort to the enemy? With the few who continue to the end I hope to join in a confession of faith.

Chapter I

The great war in Europe is now advanced into its second year. The surprise and consternation which it at first occasioned has now passed. It has become a matter of course, and looked at more calmly and in longer perspective, it seems more clearly a thing that had to be, an inevitable result of forces slowly gathered and organised through many decades. To the more philosophically minded this war, despite its magnitude, is slowly slipping into its place as merely one of a long series, fought on much the same ground and by much the same peoples, ever since history first lifted the curtain from this part of the world. It is even possible that the series is not finished, that the approaching settlement will leave some or all of the parties dissatisfied, and that peace will again be only a truce to be broken at a convenient season. Indeed, how can the settlement be satisfactory when one party declares that its fundamental demand is control of the sea, and the other just as positively insists that there can be no peace until that control is broken? Certainly one of these parties must be disappointed, possibly both. Conflict of interest is equally positive on other points. Neither party can brook the success of the other, and both will resent a compromise which holds the prize beyond their grasp. Try as we may in the intervals of truce to moderate these conflicting ambitions, it is not clear that even a sullen acquiescence can be permanently secured. Slowly the conclusion is forced upon us that this may not be — that it probably is not — the last great war. Before us, as behind, extends the devastating trail of war, until it fades on the horizon of vision beyond which history and prophecy are alike unable to penetrate.

As our thoughts have thus unconsciously turned from the war in Europe to the greater fact of war in Europe, the whole centre of interest has shifted. A year ago the whole world was busy reading blue books and white books and orange books, and so on through all the colours of the spectrum. Whole pages in our daily papers were devoted to legal analyses of their contents with a view to convicting the diplomats of one group or the other of conspiracy and duplicity in the negotiations preceding the outbreak of war, and so of fastening upon them the responsibility for its horrors. More popularly, the monarchs of the warring states were the objects of interest and inquiry, those who have loved the limelight coming in for a preposterous share of popular interest and condemnation. To-day a lawyer's analysis of diplomatic correspondence would hardly find readers, while the most observed of monarchs is scarcely mentioned for months at a time. With the consciousness that war in Europe is a recurring rather than an isolated phenomenon — that it is a European habit, so to speak, rather than an accident — there naturally comes the realisation that it is due to longstanding causes, and that diplomats and monarchs have been its agents, rather than its responsible originators. Hence there is less talk about banishing the Kaiser to St. Helena, as a means of insuring peace. Other panaceas, like the abolition of secret diplomacy, the settlement of boundaries by popular vote, and the like, are far less confidently urged than a year ago. There is a growing consciousness that the causes of this perennial warfare in Europe are not to be found in the mere surface froth of human volition, and it is hopeless to look there for a cure.

The writer of these pages offers no panacea for the appalling evils of war. Such suggestions as he is able to offer looking toward the amelioration of human misery in this connection are of the most modest character, and are at best of remote and gradual efficacy. Long before the question " What is the cure ? " must come the question, " What is the matter?" The sufferer may be impatient at the time spent in this preliminary inquiry. He wants relief. But it is quite clear that he must be patient if he would be cured — had better be patient even if it proves that he cannot be cured. During the past year the great sufferer has learned much of this patience. We can therefore more hopefully ask, what is the matter, than we could a year ago.

Even this inquiry must be greatly narrowed to bring it within the compass of one moderate volume. It is clear, for instance, that this, like other human ills, is due to ignorance and selfishness. If we fix our attention upon these causes, and trace them in their special forms and concrete applications, we can easily persuade ourselves that these are the sole causes of war, and that enlightenment and broadened interest in humanity are the only cure. There is abundant truth in this assumption to justify any possible effort at amelioration along these lines. The unwearying effort to extend the scope of arbitration and to promote friendship and community of interest among nations deserves the heartiest encouragement and support of all well-wishers of humanity, and despite the appalling scope of the present war there is much to encourage the friends of this cause. We are aghast that a single group can put ten million soldiers under arms, but is it not significant that so large a part of mankind can make common cause? Even concede that this community of action is due to the pressure of a common danger, and that it cannot be relied upon to outlive the present situation, it still means much that so large a number of men have seen this common danger and have been able to lay aside old jealousies and make mutual sacrifices to avert it. And this community of action did not begin with the war, and is not likely to end with it. Look at a map of France in the twelfth century, or of Germany even in the early nineteenth century, and see if men have made no progress toward cohesion and regular community of action. It is just because men have so greatly widened their horizon and have de-j veloped so much community of action, that these lat-' ter-day conflicts are so terrible. By all means let the process of enlightenment go on. If certain of these efforts come in for disparaging criticism in this book, it is not because they are wrong in principle but because they are shortsighted and fatuous, as all such efforts may be. The chief remedy — perhaps we may say the only remedy — for ills that flesh is heir to, is to be found in the increased intelligence and forbearance of men.

But it is not the psychological or moral factor in the problem that it is here proposed to consider. We are concerned rather with the other side of the problem, the environment in which man finds himself, its characteristics and eccentricities, and the trouble that they make. For purposes of present discussion we will assume that men are a constant quantity, permanently endowed with the same limited intelligence, the same ideals, the same resentments and suspicions. This, of course, is not quite true, though it is perhaps nearer true than the sanguine reformer is wont to think. There are always those who try to hitch the car of urgent reforms to the slow moving force of human evolution, as Mark Twain tried to ride down to Grindelwald on a glacier. They are right in a way. The glacier really does move, and perhaps quite in the direction assumed, but as an agency in transportation it is likely to be disappointing. The practical man or movement will reckon with the glacier pretty much as a fixture.

But whether men change little or much, we must eliminate this factor if we are to isolate our problem. This is the invariable procedure in all scientific inquiry. We merely dissipate our energy and evade the issue, if each time our inquiry gives us a hard nut to crack, we go off on a tangent and say: " If all men would obey the golden rule there would be no difficulty." There is grave reason to fear that all men will not obey the golden rule for a long time to come, no matter what our insistence upon it. And if they did, is it quite clear that there would be no difficulties, no problems, to solve? Is it not probable, rather, that stubborn facts of situation and environment have much to do with men's failure to obey the golden rule? Be that as it may, it is these facts of environment which we have set ourselves to investigate, and in our investigation we shall take men as they are, finite in intelligence, selfisn and suspicious, rarely capable of viewing their interests broadly, or of subordinating present to future good, yet dreamers withal, and seldom long free from the spell of conscience and generous ideals. It is with no disparagement of these ideals or denial of man's higher destiny, that we assume for convenience of analysis that for a considerable time men will continue to feel toward their neighbours and rivals much as they have felt, and that they will judge their own and rival interests by the familiar standards. Measure this period by decades or by centuries, as sanguine or sober temperament may dictate, it is the reality just now, and it is both legitimate and useful to study the problems which this reality presents. If our study discloses the fact that there are certain very real things which the nations are fighting about, things which with all intelligence and good-will must still involve serious hardship to one or another of the group, we shall at least have contributed something to that intelligence which the idealist invokes as the solution of the problem, and we shall have aided the task of forbearance and good-will by a better understanding of the burden that is laid upon them.

What do nations fight for? Or, more definitely, what may a nation fight for, with a fair prospect of commanding the sympathy and approval of disinterested men? What, in a word, may be fairly accounted as just causes of war?

Defence of its own soil must undoubtedly come first. No doubt there are times when the invasion of a nation's territory has a large measure of justification, as the result of long continued unneighbourliness and provocative acts, but the nation that takes the initiative in such an invasion assumes a heavy responsibility and must usually expect but grudging sympathy from a jealous world. The sanctity of territory is a solemn tenet of our political philosophy, akin to the sanctity of life in individual relations, and to repel invasion is as well recognised a right as the right of individual self-defence. Even if a nation has forfeited the sympathy of the world, and the right of the invader is grudgingly conceded, it never forfeits the right of self-defence, and the duty of its citizens to rally to its defence is never questioned. So firmly established is this principle of national self-defence that even the most confirmed pacifists usually freely concede it. No considerable body of men in the world has pronounced more emphatically against war than the various bodies of socialists in Europe, and yet they have always declared in favour of a war in defence of national territory (and " honour," the latter a vague category of grave potentiality, as we shall have occasion to learn). So obviously justified is the principle of defence that pacifists have usually thought this the place to draw the line. If all nations could be brought to recognise the principle of defence as the only justification of war, obviously there would be no war, for no one would be the aggressor, and so there would nowhere be the need of defence.

But, like most principles, the application is not so simple. The well known revision of the golden rule, do the man that would like to do you, and do him first, is obviously sound as a principle of war, and under this principle aggression may easily be justified as good defensive tactics. In fact, it almost invariably is so justified by the aggressor, who is not insensible to the strength of the defender's plea, and as any war is usually preceded by menace, invasion can always be construed with some degree of plausibility as a defensive act. It is interesting to note that in the present conflict, however clearly the outside world makes out its case of aggression, the socialists and other pacifists in each nation seem to have been fully persuaded that their own nation is fighting a defensive war.

Closely akin to the foregoing is the necessity often laid upon a nation of seizing territory adjacent to its boundaries in the interest of a more defensible frontier. The logic of such a procedure is less recognised, but it is quite inexorable. The man who repels a robber in his own house, is not more obviously within his rights than the man who puts a lock upon

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his front door. The latter is simply more prudent. Unfortunately, in the case of a nation's household, the lock is the work of nature and can usually be secured only at the expense of a neighbour. A cartoon of 1 87 1 represents the French peace envoys as protesting against Bismarck's demand for the surrender of Strassburg and Metz. " Strassburg! Why, that is the key to France." " Certainly, and it shall remain so; only we will lock the door from the other side," was the chancellor's reply. This was undoubtedly the chief motive for the annexation of these two mountainous border provinces. The recent seizure of the Khyber Pass by the British, to assure the defence of northern India is another instance.

It is plain that the principle of defence, thus construed, is transmuted completely into the principle of aggression. Yet its motive may be wholly that of defence, as in the case of the Khyber Pass above mentioned, and the justification fully accorded to the I principle of defence may be claimed for strategic ag- j gressions of this sort, with much plausibility. For J the pacifist to insist upon the maintenance of an inde- 1 fensible frontier, it may be argued, is to invite war and also to insure defeat. Placed thus in the uncomfortable position of seeming to favour war, the pacifist is compelled either to admit a much broader justification of war, or to deny it any justification I whatever, even the most obvious right of self-defence. When events thus put vague beliefs to the test, the immense majority of men recognise the broader justification of war, seeing in offence or defence only a question of tactics, and stand shoulder to shoulder, pacifist and coercionist alike, in defence of their common heritage. If the German socialists can, with practical unanimity, recognise the German role in the present war as a purely defensive one — as they honestly do and can — there is little to hope from limiting war to the defensive. Aggression, indeed, is little more than a name for defence, as seen from the other side.

Quite distinct from the defence of territory, yet indissolubly bound up with it, is the defence of independence. The freedom to choose one's own course of action is the very essence of nationality, as it is of manhood, and encroachment upon it is a subtle attack upon national existence. Nothing is more insidious than for a nation to form the habit of yielding to argument or pressure from a powerful neighbour. The essence of freedom may thus entirely disappear, while the semblance of independence remains as a deceptive mask. When the king of Syria, on his way to attack the king of Egypt, yielded to the advice of a Roman legate to return home and abandon the campaign, we are prepared for the unnoticed transformation of Syria a little later into a Roman province. It is a sound instinct which impels men everywhere to resent interference with their national freedom of action, even though the guidance proffered be reasonable and considerate. This is the essence of the vaguely defined term national honour.

Men who prize the privilege of choice in their individual lives can hardly deny the validity of the principle as applied to the collective life of men.

But the right, though indisputable, is again difficult of application. Matters between citizen and citizen, or between the citizen and his own state, are usually willingly left to the state in question, though the right of neighbouring Mexico to maintain anarchy on our borders, and even the right of far-away Turkey to massacre her Armenians, is not fully conceded. But outside of the home circle lies the broad circle of international relations, where interests are sure to conflict, and where complete liberty of action for any one nation is clearly impossible. To adjust the frontiers of privilege is more difficult than to adjust the frontiers of territory. There is the same manoeuvring for position, the same strategy, the effort to forestall and outwit as in the more concrete matter of frontier, and that in a field less concrete, less definable and permanent. It is clear that nations may be in perfect agreement as to their territorial boundaries, and yet find themselves in mortal conflict over questions of privilege and freedom of national action. The pacifist is wont to decry this whole body of interests on account of the conventional use of the word, honour, as its designation. It is easy to cite cases where the appeal to honour has been made on behalf of unjust claims and tyrannical action. None the less the word as used in this connection stands for very real interests, quite as well worth maintaining as those of territory itself.

We will not stop here to consider how far disputes in this field can be settled by other means than war. For the present we are concerned only to note that these interests are very real ones, quite as dear to men's hearts as the possession of a particular territory, and that men can and do differ much with regard to them. This is one of the things about which wars are fought.

Commerce is a prominent interest in modern international conflicts, one more discussed in our day than any other. It is popularly supposed, at present, to be the animating motive in the building of colonial empires, which is so conspicuous a feature of the present age. The justice of this opinion may be questioned, but the importance of commerce as a factor in international relations and a possible cause of war cannot be denied.

The commercial motive for acquiring colonies is obvious, if popularly exaggerated. Many of the colonies belonging to European powers were at first nothing but trading posts, with guards to defend the property and life of the alien trader, not at all to control or politically administer the country. But this armed protection involved conflicts with native rule and a necessary increase of authority on the part of the trading company until it ultimately resulted in political rule. India is a well known example of this evolution. The British East India Company, when first it established trading posts in that country, had not the remotest idea that India would one day be a part of the British Empire. To carry on a profitable commerce with the inhabitants and to protect its property and trading posts in a country not always able or willing to afford the needed protection, was their only thought. But all things conspired — their growing wealth, accumulated grievances, and not least the attacks of other European powers — to develop their military establishment to a point where it aroused the fear and hostility of native rulers. Conquerors in the wars with these rulers, they could not do otherwise than assume the administration of the conquered districts, until at last we have the anomaly of a trading company ruling and administering an empire. This once appreciated, England could not fail to realise the unsuitableness of a trading company for the guardianship of a people's interests, and her assumption of these responsibilities was inevitable. Such was the role which commerce unwittingly played for a couple of centuries, both in India and elsewhere, in the building of empires and their incident wars.

All this is at an end, however. There are no territories now in process of evolution toward colonies under the guidance of militant commerce, for the simple reason that no farther areas are available for appropriation in this way. China at one time seemed a possibility, and the presence of fortified outposts of foreign powers, like Hong Kong, Tsingtao, Wei-hai-wei, and Port Arthur, all in foreign hands, together with the foreign " concessions " of Canton, Shanghai, Tientsin and Hankow, patrolled and guarded by foreign gendarmes, are strongly suggestive of the earlier stages of Indian conquest. But there is little likelihood that the later chapters will follow. Even if China's power to protect herself be doubted, the jealousy of the great powers and their relative equality of position would make such an assimilation impossible. China will probably escape subjugation. She will in any case never be subdued by a trading company.

But commerce as a cause of war is not therefore dead. Indeed, it sometimes seems to be more active than ever. For whereas commerce was once the i handmaid of political power, political power seems 1 now to be the servant of commerce. Never were colonies more prized or more eagerly sought than now. Whether the colony be acquired by deliberate design, or thrust upon us by the most unforeseen accident, it is held with equal tenacity, in full faith that it will contribute to national greatness and power.

It is commonly assumed that the motive for this colonial expansion is commercial advantage, and as such it has been the subject of vigorous controversy. Many volumes have been written to prove that colonies are seldom remunerative, even when acquired, and that they never pay the cost of a war of acquisition. These arguments seem conclusive, and when it is remembered that the rulers of colonies seldom find it practicable to exclude traders of other nations, and that in many cases outsiders are accorded exactly the same privileges as citizens of the ruling nation, we are confronted by the curious and seemingly irrational fact that nations acquire and administer colonies at immense cost, and then share them with rival and even unfriendly nations on terms of complete equality.

It is impossible to reconcile such action on the part of intelligent and practical nations with the theory that commerce is the motive for colonial expansion. As a commercial proposition colonies do not pay. It is doubtful whether they ever will pay. As commercial propositions they resemble the doings of the gentleman farmer who produces eggs at a dollar apiece. The fact that individuals make money and exert a certain influence on their government to continue the expensive experiment very inadequately explains the unanimity, the positive enthusiasm, with which the expensive colonial luxury is endorsed and maintained. The fact would seem to be that the motive for acquiring colonies is to be sought rather in a nation's ideals than in the field of material advantage. Two men were once discussing the relative advantages of renting and owning a house. Said the one : " You can make money by renting a house." Replied the other : " I don't own a house to make money. I make money to own a house." The answer was final and complete. Even the most sordid intelligence must recognise that the making of money is not a rational end, but a means to something beyond. In the getting of money there is some degree of agreement. The aim is tangible, and the procedure more or less formulated. The intelligent observer may fairly criticise the participants as " business-like " or the reverse. But when it comes to the spending of money, we usually recognise that there is no accounting for taste. The final good which lies beyond money, and for which money is, is too intangible and too varied to permit of formulation or criticism. The lover of fine horses will find it inexplicable that a man should pay hundreds of thousands for shabby relics of the old masters, but he seldom challenges the legitimacy of the expenditure, knowing that to another his own choice is equally inexplicable. But both agree that their money is for something beyond itself. Disparage each other's choice as they will, they would both join in a far deeper contempt for the miser with whom money was an end.

It is an amazing fact that while all men recognise the existence of a realm of intangible, ideal interests toward which all individual effort justly tends, they often assume that nations have only material and concrete aims. To put it concretely, nations may help us make money, but they may not help us spend it. National aims must be severely practical. It is rational to own a house on which we lose money, but it is not rational to own a colony on which we lose money. But why not, if our taste is for colonies? Such a taste, with its white man's burden and its enormous expenditure of energy, its perplexities and its dangers, may be inexplicable to those otherwise minded, like the taste for football or classical scholarship or life in the smart set. But judge it as we may, the one completely unreasonable thing is to overlook it. Never is the idealist so mistaken as when he assumes that other men are materialists and without ideals. Nations, like individuals, seek material advantage, not for itself, but for the sake of ideal ends which refuse to give an account of themselves in terms of material things. This national idealism we must consider in its place. For the present it is sufficient to note that commercialism is not the chief motive for colonial expansion. Colonies were formerly acquired unintentionally, as an incident to commercial exploitation. But just as the nation has relieved the trading company of the burden of their administration, so national idealism has taken from national thrift the burden of their justification. Colonies may not pay, any more than children and many other things that men deem it not irrational to want. And yet nations want colonies just the same, and refuse to be argued out of their desire.