•U"'V'''^' ' KrarttrarioMriirBrarttfttfar -uiiiiiiiiiiitfiHiiiitftBiMWiiJ T 1— T F WORLD OF STATES ^^^^^%:^^%%:%^^^-^^:^^-^^-^^^^ ^\ C. 'VE LISLE 'J^URNS, M.yl. n >c 5?5?;t^;^^^^5f^^^5f^^^'f^^^'"i^^^^^ QforttcU Imocraita ffiibrarg atljaca, ^tw loth BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME OF THE SAGE ENDOWMENT FUND THE GIFT OF HENRY W. SAGE 1891 The original of tliis book is in tine Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924005217595 THE Ne'V9 Qommony^ealth "Books L THE WORLD OF STATES J^ TH6 Sc4S!\d£ SCRieS C THE WORLD OF STATES: By C DELISLE BURNS, M.A. C THE CHURCH IN THE COM- MONWEALTH: By RICHARD ROBERTS CFREEDOM: By GILBERT CANNAN The following volumes will be ready in Autumn ipi/: C. THE STATE AND INDUSTRY: By G. D. H. COLE, M.A. C THE STATE AND WOMAN : By A. MAUDE ROYDEN C EDUCATION AND SOQETY: By T. PERCY NUNN, M.A., D.Sc. C THE STATE AND THE CHILD: By W.CLARKE HALL Price 2S. net each volume. Headley Brew. Publiihcn, Ltd., Kingtway, W.C.2 THE WORLD OF STATES! BY C. DELISLE BURNS Author of" Political Ideals, " The Morality of Nations," " Greek Ideals," See. i i i 1917 LONDON HEADLEY BROS. PUBLISHERS. LTD. KINGSWAY HOUSE KINGSWAY W.C. ■ m r i ll MmWIII l l lW HiM M W II IIMMIMIMMIIIII B i l W I M W WlllMI I M I I I IW — 1 GENERAL PREFACE THE events of the present time have started much serious enquiry into the validity of our accepted institutions and our traditional habits of thought. Our conceptions of the State,of the Church, of the organi- sation of Industry, of the Status of Woman in the com- monwealth, and of many other things have been directly challenged; and it is commonly acknowledged that a frank and thorough-going examination of our current pos- tulates, political, religious,economic andsocial,is urgently called for. This series is intended to be a tentative con- tribution to the discussion of the problems thus raised. The writers of these volumes do not profess to have a complete philosophy of reconstruction ; nor hal>e they endeavoured to co-ordinate their thoughts into a coherent ptlity. They treat of matters upon which they are not all agreed; but they agree that Society should be organised with a y>ievi> to the free development of all the finer interests and activities of men, and that such organisation must take account of local and spiritual differences. Apart from this general agreement, they have wor^d out their several theses independently and are severally alone responsible for the opinions expressed in the volumes published under their names. The volumes in the series will cotier the main subjects relative to the function of the State. Those already planned wll treat of the State in its relation to other states, to religion, to industry, to society, to woman, to the individual, to art, education and crime. C. 'DELISLE S URNS TiJCHARD lipBERTS AUTHOR'S PREFACE IT may seem that world-politics is too vast and complicated a subject to he dealt with in a book so small as this. But it should be remembered that the present political situation is only a momentary stage in the history of a race which inhabits a small planet. Two popular ideas are misleading — one that the policy of our own state is simple or that it is the expression of one definite purpose; the other that men and customs are so various as to be unintelligible. Against these ideas we urge that the policy of any one state is due to a complexity of different and sometimes conflicting passions and ideas; and, on the other hand, that all men and all their customs have fundamental similarities. That is the excuse for treating the problems of world-politics as those of internal policy are already treated. We do not propose, however, to deal with the whole of this subject. Our purpose is very limited. We shall omit the descriptive analysis of institutions and the record of state-actions, and we shall also omit the problems of administration in undeveloped countries, all of which would have to be dealt with in a treatment of the subject with any pretence at being exhaustive. But we_jhalL confine our attention to jhe^ emotional and^ inteU lectual forces or tendencies which _ underlie the elaborate political and social structure of the present world- And this is done not because we can afford to be ignorant of the actual methods now used in inter-state politics, but because we wish to reduce all the fundamental issues to terms of men, women, and children. We are theorists; but even in theory the establishment of political humanism is the greatest need of the present, and in practice political humanism would make obsolete the decayed Conservatisms and shabby Liberalisms of the past. For we consider chiefly men, women, and children in order that they may be less enslaved by primitive desires and obsolete ideas and freer to achieve the promise of their finer dreams. C. DELISLE BURNS. CONTENTS CHAWER. I. THE STATE IN THE WORLD : The states of the world depend upon the groupings of men. They have progressed in organisation, but each has been reformed by its citizens in isolation from others. Meantime the world has changed. Men of all groups are brought more closely into con- tact. Every state, therefore, is naturally affected by being in contact with other states 1-17 II. POLITICS AND FOREIGN POLICY: The contact of states is con- trolled in foreign policy by actions and ideas which imply two opposing views. One is that each state has absolutely distinct inte- rests, the other that all have common inte- rests. Policy should be based upon local or departmental " sovereignty " and co-opera- tion between governments in the increasing number of common interests - - 18-35 III. NATIONALITY: The passions and ideas of nationality appear not to be amen- able to a calculated plan in foreign policy. They divide men more deeply than differ- ences of administration. But nationality has many meanings, and in its finer meaning it would divide men without creating hostility between them. The state should appeal to this finer sense of nationality - 36-52 CHAPTER. IV. ECONOMICS: Economic interests divide states, and the economic is closely- connected with the political interests of men. But the policy of economic isolation is not politically sound. Neither completely " free " trade nor protected trade is possible as a basis for justice and liberty. The only solution seems to be the control of trade and investment by some inter-state authority 53-71 V. DEFENCE : The danger remains which arises from the primitive passions of men. The past cannot be deleted : armies and navies arid the desire for domination over others are real facts. But security can be attained by other means than defence. The elimination of the danger is the true aim 01 political as contrasted with military concep- tions. And the political means of attaining security is the organisation of inter-state relations ----- 72-88 VI. CO-OPERATION BETWEEN STATES : The beginning of inter-state organisation is to be found in Diplomacy, the Postal Union, treaties, alliances and ententes. States have begun to co-operate : and a sane foreign policy will both increase the number of common tasks and initiate the formation of " polities " of two or more states for special purposes - - 89-105 VII. INTERNATIONAL CONFER- ENCES AND LEAGUES: There are two programmes immediately prac- ticable: one in the development, with cer- tain modifications, of the Hague Conferences. A long history lies behind these. The other plan is the formation of a League of States with a Council of Conciliation- - 106-123 VIII. WORLD ORGANISATION: What- ever practical programme is adopted, it is important that we should control social forces and especially master the state- organisation. World - organisation based upon a new political attitude will forestall the growth of destructive forces and free the mind for a finer civilisation - - 124-143 CHAPTER I: THE STATE IN THE WORLD NO man lives or thinks alone. In every man are his ancestors, whose passions and thoughts have shaped his body and his mind. Round every man are his contemporaries, intimately affecting what he does or thinks, since, although he may avoid them, even in driving him away they guide the current of his life. The hermit carries his race with him into the desert; and the genius stands upon the shoulders of the common man. And rising out of every man is the future race, whether he has children or affects the future by his thought or his thoughtlessness. Thus with any one man the whole race lives and thinks. But men are not only connected with all other men living and dead, they are divided into various groups; for men are bound, one to the other, by passion or interest or blood or by submission to the same law or by inhabiting the same corner of the earth, and they are separated from other groups of men by differences of blood and tradition and custom and locality. Among the many groupings of men some are called states. Their nature is still in dispute among philosophers; for some appear to believe that there is a super-personal entity existing beside or along with the subjects or citizens of a state. Others think of the state as one among many different groupings, having an existence perhaps more important, but the same in kind, as a goose-club, or a church, or a trade union. This fundamental issue we need not THE WORLD OF STATES discuss here, for most men know by experience the activities of what is usually called a state. States unite men by an apparatus of law and administra- tion; but their nature cannot be understood by a mere analysis of outward regulations. Their character can be distinguished by an attitude of mind or by habitual action of their citizens or subjects, which may be hardly at all reflected in their laws. A state includes the whole body of those who choose or acquiesce in an independent administration, the purpose of which is believed to be justice and liberty. More men acquiesce than choose, for free choice is rarely exercised and by few men. Most men are born into a group already organised as a state, membership in which they accept unthinkingly. But choice or acquiescence creates a peculiar relationship be- tween citizens which lies somewhere between aff^ection and calculation of interest. There are about forty such states, and the tendency since the Renaissance has been to reduce their number. States have coalesced, as when Germany was united in 1871; states have been destroyed, as when the Orange Free State was made British; and although new states have appeared during the nineteenth century, in South America, for example, and later in the separation of Norway from Sweden, the general tendency is that larger and fewer states should exist, since communication over wider areas is increasingly possible and unity of administration is generally desired. THE STATE IN THE WORLD Within all these states, old and new, changes have occurred in the meanings given to justice and liberty. These are names for the relation of men, one to another, and they are desired or worked for because of the men and women who without them would lack some possibility of being all that they might be. Within each state, therefore, there have been efforts to make the opportunities of life greater, or there have been reactions and apathy when some attempt has failed. The states of the world are in that sense separate and isolated experiments towards enlarging the possibilities or securing the conditions of civilised life; and within every state those who valued what had been done have been inclined to suppose that in the devices of their native administration they beheld the features of the ideal state or the true " essence " of the state. They have wanted more of that good thing; or they have adored, as Blackstone did, the established order to which they felt they owed security and happiness. On the other hand, those who felt the limitations imposed on them by the social organisation of their time saw in the state into which they had been born an evil thing. Their effort was to lessen the burden of regulations of which they felt the pressure and from which they derived no advantage. So the early Utilitarians in England spoke of the limits of state " interference," and they aimed at the abolition of established rules. It was their chief concern to find a place for the b2 THE WORLD OF STATES new energies of the early nineteenth century in England; and elsewhere in the states of the world there was the same shaking of the old structure of society. A third school, in nearly every state, arose in the middle of the nineteenth century. The pro- grammes and theories of this school need not concern us here; but these new thinkers seem to have felt neither devotion to the established order nor irritation at regulations. They aimed at establishing new and more generally beneficial rules than those which had been inherited or had been lately destroyed. This movement in every state-group was usually called Socialism, and it was aimed chiefly at the adoption of new and untried organisation to correct the savage com- petition of industrialism.* In all these social movements our interest here involves that we should see one peculiar feature. The political energies and the political thinking of most men were confined to the limits of the par- ticular state to which they belonged. This, indeed, like all general statements, does not take account of exceptions; but the rule of political life was clearly that indicated. Men thought and acted politically within frontiers. They saw what was good or bad, what must be maintained, abolished or established, within one state. The conditions of life which * These three movements, as far as England is con- cerned, are admirably rendered in Dicey's Law and Public Opinion in England during the Nineteenth Century. THE STATE IN THE WORLD they admired or opposed were conditions in their immediate neighbourhood and under the particular administration into which they had been born; and when any reformer or conservative looked " abroad " he felt that " abroad " as an isolated and distinct social world. Even the apparent exception to this general rule, which is usually called Internationalism, did not concern itself with the political relations of the states of the world. It aimed rather at turning men's minds altogether away from the divisions of the race by states. It was inspired by the idea of a common humanity; but neglected the difference of diverse races and governments. The political mind of the world was a frontier-mind, and the international mind was unpolitical. Meantime, however, states existed side by side in the world, and the various governments had to pursue some line of conduct. It was impossible to neglect the fact that good or bad government in a neighbouring state was important for the prosperity of every state. And there was also the general feeling inherited from the Renaissance that the proper duty of each government was to keep to itself. Thus, while foreign ministers had behind them an ancient belief and acted only upon that, within nearly every state social and political changes were taking place, and the interest, and therefore the thought, of the time left " external " policy to tradition. Thought on foreign policy was uninspired by any widely felt interest, and it THE WORLD OF STATES was generally the thought of officials, who were less concerned with what to do than with how to doit. Such, in brief, has been the recent history which has formed the present relation between the states of the world. Or perhaps we ought rather to say that such has been the history of men's relation to their fellows who belonged to a different adminis- tration; for it is, after all, the relation of peoples, and not of governments, which is of primary importance and interest. And in this matter what is most important is the small proportion of thought and popular interest which ihas been given to the contact between states by comparison with the intellectual labour on internal political reform. It is not to be wondered at, therefore, that although in internal structure states have changed very much since Athens was great, in external policy the same actions and the same beliefs are pro- minent as in the earliest times. The states which at present exist differ in their methods of govern- ment, but hardly at all in their external policy, and this is, indeed, a sign of the little thought which has been devoted to that part of political life; for a more common interest in the subject would have probably led to diversity in the purposes aimed at, if not in the methods used. As a preliminary to further discussion we must consider the distinction and the likeness between the internal administration in different states. But the ancient divisions of monarchy and republic, or THE STATE IN THE WORLD autocracy and democracy, will not be adequate for estimating the part played by states in the lives of men. The most important distinction for our purpose here is that into national and imperial states. Neither name is adequate, for no state is com- pletely identical in its frontiers with the limits of any one nationality; and, on the other hand, an Empire seems, in our present language, to mean anything from a military autocracy over peoples of diverse races to a democratic exploitation of one people by another. If the states of the world be classified, therefore, as national and imperial, we shall have to be satisfied with placing Denmark, Norway, Chile, Siam, and such states in one category, and France, Germany, Great Britain, and the United States in another. For in all these latter states there are subject peoples whose national character or tribal spirit has no effect upon the administration. Holland, as a sovereign state, is an example of the difficulty of classifying, since in one sense it is a national state, but vast numbers of tribes in the East are subject to the Dutch.* And this fact of diverse races under the same administration is more important in the contact between states than the fact that there is in this or that state more or less equality of power among the members of the dominant race. For govern- * See The Statesman's Year Book for the bare facts as to the number of states and the differences in thedr populations. THE WORLD OF STATES ments in states which are imperial, in the vague modern sense of the word, are naturally inclined to be nervous as to security of possession. The most important fact, however, for the consideration of world policy is the likeness, and not the difference, between states. It may be that all states are organisations, the ostensible purpose of which is justice and liberty. It may even be said that it is the nature or " essence " of the state to aim at justice and liberty, in the sense in which the " essence " of an acorn is to be an oak. The ideal is not merely confused with the real when philosophers say that the state is " a general will " for justice and liberty; for there is a close relation between what a thing at any moment " really " is and what it aims at being.* But, to avoid meta- physics, it is sufficient if we say that all states are maintained, by indolence perhaps or docility, in the belief that justice and liberty are what this or that administration seems to secure. It is impossible to deny the admiration of all men for justice and liberty, although their social position and even their private income seems to make a difference to the meaning they give to the words. Many are * For those who care to embark upon metaphysics, it may be said that we have here the relation of the Platonic Idea (our " ideal ") of the state to the Aristotelian " Uni- versal " (the thing in which one actual state is like another) or Form of the state. The best modern rendering of philosophical thought on the nature of the state is, as far as I know, Henri Michel's L'Idie de I'Etat. It is deficient in the traditional manner, because it neglects entirely the external relations of the state. THE STATE IN THE WORLD inclined to doubt that despots or the governing classes believe in justice or liberty; but this seems to be unkind, for they are as honest in their professions as other men. The trouble is that justice can easily be made to mean " keeping what we have," and liberty " the possibility of getting more." That is the usual meaning of the words in inter-state or diplomatic relations, in which sphere justice is sometimes called " the status quo," and liberty " the right to natural expansion." These are not cynical cloaks for ambition. They are the creeds of the simpk-minded. And they are the results of a long development, in which thought and imagination have played a very small part. In all states, therefore, we find a fundamental likeness, in that government aims chiefly at maintaining, rather than at changing, the present social and economic structure of society — not because government is in the hands of those who benefit by such structure, but because the majority of men see no alternative to the present situation except chaos. That seems to be the reason why in every state attacks upon private property, for example, or upon the wage-system are opposed by the administrative ofl!icials, with the apparent approval of the majority even of the landless and the wage-earners. The fear of chaos is reasonable; and, so long as the political imagination cannot set before us a third possibility, neither chaos nor the present situation, so long will the state be a mechanism for continuing the inherited economic THE WORLD OF STATES or social structure. In this sense every state exists by the will of its citizens or subjects, as slavery may be supported by slaves lest worse should befall them.* A generous but too uncritical idealism maintains that this is not the nature of the state, and that the evils of the present political system are accidental. It may be so. At any rate, the evils are at present both real and important, and they exist in every state. There must be some third possibility besides maintaining what exists and destroying the state altogether, for we have no intention whatever of going back to political chaos. That needs to be said, lest anyone should suppose that an analysis of the state system which leads to its being criticised adversely is therefore a condemnation of all possible law. The fact remains that every state at present is resisting rather than promoting social development. In the second place, every state is ruled and administered by a very few, selected from a small social class. Ninety-nine hundredths of the inhabitants of the earth are labourers with their hands, and they have not between them one- hundredth of the political power of the world of states. This Is not a complaint or a grievance : It is a statement of fact. Many will say that the * With this is connected the idea of a real will, which Rousseau first emphasised. As an abstract theory of state- allegiance the idea of a real will does not seem to allow for the distinction between choice and acquiescence. It is also misleading in making the state seem to be a large person. THE STATE IN THE WORLD ninety-nine hundredths have not the knowledge or ability required for politics; many will say that their interests are considered and actually attained by the few who rule. That does not concern us for the moment. The important fact is that in all states (democratic or otherwise) the majority of men have no say in administration or policy; and even the modern devices by which they may be persuaded that they have some free choice cannot disguise that fact from any candid thinker. But the analysis of state-structure which reveals these evils in the administration of every state should not blind us to the good which is also to be found in established law and government. This other side of the facts is important. We stand at the beginning, and not at the end, of political experiments. The state, as it now exists, is only a first attempt; and it has achieved something. Politicians are indeed annoyed if one tells them that they are doing very well considering the early date of their expedients; and their dignity is hurt if one compliments them on their undoubted success in the control of sewage and organisation of " defence." But the candid observer of political development must see how excellent these first experiments at justice and liberty are. We must have more of whatever good has been at present attained, and there is some hope that the present state-system may be changed into something as different from what it now is as that is different from tribal chaos. The good of the present is the THE WORLD OF STATES only basis for the future good; and we can easily see that law and government give a certain freedom to some, that order and stability are possibilities for the higher activities of man, and that in every state the oppression of some by others is due rather to ignorance and unimaginativeness than to any positive ill-will. It is not, therefore, with any desire to weaken the state-system or to destroy allegiance to the state that we remark upon the evil as well as the good in the internal structure of states. We are neither lawyers nor anarchists. Let us now turn to the wider social world, of which state government and state policy form only a part.* This is the world of economic supply and demand, of religious enthusiasm, of artistic achievement, of scientific advance, and of formless affections and hopes. In that wider world political administration and political thought play a great and important part, but the wider social world has life and development of its own. Religion may develop, for example, while political life decays. In the recent past a transformation has occurred, the result of which it is difficult to foresee. The world of men is now one whole. Hitherto, and until perhaps about a hundred years ago, different centres of civilisation were hardly connected. China and Japan were practically untouched by European tihought and commercial activity; and * See Graham Wallas 's The Great Society for some of the leading features of this new social world. This needs ta be supplemented by a study of the non-economic and non- political contacts of men, which are also world-wide. THE STATE IN THE WORLD 13 even within any one type of civilisation the sub- centres, such as New York, Paris, Berlin, and London, were more independent than they now are in normal times. Even if we think of civilisation chiefly in the terms of economics, the world is more united now than it was. But if we give civilisation a wider meaning, and include in it intellectual or artistic achievement, we should recognise that one kind of science is taught and used everywhere, that there is little disagreement as to the main facts of recent human history, and that the art of every section of the world is begin- ning to affect every other. We are not referring to the position or knowledge of scientists and artists, but to the achievements in which common men share. There is a common science in an electric bulb, or in a turbine engine, or in the microscopic diagnosis of disease. There is a common, even if it is a trivial, art in the hotels of the world and in the clothing which men now adopt. These unnoticed, because familiar, unities survive political crises, and they are increasing by the mere weight of the fact that they make life easier. They are signs and also sources of a new social world. Within this changed social world the old institu- tions continue to exist and to develop. The Christian Churches, the Mohammedan sects, and the schools of Buddhism or Chinese Moralism live on after the circumstances in which they first arose have passed even out of the memories of men. 14 THE WORLD OF STATES And, although many of the characteristics of these different organised groupings of men are due to their earlier history and to the circumstances of a very different earlier time, yet they all show the effects of the new social situation. The Roman Church was once the only religious body in Western Europe, and its officials often behave, in Catholic countries, as though this were still the case. But the Cardinals use motor-cars and the Pope telegraphs. The policy of the Church has to take account, also, of the existence of many independent Christian bodies. Even Moham- medanism has a modern apologetic* It would be unreasonable to expect that in the new social world the states of the world should have remained unaffected; for new commerce and new finance and new world-interests would naturally affect the institutions which provide the basic conditions of civilised life more than those institutions which exist chiefly for aspiration and unworldliness. And, indeed, if we compare the English state as it now is with the English state of the sixteenth or eighteenth century we can see that a change has occurred. Naturally, its funda- mental character has not been changed, since it is one growing institution. There is still a Common Law, an unwritten and non-rigid Constitution, and a unitary, as opposed to a federal, administration. But change has occurred, as It has in every state; ~* cf. The history of Behaism or JBabism, especially as rendered in Prof. E. G. Browne's article on the subject in Hasting's Dictionary of Religion and Ethics. THE STATE IN THE WORLD 15 and the changes which are most striking are those which are due to the new social world. Some of these are internal changes, as in the control of government by industrial and financial magnates by contrast with landowners; and some are changes in external relations or policy. An elaborate apparatus of diplomacy has grown up, and Govern- ment offices, such as the Board of Trade, have much concern with the existence of other states. These changes in external structure have occurred in every state, largely because the new social world keeps all states in continuous contact. And such changes reflect a change in the psycho- logical attitude of citizens, for new administrative offices are signs of newly-felt needs. The mere pressure of new circumstances has compelled attention to the relation between states; and thought has elaborated an old mechanism and created a new. The place of the state, therefore, in the wider social world for which states provide order and liberty can no longer be understood with- out direct reference to external contact and foreign policy. And the study of these is part of the study of the nature of the state even from the philo- sophical or psychological point of view, since the growth of new administrative offices shows that the modern state is very different from the states of the older world. We conclude therefore (i) that men are grouped in many organisations, of which some are states; (2) that these states have been developed by pro- 1 6 THE WORLD OP STATES gressive thought, which has been confined in the main to domestic or internal policy; (3) that all states, in spite of recent reforms, are still ruled by the few and are organisations for the maintenance, rather than the change, of the inherited social and economic structure of society; and (4) that a change has occurred in recent times which has given more importance than before to the external policy of states and to the character of the government of each in its contact with others. It seems to follow that the nature of the state in its external relations needs to be studied, and that an analysis shoyild be attempted of the emotional and intellectual forces which unite and divide the states of the world. This subject is of increasing importance to the ordinary citizen, if social change is likely to con- tinue in the same direction as that followed during the last century. For either the state will be made to fit into the new social order, or it will obstruct the growth of that order and therefore limit or destroy the new conveniences of life (not to refer to anything nobler), or, thirdly, the older and isolated state will emerge supreme upon the ruins of the civilised world. The bare possibility of such results is an excuse for immediate thought upon the contact of states. For such study, however, a form of realism in thought must be combined with idealism in feeling. We must feel deeply, or our thought will lead nowhere; and we must see clearly, or our de- sires will mislead us. The tendency of those who THE STATE IN THE WORLD 17 desire a better world is to live too much in the world of imagination; and even the average man does not like to see things as they are. For there is in him an ingenuous idealism, which Henry James described in Madame de Mauves : " Even after experience had given her a hundred rude hints, she found it easier to believe in fables, if they had a certain nobleness of meaning, than in well-attested but sordid facts." For the same reason many men believe in the excellence of the only state they know — their own — and imagine that the world would be filled with angels if every- one were like themselves. On the other hand, the political realist attends too much to what is being done and too little to what men desire to do. He sees actions — at least, those of other people — divorced from their intentions, and he considers methods rather than ideals. He rarely shows any imagination in suggesting new ideals for which we should work or die. He has hardly ever been able to conceive of any alternatives but chaos and tinkering at the present system; and he accepts the purposes for which men have undoubtedly lived and died in the past as the only imaginable causes of enthusiasm. But there are a thousand pos- sibilities open. The field is unmapped. New purposes are our chief interest; and these may indeed be considered without such passion as obscures the complexity of issues, but certainly not without the passion that inspires creative thought and invigorates action. CHAPTER II: FOREIGN POLICY WE have indicated that the starting-point for any consideration of inter-state relations must be the likeness and diiferences between actual men and women. But even individual men and women are complex, and from their different passions and thoughts the policy of states arises. The action of governments with respect to other states is due to the settled apathy or the sudden emotions of those upon whom each government depends; and the study of foreign policy must therefore imply a know- ledge or how men feel and a clear perception of the fact that their feelings grow stronger by being shared. But so far we have spoken of men, as it were, from the point of view of other men : we have referred to them chiefly in relation to the group or the race. We must now, at least in passing, indicate the sort of activities which, bubble up in every man and set the race moving. For the source of all social energy is in the individual; and if we are to think adequately of the larger political issues we must consider the feelings and hopes of single men, women, and children. We shall be lost in a fog of vague phrases if we discuss the state without continual reference to actual human beings, who have certain definite desires and thoughts. For states and Churches and trade unions and financial companies are secondary in importance to men, women, and children, even if, as Plato said, we are only unfeathered bipeds with gregarious habits. The human race is strangely complex — bestial. FOREIGN POLICY ignoble, and unintelligent — but at the same time resolute and kindly, filled with high hopes and transforming thought. Most men are at different times each of these, and no man is always only one of these. The dealings of man with man vary between the extremes expressed in the old phrases — " Man is to man a wolf " and " Man is to man a sacred thing."* For no man consistently main- tains one attitude towards his fellows. The wolf- man turns kindly, and the benevolent at times show an unexpected meanness. Further, there is in each man heredity; for the past is in our blood. In the jungle which lies behind the cleared spaces in the soul of a civilised man lurk the old beasts which once roamed over all the thoughts of his ancestors. The most hideous are perhaps extinct; but enough remain to surprise those who think of men as already showing angelic wings. Out of such elements is made the orderly life to which civilised men have become accustomed; and some of the methods by which a certain amount of order and reason has been introduced are called states. Those are wrong who revile the state because it is not the City of God, and those also who are satisfied that it should remain always so different from that city. Both schools forget perhaps that this year lies somewhere between 50,000 B.C. and 50,000 A.D. Some expect too * These are Seneca's phrases, doubtless not invented by him. " Homo homini lupus " and " homo res sacra homini." The early stoics thus attempted a psychology of human relations. 02 THE WORLD OF STATES much, and others are too easily satisfied. Between them stand the dumb majority which is called Man. What has been achieved shows both how the beast in us may be overcome and also how noble a thing lay hid in the first savage attempts at security. For the good and the evil of the present situation, in so far as they are due to human action, give warning of danger and ground for hope. Wc men, blindly and with much pain, with many mis- takes on the way and many happy chances, have contrived to become what we now are, and have established those orderly arrangements in society which we call institutions. But still the human beings concerned are the centre of interest, and their lives are the end for which oUr social schemes exist. For the purpose of this book we must neglect all other methods of social organisation and con- sider only what is called political; but this must not be supposed to imply that it is the most important. And among the political efforts to make life endurable on an inhospitable planet we shall attend chiefly to those institutions which connect and divide vast groups of men, women, and children, usually called nations. These are the states of the world — interesting and partially suc- cessful experiments for the attainment of a moderate amount of quiet and security. They are the results of perhaps fifty thousand years of trial and error, and are not without marks of their birth FOREIGN POLICY in the thoughts and acts of half -redeemed beasts; but they have also on them the mark of that fineness and infinite possibility which have distin- guished the race called human. States are neither mysterious nor divine, except in what they derive from the nature of man. They may be studied as facts and judged as attempts to arrive at some end. For we cannot accept them as they stand, because they obviously do not attain what most men expect from them; but we cannot fairly judge them unless we know how they act and within what limits their usefulness is confined. And lest we may seem to take too much for granted, we have indicated shortly what we mean by the word state, in saying that wherever there is a legal sys- tem with an executive power for administration there is a state. The forty or more such complete systems at present in existence have varying rela- tions to other organisations for religion, for industry, for commerce, for art, or for science, in j^hich men unite themselves. But the importan' fact for us here is that these states, as distinguished from other institutions, have varying relations one to the other. We shall presume here that all those who govern or are governed in one group belong to one state and in some sense are the state : for even the slave within a despot's reach helps tg keep in being the orderly arrangement of life under which he lives. The state, then, is formed by the opinion of the men and women who enjoy or endure the unique relationship between them THE WORLD OF STATES which may be called political administration : and every state has an executive or a government which is felt by the passive part of the state as the real source of state-thinking and state-action. The purpose of each state organisation is order, and as much freedom as is possible within the particular scheme of order adopted or inherited; and the activities which directly support or destroy such order and freedom are called political. This, briefly, is how the states of the world come to be what they are, as a result of the varying passions of men and women. Let us turn then to the study of the inertia and the forces which keep the states of the world in being and direct or disturb their usefulness. It is only at moments of crisis that the majority of men are troubled by political problems. For most of their lives men regard the administration under which they live with submissiveness or suspicion, or they entirely forget its existence. The social world is affected by the existence and activity of elaborate political administrations, but the majority of human beings are sublimely un- concerned. The policeman, the tax-collector, and the sanitary inspector, even armies and navies, are easily taken for embodiments of an eternal and absolute " nature of things "; and men accept them as they accept thunderstorms or rain. The rules according to which daily life is organised become almost as unconscious as the processes of diges- tion : and this, indeed, is no business of ours until FOREIGN POLICY 23 it works badly. Thus it comes about that nearly all political action is without any purpose which is understood or appreciated by those who suffer or benefit from it : and with this political childish- ness we have to reckon when we are dealing with the larger Tssues of politics. Politicians, professional and amateur, are more numerous in England than elsewhere. And before we consider the relation of states and governments we must know that the human race is not keenly political, but is diverse, semi- conscious, interested in a thousand different pur- suits, and, in the main, submissive. Even in England political interests are transitory. An election occasionally, a murder generally, and a war invariably, attracts the attention of men to the institutions under which they live. But men have lacked interest because they are pursuaded that they cannot control government, and they have become docile under the irresponsibility of their rulers.* The very instability of the average man's attention induces him to give a preposterous importance to the objects to which he is compelled to attend. He is easily alarmed and easily fooled. For being unsophisti- cated in politics, when in a crisis he is driven to think of political issues, his mind is open to the seven devils of obsolete political wisdom. He flies to listen before the tub on w hich stands the ~~* Thus Lord Bryce has said that the state is based on indolence and docility; cf. Studies in History and Juris- prudence. Vol. II. 2+ THE WORLD OF STATES practical man; and this interesting biped poses as an authority because his mistakes are the cause of our difficulties. The practical man is indeed an authority on the course he has pursued : but for that very reason he is a bad judge of any alterna- tive. He cannot see anything but difficulties if he is presented with a new plan of action; and he cannot see anything but unfortunate accident in the natural consequences of his own ineptitude. He thus misleads the common man by the over- rating of practical experience of past mistakes. There is, however, the other side of the facts. The common man is hard-headed, and, after a time, can tell the direction in which he desires to go. Above all, he never quite loses his sense of flesh and blood and the basic realities, even if for a time he is befogged with words and blinded by a tinsel pomp. And so, sometimes by long detours, the right covirse is taken in making human life more endurable. The particular issues with which we must deal here are even less familiar to the majority than the problems of law and administration. For nearly all men think of their state in isolation. It is not difficult, however, at the present moment to show the importance to quite ordinary persons of the dealings between states. Twelve institutions for the attainment of quiet and security have been since 19 14 in a situation called "belligerency," and as a result many ordinary persons are suffering in life and limb. Various other institutions for FOREIGN POLICY z; the same purpose are in a situation called " neu- trality " ; and under them fear grows and the more extreme division of rich and poor proceeds apace. The majority believe that someone is to blame : others believe that it is the nature of things : others, again, that something is wrong with the system of inter-state relations. And doubtless there are many varieties of these three views; but we cannot here discuss this problem. It ,will be sufficient if it be recognised that it is important, and that if we can in any way control the actions which lead to such a situation, we must have clear ideas as to the relation between states. The states of the world are continually in con- tact. They support a peculiar custom called diplo- macy which has been found to be moderately effective in arranging the business of government when the citizens of one state pass into the terri- tory of another or when the wealth of one district is owned by the inhabitants of another. It is mere prejudice to blame diplomacy for the evils of inter- state confusion, for it is a first attempt at reducing to order what would otherwise be pure chaos. And in so far as diplomacy is at all effective it is, as it were, the instrument of foreign policy, which must be here understood to mean the direction of poli- tical action with a view to its influence upon other states. In one sense all policy is foreign policy, since every political action has effects outside the boundaries of one state. We cannot improve 26 THE WORLD OF STATES our sanitation without making the contact of foreigners with us less dangerous to foreigners, and we cannot suppress originality without lessen- ing the chance that rnen in other nations will make progress. The only way to do lasting harm to foreign nations is to injure ourselves. And certainly every general trend in internal politics, if not every definite action, has its effects upon other states. The reverse is obviously true : for no reform or revolution in another state is without some effect upon our own internal politics. We can, however, distinguish roughly between those political actions which bear chiefly upon the citizens of one state and those activities which affect chiefly the citizens of another state. The tatter may be taken as the embodiment of foreign policy. How do men feel with regard to these ? It is obvious that no continuous or common emotion is felt even among the members of one state. The passions which govern foreign policy are more changeable than those which affect internal government. But certain very general tendencies can be made out, which still affect the lives of men. Everyone knows that the leading conception of the external relations of states has been that states are to each other " in the posture of gladiators." The best and clearest statement of the view is to be found in Hobbes' Leviathan, but it is a view which is accepted with- out argument by the majority of those who have inherited rather than acquired their opinions. It FOREIGN POLICY implies that force and fraud are the methods of foreign policy, and that its purpose is the destruc- tion of every other system of government. There is, on this supposition, no lie and no violence which should not be used in the promotion of the interest of each state against every other. Another leading conception of foreign policy is that which has resulted in International Law. On this supposition, the clearest source of which we may find in Grotius, all states are bound to limit tide methods of pursuing their interest by a vague sense of natural or Christian morality. Thus, we may lie a little, but not too much; and we may enforce our will, but with no excessive infliction of suffering on others. And although in a sense this conception, too, was based on force and fraud, it implied that all civilised states belonged to a community whose interests were, at any rate in part, shared by all. The majority of men have always attempted to compromise between these views : but probably both are now obsolete The facts of modern political experience are such that we shall probably have to elaborate an entirely new view of foreign policy and inter-state relations : and what we have so far said is based only upon the crudest contrast between the views which affect foreign policy. There is, however, one obstacle to be overcome before we go any further. This is the vast and all-corroding falsehood in the usual conception of foreign policy. It is implied in nearly every newspaper article on the subject, zS THE WORLD OF STATES and it is ingrained in the mind of the average man. It is that the state to which we belong is a com- plete and separate whole, whose perfection is some- what tarnished by the existence of other states. Hence comes a surly annoyance with foreign governments. Other systems of government are conceived as a nuisance to the average man and an obstacle to the professed diplomatist, for the average man wants to be left alone, and the diplomatist wants to have his own way. All would be well if we could remove every sovereign state to a separate planet, taking care to deposit those with which we are most annoyed at the moment altogether outside the solar system. But unfortunately in politics we have to suppose that all states are on the surface of one planet and that the contracting of the social world will bring governments more and not less into contact. This much is fact. We may wish it otherwise and we may do what we can to change it; but so far the action of any state affects every other. The desire to change this situation, however, leads to the policy of isolating states more and more. It is felt that the influence of other states interferes with the, development of our own state, and it is argued that if our own state were not dependent upon the citizens of other states for food, or money, or ideas, we should be more " secure." Every state, it is said, must be as far as possible self-sufficing, for to depend on any other is to put yourself at the mercy of that other. We must FOREIGN POLICY 29 have our own corn grown under our own govern- ment and develop our own music without depend- ing upon foreigners. For otherwise we shall be enslaved economically by those who grow our corn and degraded in culture by those who supply our music. There is a suspicion that the works of Beethoven and Debussy were specially directed against the progress of English music. Much can be done to make a state self-sufficing. If it is a small state like Ecuador or Denmark it is more difficult; but, if its people are willing to do without some foreign products, even these can be isolated. It is, however, in a large state that the doctrine is usually believed; for it is possible to obtain a greater variety of good things among sixty millions inhabiting thousands of square miles than among six million inhabiting a small state. The doctrine of self-sufficiency, invented by small Greek cities, is now popular only in great imperial states. The unconscious hypothesis upon which this older view of foreign policy is based is that the interests of states can be entirely separated. There is a confusion made by the Hobbes- Machiavelli school between the interests of the men, women, and children of a state and the interests of the administration or government. But that need not concern us here. For the funda- mental issue is whether the interests of states in any sense of the word are segregate. On the other side are those who woiJd base JO THE WORLD OF STATES foreign policy upon the principle that the interests of the states of the world are common. Free Trade was once maintained with this argument; but we must not deal here with questions of specific programmes for changing the situation. It is a fact that every one of the forty or more sovereign states of the world is continually being affected by every other; and if that is so, then each is not a complete universe to itself. The actions of its government harm or help far-distant and alien peoples, and the happiness of its own citizens is affected by the disorder or the liberty which citizens of other states have secured. In a sense, therefore, no state stands for a separate and isolated interest; and all state-action should be, hypothetically, directed by reference to all states of the world in so far as their interests are the same. But, on the other hand, the denial of the distinct interests of different states neglects local development and separate national character. For there are undoubtedly some state-actions which in the main do not affect seriously any but the inhabitants of that state, and in these the separate state should be absolute or " sovereign." There are, therefore, two lines of policy which may be adopted in foreign affairs, the older and more traditional being that which aims at the isolation of the state and a complete independence of action for each sovereign government. The newer, reflecting the new social world, seeks to develop by commercial treaty or even by arbitration FOREIGN POLICY 31 agreements the common action of many states.* In actual fact diplomacy and its directors, the foreign ministers of the states of the world, do not consistently maintain either policy. They some- times aim at complete and absolute independence of action; sometimes by alliance, entente, or special treaty they aim at action in common with other governments ; and, although sometimes there is gn irrational inconsistency in the policy adopted, in the main the indecision of foreign policy reflects the difficulty of deciding in given issues what interests are thqse of one state only and what interests are common to many states. It will be understood that this is not a defence of present diplomatic methods, still less of the oligarchical tendencies which show themselves in the selection of diplomatic officials in every state. Those are questions of detail which could only be dealt with in a treatise on the detail of administration. If we confine our attention here, however, to the general policy of states, we cannot justly repudiate the efforts of diplomacy and foreign offices. The issues are difficult to judge precisely in this point — which are the interests which are those of one state only ? It is clear that with regard to those interests only * See below for details of these policies, p. 99 sq. Un- fortunately there is as yet no adequate history of foreign policy. Those which have been published are lists of events, with no appreciation of general principles. The best study of the policy of one state will be found in J. B. Moore's American Diplomacy. 31 THE WORLD OF STATES should the action of officials of a single state be absolute, for interests which are common to many states should be maintained by states acting in concert. This is the ordinary principle of govern- ment or organisation by reference to the interests involved. Opinions should be asked for from all who are concerned, and their common decision should rule. We are not now suggesting alliance or league. It is a question here of the general principle which should govern the dealings between states, and we suggest that one such principle is that states should be treated as isolated in those questions which relate to " internal " affairs or to interests which are not common to many states, and states should be treated and should act as parts of a system in respect to those interests which are common to many states. This is, in a sense, accepted platitude. The real difficulty arises when we seek to discover which interests are separate and which common; but something would be gained if the general principle were admitted and acted upon, so that the Machiavelli-Hobbes tradition should be abolished. Of the two elements in the general principle for foreign policy that which emphasises the separateness of states is more commonly acted upon, and that which maintains the common interests of states is given generally lip-service. To lay some emphasis, therefore, upon the common interests of states would do no harm. As for the distinction between separate and common interests, the method of distinguishing FOREIGN POLICY 33 must be empirical, as it has been in the case of local and central government. One. could hardly tell a priori that police organisation in large states should be centralised and magistracies localised. Sewage must be locally organised; but education is an instance of more difficulty, for it is not yet clear whether educational organisation should be local or centralised. As between states, the treat- ment of disease, and perhaps of crime, is a common interest; the organisation of retail trade is a local affair. And of some issues, like national group- freedom, it is still difficult to say whether they could, or even should, be treated as an interest which is common to many states. Should the position of Ireland or Egypt or Finland or Korea be considered by many states or only by that state in which each of these nationalities is included ? Some will think that the general principle we have suggested of limiting, by agreement upon common action, the sovereignty of separate states is very revolutionary. Others will think it is an obvious reform already too long delayed. But whichever is true, there are a sufficient number of quite obviously common interests to the achieve ment of which foreign policy might be directed; and, whether we fear the loss of sovereignty or hate the very name of sovereignty, the practical need is to inspire the machinery of diplomatic intercourse with some organic view of inter-state relations. It seems sufficiently clear that an increasing number of commercial treaties or of 34 THE WORLD OF STATES agreements on educational reform would be the best work diplomacy could perform, not to speak of planning a reduction of armaments or a revision of criminal codes. The practical effect would be that many states acted in co-operation, and it would not much concern us if the language and forms of sovereignty continued to be maintained.* Whatever the decision upon the method of dealing with particular issues, the general truth is undeniable that many more such issues than in the past are of common interest to all states. There- fore, even without any league or inter-State government, foreign policy should be directed towards co-operative action upon common inte- rests, and the true limits to the sovereignty or absolutism of the state acting separately should be admitted. There is no reason whatever why diplomacy should not follow out the line of progress which has been already entered upon by some of its most distinguished officials; and prob- ably what is needed now is a new orientation of the popular outlook rather than any violent change in organisation. * Indeed, state-sovereignty is often treated as legal fiction even by diplomatists. It is a convenient form for expressing tlie independence in internal administration of a single government. A treaty is not conceived to be a repudiation of sovereignty, on the ground that it is a contract into which the state freely enters; but, in fact, a treaty limits sove- reignty or absolutism, and the principle that treaties should be kept is not itself binding because of the free choice of states. FOREIGN POLICY 3 J If we return, then, to the consideration of actual men, women, and children, with feelings and needs, we shall see that what are to be dealt with by state- governments, acting absolutely or in concert, are the similarity and differences of groups of human beings. The " interests " of men may be made to include a finer life as well as food and clothing, and of that finer life two constituents are individual liberty and group autonomy. But just as liberty for the individual does not involve disregard for others, so autonomy does not involve isolation or absolute independence of the state-group. And men, even the much-abused diplomatists, are still far more uncertain than evil-minded; for it is not in fact easy to see where, for example, the feelings and needs of Americans and Englishmen are the same and where they are different. We have every variety of difference within the common humanity, upon the recognition of which all political action should be based; and inter-state structure and inter-state action should be various and complex as are the varieties and complexities of the human race. d2 CHAPTER III: NATIONALITY THE most important fact in the contact of governmental systems is that each of them IS the result and, as it were, the embodiment of what is called a national spirit. If states were only arrangements for orderly life between different groups of absolutely similar men, the differences and disputes between states would not be so frequent as they are. But the different groups do not contain otherwise undifferentiated men, for each group contains men between whom the bond is one of sentiment rather than of administrative regulations. Not all the citizens or subjects of the same state are united by the bond of affection which is called the national spirit, for there are many states which include citizens with different nationality. Even in these heterogeneous states, however, the system of government generally bears the mark of one nation's character or spirit, as within the British Empire the govern- mental system is English. Thus, even in the heterogeneous state the most effective bond seems to be intimately connected with the character and traditions of one nation. This is felt strongly by those whose. race is dominant, and by them the bond is called patriotism.* Where patriotism is most genuine as a passion, in small homogeneous populations, it is happily weakest as a political force. Where it is less * It is taken for granted that a nation is a group with one tradition and often with one blood or language. A state is an administrative system ; but its citizens may not be of one nation. NATIONALITY 37 genuine and more artificial as a passion, in the large imperial states, it is very strong politically because it serves as a driving force which uses subordinate races as its instrument. The patriotism of small nations is defensive and apologetic; that of great states is aggressive and domineering. But since states change and sometimes increase in wealth and power, the same passion which was once defensive often, with the growth of the state, becomes aggressive. Obviously, however, the analysis of the very complex fact of nationality and the moral judgment of the many emotions of patriotism is not our task here. We simply refer to these as indications that the difference between states lies deeper than the mere distinctions in law and government. Some men appear to desire a world in which there shall be no differences of language or custom or administration. And it would indeed be much easier to make life peaceful if there were no such differences. Therefore some men oppose nation- ality or, more mildly, advocate a universal dialect. This obsolete internationalism joins hands with the extremest nationalism in its hatred of differences; for the extreme nationalist develops into an imperialist, who agrees with the old-fashioned internationalist in desiring only one language, but, being a " practical " man, the imperialist intends that that language shall be his own. The simpler mind is easily attracted to this attitude when it is brought up against some difference of speech, 38 THE WORLD OF STATES custom, or law. The traveller " abroad " who belongs to the uneducated upper classes or to the very simple working class is annoyed if he cannot have bacon for breakfast in the Italian Alps. He feels the last vestige of civilisation vanish when he sees only coffee and rolls : he seems to himself to be on the frontiers of an unendurable desert. And so he comes home again with an enhanced " patriotism," based upon the conception that bacon for breakfast is civilised life. This, though not the most exalted, is the most commonly felt patriotism. It is essentially the same in kind as the patriotism which implies disgust at finding that other groups prefer less excellent systems of government to our own. The bad taste of foreigners is regarded as inexplicable. There is, however, another sense of the word patriotism; and, although one cannot distinguish clearly in any man the mean form of an emotion from its more splendid embodiment, we may suppose that patriotism in the finer sense is the emotional perception of important and not trivial facts. For patriotism may mean the affection for the scenes and the faces which were familiar when we were young. It may mean the desire to be with and to help those whom we can most easily under- stand. It includes the admiration for great deeds done by men like us, and the sense of belonging to no mean family. Intellectually it is due to a sort of dim perception that differences exist among the human race, and that those differences are NATIONALITY 39 important which make men feel, in contrast with other groups, -a common honour and a common disgrace. The different qualities of patriotism correspond to different conceptions of nationality. The meaner mind perceives only differences of a trivial kind such as wealth and power; and what is best in the nation to which one belongs appears to be its money or its ships or its army or its millionaires. To men who test value by such criteria the develop ment of their nation will seem to be worth pro- moting only for financial reasons, or for " glory," which is the disguise adopted by the desire for wealth and the delight in conquering others. Nations then would differ in wealth and power, and this would be the essential fact. But, on th^ other hand, men may value their nationality for what may be called its character. A tradition of truthfulness or intelligence or interest in art — all these may seem to be most worth preserving; and to develop the opportunities for these, rather than to increase wealth and power, may seem to be the best purpose of the nation. Men who thus test value do not underrate the difference between nations; but the important difference does not seem to them to be the size of armies or of national incomes. We must probably suppose that the differences between nations which underlie the distinction of states are due to a complex of meanness and nobility. There is no group of men which does +0 THE WORLD OF STATES not include some who are trivial in their emotions and superficial in their thought, and some who feel deeply and think clearly. Probably most men are at a stage between these two, or perhaps most men vary from moment to moment. The differences between nations, then, are of a subtle and very changeable kind; but we must allow for them in reviewing political life or in attempting to improve it. Nationality is too deeply rooted and, in some of its meanings, too valuable for us to override it by extreme imperialism or expunge it by a crude internationalism. If, however, we reckon with nationality as a fact, we must nevertheless refuse to accept without criticism the results which generally follow from the conscious recognition of a national bond among people of the same nation. For when many are impressed with the importance of nationality, other equally important political facts become obscured by a fog of sentiment, exactly as in the old days the belief in central government obscured the evils of personal rule. The so-called rights of nations are often no more reasonably conceived than the divine rights of kings. For not every group of incompetents has a right to establish a peculiar government simply becaiuse their absurd speech is unintelligible to any- one but themselves. The rights of nationality are not superior to those of civilisation at large, and the ambitions of a national group, small or large, may sometimes be opposed to the progress of law and liberty. NATIONALITY 41 We must, therefore, examine into the quality of a national spirit before committing ourselves to the statement that that spirit ought to have freer play or a separate embodiment within the state- system. For although there is no justification for the oppression of one nation by another, either within or across state frontiers, there is no excuse for a general upheaval if some one group is not equal in political importance to some other. There is, indeed, more real danger of the suppression of national differences within the great states of modern times than there is danger of small groups exacting too much. For officials who direct or inspire the action of governments naturally aim at ease of government rather than at good govern- ment, and government is certainly easier if the mass of the governed is undifferentiated. There- fore both in Austria and in Germany attempts have been made to expunge natibnal differences within the frontiers of the state. This is wrong; but the general truth still holds good that nationality is only one among many political facts and not neces- sarily the most important. It is, however, important enough for our present purpose if it is one of the bonds that make a group and if it is one of the causes for the distinctions between states. In this latter sense it must be made the basis either for separatism or for co- operation between supreme political administra- tions. It provides, therefore, an emotional or traditional support for the two methods of foreign 4J THE WORLD OF STATES policy of which we have spoken above. For nationality may be appealed to with a view to dividing one administration from another, as when Greece was freed from the Turkish Empire; or it may be appealed to as a ground for action in common with another state, as when Russia felt \yith the Slav race in Serbia. But since nationality is still much confused with the possession of a distinct administration, the appeal to nationality has generally the appearance of dividing states rather than uniting them. A common nationality is usually understood best by the members of a nation when it is contrasted with some other. The effect of the appeal to national spirit or character in order to strengthen one state against another, or even to hold states in opposition, varies very much in accordance with the meaning given to nationality. For the tendency to isolate one's own group and to oppose all other groups is much stronger among those who test the value of nationality by wealth, power, or numbers. It is sometimes convenient politically to refer to Shakespeare or Beethoven; but the existence of a national literature or music can hardly be used even by the most unreasoning public orator as a ground for separating states. The chief ground for separation, therefore, is to be found in the simpler or more primitive meaning of nationality. For the importance of one's nation, tested by reference to numbers or wealth, is clearly tarnished if we assist others to be wealthy by NATIONALITY 43 leaving them in peace or communicating with them. And this simpler sense of nationality is a frequent cause of political anarchy in inter-state relations. It may very well be that all men should under- stand the nobler meaning of nationality and should perceive that difference does not involve hostility or even isolation. But unfortunately political action cannot be based upon what men ought to feel without regard to what they actually do feel; and the great majority of men in the world at present only understand the very simplest national differences, to which they attach a quite undue importance. We have to reckon with the psycho- logical situation as it stands. Not one-hundredth or the human race can now perceive differences from themselves without feeling hostility to those who thus differ. A group of men who desire only amicable contact with men of other nations cannot afford to neglect the fact that these men of other nations will resist by force any approaches which may be made, or may even forcibly attack the friendly group in case it should make advances. For it is foolish to attempt handshaking with an armed homicidal lunatic. Those benighted heathens, the Incas of Peru, in the sixteenth century trusted the Christian Spaniards who had come with the superior morality of Europe; and they were murdered or enslaved at a friendly banquet. Much the same would occur to-day if we gave the 4+ THE WORLD OF STATES primitive an opening. And unfortunately the political situation as between states is even more difficult than our example would imply; for every state contains some of the savage type — men who suspect and resist or desire to forestall by force any attempt at amicable contact, and as states are now organised such men are able to commit their finer comrades in the same group to the feuds of barbarism and the actions of savagery. The mutual confidence of peoples is hardly a prominent factor in inter-state affairs, and state policy can, there- fore, hardly beJbased upon it. This primitive feeling and primitive under- standing, if they had free play, would divide the political world from top to bottom. Suspicion and mistrust of what is unlike one's self or one's immediate neighbours would always keep the human race in bondage to its most unintelligent and unimaginative members, if the state-system did not provide for those who felt the gain which may be had by subordinating differences to a common interest. Non-national states hold together, at least partly, because neighbours have common interests, even if their blood and langufige is different. Thus primitive feeling has been counter-acted within the state by the use of a common administration.* *The point is that the existence of the great states of modern times is a proof that simple antipathies can be over- come by a perception of common interests. See the forma- tion of France, for example, in Lavisse and Rambaud; and compare the United States. NATIONALITY 45 It is felt, however, that the real difficulty is the opposite of this. It is not that every little group will sever its connection with every other, but rather that one group will compel another group to give up its liberty and to lose all that made it a nation. Even the national group within a great empire, which is dominant over other groups, prefers to imagine that there is a danger to its national character rather than to its tyranny. And certainly there seems to be evidence that more powerful nations ride roughshod over the suscepti- bilities or even the " vital interests " of smaller nations. Therefore it is concluded that, the essence of nationality being difference, the support of nationality must involve the complete severance of states. For not only may the state be overturned, and the national character of its government destroyed, but in more subtle ways, by assimilation of the small to the great or of one neighbour to another, nationality may disappear. We should then, it is argued, make our wealth and power as a nation completely independent of foreigners; and it is even said, by a subtler narrowness, that we should keep to our national music and painting. For if we do not, either foreign genius will suppress the development of native wit or, worse still, art and life will become monotonous and characterless. They will have lost all that valuable social variety which comes from nationality. Against this it must be urged that the contact of nations does not necessarily destroy national 46 THE WORLD OF STATES character, whether that contact takes place within one state or across the boundaries of states. Provence is not degraded by its contact with the Breton spirit und^ the administration of France. India is finding, rather than losing, its national character by contact with the English. And only in so far as the contact is not amicable is there any loss of national character on either side. So also Japan has not lost its national character by giving up the exclusiveness which it preserved until 1867.* The character of a national group is not endangered by amicable contact with other national groups. For national groups are divided from one another by differences greater than, but like in kind, to the distinctions between a Yorkshireman and a Devonshireman. And we do not find that the Yorkshire character is contaminated by friend- liness, in spite of the prejudice which appears to exist that brusqueness of manner must counteract the danger of kindly speech. Something is indeed lost when men are friends; that something may have made them more distinguishable one from the other, and when they are friends they may no longer wear aggressively different hats. But what is lost in peculiar characteristics is not so valuable as to be worth keeping, and what is gained is in- calculably important. Amicable contact means the loss of savage exclusiveness and the gain of * cf. The Political History of Japan in the Meiii Era, by W. W. McLaren. NATIONALITY 47 humaneness and culture. So we have found it to be in the growth of all the great nations of the present day. The provincial hostilities of the past have largely died down, and the larger group still retains within it all that was valuable in the manners and customs of the various localities. But the law which has been observed in the case of provinces can be seen also in the contact of nations living under the same government, wherever that government is not repressive of one national group in favour of another. Thus, while admitting that at present or in the immediate future the policy of a state should not neglect the existence of primitive national passions and narrow views of nationality, we do not admit that this situation is inevitable or eternal. Already we see a change occurring. A careful policy, there- fore, need not be intransigent. It may be based upon the expectation that the finer meaning of nationality and patriotism will increasingly be understood : for the present situation is not in the eternal nature of things. The whole meaning of nationality and patriotism may be transformed, or those with noble minds may learn to control the meanness of their countrymen. So far, indeed, from nationality proving an in- superable obstacle to co-operation between states, all the evidence seems to show that national groups can only make progress in civilisation when there is not conflict between them. Wc may believe firmly in the importance of nationality, and for that +8 THE WORLD OF STATES very reason assist in the amicable contact of nations, because what is finest and best in nationality can only so be developed. Our argument, then, shows that the divisions between the states of the world are not simply administrative. They are due in part to deeper emotional diiFerences of nationality and national tradition. But these differences are understood in many ways — to some they are differences of wealth or power or mere number, to others they are differences of language, literature, and moral tradition. Each interpretation of national differ- ences affecting state-contact is part of the truth, but it is undeniable that the " material " differences are less valuable and important. State policy should therefore be based rather upon moral than upon material differences, although no sane political action should neglect even the mere differences of number in each group. And if the emphasis in interpreting nationality be put upon differences of character and tradition, there seems to be no reason why the division into states should result in hostility between states. The state-system at present is not by any means admirable; but we must acknowledge the import- ance and even the value of any system which provides a moderate amount of order. It should not be changed except for a perfectly definite alter- native, and it can hardly ever be changed for the better by force. National aspirations are not the most important factor in the real life of the NATIONALITY 49 majority of men, women, and children; and the real interests of any group of men cannot be rendered altogether or chiefly in the terms of nationality. As things now stand, therefore, the general principle for political action seems to be that the state-system should embody and express national differences, just as local government should embody and express the character and inte- rests of the people of one "region." But to express and embody differences, if the differences are moral, should not involve isolation or hostility between groups, just as the preservation of indi- vidual character should not involve hatred or suspicion between individuals. Only the meanest differences can be preserved by isolation, for the finer distinctions are promoted by amicable contact. We seem now to be in that middle place, between what ought to be done and what is actually done, which is usually called Utopia. For we have acknowledged that nationality is generally under- stood in such a way that one group might easily oppress another if an opportunity occurred; and yet we have said that there is nothing in the nature of nationality, especially in the finer sense of the word, to warrant or excuse a mutual suspicion. The state-system at present embodies both tendencies; for the grouping of many nationalities within single states shows that nationalities can exist in amicable contact, and the sep^ation of states shows that powerful nations still fear the so THE WORLD OF STATES ^ ____^_^______^ g dominance of some other. But the recognition of opposing tendencies does not transfer us at once to Utopia. We need not seek an escape from the primitive passions of men by treating them as angels. , What, then, might be done .'' tjpon what principle can inter-state relations be based if national differences are believed to be important .'' In the first place, we cannot be certain that men will naturally be amicable if they know others better. The quarrels of relatives are well known; and perhaps differences of race are more irritating when we are always being reminded of them. The policy of states cannot, therefore, be based upon a greater commingling of nationalities. But political co-operation is quite distinct from physical con- tact : Australians and Canadians may co-operate without living in the same corner of the earth or even without being perpetually reminded of each other's habits and customs. And in this sense the policy of the state might very well be one of co-operation between groups nationally distinct. Thus alliance in time of war, or with a view to war, entirely subordinates national differences and yet does not involve any undervaluing of them. The majority of men are willing to fight on the same side with nearly every other nation, race, or tribe; and neither of two allied races is supposed to feel any suspicion of the other, perhaps because sus- picion is concentrated upon some third. But, whatever the reason, it is clear that a distinct nationality can be recognised without a feeling of NATIONALITY 51 hostility; and the policy of the state might well be based rather upon the tendency to co-operation when the task is obvious than upon the mutual hostility which arises when nothing is being done. The principle, then, is this : positive co- operation in definitely conceived tasks is the best method of eliminating the primitive passions and ennobling the meaning of nationality. It is, indeed, asking much of official diplomacy that it should discover such common tasks as will induce men of distinct nationality to co-operate. It means nothing less than discovering a substitute for war in so far as war is an outlet for energies. For our implied assumption is this : what makes men fight on the same side willingly with men of alien race is not delight in fighting but the perception of something definite to be done. And even in the labours of peace what prevents national hostilities between the emigrants in the United States is, partly at least, the need to labour at the same tasks. Thus in a wider sphere the co-operation of many states would take all the mutual suspicion from national feeling if the task to be done were felt to be important. We may leave it there. Further and more definite suggestions cannot easily be made in a summary form. But we must insist that the mean- ings given to nationality are various and the passions to which it gives rise very flexible. Then is nothing in its nature which proves intractable to the finer suggestions of civilised thought, and E 2 52 THE WORLD OF STATES there is no reason at all to suppose that distinctions of nationality, even if they now cause hostility or suspicion, should always and inevitably do so. In this matter a more imaginative appeal than has usually been made might easily and rapidly transform the relations between states. CHAPTER IV: ECONOMICS AND FOREIGN POLICY IT may now be said that although true national spirit may not make states necessarily hostile yet economic interest divides them. It will be urged that in a perfect world groups of men may share and share alike, but here and now such groups must struggle; and the very fact that they are politically organised in separate groups may be thought to make economic rivalry essential. There is, indeed, an intimate connection between the administration of government and the produc- tion and distribution of wealth; but the two problems are not identical, as the nineteenth century seems to have imagined, for Economics is one science and Politics another. A very wealthy group, and even a group in which wealth was fairly distributed, might be a very badly governed group; and, on the other hand, skill of administra- tion or increase of liberty in a group might co-exist with a general poverty. Rome was richer under Augustus than Athens was under Pericles, but that Athens was a more excellent political whole than that Rome. A small state must necessarily be less wealthy than a large one, but it may be a more secure home for liberty. For the wealth of a state depends in the main on the total amount of taxes paid to a central authority, but the political excel- lence of a state depends upon the understanding of the real needs of its citizens by those who govern it. And in proportion as the state is vaster so the separation between governors and governed is more extreme. Thus great states tend to 54 THE WORLD OF STATES be politically retrogressive while they become wealthier. Indeed, a government or a people may be preoccupied with problems of wealth so com- pletely as to endanger order and liberty. The connection of the two interests of men, and of the two studies which arise out of them, cannot be discussed here. It is sufficient if it be recognised that we can consider economic forces or interests from the point of view of those who are primarily interested in good government and liberty. We do not suppose that good government can exist without a correct economic policy, just as we do not suppose that it is possible to develop great genius until food for bare sustenance is secure. But the two interests, however intimately con- nected in real life, may be distinguished for our purposes here; and, having distinguished them, we must allow in our analysis of the present situation for the effects of the desire for wealth on the success of government and for the effects of the desire for justice upon the pursuit of wealth. Political life and action is not the simple pursuit of a simple end, but the adjustment of many different interests. Even the high desire for justice and liberty is affected by cruder ambitions, and in its turn affects the lower activities of men. But only those economic facts must be referred to here which concern the separation or the holding together of states. We must discover how far states are affected in their relation, one to the other, by economic laws and economic ECONOMICS AND FOREIGN POLICY 55 aims; and we shall call economic all that part of life which is concerned with material commodities having money value. All states are still in a certain sense economic units. They are not, indeed, such completely separate economic units as they once were, since modern methods of communication have made it possible for capital and labour to pass across frontiers; but they are still different economically. England is industrial, and its production of food for itself is inadequate; but Germany is almost self-sufficing, and the United States of America are still more so. This means that those living under the same administration still have many common economic interests. And the organisation of trade unions shows the appreciation of this fact, since there are no unions which use collective bargaining for the interest of workmen of two or more states. Capitalist companies are often inter- national, but the workmen even of these companies have to struggle within the frontiers of one state or another. Great Socialists like Jaures have acknowledged that the national (state) groups must set the limits of practical Socialist activity for the present; and even Syndicalists in their practical programmes do not pass beyond the frontiers of the several separate states. It seems to be still felt, how truly one cannot yet say, that the contest of capital and labour must be fought out in each state separately. For such reasons the state is often treated as an 56 THE WORLD OF STATES economic entity, and in practical politics economic questions seem to rouse the greatest interest. Thus it comes about that certain political changes — in law, for example — are recommended on the ground that they will pay;. and, on the other hand, certain economic changes — death duties, &c. — are supported for political reasons. In the sphere of external policy the situation is the same; and we must, therefore, note the peculiar relation of econo- mic and political aims in that sphere. Sometimes the state or political administration takes advan- tage of certain common economic interests among its citizens, which divide them from the citizens of other states. For a government may use econo- mic means in order to make the state separate and unconnected with any other — a political end — al- though an economic reason may be given for it. Thus the tariff on imports to the United States is excused not because it produces more justice or liberty anywhere, but because it increases the wealth of the ctitizens or of the public purse. And by thus aiming at an economic gain, the state controls more completely the kind of industry which shall flourish or decay. In Prince von Biilow's pro- gramme for state-action in Germany there was a deliberate support of agriculture with a view to making the state self-sufficing in food in case of war.* This is an instance or political control of economic interests with a view to a political end. In either case the promoters of such economic •Imperial Germany, p. 208. Ed. 1914, Eng. trans. ECONOMICS AND FOREIGN POLICY 57 measures have their eyes upon other states, and aim at a sort of political advantage as against these other stiates. We have here economic action taken for political ends; but the political ends are conceived in the terms of wealth and power and only given a rhetorical covering by references to national necessities. On the other hand, in foreign as in domestic policy groups of men with the same economic interest often use their political administration in order to further their own economic purposes. Thus a strong financial group can persuade politi- cians to use diplomacy and even to threaten war, in order to obtain a " concession " or to promote an economic scheme. The financiers are not, there - fore, to be condemned as villains, since they prob- ably think that what is for their good is for the good of all their fellow-citizens, and the majority of citizens are completely confused as to the pro- motion of their own economic or political interests by a strong group of their own blood. Men easily consent to fantastic misuse of their own blood and spirit if they believe vaguely that honour or pres- tige will accrue to them : and most men are very well satisfied with vicarious glory. That is why they have willingly died, all through history, for kings with an eye to business or a taste for " victory." The prestige or standing which results from the use of armed threats to secure an economic gain is the only reward the majority have for the use of 5? THE WORLD OF STATES political machinery in the interests of a financial company. But whatever the explanation of the phenomenon, it is certain that systems of political administration, have been used by small groups of their citizens to attain economic ends. A certain advantage is gained by one state over another if the former state is well organised and has a place for liberty: and that advantage may be used for ends that are not the political ends of the promo- tion of justice and liberty. That is what we mean by a misuse of political organisation in the pursuit of wealth. The analysis of the situation becomes more diffi- cult when the group of financiers who control political forces does not belong to any single state. For then we have the peculiar experience of a com- pany of men from five or six different states using the machinery of government, and, perhaps, even the patriotism of peoples to support one state against another or to weaken all states by inducing them to enter into conflict. There can be little doubt that the great armament firms in the past have sold their instruments of war by studiously fomenting the tendency to warfare : and yet the members of one such firm might belong to the same two states which were to attack one another in order that they might need defence. Krupps supplied guns to Russia. Schneider supplied guns to the Turks. And in these cases we should be unjust if we imagined that the great armament firms were bodies of evil-minded fools. Their ECONOMICS AND FOREIGN POLICY 59 action is guided by men probably as vaguely humane as the majority, if also as unimaginative. The important fact is that they benefit from politi- cal disturbance and insecurity. This tangle of different passions and divergent purposes may well seem too confusing for the average man to understand. For what we have given is, indeed, the most summary and simple view of the facts : and it is sometimes urged that the very complexity of the problems involved in the jungle of foreign policies and economic schemes is a good reason for leaving such issues to the few who are initiated. Those, however, who urge the complexity of the facts also present us at certain crises with very simple issues; for when they need help they are ready enough to call upon the majority to understand. And therefore we may suspect that underlying all the tangle of diplomacy and finance are certain very simple passions and very limited ideas. It is these, and not the complexity of the problems which make the progress of international understanding difficult. What are these simple passions? Men working desperately or lethargically all day long for subsistence or for wealth see other men chiefly as rivals. And the world is economic- minded now as that of the Middle Ages was minded religiously. Groups of men all of whom labour ceaselessly for cash values, whether by brute necessity or by choice, regard other groups as rivals at the same task. It may even be true io THE WORLD OF STATES that in this sphere what is one man's gain is another's loss: for where there is only one good customer someone gains by attracting him and others lose. And so in the larger sphere of world markets one group sells and buys in Argentine, another in China, and so on. It is undeniable that there is economic conflict of interest between large groups of men and that in a world of ravenous money-making, anger and violence be- tween individuals and between groups may seem the natural preliminaries to the possession of wealth. Contending grocers are " natural " in this sense : and the passions of high finance are more violent but not more noble. Foreign policy so in- spired is not different in kind from what in America is called " graft " or what in England is called municipal corruption. And the trouble is that it is useless to search for the criminals; for most men are well-intentioned. It is an old saying, and it was old when Lucian said it, that it is the admira- tion of those who have not wealth which gives the evil power to those who have it. If the admiration and imitation of millionaires could be destroyed, high finance would no longer be thought a noble activity for political abilities. Foreign affairs would be different if we could dis- entagle the desire for liberty from the appetite for wealth. But even those who are neither guides nor governors really imagine that although it 's disgraceful to be in debt for a shilling, it is glorious to be bankrupt for millions. The passions which ECONOMICS AND FOREIGN POLICY 6i underlie economic rivalry of states are, therefore, not peculiar to the contact between governmental systems : they affect all our social lire. On the other hand, there is a modern tendency to recognise that individual contest in the economic sphere is futile. We have already common ownership in the railway companies, since no one shareholder could possibly say that any one section of the line " belongs " to him. One shareholder does not usually attempt " the sur- vival of the fittest " against another. Labour is partly co-operative in all great factories, since the whole article is worked at by many hands, and economic proceeds are shared in every payment of dividends. It is true that this partial co-opera- tion seems only to lead up to group contests of a more deadly kind. But even here, besides the glaring examples of contest between companies, there are many instances of co-operation. Banking companies assist shipping, and these again assist railway companies, and these mining companies. The economic world depends upon this co-opera- tion and upon the elaborate system of credit which implies that the majority of men trust one another. Undoubtedly, however, the emphasis in the modern mind is put upon the conflict of economic interests, and this fact, in the world of the imagi- nation, very much affects political issues. The popular mind in every country views life as a struggle against other men for food and clothing 62 THE WORLD OF STATES and possessions. Labour as a class is as simple- minded as any financial group if wealth and power are put before it as the purpose of political action. The admiration for wealth and power is a strong force with those who have little, and the attain- ment of power is an accepted excuse for every desertion. We see, then, that economic and political aims, though distinct, are closely connected, and in the minds of the majority completely confused. In such confusion the passions are strong which obstruct the political organisiition of inter-state relations. Whether we like it or not, such passions exist : they have behind them an immense weight of tradition, and to the ordinary economic-political mind they are " the nature of things." But even if we could not change them there is no reason why we should not criticise them; and even if they are the nature of things they may be desperately bad — ^like cancer. The question of policy, therefore, arises. Ought we to keep states apart because of economic needs .'' It is said that the government must sup- port the industries of the country or the im- poverishment of trade will in the end weaken the government itself. And to support industries in this sense means preventing the like industries of another state from entering into equal competition within the borders of the state. But this seems to result in benefiting a few industries at the expense of the majority; since, if these few indus- ECONOMICS AND FOREIGN POLICY 63 tries are to be artificially supported, the others must pay the taxes for their support. when it becomes obvious that " protection " does not pay, those who maintain it repudiate so m^an an intention. The position is then taken that not all industries, but only those necessary to make the group independent, must be protected by poli- tical measures. Key industries, it is said, must be preserved and young industries promoted. But this argument implies that the states must be kept apart, not for economic gain, but for political necessity, and it is even admitted that the state- group might have to lose money in order to attain political security. This practically suggests that economic need does not keep states apart, or that economic need might bring them together, and must be resisted. The real meaning seems to be that in case war should produce isolation we must begin isolation at once. And on that ground it is quite reasonable to make the state subserve in- dustry in order that when war is declared industry may be controlled by the state. The organisation of the state on a basis of war is perfectly possible. The policy of preparing the sinews of war in order to secure peace would lead, if it attained its end, to the absurd situation of the whole world standing to arms and no one ever using them! This would be peace at the price of reducing the human race to pure lunacy. And if there is never to be any end to the danger of war there is no reason why we should not make 64 THE WORLD OF STATES every state or every alliance of states a perfectly self-sufficing economic whole. But unfortunately we cannot stop there. For the completion of this economic plan would involve the resistance to every modern tendency towards ease of communi- cation. Railways would have to stop at frontiers; ships would touch at no foreign land, and every group of people would lose such conveniences of life as their climate or organisation made it impos- sible to produce for themselves. The result would certainly not be good for economic progress, and, therefore, economic need certainly does not justify political isolation. The further question is whether political need is sufficient to justify economic isolation; and it clearly is not. For the political need is dependent on the probability of war, and if war is less likely with this or that state, economic isolation is less necessary as regards this or that state. If we are unlikely to be at war with the United States of America, it is foolish to aim at isolating ourselves from them. But that is the merest preliminary to the main argument. For if by any means war could be made unlikely with all states, there would be no need for isolation, and the best way to make it less likely is not to isolate. The political reasons for Free Trade as a policy of peace and security seem perfectly sound. For political need seems to point rather to amicable organisation of inter-state co-operation. But, in fact, the majority do not believe that ECONOMICS AND FOREIGN POLICY 65 economic isolation is politically futilej and we have to reckon even with the false beliefs of men, since their actions are based upon these false beliefs. For political ends, for strengthening ad- ministration or for securing one system of govern- ment against danger from another, economic isola- tion is aimed at by many states, although the economic circumstances of the modern world no longer make complete isolation or self-sufficiency possible. The French government, for example, strictly excludes the traders of all other states from Morocco or Madagascar, and even while our soldiers in war fight side by side, our merchants are not given free entrance to the markets which our fleet is protecting. What, then, can be the practical policy adopted by any state, considering that some states have adopted and are likely to maintain economic " protection " for political ends .'' The easiest answer is that a counter-protec- tion should be adopted, on the same principle as armies are raised to meet other armies. And, indeed, the adoption of any other practical policy would only be possible if the political imagination were less limited than it is; for, at present, if one group shows a certain form of hostility, other groups immediately adopt the same form of hos- tility to the first. It is possible, however, to counteract all the evil effects of protectionism by inter-state organisation for the control of trade and investment. This is the third stage of deve- lopment : first, protectionism; secondly, ^' free " 66 THE WORLD OF STATES trade; and, third, inter-state control. This need not involve an international executive if states agreed by treaty to see that international agree- ments were adhered to in their jurisdictions. Above all, the beginnings need not be elaborate. But to aim at organisation in this sphere is the best purpose of foreign policy with respect to economic nieeds. The conclusion is this. We must conceive more clearly the ends for which we are working, and dis- cover more quickly the means by which these ends may be attained. The primary needs in the political sphere are not wealth or power, but justice and liberty : and if these latter cannot be had with- out a sacrifice of the former, we must be prepared to lose wealth and power. The real trouble in every state is that those who have wealth and power have also as much justice and liberty as they want, so that to sacrifice the wealth and power of a state seems to be all loss for them and no gain. On the other hand, if he strongly desires justice and liberty, the poor man readily despises wealth and power, for he has none to lose. The social and economic divisions within every state make it practically impossible in real life for any state really to sacrifice Aii'ealth and power, for no state is yet a real union of men devoted to one clearly con- ceived political end. But we do not now suggest that states should offer, one to the other, their in- comes or their protectorates. That would be fan- tastic. What we do suggest is that all citizens in ECONOMICS AND FOREIGN POLICY 67 every state should feel that political administration exists in order to promote justice and develop liberty, and that all citizens should criticise politi- cal action with reference to these. We do not sug- gest that wealth, or what is called " security," should be neglected entirely; nor is there any prob- ability that men will all become unpractical dreamers. But a little more attention to such realities as justice and liberty would do something to redress the balance of interest which at present controls political action, especially in foreign affairs. We have enough of windy rhetoric on ideal ends; it is time that the public showed itself ready to sacrifice something for those pur- poses to which its chosen spokesmen gave lip- service. Life is readily sacrificed; but never yet has any state deliberately and with the full approval of the majority of its citizens sacrificed its wealth or any part of its dominions. This will only be questioned by those who imagine that what one loses is sacrificed. Accidental or enforced loss is not sacrifice, for that word implies free choice and deliberate giving up of what may be kept. Let us, however, omit further discussion of economic passions. For whatever our attitude may be towards our " possessions," if we really value political justice and liberty we must definitely adopt a new policy towards trade and investment. What is needed for world-order and world-liberty is not protection nor " free " trade, but organised trade. We cannot afford to leave economic needs f2 68 THE WORLD OF STATES uncontrolled — so far we agree with the " protec- tionists " ; but the control must not be exercised for the economic benefit of anyone. The control of trade and investment must be established upon political and not economic grounds, and that con- trol must not be for the benefit of this or that administration, but for the benefit of world-order and world-liberty in general. It seems to follow, then, that the control should only be exercised by inter-state councils. This may seem a fantastic plan; but, in fact, the system here suggested has already been suc- cessfully established in International Mercantile Marine.* At present, in normal times, regulations bind the ship-owners of all nations not to allow too extravagant a load upon their decks. But it was long supposed to be the " interest " of each to load as much as he could, and interest was still more against such extra expenditure as was involved in watertight compartments and life-saving appara- tus. Further, besides economic interests which seemed to differ, there were national customs among the ship-owners of each nation. Yet all of these have been put aside, not for the sake of a theory, but because the great ship-owners found an international regulation absolutely necessary for shipping, which in its activities was quite inter- national. " It cannot be argued," says Mr. Woolf, " that International Government and agreement * Cf. the fuller treatment in L. S. Woolf s Internationa] Government, p. 169 sq. ECONOMICS AND FOREIGN POLICY 69 was possible or easy in the Maritime Committee, because the interests involved were unimportant or obviously the same. Yet, in practically every case, and on the most controversial subjects, when face to face in the conferences, these trade rivals were able to come to an agreement."* Those who met in the conferences for maritime regulation were members of private economic groups, and the result was a " private " and non- governmental Union. But states themselves have begun to control trade and investment upon the principles here suggested, and all that we now propose is that the method shall be extended. In states, acting separately, there are laws controlling "dangerous" occupations; there are restrictions on child-labour, and some trades (e.g., opiirni and prostitution) are actually forbidden altogether.^ Thus we have examples of separate state action which is not aimed at the mere advantage of this or that state. The purpose is a common one; the good aimed at is that of all men. And we may go stiU further, for states have agreed together to control economic needs or activities by common action. International labour legislation is begin- ning. Conventions have been signed by several states, binding each to abolish night-labour for women, and to stop the manufacture of matches made with white phosphorus. Against both reforms economic interests were urged; but the * Woolf, p. 175. t Woolf, p. 188. 70 THE WORLD OF STATES first Step has been made in regulating manufacture, on principles not economic, by international agree- ment. Surely it is not fantastic to suggest that investment, exploitation, and the use of " coloured " labour should be controlled by a Council of the civilised states ? It would then be found that there is as little in economics to make governments quarrel as there is in nationality. And, but for the set-back to civilisation which has been occurring since 19 14, perhaps the dis- covery might have been already made. Indeed, if we look beyond the mere detail of what is done to the general principles which under- lie all action, we shall find much that is of interest in the control of economic forces by the state in times of war. We need not refer here to internal labour-control or to the incidence of taxation, but only to that part of economic interest which connects or divides states. With respect to this it is well known that the Allies have excluded certain commodities from neutral countries, have restricted the import and export of other goods from and to their own realms, and have permitted or supported certain interchange between neutrals and their own merchants. No one pretends that this control was exercised for economic reasons. The reasons were plainly political. And Germany was compelled to exercise the same sort of control — fpr example, first in refusing and then in control- ling the import of tobacco. Certain commodities were assiduously given preference for export, for ECONOMICS AND FOREIGN POLICY 71 example, to Switzerland; and the import of certain other commodities, especially foodstuffs, was politically assisted. The purposes of this control were primitive, as is every purpose subordinate to war; but a higher or more subtle purpose might induce a more subtle control. The obstacle to freedom, which such control might be in the hands of contending govenments, would be overcome if the control were exercised by states in council. And in place of a protection of vested interests in different states we should have the limitation of economic appetite for the protection of those who suffer exploitation. The states of the world could easily suppress such trade as ministers to sexual vice. They could limit the appetite for the luxuries of the few in the interest of food for the many. They could regulate the use of labour in " unde- veloped " countries; and they could support such commerce as made for good will and peace. Thus and thus only would the economic needs of men be subordinated to their political life, and there would be no reason why economic rivalry even between large groups within the states should commit the states to political conflict. CHAPTER V: DEFENCE IT may be said that in actual fact nationality is always in danger. Nations, even if they . might be friends, certainly do not perceive the advantage of amicable contact, and a cynic might argue that what no nation practices cannot be good for any. Therefore it may be suggested that our supposed proofs of the gain of nationality from amity with other nations were really mistaken. Many, indeed, would in practice regard them as mistaken, and would be convinced that there was a fallacy somewhere, even if they could not dis- cover it. For they would feel that the nature of nationality is expressed in the conditions at present ruling the contact of nations, and that there is no arguing with nature. The danger to nationality is not, however, due to any unchangeable law. It is foolish to treat nationality as though it was a natural species and to accept the absurd belief in a struggle for existence as applicable to any and every unit. In- deed, there is no reason why this unpleasant, but apparently attractive, faith should not involve a statement that one eye struggles for existence with the other, and one hand with another in the same body. The parts of an amoeba may struggle for existence, one against another, for all it matters to our present subject. It has no Bearing upon nationality; since the whole conception of inevit- able struggle and survival as applied to nations is due to a confused metaphor. The mystical belief concerning nations, which implies that they are large bodily organisms, is DEFENCE 73 merely a device to cover the escape of the senti- mentalist when he sees Reason approaching. Behind a cloud of misunderstood scientific phrases and misinterpreted poetry those take refuge who are aware of their own incompetence to observe correctly and to judge reasonably the actual facts of experience. For the supposed natural law of struggle and competition is almost entirely inap- plicable to political and social units, even if it has some bearing upon natural species. The chief reason why social groups are in conflict is that certain opposing ideas and ideals are com monly accepted in the contending groups, and there is nothing " inevitable " about such ideas. They change from generation to generation, and sometimes from year to year. This is the reason why the natural enemies of one generation are the bosom friends of the next Ideals have changed, while blood has not; and ideals, ideas, and emotions are much more truly the formative and directive forces of social groups than blood or language or a common dwelling- place. The political situation in the contact of nations is, therefore, hardly at all to be explained by physical laws, and even if external environment and physical structure greatly affect the situation, the governing law is psychological and ethical rather than physiological. But it would be a very misleading metaphor to speak of ideals and ideas as if they also were in conflict according to a law of survival. ,The differences between the ideals 74 THE WORLD OF STATES of different groups are not expressed, explained, or resolved by the exercise of physical force. Opposing ideals do indeed drive men to conflict; but the value of the ideals is not thus tested, and no one really imagines, unless he is befogged by metaphor, that moral distinctions can ever thus be made a ground for the application of a Law of Evolution. There is, therefore, hardly any excuse for confusing the hostility between nations with a purely physical conflict : and the laws of such con- flict do not apply. Although by no means inevitable, however, there is an actual need for defence of nation against nation. It is due partly to inherited passions, beliefs, and institutions, partly to the present universality of the desire for domina- tion over others. We think and act as we do largely because of what our own ancestors have thought and done. If men of our race in the past had thought cannibalism a useful political device for preventing over-population, most of us would think that there was " something in it." Mono- gamy coexisting with prostitution, for example, is not a social custom for which rational grounds are thought out carefully by one generation. We see a reason in it and even without reference to such reason we practice it : and the richer classes of Mahommedanism practice polygamy. But no candid thinker will suppose that the present customs are due to careful consideration of social DEFENCE 75 means and ends by the present representatives of the two traditions. Such also is the situation with regard to defence and the " danger to nationality," war and the pre- paration for war. Behind the acts and plans which make the problem of defence is a complex of ideas and ideals partly correct and in the main misleading, which is the result of perhaps fifty thousand years of human history. We need not for our present purpose distinguish the true from the false; for the social problem arises from the very fact that in the mind of time they are confused. Men have thought that it was good and even glorious to take what they had the power to take, and that it was noble to keep at all costs what they had. Edward III. of England took 50,000 yards of cloth when he sacked Caen; but he is not treated by Froissart as a bellicose draper. What he acquired is called " glory." Men have supposed that the exceptional was the important : they have adored a thunderstorm, and not a star. They have gone upon " quests," while their own homes crumbled into ruin. They have sought high adventure in savage pursuits and despised the more subtle emotions. Enjoying such grandiose activity they have felt infinite pity for the victim of others' acts and welcomed blindness to the pain they themselves caused. Tenderness to their own land and to the people with whom they are familiar is balanced by unimaginativeness with respect to what is strange. Again, the most important facts 76 THE WORLD OF STATES in social life are the beliefs of men; for some- times a greater difference is made by what men believe to be the fact than by the fact itself. 4. man marries because he believes a woman to be beautiful and not because she is beautiful. States are armed because men believe that there is danger, not because there is danger. This does not imply that the beliefs of men are always false; for a bride may actually be beautiful and a state may actually be in danger. The point is that the belief is sometimes wrong and that social beliefs tend to continue and affect men's actions long after the situation to which the belief applies has ceased to exist. Such, it seems, are men. We may hope that they will change, but we must not act as if our dream had come true. But not only are our emotions and ideas coloured by the past; so, also, are our institutions. And the blunders of the past are with us now as well as the successes. The Hundred Years War between France and England, the trivial bicker- ings of Italian cities, the wars of religion in Germany, the slaughter of peoples in the New World by Spaniards, slavery and the lust for gold and diamonds — these have laid up for us a problem which not all the apparatus of Constitu- tional government can solve. And nearly all the great mistakes of history have been made with the belief that nothing else could be done or was worth doing; for mistaken political judgments even more DEFENCE 77 than criminal intentions have reinforced absurd beliefs. The problem of defence, then, partly arises from the structure of the political world to-day and from all that is implied in that structure. There is no state the members of which do not support military and naval forces; and such forces are maintained in order to be used, not merely as an unmeaning parade. The greater part of the wealth of states is spent upon military and naval forces, and the majority of men regard this as inevitable. We have, indeed, already seen that not onl}- differences of method in law and government but also distinctions of speech and custom and com- peting economic interests make the development of inter-state amity sufficiently difficult. But the source of the difficulty lies deeper even than nationality or economics. For states are the results of the good and evil passions of men. That states should be thus antagonistic does not show that political government is an evil thing, although it does show from what primitive sources our political energies arise. For the antagonism of states is largely a result of the ancient hostilities of primitive and intelligent tribes. The very structure of government is what it is because of the far past in the history of humanity; and we cannot in a day expunge all trace of the ape and tiger in the conduct of modern men. The second great source of the need for defence is the present universality of the desire for 78 THE WORLD OF STATES domination over others. In external affairs par- ticularly, primitive passions seem to have free play; and the actions of the state with respect to other states seem to be chiefly affected by the primitive egoism of conquest. This survives in the relation of states, even though in the contact of individuals within the state it has been somewhat lessened.* But the desire for domination is not confined to external politics, for nearly every state maintains economic and social systems which embody the same desire. It is true that it has been found inconvenient to struggle privately for domination over others by the use of private weapons; but the struggle still continues, and it is often supported by the force which is in the hands of the state. To put the situation more concretely, domestic life in the majority of states is based upon domination — domination of husband over wife and of both over children and servants. This is usually supported by the state. Economic life is based upon the exploitation of human labour as though it were a commodity; social life is based upon the exclusive- ness of a dominant caste with peculiar and inconsistent " mysteries " of its own — and this also is supported by the majority of states. The root of our difficulty, then, in reforming the relation of states is the psychological or moral fact of the delight in domination; for no class or * See, for example, the regulations of private or gentle- man's war in the Coutumes de Beatuvais. DEFENCE 79 nation or organisation is without a trace of this. Domination over others being so deeply rooted as a guiding conception of life, it is not to be wondered at that large groups of men aim at domination, one against the other. And the very perception that the desire to dominate is every- where leads many to despair of any rearrangement of inter-state relations. For it may be held that the evil lies deep down; and that until there is such a moral transformation as is at present un- thinkable, it is useless to think of reforming the conduct of states. How, then, shall we deal with the danger to nationality and the need for defence.? We cannot wait until all men are virtuous. It is no argument against social or economic re- form to say that domestic life must also be changed. And the proper method of procedure is probably to take each evil separately : for before slavery was abolished, some believed that it could not be eradicated without a destruc tion of all the many other evils with which it was connected. And yet it was found possible to do away at least with the legal support of slave-own- ing. So also we may hope that although the desire to dominate cannot be destroyed at once, in the sphere of inter-state action something may be done to avert its most disastrous consequences. Let us then consider what can be done with this all-absorbing passion in the restricted sphere of inter-state politics. 8o THE WORLD OF STATES We accept the fact that the desire for domina- tion over others, or the delight in conquest which is sometimes called the love of " glory," is omni- present and immensely evil. We accept also the suggestion that the hostilities of political groups may be due in part to the presence of this desire for domination. We may also allow that it is impossible to cure the race immediately of this trace of their ancestry. But for these very reasons we may consider it necessary to consider how the passion for domination may be made less destructive than it is at present. Lust still exists; but the organisation of society has done something to prevent its worst effects. Drunkenness exists; but Law makes it less offensive to those who are not drunk. Lying and cheating exist and the use of them, which is sometimes called " business," but some of the social effects of these are less evil than they might be if there were no law. We have, therefore, now to consider not the cure of group-egoism or the passion for domination, but a method of controlling it, leaving to others the suggestion of methods by which the desire for domination itself may^be destroyed. For although it is an external and purely institutional problem with which we shall deal here and although no in stitutional progress is secure unless there is educa- tion and a general improvement of men's ideals, nevertheless a new institutional or administrative programme often transforms the whole emotional and intellectual situation. The institutions of the DEFENCE 8 1 United States, for example, do almost as much as the efforts of educators for the semi-civilised emi- grant. And so men coming to live in a new inter- state polity might be changed in their emotional outlook with respect to those who are of a different nation. The reason for domestic or internal poli- tical reform of institutions is that it may be a method of controlling evil passions. "We do not wait till men are virtuous before passing a law that each shall have only one wife. It may, therefore, be possible to regulate Inter-state relations in spite of the desire for domination, especially as this desire is fitful, and in the sphere or inter-state life not natural or inevit^able, but usually called into being by the cruder and more savage intelligences of journalism. Defence, then, must be dealt with not as a mili- tary but as a political problem : it is a problem of organisation and not of accumulating force. For the attempt to deal with it by purely military methods has been the great mistake of history, and its eternal absurdity is enshrined in that futile phrase : " If you want peace, prepare for war." It is because the governing conceptions of inter- state relations have been military and not political that no progress has been made. This implies that there are two methods only of discovering which shall prevail if there is a con- flict of opinions or persons. One is the method of force, the other that of reason; and, as Rousseau argued in the Contrat Social, political life begins 82 THE WORLD OF STATES where the method of force ends. A social problem is solved politically when organisation takes the place of anarchy; it is solved by military action when one party to the problem is put out of exist- ence. Abstractly, the problem of " defence " might be solved for one state if that state were sufficiently powerful to destroy all others. Then, indeed, the defence of that state would have been secured. But, practically, this has been found an impossible dream. It has been tried, and it has failed. It is now time to attempt a political solution of the old problem, and it is easy to see that if organisation took the place of anarchy in inter-state relations, " defence " might be secured by the mere abolition of all grounds for suspicion and hostility. We do not pretend that this solution is easy; but the history of the failure which is called war seems to prove that it is at least worth trying. That it is reasonable to attempt a political solution for the problem of defence seems also to be proved by the fact that defence is generally supposed to })e a means for attaining security. Security, thei-, is the end, and defence the means; for the professed aim even of the most glorious modern war is peace, and it seems therefore that, if the end could be attained by other means, those who would otherwise support war should support this other means. But security can be attained otherwise than by defending it; it is best attained by eliminating the danger before we have to face it. That implies, in political terms, organisation; DEFENCE 8 J for a society in which the danger did not exist would not be inclined to spend so much energy in defences against it. The proper purpose of inter- state politics, therefore, should be not defence but the elimination of danger, by which alone security can be attained.* The careful reader may now be inclined to object that this is not the problem of defence. He may urge that the only practical problem is how to preserve such law and order as we value from the dastardly attacks or sinister machinations of other groups of men. The practical man in every state feels genuinely hurt at the desire for domination in every other state; and the cynical philosopher has much evidence in all history and in con- tempbrary life to prove the verbal inspiration of that verse of Ecclesiasticus : " The number of fools is infinite." It is comic that the desire for domination should be so easily transformed into the policy of defence; but perhaps the majority take as evidence for what other states intend the policy they would have their own state pursue. They know best what to fear from others by knowing what others have to fear from them; and, * The further argument that the military, as opposed to the political, method does not produce its profesS'ed end, security, has often been used. And it may also be possible to glance at the incidental effects of the older method, even if it could produce security. " Tous les peuples sont menaces de mourir de faim pour se preparer k s'entretuer. Avons- noUiS le droit d'afRrmer que nous appartenons k une &ge civilis^? " (Driault et Moncfd : Histoire Politique). THE WORLD OF STATES indeed, those who seriously believe that only men of another tongue and speech are moved by evil passions are precisely those who would discount any attempts to cure other races of such passions. They desire the opportunity for defence. They would not have their opponents changed from wolves into lambs, for they actually prefer the danger which they so studiously exaggerate. They have a passion for fighting someone, although their civilisation has progressed far enough for them to persuade themselves that they would only fight on the defensive. There are men of this kind in every group. They are unconsciously moved by the very desire for domination which they profess to hate, for passions are often thus " inverted." The ascetic often takes a delight in the pain he inflicts upon himself, and it would not be a false paradox to say that St. Simon Stylites was something of an Epicurean. He really enjoyed his life on a pillar. And so men delight in fighting for defence, thus experiencing the passion for domination of itself in an inverted form. The belief as to other people's evil intentions is unfortunately not altogether false. It would be pleasant to argue that there is nothing to fear and nothing to be defended. But the evidence is against such an argument. There is much to be defended from the desire for dominance; much that can only be defended by physical force, so long as policy is based upon the desire for DEFENCE 85 domination; and it is undeniable that the policy of some states at least is based, or has recently been based, upon this desire. It is possible to conceive many cases in which force must be met by force and even cunning by cunning, and thus there may be for many years yet an organisation of armies and navies. In that sense we must allow that the actual facts of human development at present do not allow for complete disarmament by any group, and so long as there is any armament it seems hardly likely that the competition in armaments can be avoided. Noi. until confidence takes the place of mutual suspicion will it be possible for states to neglect altogether the possibility that force may be used and will be met by the majority of its own members using counter-force It may be very well argued that there are other methods of counteracting force and fraud besides the use of other force. And some may believe, not unreasonably, that other methods should not be so completely disregarded as they are until they have been tried. That is a complex and a funda mentally moral rather than a purely political issue. In the political sphere force and fraud appear to be the only methods universally admired for the defence of what we value; and we must restrict ourselves to the political issues. The difficulties of the present situation in inter-state politics do not arise among men of highly cultivated moral perceptions, but among the vast numbers who do «6 THE WORLD OF STATES really believe that wealth is better than happiness and excitement than emotion. And it would be no comfort to save the few if the many were left to destroy one another. It is they of whom we now think. At the risk of seeming to avoid the larger issue, therefore, our chief point here must be that the real political problem is not how to defend what we value, but how to prevent its being in danger. Even those who disapprove of all war must perceive that war is used as a substitute for a political method of rearranging the relations between growing states. It is impossible therefore to abolish war until some other method has been generally accepted, and the first need is to conceive and to express such other method clearly and persuasively. The problem of war is not so simple as the problem whether in the abstract one ought to fight or not. War is an institution, not merely a bad habit, and men even of a simple turn of mind are beginning to see that. But if we solve the problem of the danger, we shall find that there is no problem of defence at all. For our situation at present is like that of men on the edge of a crumbling cliff. There is a danger that the whole of civilisation or, if you will, the state to which we belong may go toppling down. The problem of defence needs solving after the manner of the problem of life on the cliff-edge. We may wall in the edge; we may prop up the cliff; we may prevent too many people standing there at once. But the problem itself disappears if we come down DEFENCE 87 from the dangerous eminence and live in the valleys. Remove yourself from the danger, and you will not have such need to defend yourself from it. In the political sphere the life in the valleys is the organisation of states. If there were some method of deciding according to accepted prin- ciples the possible disputes between states, there would be no need for defence; and, still further, if there were any organisation by which states could act continuously together for common interests there would be less danger of one state seeking to dominate. The passion might stiU be there, but it would not have control of the state, for each state would more and more incline to regard other states as essential parts of a vaster whole. The world is not angelic yet, but men are beginning to find excuses for the passions they have inherited, and that seems to show that they begin to be ashamed of them. The usual cry is now that " legitimate development " leads a nation to " expand " ; and, if any organisation existed by which changes could take place in the adjustment of inter-state interests, there would be less inclina- tion to fly to a method which is really revolu- tionary. For to defend your legitimate expansion by force is like claiming your wages by picking a pocket. The danger would not at once disappear, since discontent might always release old passions; but it is obvious that the danger would be lessened and the desire for dominance in every nation 88 THE WORLD OF STATES would be controlled by giving a political outlet for national ambitions. What that organisation may be we have not yet considered, and perhaps it will be thought too difficult a task to establish an inter- state polity at once. Our main contention, how- ever, stands thus : whether the solution is difficult or easy, it is political and not military. The true defensive is organisation. Attack is no defence; the preparation for attack gives no security. Th' only practicable security is to be found in such an arrangement of inter-state relations as will give less opportunity to the passions we have inherited from primitve tribes and more opportunity for political adjustment of the claims of various groups. e CHAPTER VI: GO-OPERATION BETWEEN STATES IF we suppose that all the reasons for isolating states and continuing hostility between them are somehow overcome, it may be still held that the organisation of inter-state relations is too difficult to establish, and, if established, may be easily disregarded by any recalcitrant or primitive group. For many argue as though a gradual education of peoples in separate states is more possible than the construction of any inter-state system; and it may be thought that the establish- ment of organisation is useless if nations are primitive and unnecessary if nations are educated. There could then, on this hypothesis, be agreement between states without any organisation of the relations between them. Against this view we should argue that organisation affects the mental attitude even of the primitive; and, on the other hand, it makes the activities of the intelligent more possible. If there were any inter-state organisation men would become familiar with the idea of co-operation between states, and the intelligent would be more powerful. Our purpose, then, must be to show that such organisation is so far a natural develop- ment that its establishment becomes more easy every year; and, secondly, that some inter-state organisation is necessary. These are two quite distinct points; for, although there is a tendency towards inter-state organisation in the present social world, that tendency may be resisted, and. go THE WORLD OF STATES on the other hand, the tendency, even if it is not resisted, is vague and slow, unless a conviction that inter-state organisation is necessary causes men to support it. The present organisation of inter-state relations is elaborate.* Almost in the dark, and certainly without the conscious co-operation of the majority of men, the normal relation of states has been transformed within the last generation. The process has been gradual, and its importance has not long been recognised. The earlier efforts at political organisation were each isolated, for every state began, as we have already shown, in a natural isolation-)-, or in that artificial isolation which is caused by hostility to neighbours. Like a new- born child, the early political organism is chiefly employed in internal struggles. It must discover its own structure and gain control of that before it becomes interested in action in an outside world. And the time comes when the simple political * See the Annuaire de la Vie Internationale, 1910-1911, Brussels. The increase of internaticmal life may be marked by the fact that in 1909 there were 300 international organi- sations and in 1912 there were 510. International congresses and conference's (public and private) increased as follows : From 1840-1849, there were 9; from 1870-1879, there were 169 ; from 1890-1899, there were 510 ; from 1900-1909, there were 1,070 ; from 1910-1913, there were 475. t This refers to the most primitive political organisation within " marches," later transformed into frontiers, cf. Stubb's Lectures on Early English History. The isolation of states is well rendered, in a summary way, by Fairgreave, Georgraphy and World Power. CO-OPERATION BETWEEN STATES 9> organism is aware of contact with others of the same kind. The likeness between an organism and a state may be exaggerated, but we may reasonably suppose that the parts of a state would not function as they do if only one state were in existence. For government is always concerned with the existence of other states; and, although in earlier times foreign policy meant only an occasional embassy or a war, for some hundred years no state has at any moment been able to neglect the existence of others. And this has affected our view of history as an explanation of present life. To take English history as an example, for many years such history isolated the record of the inhabitants of England. The wicked foreigners who were occasionally mentioned were our " enemies," and even as such our contact with them was regarded as a recurrence of episodes rather than a continuous influence. The historian thought within frontiers — beyond his England was an unmapped and unregarded wilderness. Then two discoveries were made. The " Empire " was seen to be an integral part of England, and the history even of this larger whole was seen to be part of a still larger development. The history of England was first seen to be essentially a record of acts and ideas in action in distant India or New Z^ealand; for we could not understand the changes in English life without direct study of adventure and administration among alien peoples or in 9» THE WORLD OF STATES newly discovered lands. And, on the other hand, the life and thought of England were seen to be unintelligible without a study of the organisations and revolts of continental Europe. The average man was not quickly aiFected by the new under- standing of history. But most men are now aware that there is no isolated nation or state. The inhabitants of every state have been think- ing for generations within a frontier. Their records are filled with the results of this frontier- vision : and later historians have not proved that they can overcome the limitations of view which they found in their authorities or sources. It is natural, indeed, that the history of our group should be the most interesting to us, just as the history of a great family is most interesting to those who belong to it. But a less limited view of what our group has stood for in the world would exalt and not degrade our patriotism. There are an increasing number of men and women who think it more excellent to teach foreigners than to " beat " them. It begins to be believed that to cure the East of cholera would be a more admirable act than to conquer it; and men will soon feel even in the purely political sphere that the relations of states cannot be adequately described, as Hobbes described them, in the metaphors of gladiatorial combat. Therefore all civilised men are beginning to perceive that human history is one whole, of which the history of their group is only a part; and also it is perceived that CO-OPERATION BETWEEN STATES 9J the history of that part is unintelligible if its rela- tions to the whole are conceived as those of combat. But we are not chiefly concerned here with the attitude we are to adopt to national history. The important fact to recognise is that the human race is so changed that it is literally impossible to write recent history without continuous reference to members of other groups than our own.* This is not simply to imagine as fact what we desire to exist : for even the most nationalistic historian of modern times is concerned with the continuous contact of states. He cannot explain his own present situation if he avoids mention of the development and purposes of other states than his own. We do not imagine that the states of the world are a happy family because they are in contact. They cannot keep out of each other's way, but they quarrel like cliff-dwellers; and this no fantastic idealism can disguise. In modern times the hos- tility of states is indeed obvious : but the less obvious fact of their increasing interdependence may be more important. For trade and investment frequently disregard frontiers : and foreign ideas permeate even through national prejudice. The * Even the nature of a frontier has changed, but this is not yet perceived by those who concern themselves chiefly with the rearrangement of frontiers. A treatise could be written in political theory on the transformation of the nature of administrative limits. 94 THE WORLD OF STATES most interesting fact, however, is that the states themselves have begun to act together in the con- trol of disease, the support of postal communica- tion, the policing and charting of the seas, the treatment of crime, and in many other ways. Governments, if they are not continually reminded of their sacred sovereignty, tend to act as though it mattered very little; and the history of foreign policy since the Renaissance has been an amusing record for anyone who is interested in the psycho- logy of those who have political control of other men. There has been an increasing communica- tion, which continually approaches friendliness, until a sudden memory of ancient dignities or " vital interests " makes the diplomatists jerk themselves apart into an attitude of mutual sus- picion. And the inconsistencies of foreign policy are not wholly irrational : for they reflect the two facts that states are in part being brought closer and in part are increasingly rivals. Like a family which is forced to go into a smaller houpe, they are a.lways meeting and generally quarrelling. But by the mere force of circumstances governments have been compelled to devise diplomacy for informing themselves about other governments : and they have found that it actually pays to assist their citizens to communicate by post with foreigners. No great amount of goodwill is implied in diplo- macy or the postal system; but a very bad- tempered family has been compelled to devise some method of organising their relations. Any CO-OPERATION BETWEEN STATES 95 review of recent history, therefore, will show that there is a tendency which brings states closer together and that such a tendency creates a form of organisation between them. Diplomacy and the Postal Service may stand for the beginnings of an inter-state political system.* In addition to these, we must count treaties as examples of inter-state organisation.! A treaty in International Law is a specific agreement in view of certain difficulties, binding either for a specified time or indefinitely. The two or more parties to a treaty are obviously, so long as the treaty is kept, in a special political relation and their actions are equally bound by obedience to the terms of the treaty. Some treaties are agreements at the conclu- sion of wars : and all wars which do not end with the extinction of one of the contending parties end with treaties. The relations of Great Britain and the United States with respect to the Canadian frontier have now been administered for a hundred years in accordance with the agreement made in * Action in common between states is made continuous by the establishment of an administrative organisation, as, for example, the International Office for Public Hygiene (established 1908), which is in Paris, and is supported by twenty-eight states. Scientific research is also supported by states acting in common. It is obvious that the measure- ment of the earth, or seiismological knowledge, could not be achieved by one state acting alone. + Cf. Martens' Recueil Gdndral de Traitis. This gives nearly 900 treaties between 1874 and 1883. $6 THE WORLD OF STATES 1 8 14.* And this is inter-state organisation. So also Prussia and Austria are still affected by the treaty of 1866. Other treaties, although not aris- ing out of wars, are brought into being to settle some dispute. Such are treaties which deal with boundaries, or the policing of certain countries or certain parts of the sea. But in modern times treaties have been arranged without any preliminary quarrel and merely for the arrangement of relations between citizens of the treaty-making states. The greater number of these are commercial treaties. They are statements of the way in which two or more governments will act in view of certain relations entered into by their nationals in trading one with the other. They are the next step forward in inter-state organisa- tion, after diplomacy and the consular service. In International Law some place is also given to the agreements as to the limitations of the use of force and fraud in war. The Geneva Convention, for example, emphasised by the Hague Confer- ence, sets out a rule for the conduct of civilised states, and most states act in the main according to these rules. But this is inter-state organisation : * One of the most initeresting books on inter-state politics is W. A. Dunning's The British Empire and the United States, 1914. It deals with a hundred years of peace between the two states. There is no reason why such a book should not be composed, to treat the development of amity between other states. Sir Thomas Barclay's Thirty Years deals with the beginnings of the Entente Cordiale. CO-OPERATION BETWEEN STATES 97 for if separate bodies act upon the same principles a form of polity is beginning. There are also undefined agreements between governments which, in fact, result in co-operation as to certain issues. The Entente between Great Britain and France was, until 19 14, an agreement of this kind, and we may, perhaps, allow that there are sympathies between governments which, although they hardly bind all citizens, do lead towards some common action. Some of the South American states are thus connected, and perhaps also the three Scandinavian states.* In this we have no inter-state administration; but a common political attitude in a group of states is the begin- ning of an inter-state polity. Finally, there are alliances. These are, in fact, restrictions of sovereignty, for allied states are bound to act together and to accept common decisions. The apparatus for arriving at such decisions is crude, and the common action is not generally of a very complex kind, but it implies inter-state organisation. In times of war inter- state administration, based upon alliance, easily comes into being. In the war since 19 14 there have grown up in both groups of belligerents offices for communication and for action upon common plans, as, for example, the Z.E.G. in Germany and Austria. And even in times of peace an alliance generally implies some special relation between foreign offices, almost amounting to * This has begun in the Scandinavian Monetary Union. 9« THE WORLD OF STATES organisation. Put, therefore, at its lowest, alliance is a form of inter-state polity : and it is evident that alliances tend to increase, since every state, even the most powerful, finds it difl&cult to stand alone. It is obvious from all of these facts that inter- state organisation has begun. Such organisation as at present exists may, indeed, be insecure : it may be in part pernicious or obstructive to pro- gress; it may give too much power to administra- tors over citizens, or it may diminish the control of citizens over their governing classes. Much may be said against it. But, on the other hand, every agreement, even for a few years, implies the spread of orderliness in the relations between men, for it is the register of some vague tendency towards a less provincial view of justice and liberty; and it is actually depended upon by the contracting states in their relation one to another. The majority of treaties are not broken, and most alliances last until their purpose has been achieved. It is mere fanaticism to neglect all this and to fly into the wilds of emotionalism as to the beauties of peace or the glories of war. What is needed is a critical consideration of the situation and an endeavour to control it. We have seen, then, that organisation is be- ginning in the relation between states. The tendency may, however, be resisted or insuffi- ciently supported, and we must, therefore, now argue that the increase of such organisation is CO-OPERATION BETWEEN STATES 99 necessary and excellent. The ultimate reasons for this are to be found In new conceptions of the nature of the state; but this more abstract issue we shall omit for the present and confine our attention to the g,ctual needs of definite states. Again, we must omit for the present the general problem of organisation between all the states of the world and speak only of the necessary rela- tions between two or three states. For it is in such small beginnings that we may most clearly perc;eive the use of inter-state organisation. At present the relations between men within one state are regulated by established principles of law, which are carried out by administrative officials. Contracts are enforced on certain con- ditions, violence is repressed, fraud is punished, and the land and waterways are policed. But the relations between men who belong to dif- ferent states are not so regulated, and when any friction occurs, the state, through diplomacy, must argue and arrange separately on each sepa- rate case or the issue must be left undecided, with the consequent unsettlement of credit or uncertainty of temper between groups of men in the two states. So long as contracts are few between men of different states, cases can be dealt with singly and without the adoption of any general rule. But it is obviously foolish when similar cases are frequent that no general rule shoxild be adopted. This is no problem of ab- stract sovereignty or bf divided allegiance, but H 2 THE WORLD OF STATES simply one of putting in order the new com- plexities of trade, investment, and even travel. It seems reasonable therefore to support the signing of commercial treaties between states the iitizens of which normally trade together : and perhaps there might be an increase in common contract laws, or marriage laws or travel regula- tions. This may be applied to groups of states. For example, a common contract law and marriage law might be administered in the United States and the British Empire. The Scandinavian states might have a common control of their commerce. France, Italy and Spain might administer in com- mon the situation in North- West Africa. And the advantage gained in each case would be such as comes from a common administration established over a large area. Secondly, states vary in their organisation : some are tending in a democratic direction. That is to say, in a few states a greater number of citizens are being given political power and responsi- bility; and there has been during the last century a general departure from autocracy. The influence of democratic ideas has spread from one state to another and a certain sympathy has existed between liberalising political parties in the different states. This was a continuance of the old develop- ment of the state in isolation : for the democratic tendencies were generally combined with an unpo- litical neglect of foreign policy and their spread from state to state was not assisted by any political action. CO-OPERATION BETWEEN STATES Meanwhile, alliance has always been recognised as a method of strengthening the established government in allied states; and autocracies, before even the Holy Alliance was conceived, have used alliance as a primitive method of inter-state organisation, generally with military purposes. But alliance, because of its sinister connections in past history, has not been willingly adopted as a policy by democratic states, and these have only been driven to it when military designs were in control of inter-state policy. We have thus the apparent division between democratic tendencies without any inter-state policy and alliance combined with autocracy and militarism. We must make the next step and combine internal democracy with a new form of alliance. For progressive governments should aim at the permanent organisation of their relations with other like governments. The influence of democratic ideals would not then be left to the chance of literary or oratorical propa- ganda. Sympathy would be made stronger by organisation. The security which is necessary for the progress of internal reform would be more generally established. And instead of forming a mere military alliance the states of a new inter-state polity would lead the human race to more varied life and more equally shared progress.* * A wider thesis might be made that there is, as yet, no clearly cx>nceived foreign policy corresponding to the demo- cratic government in internal policy. AH foreign policy seem to be an inheritance from dynastic or oligarchic govern, ment, but a new system might be thought out. THE WORLD OF STATES Again, the time has come when progressive states should develop towards the next stage in political organisation. No sane person imagines that the present state-system is the final political device which humanity can contrive. Clearly, the day of the segregate state is over. But the ancient alternative, alliance, is politically primitive, for it has a definite connection with war and must invariably be interpreted by those outside it as a combination of military powers. We need not rest, however, in the alternatives of isolation or alliance. The third possibility is permanent inter- state political organisation for the progress of trade and investment, the control of disease and crime; and this need not begin by being world- wide in its membership or too far-reaching in the powers given to inter-state officials. If even two states began to act together in this way a new future would be open. And it is natural to imagine that the British Empire and the United States of America might make together this great experiment. Each of these contains more varied races within its frontiers than any other state : each is politically developed upon the same general lines, and in each strong groups have arisen with a new view of diplomacy or inter-state policy not confined to the trivial lying and braggart threats of the Renaissance school. And besides political likenesses, there is a social sympathy between great bodies of citizens in the two states. Should they not therefore be the first to form an inter-state CO-OPERATION BETWEEN STATES 103 polity? They have begun to move along that road in the first treaty of Arbitration which they signed in 1914 : and it requires but little more to make all the relations between the British Empire and the United States permanently political. What we are suggesting is an inter-state polity, combining two or tfiree states. World organisation may be aimed at as well; but this larger and simpler, and also more insecure, political system would not be made less worth having if states were grouped into polities. Such a polity would be something more than an alliance and less than a single federal state. Its administrative and legisla- tive machinery might be of the smallest, and its development would have to depend upon the more or less of common interest which attracted the combined states each to the other. There is no reason why one state should not belong to two or more such polities. For example, France would belong to a Mediterranean polity and also to a Central European or Northern polity. The United States woiild belong to an Atlantic polity and also to an Eastern polity. Thus, as in muni- cipal organisation, there would be a complex of inter-related organisations. This is intentionally fantastic in detail, but it is not far removed from the practical in its chief conceptions. For the argument seems to hold good that the separate states would gain by partial com- binations for distinct purposes and that the resulting organisations should be many and con> 10+ THE WORLD OF STATES plex. It is Strange that practical men, who know how elaborate is the organisation of municipal life, should, when they think of inter-state polity, have no possibilities in their minds but separate states in Council or a much too simple World-State. The best practical policy seems to be to discover how two or three states could be combined in a polity for special purposes. Clearly, advance must be made at once in arranging and organising the relation between states. For we cannot afford to wait until internal oppression has ceased before we attack some of the evils of inter-state anarchy; and, again, it is this very anarchy between states, with its recurrent crises, which makes it almost impossible to reform any state from within. Our final argument, there • fore, for organised co-operation between states is this : organised co-operation alone will provide the atmosphere and the con force.* For progress is not inevitable. There is no certainty that the course of human history * Cf., Walter Lippman, Preface to Politics. 126 THE WORLD OF STATES will move in a direction of which we should ap- prove; and if the life of men has become in past history more endurable, it is because certain men with clear ideals have transformed it. In the problems of inter-state politics, more than in any- other issue, passions and tendencies of thought have been left to take their course. The deadly apathy of the intellectual, indeed, has been worse than the fatalism of the simple-minded : for almost no constructive thinking has been spent upon foreign policy or upon world-politics. And yet the chief task of intelligence is not to keep the old institutions working, but to transform them or to replace them. The intellectuals should, therefore, be aware of thq importance of the sub- ject, and the common man should begin to per- ceive that the actions of states are not, like thunderstorms, outside of his control. But the first necessity^ is the careful attention to the situa- tion as it is. The problem is difficult, but not insoluble. The facts aire complex, but not unintelligible. The passions of different races and different groups are divergent and contending, but all men are extraordinarily alike in the depths of their being : for the human race is living on the crust of an inhospitable planet, with a strangely similar fate in every generation; although among this little race is every variety of genius, of jacial o r meatal grouping. Men live now among institutions — states, churches, and the rest — whose birth was WORLD ORGANISATION 127 comparatively recent, but to which they give the privilege of unknown antiquity. And alwaya when we analyse what men do, we must rememberj what they think they do. For imagination is a primary fact. By a clear and always increasing analysis of such facts we must become more aware of what is happening. The power of newspapers, the fluidity of capital, the evanescence of religious enthusiasm, all these are facts; and so also are the incurable devotion of men to the more difficult task, the ineradicable tendency to comradeship and the visions that open from what seems to be another world. All these, and many more, make up and condition the life of human society; and we must not sit dumbly waiting for this and the other crisis to call our attention to, them. "We must forestall the future by understanding the present; and we must understand with a view to controlling our social life. The attitude which we should adopt, therefore, in regard to world-politics is one of sane analysis and undeterred criticism of what occurs, in order that we may, by one method or another, make the future better than the past has been. What we have to contend against is the inherited prejudice of those who abhor social change. There are some who act as though what has been must always be; and especially in the contact of states they suppose that we are in the presence of a world-process over which we can have no control even if we can criticise it. This is a remnant of the 128 THE WORLD OF STATES State-mysticism of the Renaissance, confused with a misinterpretation of the Darwinian hypothesis. But, indeed, the theory of these men is only an afterthought adopted to excuse their conserva- tism. They cannot conceive of any far-reaching change in human relations. They do not perceive clearly the elements of which social force is com- posed; but they think of states and their action as men of the Middle Ages thought of the magnet or the tide. And these men have had too much control of the systems of education and the devices of administration : they are not criminals, but they have inherited blindness, and so thought it the best that could be had.* Against that tradition the whole of present life seems to call out for a radical transformation of outlook, especially in regard to the organisation of the human race. Every day we see, in adver- tisement, in political jugglery, in finance, and in vulgar religion, the control of social tendencies for private or trivial ends. And could such know- ledge of methods be used for nobler ends, we should soon build a new world of states. We need control based upon knowledge; but we need even more an inspiring vision. For the world of : states is as yet a formless world — a. chaos, a nebula, half -formed and insecure; and to make it a world, \ in the best sense, a cosmos, an orderly system, we * In this matter nothing seems more important than a reform in the teaching of history. For as now taught history degrades the present into the baser features of the past. WORLD ORGANISATION 1x9 must see every state as an integral part of the whole. The understanding of social forces and the con- trol of them are, therefore, to be used for quite definite purposes, whether such forces are political, ^ economic, religious, or cultural. These purposes are the expression in rational form of the creative activity of man, and our attitude towards world- organisation must be governed by the ideal of greater freedom for such activity. The test of the value of any organisation must be the amount and the quality of the vitality of individual human beings which such organisation promotes. For although no man lives or thinks alone, it is man who thinks and lives and not society. The source of intelligence and emotion is individual. The stream bubbles up from each separate, although not segregate, mind. We thus return always to the consideration of men, women and children, however elaborate or far-reaching our plans for the world at large may be. In practice, however, an attitude which pro- motes change and frees new activity will be adopted by few. The majority of men and women do not appear to desire freedom, even when they can have it. They feel uncomfortable when they cannot cover themselves in the good old conventions and customs : and above all they dread to be alone or in the minority.* This is * Cf., Emile Faguet, The dread of responsibility, on the fear of originality in democratic France. 130 THE WORLD OF STATES not mere sarcasm : it is a conclusion based upon observation of facts, and the facts are to be found in all history. The taste for freedom, especially mental and spiritual freedom, is uncommon; and it is not yet very highly developed in the human race. The attitude towards the world-organisation which we have been suggesting will not then be adopted or understood by very many. Does it, therefore, follow that those who adopt it appeal to individual judgment.' It does not. It is most important that those who are not socially and politically docile should not feel themselves to be segregate individuals faced by 'united groups of their fellow-men. No sane j appeal can be made to individual or private judg- ; ment. The appeal is from one kind of social 1 group to another. The contrast is between the I national or local group which is intellectually and emotionally heterogeneous, and, on the other ' hand, the homogeneous group of those who think i keenly and feel deeply, who do not happen to I belong to the same local group and may not even I be contemporaries. Such a statement implies an unusual social philosophy, and this is not the 1 place to elaborate its meaning. But it will perhaps !be sufficiently understood by examples. He who appreciates music is in closer social union with Beethoven than he is with the inhabitants of his own street. When he repudiates the local noises, he is not appealing to private judg- ment but to an intense social experience. And so WORLD ORGANISATION 131 also when a man appeals against the judgment of the other inhabitants of his street by being inter- ested in pure mathematics, he finds a spiritual city of greater minds and not an intellectual desert. The man who has courage to think alone finds a great reward in the discovery of many in every age and every land who have thus greatly dared. This is that " City of God," that " Communion of Saints," which the greatest social philosophers have always endeavoured to explain tu the timid and the docile. It is the greatest conception of Socrates and Plato. And the exhilaration which comes from breathing that freer air gives strength to those who build, even out of the clay of apathy • and indolence by which they are surrounded, the Golden Age. Our attitude towards world-politics must further be defined by reference to our conception of the nature of the state. This is not the place to expound a philosophical theory; but the essen- tial elements in the new view of the state have been already sufficiently referred to in former chapters. It is only necessary to say here that we" must think of the state as an organisation in contact with others of the same kind, the pvirpose of all of which is the same. Every state aims at order and liberty, at least for its own territory and among its " own citizens or subjects. The purpose of each being the same, it seems that only one step is needed for all to co-operate to achieve it. Further, the state is an organisation for E2 MI THE WORLD OF STATES justice and liberty among its own citizens. Its success in attaining these ends is not dependent only upon the activities of its own citizens : for its organisation may be destroyed or its morality corrupted by the action of those outside its borders. It is, therefore, essential to every state to have, outside its borders, none who would be inclined to obstruct the liberty of its citizens or to confuse its administration of justice. It is usually the attempt of the state to see that those outside should not be powerful enough thus to injure it; but a further step is essential to develop the real character of the state — it must see that, however powerful, these others shall be unwilling or disin- clined to obstruct it. From the purpose of the state with respect to its own citizens it follows, therefore, that its purpose towards those who are. not its own citizens should be also the promotion of justice and liberty. The organisation of every state should be promoted, or at least not obstructed, by all other states. -, i That is, as it were, a principle t)l enlightened y group-egoism. It is not well for ourselves Ihat' those in other states should arm to the teeth or adopt the primitive political organisation which, while necessary for war, is oppressive to liberty and degrading to the conceptions of justice. For our own advantage, therefore, we should take such steps in foreign policy as to destroy every excuse for the arming of other states, and we should, even on the principles of group-egoism sufficiently WORLD ORGANISATION 133 enlightened, aim at making the citizens of other states unwilling rather than unable to disturb our own political development. The complementary truth is that the essence of the state, as an organisation for justice and liberty, implies active promotion of these ends out- side its own borders. This is, as it were, state- altruism; but there is no distinction in fact between enlightened egoism and enlightened altruism. The nature of justice and liberty is such that they cannot flovirish in one corner unless thev are secure elsewhere; and, further, the conception of justice and liberty is not understood until we desire them for others besides ourselves and our immediate neighbours. Wars, however, occur during which the members of every belligerent state try to destroy the organi- sation and obstruct the liberty of the citizens of the opposing states. War and the preparation for war are based upon fraud and each belligerent state promotes treachery or deceit within the borders of its opponents. A new conception of the nature of the state, especially in its external political relations, wiU compel the belief that the preparation for war is a departure from, not an embodiment of, that for which the state exists.* At present the con- ception of the state ceases to be political when we come to consider its relation to other states. The conception in reference to this issue is either vague *This is admirably stated, in an abstract form, by Green in his Lectures on Political Obligation. , 134 THE WORLD OF STATES and mythical or it is frankly military : and Hegel^ combined both mistakes in his philosophy of' the state. War is, therefore, not necessarily an inci- dent in state-organisation; but it is a survival from a time before the state existed, or at least before its true nature was understood. War is opposed to the development of the state; and for that reason we desire more of the state in order to have less of war. But the state in this sense must mean not so much the actual organisations at present existing as the more perfect organisations for the attain- ment of those purposes which our present states so inadequately achieve. The state in the world will then be an organisation for co-operating with other states in the attainment of political security and political progress. The relation of such a state to the states of the present day is like the rela- tion of an ideal to a transient reality : but even the real states of to-day have elements in their structure and action which, if developed, would lead directly to a state-system in an organised political world. Finally the state must mean an institution which deliberately co-operates with others of the same kind for the promotion of justice and liberty in the whole human race. If the state really stands for such ends, then its interests cannot be confined by frontiers, nor can its activities cease there. This is a further point, because the deliberate action of one government in reference to peoples hot under its rule is now thought to be an interference with ) WORLD ORGANISATION 135 " internal " affairs. The attitude implied is as primitive as that which opposed compulsory sani- tation because it interfered with domestic life, or that which opposed the feeding of school-children because it reduced parental responsibility. But to arrive at a world-policy for every state that will not be a mere contending with other states, may not be possible until more men can think sanely of different and distant other men and women. World-politics, in the true sense, must be based upon a world-education in world- views; and then the different organisations called states can pro- perly be subordinated to the real needs of men. What is here suggested for political society was long ago suggested for ecclesiastical institu- tions. It seemed to men of the eighteenth century that if all the Churches and religious societies really existed for the promotion of religion, they could best attain their common end by deliberate and organised co-operation.* But each denomi- nation was more concerned with its own specific form of religion than with the kind of religion at which it aimed in common with others. And in the quarrels of the denominations, or rather of the officials of the various institutions, the interest of the average man in religion itself gradually evaporated. The mutual hostility of Churches is the chief cause of irreligion. The parallel is not, of course, complete; but the quarrels of states tend in much the same way *Cf., Leibnitz's attempts to reconcile the Churches. 136 THE WORLD OF STATES to shake men's faith in justice and liberty. Fools imagine that the state is strengthened when that for which the state exists is gradually perishing; because they confound the mere methods of ad- ministration with the tone and character of a political society. But often the successful enrich- ment or the powerful military organisation of a state has only been the tinsel glory which hides what is already dead. For the state dies quickly which has sacrificed liberty and justice even in order to preserve its own existence; as the Church dies which sacrifices religious insight to the pre- servation of its peculiar dogmas or its traditional organisation. The parallel between the state and other insti- tutions is not complete because no man can well avoid being directly connected with one state or another. No man can stand aside from politics so completely as he can, for example, from art or religion; and in this sense the state is more funda- mental than any othei* human institution. But it does not follow that the state is more important. The state is necessary as food is necessary; because one could not produce art without food. But art is more valuable than food, and, in a certain definite sense, more important. The necessity for belonging to a state is, however, a cogent reason for reforming the state-system of to-day. For if we must use the state we must control it; and it is all the more reason that we should not allow it to act as the Churches have. It must exist; but WORLD ORGANISATION 137 it may exist either in its past and present form as an isolated unit among others, or in the future as part of a larger organisation. We have seen that this new form is being gradually impressed upon it by recent social changes; but the tendency may be resisted. Nevertheless it is clear that the~^ old method of state isolation has not achieved justice and liberty, and it is, therefore, reasonable to suppose that the only possible method for attaining its purpose is for the state to co-operate , with other states. "^ Thus, and thus only, shall we be able to secure those conditions in which men can grapple with various other political problems — the recognition of nationality, the freedom of labour, the adminis- tration of mixed populations, the development of simple races. None of these can be dealt with as political issues so long as the limits of political thought and action are defined by frontiers; for any change in administration within a state will always be hampered by the quite unpolitical, but military, necessity of preparing for war. And it is undoubtedly known to many who oppose any change that the segregation of states supports their attempt to keep things as they are. The ultimate political aim, therefore, of those who desire political development within any state should be the organisation of political machinery in inter-state affairs. Then only will political progress be secvire from lapses into barbarism such as destroyed Athens and Rome. 138 THE WORLD OF STATES But the organisation of the political world is not merely for the advantage of political admin istration. For if states were in a more stable and progressive relation each to the other, the basis of life would be secured for the proper development of all the higher activities of man. Religion would rise to greater heights; since religious enthusiasm would not be periodically enslaved for the maintenance of contending states : men would not have a merely local or tribal God. And the Churchesj freed from the necessity of apologising for death, would endeavour, more consistently, to improve life. It is also possible without too Utopian an imagination to see a world in which peace could be assumed to be secure as one in which religious genius would be given a better hearing, and religious service of men a higher standing in the public mind. Great ex- periments like Monasticism or Quakerism are but foretastes of what men may attempt in exalt- ing life and redeeming the commonplace. Evil enough would no doubt remain, but the spirit would be more free for contending with it if the very foundations of civilised life were not in continual danger of being shaken. Art, also, would be in place in a world of peace, and it would not appear to be the imperti- nence or the idle luxury which indeed it must be so long as the world is organised for war. A chair may be made with an eye to art, but not a gun; and, although it is foolish to deny that a WORLD ORGANISATION 13» gun or a bayonet is beautiful as a fungus may be, art must always seem a trivial thing in the instruments of destruction. For art is a stepping- stone to fuller life; and the art which digs a grave is necessarily perverse. But art freed From sub- ordination to that in which art must always appear trivial, would be art such as we are barely yet able to imagine. It would open new worlds to the eyes of men, which have been so long blinded by the dust men have themselves raised. And science, if it means the knowledge which gives control of natvire, would be freer in a world at peace. Now it is entrammelled by the desire to use nature for the control of men; since ex- plosives and gas and sharpened steel are " nature," and in a world of war such nature is enslaved only with a view to the destruction of men. What is conquered in the science which subserves war is not nature but man. And the labour of the scientist who gives himself to the preparing of destruction clearly results in a world which has less place for science of any kind. Fools emphasise the opportunity for scientific investigation which war provides, although they seldom dare, as they should, to praise cancer and tubercle as opportunities for the progress of medicine. But true science is not so much a mere repairer of the broken as the builder of a new and better world. It is not only that science would be used more beneficially in a world better organised; but science as a whole would actually 140 THE WORLD OF STATES increase and develop. There would be more and better knowledge of the nature of things : there would be fewer restrictions upon the subjects dealt with; and, if there were, perhaps, less con- centration upon some departments of chemistry or physics, there would certainly be a greater attention to forces not yet examined. Many speak as though we understood or controlled nature at present; but we have in fact not yet explored the outer courts of that vast region in which all men dwell; and the " philosophies of the universe " which pretend to explain the nature of things are probably as inadequate to the subtlety of what is as yet unknown as the simple beliefs of a child are inadequate to the explana- tion of fire or ice. A world at peace would be a world more open to the explorations of science, which would open up what is as yet unimagined. A world of this kind would be considerably more interesting and even more adventurous than the world is now. It is true that there might be less danger to life and limb; but if such danger is the only opportunity for adventure, we should make the best of our way back to the primitive age, in which killing was an everyday occurrence. At that rate a savage has a more " adventurous " life than a civilised man, as certain of the moderns seem to imagine. The " nostalgie de la boue " often sets upon a civilisation which has lost its soul in the pursuit of wealth and domination over others; but even for such a civilisation salvation WORLD ORGANISATION 141 cannot be found in a return to primitive bar- barism. The belief that one can redeem oneself or one's fellow from externalism and worldliness by increasing pain, disease, discomfort, and danger, is a peculiarly perverse form of primitive social asceticism. It is like the simple faith of a fakir or a pillar saint who imagines that the way to spiritual cleanliness lies through material filth. This seems a platitude to a few and an absur- dity to many. There may even be some who take an opposed view, and would, on the whole, prefer a world in all essentials like the present, if not a world of actual war. Some men in every group seem actually to prefer war and the prepa- ration for war; and we shall always have to reckon with their preferences. But they will have to die out naturally, as men with a taste for human flesh have died out; or their desires must be controlled and their hopes frustrated. We shall never please everyone, whatever world we build. And it is, perhaps, possible that the appetite for war will never die out. But men with that appetite have had their tastes only too well supplied, and it is time that the different taste of others was con- sulted. For, if we put it simply as a conflict of tastes, there is no reason why after something like 50,000 years of war we should not try even a hundred years of absolute and unbroken peace. Great numbers of people would prefer it, although it would annoy the domineering and tire the sentimentalists. And as for those who 1 4-2 THE WORLD OF STATES want a better world but not a very different one, we shall have to pretend to them that the trans- formation of inter-state action is only an experi- ment. We cannot reasonably foresee a future in which all the human race will dance in amity round a mulberry bush. Nor will all men become lambs. But we shall have made one step forward when the law of the wolf is not the governing principle in the conduct of the larger issues of politics. And, after all, being a lamb or a bee is not the only alternative to the habits and customs of the wolf. We only propose that a serious attempt should be made at being men. Even within the frontiers of one state political life is not yet humanised; and that may have to come before the contact of states is amenable to reason. But ultimately the transformation of foreign policy must depend on the humanising of the political attitude towards citizens of other states. We must become accustomed to test political action not by reference to wealth and power, but by reference to human pleasure and pain; and even by reference to the pleasure and pain of men and women in other states than ours. We must see men and not states as the funda- mental interest of politics; and we must perceive the underlying likeness of all men, who are born and die with monotonous similarity. We may be on the eve of such a discovery by the peoples at large; for it has been an open secret among the few for many generations. The Golden Age is WORLD ORGANISATION 14J not yet begun; but it is not too much to hope that when political justice and liberty are secured by the organisation of inter-state relations, when religion is finer and art freer and science more splendid, a greater number will believe and act upon the belief that man is to man a sacred thing. INDEX Alliance Arbitration Armament Firms Art Babism Balkan Wars Barclay - _ , Blackstone Brailsford - Bryce Balow Cbina Churches Civilisation Council of Conciliation Democracy Denmark - Dicey Diplomacy- Dubois Dunning Economics- Empire England - Entente Faguet France Free Trade Frontiers Germany Greece Grotius Green Hague Conference Hammond - Hobbes Hobson Holland Holy Alliance - Imperialism Internationalism International Law PAGE - 97 103, 119 - 58 - 138 - I4n 116 96n 3 - 1151 23n 56 12, 112 .7,29 - "7 100 - 7. 29 - 4n 25, 3I> 51. 94 - lion - 96n 53 7 14. 23, 55, 91 ■ 97 I29n - 7.44 -30,64 - 93 2> 7. 41. 55. 70 42, 108 27, Illn - 1330 - 106, Illsq - I20n -26, 92 - II4n -7,112 - lOI, 121 - 40 - 5. 40 -27,96,111 FACE International Mercantile Marine 68 International Organisation 90 Japan -12,46 Jaures 55 Justiciable Disputes - "7 League of Nations lo6, II5 Labour Legislation^ Interna- tional - - - 69 Martens - - 9511 Michel - - 8n Norwajr Orange Free State Patriotism Polis Progress - 36 - 108 - 126 - 62 ion - 138 109 - HO ion, 81 - 139 - 82 - I9n 4 2 30. 34 8 - 2,21 131 53 2 55 Treaties - . 95, 103 Turkey .... 42 United States 44,51,55,56,81,102 Utilitarianism ... 3 Wallas . . I2n War . . . . 8l, 133 Woolf . . . 68, II, 8n Protection - Real Will - Religion Rome Roman Church Rousseau Science Security Senecca Socialism - South America Sovereignty State Administration Described Ideal Wealth - Sweden Syndicalists THE PELICAN PRESS I,., J^l ,1.. ..I to 1. — . .. ..I — ■ l»i ,1. Ul .M II. - I., to «. ... lU. i»l l» 1.1 .« ..■ ». » » i..i m IM UIU Jill M,„ .J NEW COMMONWEALTH BOOKS The volumes in the series will cover the main sub- jects relative to the function of the State. Those already planned will treat of the State in its relation to other states, to religion, to industry, to society, to woman, to the individual, to art, education and crime. The JhUotoing folumet tvUI he published in the Spring o/" 1 9 1 7 : 1. THE WORLD OF STATES: By C. DELISLE BURNS, M.A. 2. THE CHURCH IN THE COM- MONWEALTH: By RICHARD ROBERTS 3. FREEDOM: By GILBERT CANNAN ThefoUomng ivill appear in the Autumm 4. THE STATE AND INDUSTRY: By G. D. H. COLE, M.A. 5. THE STATE AND WOMAN: By A. 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