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NATIONAL 
 SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 ITS GKOWTH AND PRINCIPLES 
 THE CULMINATION OF MODERN HISTORY 
 
 BY 
 
 EAMSAY MUIK 
 
 PROFESSOR OP MODERN HISTORY IN THE UNIVERSITY 
 OP MANCHESTER 
 
 LONDON 
 
 CONSTABLE AND COMPANY LTD 
 
 1919 
 

 First Published June 1918 
 Reprinted February 1919 
 
 %*> \ H 6" O- 
 
 "Rep 1 ' 
 
TO 
 
 J. R. M. 
 
PREFACE 
 
 The purpose of this book is twofold. In the first place, 
 I have tried to provide a brief historical survey of the 
 development of parliamentary institutions in the modern 
 world, such as will put the ordinary citizen in possession 
 of the facts which he requires if he is to form a sound 
 judgment upon the working of the system in our own 
 and other countries. In the second place, I have tried 
 to use this historical survey as a means of elucidating 
 the problems of self-government, the difficulties which 
 it has to face, the conditions which are necessary for its 
 success, and the ways in which it is affected by the char- 
 acters and traditions of the various nations which have 
 adopted it. 
 
 The book makes no pretence to be a scientific historical 
 treatise on its subject. It is not systematic or exhaus- 
 tive ; it includes few facts which are not, or ought not 
 to be, pretty generally known ; it leaves almost un- 
 touched the development of the institutions of half 
 the countries of Europe, and of all the new lands of the 
 non-European world, excepting the United States ; not 
 because these countries do not present features of great 
 interest, but because I had to keep my book within 
 reasonable compass, and the main points which I wished 
 to elucidate seemed to be adequately illustrated in the 
 countries I have selected for fuller treatment. On the 
 
viii NATIONAL SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 other hand, the book is not a text-book, or condensed 
 compendium of established facts. I fear it contains more 
 disquisition than narrative, more argument than fact. It 
 is, in short, a political essay rather than a formal history ; 
 an attempt at what may be called 'historical politics,' 
 a blend of narrative and analysis. 
 
 Although I am very conscious of the defects of what 
 I have written, I believe there is room, and need, for 
 books of this type ; books which will aim at elucidating 
 political problems in the light of their history, and 
 especially of their recent history ; books designed for 
 the use of the ordinary intelligent citizen who is neither 
 an expert historian nor a professed political philosopher. 
 It seems to me a strange thing that (so far as I am aware) 
 there should be in English no book which tries to 
 cover the ground I have attempted to survey. There are 
 excellent analyses of the formal constitutional systems 
 of the various modern States. There are admirable 
 treatises on the working of the government of this 
 country or that. There are useful summaries of modern 
 political history which include the main facts about 
 constitutional changes. But there does not, I think, 
 exist any book which attempts in a clear and broad way 
 to show how it has come about that the institutions of 
 self-government have been adopted within a very short 
 space of time in every land of Western civilisation, how 
 historical circumstances have modified the forms which 
 they have assumed, how these forms compare with one 
 another in actual working, and how their development 
 elucidates the problem of self-government, and the dangers 
 against which it has to guard. I am not so foolish as 
 
PREFACE ix 
 
 to imagine that I can, in so short a compass, have dealt 
 satisfactorily with a theme so complex ; the most I can 
 hope is that I may help some of my fellow-citizens to 
 understand more clearly the political developments of 
 the recent past, and therefore to approach with fuller 
 understanding the political problems of the immediate 
 future. 
 
 This book is in some sense a sequel or companion to 
 two other books, Nationalism and Internationalism and 
 The Expansion of Europe, in which I have attempted to 
 apply the same method to other great political problems. 
 The three volumes were originally intended to be printed 
 together under the general title of The Culmination of 
 Modern History, though this book and The Expansion 
 of Europe have both been considerably expanded from 
 their original form. All three took their rise from a 
 lecture given a couple of years since, in which I tried to 
 show to a popular audience how all the greatest political 
 developments of the modern world were being brought 
 simultaneously to a great test in the world-war. These 
 main developments seem to me to be, first, the growth of 
 the idea of nationality, which is the foundation of all 
 the rest ; second, the growth of the idea of international 
 co-operation and international law, which is the fulfil- 
 ment, not the antithesis, of the first ; third, the growth 
 of the theory and practice of self-government through 
 representative institutions, which is only possible in 
 States unified by the sense of nationality ; and, fourth, 
 the expansion of the political influence of Europe, and of 
 the political ideas to which Europe has given birth, over 
 the non-European world. The relation between these 
 
 6 
 
x NATIONAL SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 themes is extremely intimate ; and the three books in 
 which I have tried to deal with them, though each is 
 independent of the others, form parts of a single whole. 
 Taken together, the three books form, in some sort, a 
 history of the political development of the modern world ; 
 though no one can be more conscious than I of the incom- 
 pleteness and inadequacy of the treatment. The true 
 order of the three books (which has not been followed in 
 publication) is (1) Nationalism and Internationalism ; 
 (2) National Self-Government ; (3) The Expansion of 
 
 Europe. 
 
 R. M. 
 
 Manchester, 
 
 September 1917* 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Preface ....... vii 
 
 I. The Ordeal of Self-Go vernment . . 1 
 
 II. The Medleval Estates and the Representa- 
 tive Parliament . . . .11 
 
 III. British Self-Go vernment in the Modern Age 18 
 
 IV. The Era of Revolution and the Dogmas of 
 
 Liberty . . . . .34 
 
 V. The Political Transformation of the Nine- 
 teenth Century . . . .54 
 
 VI. The Era of Liberal Revolutions, 1815-1855 . 63 
 
 VII. The Era of National Unification, 1850-1878 108 
 
 VIII. Rival Systems in Operation, 1878-1900 . 169 
 
 IX. The Brewing of the Storm, 1900-1914 . 230 
 
 X. The Supreme Issue . . .278 
 
 Index ....... 299 
 
NATIONAL SELF-GOVEKNMENT 
 
 THE ORDEAL OF SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 When the future historian surveys the political state of 
 the world as it was on the eve of the cataclysm of the 
 Great War, he will record, as one of its most signifi- 
 cant facts, that parliamentary institutions had become 
 almost universal, either as the controlling factor, or at 
 least as an important element, in the government of 
 civilised states. With the institution of the Russian 
 Duma in 1905 and of the Turkish Parliament in 1909, 
 the only surviving non-parliamentary states of Europe 
 had fallen into line with the rest during the decade 
 immediately preceding the war ; outside of Europe not 
 only all the American republics, and all the self-govern- 
 ing British colonies, but also the Japanese Empire, had 
 adopted this characteristically Western mode of govern- 
 ment, while even China and Persia had made experi- 
 ments in the same direction. In every state except 
 Britain and the communities which have sprung from 
 her loins, these representative systems had been the 
 product of the last hundred years, and in most cases of 
 the last fifty or sixty years, immediately preceding 
 the war ; and even in Britain it was only during the 
 last half -century that the bulk of the people had obtained 
 the franchise. Our historian will note that in every 
 
2 NATIONAL SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 case these systems had been modelled, directly or in- 
 directly, on the British system. And he will observe, 
 perhaps with some surprise, that the only highly de- 
 veloped communities in the world in which this prevailing 
 fashion had not been fully followed were those of India 
 and Egypt, although both of these countries were under 
 the control of the Mother of Parliaments herself ; and 
 that the popular discontents which found expression in 
 both of these countries largely turned upon the demand 
 that they also should be endowed with the system of 
 government now accepted as one of the marks of a 
 civilised state. Both the universality of this movement 
 towards the adoption of self-governing institutions, and 
 the still surviving exceptions to it, will seem to our 
 historian, we may be sure, to be highly significant. His 
 conclusion will and must be that the necessity of an 
 effective public control over, or co-operation in, the 
 business of government had become with quite extra- 
 ordinary rapidity an accepted principle of Western 
 civilisation. 
 
 So much of the future historian's judgments we may 
 securely anticipate, because we have thus far attributed 
 to him only a statement of undeniable facts. And there 
 is a further judgment which we may perhaps as confi- 
 dently expect him to make. He will record that the 
 Great War was the first really severe test to which the 
 modern system of representative government had been 
 exposed in most of the states affected by it, and that 
 the ideal of self-government, equally with the ideals of 
 nationalism and internationalism, was on its trial in 
 this gigantic conflict. What we cannot yet venture to 
 anticipate is his verdict on the results of the great ordeal. 
 Will he have to say that the system of government by 
 
THE ORDEAL OF SELF-GOVERNMENT 3 
 
 public discussion and under public control broke down 
 under the ordeal and proved its inefficiency, at any 
 rate for the purposes of war ; that the states which 
 emerged with most success were those in which popular 
 control had been only formal, a mere mask covering 
 the operations of an efficient centralised power ; and 
 that as a result of the war even the nations in which 
 self-governing institutions seemed most deeply rooted 
 had been driven in self-defence to change their systems ? 
 Or will he record that on the whole the struggle proved 
 a triumph for the system of popular government, and 
 firmly and finally established it as the governing prin- 
 ciple of all civilised states ? Or will his verdict perhaps 
 be a mixed one ? Perhaps he will conclude that in 
 some cases the modern system proved its strength and 
 efficacy, and in others not : that it answered every 
 call better than could have been foretold in those com- 
 munities which were, by reason of the training and 
 habits of their citizens, capable of using freedom nobly, 
 and of imposing willingly upon themselves a discipline 
 almost as effective as that elsewhere imposed by autho- 
 rity ; that in other communities it broke down and led 
 to disastrous results because the mass of citizens were 
 not awake to their responsibilities, having been endowed 
 with political power before they were ready for it ; and 
 that in yet other cases the tragedies and agonies of the 
 war were to be attributed, not to the deficiencies of 
 popular government, but to the fact that popular govern- 
 ment had been unreal, and that the members of these 
 communities had not been allowed to exercise such a 
 share in common affairs as their training and capacities 
 would have justified. 
 
 Although it is impossible as yet to anticipate the 
 
4 NATIONAL SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 final verdict of history upon these momentous questions, 
 since the great ordeal will not end with the war, and 
 the problems of reorganisation during the generation 
 following the war will afford a yet more acute and 
 searching test, it is equally impossible and dangerous 
 to avoid thinking about them. And the only profitable 
 way of thinking about them is to co-ordinate and analyse, 
 so far as we can, the experience we have had of the 
 working of the institutions of self-government. That 
 experience has been as yet, for the greater part of the 
 world, very brief indeed, and the conditions have been 
 changing with such amazing rapidity while we have 
 acquired it that no one is justified in proclaiming very 
 sweeping or dogmatic conclusions. But at least it has 
 been sufficiently varied in its range, and in the case of 
 the British communities sufficiently lengthy, to entitle 
 us to form reasoned opinions. 
 
 The ordeal of a great war is a far more searching test 
 for the institutions of self-government than it is for 
 those of open or veiled autocracy, just because the 
 institutions of self-government, by their very nature, 
 are manifestly designed primarily for a normal state of 
 peace. The conduct of affairs by persuasion and agree- 
 ment is obviously inconsistent with a state of war, in 
 which force takes the place of persuasion, and com- 
 pulsion of agreement. Self-government involves con- 
 tinual compromise, and compromise must always imply 
 a certain sacrifice of efficiency. That is the inevitable 
 price which must be paid for liberty, even in times of 
 peace. It is a price worth paying if it secures the real 
 participation of the whole community in responsibility 
 for the common welfare ; but it inevitably forms a 
 handicap in war. And if a self-governing state acquits 
 
The ordeal of self-governmeni? s 
 
 itself, in such an ordeal as that through which we are 
 passing, with anything like the resolution, self -discipline 
 and fixity of purpose, which are so much more easily 
 attained in a state organised on an autocratic basis, the 
 demonstration which will thus be given of the value of 
 self-government will obviously be all the more cogent. 
 
 A state which has organised itself primarily for war, 
 and which has willingly submitted itself to the rigid 
 discipline of a military autocracy mainly in the hope 
 of victory, must, if it is to justify these sacrifices, achieve 
 nothing less than complete triumph. A nation which 
 has organised itself primarily for peace, and which has 
 with its eyes open accepted the risks and the inefficiencies 
 of a system of government by discussion for the sake of 
 the moral values to be derived from it, will justify itself 
 if it only succeeds in defending its existence ; nay, it 
 will not be finally condemned even by defeat. For 
 although the doctrine of power becomes meaningless and 
 futile in the hour of defeat, and no man can believe 
 that Might is Right except when Might is on the side 
 of the causes which he holds dear, the doctrine of liberty 
 becomes only more sacred in disaster, and more capable 
 of appealing to the heroic in men. 
 
 Popular participation in government is in natural 
 accord with the essential Western ideas of Liberty, and 
 of Rational Law reflecting the public conscience 1 ; and 
 for that reason it is only in Western communities that 
 any advance towards it has ever been made. But this 
 is not to say that Liberty and Rational Law can only 
 exist, or will even under all conditions thrive best, 
 
 1 See the first essay in Nationalism and Internationalism, which dis- 
 cusses these ideas, and was designed as an introduction to the whole 
 series of essays of which the present volume is a part. 
 
6 NATIONAL SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 under its shelter. To make such a claim would be to 
 deny the value of all that has been achieved for civilisa- 
 tion in most of the great states of the world. The most 
 nearly perfect systems of Rational Law that have ever 
 been created were due to the Roman Empire and to the 
 autocracy of Napoleon ; and it is certain that the British 
 rule has given to India a far more just and unvarying 
 system of law than could ever have been devised by a 
 body representing a majority among the many conflict- 
 ing races, castes, and religions of India, even if such a 
 body could ever have been formed. Again, liberty of con- 
 science, liberty of thought, liberty of speech, liberty of 
 the press, liberty of action may exist in the highest 
 practicable degree under a non-popular government, as 
 they do to-day in India ; on the other hand, they may 
 be, and sometimes have been, denied by representative 
 governments, as in modern Hungary. 
 
 Nevertheless it is the natural tendency of all peoples 
 among whom the seminal ideas of Western civilisation 
 have taken root to strive towards self-government, and 
 accordingly the history of Europe is full of experiments 
 in that direction. But most of them, interesting as 
 they are in themselves, have little or no bearing upon 
 the problems of government of the great modern 
 states. The little city-republics of ancient Greece and 
 of mediaeval Italy, Germany and Flanders were on so 
 small a scale that they afford practically no guidance 
 for the government of the nation-state. The most 
 essential feature of their system was the direct partici- 
 pation of all citizens in the main functions of govern- 
 ment, and this was only possible when they could all 
 assemble in a single market-place, and all have some 
 acquaintance at least with the leading members of the 
 
THE ORDEAL OF SELF-GOVERNMENT 7 
 
 community. So Aristotle held that no state could be 
 healthy which had more than ten thousand citizens ; and 
 Rousseau, with the model of Geneva in his mind, could 
 maintain that democracy was impossible in a large state, 
 and that the system of representation was a denial of 
 its very essence. Monarchy was in his view the only 
 efficient method of government for a very large state, 
 and he would probably have approved for nation-states 
 the system of the first and third Napoleons — the system 
 of government by an autocrat, supported by frequent 
 plebiscites by universal suffrage. 
 
 But there is one respect in which the experience of 
 the small city-states, where every citizen directly and 
 constantly shared in the work of government, concurs 
 with the experience of the great modern states wherein 
 any such participation is impossible. Both alike point 
 to certain essential conditions without which govern- 
 ment by discussion and agreement must be impossible 
 or disastrous in its results. These conditions are two. 
 
 In the first place, the mass of active citizens who take 
 a share in the direction of affairs must be in some degree 
 educated, not merely in the formal sense, though that 
 is important, but still more in the sense of having been 
 trained in the practice of co-operation in common affairs. 
 No community can become self-governing whose members 
 are not capable of appreciating the complexity of political 
 issues, or have not learnt by practical experience the 
 need for compromise, for give-and-take, for the loyal 
 acceptance of results arrived at after discussion, and 
 for the willing subordination of self ; and these things 
 can only be acquired by training. Where these qualities 
 are lacking, the institution of the forms of self-govern- 
 ment must lead either to anarchy, or to the enthrone- 
 
8 NATIONAL SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 ment of unscrupulous intriguers who play upon the 
 ignorance of the voters and their lack of political intelli- 
 gence. It was only in the most highly educated society 
 of the ancient world, Athens, that even city-democracy 
 ever became a reality ; and even there it was insecure, 
 disturbed, and short-lived. The creation of this political 
 aptitude among a people is not to be easily or rapidly 
 brought about. It takes time. The best system of 
 school-instruction is by itself quite insufficient to pro- 
 duce it. Only the formed habit of co-operation and 
 discussion in minor matters can bring it fully into being, 
 and the number of societies whose conditions of life have 
 made it easy for its citizens to acquire this habit has 
 been small. 
 
 The second condition of the successful working of self- 
 government is that there must exist a real unity of senti- 
 ment in the community which attempts it. When a 
 community is divided by deep and irreconcilable anti- 
 pathies, by the unconquerable distrust and dislike of 
 one element in it for another, discussion becomes futile 
 and agreement impossible, and the attempt at self- 
 government leads only to anarchy. Even in the city- 
 state this condition often existed, and Aristotle recog- 
 nises it as fatal to civic health in his discourses on what 
 he calls arda-c; — meaning by that phrase neither more 
 nor less than fundamental disunity of sentiment among 
 the citizens. Yet in the city-state unity of sentiment 
 was comparatively easy to create, for the citizens dwelt 
 together within the same ring-wall, discussed public 
 affairs together in the market-place, knew their leaders 
 by sight and voice, saw their common needs and their 
 common dangers at close quarters. In the great modern 
 state unity of sentiment is indeed a hard thing to create. 
 
THE ORDEAL OF SELF-GOVERNMEOT 9 
 
 It has, in fact, been created only by one force — by what 
 we call the national spirit ; and this is the supreme 
 significance of the growth of the national spirit in Europe, 
 that it alone has made self-government on the national 
 scale possible. The only communities in Europe or in 
 the world in which self-government has been success- 
 fully applied are those in which the national spirit is 
 dominant. Where it is once firmly rooted, the national 
 spirit can not merely survive, but can even turn to 
 good ends, differences of party, creed and class. For 
 these differences produce a deepened sincerity and a 
 greater pith and force in discussion, so long as those 
 who hold them are thinking primarily of the welfare of 
 the nation as a whole, and so long as the mass of men 
 can continue to believe that their opponents (however 
 mistaken) are genuinely desirous of national advantage 
 as they conceive it, and not merely of sectional advan- 
 tage. But where the national spirit does not exist — 
 where the state consists of acutely hostile national 
 groups, each permanently suspicious of the others, and 
 some of them aiming merely at the establishment of 
 their racial ascendancy — self-government in any real 
 sense cannot exist ; and if its institutions are estab- 
 lished, their effect will either be nullified by the clash of 
 conflicting and irreconcilable factions (as in Austria), or 
 they will afford to the better organised master-race the 
 means of imposing its ruthless dominion upon its recalci- 
 trant subjects, as in Hungary. The unifying force of the 
 national spirit is indeed the only factor which has yet 
 been discovered that can make self-government as real 
 a thing in the large state as it was in the little city- 
 state. It was because England was the first of the 
 European nations to become conscious of her nation- 
 
16 NATIONAL SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 hood that she was also the first to work out a practicable 
 system of national self-government. It was also because 
 the English people had obtained some training in the 
 practice of self-government on the petty scale of the 
 village, the town and the county, and later of the 
 trading company, the trade union and the co-operative 
 society, that they were able to show the continuous 
 political aptitude which alone enabled their system of 
 national self-government to establish itself and to enlarge 
 its range. 
 
 It is with the development of representative self- 
 government on the national scale that we are concerned 
 in this essay ; and if we are to understand the conditions 
 of its well-being it is necessary to survey in outline the 
 processes by which it has been brought into being, how 
 it has worked under various conditions, and how the 
 states in which it has been made effective compare with 
 those in which it has been little more than a form. 
 
II 
 
 THE MEDIEVAL ESTATES AND THE REPRE- 
 SENTATIVE PARLIAMENT 
 
 The rudiments of a representative system arose, in 
 
 most of the countries of western Europe, out of the 
 
 conditions of feudalism ; and its source is to be found 
 
 in the courts of feudal princes, which their chief tenants 
 
 were bound to attend, and in which these tenants found 
 
 a means of ensuring that the conditions of the feudal 
 
 contract were not interpreted to their disadvantage. As 
 
 it was impossible for the whole body of minor feudal 
 
 lords to attend, the custom grew up during the twelfth 
 
 century (perhaps it was borrowed from the Church) of 
 
 allowing them to act through representatives. In this 
 
 system the lower grades of the feudal hierarchy — the 
 
 small freeholders and the semi-servile peasantry — had, 
 
 of course, no part. But the two elements in a mediaeval 
 
 state which were in some degree independent of the 
 
 feudal hierarchy, the great corporations of the Church, 
 
 and the semi-autonomous merchants of the towns, could 
 
 be, and in nearly all Western countries presently were, 
 
 worked into the scheme. Thus arose the Three Estates 
 
 of the Nobles or feudal tenants, the Church, and the 
 
 Towns ; in some cases the lesser nobles, acting through 
 
 their representatives, formed an additional estate. These 
 
 Estates claimed the right to be consulted on any change 
 
 in the customs by which the rights and duties of their 
 
 castes were defined, and on any modification in the 
 
 11 
 
12 NATIONAL SELF-GOVERNMENT? 
 
 customary dues which they were called upon to pay. 
 Hence legislation and taxation came to be regarded as 
 falling to a varying and undefined extent within the 
 province of the Estates in nearly all the countries of 
 western Europe, and out of this system, under favour- 
 able conditions, a parliamentary system could grow up. 
 
 In actual fact, however, the Estates did not develop 
 into a true national parliament in any country except 
 England, and this for several reasons. 
 
 In most cases the Estates were purely provincial 
 organisations, very jealous of their provincial ' rights ' 
 and ' liberties,' and they therefore became actual obstacles 
 in the way of national unity, which was represented, in 
 most countries, solely by the person and authority of 
 the king and his officials. This was the case, for example, 
 in Spain, where the Cortes or Estates of Castile and 
 (still more) of Aragon had acquired during the medieval 
 period a remarkable degree of power. When Spain 
 became a united kingdom, the overthrow of the pro- 
 vincial estates formed part of the process of unification, 
 and their purely provincial patriotism provided excuses 
 for the high-handed autocracy of Charles v. and Philip n. 
 In the Netherlands Charles v. tried to give some unity 
 to the disconnected provinces which he had inherited 
 by setting up a States-general for them all, but the 
 existence of this body was at first resented by the local 
 patriotism of the provinces. In France the Crown tried 
 the same device during the fourteenth century ; but 
 the States-general (as this common assembly was called) 
 showed themselves so grasping of power and so un- 
 patriotic during the wars with England that the kings 
 summoned them as little as possible, and were probably 
 supported by popular opinion in doing so. It was the 
 
MEDIEVAL ESTATES AND PARLIAMENT 13 
 
 easier for the king to adopt this policy, because the 
 provincial estates still survived in many of the provinces : 
 they survived, indeed, in the provinces known as the 
 pays d'etat down to the French Revolution. How great 
 an obstacle these provincial estates formed to the growth 
 of a strong state was perhaps most clearly illustrated in 
 the case of Prussia : one of the main tasks of the Great 
 Elector, the real founder of the greatness of the Hohen- 
 zollern monarchy, was the destruction of the privileges 
 claimed by the provincial estates in the various scattered 
 districts of his realm. In many countries, as, for example, 
 in Austria, these provincial estates survived into the 
 eighteenth or even into the nineteenth century. But 
 they had become meaningless forms, reduced to impo- 
 tence by the growth of royal autocracy. Only in England 
 were there no provincial estates ; only in England were 
 these assemblies from the first national and not pro- 
 vincial in scope, and even in England there was at some 
 moments a danger that they might be provincialised, as 
 when Edward I. summoned separate meetings for the 
 north and for the south. More important, only in 
 England did the Estates develop into a real parliament, 
 by becoming representative not merely of sharply 
 defined castes or privileged classes {i.e. of estates in the 
 strict sense), but of the whole community. 
 
 For the second great defect of the Estates was that 
 their members were definitely the representatives of 
 legally organised and unalterable castes. In all countries 
 save England the class of nobles or feudal landholders 
 was sharply cut off from other classes, and was a strictly 
 defined hereditary caste, all of whose descendants pos- 
 sessed the privileges of nobility, which could be acquired 
 by no one else except by special grant from the Crown. 
 
14 NATIONAL SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 In England the lesser nobles, or minores barones, were 
 from an early date merged in the class of knights, most 
 of whom were not ' barons ' or immediate tenants of 
 the Crown ; and the class of knights in its turn was 
 identified with the mass of ordinary landholders by the 
 provision by which everybody possessing a certain 
 amount of land, on whatever tenure, was required to 
 assume the obligations of knighthood. Above all, the 
 knights (whether minor barons or not) found their chief 
 sphere of activity in that characteristic English institu- 
 tion, the shire court, to which there is no real parallel 
 in any other country ; and in the work of the shire 
 court they mingled on more or less equal terms with 
 the whole body of freemen who were entitled to attend 
 it. So when the English national estates were first 
 summoned, in the thirteenth century, it was not the 
 minor barons who were asked to send representatives, 
 but the shire courts, in which all landholders, however 
 humble, might be present ; and the knights of the shire 
 were from the first not representatives of a defined 
 grade in the feudal hierarchy, but representatives of the 
 ' community ' of the shire. 
 
 Nor were the boroughs sharply defined groups of 
 privileged merchants, as in other countries. The boroughs 
 also shared in the work of the shire court, to which they 
 sent representatives. Most of them were very modest 
 rural market towns, to whose trading rights the neigh- 
 bouring landholders were very commonly freely ad- 
 mitted. Their principal interest, the wool trade, was 
 one in which the landholding class was equally con- 
 cerned. And so it came about that there was no sharp 
 distinction between the communities of the shires and 
 the communities of the boroughs ; men of the knightly 
 class could naturally be elected as representatives for 
 
MEDIEVAL ESTATES AND PARLIAMENT 15 
 
 the boroughs ; and both groups could take their places 
 side by side in a single House of Communes or Com- 
 munities. Hence in place of two estates, an estate of 
 minor barons and an estate of privileged merchants, each 
 forming a sharply defined class, England developed a 
 single parliamentary assembly, the members of which were 
 not elected solely by members of their own class, but by 
 the whole ' communities ' of the shire and the borough. 
 
 Even in the other estates the same melting down of 
 the lines of division between castes is to be seen. The 
 clerical estate as a whole early ceased to take any part 
 in the national parliament, preferring to maintain its 
 own separate convocation, which dealt only with ecclesi- 
 astical affairs ; and although the great churchmen sat 
 in the House of Lords, they sat not solely as church- 
 men, but largely as landholders. Finally, not even the 
 greatest barons, who enjoyed hereditary seats in the 
 House of Lords, formed a sharply defined caste as in 
 other countries. In France, or Germany, or Italy all 
 the sons of a Count were Counts, all the sons of a Baron 
 Barons. In England the sons of the greatest nobles — 
 even their eldest sons — were regarded by the law as 
 commoners ; the rights of peerage, though hereditary, 
 were purely personal ; younger sons and their descend- 
 ants ranked with the knightly class, or might even drift 
 into trade. Thus the caste system which grew out of 
 feudalism in other countries never became really estab- 
 lished in England ; and this made it possible for the 
 Estates to develop rapidly into a genuine national 
 parliament. The existence of a rigid and firmly estab- 
 lished system of castes or classes in a country is, indeed, 
 essentially incompatible with the effective working of 
 popular representative government. It is possible that 
 the caste system of social organisation may be the best 
 
16 NATIONAL SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 for a given people, as Treitschke argued that it was the 
 best for Germany ; but if that is so, and if the people 
 habitually act as if it were so, the possibility of real 
 popular government becomes very slight, for the accepted 
 dominant castes will continue to control all power even 
 if the forms of popular government are established. 
 
 A third factor which especially favoured the develop- 
 ment of a parliamentary system in England was the 
 fact that throughout the later Middle Ages, when the 
 strong monarchies of other countries were beginning to 
 fight against feudal independence by putting trained 
 administrators in control of local government, the 
 English kings were getting all this work done for nothing 
 by means of the Justices of the Peace, selected from among 
 the country gentlemen. This meant, in the first place, 
 that England was saved from the power of a highly 
 organised and centralised bureaucracy, whose existence 
 elsewhere formed a principal obstacle to the growth of 
 national self-government ; it meant, in the second place, 
 that if the central government desired to keep in touch 
 with the needs and conditions of the country, it could 
 best do so through Parliament, whose members were 
 mostly occupied in this kind of work ; it meant, in the 
 third place, that the men who came to these parlia- 
 ments were, in a steadily increasing degree, men of prac- 
 tical experience in government, not likely to be very 
 unreasonable in their demands or claims. 
 
 And lastly, England profited immensely from her 
 insular position, which saved her from the constant fear 
 or pressure of foreign attack — always the strongest 
 motive for submission to a centralised autocracy. When 
 the feudal organisation ceased to be used for purposes of 
 national defence — and it broke down earlier in England 
 
MEDIEVAL ESTATES AND PARLIAMENT 17 
 
 than elsewhere — the English kings did not need to 
 resort to the expensive device of maintaining a profes- 
 sional army. Erom the thirteenth century onwards, 
 they trusted mainly to levies of ordinary freemen, raised 
 by ' commissions of array,' and they found these methods 
 adequate even for the purposes of foreign war. But 
 this meant that they were largely dependent upon the 
 support of the men who raised and led these troops, 
 the country gentlemen. It meant also that, lacking a 
 standing force of professional soldiers, they lacked the 
 means for enforcing their own absolute authority. 
 Without an organised army, and without a centralised 
 bureaucracy, they had no alternative but to take the 
 nation into partnership ; and on the whole the politically 
 active part of the nation, the country gentlemen, were, 
 thanks to their experience of local administration, not in- 
 capable of playing their part in this partnership, especially 
 in the happy freedom of England from foreign danger. 
 
 For these reasons the English, alone among European 
 peoples, developed a real parliamentary system out of 
 the institution of Estates, a parliamentary system which 
 was at once national and reasonably efficient in char- 
 acter. Perhaps the nearest parallel to this English 
 system was that of Hungary. But the Hungarian 
 parliament was in fact a purely class assembly. It 
 represented only the clearly defined caste of the nobles, 
 whose numbers had risen to about two hundred thousand 
 in the early nineteenth century, but who could in no 
 sense speak even for the whole Magyar people, and still 
 less for their subjects of other races. The history of self- 
 government on the national scale has therefore been, 
 throughout the greater part of the modern age, practically 
 the history of English institutions. 
 
 b 
 
Ill 
 
 BRITISH SELF-GOVERNMENT IN THE 
 MODERN AGE 
 
 When the modern age opened, towards the end of the 
 fifteenth century, the centralised monarchies of most of 
 the European countries had reduced the feudal estates 
 to a shadow and a form ; and despotism, supported by 
 military strength and working through trained officials 
 or ' bureaucrats,' had become the almost universally 
 accepted form of government. The existence of a 
 primitive democratic system in the rural simplicity of 
 some of the Swiss cantons was too isolated a phenomenon 
 to count for anything. A few independent city-states 
 survived in Germany and Italy. But they had fallen 
 under the control of oligarchies of merchants, frequently 
 in conflict with the mass of their subjects, and cannot 
 be said to have contributed anything to the growth of 
 self-government. Their autonomy was indeed a barrier 
 to the greater unity of the nation, and it was only in the 
 completely disorganised nations of Germany and Italy 
 that they survived : wherever the national idea was 
 triumphant, the towns were inevitably reduced to sub- 
 mission. Absolute monarchy had become the recog- 
 nised mode of government in the world of Western 
 civilisation, and during the sixteenth, seventeenth, and 
 eighteenth centuries it everywhere steadily strengthened 
 its authority, forcing to obedience every element in the 
 
 18 
 
SELF-GOVERNMENT IN THE MODERN AGE 19 
 
 state which could claim any independence, and en- 
 larging the powers of its bureaucratic officials. For 
 centralised monarchy gave unity, order, strength, and 
 efficiency to the new great states with whom the destiny 
 of Europe now lay. Even in England something ap- 
 proaching to absolute monarchy in the direction of 
 national affairs was willingly accepted by the nation 
 after the turmoil of the Wars of the Roses ; and we are 
 accustomed to give the name of ' the Tudor despotism ' 
 to the system of government which carried England 
 through the critical period of the sixteenth century. 
 
 Nevertheless the phrase ' despotism ' is a misnomer 
 for this system, and it is no paradox to say that England 
 was, under the Tudor monarchy, the only seK-governing 
 country in the world. It is true that Henry vm. and 
 Elizabeth directed national policy practically without 
 parliamentary interference. But this was because the 
 nation very fully trusted them, and because Parliament, 
 which continued to meet and to approve all legislative 
 and taxative proposals, did not feel itself competent to 
 deal with the ' mysteries of statecraft,' with the problems 
 of foreign policy or of ecclesiastical organisation. The 
 Tudor monarchy rested upon consent as fully as any 
 government that has ever existed ; it possessed, and it 
 needed, no standing military force to impose its will ; it 
 worked, for the most part, through Parliament, and if 
 Tudor Parliaments were ' subservient,' this was because 
 the sovereigns studied popular sentiment, and were care- 
 ful not to lose touch with it. On the rare occasions 
 when they did lose touch, they found Parliament no 
 longer submissive, but they had the art of yielding 
 gracefully without appearing to be defeated. 
 
 Moreover, in almost everything except the direction 
 
so National self-government 
 
 of national policy, the England of the Tudors was in 
 a quite remarkable degree a self-governing country. In 
 the first place, the Rule of Law was well established. 
 With rare exceptions no Englishman could be attacked 
 in his life, liberty, or property otherwise than by process 
 of law, and purely arbitrary authority was almost non- 
 existent ; the officers of state were not above the ordinary 
 law of the land, but were liable to be prosecuted in the 
 ordinary courts for any illegal action ; and the enforce- 
 ment of the law in detail rested largely in the hands 
 of ordinary citizens — of unpaid country gentlemen or 
 burghers acting as Justices of the Peace, of Juries 
 of plain men whose verdict on the facts of a case 
 was final, of unpaid village and hundred officers, 
 bailiffs and constables, commonly chosen by their 
 fellows. Not only the administration of justice but the 
 control of the daily routine of government was in the 
 hands of the people themselves. The mandates of the 
 central government were addressed not, as in France, 
 to a single paid professional administrator in each 
 district, but to a group of unsalaried country gentlemen, 
 the Justices of the Peace, whose houses and lands lay 
 in the region which they administered, and who were 
 the natural leaders of its society. It was the manifold 
 experience in the business of government which the 
 country gentlemen thus obtained which rendered pos- 
 sible their activity in national affairs during the next 
 age, and explained the eminently practical forms which 
 this activity assumed. 
 
 Nor were the country gentlemen the only class habitu- 
 ated to co-operation in the management of common 
 affairs. More than two hundred English boroughs 
 enjoyed, in their Town Councils and their Assemblies 
 
SELF-GOVERNMENT IN THE MODERN AGE 21 
 
 of Freemen, a quite remarkable degree of local autonomy* 
 Craftsmen still combined to regulate their trades in 
 common in their gilds. Wherever the old open-field 
 system survived (and it survived over more than half 
 of England) the body of villagers, now all freemen sub- 
 ject to no real feudal ascendancy, combined to manage 
 the co-operative agriculture of the village community, 
 and to elect their reeves, haywards, moss-reeves, chimney- 
 peepers, and so forth. In every parish the community 
 was wont to meet at Easter to deal with a variety of 
 common business, relating not only to the church, but 
 to many other matters, such as parish charities, or the 
 state of the local roads ; and when the great responsi- 
 bility of relieving the poor was thrown upon the parishes, 
 it was naturally and easily administered in detail by 
 the more substantial yeomen, who were elected by the 
 Vestry to serve without pay as overseers and church- 
 wardens, and levied and spent the poor-rate under the 
 supervision of the Justices of the Peace. In no country 
 of Europe, at that time or at any other time, has the 
 practice of self -government by means of discussion and 
 agreement among ordinary citizens been more wide- 
 spread ; in no country therefore had self-government 
 become so ingrained a habit and instinct as it was 
 in England. National affairs — foreign policy, church 
 policy, defence, the regulation of foreign trade — the 
 nation was very willing to leave in the hands of the 
 king and his councillors, because it knew that it had 
 an insufficient knowledge of these matters. But they 
 were left to the king only so long as he possessed the 
 trust of the nation, and particularly of its politically 
 active element, the landed gentry. Here is the first 
 and most notable feature of the development of popular 
 
22 NATIONAL SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 government on the national scale in England : that it 
 arose among a people already habituated through cen- 
 turies to co-operation in the management of common 
 affairs, already accustomed to the compromises and rough 
 working arrangements which such co-operation renders 
 necessary ; a people, therefore, not likely to be easily 
 carried captive by sweeping theories, but always governed 
 by considerations of immediate practical convenience. 
 
 In the seventeenth century, while despotism was 
 establishing itself more and more fully in all the con- 
 tinental states, two remarkable developments illustrated 
 and deepened the English passion for self-government. 
 
 In the first place, the English, like the other peoples 
 of western Europe, began to plant settlements in the 
 new worlds disclosed by the great explorations. But, 
 unlike the colonial ventures of Spain, Portugal, France 
 and Holland, the new English settlements were not 
 created by the purposive action of the national govern- 
 ment ; they sprang from the activity of spontaneously 
 formed groups, often quite unsupported, and sometimes 
 even discouraged, by government. 1 Wherever the 
 Englishman went, to the empty lands of North America 
 or to the slave-worked plantations of the West Indies, 
 he carried with him his ingrained habit of self-govern- 
 ment ; he set up, as a matter of course, representative 
 institutions to manage local affairs, though he still 
 remained content that the home authorities should 
 retain responsibility for foreign affairs, defence, and 
 trade regulation. And the royal government at home — 
 those very Stuart princes who have been represented as 
 striving after absolute power — regarded these proceed- 
 
 1 On early colonial self-government see The Expansion of Europe l 
 ©hap. m. 
 
SELF-GOVERNMENT IN THE MODERN AGE 23 
 
 ings as entirely natural and proper, and never dreamt of 
 placing restrictions upon them. Every English colony 
 was self-governing from the first. No colony planted 
 by any other European country ever received self- 
 governing powers, not even those of the Dutch re- 
 publicans. Nothing could more clearly show how deep- 
 rooted was this English habit of self-government. In 
 the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, apart from 
 the Dutch and Swiss republics, the British lands were 
 the only seK-governing communities in the world. And 
 self-government proved, in these new lands, to be an 
 eminently satisfactory device. The superior prosperity 
 of the British colonies is unquestionably to be attributed 
 largely to their self-governing institutions. 
 
 The second great development of the seventeenth 
 century was that Parliament formally claimed to exercise 
 a general control over national policy, such as it had 
 never attempted in the sixteenth century ; and after 
 long disputations, a civil war, and two revolutions, 
 succeeded in establishing its claim. It was essentially 
 the landowning class who exercised the supremacy thus 
 won for Parliament. The great landowners rilled the 
 House of Lords ; their sons, and the lesser landowners, 
 formed a majority of the House of Commons, represent- 
 ing not only county but borough constituencies ; and 
 the only other substantial elements of the nation who 
 took part were the lawyers, mainly themselves belonging 
 to the landowning class, and some of the small class of 
 rich foreign merchants, who may be said to have been 
 taken effectively into partnership in national govern 
 ment towards the end of the seventeenth century. 
 Though few in numbers, this class exercised a powerful 
 influence through its control over great corporations 
 
24 NATIONAL SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 like the East India Company and the Bank of England. 
 In the management of these great concerns they had 
 proved their capacity for governmental work, and they 
 had special weight in determining the commercial and 
 the foreign policy of the country during the eighteenth 
 century. 
 
 But essentially the supremacy of Parliament meant 
 the supremacy of the landowning class, which lasted 
 unshaken down to 1832. Hence the government of this 
 period is sometimes spoken of as a ' landowning oligarchy.' 
 But the phrase is as misleading as the phrase ' Tudor 
 despotism.' As truly as the Tudor monarchy in the 
 sixteenth century, the landowning aristocracy of the 
 eighteenth century ruled Britain by consent. Britain 
 was still predominantly an agricultural country, and a 
 very large proportion of its population still possessed, 
 until nearly the end of the eighteenth century, some 
 proprietary interest in the soil which they cultivated. 
 There was no legally recognised caste distinction separat- 
 ing the politically dominant class from the rest; the 
 grades of rural society, the magnates and the squire- 
 archy, the yeomanry and the peasantry, all free and 
 equal before the law, shaded insensibly into one another, 
 and there was no such obvious clash of economic interest 
 between them as came about later, when the ownership 
 of all the land fell into a few hands, when the peasantry 
 became landless wage-earners, and the old independent 
 yeomanry were merged in the class of farmers renting 
 their land. In such a society the substantial land- 
 owners were the natural leaders, and it was for this 
 reason that members of this class were elected as a 
 matter of course for the county constituencies, and 
 were able to establish a controlling influence over the 
 
SELF-GOVERNMENT IN THE MODERN AGE 25 
 
 elections in the little rural market towns. Normally 
 their ascendancy was undisturbed, though in a time of 
 excitement, as in the election of 1784, the electors woke 
 up to the exercise of their powers. The ascendancy of 
 the landowning class, therefore, does not mean that 
 England was a less self-governing country than she had 
 been ; on the contrary, she was more so. The old 
 machinery of local self-government went on more actively 
 than ever, and it was now less closely controlled by the 
 central government than it had been under the Tudors 
 and Stuarts. One of the most interesting features of 
 this period was the spontaneous development, especially 
 in many of the large boroughs, of new machinery for the 
 management of local affairs, created and worked by the 
 townsmen themselves. 
 
 When the supremacy of Parliament in the English 
 system of government was established by the Revolution 
 of 1689, it was not the intention of the leaders of the 
 Revolution that Parliament should itself assume direct 
 control over the executive government, or exercise the 
 right of appointing or dismissing ministers. They in- 
 tended to keep the two spheres of the executive and 
 the legislature quite distinct. In the Act of Settlement 
 they even provided that no paid servant of the Crown, 
 that is to say, no minister of state, should be a member 
 of the House of Commons, their fear being that the 
 Crown might obtain an illicit control over Parliament 
 by filling the House with placemen. Over the general 
 policy of the executive they could be sure of exercising 
 control. In the first place, they had the power of with- 
 holding supplies, and therefore of making impossible the 
 continuance of any government of which they disap- 
 proved. In the second place, by the simple device of 
 
26 NATIONAL SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 making the Mutiny Act annual, they brought the small 
 standing army, which was now seen to be necessary, 
 under their control. ' The question by which to decide 
 the essential character of a state,' says the Prussian 
 Professor Delbriick, with penetrating shrewdness, 'is 
 the question, Whom does the army obey ? ' From the 
 Revolution of 1639 onwards the English army ultimately 
 obeyed, and depended upon, Parliament. But though the 
 leaders of the Revolution had thus shrewedly ensured the 
 ultimate sovereignty of Parliament over national policy, 
 in the detailed carrying out of this policy they did not 
 intend to meddle, but to leave it to the king and his 
 chosen ministers. Their only regular method of calling 
 ministers to account was the cumbrous method of 
 Impeachment. In short, they adhered to the theory 
 of ' division of powers,' the theory that legislature and 
 executive should be generally independent of one another, 
 each in its defined sphere. And in theory this con- 
 tinued to be the law of the constitution throughout the 
 eighteenth century : it is so, in strict law, even to-day. 
 Montesquieu found in the British system the best illus- 
 tration of his doctrine that ' division of powers ' is the 
 greatest safeguard of liberty ; and the makers of the 
 American constitution, when they incorporated this 
 principle in their system, believed that they were follow- 
 ing the British model. 
 
 In fact, however, Parliament assumed the most direct 
 control over the executive government, and the exercise 
 of this control came to be its most prominent feature. 
 The way in which this was brought about forms one of 
 the most curious features of British constitutional de- 
 velopment. The English governing class was divided 
 into two acutely hostile parties. One of these, the 
 
SELF-GOVERNMENT IN THE MODERN AGE 27 
 
 Whigs, who were probably the weaker in numbers, but 
 much the stronger in wealth and influence, constituted 
 themselves the special guardians of the Revolution 
 Settlement, which they regarded as their own work ; 
 and in order to ensure it against destruction, they skil- 
 fully secured to themselves a complete control over the 
 instruments of government. By all kinds of methods, 
 corrupt and otherwise, they obtained a steady majority 
 in the House of Commons ; the House of Lords they 
 already controlled ; and, persuading the helpless and 
 puzzled German kings that they were their only friends, 
 they took possession also of all the powers and patron- 
 age of the Crown. Almost disregarding the king, they 
 settled all matters of public policy in a secret conclave 
 or Cabinet Council of their own leaders ; and they 
 ensured their position by cultivating and nursing the 
 House of Commons. The management of Parliament 
 became one of the principal functions of ministers, and 
 so the practice grew up that the leading ministers of 
 state must be members of one or other house of Parlia- 
 ment ; the prohibition of the Act of Settlement having 
 previously been got rid of, before it came into operation, 
 by an Act of 1707. 
 
 Thus it was the political necessities of an oligarchic 
 clique which led to the creation of the most distinctive 
 and peculiar feature of British parliamentary govern- 
 ment : the centralised control of executive government 
 by a compact cabinet of ministers, and the dependence 
 of this cabinet upon a party majority in the House of 
 Commons. Devised for an immediate purpose, this 
 system — which no political philosopher could ever have 
 deliberately invented — was proved by experience to be 
 eminently workable. It brought the executive under 
 
28 NATIONAL SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 the effective control of Parliament, laid ministers open 
 to daily and searching parliamentary criticism, and 
 ultimately established the usage that they must resign 
 as soon as they no longer possessed the support of a 
 parliamentary majority. At the same time it ensured 
 coherence and stability in the conduct of government, 
 because the Cabinet could nearly always depend upon 
 the support of its followers, so long as it was careful to 
 avoid measures likely to offend them ; and coherence 
 and stability are just the qualities which it would seem 
 all but impossible to secure under the control of two 
 large, unwieldy, and shifting assemblies. 
 
 Ever since its first development, the party-cabinet 
 system of government has been at intervals the object 
 of bitter criticism. In its eighteenth-century form it 
 was very effectively attacked in Bolingbroke's Patriot 
 King. George m., largely inspired by Bolingbroke's 
 ideas, resolved to destroy the influence of party, and to 
 restore the crown to the position intended for it by the 
 authors of the Revolution Settlement — the position of 
 an impartial arbiter calling to the direction of national 
 affairs the best available men from all sides. He suc- 
 ceeded in breaking up the old Whig party. With the 
 aid of the elder Pitt, he succeeded in 1766 in forming a 
 non-party ministry, which included many of the ablest 
 men then engaged in politics. The result was a period 
 of the worst humiliation and disaster that England has 
 ever known ; and, beyond a doubt, the main reason 
 for these misfortunes was that the direction of affairs 
 was in the hands of a group of men who had no principles 
 in common and no habitude of working together. In 
 the end, after America had been lost, the party-cabinet 
 system was restored finally in 1784 ? and it has remained 
 
SELF-GOVERNMENT IN THE MODERN AGE 29 
 
 the main motive force in British politics ever since. 
 Indeed, it seems to form the only system whereby parlia- 
 mentary control of the executive can be made effective. 
 It has been adopted in all the British colonies, and, to 
 a greater or less degree, in most of the continental states. 
 There are only two alternatives to it. One is that of 
 a coalition of shifting groups, which involves log-rolling 
 and corruption. The other is the rigid ' division of 
 powers,' and the freeing of the executive from parlia- 
 mentary control ; but even this system, as the case of 
 America shows, will normally pass under the sway of 
 party division where the electorate directly appoints 
 the head of the executive in place of Parliament, and 
 it is only where the executive is largely independent of 
 all public control, as in Germany, that the dominance 
 of party can be restrained. 
 
 We have spent, perhaps, an unduly large amount of 
 space in tracing in outline the growth of the British 
 system. Yet before the outbreak of the American and 
 the French Revolutions, the history of the British system 
 (at home or in the daughter-lands) is in effect the history 
 of self-government in the world. We have seen that 
 this system was the result of a slow growth, never the 
 product of theory or deliberate invention. It derived 
 its strength from the fact that self-government in the 
 lesser sphere of local affairs had become a deeply rooted 
 instinct and habit of the whole nation ; yet the whole 
 nation did not share in the direct control of national 
 affairs during the pre-revolutionary period, but was 
 content to leave it in the hands of those classes in the 
 population who had the most direct and varied experi- 
 ence of public affairs, the landed gentry, the lawyers, 
 and the great foreign merchants. But we have seen 
 
SO NATIONAL SELF-GOVERNMENT* 
 
 also that this was possible because that governing class 
 did, in the pre-revolutionary period, genuinely represent 
 the interests and ideas of the nation as a whole, so far 
 as these were vocal ; and was, in spite of the corruption 
 of the electoral machinery, in a real degree in contact 
 with popular opinion. 
 
 While the mechanism of parliamentary government 
 was being invented in England, on the continent of 
 Europe despotism had everywhere reached its apogee. 
 The splendour of Louis xiv. in France had been followed 
 by the feebleness and corruption of Louis xv. Yet in 
 spite of this, most of the political thinkers who distin- 
 guished this age pinned their faith to absolute monarchy, 
 believing that it was only from an enlightened monarch 
 that the resolute pursuit of great reforms could be ex- 
 pected. And the preaching of the philosophers pro- 
 duced, in a most remarkable way, a generation of 
 philosopher-kings. Nearly every European state was 
 governed, in the third quarter of the eighteenth century, 
 by a ruling prince or a minister who showed a genuine 
 enthusiasm for reform ; and it must be admitted that 
 the country gentlemen of England, arguing about 
 Middlesex elections and duties on tea, present, on the 
 surface, a very poor contrast to the strenuous reforming 
 labours of a Leopold of Tuscany, a Joseph n., a Frederick 
 the Great. It is not surprising that to that generation, 
 in view of the achievements of these rulers, it appeared 
 that the future belonged to enlightened despotism served 
 by highly trained and devoted bureaucrats. Govern- 
 ment by discussion seemed to lead to mere chaos ; to 
 be ruled by the stupidity of average men seemed mere 
 folly. It was her attachment to her fatal ' liberties ' 
 that had brought ruin on Poland ; and England, with 
 
SELF-GOVERNMENT IN THE MODERN AGE 31 
 
 her unceasing party wranglings, amid which no work 
 was done, seemed to Frederick the Great to be ' a sort 
 of island Poland.' Certainly England saw no such fever 
 of constructive work as was going on in many continental 
 states during these years. Unfortunately very little of 
 all this work had any permanent effect ; and the reason 
 for its failure was simply that the Benevolent Despots 
 wholly disregarded the sentiments and desires of their 
 subjects. 
 
 ' I am the first servant of my people,' said Frederick 
 the Great ; if so, he was a servant of the old-fashioned 
 type that knows far better than his masters what is 
 good for them, and insists upon their having it, whether 
 they like it or not. But in truth Frederick's famous 
 phrase does not really describe his own view of the 
 royal function. He and the other Benevolent Despots 
 laboured, indeed, untiringly to improve their dominions : 
 they fostered agriculture and industry, they created 
 academies of science, they revised and codified the laws, 
 they carried out great public works. But they were 
 labouring — or at any rate Frederick was labouring — not 
 so much for the welfare of his own subjects as for the 
 creation of a powerful State. He was the architect of 
 the future Great State, his subjects only the bricks and 
 mortar. It was necessary that they should be numerous, 
 so as to fill the ranks of a conquering army, and pros- 
 perous, so as to support its burden ; it was important 
 that the Great State should be fully equipped with all 
 the resources of modern knowledge, both for practical 
 purposes and for prestige. But the State did not exist 
 for the sake of the people ; the people existed for the 
 sake of the State. They must not presume to form 
 opinions and preferences of their own ; it was theirs 
 
32 NATIONAL SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 to be used by the King-Architect for such purposes and 
 according to such plans as he might desire. Let them 
 be educated ; they will be more useful so ; but let their 
 education impress upon them the duty of obedience, 
 and the privilege of being a Great King's implements 
 in the building of a Great State. For the State is 
 omnipotent ; the people only the clay out of which it 
 is formed. Such was the real conception of Enlightened 
 Despotism and its aims, at the moment when it reached 
 its highest development, on the eve of the French 
 Revolution. It was nowhere more clearly grasped, or 
 more efficiently put into operation, than by Frederick 
 of Prussia (1740-1786). 
 
 Now this conception of the meaning and aims of the 
 State was fundamentally the opposite of the conception 
 implied in the system of self-government which the 
 English had been slowly, and more or less instinctively, 
 working out during these last centuries. The average 
 Englishman, and even the ablest of politicians, did not 
 trouble much about theories. But if you had asked an 
 eighteenth-century Englishman what was the function 
 of the State, he would assuredly have answered, that 
 its chief end was to protect the liberties which his ances- 
 tors had acquired for him, to ensure him freedom to 
 think and say and do whatever he liked, so long as he 
 did not injure his neighbours ; and this freedom he 
 certainly possessed in a greater degree than the citizens 
 of any other European state. He would have told you 
 (had he ever thought about such matters) that the State 
 was simply the machinery whereby the people contrived 
 to manage in common and by mutual agreement all 
 those matters which required such determination. He 
 would have said that the less the State meddled with 
 
SELF-GOVERNMENT IN THE MODERN AGE 33 
 
 him and controlled his actions, the better. He might 
 have added that the fact of partnership in the manage- 
 ment of common affairs, and the sense of joint responsi- 
 bility, was something almost essential to the realisation 
 of his own manhood. He would not as yet have risen 
 to the idea of the State as a great partnership of the 
 community for the sake of making the best of life, for 
 this conception did not come to birth until the next 
 century. But if you had invited his assent to the 
 Prussian doctrine that the State is everything, and the 
 individual nothing, that the citizen has no rights at all 
 against the State, and that it is his highest glory to be 
 used for the increase of the State's greatness, he would 
 have repudiated your suggestion with laughter, telling 
 you that he was not a slave, that the essence of the 
 State was Law, and that the purpose of Law was to 
 protect him and his fellows in the enjoyment of their 
 rights and liberties, the rights and the liberties that 
 made it a glorious thing to be an Englishman. 
 
 Perhaps we have put our eighteenth-century English- 
 man's statement a little more definitely, and in a rather 
 more modern form, than he would himself have put it. 
 But our object has been to bring out in a simple way the 
 antithesis between the two ideas of the state which had 
 resulted from the slow development of centuries in 
 England and on the continent of Europe, and which 
 already stood forth in pretty clear contrast before the 
 outbreak of the American and the French Revolutions. 
 But already these tremendous upheavals were pre- 
 paring ; and with their trumpet-like proclamation of the 
 sweeping and uncompromising doctrines of Liberty, a 
 new era in the history of self-government began. 
 
IV 
 
 THE ERA OF REVOLUTION AND THE DOGMAS 
 OF LIBERTY 
 
 Three nations — the British, the American, and the 
 French — have mainly contributed to the establishment 
 of national self-government as a vital element in the 
 life of Western civilisation. The contribution of Britain 
 was the gradual development of the machinery of self- 
 government, and of the social habits which made the 
 working of that machinery possible. But this British 
 achievement was never regarded by its half-conscious 
 creators as a model for the rest of the world, or as the 
 expression of doctrines of universal application. Rather 
 it was regarded as something peculiarly British, as an 
 inherited national privilege. This notion of inheritance 
 was indeed a fundamental element in most British 
 political thought before the nineteenth century. It was 
 expounded with a sort of mystical fervour by Burke. 
 Far from contending that the British system was one 
 which other nations would be wise to imitate, Burke 
 went to the opposite extreme, and almost maintained 
 that political liberty could scarcely exist in any nation 
 which had not inherited it ; and his advice to the French 
 was that they should make the best of their own in- 
 herited traditions, and avoid the blunder of striving 
 after a theoretical ideal. This irritating and peculiarly 
 British attitude was maintained far into the period 
 
REVOLUTION AND DOGMAS OF LIBERTY 35 
 
 when parliamentary institutions were becoming common 
 among the Western peoples. It is implicit in Bagehot's 
 able but self-complacent analysis of the working of the 
 British system, published as late as 1868. A system so 
 peculiarly national, so little based upon theories of right, 
 could scarcely have aroused the enthusiasm of other 
 peoples, though it might have awakened their envy ; and 
 the universal Western movement towards national self- 
 government might never have taken place, and would 
 certainly never have been capable of arousing the pas- 
 sionate hope and faith which it enlisted in the nineteenth 
 century, if an impetus of a wholly different character 
 had not been given to it, first by the distant spectacle 
 of the American Revolution, and then, far more directly, 
 by the revolutionary ardour of the French people. No 
 doubt both of these great events derived their character 
 in part from British influences : the Americans, when 
 they declared their independence, were only carrying to 
 a logical conclusion the principles they had learnt from 
 their British ancestors ; and most of the philosophers 
 whose work determined the character of the French 
 Revolution had based their theories largely upon the 
 study of the British system. But America and France 
 introduced new contributions of their own, of such im- 
 portance as to make this age of revolutions a new starting- 
 point in human history. 
 
 The American Revolution 1 forms in some sense a 
 transition between the practical unidealist growth of 
 British institutions and the glorious impracticable dreams 
 of the French apostles of liberty. On the one hand, it 
 was based upon tradition. The American colonists had 
 
 1 Other aspects of the American Revolution are discussed in. 
 The Expansion of Europe, chap. iv. 
 
36 NATIONAL SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 enjoyed self-government on a generous scale from the 
 very first ; they possessed the habit and the instinct of 
 self-government — it was the most precious thing they 
 brought from Britain ; they fought not as slaves striving 
 after liberty, but as free men who had already practised 
 it and were resolved to achieve its fulfilment ; and they 
 argued their case precisely in the same temper as the 
 Englishmen of the seventeenth century, basing their 
 claims upon law, precedent, and inherited rights. The 
 institutions which they set up were, for the most part, 
 no new-fangled experiments ; in all their main features 
 they were based upon their own experience and upon 
 that of the Motherland, and where they blundered it 
 was through misinterpreting this experience, or stepping 
 aside from the path of precedent. 
 
 On the other hand, owing to the conditions of a new 
 land, they had been from the first far more democratic 
 than it was possible for the mother country to be, with 
 all her load of tradition and custom. The American 
 colonists were, indeed, before the actual breach, already 
 the only fully democratic communities in the modern 
 world ; and they seemed to embody and to justify in 
 practice all the democratic theories that were in that 
 generation fermenting in the mind of Europe. When 
 they had won their independence, and wrought out their 
 new system of government, they stood before the world 
 as the first completely free and democratic nation-state 
 which had ever existed in human history. Naturally 
 they welcomed and adopted the phrases of the philoso- 
 phers which seemed so directly to refer to their own 
 circumstances, and incorporated them in the primary 
 documents of their new state. And having done so, 
 they became doctrinaires of liberty, like the French, as 
 
REVOLUTION AND DOGMAS 0$ LIBERTY 3? 
 
 well as habitual practitioners of it, like the British. 
 Moreover, their success seemed to demonstrate the truth 
 of the democratic doctrine, which had, as yet, been 
 nowhere else put in operation. For here was a society 
 where all men were free and all equal ; and in this 
 society there was almost no poverty, and no great 
 wealth, but an extraordinary diffusion of prosperity. 
 The prosperity, of course, came from the virgin wealth 
 and the inexhaustible spaces of a new world ; the social 
 equality was mainly due to the same cause ; the political 
 liberty was an inherited gift, rendered habitual by long 
 practice. But it was natural that both the Americans 
 themselves and their European admirers should attribute 
 their well-being wholly to their freedom, and date their 
 freedom from their revolt against George in. Thus the 
 success of the great American experiment contributed 
 to establish the theory that all that was necessary for 
 the realisation of human felicity was to set up the insti- 
 tutions of democratic self-government, without regard 
 to the questions whether the people for whom they 
 were created had obtained the training which would 
 enable them to use them well, or whether they were 
 sufficiently united to co-operate easily in the work of 
 government by discussion. 
 
 Yet the experience of the Americans themselves threw 
 a most instructive light upon the importance of these 
 conditions for the working of self-government. The 
 general standard of education among them was probably 
 higher than in any country save Scotland ; they had 
 been habituated to self-government since the beginning 
 of their history, and thus enjoyed, in respect to train- 
 ing, advantages which were not likely to be equalled in 
 any other country. They were also linked by many 
 
SS NATIONAL SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 unifying forces. They were mostly descended from the 
 same stocks ; they spoke the same language and read 
 the same books ; they were dominated by the same 
 moral ideas, and accustomed to work the same civil 
 institutions ; and they had faced in common the same 
 dangers. Yet because they had long been organised in 
 thirteen distinct states, each jealous of its independent 
 rights, they found it extremely difficult to come to an 
 agreement as to the form and powers of their common 
 government ; and after their independence had been 
 secured, five years of argument passed before they were 
 able to establish their federal system. When it was 
 completed this system was marked by certain features 
 which must have made it unworkable among any people 
 who did not possess an inexhaustible fund of political 
 capacity, public spirit, and good sense ; perhaps even 
 these qualities would not have saved it if America had 
 not been preserved by her geographical position from 
 all serious danger of foreign complications. 
 
 In the first place, because of the jealousies of the 
 thirteen states, the federal constitution ultimately had 
 to take the form of a sort of treaty between these states, 
 which could not be varied in any particular without the 
 consent of large majorities in at least two-thirds of the 
 states. This meant that the constitution was practi- 
 cally unalterable ; and the new republic started with 
 the most rigid and inelastic constitution which has ever 
 existed in the world. The constitution was in itself a 
 wise and generous document. But not the wisest and 
 most far-seeing of men could anticipate all the problems 
 of the future. A single instance may suffice to illustrate 
 the effects of this rigidity. The constitution provided 
 (in what seemed an unexceptionable clause, based upon 
 
REVOLUTION AND DOGMAS OF LIBERTY 39 
 
 Magna Charta) that no citizen might be deprived of his 
 property otherwise than by process of law. The time 
 came when the government of the United States decided 
 that it was necessary to levy an income tax. But to 
 levy an income tax is, in fact, to take a part of every 
 taxable citizen's property ; and the Act of Congress by 
 which the tax was imposed could not be described as 
 a process of law. So the Supreme Court held that the 
 constitution forbade the levying of an income tax. And 
 no income tax could be, or was, levied until two- 
 thirds of the separate states had decided by majorities 
 of three to one to accept an alteration of the constitu- 
 tion for this purpose ! Naturally, such an agreement 
 was very difficult to attain, and the levying of income 
 tax was postponed for years. There could be no more 
 pointed illustration of the danger of laying down un- 
 alterable rules for the future, and of the snares that 
 beset men when they try to manufacture a system of 
 government for a living and growing society. 
 
 Again, the mutual jealousy of the states (which is 
 another way of saying the incomplete unity of senti- 
 ment in the nation) necessitated a strict definition of 
 the spheres of the federal and the state governments. 
 Broadly speaking, certain general functions were allotted 
 to the central government, but all the undefined residue 
 of power remained with the states. This meant that 
 common action for the whole nation was made extremely 
 difficult in every sphere which was not actually foreseen 
 by the framers of the constitution. They could not 
 foresee the complex economic system of the twentieth 
 century, or the vast power which was to fall into the 
 hands of organised finance. But, as we to-day realise, 
 these things demand a firm control by the organs of 
 
40 NATIONAL SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 state. And America has found herself seriously handi- 
 capped in establishing this control by the inelastic 
 provisions of her eighteenth-century constitution. The 
 abounding prosperity of the country has made these 
 defects less apparent than they would have been in an 
 older society ; the ingenuity, good sense, and modera- 
 tion of the American mind have found ways of partially 
 escaping from the difficulty. But it remains true that 
 the constitutional restrictions upon the power of the 
 nation as a whole to deal with its problems on a national 
 scale have created difficulties in the past, and are likely 
 to lead to greater difficulties in the future. 
 
 Finally, dominated by the distrust of ' government ' 
 as such which was characteristic of eighteenth-century 
 thought, and deeply influenced by the political theorists 
 of France, especially Montesquieu, the framers of the 
 American constitution endeavoured to draw a sharp 
 distinction between the main departments of govern- 
 ment — the executive, the legislature, and the judiciary, 
 — and to secure to each independence within its own 
 sphere. This was in accordance with the theory of 
 Montesquieu (based upon a misreading of the British 
 system) that in such a ' division of powers ' is to be 
 found the only effective safeguard of liberty. Hence it 
 was provided that the President, as head of the Executive, 
 should be chosen every four years by an electoral college, 
 whose members should in turn be directly elected by 
 the whole people, and, once elected, the President was to 
 be irremovable during his period of office. The Presi- 
 dent's powers were modelled on the supposed powers of 
 the Crown in Britain. He was to be responsible for the 
 whole conduct of executive affairs ; he was to appoint 
 all executive officers, who were to be responsible solely 
 
DEVOLUTION AND DOGMAS OF LIBERTY 41 
 
 to him, and not to the representative body, of which 
 they were not even to be members. While he was for- 
 bidden to declare war without the assent of the legis- 
 lature, he was left free to pursue a policy which would 
 make war inevitable ; and when war once began he 
 was endowed with practically absolute power over all 
 the forces of the State. This system made it impossible, 
 even in a moment of acute national crisis, to get rid of 
 an unsuitable or incompetent chief, who might have 
 been elected on quite minor issues. It forced the nation 
 to wait for the close of the four years' term to make 
 any change, and then to go through the turmoil of an 
 election in order to make it. And it inevitably weakened 
 criticism during the period of presidential office ; because 
 criticism could lead to no practical result, and because 
 there was no means of forcing the executive government 
 to any complete revelation of its programme. Again, 
 the function of making new laws was reserved to the 
 legislature, though the President could veto laws which he 
 disapproved, and the Supreme Court of Justice could make 
 them inoperative by declaring them unconstitutional. 
 This meant that the function of law-making was entrusted 
 to a body which had no responsibility for carrying out the 
 laws which it made, and which was therefore tempted to 
 court popularity by irresponsible legislation ; while the 
 executive government, which often alone knows from 
 experience where the shoe pinches, and what practical 
 remedies are likely to be efficient, was in theory debarred 
 from initiating legislative projects. The legislature, like 
 the executive, was irremovable during its term of office ; 
 there was no device like that of dissolution in the British 
 system for referring a deadlock to popular decision. 
 Such a system incurred the danger of sharp conflict 
 
42 National self-government 
 
 between the two separate powers, which might dislocate 
 the national government at the most critical moments : 
 the irremovable President might be unable to get neces- 
 sary laws passed, or necessary money voted, and he 
 would have no remedy and no appeal ; the irremovable 
 Congress might be convinced that the President's policy 
 was ruining the country, but it could do nothing. The 
 truth is, of course, that Montesquieu's plausible doctrine 
 of the division of powers is utterly unsound. The 
 functions of government cannot be rigidly divided. The 
 executive is in most cases the best initiator of legislation, 
 because it usually knows best what legislation is needed. 
 But every executive, whether popularly elected or not, 
 needs to be brought under control, and to be subjected to 
 unresting and well-informed criticism. The true function 
 of a representative body is that of control, from which 
 the American Congress was expressly debarred ; for while 
 a representative body cannot itself carry on the details of 
 government, it also cannot, as a rule, profitably draft 
 new laws without the guidance of executive experience. 
 Its business ought to be to ensure that the right men are 
 endowed with executive power, that they use it in the 
 right way, that they are encouraged to propose the right 
 kind of legislation, and that all their proposals and those 
 of others are sanely criticised from every point of view 
 before being put into operation. Experience seems to 
 justify us in asserting that it is by the concentration of 
 responsibility for the direction of public affairs under 
 the control and criticism of an active and well-informed 
 body of popular representatives that popular control of 
 government is likely to be most efficiently exercised. 
 
 Now the Americans, dominated by abstract theories, 
 had in their federal constitution departed unwittingly 
 
REVOLUTION AND DOGMAS OF LIBERTY 43 
 
 from this principle, and had given their weighty en- 
 dorsement to the dangerous doctrine of the separation 
 of the executive from the legislature ; a doctrine which, 
 as we shall see, was to work great havoc in the develop- 
 ment of self-governing institutions. In practice, how- 
 ever, they very soon, though quite unconsciously, threw 
 this theory overboard, and found a means of at any 
 rate partially reconciling the executive and legislative 
 functions, so far as the constitution allowed. The 
 means by which this was done was the organisation of 
 political parties which rapidly gained control both over 
 the President and over the Congress. Every President 
 became a party nominee, and either dictated his party's 
 programme, or submitted to it, knowing that he could 
 get no support if his party threw him over. Every 
 Congress consisted of declared party men, and thus it 
 was possible for the President, acting through the chief 
 members of his own party in Congress, to get the neces- 
 sary laws and taxes proposed ; he thus did informally what 
 a British Prime Minister does openly and publicly, and 
 assumed a general responsibility for national policy. But 
 the drawbacks of the system were that the public control 
 and criticism of government could only be made fully effec- 
 tive at intervals of four years, and that, in the intervals, 
 they were exercised not by the open discussions of Con- 
 gress so much as by the private arrangements of a party 
 machine. This is not a very satisfactory method. Yet it 
 formed the only mode by which the inherent defects of 
 the system of division of powers could be even partially 
 overcome without defying the unalterable constitution. 
 The unqualified dominion of party in America is thus in 
 part due to the defects of the American constitution. 
 The comparative indifference of large sections of the 
 
44 NATIONAL SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 American public to political issues is largely due to the 
 fact that their activity is (except during elections) unable 
 to effect anything against the irremovable President, 
 the indissoluble Congress, and the irresponsible party 
 organisations that pull the strings behind the scenes. 
 
 We have dwelt at some length upon the American 
 system, and even anticipated its later development, 
 because it was the first great experiment in the deliberate 
 organisation of a national system of democratic govern- 
 ment, and because its defects, as well as its merits, are 
 full of instruction. In spite of the drawbacks which we 
 have analysed, it did very fully succeed in securing the 
 control of national affairs by the national will ; because 
 among an educated, law-abiding, and public-spirited 
 people, long habituated, as the Americans were, to 
 participation in public affairs, and enjoying the most 
 complete freedom of thought, speech, and publication, 
 no President, no Congress, and no party caucus dare 
 venture to override the manifest will of the people. But 
 if these qualities had been lacking, or if America had not 
 been saved from the dangers and complexities of close 
 association with other states, we may well doubt whether 
 the defects of the system would not have produced 
 unhappy results. It was a noble experiment in the 
 organisation of freedom, and a stirring challenge to the 
 old world. But it did not, any more than the British 
 system of the eighteenth century, afford a model which 
 other communities could safely attempt to reproduce. 
 For if the main features of the American system had 
 been imitated in other lands whose citizens were less 
 educated, less habituated to the compromises of public 
 affairs, and less free from foreign dangers, the result 
 must have been mere confusion. The American system, 
 
REVOLUTION AND DOGMAS OF LIBERTY 45 
 
 therefore, while it has afforded a stimulus to the demand 
 for political liberty in other lands, has only in a very 
 slight degree influenced the forms in which this demand 
 has found satisfaction ; all the more because America 
 has deliberately and systematically held herself aloof 
 from the concerns of the rest of the world during almost 
 the whole of her history as an independent state. 
 
 Although, therefore, the achievements of both Britain 
 and America have contributed indirectly in a very 
 powerful degree to the growth of self-government in the 
 rest of the world, it is in another quarter that we must 
 seek the source of that eager zeal for political liberty 
 which was to captivate and transform Europe during 
 the nineteenth century. It was the French who turned 
 the idea of self-government from a practical device, 
 operative only among those whose history had trained 
 them to use it, into a reasoned belief which could inspire 
 among those who held it the self-sacrificing fervour, and 
 also the ruthlessness, of religious fanaticism. 
 
 Prince Biilow, meaning to be contemptuous, has said 
 of the French that this strange people are capable of 
 sacrificing to an idea even their material prosperity. It 
 is a tribute of which the French may well be proud. 
 For throughout their history it has been the secret of 
 the undying fascination and power of this great nation 
 that they have been not only willing to spend themselves 
 for an idea, but able to communicate to other peoples 
 something of their own divine frenzy. They have never 
 done so to greater purpose, or with nobler results, than 
 in the great revolutionary movement which they in- 
 spired and guided. It is true that all the blood 
 and fury of these years did not immediately lead to 
 the establishment of an orderly system of national 
 
46 NATIONAL SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 self-government either in France itself, or in any other 
 state. But they created and spread abroad through 
 Europe the seeds of that divine discontent which was 
 to shake down everywhere the old regime, and to bring 
 about the universal acceptance of the ideal of political 
 liberty ; and from that point of view our theme de- 
 mands that we should dwell for a little, though only in 
 general terms, upon some of the broad features of the 
 great upheaval. 
 
 The bankruptcy of the despotic regime in eighteenth- 
 century France was due broadly to three causes : to the 
 degeneration which inevitably overtakes an irresponsible 
 monarchy ; to the ruinous privileges of legally recog- 
 nised castes, which had ceased to be able to render even 
 the services of competent military leadership which they 
 had earlier supplied ; and to the growing inefficiency of 
 a once competent but now routine-ridden bureaucracy. 
 The protest against the disorganisation brought about 
 by these causes was expressed mainly by men of letters 
 and philosophers ; and for that reason, and also because 
 there seemed to be no vitality in any of the surviving 
 institutions of France, it took the form, not of definite 
 and measurable projects of reform, but, first, of an analysis 
 of the nature and aims of human society at large, and, 
 secondly, of a series of bold and unqualified doctrines, 
 not relating solely to the circumstances of France, but 
 claiming a universal validity. 
 
 From the teaching of Rousseau, especially, came the 
 dream and ideal of the democratic state : the assertion 
 of the inherent and inalienable sovereignty of the people, 
 and of the inherent and inalienable Rights of Man. The 
 theory of the equality of men in the state of nature, 
 TChich Rousseau, like others, borrowed from Grotius and 
 
REVOLUTION AND DOGMAS OF LIBERTY 47 
 
 the Roman jurists, was not for him, as it was for them, 
 simply a convenient juridical formula, nor was it merely 
 a postulate at the basis of a body of artificial theory. 
 For Rousseau, and for his readers, it was a poignant 
 assertion that human societies had gone fatally astray. 
 Organised society exists, according to Rousseau, in 
 order that its members may enjoy in security, to the 
 maximum practicable degree, the rights which in a 
 hypothetical state of nature must always be precarious ; 
 and the essence of these rights is the power to make the 
 best of one's own life on equal terms with other men. 
 But society has been distorted from this, its true end : 
 it has been made the means for the exploitation of the 
 mass of men by the few. ' Men are born equal, and 
 they are everywhere in chains ' : nor will they regain 
 their rights, which society theoretically exists to secure, 
 until society has been reconstituted in such a way as 
 genuinely to embody the inexpugnable but disregarded 
 truth of the Sovereignty of the People. ' Government of 
 the people, by the people, for the people,' in Lincoln's 
 phrase, is the only mode by which men can be enabled 
 to live as Nature meant them to, in freedom, equality 
 and brotherhood ; and they are robbed of an essential 
 part of their manhood if they are deprived of their just 
 share in the control of their common destiny. 
 
 It is no part of our purpose here to analyse or criticise 
 the doctrines of Rousseau, which, indeed, were much 
 less uncompromising than they were made to appear 
 by many of his disciples. What concerns us is that out 
 of these doctrines could be drawn a political gospel which 
 was full of inspiration, and which seemed to afford the 
 hope of a glowing future for humanity. These ideas 
 worked powerfully upon the mind of a nation that has 
 
48 NATIONAL SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 always rejoiced in ideas and that had been for centuries 
 cut off from practical contact with politics. And they 
 seemed to be justified in practice in the New World, 
 where Frenchmen, from 1778 to 1782, were helping the 
 revolting American colonists to establish the first com- 
 plete democracy that ever existed in the world. Liberty, 
 not merely of the half-hearted, traditional British 
 pattern, but on the scale of full-fledged democracy, 
 existed successfully in America, and it seemed to have 
 brought happiness : why should it not exist, and bring 
 happiness, elsewhere ? 
 
 When in 1789 the French government, on the verge 
 of bankruptcy, resolved in despair to take the people 
 into consultation, and summoned the States-general 
 after an interval of one hundred and seventy-five years, 
 the moment seemed to have come when these aspirations 
 could be realised ; and with a sort of sober joy, the whole 
 nation set itself to take full advantage of the opportunity, 
 and to establish in France the reign of Justice and Liberty. 
 In all history there is no moment more touching and more 
 inspiring than this, when nearly all classes and sections 
 of a great people, almost forgetting for the moment 
 their conflicting interests, and all dominated by the 
 same glorious if elusive vision, set to work upon the 
 reconstruction of their social and political system in 
 pursuit of a great ideal. ' Tears of joy flowed from my 
 eyes,' said an unemotional conservative Marquis on the 
 occasion of the meeting of the States-general. ' My 
 God, my country, and my fellow-citizens had become 
 myself.' ' Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive,' the 
 English poet felt ; and the thrill of a great emotion 
 passed from France into all the neighbouring lands — 
 into Belgium, into Germany, into Italy, into England, 
 
REVOLUTION AND DOGMAS OF LIBERTY 49 
 
 and made the tinkerings of benevolent despots and of 
 practical politicians appear to be extraordinarily trivial 
 and unreal. Despite the outbursts of turbulence which 
 accompanied the Revolution from the first, this fine 
 emotion lasted in its purity for fully two years. It 
 enabled France to create the first sketch, at any rate, 
 of a State conceived as an embodiment of liberty, frater- 
 nity, and equality ; and it made upon the hearts and 
 consciences of all Europe an impression which remained 
 indelible, and which not even the horrors of the Reign 
 of Terror, and the militarist frenzy which followed it, 
 were able wholly to obliterate. Shallow and doctrinaire 
 as the theories of the Revolution may appear, the memory 
 of this great national resolve to turn the State into an 
 embodiment of justice, freedom and brotherhood re- 
 mained, and will perhaps always continue to be, an 
 inspiration to the sons of men ; and on the minds of 
 that and the following generations it made an impres- 
 sion far deeper than could have been created by the 
 prosaic spectacle of the practical, unidealist British 
 system. 
 
 Three things the leaders of the Revolution set them- 
 selves to do. In the first place, they embodied in a 
 great document a declaration of human rights, and of 
 the purposes which the well-ordered State should try 
 to achieve ; and this, vague and unpractical as it was, 
 formed a clear challenge to the conscience of civilisation, 
 the echoes of which have not yet died out. It was the 
 first time that the assertion of high moral ideals had 
 been transferred from the philosopher's study to the 
 dusty arena of politics. For Frenchmen in particular, 
 but for the men of many other nations also, these phrases 
 vague and indefinite as they are, have acquired a sort 
 
 D 
 
50 NATIONAL SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 of sacredness. They have never lost their power. They 
 have, time and again, and to-day more fully than ever, 
 inspired the sons of France to feel that they were striving 
 not after the vulgarity of conquest or wealth, but after 
 an ideal for humanity. 
 
 In the second place, the Revolution at a single stroke 
 swept away all privileges of caste and creed and province ; 
 and this part of their work was permanent, so far, at 
 any rate, as concerns the embodiment of these privileges 
 in law. The famous session of the National Assembly 
 in which part of this great achievement was effected, 
 amid unrestrained emotion, by the voluntary renuncia- 
 tion of many of the privileged themselves, has some- 
 times been sneered at ; but the sneer is an unworthy one. 
 
 Finally, the Revolution set up a complete system of 
 democratic self-government, conceived in accordance 
 with the ideas of philosophers who had enjoyed no 
 experience in practical affairs. Not only was France 
 henceforward to be equipped with a legislature ex- 
 pressing the sovereignty of the people, but in every 
 department also, and in every one of the forty thousand 
 communes or townships of the country, fully organised 
 representative government was to take the place of the 
 unqualified bureaucratic control which had hitherto 
 existed. Henceforward almost all officials performing 
 public functions, even the bishops and priests, were to 
 be chosen by the people. 
 
 These changes were, of course, far too sudden and 
 sweeping to have any chance of success among a people 
 who had had no training whatever in the difficult art of 
 managing common affairs by discussion and agreement. 
 The immediate result was chaotic disorganisation ; and 
 when the monarchs of Europe, alarmed at the growing 
 
REVOLUTION AND DOGMAS OF LIBERTY 51 
 
 unrest among their own subjects, began to take up 
 arms against the Revolution, the new-made institutions 
 of self-government simply had to be swept aside. The 
 management of local affairs passed once more into the 
 hands of autocrats directed from Paris ; the control of 
 national policy into the hands first of the Committee 
 of Public Safety, later of the Directorate, then of the 
 Consulate, finally of the Emperor ; and the representa- 
 tive bodies which were still permitted to survive along- 
 side of these controlling powers became weaker and 
 weaker as time went on. Thus the Revolution failed to 
 establish an organised control of the instruments of 
 government by a body representative of the nation. 
 Yet the fervour of belief in the democratic idea never 
 died out. It seemed to be only the pressure of war 
 which had rendered necessary the temporary super- 
 session of the institutions of liberty. But the essential 
 boon of equality before the law survived, even if the 
 forms of self-government were weakened. The electrify- 
 ing power of liberty was demonstrated by the extra- 
 ordinary outburst of patriotic fervour which enabled 
 France in 1793 to thrust back her invading enemies on 
 all sides, and to pursue them into their own territories, 
 where their subjects were eager to welcome the emanci- 
 pators. France, feeling herself the chosen champion of 
 Liberty, proclaimed a great crusade on behalf of all 
 peoples and against all kings, and the ideal of self- 
 government became — what it had never been in its 
 British or even in its American form — a challenge to 
 every constituted government which did not recognise 
 and embody the sovereignty of the people. 
 
 Even when, under Napoleon, France had become a 
 conquering militarist empire, imposing its yoke upon 
 
52 NATIONAL SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 half Europe, this apostolic fervour did not disappear. 
 Even Napoleon brought to the lands he conquered the 
 incalculable boon of equal and rational laws, based upon 
 a disregard of the distinctions of caste. And Napoleon's 
 soldiers and his agents were still the apostles of the 
 democratic idea. Wherever they went they left behind 
 them the seeds of liberty, and even their enemies in the 
 field borrowed their political ideas. Napoleon overran 
 Spain in 1808, and the Spaniards resisted him with 
 British aid. Yet when, after four years of unceasing 
 war against the French, these same Spanish patriots 
 set up a new constitution in 1812, they followed a 
 French, not a British model, and reproduced the great 
 Revolutionary Constitution of 1791. Napoleon subju- 
 gated the greater part of Germany, and provoked against 
 himself the great national rising of 1813 ; but the first 
 demand of the German patriots was for the institutions 
 of self-government, for which France had made them 
 yearn, and they forced the King of Prussia himself to 
 promise them a constitution. Even the Tsar of all the 
 Russias was for a time indoctrinated with liberal ideas. 
 His inspiration came from France, not from Britain, 
 for it was not the practical convenience, but the moral 
 Tightness, of self-government that appealed to him. 
 Everywhere in Europe the new gospel of Liberty became 
 an inspiring ideal, which took possession of the minds 
 of the rising generation ; and although the actual period 
 of the revolutionary wars did not see the establishment 
 of a single permanent parliamentary system in any 
 European country, the ferment which it created lasted 
 on through the nineteenth century, and formed (along 
 with the nationalist idea) one of the governing factors 
 in the history of that age. 
 
REVOLUTION AND DOGMAS OF LIBERTY 53 
 
 Thus, although the example and influence of Britain 
 and America formed a great incentive, and the model 
 of British institutions was, in the long run, generally 
 imitated, it was the moral fervour that came from France 
 which afforded the main impetus to the universal liberal 
 movement which is the most striking feature of the 
 nineteenth century. 
 
THE POLITICAL TRANSFORMATION OP THE 
 NINETEENTH CENTURY 
 
 Throughout the nineteenth century the ferment of the 
 democratic idea was working in all the European countries, 
 with very remarkable results. Every European state 
 was, during this century, compelled to submit to a trans- 
 formation of its political system, more or less complete ; 
 everywhere save in Russia and Turkey the forms of 
 parliamentary government, as they had been worked 
 out in the British communities, were adopted, either as 
 the means of establishing a real popular control over 
 the machinery of government, or as a means of at once 
 veiling and reinforcing the power of the existing ruling 
 elements in the State. 
 
 But it would be a profound blunder to trace this vast 
 movement wholly to the inspiration of the doctrines of 
 liberty preached by the French Revolution, or to the prac- 
 tical example afforded by the British system. Although 
 it derived from these sources its form and much of its 
 character, other factors also were powerfully at work. 
 
 In the first place, the demand for the institutions of 
 self-government was concurrent with the demand for 
 national unity and freedom, which we have analysed 
 elsewhere x ; and the interaction of these two move- 
 ments was close and constant. Sometimes they were 
 
 1 Nationalism and Internationalism, pp. 80-105. 
 H 
 
THE POLITICAL TRANSFORMATION 55 
 
 mutually hostile. There were cases, as we shall see, in 
 which the enthusiasts for the national idea were dis- 
 trustful of the democratic idea, or, at any rate, ready 
 to sacrifice political liberty in order to achieve unity ; 
 and not infrequently devotees of the democratic idea 
 were, and still are, distrustful of nationalism, because 
 they were tempted to identify it with Chauvinism, and 
 preferred to dream of and work for a combined revolt 
 of all the oppressed in all lands, in a common spirit of 
 brotherhood. But for the most part the two causes 
 were identified in the minds of their advocates ; the 
 most fervent democrats were also nationalists, and the 
 most fervent nationalists, like Mazzini, aimed at estab- 
 lishing democratic government in the reunited nation- 
 states which they laboured to create. And beyond a 
 doubt the identification of the two causes was sound. 
 The highest degree of national unity is only attained 
 when the whole community is conscious of its partnership 
 in the common interest, as it can only be when all its 
 members take a part in determining it. On the other 
 hand, as we have already seen, self-government only 
 becomes practicable in a community whose members 
 are linked by a real unity of sentiment such as the 
 national spirit creates. There must be a ' general will ' 
 for co-operation before co-operation becomes possible, 
 and the ' general will ' melts away unless it is founded 
 upon mutual sympathy and common traditions and 
 modes of life. The immense vigour of the nationalist 
 movement during the nineteenth century has therefore 
 been one of the main causes of the rapid extension of 
 self-governing institutions ; and it is no mere coincidence 
 that the period of nationalist victories, 1859-78, was 
 also the period of the greatest successes of Liberalism, 
 
56 NATIONAL SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 But an even more potent factor in the creation of 
 the great political revolution was the economic and social 
 transformation which passed over Europe during this 
 age. The Industrial Revolution, which had begun in 
 Britain in the late eighteenth century, was rapidly 
 extended to Europe during the generations following 
 the fall of Napoleon. Its political results were that the 
 main elements of wealth and power no longer remained 
 in the hands of the landholding class which had hitherto 
 been dominant in every European state. New classes — 
 new, at all events, on this scale — came into being : the 
 class of capitalist entrepreneurs, who were the organisers 
 of the new industries ; the class of scientifically trained 
 experts, who devised their increasingly elaborate pro- 
 cesses ; and the class of wage-earning operatives. The 
 emergence of these classes would in any case have 
 necessitated a reconstruction of the system of govern- 
 ment in all the lands wherein they became the dominant 
 factors ; and when they began to organise themselves 
 for common interests, as the first and the third increas- 
 ingly did, they became formidable forces which no 
 government could disregard. To these classes the 
 theories of political liberty made an irresistible appeal ; 
 and the model of Britain, which was at once the leader 
 of the world in the new industries, the field of the most 
 fruitful experiments in co-operative action among the 
 labouring classes, and the creator of the institutions of 
 national self-government, acquired a steadily increasing 
 influence over the minds of the reformers in other 
 European countries, at any rate during all the earlier 
 part of the period. Again, the needs of the new in- 
 dustries demanded that not only their organisers, but 
 also their rank and file, should be in some degree educated, 
 
THE POLITICAL TRANSFORMATION 57 
 
 and the wide diffusion of popular education in all the 
 industrial countries led to a great increase in the public 
 knowledge of, and interest in, political questions, and 
 made the work of revolutionary propaganda immensely 
 easier. All these causes gave from the first a new force 
 and meaning to the doctrines of political liberty. But 
 they did more than that. They also produced consider- 
 able modifications in the definition of what political 
 liberty should mean, and what its results should be. 
 Gradually the ideal of the more enthusiastic reformers 
 came to be not merely the control of the ordinary tradi- 
 tional machinery of government by the public will, but 
 the use of this machinery for new and larger purposes : 
 for nothing less than the reconstruction of the social 
 order. The democratic movement, as the century 
 progressed, became more and more also a social move- 
 ment, though its social aims were far more vague and 
 controverted than its political aims. 
 
 The whole of this vast and complex movement has 
 been from the beginning a European movement ; it 
 cannot profitably be dealt with separately as it affects 
 each country, although the conditions and the traditions 
 of various countries profoundly influenced the forms 
 which it assumed. In most countries it has repeatedly 
 led to violent revolutionary upheavals or civil wars, 
 which have in the majority of cases led to no very 
 lasting results. The only states which have been free 
 from such upheavals have been Britain, Norway, Sweden, 
 and Holland ; and since in these countries the move- 
 ment has achieved a success quite as great as that 
 attained anywhere else, it will be instructive to observe, 
 as our inquiry proceeds, what have been the causes of 
 this difference. But these disturbances, and even the 
 
58 NATIONAL SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 more active agitations which preceded them, were not 
 continuous. They were, in a remarkable way, concen- 
 trated into a few short periods of feverish and rapid 
 change, separated by longer periods of comparative 
 calm. The years 1820-23, 1830-33, 1847-50, 1859-78, 
 and 1905-14 include practically all the great organic 
 changes, temporary or permanent, in all the great 
 European states. What is more remarkable, no state 
 was free from political disturbance, not even Britain, 
 during any of these periods. Nothing could more 
 strikingly show that the movement towards popular 
 government, though it has taken different forms and 
 achieved varying degrees of success in various countries, 
 has been a general European movement. Yet it has 
 scarcely at all been studied as a single whole. It is 
 as a single whole that we propose to regard it in this 
 essay. 
 
 It will simplify and clarify our treatment of this huge 
 theme if we begin by recognising that it falls into certain 
 clearly marked eras, each distinguished by features of 
 its own. Although, as is always the case, such a de- 
 marcation must be more or less arbitrary, and our 
 periods must somewhat overlap, we shall gain more 
 than we lose by the definition. 
 
 The first of our eras covers the period from 1815 to 
 about 1855. It is filled with more or less abortive 
 revolutionary movements, inspired at once by liberal 
 and by national ideals. On the liberal side its outstand- 
 ing feature is the predominance of the primarily political 
 aims of the French Revolution ; projects of social re- 
 construction, though they were emerging, and were 
 towards the end of the period beginning to be rather 
 clamorously advocated, had not yet become the imme- 
 diate declared aim of the leaders of these movements, 
 
THE POLITICAL TRANSFORMATION 59 
 
 and the main conduct of them was in the hands of the 
 ' intellectuals ' and the middle class. 
 
 The second era extends from about 1855 to about 
 1878. The outstanding feature of these years was the 
 remarkable series of nationalist victories which they 
 witnessed, especially in Germany and Italy. The 
 nationalist victories were largely due to the fact that 
 they were organised by established governments which 
 could dispose of large armed forces, and no longer by 
 mere sporadic bands of enthusiasts. In the countries 
 chiefly affected by these movements, governments were 
 able to win the support of all classes by bringing to them 
 the gift of national unity. In all cases they were able 
 to win the backing of the middle class during this period, 
 because these were years when the new industrial order 
 was fixing its grip upon Europe, and the classes which 
 most profited from it were most anxious for firm and 
 efficient rule. Alliance between government and the 
 middle class was, therefore, in all the industrial countries, 
 a feature of this period ; and this alliance was secured 
 by the establishment of parliamentary systems which in 
 all these countries the middle class mainly controlled, 
 though in some cases the labouring class also was en- 
 franchised. Hence the .period of nationalist victories 
 was also the period of the establishment of constitutional 
 government in all the more developed states of Europe. 
 But a sharp distinction emerged between those states 
 in which the parliamentary system was so devised as not 
 to impair the traditional ascendancy of the older ruling 
 elements, and those states in which it was given a real 
 control over the whole machinery of government. Fore- 
 most among the former group stood Germany ; fore- 
 most among the latter Britain. Meanwhile among 
 important elements of the labouring classes, who in effect 
 
60 NATIONAL SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 nowhere enjoyed a real share of political power, and 
 everywhere felt that the new industrial regime pressed 
 unfairly upon them, a new turn was being given to the 
 doctrine of democracy by the teaching of various apostles, 
 among whom Karl Marx was the chief. It was not 
 anywhere a formidable factor during the period before 
 1878, though its strength was growing. But already 
 there was apparent a striking contrast between the 
 forms assumed by this social re-interpretation of the 
 democratic doctrine in the countries where (as in Ger- 
 many) the parliamentary system was little more than a 
 form, and the countries where (as in Britain) it exercised 
 a genuine supremacy. 
 
 The third era, 1878-1900, is distinguished by the 
 relative insignificance of the political changes which 
 took place during its course. It was a period of un- 
 exampled advance in industry ; a period also during 
 which the non-European world was being very rapidly 
 brought under the dominion of European civilisation, 1 
 and these developments, together with the growing 
 intensity of rivalry between the chief European states, 
 seemed to engross attention. Nevertheless, though it 
 saw few formal changes in the political systems of the 
 European states, it was a period of high interest and im- 
 portance, first because of the evidence which it afforded 
 of the working of parliamentary institutions under 
 various conditions, and the ends,, towards which they 
 were being directed by the forces which controlled them ; 
 and, secondly, because of the steady development which 
 went on during these years in the doctrine of social 
 democracy, which in some aspects seCmed to challenge 
 the validity of all that had been>&lready achieved. 
 
 The last of our eras occupied the full and troubled 
 * These events are surveyed in The Expansion of Europe. 
 
THE POLITICAL TRANSFORMATION 61 
 
 years from 1900 to 1914. They are too near us, their 
 passions still too deeply stir us, for it to be possible that 
 we should take a wholly calm and detached view of their 
 events. Yet it must be obvious that the changes which 
 took place during their course were as great and im- 
 portant as those of any of the preceding ages. In the 
 first place, the parliamentary system was adopted, in a 
 more or less incomplete and unsatisfactory form, in the 
 only remaining European states, Russia and Turkey, 
 which had hitherto held aloof from the general move- 
 ment ; while even Persia and China tried to adapt the 
 system, and Egypt and India were full of discontent 
 because it was not extended to them also. In the 
 second place, in those countries in which not merely 
 parliamentary institutions, but parliamentary sover- 
 eignty, had been established, the mass of the people 
 began to make its voice effectively heard, and to use 
 its power for social reconstruction ; while in the coun- 
 tries in which parliamentary institutions had been used 
 merely as a mask, the difficulty of working them became 
 much greater, and the destructive aspects of the doctrine 
 of social-democracy became more threatening. And, in 
 the third place, everywhere a deep dissatisfaction and 
 discontent with the working of the parliamentary system 
 made itself heard, and the machinery by which it was 
 worked was subjected — perhaps especially in Britain, 
 but also in France and Italy — to an acute and search- 
 ing criticism. When the Great War began, the whole 
 system was manifestly on its trial ; and the Great 
 War itself has led to modifications and experiments of 
 profound significance, some of which will be lasting. 
 
 If we would face with intelligence the fascinating 
 political problems which await us during the next 
 generation, we must obtain some clear understanding of 
 
62 NATIONAL SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 the significance of each of these eras in turn. Only so 
 can we form a fair judgment upon the working of repre- 
 sentative government, and upon the difficulties with 
 which it has to contend. 
 
 And there is one further generalisation which may 
 usefully be made before we enter upon our survey : one 
 distinction which we shall do well always to hold in 
 mind. Although every European state has, during the 
 nineteenth century, adopted representative institutions, 
 there have been throughout the period two conflicting 
 views as to the part which the representative body 
 should play in the government of the State ; and in the 
 end some nations have adopted the one view, some 
 the other. In the one system, which we may call the 
 British because it has held sway in Britain for more 
 than two centuries, the representative body (however 
 elected) possesses, if it likes to use it, a complete control 
 over all the organs of government, and can determine 
 the spirit and methods in which the powers of the execu- 
 tive are to be exercised. In the other, which we may 
 call the German, because it has been most successfully 
 worked out in Germany, the executive power remains 
 free from the effective control of the representative 
 body, and, being master both of the army and of the 
 professional administrative class, or bureaucracy, can in 
 fact freely determine the direction of national policy. 
 It inevitably does so along lines dictated by the two 
 vital elements upon which it depends, the army and the 
 bureaucracy. The sharp contrast between these two con- 
 ceptions may be said to have come to its issue in the Great 
 War, which will probably determine which of these two 
 shall survive, though it will also leave to the survivor a 
 complex of problems so difficult as to test all its capacity. 
 
VI 
 
 THE ERA OF LIBERAL REVOLUTIONS, 1815-1855 
 
 When Europe settled down in 1815 after the revolu- 
 tionary storm, absolute government of the eighteenth- 
 century pattern was still the rule in the great majority 
 of states. In six states only — Britain, France, the 
 Netherlands, Sweden-and-Norway, Poland, and Switzer- 
 land — parliamentary institutions of a more or less effec- 
 tive type survived (in the case of Britain) from the pre- 
 revolutionary age, or had (in the other cases) been newly 
 established or reorganised. But in no one of these cases 
 did the system satisfy the ideals of the reformers. 
 
 In Britain the system which had worked reasonably 
 well in the eighteenth century no longer answered to 
 the needs of the community, because the social trans- 
 formation which was soon to extend its influence over 
 the rest of Europe, had been at work for two genera- 
 tions ; and its result had already been to make the 
 old governing class no longer really representative of 
 the nation. The Agrarian Revolution had brought the 
 land into the possession of a greatly reduced number of 
 owners ; it had almost destroyed the once numerous 
 class of small proprietors or ' yeomen ' ; it had substi- 
 tuted for them a greatly increased class of farmers 
 renting their holdings from the great landlords ; it had 
 deprived the peasantry as a whole of any interest in 
 the land they tilled, and reduced them to the rank of 
 
64 NATIONAL SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 mere wage-earners ; and between these classes there was 
 no longer any such identity of interest as had once 
 existed, but rather a sharp conflict. At the same time 
 the Industrial Revolution had destroyed for ever the 
 preponderant weight which had once belonged to the 
 agricultural classes ; it had practically brought into being 
 two classes which, as important elements in the nation, 
 were new factors in English politics ; the class of capitalist 
 manufacturers and entrepreneurs, and the class of wage- 
 earning operatives, clustered in vast numbers in the 
 new towns of the Midlands and the North. Upon these 
 classes the prosperity of Britain must in the future 
 mainly depend ; a sane and intelligent handling of their 
 problems was becoming the greatest need of the com- 
 munity. Yet they were in effect unrepresented in the 
 parliament elected on the old anomalous methods. Even 
 in the sphere of local government they had but a small 
 voice. The manufacturers could indeed make them- 
 selves heard in the ill-organised governing bodies of the 
 new towns ; but not the operatives. The real control of 
 local government remained in the hands of the land- 
 owning class ; and that training in co-operation and in 
 the management of public affairs in which most elements 
 of the older England had had some share, was in effect 
 denied to the makers of the new industrial England. 
 Even the voluntary co-operation of associations for the 
 safeguarding of their own interests was denied them, for 
 the Anti-Combination Acts, inspired by the terror of 
 secret societies to which the Revolution had given birth, 
 forbade the establishment of trade unions or other such 
 bodies. Manifestly, if the national unity of Britain was 
 not to be undermined or destroyed, it had become neces- 
 sary to undertake a reconstruction of the political system. 
 
THE ERA OF LIBERAL REVOLUTIONS 65 
 
 But the traditional ruling class was not unnaturally blind 
 to the necessity, was apt to see in the demands for change 
 evidence of the existence of a dangerous revolutionary 
 spirit, and was therefore tempted to sympathise with the 
 reactionary elements which were at work in Europe 
 during this age. Still, Britain possessed a parliament 
 which, though out of touch with large elements of the 
 nation, did effectively control the conduct of government ; 
 and Britain allowed practically free play to public dis- 
 cussion on political questions through the Press or 
 otherwise. 
 
 In France, the restored monarchy of 1814 granted a 
 ' Charter of Liberties ' in the hope of gaining the affec- 
 tions of its subjects, and under this charter a parliament 
 after the English model was established. But the re- 
 presentative house was elected on so narrow a franchise 
 that there were only about 200,000 voters in the country ; 
 and its powers were regarded as existing by grant from 
 the Crown 1 , and were very restricted. In particular, it 
 had no control over ministers. France continued to be 
 governed in detail by the highly organised bureaucracy 
 taken over from Napoleon, and no element of popular 
 control was permitted in local affairs, while the right of 
 association was still more jealously regarded than in 
 Britain. Under this system, therefore, France cannot 
 be described as in any real sense a self-governing country. 
 Still, national affairs were publicly debated, and the 
 Press was reasonably free : France, therefore, like Britain, 
 was enviously regarded by other lands. 
 
 In Sweden, an old-fashioned diet of four estates claimed 
 legislative powers, but had no control over the executive. 
 In Norway, when the people were in 1814 withdrawn 
 without being consulted from the autocratic government 
 
66 NATIONAL SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 of the king of Denmark and annexed to Sweden, they 
 set up a very democratic legislature which the Swedish 
 king was forced to recognise ; but they were not able 
 to control the ministers whom the Crown appointed. In 
 Poland the Tsar Alexander I., in the first flush of his 
 vague liberal sentiments, set up in 1814 a semblance of 
 a parliamentary system ; but from the first it had little 
 power, and was soon swept aside altogether. In the 
 Swiss cantons a great variety of systems prevailed, from 
 the rudimentary democracy of the forest cantons to the 
 oligarchy of Bern ; but the practice of Switzerland had 
 practically no influence upon the rest of Europe. Every- 
 where else despotism prevailed. 
 
 At first the Great Powers, whose ' august union ' formed 
 the dominating factor in the Europe of 1815, professed a 
 mild willingness to permit the existence of self-governing 
 institutions, provided that they were on the most modest 
 scale. Britain had encouraged the establishment of a 
 representative system in Sicily in 1812, but when the 
 Bourbon king of Sicily regained Naples and the con- 
 tinental part of his kingdom, he was allowed, without 
 protest, to suppress self-government in Sicily. In Spain 
 the leaders of the resistance against Napoleon had set up 
 an extravagantly democratic system in 1812, but it was 
 suppressed by the worthless King Ferdinand when he 
 returned to his throne in 1814 ; nor did the ignorant 
 and priest-ridden Spanish peasantry show any signs of 
 regret for it. Alexander i. of Russia thought himself a 
 Liberal, but his liberal sentiments very quickly evapor- 
 ated. Frederick William m. of Prussia had promised a 
 constitution to his subjects in the excitement of 1813, 
 but the promise was never fulfilled. The constitution of 
 the Germanic Federation included a vague clause pro- 
 
THE ERA OF LIBERAL REVOLUTIONS 67 
 
 raising the establishment of constitutions in the individual 
 states of Germany, and under this clause a few of the 
 South German princes set up shadowy parliamentary 
 systems between 1816 and 1819. But the Diet of the 
 Confederation was made to declare that no constitution 
 was valid unless it was spontaneously granted by the good- 
 will of the reigning prince ; and later it went further, 
 and declared its hostility to all representative institu- 
 tions. Before long this came to be also the attitude of 
 the majority among the Great Powers. At the Congress 
 of Verona in 1822 they united in declaring their hostility 
 to all representative institutions as the source of revolu- 
 tionary dangers. Even France joined in this programme 
 of repression. Britain alone protested against it, and 
 broke away from what Canning called ' the conspiracy of 
 monarchs who aspire to bind Europe in chains.' Britain, 
 indeed, despite the timid conservatism of her rulers, 
 seemed to be the only Power with any liberal sympathies 
 during the decade 1820-30 ; and she was the only state 
 which made any advance towards greater political liberty. 
 She did not, indeed, as yet attempt any large political 
 reconstruction. But she allowed open discussion on the 
 platform and in the Press ; and in 1825 she took the 
 noteworthy step of repealing the anti-Combination Acts, 
 and thus permitting the rise of trade unions, by whose 
 means, henceforth, the labouring classes were to be 
 enabled not only to ameliorate their social condition, but 
 to give themselves a valuable training in self-government. 
 These, however, were only beginnings, and elsewhere 
 than in Britain reaction and repression reigned supreme. 
 In face of these obstacles the demand for self-govern- 
 ment, everywhere save in Britain, became a secret and 
 underground movement. Just for that reason it was apt 
 
68 NATIONAL SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 to assume extravagant forms, and to arouse by its 
 mystery a vague terror among the ruling classes every- 
 where. It became also cosmopolitan in character, and 
 visionary exiles from all lands gathered especially in 
 London and Paris, where alone they had some security, 
 and which therefore became the centres of their pro- 
 paganda. But the cosmopolitan conspiracy of free- 
 dom assumed no very formidable dimensions until about 
 1830. In most countries it drew its recruits mainly from 
 among the professional classes. University professors 
 and students (especially in Germany), military officers, 
 lawyers, schoolmasters, and after a time the more edu- 
 cated artisans of the big towns, supplied its chief sup- 
 porters. They were chiefly concerned in the unrest in 
 Germany from 1816 onwards, which gave to Austria and 
 Prussia the excuse for a rigid censorship of the Press and a 
 close supervision of university teaching, and which per- 
 suaded the Diet of the German Confederation to prohibit 
 the establishment of representative institutions. They 
 brought about the revolutions of 1820-21 in Spain, 
 Naples, and Piedmont ; but these were so ill-conducted 
 and aimed at such indefinite ends, that they would have 
 collapsed of their own weakness even if the Powers had 
 not intervened to suppress them. The main result of 
 these first abortive attempts was that the Concert of 
 Powers, with the sole exception of Britain, were brought 
 to adopt an attitude of definite hostility to the whole 
 liberal movement, wherever and in whatever form it 
 might show itself. 
 
 During the decade 1820-30, indeed, there seemed to be 
 a real danger that the organised power of all the great 
 European states (except Britain) would be used to 
 destroy the institutions of self-government even where 
 
The era of liberal revolutions 69 
 
 they already existed. It was this which led the British 
 statesman Canning to urge America to join him in a 
 declaration that in the New World, at any rate, the 
 policy of repression should not be allowed to operate. 
 The Monroe Doctrine (1823) was the result ; and Canning's 
 formal recognition of the independence and self-govern- 
 ment of the South American .Republics (1825), in face of 
 the declared desire of the continental states to restore them 
 to their legitimate master the king of Spain, ' called a 
 new world into existence,' in Canning's famous boast, 
 ' to redress the balance of the old.' 
 
 But the European movement towards self-government 
 was too powerful to be repressed even by the ' August 
 Union ' of the Great Powers. In 1830 a fresh and more 
 earnest series of revolutionary movements broke out, 
 beginning, as always, in France. They failed completely 
 in Italy, in Germany, and in Poland, where they led only 
 to an era of still more bitter and still more stupid reaction. 
 But they obtained real and solid successes in Britain, in 
 France, and in Belgium. These were, in truth, the first 
 great victories for the cause of self-government during 
 the nineteenth century ; and in these three Western 
 countries effective popular control over government was 
 henceforth solidly established. There is much that is 
 instructive in all these three revolutions, whose main 
 result was the initiation of the experiment of middle- 
 class rule, and it is worth while to analyse their out- 
 standing features. 
 
 In Britain alone did the change take place without 
 overt violence, though even in Britain there was a good 
 deal of rioting, and at more than one point during the 
 two years' struggle for the first Reform Act it seemed 
 almost impossible to avoid open fighting. In Belgium 
 
70 NATIONAL SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 the establishment of a parliamentary system was the 
 result of open rebellion against the subordination to 
 Holland established in 1815 ; in France it was achieved 
 by fighting at the barricades in Paris. 
 
 The Belgian system was much the most liberal yet 
 established anywhere in Europe, since it embodied not 
 only a wide franchise, but the responsibility of ministers 
 to Parliament. It had arisen among a racially disunited 
 people, who had never, in all their history, enjoyed self- 
 government on a wider scale than that of the city, and 
 who were united only in their dislike of Dutch rule. 
 Yet it worked with perfect smoothness from the first ; 
 brought peace and growing prosperity ; and demon- 
 strated that parliamentary government is a practic- 
 able system even where the circumstances do not seem 
 especially to favour it. Though her history as an in- 
 dependent state began with a revolution, Belgium has 
 never again suffered from revolutionary upheavals ; she 
 passed through the distressful period 1848-71 without 
 disturbance. 
 
 In Britain the main result of the revolution of 1830 
 was the enfranchisement of the middle class by the 
 Reform Act of 1832. This class had already demon- 
 strated that it possessed the capacity for the management 
 of common affairs by discussion, by the success with 
 which it had organised the new industrial system, by the 
 development (in face of great obstacles and without 
 government assistance) of at any rate a rudimentary 
 system of administration in the mushroom towns which 
 had sprung up in the Midlands and the North, by the 
 creation of churches and schools, and by the origination 
 of an interesting, if modest, intellectual life, which had 
 sprung into being during the previous half-century in 
 
THE ERA OE LIBERAL REVOLUTIONS 11 
 
 the new centres of population. 1 They showed that they 
 possessed the conservatism characteristic of their class 
 and of their nation by leaving the actual conduct of 
 government in the hands of the old ruling class. There 
 was no dethronement of the landowning aristocracy. 
 The Cabinets of the mid-nineteenth century were as pre- 
 dominantly aristocratic in character as those of the 
 eighteenth. But increasingly the governing ideas of 
 national policy were coloured by the ideas of political 
 and economic liberalism, of which the middle class was 
 at this period the stronghold, in Britain as in other 
 countries ; and the doctrines of the middle-class prophets, 
 Bentham and the Mills, Malthus and Ricardo, more and 
 more determined the action of governments. 
 
 This showed itself especially in three ways. A new 
 fiscal policy, the policy of free trade, was adopted and 
 won its definite triumph in 1846. The system of local 
 government, which, like the system of national govern- 
 ment had been thrown out of gear by the agrarian and 
 industrial revolutions, was reconstructed by the Poor 
 Law Amendment Act of 1834 and the Municipal Reform 
 Act of 1835 ; and although these Acts were only the 
 beginning of a series of changes carried out in a piecemeal 
 and disconnected way, it is nevertheless true that from 
 1835 onwards Britain was covered by a network of elected 
 local governing bodies, municipal corporations and boards 
 of guardians, which kept alive and developed that habit 
 of local self-government which has always been one of 
 the outstanding features of British life. There was, for 
 
 1 The Provincial Renascence in England during the period 1780- 
 1830 is a subject to which not enough attention has been directed. It 
 was destroyed largely by the railways, which brought London too 
 near, and by the opening of the Universities to Dissenters. But while 
 it lasted it was full of promise. 
 
72 NATIONAL SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 a long time to come, no real parallel to this system in 
 other countries, where the effective organs of local 
 administration continued to be controlled by centralised 
 bureaucracies. Lastly, the sincerity with which the 
 ideas of modern liberalism had been adopted by the new 
 ruling classes in Britain was demonstrated, during the 
 period following 1832, by the rapidity with which self- 
 government, on an ampler scale than had ever been 
 allowed to the American Settlements, was granted to the 
 infant colonies of the second British Empire. 1 Even in 
 the difficult conditions of India, the ideal of self-govern- 
 ment was during these years proclaimed as the ultimate 
 aim of policy. But the most remarkable illustration of 
 this tendency was afforded by the treatment of Canada 
 after the rebellion of 1837. Within four years full re- 
 sponsible government had been established amongst a 
 people recently simmering with discontent, and self- 
 government was successfully acclaimed as a panacea for 
 the most dangerous of political evils. Thus, although the 
 Act of 1832 was far from establishing in Britain a com- 
 plete system of democracy, it did securely enthrone once 
 more, after the reaction and disturbance of the revolu- 
 tionary age, the real conduct of public affairs by discussion 
 and agreement. It admitted to partnership in the re- 
 sponsibility for the national welfare those classes of the 
 community which had trained themselves for the work. 
 
 The immense and growing prosperity of Britain in this 
 period, unparalleled in any other country, was, of course, 
 not wholly or mainly due to political causes. But it was 
 partly due to them. The freedom of Britain from the 
 bitterness which marked the public life of most European 
 
 1 See The Expansion of Europe, chap, yi., for a fuller analysis of this 
 development. 
 
THE ERA OF LIBERAL REVOLUTIONS 73 
 
 countries during these years was certainly due to the 
 character of its political system. Britain alone enjoyed 
 freedom of the Press, of association, and of meeting. 
 For that reason the discontents which were felt among 
 her people expressed themselves not in underground 
 conspiracy, which always tends to assume extravagant 
 forms just because it has not to meet free criticism, but 
 in open, healthful, and productive public discussion. 
 For that reason also Britain became the refuge of eager 
 reformers from other countries ; so much so that most 
 governments regarded the hospitality which she afforded 
 to political exiles as a grave danger to public order. And 
 for the same reasons, Britain became, more than ever, the 
 envied model of reformers of other lands. 
 
 The revolution of 1830 in France was less happy in its 
 results, just because it was not supported by an estab- 
 lished tradition and habit of self-government. On the 
 surface, indeed, the changes effected in the two countries 
 seemed singularly alike. In France, as in Britain, the 
 middle class now obtained political power. Moreover, as 
 the new monarchy of the Orleanist branch held the 
 throne (like William m. in 1688) by gift of the represen- 
 tatives of the nation, there could be no more talk of the 
 parliamentary system existing by grace and by the grant 
 of the Crown ; no further claim, such as Charles x. had 
 put forward, that the king could override the charter if in 
 his discretion he thought fit to do so. To that extent 
 1830 may be said definitely to have established the 
 sovereignty of the people in France, as 1688 established 
 it in England. Again, there was a real freedom of parlia- 
 mentary discussion and debate in the France of Louis 
 Philippe, and a considerable, though not an unqualified, 
 freedom was allowed to the Press. For these reasons the 
 
U NATIONAL SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 French system appeared on a casual view to be as 
 genuinely a self-governing system as the British, and its 
 working was followed with an equal envy by the Liberals 
 of Germany and other countries. But it was not so in 
 reality. Not only did the restrictions on the Press, and 
 still more on associations and public meetings, drive the 
 expression of public discontent to seek a vent in under- 
 ground conspiracy ; more important, the control of 
 Parliament over the executive was very far from being 
 effective. Louis Philippe (1830-48) never admitted that 
 he must choose his ministers from among the leaders of 
 the parliamentary majority, and as Parliament was split 
 into many parties, no one of which had a clear majority, 
 he was able in a large degree to evade this necessity. 
 Above all, the real governing power in France still con- 
 tinued to be the Napoleonic bureaucracy, and by its 
 control over the bureaucrats the government was able to 
 influence elections in a way never known in England since 
 the time of George in. and Lord North. Some faint 
 attempts were made to establish the beginnings of local 
 self-government in France during this regime, but they 
 were singularly ineffective, and when the system sud- 
 denly fell, in 1848, bureaucratic influence was almost as 
 fully as ever the vital fact in local affairs. For all these 
 reasons, the system of 1830 not merely failed to satisfy 
 the demand for self-governing institutions, but when it 
 came to be overthrown, it fell, not by constitutional 
 means, not as the result of a decision arrived at after 
 open national discussion, but by a violent revolutionary 
 upheaval, which had been steadily brewing during all 
 the eighteen years for which the system lasted. 
 
 It is perhaps worthy of note that the systems of these 
 years in Britain and France constitute almost the only 
 
toE ERA OF LIBERAL REVOLUTIONS 75 
 
 attempts that have ever been made, or probably ever 
 will be made, to place a nation-state under the govern- 
 ment of the middle class. There have, of course, been 
 abundant instances in which the actual conduct of 
 government has been mainly in the hands of men belong- 
 ing to the middle class, while supreme power belonged to 
 classes above or below them ; for the middle class is in 
 all countries the great reservoir of competent, industrious 
 and honest administrators, and from among its members 
 are nearly always drawn the preachers of ideals, whether 
 of aristocracy or of democracy, of divine right or of 
 anarchy. All the governments of to-day are, in fact, 
 mainly worked by middle-class agents, and most of the 
 apostles of revolt are middle class also. But the national 
 systems of the 'thirties are the only important cases in 
 which the middle class as such has obtained sovereign 
 control of the organs of the State. Political philosophers 
 from Aristotle downwards have sung the praises of this 
 class as the ideal repository of power ; and the historian 
 Lecky has ventured to assert that human government 
 has never reached a higher pitch of honesty and ability 
 than it did in France and Britain under this system. In 
 his view humanity, which has been during all the ages 
 labouring after the perfect government, achieved it then for 
 one brief period ; but unhappily it let slip its felicity, and 
 has been sinking deeper into the abyss ever since ! And we 
 may very readily admit that the level of political ability 
 displayed by the parliamentary leaders in France and 
 Britain was uniformly high during this period, and that 
 both countries enjoyed a real prosperity. But the plain 
 fact is that the system lasted only a very short time in 
 both countries. Eighteen years of it (1830-48) were 
 enough to weary France to boredom, and even stolid 
 
76 NATIONAL SELF-GOVERNMENtf 
 
 Britain stood it for only thirty-five years (1832-67) : then 
 the middle class itself abandoned power. Why was this ? 
 If moderation, good sense and respectability are the 
 highest qualities a system of government can possess, we 
 may be ready to agree with Lecky that the systems 
 which brought to the forefront such shining examples of 
 these virtues as Sir Robert Peel and M. Guizot attained 
 very nearly to the ideal. But humanity will never be 
 satisfied with these rather stockish and tepid virtues. 
 The greatest defect of the middle class as a class is just 
 its mediocrity. And the swiftly changing world of the 
 nineteenth century demanded above all things courage, 
 imagination, and insight in its rulers — the very qualities 
 in which every middle class is most apt to be deficient. 
 When all is said, the middle class did not and could not 
 fully represent the fife and aspirations of the shifting, 
 striving, variegated society of a modern industrial state. 
 It had no such claim to leadership as the landowning 
 class had possessed in the comparatively stable and 
 ordered society of eighteenth-century Britain ; on the 
 contrary, it was, by all its habits of mind, almost de- 
 barred from any sympathetic understanding of those 
 vast and hitherto dumb elements in the modern state 
 which were now beginning to struggle towards a clearer 
 sense of their needs and claims, and were dimly forming 
 the aspiration after a fuller citizenship. These needs 
 and claims and aspirations of the dumb mass had to be 
 somehow interpreted and satisfied, if the ideal of* liberty 
 was to be realised in any generous sense. To the average 
 mind of the middle class they provided food only for 
 distrust and trepidation, not for sympathy. That is 
 why, in the continental states especially, hatred of the 
 bourgeoisie became, among the labouring classes, a far 
 
THE ERA OF LIBERAL REVOLUTIONS 77 
 
 more active sentiment than hatred of the aristocracy 
 had ever been. That is why, also, the government of 
 the middle class could not last. It lasted in Britain 
 long enough to achieve a good deal of good work, and 
 long enough to give time for the classes beneath it to 
 train themselves in the practice of self-government and 
 in political responsibility. It was overthrown in France 
 suddenly and easily, with a swift gesture of weariness, 
 before the masses of the nation were ready to take on 
 the task of government ; and France suffered, as we 
 shall see, a heavy penalty for its premature failure. But 
 in both countries it could be no more than a transition 
 stage, preparatory to the assumption by the whole com- 
 munity of the responsibility for its own destinies. While 
 the transition lasted, it seemed, to the middle class itself, 
 that stability and finality had been attained ; but all 
 the time the fermentation of the democratic idea was at 
 work below. 
 
 The years from 1830 to 1848, which are pre-eminently 
 the period of this underground fermentation, form one 
 of the most fascinating periods of modern history ; and 
 it is strange that their essential features have been so 
 little explored or discussed. For during these years, in 
 a degree unknown in any other period, there was going 
 on an all but universal European or cosmopolitan move- 
 ment, mainly conducted in secret. Its object was the 
 realisation of the twin ideals of Nationalism and Demo- 
 cracy, with which, here and there in the bigger centres 
 of population, the new and half-formulated ideal of 
 Socialism was beginning to be associated. On the Nation- 
 alist aspect of this movement we have already said some- 
 thing. 1 On the Socialist dreams which were beginning 
 1 Nationalism and Internationalism, pp. 80 ff. 
 
78 NATIONAL SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 to be blent with it we shall presently find it necessary 
 to make some comment. But for our present purpose, 
 and for its immediate effects upon the course of events, 
 its democratic or Liberal aspect is the most important. 
 
 Inspired and encouraged by the success of the revolu- 
 tions of 1830, partial and incomplete as it had been, 
 the apostles of democracy devoted themselves during 
 the following years to an ardent and unceasing propa- 
 ganda, the main centres of which were to be found among 
 the revolutionary exiles gathered in Paris and London, 
 in Brussels and Bern ; for these were the only important 
 centres where free discussion was possible. This feverish 
 propaganda spread over the whole of Europe, and was 
 conducted by means of secret clubs, and the dissemina- 
 tion of pamphlets and other literature. Everywhere it 
 was eagerly welcomed, especially by students, and by 
 the more educated artisans of the great cities. Govern- 
 ments were only half aware of its magnitude and strength, 
 and for that reason were completely taken by surprise 
 by the sudden unanimous upheaval of 1848 which was its 
 consequence. The elaborate police-systems of Austria 
 and Prussia were quite unable to combat it or even to 
 reveal it. It penetrated even into the vast inchoate 
 mass of the Russian people, and gave rise (in reaction 
 against ferocious repression) to the movement of Nihilism, 
 which took its birth during these years. 
 
 There was only one European country in which this 
 democratic agitation was allowed to proceed quite openly. 
 This was Britain, where it took the form of the Chartist 
 movement — an organised demand for manhood suffrage, 
 vote by ballot and annual elections, behind which lay 
 vague and conflicting schemes of social reorganisation. 
 The Chartists had their newspapers, in which even the 
 
THE ERA OF LIBERAL REVOLUTIONS 79 
 
 most violent among them could formulate their pro- 
 gramme without restraint ; they had their public meetings 
 and demonstrations, subject to no restriction except that 
 of not interfering with public order ; and the nation as a 
 whole took part in the canvassing of these proposals, which 
 had to stand such a fire of criticism as the underground 
 propaganda of other countries never met. In the result, 
 though there was some local rioting, there was never 
 any danger of revolution. The extent and character of 
 the movement was perfectly known. It was never a 
 huge, vague mystery, as in other countries. Its culmina- 
 tion took the peaceful form of a monster procession to 
 present a petition to Parliament. Nobody interfered 
 with the procession ; only a large number of private 
 citizens were asked to enrol themselves as special con- 
 stables to help the police in preventing the outbreak of 
 disorders. The day passed off without disturbance. The 
 petition was presented, and disregarded ; most of its 
 demands were actually granted in course of time, but as 
 the result of deliberation, and not of violence. 
 
 But far more valuable and important than the Chartist 
 agitation were various other spontaneous movements 
 which were going on during the period in Britain, among 
 the artisan classes of the towns ; for their success demon- 
 strated that these classes also possessed in a very high 
 degree the power of conducting common affairs by dis- 
 cussion and agreement. Since 1825 workpeople had been 
 allowed freely to organise trade unions, a right which 
 was regarded with the gravest apprehension in other 
 countries. As was to be expected, these organisations 
 made at first many mistakes in their endeavours to wrest 
 from the employing classes better conditions of life and 
 labour for their members, But the good which they 
 
80 NATIONAL SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 achieved vastly outweighed the evil, and they produced 
 in the best sections of the artisan community a habit of 
 co-operation and of regard for common interests, even 
 though they were primarily the interests of a class, which 
 prepared the way for the coming participation of these 
 classes in the direction of national affairs. Not less 
 valuable were the activities of the co-operative societies 
 and friendly societies, which were establishing themselves 
 during these years. Thus, during the period of middle- 
 class rule, the British people, true to their ancient in- 
 stincts, were preparing themselves for democracy by a 
 spontaneous increase and development of the arts of self- 
 government ; and it was because they were doing this, 
 and were left free to do it, as well as because the public 
 discussion of political questions was unrestrained, that 
 Britain was undisturbed by the great upheaval of 1848, 
 though the forces which produced it were as actively at 
 work within her bounds as in any other country. 
 
 For the year 1848 brought the sudden culmination of 
 all this long underground preparation. In February of 
 that year the Orleanist monarchy, and the middle-class 
 system which it represented, suddenly collapsed before 
 the barricades of Paris, and a democratic republic based 
 on universal suffrage was set up in its place. With 
 amazing speed the infection spread from France into the 
 neighbouring countries, whose soil had been so laboriously 
 prepared. It seized possession of all the states of 
 Germany and Italy, and produced a simultaneous up- 
 heaval among the discordant nationalities of Austria. 
 Everywhere, in the face of an apparently unanimous 
 public demand, the ruling governments found it im- 
 possible to offer any resistance. Everywhere parlia- 
 mentary institutions, based upon universal suffrage, were 
 
THE ERA OF LIBERAL REVOLUTIONS 81 
 
 Bet up. The whole of Metternich's reactionary system 
 tumbled to pieces like a house of cards. In Germany not 
 only were all the states, including Prussia, driven to con- 
 sent to the establishment of democratic government, but 
 a single parliament, elected by universal suffrage, met at 
 Frankfort to draw up a constitution for a new united 
 German state. Until the autumn of 1848 it appeared as 
 if the democratic revolution was going to be completely 
 triumphant, and as if Britain, hitherto the leader of the 
 movement towards self-government, was going to be left 
 completely in the background. The sweeping French 
 theories of political liberty had got the upper hand, and 
 they had certainly shown a power to arouse the enthusi- 
 asm of peoples such as the slow and practical experiments 
 of Britain had never exhibited. 
 
 But in the autumn of 1848 the reaction began. By 
 the middle of 1849 the complete democratic triumph 
 which had seemed within sight had everywhere become 
 hopeless. By 1850 the old regime seemed to be, every- 
 where except in France, fully restored ; and in France 
 itself the democratic republic of 1848 had by 1852 passed 
 into the despotic Second Empire, more repressive in its 
 policy than the middle-class monarchy of Louis Philippe, 
 or even the restoration-monarchy of Louis xvrn., had 
 ever been. The Austrian Empire returned to a hide- 
 bound system of reaction yet more severe than that which 
 had existed from 1815 to 1848. Italy sank back again 
 into disunion, and in every Italian state save one the 
 old dark tyranny revived. In Germany the deadening 
 forms of the Confederation of 1815, which had been swept 
 aside in 1848, were re-established, and the petty princes 
 were left free to re-establish unqualified personal rule, 
 and in most cases did so. From all these lands, so 
 
82 NATIONAL SELF-GO VEftNMENT 
 
 recently full of great hopes, a throng of exiles poured 
 forth to take refuge in Britain or in America, and the 
 victory of the system of self-government seemed in 1850 
 to be more distant than ever. 
 
 The disastrous failure of the great upheaval of 1848 
 seemed to contemporary Liberals to be an irremediable 
 tragedy. And indeed, if it could have achieved even a 
 partial victory, the subsequent history of Europe would 
 have been widely different, and probably much happier. 
 Especially unfortunate was the total failure of the re- 
 volution in Germany ; for if Germany could have been 
 unified under a democratic form of government, by the 
 spontaneous action of her whole people working in har- 
 mony with the peoples of other lands, she would have 
 been saved from the poison which came from the military 
 dominion of Prussia, and which has made her a danger 
 and a terror not merely to her neighbours but to the 
 whole of civilisation. As it was, the failure of 1848 left 
 her ready to be the victim of Bismarck, and of the spirit 
 which he embodied. The nationalist idea was not 
 destroyed or weakened in Germany by the failure of 1848 ; 
 but having been disappointed of the dream of securing 
 national unity through democratic machinery, it was 
 ready to use the weapons of blood and iron, force and 
 fraud. 
 
 Yet the failure of 1848 is highly instructive. It was 
 due to two main causes. The first was that its leaders, 
 and still more the bulk of their followers, were everywhere 
 impracticable theorists, without any real experience in 
 political affairs. The second was that because the 
 democratic movement was cosmopolitan in character, 
 and wholly disregarded distinctions of national tradition 
 and temper, it came inevitably into conflict with the 
 
THE ERA OF LIBERAL REVOLUTIONS 83 
 
 prickly spirit of national pride, which was a factor in the 
 '48 even more potent than the Liberal movement itself. 
 The Liberal cause was ruined in Austria by the antipathy 
 between Magyars and Slavs. It was ruined in Germany 
 by the difficulty of reconciling the demand for the unity 
 of all the German lands (including German Austria) with 
 the demand for an effective central representative con- 
 trol. It was ruined in Italy partly by provincial par- 
 ticularism, and partly by the failure of the Austrian 
 peoples to recognise that the Italian cause was identical 
 with their own ; they combined with their zeal for 
 liberty a resolution not to let their subject peoples escape 
 from their rule, and therefore provided the armies which 
 first crushed the Italian resistance, and could then be 
 turned back upon their own insecurely established 
 liberties. The failure of 1848 was, in short, inevitable, 
 because the attempt was made to establish a democratic 
 system suddenly, without the provision of any preliminary 
 training in self-government for the peoples who were to 
 carry it into effect, and before the victory of the national 
 cause had provided that foundation of unity without 
 which self-government cannot work. 
 
 The 1848 revolution was, however, not quite resultless. 
 It produced lasting effects upon the government of five 
 states — Holland, Denmark, Sardinia, France, and Prussia 
 — and the memory of it exercised a very important influ- 
 ence upon the minds of ruling princes, which, after an 
 interval, contributed to bring about the widespread de- 
 velopment of parliamentary institutions in the period 
 from 1859 onwards. 
 
 Although Holland was not the scene of any revolu- 
 tionary outbreak in 1848, the king was persuaded by 
 the spectacle of the disturbance in other lands to concede 
 
84 NATIONAL SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 a revision of the constitution of 1815, under which he 
 had wielded an uncontrolled authority over the executive. 
 The Dutch constitution of 1848 established a genuine 
 parliamentary system, with responsible ministers and 
 a moderate middle-class franchise. Under this system 
 Holland took its place, along with Britain and Belgium, 
 as one of the few states wherein national policy was 
 controlled by the popular will, and, apart from a long 
 agitation for the extension of the suffrage, which ulti- 
 mately triumphed in 1887, she has been in a remarkable 
 degree free from civil dissensions, and has enjoyed un- 
 broken peace and prosperity. In Denmark the king, 
 hitherto absolute, was persuaded by the revolutionary 
 movement to grant a democratic constitution in 1849 ; 
 but he soon changed his mind, and in 1854 and 1855 the 
 powers of the representative body were reduced to a 
 mere shadow. Still, Denmark has possessed some sort 
 of parliamentary institutions ever since 1849. 
 
 Sardinia was the only one of the Italian States which 
 remained faithful to the promise of self-government 
 which all the States had been forced to give in 1848. 
 Although her king, Victor Emanuel, might have got 
 better terms from victorious Austria if he had been 
 willing to break his word and fall in with the reaction, 
 he held out staunchly. And this good faith brought a 
 rich reward. It made Sardinia appear the only hope of 
 freedom for Italy in the eyes of Italian patriots. And the 
 parliamentary system working in Turin from 1848 on- 
 wards gave to the great statesman Cavour, who was to 
 be the real creator of Italian unity, the chance of rising 
 to the leadership of the national cause. It is worth 
 noting that Cavour was an admirer of the British system, 
 and from the first the new Parliament of Turin modelled 
 
THE ERA OF LIBERAL REVOLUTIONS 85 
 
 its proceedings upon the British exemplar. Though the 
 franchise in Sardinia was wide, it was not so wide as 
 universal suffrage. Perhaps it was this fact alone which 
 enabled it to resist the reactionary influences, which 
 would have been greatly strengthened if the mass of 
 the peasantry, under priestly control, had exercised the 
 controlling power. 
 
 In France universal (manhood) suffrage was the only 
 permanent result of 1848 ; it has remained undisturbed 
 from that day to this. Beyond question it was the insti- 
 tution of universal suffrage which enabled Napoleon m. 
 to sweep aside the republican system, and to establish 
 his despotic empire. Lamartine and the other leaders 
 of the revolution had been dominated not only by the 
 theory of complete democracy, but by the old Montesquieu 
 doctrine of the division of powers, whose consequences 
 we have already analysed in the case of America. In- 
 stead of making the executive responsible to the legis- 
 lature, they had given it an independent position, under 
 the direction of a President who was to be (on the 
 American model) directly elected by popular vote, and 
 whose mandate therefore would appear to be as valid as, 
 and even more immediate than, that of Parliament itself. 
 The magic of Napoleon's name sufficed to secure for him 
 an overwhelming popular vote as President. His position 
 as President gave him control over the army and over 
 the bureaucracy, which was still the most effective force 
 in the government of France. Aiming, from the moment 
 of his election, at the re-establishment of his uncle's 
 practically despotic system, he set himself especially to 
 win the support of the Church, which still wielded a very 
 powerful influence over the mass of the peasantry, and 
 of the prosperous middle class, which was alarmed, and 
 
86 NATIONAL SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 alienated from the liberal cause, by the undigested 
 Socialist programmes put forward in Paris during the 
 excitement of 1848, and by the bloody and reckless 
 disorders to which they had led. When Parliament, 
 largely influenced by middle-class feeling, showed a desire 
 to restrict universal suffrage, Napoleon posed as the 
 protector of the principle, and used this as a pretext for 
 the monstrous coup d'etat of 1851, whereby the Parliament 
 was dissolved and most of its leading members thrown 
 into prison. Supported by the army, the bureaucracy, 
 and the Church, he was able to secure from the votes of 
 an uneducated peasantry an overwhelming majority for 
 a plebiscite confirming these lawless acts, and establishing 
 a practical autocracy ; and a year later a second plebis- 
 cite authorised the establishment of a hereditary empire. 
 The most rigid control over the Press, the most ruthless 
 persecution of all opposition, did not in the least impair 
 his hold on the mass of the electors, supported as it was 
 by the moral influence of the Church, and by the organ- 
 ised corruption of the bureaucracy. There was not in 
 Europe a more complete autocracy than that which was 
 wielded by Napoleon m. between 1851 and 1867. It 
 rested upon universal suffrage, and could not have existed 
 for a day if the voting power had been limited to those 
 classes which possessed some political knowledge and 
 some freedom of thought. France had taken too sudden 
 a leap into complete democracy ; she paid for it by a 
 ruinous despotism. 
 
 But the most interesting of the permanent results of 
 1848 was the introduction of the semblance of a par- 
 liamentary system into the militarist and bureaucratic 
 government of Prussia, and the formal fulfilment, after 
 a delay of nearly half a century, of the promise given in 
 
THE ERA OF LIBERAL REVOLUTIONS 87 
 
 1813. There was, indeed, no State in Europe for which 
 a system of self-government seemed less appropriate than 
 Prussia, for the greatness of this State had been absolutely 
 the creation of a strong military monarchy. Originally 
 a ' mark ' or border province, a sort of permanent armed 
 camp thrown out by the Germans into the realm of the 
 Slavs, Prussia had never owed its growth to any kind of 
 national feeling. Every addition to its territory had 
 been carved out by the sword, or won by fraud ; and the 
 landed gentry of the true Prussian territory east of the 
 Elbe, the celebrated ' Junkers,' were traditionally a 
 fighting caste, who owed their lands to the sword, and 
 had never forgotten it, and who still, in the nineteenth 
 century, exercised a quite feudal dominance over their 
 tenantry. They had found in the princes of the Hohen- 
 zollern dynasty leaders after their own heart, and had 
 provided for many generations the officer-class of the 
 very efficient Prussian army. Brave, brutal, competent 
 and domineering, materialists and believers that Might is 
 Right, they scorned all the sentimentalism of the Liberals 
 and the Nationalists. They were the ruling class of a 
 State which had won greatness by means of force and 
 fraud, and by these means alone, and these seemed to 
 them the only stable foundations for greatness in States. 
 They believed in discipline, not liberty. Regarding war 
 as the highest of political activities, they saw in the 
 warrior-leaders of the State its natural rulers, and the 
 notion of settling vexed questions by the ballot-papers 
 of the mob filled them with mere contempt. 
 
 The ' Junkers ' formed the first of the two pillars of the 
 Prussian monarchy. The second was its highly efficient 
 bureaucracy, the best-trained and most competent public 
 service in Europe, which had been developed by Frederick 
 
88 NATIONAL SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 William I. and his successors since the beginning of the 
 eighteenth century. With a fine tradition of industry 
 and method, the Prussian bureaucracy combined a 
 masterful contempt for the intelligence of the populace 
 whom it brigaded and dragooned. No one could be more 
 unsympathetic, or more indifferent to the tastes and 
 preferences of ordinary men, than the Prussian bureau- 
 crats ; but their hard and bullying methods had produced 
 excellent material results. It was their work which had 
 enabled a poor and thinly peopled State to play the part 
 of a great Power. They had done wonders in reorganising 
 the new provinces acquired by Prussia in 1815. They 
 were the organisers of the Prussian Zollverein, the most 
 remarkable political creation of early nineteenth-century 
 Germany. With their tradition of brilliant professional 
 efficiency, and their knowledge of the great successes 
 which it had won, they were naturally slow to believe 
 that the enthronement of the ignorant mass could bring 
 any good results. Thus the two main factors of Prussian 
 greatness were united in their contempt for the democratic 
 theory. They preferred to pin their faith to the divine 
 right of the Hohenzollern monarchy, whose servants they 
 had always been, and which had given them the oppor- 
 tunity of winning their triumphs. 
 
 Yet even in Prussia the demand for liberty and self- 
 government had found an echo. Even the Prussian 
 people were attracted by the dream of being able to call 
 their souls their own, and of securing that the objects 
 pursued by the State should be those dictated by the 
 public conscience, by what Rousseau called the General 
 Will, not those entertained by any ambitious dominant 
 caste, however efficient. In 1813 the universality of 
 this demand had led Frederick William Hi. to promise 
 
THE ERA OF LIBERAL REVOLUTIONS 89 
 
 a constitution, but the promise had never been fulfilled. 
 In 1848 the demand for political liberty was so over- 
 whelming and so unanimous, even in Berlin, that Frederick 
 William iv. gave way, and in spite of the disgust of his 
 Junker and bureaucrat advisers, permitted the election, 
 by universal suffrage, of a representative body which 
 was to draw up a liberal constitution of the most approved 
 modern type. This assembly actually met, and talked 
 a good deal. As soon as the reaction was well under 
 way, the king dissolved it. But being at the moment 
 anxious to placate the German Liberals (who deeply dis- 
 trusted Prussia) because he hoped for their support in 
 securing the leadership of the national movement, he 
 thought it wise to issue a constitution of his own devising. 
 This was the constitution of 1850, and as, unlike most of 
 the systems of these years, it was allowed to survive, it 
 is still the ruling constitution of the Prussian State. On 
 the surface it was most liberal in character. It set up a 
 Parliament of two Houses, an Upper House partly heredi- 
 tary and partly nominated by the Crown, and a Lower 
 House elected by universal suffrage. 
 
 But a closer analysis shows that this appearance of 
 liberality was only a mask, and that the scheme had been 
 devised with great skill to take away with one hand what 
 it seemed to give with the other. The Upper House 
 being mainly nominated, and drawn from the landed 
 class who were all by tradition devoted monarchists, was 
 far more completely dependent upon the Crown than the 
 House of Lords ever was in Britain ; and as it possessed 
 an equality of power with the Lower House, it could be 
 trusted to ensure that any proposals distasteful to the 
 government should be suppressed. The Lower House, 
 though elected by universal suffrage, was by no means 
 
90 NATIONAL SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 so democratic as this would suggest ; for by a very in- 
 genious device the electors were divided into three classes 
 according to the amount of direct taxation which they 
 paid : the few richest men who between them paid one- 
 third of the taxes formed the first class ; the more numerous 
 but still few men next most heavily taxed formed the 
 second class ; and the whole mass of poor folk who paid 
 no direct taxes at all were lumped with the very large 
 number of men of small fortune who between them paid 
 the last third of the total. Each of these groups had 
 equal voting powers, so that though every adult male 
 had a vote, the vote of a rich man weighed as heavily as 
 many hundreds or thousands of poor men's votes ; and 
 it might be expected that the forces of conservatism 
 could generally be secure of a majority. 
 
 Still more significant were the restrictions imposed 
 upon the powers of the new Parliament. As the consti- 
 tution had been granted by a royal concession, it was 
 held that the king had alienated from the mass of his 
 hitherto unlimited powers only those which he had 
 specifically defined in his instrument of concession. All 
 residual authority must be regarded as remaining with 
 the Crown ; and in any case of doubt as to whether the 
 Landtag (parliament) possessed a right which it claimed, 
 the award must be in favour of the Crown. Now the 
 rights definitely conceded were only two. The Landtag's 
 approval was required for new projects of legislation, and 
 for new proposals of taxation or loans. So far as concerns 
 legislation, the whole body of existing law (which assumed 
 the existence of an autocratic authority) retained, of 
 course, its validity, and could not be altered without the 
 consent of the Upper House and the Crown, which was 
 never obtainable when any real restriction upon govern- 
 
THE ERA OF LIBERAL REVOLUTIONS 91 
 
 mental authority was proposed. New laws initiated in 
 the Lower House had not the faintest chance of passing 
 unless they were approved by the government ; and for 
 this reason the Lower House soon gave up the attempt 
 to initiate legislation, and perforce confined itself to de- 
 bating government proposals, which it had no hope of 
 being able seriously to alter. So far as concerned taxation, 
 the Landtag was precluded from touching any already 
 existing tax ; it could only approve or disapprove of new 
 taxes. 
 
 Such were the actual powers of the new Parliament. 
 They were modest enough. But far more important 
 were the powers withheld from its purview. In accord- 
 ance with the mischievous doctrine of ' division of powers,' 
 it was allowed no control over executive government. 
 It could not appoint or dismiss a single minister, and 
 the most overwhelming adverse vote could have no effect 
 upon ministerial action, because, lacking the power of 
 refusing supplies, the representative house had no means 
 of enforcing its opinion. The heads of the great depart- 
 ments were not to be, as in England, politicians sitting 
 in Parliament ; they were independent permanent ser- 
 vants of the Crown, and though they might attend either 
 house to make statements or answer questions, they did 
 so de haut en has, from a raised dais, and could not be 
 compelled to say more than they thought fit. In other 
 words, the Crown retained an entirely independent con- 
 trol of the bureaucracy ; and as the bureaucracy was much 
 older than Parliament, and as its power was more effec- 
 tually rooted in every part of the country than that of 
 Parliament could for long hope to be, this meant that 
 the real conduct of government was wholly removed 
 from parliamentary control. Lastly, the army, which 
 
92 NATIONAL SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 had always been the main source of the power of the 
 Hohenzollerns, was entirely withdrawn from the control 
 or criticism of Parliament. No Hohenzollern would 
 willingly allow, or has ever allowed, any other power to 
 share in the supreme command over the army ; and as, 
 by Prussian law, the army included in some sense the 
 whole manhood of the nation under the age of forty, 
 this was a limitation of the most vital import. As fully 
 as the empire of Napoleon, the Hohenzollern throne had 
 always rested, and now rests, ultimately upon military 
 strength ; and so long as the royal control over the 
 military forces of the State remains unqualified, Prussia 
 must continue to be essentially a despotism, whatever 
 the constitutional forms by which it is masked. 1 
 
 Thus the constitution of 1850, liberal as it appeared 
 on the surface, did not give to the people of Prussia the 
 power of controlling the character and aims of their own 
 government. It left the old bureaucratic and militarist 
 system as powerful as ever, only strengthened by being 
 made aware of the trend of public opinion. In some 
 respects the system of government thus set up resembled 
 that of the Tudors in England ; in the one case as in the 
 other, Parliament was permitted to approve of legisla- 
 tion and taxation, but not to meddle in the conduct of 
 government. But the differences are vital. The Tudors 
 had no army ; and, lacking military force, could not 
 have maintained their authority for a month if they had 
 violated public sentiment. Within twelve years of 1850, 
 Bismarck was to show that there was no such restriction 
 upon the Hohenzollern monarchy. The Tudors had no 
 
 1 It is worth while to quote once more the Prussian historian and 
 publicist Delbruck : ■ Wherein lies the real power ? It lies in arms. 
 The question, therefore, by which to determine the essential character 
 of a State is always the questiorj, " Whom does the Army obey ? " '— 
 Recjierung und Volhswille, p. 133. 
 
THE ERA OF LIBERAL REVOLUTIONS 93 
 
 highly organised and efficient bureaucracy, spreading its 
 net over the whole country ; they were dependent for 
 the exercise of their will upon the self-governing local 
 organisations. In all essentials, England under the 
 Tudors was a much more genuinely self-governing land 
 than Prussia after 1850. 
 
 By 1855 the results of the period of liberal revolutions 
 had been fully revealed. They were greater than could 
 have been anticipated by any but the most sanguine 
 prophets in. 1815. The forms, at least, of representative 
 government had been instituted in most of the European 
 states. But there were only four states — Britain, 
 Belgium, Holland, and Sardinia — in which the main 
 lines of national policy were effectively determined by 
 the representatives of the nation. In France universal 
 suffrage, prematurely established, had led to the military 
 autocracy of Napoleon ni. In Prussia the old ruling 
 factors retained their supremacy, unaffected by the forms 
 of Parliament. Denmark had followed the Prussian 
 example, and neither the old-fashioned estates of Sweden, 
 nor the democratic assembly of Norway, had any control 
 over the executive government. Spain had been nomin- 
 ally a constitutional state since 1834, but she was ruled 
 in fact by a succession of cliques and military dictators. 
 Portugal, nominally constitutional since 1826, was in 
 much the same condition. Neither of these countries 
 can in any real sense be described as self-governing, be- 
 cause in neither was the people sufficiently educated to 
 be able to use the machinery that had been set up. 
 Greece had obtained a parliamentary system in 1843, 
 but it had been made futile by the policy of the Ger- 
 man prince, Otho of Bavaria, who occupied the Greek 
 throne ; and he was able thus to use the representative 
 machinery, in the Prussian manner, as a sort of veil for 
 
S4 . NATIONAL SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 absolutism, mainly because the people were not yet 
 educated into the capacity for self-government. In the 
 Austrian Empire, and in all the Italian states save 
 Sardinia, a brutal and blind reaction was triumphant. 
 In Russia and the Turkish Empire the supremacy of 
 despotism had not yet been even shaken. Yet it was a 
 real success which these forty years had achieved. In 
 all the most progressive states the principle of popular 
 participation in government had been, however grudg- 
 ingly, accepted. 
 
 These successes were, for the most part, due to the 
 leadership of the middle classes, and they represented, 
 on the whole, a victory for middle-class ideas, and especi- 
 ally for the ideas of the energetic classes of capitalist 
 / entrepreneurs who were everywhere guiding the fortunes 
 of the new industries. They desired a share in govern- 
 ment partly, of course, because the spirit of liberty was 
 working in them. But they desired it also as a means 
 of securing the removal of vexatious restrictions upon 
 the operation of the potent new forces which they con- 
 trolled. Freedom for them meant, in a pre-eminent 
 degree, economic freedom, the withdrawal of restraints 
 upon industry. They did not wish for political power in 
 order that they might use it for the construction of a new 
 social order, because they did not believe in the deliberate 
 design or regulation of social activities by the state ; in 
 their view the new order would grow most healthily if 
 it was left to itself. This view was most strongly held 
 in Britain, where the influence of the industrial-capita- 
 list class was more powerful than anywhere else ; and 
 in Britain this was pre-eminently the age of ' Manches- 
 terism ' and of laisser-faire. But the same attitude was 
 perceptible in all the other lands where the industrial 
 change was at work, though in other countries it was 
 
THE EftA OF LIBERAL REVOLUTION 95 
 
 qualified and restrained by the surviving power of the 
 old ruling elements, and by the tradition of strong 
 government. 
 
 Essentially this attitude implied a new definition of 
 political liberty, according to which that community is 
 most free where the government has least power to inter- 
 fere with or control the action of individuals. The free 
 State, on this definition, ought not to be regarded as a 
 self-governing organic society responsible for the well- 
 being of all its parts ; on the contrary, its members, as 
 free individuals, should be held wholly responsible for 
 their own well-being, and the State ought to be no more 
 than an ' association ' of individuals for the purpose of 
 meeting a minimum of common needs, the maintenance 
 of order, the protection of life and property, the defence 
 of the whole body against foreign attack. Its business 
 ought to be, mainly, to ' hold the ring,' and let the 
 natural forces, interests, and ideas which are at work 
 in the community work themselves out in free competi- 
 tion : ' a free field, and no favour, and the devil take the 
 hindmost.' Such an attitude was natural to those who 
 drew the greatest profit from the new industrial move- 
 ments. But it minimised the value and functions of 
 organised society to an extent never known before. 
 
 It is neither just nor true to say, what is often said, 
 that the exponents of these ' individualist ' and essentially 
 anti-social ideas were governed exclusively by considera- 
 tions of their own material interests. Such a judgment, 
 like any judgment which fixes its attention solely upon 
 the materialist aspects of human life, is profoundly false 
 and misleading. The individualist creed of the mid- 
 nineteenth century was inspired; among its best advo- 
 cates (and it is only by its best advocates that any doctrine 
 can fairly be judged) by a genuine belief in liberty, and 
 
96 NATIONAL SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 in the value of human personality, a genuine fear lest 
 the vigour and initiative of the individual, which is the 
 source of all progress, should be diminished or hampered 
 by excessive regulation or cosseting. Its best advo- 
 cates were confident that, left to themselves in freedom, 
 rational men were far more likely to work out for them- 
 selves in the long run conditions favourable to general 
 well-being than if fallible politicians of limited outlook 
 were to attempt to determine beforehand the unpredict- 
 able development of human society. And the individual- 
 ist period achieved certain results which could scarcely 
 have been attained by men who had a less robust faith 
 in individuality, a less whole-hearted distrust of central- 
 ised control. They established freedom of the Press, the 
 utmost freedom of discussion, freedom of association 
 among individuals for all legitimate common purposes, 
 whether these were in accord with the dominant ideas of 
 ruling politicians or not, freedom of religious belief and 
 religious practice, freedom of access to knowledge for all 
 who aspired after it, or could by their own efforts devise 
 the means to attain it. These were great things, and the 
 individualist theorists who laboured to secure them made 
 real contributions to the rise of a richer conception of 
 liberty which was to follow them. And if it be true that 
 the regime of almost unrestricted competition was extra- 
 ordinarily unfair to the weak, and gave every advantage 
 to the strong, at least it is fair to remember that this was 
 in some degree recognised. One of the first enactments 
 of the middle-class Parliament of Britain in 1833 was a 
 Factory Act ; and although the development of the code 
 of regulations for industry was timid and slow, yet there 
 was development, and its slowness was not due wholly, 
 or even mainly, to the self-interest of the ' exploiting ' 
 
THE ERA OF LIBERAL REVOLUTIONS 97 
 
 classes, but largely to an honest distrust of interference 
 with individual liberty. 
 
 It was inevitable that there should be reaction against 
 this individualist doctrine, this extraordinarily narrow 
 conception of the duties of society to its members ; 
 inevitable that the ' hindmost,' whom the prevalent creed 
 so lightly consigned to the care of ' the devil,' should 
 resent this fate, and demand that society should take a 
 less ruthless view of its responsibilities to its own members 
 — especially as, in every community, the ' hindmost ' 
 proved to be a great majority of the whole citizen body. 
 And there was a strong under-current of reaction through- 
 out all this period. It found expression in many quarters. 
 In Britain, where the new industrial development was 
 furthest advanced, it inspired much of the writing of 
 Carlyle, of Ruskin, and of Maurice, Kingsley and the 
 other Christian Socialists. But there was little that was 
 positive and constructive about this thinking. For the 
 most part, it went no further than a general denunciation 
 of laisser-faire, and an active sympathy with schemes for 
 social betterment. It did not imply any clearly wrought- 
 out theory of the functions of the State. In some cases, 
 as with Carlyle, it was actually hostile to the idea of self* 
 government, and demanded rather ' kingship,' after the 
 Prussian model, imposing ' discipline ' from above. 
 
 More fruitful, because more in contact with the facts, 
 were the working-class movements of the time ; for they 
 were gradually working their way towards a new doctrine. 
 They were deeply influenced by the crude beginnings of 
 the Socialist theory — the theory that it is the duty of 
 the State to undertake the organisation of the material 
 basis of its citizens' lives and not merely to leave it to 
 chance, as the individualist doctrine required. Although 
 
 Q 
 
98 NATIONAL SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 the actual demands of the Chartists were purely political 
 in character, many of them demanded political power for 
 the working class in order that they might have the 
 means of putting this conception into practice. The 
 British working classes of the 'thirties were profoundly 
 influenced by the teachings of the father of modern 
 Socialism, Robert Owen. Owen was a very successful 
 cotton manufacturer, who, impressed by the evil results 
 of an unmitigated system of capitalist control, had 
 carried out, among the workpeople of his own factory at 
 New Lanark, a series of social reforms which were ex- 
 tremely successful, and attracted the admiration of all 
 who saw them. On the basis of this experience he 
 constructed a scheme for the reorganisation of society, 
 whereunder the State was to divide its citizens into co- 
 operative groups of from five hundred to two thousand, 
 each group owning its own means of production. It was 
 a fantastic and unworkable scheme, based upon quite 
 unsound philosophical ideas. But it was the first serious 
 attempt to work out a method for bringing the organised 
 strength of society to bear in order to secure healthy con- 
 ditions of life and labour for its members. It proclaimed 
 the ideal of the State as a power that should not merely 
 ' hold the ring ' while evil and good forces struggled for 
 supremacy, but should deliberately labour to secure the 
 well-being of all its citizens. And this conception of the 
 State as a great partnership for the organisation of good 
 living was in effect a new conception in the modern 
 world, and therefore very valuable in spite of the fan- 
 tastic forms which it assumed. It might have been, and 
 indeed was, the beginning of a national discussion of the 
 ultimate aims of a free, self-governing society. 
 
 Almost contemporary with Owen ? a number of French 
 
THE ERA OF LIBERAL REVOLUTIONS 99 
 
 writers — St. Simon, Fourier, Proudhon, Cabet — were 
 working out similar Utopias, or schemes of social recon- 
 struction, which were, for the most part, even more 
 crude than those of Owen, and which, like his, generally 
 aimed at the organisation of little self-sufficient com- 
 munities within the State. They even made experiments 
 in the foundation of such communities, especially in 
 America ; but all the experiments promptly broke down, 
 mainly because their authors had disregarded the unity 
 and interrelations of the whole complex fabric of modern 
 society. It was with the Frenchman, Louis Blanc, whose 
 Organisation de Travail was published in 1839, that the 
 new doctrine first embodied the assertion of the necessity 
 of wholesale and drastic State action in the reorganisation 
 of large-scale industrial methods. Blanc's theories had 
 great influence during the next ten years. They contri- 
 buted largely to the ferment which produced the revolu- 
 tion of 1848. An attempt was made to put them into 
 operation during the confusion of 1848 in Paris. It was 
 ill-managed, and failed disastrously, partly because the 
 conditions were extremely unfavourable, partly because 
 the new doctrines had received no adequate discussion 
 such as would have demonstrated their defects, while 
 the men who tried to apply them had no training in 
 co-operation. Significantly enough, the chief result of 
 this premature experiment was to make men welcome 
 the despotism of Napoleon in. as a safeguard against 
 disorder. 
 
 But towards the close of our period, on the very eve of 
 the revolution of 1848, the Socialist doctrine began to 
 take on an altogether new colour from the teachings 
 of Karl Marx, which were henceforth to affect very 
 deeply the character and aims of the democratic 
 
100 NATIONAL SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 movement in most European countries ; they affect it 
 still to-day. Marx was a middle-class German-Jew, a 
 philosopher trained in the German universities, who had 
 no experience of industrial life, whether on the side of 
 labour or of management ; a pure theorist, with a German 
 love of cut-and-dried formulae. He spent the best part 
 of his life in England, a refugee from the tyranny of his 
 native Prussia, but he was never able to understand the 
 spirit and working of British institutions. His greatest 
 book, Das Kapital, was not published until long after 
 this date, and was indeed not completed at the time of 
 his death in 18S3. But already before the Revolution of 
 1848 he had worked out his main ideas. They were em- 
 bodied in the ' Communist Manifesto,' which he wrote in 
 1847 for the Communist Union, reorganised in that year. 
 
 The motto of the ' Communist Manifesto ' was ' Prole- 
 tarians of all lands, unite ' ; and in this motto was already 
 proclaimed the essence of the Marxian creed, in so far as 
 it was a programme of action. 
 
 Manifestly, this motto repudiated the national idea : 
 the idea of a sentiment of unity overriding the diver- 
 gencies of class and interest which divide a community, 
 and holding before them all the aim of the common 
 good. The existence of such a sentiment, as we have 
 seen, forms the only practicable basis for self-government 
 on the national scale. But the national idea naturally 
 had little appeal for Marx. Not only was he a Jew, 
 sharing that aloofness from national feelings and tradi- 
 tions which marks many Jews ; but he was permanently 
 exiled from the land of his birth, and permanently out of 
 sympathy with the ideas of the land which had given 
 him protection. Instead of desiring to strengthen this 
 sentiment of unity which we call nationality, he desired 
 
IHE ERA OF LIBERAL REVOLUTIONS 101 
 
 rather to destroy it, by stimulating in all lands an intense 
 hostility, an unending and relentless ' Class War ' be- 
 tween the bourgeoisie or middle class, whom he rather 
 arbitrarily defined as the capitalist class, and the wage- 
 earning operatives whom he described as Proletarians. 
 From his time onwards, the Socialist doctrine has been, 
 among many of its adherents in all countries, no longer 
 what it had been with earlier Socialists, a progressive 
 body of theory as to the way in which nations might 
 healthily order their affairs ; it has been too often simply 
 a proclamation of unceasing and relentless warfare, 
 aiming at no clearly defined end save the defeat and 
 dethronement of the existing dominant classes by the 
 ' Proletarians,' and the establishment of a ' Proletarian 
 Dictatorship.' This sterile and unattractive aim was not, 
 indeed, the essential element in Marx's teaching, properly 
 regarded. But it was the part of it which was most 
 easily grasped, and most readily put into action. It was, 
 in the nature of things, inconsistent with the ideal of 
 growing unity and growing equality which is of the 
 essence of the democratic idea. And the end which it 
 seemed to propose, that of the mere replacement of the 
 rule of one class by that of another, instead of the co- 
 operation of all (despite their differences) for the common 
 advantage, was a fundamentally undemocratic end. 
 
 The greatness of Marx (for in some ways he was a 
 great man and a great thinker) was that he insisted upon 
 regarding the whole social movement as a historical de- 
 velopment, conditioned by the facts of history. But his 
 view of human history was the most purely materialistic 
 that any reputable thinker has ever propounded. It was 
 what is called a ' realist ' view, like the equally ugly 
 Bealpolitik of the ruling classes of Prussia which had 
 
102 NATIONAL SELF-GOVERNMENT? 
 
 driven him into exile. For him the material factor, the 
 struggle for wealth, had always been and must always 
 be the sole ruling factor in human life. This was a view 
 strangely contradicted by his own long life of ill-rewarded 
 study and devotion to an unpopular cause. Putting 
 aside, as of no account among human motives, the love 
 of God and the love of man, the zeal of martyrs and the 
 sacrifices of patriots, the desire for justice, the passion 
 of freedom, and the zest of adventure, he saw in human 
 history nothing but an unending struggle between classes 
 for the control of the sources of wealth. First the Feudal 
 class had dominated ; now the Capitalist class held the 
 upper hand ; against them the extruded Proletarian 
 class, in all lands, must declare an undying and pitiless 
 war. Superficially, of course, Marx's view is supported 
 by the facts : it is a part of the truth, misleading unless 
 regarded alongside of other parts of the truth. There 
 have always been, and there perhaps always will be, 
 conflicts in human society between rival classes and rival 
 interests, and out of these conflicts progress has come. 
 But cutting across these, there have been other conflicts, 
 greater because less materialist, the conflict between the 
 claims of individual liberty and the claims of that autho- 
 rity which seems necessary for the common weal, the 
 conflict between rival religious ideas, between various 
 political conceptions, between ideals and material in- 
 terests. And in all these conflicts, the conflict of classes 
 equally with the rest, right has never lain wholly on one 
 side, nor have the lines of division between rival parties 
 or interests ever been sharp and clear-cut. There is a 
 sense in which class-war (or, to use a less question-begging 
 term, class-conflict) is not only an inevitable but a healthy 
 feature of the life of every living society : it is the natural 
 
THE ERA OF LIBERAL REVOLUTIONS 103 
 
 and proper tendency of every class to strive for improved 
 status, for the recognition of its value to the common 
 weal, and for the opportunities of fuller life for its 
 members. The aim of such conflict, rightly conceived, 
 should be to reduce so far as possible the division between 
 classes, and to create a greater equality of treatment ; 
 and it will naturally draw reinforcement from many 
 other struggling causes which have in themselves no 
 direct relation to the economic war. This is a very 
 different aim from the aim of rigidifying and emphasising 
 class distinctions, with a view to the ultimate substitution 
 of the ascendancy of one embittered class for that of 
 another, which seemed to many of its upholders to be 
 the essence of Marx's doctrine. Hence the Marxian view, 
 which paid no regard to any conflict save the materialist 
 conflict of economic classes, and which assumed that in 
 this conflict, so far as right and wrong were involved at 
 all, the right was all on one side, was an essentially false 
 view, fundamentally reactionary and undemocratic. 
 
 Materialism is nearly always closely allied with fatalism, 
 and Marx combined with his materialist view of history 
 a curiously fatalistic view of the future course of economic 
 development. He held that capitalism must lead to an 
 increasing unification of industries, and in this idea 
 (which he borrowed from Louis Blanc), events have in 
 some degree justified him. He held that wealth must 
 gradually be concentrated in a smaller and smaller 
 number of hands ; here the facts have been dead against 
 him, for one of the features of the last two generations 
 has been a rapid increase in the number not only of 
 large but of moderate fortunes. He held that the con- 
 dition of the working classes must become steadily more 
 miserable, and this anticipation also has been utterly 
 
104 NATIONAL SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 falsified by the facts, in all countries. His conclusion 
 was that capitalism contained the seeds of its own ruin ; 
 that the moment must come when it would be easily 
 overthrown ; and that the Proletarian class must organise 
 itself, and train itself by unresting war, so as to be able 
 to seize this moment when it came, by taking command 
 of the State and .assuming the control of all capital. He 
 did not, apparently, see that even State-owned capital 
 must be managed by somebody ; and that a new class-war 
 must promptly begin, on his own principles, between the 
 bureaucrats who would manage, and the still ' Proletarian ' 
 class who must work under their direction for a wage. He 
 did not in the least degree foresee what has actually come 
 about — the increasing diffusion of ownership of capital, 
 so that a large proportion even of his Proletarian class 
 have themselves become in a modest way capitalists. 
 He did not foresee the immense funds of capital that 
 would be wielded by co-operative groups of workpeople. 
 He did not foresee the process whereby most holders of 
 capital are in an increasing degree becoming also wage- 
 earners, and many wage-earners holders of capital, so 
 that his arbitrarily differentiated classes are increasingly 
 melting into one another. The time is coming, it would 
 seem, when we shall all be wage-earners, and all owners 
 of capital, as well as all citizens of the State. 
 
 But, in truth, Marx gave no clear idea of how the future 
 State was to be arranged, except that it was to own all 
 capital and to be controlled by the Proletarian class. It 
 was no part of his aim to set an ideal before his followers. 
 To do that would be only to construct another Utopia, 
 and he was the sworn enemy of Utopias, that is, of 
 clearly grasped ideals for the future. When the English 
 Radical, Professor Beesley, wrote an article on ' The 
 Future of the Working Classes,' Marx wrote to him that 
 
THE ERA OF LIBERAL REVOLUTIONS 105 
 
 he must henceforth be regarded as a reactionary, since 
 only reactionaries laid plans for a better state of things 
 in the future ! There was no place in his philosophy for 
 human design springing from good-will. Class-war for 
 its own sake, and the rejection of all illusions about 
 patriotism, national unity, or the co-operation of different 
 types and different schools of thought to produce an in- 
 creasing well-being : class-war between artificially defined 
 classes, whose differences must be intensified and empha- 
 sised in order that their warfare might be intensified — 
 that was the most effective part of his message to his age. 
 
 The doctrines of Marx have been riddled by the criti- 
 cism not only of his opponents but of his followers ; 
 the economic movement of the age has falsified most 
 of his predictions ; the national spirit has proved 
 enormously more potent than he supposed. But still the 
 doctrine of class-war as he preached it exercises its 
 malignant influence : the doctrine of class-war, not as a 
 necessary evil, but as a thing to be desired and fomented, 
 as something that must go on aimlessly until, suddenly, 
 and in some unrealised way, it shall bring about an un- 
 foreseen and unprepared millennium. That is not any- 
 where to-day the doctrine of enlightened Socialists, but 
 it everywhere gets a ready hearing, and it has left its 
 trail even over the thinking of the most intelligent. 
 
 Thus over against the narrow and limited doctrine 
 of Individualism, which nevertheless was not a rigidly 
 defined creed, but was capable of expansion, and which 
 in any case did aim, however mistakenly, at the supposed 
 welfare of the whole, Marx substituted a still more narrow 
 and more limited creed : a creed which, while it vaguely 
 promised an ultimate undefined millennium, seemed to 
 forbid its followers to think of the common weal, or to 
 make plans for the future, and preached the value of 
 
106 NATIONAL SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 economic war for its own sake, just as the supporters of 
 Prussian government preached the value of national war 
 for its own sake. Was this to be the new form of the 
 movement towards self-government — this ideal of Class- 
 War leading to Class-Ascendancy ? If so, the end of it 
 must be a tyranny more unhappy than any of the older 
 class-ascendancies, since these at least had been, what 
 this could never be, the willingly accepted rule of a class 
 which formed the natural leaders in a unified society. 
 Thus it was not only against despotism, and the en- 
 trenched dominion of dominant classes, that the cause 
 of national self-government must henceforth fight ; it 
 must fight also against the distortion of its own aims 
 into something as ugly as that against which it was 
 already fighting. That issue was already emerging before 
 the close of the period of Liberal Revolutions. 
 
 It is interesting to note the answer almost immedi- 
 ately given to it in Britain. In 1851 was founded the 
 Amalgamated Society of Engineers, the first trade union 
 of a new type, which incorporated a number of local and 
 conflicting bodies, and undertook the direction of the 
 interests of the operatives in a whole great industry 
 throughout the country. It was soon followed by other 
 similar bodies, which were now so powerful that all 
 employers must take account of them, and which were, 
 therefore, able almost to take a share in the management 
 of their respective industries, so far as concerned rates of 
 wages and the hours and conditions of labour. Here 
 was, in a sense, 'class-war.' But it was class-war of 
 the most legitimate type ; it aimed at obtaining recogni- 
 tion, status and decent conditions for the operative class 
 by a reasonable process of discussion and bargaining with 
 their employers. The leaders of these great trade unions 
 achieved very striking success. But they did it by 
 
THE ERA OF LIBERAL REVOLUTIONS 107 
 
 definitely limiting their activity to the sphere with which 
 they were immediately concerned, and which they fully 
 understood. They did not declare war a outrance, war 
 for its own sake, against the whole existing order of 
 society, for the attainment of a remote and unanalysed 
 end. They faced the facts as they were, and made the 
 best of them. And they won for their own organisations 
 a sort of partnership in the management of industry, 
 not by any means complete, capable of great expansion, 
 but promising very fruitful future developments. They 
 took no direct part in public affairs ; these, as yet, seemed 
 to be the field of other conflicts, distinct from the 
 economic conflicts of the workshop, and on these their 
 members were free to take what side they liked. But 
 their work afforded both to leaders and to rank and file 
 a training in the practice of self-government, in give-and- 
 take, in the subordination of self to common interests, 
 in the habit of recognising the element of right that is 
 always to be found on the other side ; a training quite 
 invaluable for the time, now close at hand, when their 
 members should play their part as fully enfranchised 
 citizens in the self-governing nation. When they did so, 
 it was to take part not in a single all-embracing conflict 
 of classes in the economic field, such as Marx envisaged, 
 but in the multiform and complex conflicts of ideas, 
 interests and aims which form the life of any living 
 society, and in which no free man ought to feel that his 
 attitude is irrevocably dictated to him beforehand by the 
 accident of his birth or occupation. 
 
 It long remained a complaint among the Marxians 
 that Britain, in which Marx spent most of his life, was 
 less influenced by his ideas than any o^her European 
 country. Had not the traditions of British self-govern- 
 ment something to do with this 1 
 
VII 
 
 THE ERA OF NATIONAL UNIFICATION 
 
 1850-1878 
 
 There are several very marked contrasts between the 
 period of Liberal Revolutions with which we have just 
 dealt, and the period of National Unification which 
 immediately followed it. During the first period, as we 
 have seen, there was an incessant internal ferment in 
 nearly all the European countries, and especially in the 
 more developed countries of Western and Central Europe ; 
 and this ferment found vent in an extraordinary series 
 of revolutionary upheavals. During the second period 
 there were indeed revolutions in Poland and Greece 
 in 1863 ; but apart from the bloody and futile frenzy 
 of the Paris Commune in 1871, the more advanced 
 states of the West, great and small, were extraordi- 
 narily free from internal upheavals. Spontaneous 
 revolution from below seemed to have become vieux 
 jeu, and reformers appeared to have learned to look to 
 other means of remedying the evils from which they 
 suffered. This quiescence became still more marked 
 during the next era, 1878-1900. 
 
 But, on the other hand, while there had been no formal 
 wars of any magnitude between civilised states in the 
 period 1815-50, the following generation was filled with 
 great wars. There were the Crimean War of 1853-56, 
 the Italian campaigns of 1859-60, the war of Prussia and 
 
 108 
 
THE ERA OF NATIONAL UNIFICATION 109 
 
 Austria against Denmark in 1864, the Austro-Prussian 
 War of 1866, the Franco-German War of 1870-71, and 
 the Russo-Turkish War of 1878. All these wars arose, 
 directly or indirectly, out of the movement for national 
 unity and freedom, and the Polish revolt of 1863 was 
 due to the same cause. Nationalism, rather than 
 Liberalism, was thus the dominant factor in this era. 
 Yet one of the chief results of this period of warfare 
 between organised states was an expansion of the institu- 
 tions of self-government far more remarkable than had 
 come about during the period of Liberal Revolutions ; 
 and in the event most of the European states found them- 
 selves by 1878 equipped with systems of government 
 which were to prove lasting and stable. In the main 
 European states, putting aside the vexed and backward 
 areas of the East and South-east, there have been com- 
 paratively few political changes of importance since that 
 year. And we may thus fairly say that the era of 
 National Unification was also the era of constitutional 
 settlement, so far as the principal states were concerned. 
 It is important that we should realise the close connection 
 which exists between these things — between the triumph 
 of nationalism on the one hand, and on the other the 
 decay of revolutionism and the stable settlement of 
 constitutional problems. 
 
 To begin with, the triumph of the nationalist move- 
 ment in such divided states as Germany and Italy got 
 rid of one of the weaknesses which had affected the reform 
 movements in the previous age, by putting an end to 
 the conflict between the national and the liberal ideas 
 which, as we have seen, had often been the undoing 
 of both. This weakness still survived in such a state 
 as Austria-Hungary, where the nationalist movement 
 
110 NATIONAL SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 achieved no clear success ; but it disappeared elsewhere. 
 At the same time, national unity provided one of the 
 essential foundations of self-government — unity of senti- 
 ment among those who took part in it, and this unity of 
 sentiment was especially strong where men had been 
 combined by the trials of a common struggle, and the 
 exaltation of a common victory. This is perhaps the 
 main reason for the successful working of the institutions 
 set up in the new nation-states. 
 
 In the second place, the leadership in the successful 
 national movements of this period was assumed in each 
 case by established governments, commanding the organ- 
 ised force of their states. It was the military strength 
 of the kingdom of Sardinia, backed by the armies of 
 France, which freed Italy from the yoke of Austria, 
 though this result could not have been fully attained if 
 the national spirit had not been at work already through- 
 out Italy. It was the military strength of Prussia which 
 enabled Bismarck to unify first the North German Con- 
 federation, and then the whole German Empire, under 
 Prussian leadership, though even Bismarck's victories 
 would not have been so easily won, and certainly their 
 results would not have been so enthusiastically accepted, 
 if the national spirit had not already been stimulated 
 throughout all Germany. And this activity of govern- 
 ments in the popular cause affected the liberal move- 
 ment in two ways. On the one hand, it undermined or 
 destroyed the hostility which had been felt towards exist- 
 ing governments by the leaders of the reforming parties, 
 while at the same time it brought home to them the 
 strength of organised military power, the futility of 
 fighting against it, and the importance of making terms 
 with it ; so that those who had been in the earlier period 
 
THE ERA OF NATIONAL UNIFICATION 111 
 
 the sworn foes of kings and their ministers, were ready for 
 an alliance with them, now that they had assumed 
 national leadership. On the other hand, governments 
 themselves were taught by the experience of the national 
 wars to realise the strength they could derive from 
 popular support, and were therefore ready to make terms 
 with their former foes, and to buy their support by the 
 concession of self-governing institutions, either frankly 
 and fully, as in Italy, or with reserves and exceptions 
 which would nullify the concessions, as in Germany. 
 For these reasons the period of nationalist wars brought 
 about an alliance in the newly united nations between 
 their governments and the old reforming parties, which 
 were mainly of middle-class origin. 
 
 A further cause strengthened this tendency. By the 
 middle of the nineteenth century the industrial move- 
 ment which had started in Britain had taken hold of the 
 more advanced continental countries. The classes mainly 
 responsible for the direction of the new industries, there- 
 fore, became distrustful of revolutionary disturbances, 
 because they needed internal order. On the other hand, 
 governments could no longer disregard the makers of new 
 national wealth, or any longer exclude them from a voice 
 in the direction of national affairs. Hence the economic 
 factor formed another force contributing to bring about 
 an alliance between governments and the middle class ; 
 and the form which this alliance took was everywhere the 
 establishment of a parliamentary system on the British 
 model. Even where these parliamentary systems were 
 based upon universal suffrage, they were controlled, 
 during this period and for a long time afterwards, by the 
 men of the middle class, because they were better edu- 
 cated, had more leisure for politics, and possessed larger 
 
112 NATIONAL SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 resources for political warfare. Hence those among the 
 leaders of working-class revolt who were disciples of 
 Marx were for a time tempted to regard paiiiaiuLmaj.y 
 institutions as a peculiarly middle-class and ' capitalistic ' 
 device, though they had no very clear ideas what they 
 would substitute for them. 
 
 But the working-class or proletarian agitations were not 
 as yet very formidable, or likely to disturb the stability of 
 the new order. It is true that it was during this period 
 that the Marxian creed began to exercise a wide influence 
 throughout Europe, and that Social Democratic parties, 
 devoted to the ' Class-War ' began to be formed. In 1864 
 the International Workmen's Association was founded 
 in London, with an inaugural address from Karl Marx, 
 and a constitution drawn up by him. Its object was to 
 be the carrying out of Marx's doctrines, and it was to 
 have frequent international congresses, and branches in 
 all countries. But its members and its branches were 
 always few ; and it had to be wound up in 1876. In 
 1868 the Anarchist Bakunin founded a rival International 
 Association to forward the class-war by the more direct 
 means of violence, and the quarrels of these two bodies 
 helped to weaken both. There were other movements, 
 also, of the same kind, notably in Germany : in 1863 the 
 brilliant German-Jewish philosopher and epicure, Ferdi- 
 nand Lassalle, floated a General German Workers' Union, 
 of which something might have come if its able founder 
 had not got himself shot in a duel about his love-affairs 
 with a Countess ; in 1868 the German Social Democratic 
 Labour Party was established under the leadership of 
 Bebel, to carry into effect the programme of Marx ; and 
 there were similar movements in other countries, mostly 
 ineffective. The Marxian class-war which, if conducted 
 
THE ERA OF NATIONAL UNIFICATION 113 
 
 in accordance with its founder's ideas, would have de- 
 stroyed national unity everywhere, was thus inaugurated 
 during the period of National Unification. But one of 
 the main reasons for its very modest success was just the 
 fact that, to workmen equally with others, the national 
 idea made an immensely powerful appeal ; and govern- 
 ments found they could safely proscribe the movement, 
 and did so, almost everywhere save in Britain, where the 
 tradition of free discussion was too deeply rooted to 
 be disregarded. So the triumph of the parliamentary 
 system was in no way modified by the progress of the 
 Marxian movement, whose advocates soon realised that 
 their best chance of success was in working through 
 Parliament. 
 
 It was not only in the countries where the national 
 cause had triumphed that these forces were at work. In 
 those countries also which had to suffer defeat in the 
 wars of nationality, the result was everywhere an ex- 
 pansion of parliamentary institutions ; because the exist- 
 ing governments, discredited by defeat, were no longer 
 able to offer effective resistance to the demand for self- 
 government. In Denmark, for example, the disasters of 
 1864 forced the Crown to accept a real parliamentary 
 system. In Austria the discredit arising from the Italian 
 campaign of 1859 led to lively political agitation from 
 1860 onwards, and the crushing defeat which Austria had 
 to accept from Prussia in 1866 was quickly followed by 
 a great constitutional change in 1867. In France the 
 humiliations of the Franco-Prussian War led to the down- 
 fall of the Napoleonic Empire in 1870, and to the establish- 
 ment of the democratic Third Republic. Finally, partly 
 under the influence of the prevailing fashion, partly as a 
 natural development of what had been already achieved, 
 
 H 
 
114 NATIONAL SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 States not directly affected by the wars of nationality 
 introduced changes in their political systems. Britain 
 took a long step towards complete democracy in 1867. 
 Even Russia began the process of reform, though she did 
 not go very far. 
 
 It is impossible to analyse all the political changes 
 of these years ; and, indeed, such an analysis would be 
 merely wearisome, and would contribute little to our com- 
 prehension of the problems of self-government, unless it 
 was carried out in very great detail. We shall therefore 
 content ourselves, in the first place, with a bald catalogue- 
 summary of the political changes of the period, which 
 will serve to show the universality of the movement ; 
 and, in the second place, with an analysis of the differ- 
 ences of form assumed by the parliamentary system in a 
 few of the leading states. 
 
 In 1859-61, in 1866, and in 1871 the various separately 
 governed provinces of Italy were successively united to 
 the kingdom of Sardinia. To each group of new pro- 
 vinces the privileges of the Sardinian representative 
 system were extended, so that in 1871 Italy as a whole 
 emerged as a single nation-state governed by a limited 
 monarchy whose ministers were responsible to Parliament, 
 as in Britain. 
 
 In the years between 1858 and 1863, Russia, hitherto 
 practically untouched by the liberal movement, took the 
 first steps towards a system of self-government by freeing 
 the serfs, by making the law courts independent of the 
 administration, and, above all, by setting up a series of 
 zemstva, or county councils, for the management of local 
 affairs. It was the hope of Liberals that these reforms 
 would be followed by the establishment of a representa- 
 tive parliament. This hope, however, was disappointed ; 
 
THE ERA OF NATIONAL UNIFICATION 115 
 
 an unhappy reaction undid much of the work already 
 done, and Russia had to wait until the twentieth century 
 for the beginnings of national self-government. But it 
 is significant that even Russia was during this period of 
 organisation affected in some degree by the universal 
 movement. 
 
 In 1866 Sweden substituted for her old-fashioned 
 mediaeval estates a modern parliament of two Houses, 
 one elected on a narrow, the other on a wide suffrage. 
 In the same year, the King of Denmark, having endured 
 defeat at the hands of Prussia, had to submit to the 
 establishment of a real parliamentary system, closely 
 resembling that of Sweden. In both of these Scan- 
 dinavian countries the two Houses were given a legal 
 equality ; and under cover of this fact the Crown in both 
 countries, supported by the less popular chamber, was 
 able to retain personal control over the appointment and 
 dismissal of ministers. But this led to unceasing con- 
 stitutional strife. It took an especially acute form in 
 Norway, where a very democratic parliament resented 
 the independent control over the appointment of ministers 
 claimed by the Swedish king. Throughout the period 
 under review, however, the Crown was able in all three 
 countries to make good its claims, and even to levy 
 taxes in defiance of the hostility of the Lower Houses. 
 The Scandinavian systems, therefore, down to 1878 and 
 later, resembled the Prussian rather than the British model. 
 
 From 1862 to 1866 the Prussian monarchy was engaged 
 in a fierce struggle with its Parliament, which ended in a 
 complete victory for the Crown. This struggle forms so 
 important a landmark in the history of European self- 
 government that we shall have to consider it more closely 
 later. In 1866, after the defeat of Austria by Prussia, the 
 
116 NATIONAL SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 North German Confederation was organised as a con- 
 solidated federal State, with a Parliament of two Houses ; 
 and in 1871 this Confederation, with the addition of the 
 South German states, became the German Empire. In 
 the Confederation and in the Empire, as in the Prussian 
 kingdom, the control over national policy was retained 
 by the Crown, and was not allowed to pass under the 
 influence of Parliament. This decision was of vital 
 moment for the future history of Europe. 
 
 Between 1861 and 1867 the Austrian Empire, hitherto 
 the most obstinate foe of liberalism, also succumbed, at 
 any rate in form, to the liberal movement. After several 
 experiments between 1861 and 1865, its system of govern- 
 ment was finally determined by the Ausgleich or Com- 
 promise of 1867, whereby full parliamentary systems 
 were established in the two parts of the Dual Monarchy. 
 But, as we shall see, parliamentary institutions did not 
 bring to the majority of the population an increase of 
 liberty ; they were rather turned into a mechanism for 
 securing the tyrannical supremacy of two minorities — the 
 Magyars in Hungary, the Germans in the Austrian lands. 
 And the mam cause of this was the absence of national 
 unity. 
 
 Britain, the oldest of the self-governing nations, and 
 the model for all the rest, took during these years what 
 some of her statesmen thought ' a leap in the dark ' 
 when by the Reform Act of 1867 she placed her destinies 
 in the hands of the democracy by enfranchising the 
 artisans of the towns. She did not, indeed, go so far as 
 France had gone in 1848 and Prussia in 1850, and in- 
 stitute universal suffrage. Following her traditions, she 
 admitted to a partnership in government only those classes 
 which had already shown in their trade unions, their 
 
THE ERA OF NATIONAL UNIFICATION 117 
 
 friendly societies, and their co-operative societies, that 
 they shared the capacity for managing common affairs 
 by discussion and agreement. But to these classes she 
 made no grudging concession. They obtained the power, 
 if they chose to use it, of controlling through their repre- 
 sentatives the whole conduct and spirit of national policy ; 
 whereas the wielders of universal suffrage in Prussia and 
 in Napoleonic France were allowed no more than a shadow 
 of power. 
 
 But France, also, the supreme apostle of the gospel of 
 political liberty, was now at last, after so many endeavours 
 and so many disappointments, to be added to the list of 
 fully self-governing countries. Before the onslaught of 
 the Prussian in 1870-71 the imperial system crumbled 
 into ruins. But out of her disasters France arose, 
 sobered and sorrowful, stripped of all illusions ; and 
 without any sweeping assertions of principle, organised 
 in the Third Republic a system wherein, for the first 
 time in all her history, the people were enabled really to 
 control the direction of national policy. 
 
 The infection of parliamentarism also captured during 
 these years the infant states of the Balkan peninsula, 
 Greece had possessed a Parliament since 1843, but in 
 1863, in the course of the revolution by which she got 
 rid of the Bavarian dynasty, she revised her constitution 
 and gave greater powers to her Parliament. Nominally 
 it has had full control of the national government since 
 that date. The two Rumanian provinces of Moldavia 
 and Wallachia had been equipped with representative 
 councils by the Congress of Paris in 1856 ; these councils 
 were combined in 1862, and in 1866, under a new consti- 
 tution, they were replaced by a two-chamber legislature 
 of the Western pattern, with a nominal control over the 
 
118 NATIONAL SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 ministry. In 1869, Serbia instituted a single chamber 
 assembly, known as the Skuptshina and elected by 
 practically universal suffrage. In 1878, when Bulgaria 
 had obtained by the gift of Russia her freedom from the 
 Turkish yoke, she also set up a supreme single-chamber 
 legislature, the Sobranje. Nominally all these Balkan 
 Parliaments exercised full control over the executive, 
 but, in fact, the backwardness and the illiteracy of the 
 majority of the electorate left them a prey to many 
 corrupt influences ; the government in power continued 
 to be generally secure of a majority ; and the ruling 
 prince could usually wield a degree of independent autho- 
 rity far more extensive than is suggested by the formal 
 provisions of the constitution. These dangers were, 
 however, scarcely perceived during our period, when 
 men were easily satisfied with the mere forms of self- 
 government. 
 
 Lastly, Spain completed the long, confused tale of her 
 constitutional experiments by establishing the constitu- 
 tion of 1869, whereby she set up a two-chamber legis- 
 lature, the Lower House elected by universal suffrage. 
 This machinery has been applied first to a limited 
 monarchy, then for a brief interval (1873-74) to a republic, 
 and finally to a restored monarchy, which has now existed 
 for forty years, a longer spell than any system has 
 enjoyed in Spain since the close of the Bourbon despotism 
 in 1834. It cannot, however, be said that Spain has ever 
 become in a real sense a self-governing country. Universal 
 suffrage among an ignorant and backward populace has 
 meant that the influences which can be exercised by the 
 government in power will always ensure a majority ; and 
 by giving supremacy to an electorate which is incapable 
 of realising the nature of its responsibilities Spain has, 
 
THE ERA OF NATIONAL UNIFICATION 119 
 
 in fact, like France in the years following 1848, and most 
 of the Balkan states to-day, made herself the prey of 
 corrupting influences of many types. 
 
 This is a very impressive catalogue of political changes 
 brought about in nearly all the states of Europe within 
 a single generation ; and in summary it amounted to 
 this, that in every country which had not already acquired 
 them, save only Russia and Turkey, parliamentary in- 
 stitutions were established during this generation. And 
 with parliamentary institutions came, as their invariable 
 accompaniment, a very large degree of freedom of speech 
 and of freedom of the Press, together with the universal 
 establishment, wherever it did not already exist, of 
 religious toleration. 
 
 The institutions thus rapidly set up, which had become 
 the marks of a civilised government, were everywhere 
 superficially of the same pattern, because they were 
 everywhere modelled on those of Britain, the inventor 
 of parliamentary government. Almost everywhere there 
 were two chambers, the sole exceptions being Serbia and 
 Bulgaria ; but the constitution of the Upper Chambers 
 varied widely, and no country in this respect reproduced 
 the British model. Everywhere the Lower Chamber was 
 elected on a democratic basis — usually by universal 
 (manhood) suffrage ; and everywhere the assent of both 
 Houses was required for new legislation, while the Lower 
 Chamber (as in Britain) was given a special authority in 
 regard to taxation. But there was one important, and 
 quite inevitable, departure from the British model. Since 
 in every case, save in Britain, the new Parliaments were 
 deliberately created with clearly defined powers, they all 
 had their constitutions and powers laid down in written 
 documents, In no case was the constitution made so 
 
120 NATIONAL SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 difficult to alter as the American, the first modern 
 example of a deliberately created system ; but there was 
 always some distinction drawn between the process by 
 which ordinary laws were passed and the process by 
 which changes in the fundamental constitution could be 
 made. Hence none of the new systems had the rather 
 bewildering elasticity and adaptability of the British 
 system. In some of the new systems an attempt was 
 made, following the American model, to define a ' division 
 of powers ' between the executive and the legislature. 
 France, indeed, warned by her experience of 1848, did 
 not repeat this blunder, but, by making the executive 
 fully dependent upon the representative body, followed 
 as closely as possible the British model. But in Germany 
 the executive was kept definitely independent of the 
 legislature ; and as the head of the executive was a 
 hereditary monarch, not, as in America, a popularly 
 elected President, this meant that the public control over 
 government was very materially restricted. Even Ger- 
 many did not make the mistake of severing its executive 
 chiefs from direct contact with the legislature ; though 
 not drawn from among its ordinary members, nor holding 
 their places by its favour, they were empowered to be 
 present at its sessions, and to speak in explanation of the 
 policy they were pursuing. 
 
 It would be easy to extend the analysis of the differ- 
 ences in detail which distinguished the new systems one 
 from another : each of them was marked by some special 
 features, arising from the conditions of the nation's life. 
 But these minuter differences count for nothing in com- 
 parison with one fundamental variation, which in effect 
 divided all the new systems, in spite of their superficial 
 resemblance, into two, or at the most three, categories, 
 
THE ERA OF NATIONAL UNIFICATION 121 
 
 In some states the popular representative body — the 
 Lower House — was endowed with such powers that it 
 became the real determining factor in the government 
 of the nation, so that the spirit and direction of national 
 policy was genuinely determined by its will, while its 
 will was in its turn moulded by a real and free movement 
 of public opinion. In these cases alone could it be said 
 that popular government, in any full sense, had been 
 established. In other countries, while the representative 
 body might criticise and discuss, and might reject pro- 
 posals of legislation or of taxation, it was not permitted 
 to exercise any control, in form or in fact, over the 
 executive. The direction of national policy in these cases 
 remained effectively in the hands of a ruling house, or a 
 governing class, which, instead of being controlled by 
 public opinion, could aspire to direct the movement of 
 public opinion along channels convenient to its own 
 aims. In these cases, though government might find it 
 necessary to consult and to cultivate the representative 
 body, as a means of feeling the nation's pulse and seeing 
 how far it dare go, it cannot be said that national self- 
 government was genuinely established. To these two 
 outstanding types we may perhaps add a third, repre- 
 sented by countries where the legal power of control was 
 formally lodged with the representative body, but where, 
 for one reason or another, and generally because of the 
 absence of unity of sentiment or of political intelligence 
 in the mass of the electorate, the representative body 
 itself became the creature of a clique or a sect, a race or 
 a person. The three types shade into one another, and 
 the cynical observer can always trace the defects of the 
 third type in the other two. But it is useful to dis- 
 tinguish them, as a means of broad classification. 
 
122 NATIONAL SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 Of the first type the supreme example was Britain, 
 where, whatever the dissatisfied critic of British politics 
 might say, there did exist the most complete freedom 
 of discussion, so that public opinion, an ever-varying 
 quantity, was genuinely the outcome of the free fermenta- 
 tion of the national mind ; and where, more important, 
 it was impossible that the main direction of national 
 policy should be in direct conflict with this freely formed 
 national will arising out of unceasing discussion. The 
 other examples of this type in 1878 (apart from the United 
 States and the British self-governing colonies) were 
 France, Italy, Belgium, and Holland. Of the second 
 type the supreme example was Germany. In 1878 the 
 Scandinavian countries also approximated to this type ; 
 but the authority of the Kings of Sweden and Denmark 
 was never so independent as that of the German Emperor, 
 principally because they lacked his exclusive control over 
 the army and the bureaucracy. Of the third type, the 
 Austrian Empire formed perhaps the best example, since 
 here a parliamentary system was actually turned into 
 the means of imposing upon a majority the detested will 
 of a minority. In different ways Spain and most of the 
 Balkan states fell into the same category. These have 
 been the instances in which the parliamentary system 
 has had the most unhappy results, but their evils were 
 not yet perceptible in 1878. 
 
 These distinctions are so important that it will be 
 worth while to examine with some closeness the develop- 
 ment and working of these contrasted systems in typical 
 cases drawn from among the leading states ; and as in 
 nearly all cases the systems set up in this period have 
 continued in full force until to-day, we shall in fact 
 be describing the main existing systems of government. 
 
THE ERA OF NATIONAL UNIFICATION 123 
 
 We shall choose Germany, Austria, France, and Britain ; 
 and it will be convenient to deal with them in that order. 
 
 Germany 
 
 Slight and ineffective as were the powers allowed to 
 the Prussian Parliament by the constitution of 1850, 
 there was one among them which was capable of being 
 used as a lever for the establishment of parliamentary 
 supremacy. Although Parliament could not, as in 
 Britain, withhold all supplies and thus make a govern- 
 ment of which it disapproved impotent, its approval 
 was required for new taxes ; and in an age of steadily 
 increasing public expenditure, \this power, boldly used, 
 might ultimately have won supremacy for Parliament. 
 In the 'fifties and 'sixties the Liberal movement was still 
 strong in Prussia ; the elections always returned a Liberal 
 majority. As soon as a favourable opportunity pre- 
 sented itself, the Liberal majority in the Prussian Landtag 
 was ready to make full use of it. This determination 
 brought on a fierce struggle, which lasted from 1859 to 
 1866. It was very keenly fought, and very nearly gave 
 a crushing victory to the Liberal cause. If it had done 
 so, the whole subsequent history of Germany and of 
 Europe would have been different. But the Liberals 
 were disastrously defeated, and their defeat established 
 impregnably the ascendancy of the Prussian monarchy 
 and its supporters. 
 
 In the year 1859, under the influence of the Franco- 
 Austrian War in Italy, the Regent William of Prussia 
 (afterwards the King and Emperor William i.) carried 
 out, with the advice of his War Minister, von Roon, a 
 far-reaching reorganisation and enlargement of the 
 Prussian army : it was this reform scheme which enabled 
 
124 NATIONAL SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 Prussia to win her victories over Austria and France. 
 But the scheme involved a large additional expenditure, 
 for which the approval of the Landtag was asked. The 
 Liberal majority in the Landtag, holding that Prussia 
 was not threatened by any other power, and not sharing 
 the belief of the Prussian ruling classes in the doctrines of 
 brute force, saw no reason for a great and costly addition 
 to the army. It therefore voted the requisite funds 
 only provisionally, for a single year. The representatives 
 of the Crown vainly urged that the organisation of the 
 army was exclusively a question for the king to decide, 
 and that the Landtag had no right to interfere : the 
 Landtag's reply was that no money for an increased 
 army should be forthcoming after 1859. The government 
 levied the necessary taxes in defiance of the Landtag, 
 and dissolved the refractory assembly. The electors re- 
 turned an increased majority, which declined as firmly 
 as ever to sanction the new taxes. A second dissolution 
 and a second election brought back a still more sweeping 
 Liberal majority, despite all that the bureaucrats could 
 do to influence the polls, and the government proposals 
 were actually thrown out by a majority of eight to one. 
 When such a result was obtained in a house elected on 
 the three-class system, there can be no doubt that the 
 vast majority of the Prussian people were resolved to 
 resist the extension of military power, and to assert the 
 supremacy of the representative body. William I. (who 
 had now succeeded to the throne) thought the situation 
 so serious that he had almost decided to abdicate. If he 
 had done so, or if he had given way, Prussia might have 
 ceased to be a militarist state. 
 
 As a last resort, the king called to power in 1862 the 
 most fearless, ruthless, and unbending of Prussian 
 
THE ERA OF NATIONAL UNIFICATION 125 
 
 Junkers, Otto von Bismarck. Realising that Prussianism 
 and the Hohenzollern autocracy were fighting for life, 
 Bismarck defied the Landtag and all its electoral sup- 
 porters. He told the angry Liberals that it was not for 
 them to express an opinion on the requisite size and 
 organisation of the army, and that when the king, whose 
 sole prerogative it was, had decided that an increase was 
 necessary, the Landtag was exceeding its power if it 
 refused to find the money. As it still refused, and went 
 on refusing for four more years, he simply collected the 
 necessary taxes on the authority of the Upper House 
 alone. He was able to do so, because he was master of 
 the bureaucracy and of the army. In Britain a citizen 
 compelled to pay an illegal tax can sue the tax-collectors 
 in the law courts, and will certainly obtain a favourable 
 decision. No such remedy was open to the Prussian 
 subject. For four years Bismarck continued to flout and 
 defy the Landtag and the vast body of public opinion 
 which supported it, not only in Prussia but throughout 
 Germany and Europe ; and, by doing so, showed that the 
 parliamentary system afforded no real restriction upon 
 the Hohenzollern despotism. For if even the control 
 over new taxation could be thus disregarded with im- 
 punity, what was the value of any of the other still more 
 shadowy powers defined by the constitution of 1850 ? 
 Newspapers assailed this tyrannous overriding of the 
 law ; they were suppressed by force. Electors sent up 
 petitions in support of their representatives ; they were 
 prosecuted before administrative courts, and smartly 
 fined. 
 
 Meanwhile Bismarck was pursuing with ruthless daring 
 a foreign policy whose obvious aim was to bring about 
 a war with Austria ; and every step in this policy was 
 
126 NATIONAL SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 detestable in the eyes of most Prussians and of all non- 
 Prussian Germans. The Landtag protested. They were 
 told that foreign policy was no concern of theirs. They 
 thundered in favour of peace, and friendship with Austria, 
 and the rights of Schleswig and Holstein. They were 
 told that they were sentimental windbags, and that the 
 greatness of Prussia and of Germany was not to be 
 attained by resolutions and parliamentary discussions, 
 but in the good old Prussian way, ' by blood and iron.' 
 The antithesis between the historic methods of the 
 Prussian monarchy and the ideals of nineteenth-century 
 civilisation could not be more clearly expressed than 
 they were in this long debate. 
 
 But Bismarck was unaffected by debates or by the 
 condemnation of public opinion. By means which re- 
 volted the mind and conscience of all Germany, he was 
 preparing an opportunity for carving out new territories 
 for Prussia by the use of the army which had been 
 created in defiance of the popular will. He made friends 
 with Russia by helping her to suppress the Polish rebels 
 of 1S63, with whom all Germany sympathised. He im- 
 posed the Prussian yoke on Schleswig and Holstein, in 
 defiance of the desires of the people of the duchies, and 
 the sentiment of all Europe, and the provisions of the 
 Treaty of 1852 to which Prussia had been a party. 
 Out of the Schleswig-Holstein question he manufactured 
 a pretext for war with Austria. The bulk of Prussian 
 opinion was against him, but the manhood of Prussia 
 was under the iron discipline of the army, and had to 
 serve as his instrument. Non-Prussian Germany was 
 against him, and nearly all the states took arms on the 
 side of Austria. But the weapon which the king and 
 von Roon had forged was now ready for use, and it was 
 
THE ERA OF NATIONAL UNIFICATION 12? 
 
 irresistible. Austria was crushed in six weeks. The 
 kingdom of Hanover and the electorate of Hesse, whose 
 only offence was that they had obeyed the order of the 
 Germanic Diet and the will of the whole German nation 
 in taking up arms against the tyrant power, were over- 
 run and declared annexed to Prussia. The free city of 
 Frankfort, the ancient capital of the Germanic Confedera- 
 tion, was occupied by Prussian forces, and treated as 
 Brussels was treated in 1914 ; its senators were im- 
 prisoned as hostages, and a huge war contribution was 
 exacted under the threat that the city would be burnt 
 down. 
 
 Never was so complete, so dramatic, or so villainous a 
 triumph. The ancient methods of Prussia, the methods 
 of force and fraud, were justified by success. Prussia 
 and Germany gasped — and gave up their dreams of 
 liberty. For if these dazzling triumphs were to be won 
 by disregarding the shibboleths of parliamentarism, what 
 good Prussian, or what German nationalist, could any 
 longer respect the old Liberal formulae ? The parlia- 
 mentary opposition subsided like a pricked bladder. 
 With his tongue in his cheek, Bismarck accepted an 
 indemnification for his unconstitutional action. He had 
 won his victory. Self-government in Prussia remained 
 a sham ; and the old forces which had carved out the 
 greatness of Prussia in the past by force and fraud were 
 enthroned again, to carve out the new greatness of united 
 Germany by the same means. By paying a mere lip- 
 service to it, Prussianism had conquered, transformed, 
 and enslaved Liberalism. In an amazing way the empty 
 forms of self-government continued to cajole and deceive 
 not only the Germans themselves, but the rest of the 
 world ; but under the cover of these forms, a wolf in 
 
128 NATIONAL SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 sheep's clothing, Prussianisni stood as the supreme and 
 triumphant enemy of everything that is implied in the 
 ideals of self-government, as of all that is best in the 
 ideals of nationalism and internationalism. 
 
 Bismarck's final triumph, the imposition of the bureau- 
 cratic and military domination of the Hohenzollerns 
 upon the whole German nation, followed from this initial 
 victory. The simple and ingenious constitutional de- 
 vices whereby this was achieved were first worked out in 
 the constitution of the North German Confederation in 
 1867, and perfected in the constitution of the German 
 Empire in 1871, which has since remained unchanged. 
 Germany found herself equipped with a representative 
 assembly, or Reichstag, elected by universal suffrage ; 
 for, having learned how easily parliamentary opposition 
 could be stultified if the executive power was given 
 sufficient independence, Bismarck was clever enough not 
 to irritate public opinion by any such tricky device as 
 that of the three classes in the Prussian franchise. Thus 
 a highly democratic system seemed to be the gift of the 
 "conqueror to united German}^, and the Liberals were 
 cajoled into thinking that their cause had triumphed. 
 
 But alongside of the Reichstag was set the Bundesrat, 
 or Federal Council, consisting of a small number of repre- 
 sentatives of the various states in the Empire ; and on 
 the plea that it was the guardian of state-rights and of 
 the federal system, it was given far more extensive powers 
 than the Reichstag. Its members were not elected, but 
 were the nominees of the various state governments. 
 They possessed as individuals no independent rights of 
 deliberation, but were required to vote, like ambassadors 
 at a Congress, strictly according to the instructions of 
 the governments which appointed them. Prussia did 
 
THE ERA OF NATIONAL UNIFICATION 129 
 
 not even obtain a majority of the votes, though she 
 possessed a majority of the population of the empire, 
 and this had an air of remarkable moderation. Having 
 only seventeen of the fifty-one members, she required to 
 secure ten additional votes to get her own way. But the 
 preponderant influence of the Emperor over the minor 
 princes of the empire could be trusted always to ensure 
 that a sufficient margin of votes would be ' instructed } 
 according to his desires. Hence, in fact though not in 
 form, the Emperor was put into the position of being 
 able to dictate the decisions of the Bundesrat beforehand ; 
 and that body, whose function was, in theory, to repre- 
 sent and protect the independence of the minor states, 
 became, in fact, the chief means of imposing the will of 
 Prussia upon them. The Bundesrat deliberates in secret, 
 and its president is the Chancellor, the head of the 
 imperial executive, a nominee of the Emperor. It has 
 a number of standing committees. There is a Prussian 
 majority on every committee but one. The exception 
 is the Foreign Relations Committee, which has no 
 Prussian members ; but this is because, under the con- 
 stitution, foreign relations fall under the exclusive control 
 of the Emperor, so that the Committee is a merely formal 
 body, which seldom meets. 
 
 To a body such as the Bundesrat it was safe to allow 
 a considerable degree of nominal power, because there 
 was no fear that it would be independently used ; the 
 Bundesrat has proved to be, in fact, little more than a 
 means of registering the decrees of the Prussian masters 
 of Germany, and of checking the activity of the Reichstag. 
 The Reichstag in its turn has never been much more 
 than a pretentious debating society. Its consent was 
 required for new laws and new taxes, as was that of the 
 
 I 
 
130 NATIONAL SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 Prussian Landtag under the constitution of 1850, but 
 these powers have proved to be as unreal in the one case 
 as in the other. In practice it has been limited to the 
 discussion of the legislative and financial proposals of 
 the government, and at the most it sometimes succeeds 
 in modifying or amending them ; but as it has been 
 from the first divided into many parties, the government 
 has nearly always succeeded in getting its own way by 
 a judicious distribution of favours. Over the executive 
 government the Reichstag has had no control whatever. 
 All ministers and members of the imperial service were, 
 and are, appointed by the Crown alone, and though they 
 were empowered to attend the Reichstag, they were not 
 members of it or responsible to it. Over the general 
 direction and aims of national policy the representative 
 body of the German Empire obtained no power at all ; 
 it was from the first little more than a veil drawn over 
 the Hohenzollern dictatorship of Germany. 
 
 This dictatorship depended, as always, upon the control 
 of the army and the bureaucracy ; and the means by 
 which Bismarck extended this control from Prussia to 
 the whole of Germany are worth noting. So far as con- 
 cerns the army, they were quite simple and direct. The 
 imperial constitution provided that the Kong of Prussia, 
 as hereditary Emperor, should be sole master and com- 
 mander of the armies of the empire ; the Prussian system 
 was extended to all the other states, and their forces 
 passed under the Emperor's direct control : he was the 
 'supreme War Lord.' The three kingdoms of Bavaria, 
 Saxony, and Wiirtemburg were indeed permitted to re- 
 tain for some purposes a nominally distinct organisa- 
 tion ; but their system was to be identical, the Emperor 
 was given inspecting powers in time of peace, and as 
 
THE ERA OF NATIONAL UNIFICATION 131 
 
 soon as war began his command became unqualified : 
 the chief relic of independence then surviving would 
 be the issue of separate casualty lists. This absolute 
 mastery over the whole military force of Germany (which 
 means the whole of German manhood), and the power 
 of declaring war and peace which goes with it, formed 
 the core of the Hohenzollern dominion, and rendered the 
 achievement of any substantial change in the system 
 extremely difficult. 
 
 How the Emperor himself regards his position the 
 present Emperor has made very plain : a few of his 
 phrases form, in fact, an excellent summary of the 
 essence of the modern German system. ' The one pillar 
 on which the empire rests is the army.' ' It is my busi- 
 ness alone to declare if there shall be war.' ' The more I 
 get behind party cries, the more firmly and surely do I 
 count on my army.' ' The soldier has not to have a will 
 of his own ; you must all indeed have one will, but that 
 is my will ; there is only one law, and that is my law.' 
 Here is, in truth, the root fact of the German system. 
 Fundamentally, under all its disguises, it was a military 
 autocracy which the constitution of 1871 established. 
 And the men who worked this tremendous military engine 
 were mainly the old Junker class of Prussia. They 
 gradually and easily assimilated the members of the 
 corresponding classes in the other German states, but all 
 the important commands were kept in Prussian hands. 
 Military supremacy belonged not only to an autocratic 
 sovereign, but was wielded on his behalf by a rigid 
 caste, inspired by a long tradition of ascendancy and of 
 the extension of power by brute force. 
 
 The method by which the control of Prussia was ex- 
 tended over the bureaucracy of the other German states 
 
132 NATIONAL SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 was more subtle, but in the long run not less effective, 
 than that by which she obtained control over their 
 armies. Bismarck did not attempt to create a great 
 imperial bureaucratic system under centralised control, 
 because this would have aroused the jealousy of the 
 minor states. He preferred to maintain only a small 
 imperial staff of officials under the direction of the Im- 
 perial Chancellor, and to entrust the execution of im- 
 perial laws to the local bureaucracies of the various 
 states. This appeared to be a concession to local inde- 
 pendence. But the result was that, as the executants 
 of imperial laws, the Bavarian and Saxon bureaucrats 
 found themselves subjected to the supervision and the 
 increasingly close control of the central officials, who 
 were practically all Prussians. The bureaucracy through- 
 out Germany was by this means steadily Prussianised, 
 and its members became in fact quite as much the agents 
 of the Kong of Prussia as of their local princes. 
 
 Thus, as in 1850, so in 1871, the adoption of consti- 
 tutional forms, under Bismarck's clever direction, proved 
 to be not a source of weakness but a source of increased 
 strength to the old governing factors of Prussia. It did 
 not dethrone them, or subject them to any effective 
 limitation ; it gave them the appearance of being genuine 
 organs of the national will. And so what appeared on 
 the surface as the triumph of the principles of self-govern- 
 ment in the state in which, beyond all others, this triumph 
 seemed most improbable, was in reality the gravest defeat 
 which the cause of self-government had yet suffered. 
 
 Austria-Hungary 
 
 The political history of the Austro-Hungarian Empire 
 since the beginning of the constitutional regime in I860 
 
THE ERA OF NATIONAL UNIFICATION 133 
 
 has been extremely complex and bewildering, but certain 
 broad conclusions emerge from a survey of it. In the 
 first place, parliamentary government was ineffective 
 from the beginning, especially in the Austrian half of 
 the empire. The chief cause of this ineffectiveness was 
 the bitter strife which raged, and still rages, between 
 the numerous and mutually hostile nationalities of which 
 the empire is composed. On a small scale we have in 
 Britain experienced something of this difficulty, and there 
 have been moments when the specifically nationalist aims 
 of the Irish party, and in a less degree the nationalist 
 bias of Scottish and Welsh groups, have seemed to 
 threaten the breakdown of the parliamentary machine. 
 But the extraordinary medley of conflicting peoples who 
 make up the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and their virulent 
 antipathies, present a problem to which neither Britain 
 nor indeed any other European state affords any analogy. 
 And the most cursory study of the politics of that empire 
 illustrates more cogently and more clearly than perhaps 
 any other body of political facts the truth of the conten- 
 tion upon which we have so often insisted, that a parlia- 
 mentary system can only work efficiently in a state which 
 is unified by a prevailing and deeply rooted national 
 sentiment. Where this does not exist, either the parlia- 
 mentary system becomes merely a mechanism for the 
 enforcement of the supremacy of one nationality over 
 its fellows, or the old organs of government, the monarchy, 
 the bureaucracy, and the army, are enabled to maintain 
 their effective control over the general direction of the 
 policy of the State. In various degrees both of these 
 results happened in the Austrian Empire ; and in this 
 case the adoption of a representative system did not 
 bring liberty, mutual sympathy, and the supremacy of 
 
m National self-government 
 
 the public will, but chaos, racial tyranny, and the survival 
 of the old dynastic control of the resources of the State 
 for dynastic ends. 
 
 When, after the defeats of 1859 and 1866, the Habsburg 
 monarchy, hitherto the most obstinate defender of abso- 
 lutism, found itself compelled to yield to the clamour for 
 the institutions of self-government, there was one system 
 which might have brought peace, and taught the con- 
 flicting nationalities to co-operate for the common advan- 
 tage. This might have been the result of a federal system, 
 allowing a high degree of autonomy to the various nation- 
 alities, while a common military system, a common tariff 
 and a common foreign policy were maintained under 
 co-operative control. But such a solution was incon- 
 sistent with the traditions and aims of the two ruling 
 races, the German- Austrians and the Magyars. 
 
 Accordingly, the Compromise of 1867 divided the 
 empire into two distinct and independent States, one for 
 each of the two ruling races. Each State had its own 
 Parliament, its own responsible ministry, and its separate 
 finance, and they were linked together only by a ruling 
 dynasty, and by an agreement (subject to revision from 
 time to time) for common action in the three spheres of 
 foreign affairs, defence, and the provision of the funds 
 necessary for these purposes. The control of these 
 common affairs, and of the ministries which dealt with 
 them, was entrusted to ' delegations ' of sixty members 
 each from the two Parliaments ; but in order to empha- 
 sise the separation of the two realms, these ' delegations ' 
 were to meet separately, and to communicate with one 
 another only in writing. If, therefore, we would under- 
 stand the real nature of the system established in Austria- 
 Hungary in 1867, it is necessary to consider each of the 
 
THE ERA OF NATIONAL UNIFICATION 135 
 
 two States separately, and also their common action. 
 And as, in all its main features, the system has remained 
 unchanged from that day to this, our analysis may well 
 be made to refer to the whole period since 1867. 
 
 In Hungary the Parliament was elected on a nominally 
 wide suffrage by the direct votes of the electors in all the 
 districts of the country, Croat, Slovak, and Rumanian as 
 well as Magyar. But although the Magyars formed 
 much less than one-half of the population, they have 
 always possessed an overwhelming majority in the elected 
 house, and this for two main reasons. In the first place, 
 the electors were required to be able to speak Magyar, 
 and many of them were unable, and sometimes from 
 patriotic motives refused, to use the language of the 
 dominant race. In the second place, all the leading 
 officials who controlled the elections were Magyars, and 
 they never hesitated deliberately to falsify the returns, 
 sometimes going so far as forcibly to exclude Slovak or 
 other voters from the polling booths : there is probably 
 no country in which interference with elections has been 
 carried on so unblushingly as in Hungary. 1 Accordingly, 
 the Hungarian Parliament did not represent, and was 
 not intended to represent, the peoples of Hungary ; it 
 represented practically only the dominant race, and all 
 its powers were used continuously and openly for the 
 purpose of securing the racial ascendancy of the Magyars, 
 and forcing the non-Magyar peoples into a Magyar mould. 
 There were many parties in the Hungarian Parliament, 
 and some of them called themselves Liberal. They have 
 differed on economic questions, on religious questions, 
 and, above all, in the degree of jealousy with which they 
 
 1 See Mr. Seton-Watson's books, especially Electoral Corruption in 
 Hungary. 
 
136 NATIONAL SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 regarded the connection with Austria. But they have 
 all agreed in pursuing the policy of racial dominance, in 
 refusing to recognise any language but their own, in 
 reserving to themselves all important public offices, in 
 forcing the schools to teach Magyar, in punishing ' dis- 
 loyal ' provinces like Croatia by depriving them, for 
 example, of railway facilities. It would be difficult to 
 find in the annals of despotism a more unresting and 
 systematic tyranny than that which has been imposed by 
 the Magyar majority in the Hungarian Parliament upon 
 the great majority of the inhabitants of the country 
 which that Parliament is supposed to represent. It was 
 perhaps natural that a vigorous race with proud tradi- 
 tions, finding itself in danger of being swamped by other 
 races whom it regarded as its inferiors, should use all 
 means, legitimate or illegitimate, to maintain its supre- 
 macy. But comprehensible though it may be, the rule 
 of a racial minority" constitutes a worse form of tyranny 
 than the rule of an autocratic prince. Moreover, it 
 aroused a steadily intensifying bitterness. So long as the 
 Magyars and the Slavs of Hungary were the common 
 subjects of an alien despotism, it seemed not impossible 
 that they might learn to live together in amity. The 
 parliamentary system, worked in the interests of a single 
 racial group, has produced among them an irreconcilable 
 antipathy, and has made it appear that peace and justice 
 can never be established among these peoples until the 
 Hungarian State is broken up into its component elements. 
 The Hungarian Parliament exercises a real control over the 
 government of the country, and the ministers have alwaya 
 been drawn from the party or group of parties forming a 
 majority. But, in spite of that, the parliamentary system 
 in Hungary has not meant liberty, but tyranny. 
 
THE ERA OE NATIONAL UNIFICATION 137 
 
 In the Austrian half of the monarchy the conditions 
 have been different, but not much more happy. Here, 
 until 1906, the Reichsrat or Parliament was not elected 
 directly by the voters, but by the Diets or local assemblies 
 of the seventeen provinces ; and as these in some degree 
 represent distinct nationalities (Czechs in Bohemia, Poles 
 in Galicia, Slovenes in Carinthia), it followed that the 
 subordinate nationalities were from the first better repre- 
 sented in the Austrian than in the Hungarian Parliament. 
 But the provincial Diets themselves were not democra- 
 tically elected. They were chosen by defined classes — 
 landowners, townspeople, and peasants ; and the system 
 was carefully arranged so as to give a disproportionate 
 weight to those classes, and to those districts in the non- 
 German regions, in which the German element was 
 strongest. Consequently, though the Germans were 
 greatly outnumbered in Austria as a whole, they 
 were generally able to command a majority in the 
 Reichsrat. Erom this arose much bitterness and long 
 strife, especially between the Germans and the Czechs of 
 Bohemia ; and the Germans for a time maintained their 
 ascendancy only by an alliance with the Poles of Galicia, 
 to whom they granted a large degree of local autonomy, 
 as the price of their support. The Germans themselves 
 and, in a less degree, the other nationalities also, were 
 further divided into numerous parties ; it is possible to 
 enumerate between twenty and thirty organised parties 
 in the Austrian Reichsrat. 
 
 This chaos of parties had two striking results. In the 
 first place, it practically left in the hands of the Crown the 
 choice of ministers. According to the constitution, the 
 ministers were to be responsible to Parliament. But 
 they have not been, and could not be, selected from the 
 
m NATIONAL SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 majority in Parliament, because none of the numerous 
 parties ever had a majority. Hence the responsibility 
 of ministers has been an unreality. In actual fact, 
 the Crown has been able to select its own ministers, 
 choosing them first from one group and then from 
 another ; and the chosen ministers could proceed to 
 make a majority by bargaining with the various groups. 
 When a ministry became unpopular, it could be dismissed 
 and displaced by another drawn from some other group. 
 The defeated ministry got the discredit of its failure ; 
 but the Crown was nearly always able to secure what it 
 desired from one group or another, as the price of office. 
 Thus, despite the theory of ministerial responsibility, the 
 ministers were far more fully the agents of the Crown 
 than of Parliament, and under the semblance of parlia- 
 mentary supremacy the dynasty continued to be the 
 one stable and unchanging factor in Austrian politics, 
 pursuing steadily its purely dynastic policy. Here is one 
 of the most striking demonstrations of the fact that the 
 existence of a multitude of parties renders extremely 
 difficult the establishment of an effective parliamentary 
 control of government. 
 
 The second result of this parliamentary chaos was that 
 in the actual business of daily administration the bureau- 
 cratic service, which was and is predominantly German, 
 continued to enjoy a very high degree of independence 
 and freedom of action. Older than Parliament, and 
 working among a population which had for centuries 
 been habituated to its authority, the bureaucracy re- 
 garded itself, under the system of 1867 as under the 
 earlier despotism, as the servant not of the people but of 
 the Crown ; nor has it ever been reduced to any real 
 subordination to the parliamentary system. 
 
^HE ERA OF NATIONAL UNIFICATION 139 
 
 Thus while in Hungary the racial ascendancy of a 
 minority expressed itself through parliamentary forms, 
 in Austria the political chaos which resulted from national 
 disunity enabled the dynasty, by the exercise of patience 
 and subtlety in playing off the races one against another, 
 to retain most of its old ascendancy, and in particular 
 to preserve control over the bureaucratic service. In 
 neither half of the Dual Monarchy has the government 
 been carried on in accord with the opinions and desires 
 of the community as a whole ; because the community 
 as a whole, being deeply disunited, could have no clearly 
 defined or predominant body of opinion or desires ; and 
 in the midst of its discordant wranglings, the spoils of 
 real power were carried off partly by the monarchy, 
 partly by the Magyars. 
 
 This result exhibited itself equally in the direction of 
 the common affairs of the two States. Here, indeed, the 
 influence of the dynasty was greater than elsewhere, 
 because the dynasty was the only visible bond holding 
 together two States which had few interests in common. 
 By one of the fundamental provisions of the Ausgleich 
 of 1867, the joint army of Austria and Hungary was 
 placed under the sole and undivided command of the 
 Emperor-King. This military dictatorship was indeed 
 the main force which held this strange political structure 
 together ; and that is the significance of the saying that 
 ' Austria-Hungary is not a State, but only a dynasty and 
 an army.' Foreign policy also in a special degree re- 
 mained under the influence of the monarchy. It was but 
 a feeble and wavering control over these vitally important 
 powers that could be exercised by the delegations from 
 the two Parliaments ; and the mere fact that the two 
 delegations did not form a single body, but arrived at 
 
140 NATIONAL SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 separate decisions and could only discuss their differences 
 in writing, threw all the more power into the hands of 
 the one permanent and stable element in the system, 
 the Crown. 
 
 From the first, however, there was a marked contrast 
 between the two delegations. The Austrian delegation 
 represented several different races and provinces, who 
 were generally at cross-purposes. The Hungarian delega- 
 tion was a compact body, guided by the clearly defined 
 and dominant purpose of the Magyars. Their aim was 
 racial ascendancy. But this aim had a very direct 
 bearing upon foreign affairs. It was, and is, the supreme 
 interest of the Magyars that their subjects, Rumans, 
 Croats, and Serbs, should not be stimulated to independ- 
 ence by the influence of independent states of their own 
 blood beyond the border of the monarchy. The Magyar 
 was the sworn foe of the Slav, because he lived in constant 
 fear of his own Slav subjects ; and his chief interest in 
 foreign affairs was to secure, if possible, the weakening 
 of the independent Slav states outside the monarchy. 
 This made the Magyars ready to join in the most daring 
 adventures, such as the annexation of Bosnia in 1908, 
 the successive threats to Serbia, and finally the desperate 
 throw of the present war. But this Magyar point of 
 view was in entire accord with the traditional desire of 
 the Habsburg monarchy to expand southwards at the 
 expense of Serbia towards Salonika, and with its ancient 
 jealousy of Russia. There could be no such clear fixity 
 of purpose among the mixed peoples who were repre- 
 sented in the Austrian delegation ; and for that reason 
 the Magyars exercised an increasing influence in foreign 
 affairs, and the Emperor tended more and more to throw 
 himself into their hands, to select his foreign ministers 
 
THE ERA OF NATIONAL UNIFICATION 141 
 
 from among them, and even, as it seemed, to submit to 
 their dictation. Certainly it was the Magyar point of 
 view which most deeply influenced the foreign policy of 
 the Dual Monarchy, and allowed it to become the tool 
 of German ambitions ; though this policy also had the 
 support of most of the German- Austrians. There cannot 
 be a shadow of doubt that if the will and desires of the 
 great majority among the peoples of the monarchy had 
 exercised any weight at all in the direction of its policy, 
 the foreign policy of the monarchy, during the whole of 
 the period since 1867, but especially during the years 
 since 1890, would have been governed by quite different 
 ideas and principles. And if this is true, then, despite 
 the elaborate paraphernalia of representative institutions 
 established in 1867, the people of the Austro-Hungarian 
 Empire were not, in the most vital matters, endowed 
 with the right of self-government ; and this empire may 
 be regarded as providing the clearest example of the way 
 in which parliamentary institutions may be distorted to 
 serve special interests and private ends. 
 
 France 
 
 While in Germany and Austria the forms of represen- 
 tative government were being turned into the implements 
 of forces which did not represent the public will, in 
 France, as a result of the Franco-Prussian War and the 
 political revolution which it caused, a fully representative 
 system, effectively under the control of the nation, was 
 for the first time being established. 
 
 The empire of Napoleon m., although it rested upon a 
 democratic basis, and was supported by occasional appeals 
 to the popular vote, gave to the nation, in fact, no control 
 whatsoever over the organs of government. There were, 
 
142 NATIONAL SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 indeed, bodies called the Senate and the Legislative Body, 
 but they enjoyed no real power. The Senate was nomi- 
 nated by the Emperor. The Legislative Body, which was 
 popularly elected, was not permitted to initiate laws, 
 but only to discuss them ; its assent was necessary for 
 the annual budget, but it had to pass or reject each 
 section of it as a whole, and as total rejection was im- 
 possible, this meant that it had no control over finance ; 
 over the executive it had no shadow of control. Finally, 
 its debates were not allowed to be published, except in 
 an official summary prepared by government, so that it 
 could not influence the nation. The elections were con- 
 trolled by government ; there were official candidates in 
 every constituency, whose expenses were paid by the 
 State, and all election meetings were forbidden. Govern- 
 ment formed and revised the electoral districts at its 
 own pleasure, and the returning officers, who were govern- 
 ment officials, took the ballot-boxes home with them 
 during the polling ! At the same time the Press was 
 very strictly controlled ; any newspaper might be 
 ' warned ' or suppressed by government without any 
 possibility of appeal, and the censorship of theatres for- 
 bade even the most remote political allusion. To all this 
 was added an elaborate system of police espionage, such 
 that any person was liable to be arrested as a suspect 
 if he was heard to express dangerous political opinions. 
 Under this system — which was supported and confirmed 
 by universal suffrage — political life practically died out 
 between the time of Napoleon's coup d'etat in 1851 and 
 1860. Yet even under this hideous denial of liberty the 
 free spirit of France made itself heard. Brave men con- 
 trived, in spite of all obstacles, to get themselves elected 
 to the Legislative Body, and discussed in its sessions the 
 
THE ERA OF NATIONAL UNIFICATION 143 
 
 problems of government as openly as they dared. And 
 meanwhile the revolutionary spirit, always endemic in 
 France, was driven underground, tempted to adopt more 
 and more extreme ideas, and to prepare a resort to mere 
 violence and destruction. 
 
 During the last ten years of his reign (1860-70), 
 Napoleon ni. was driven, by the non-success of his foreign 
 policy, and especially by the alienation of the Church, on 
 whose support he largely rested, to make gradual con- 
 cessions to the liberal idea. He reduced the restrictions 
 on the Press, and permitted greater freedom of discussion 
 in the Legislative Body. In 1868 he allowed political 
 meetings to be held, provided that a government repre- 
 sentative, empowered to stop the proceedings, was always 
 present. In 1869 new elections created a powerful 
 opposition in the Legislative Body ; and after a good 
 deal of hesitation Napoleon decided to choose a ministry 
 from among the leaders of the strongest party, whose 
 aim was to turn the empire into a parliamentary monarchy 
 of the British type. At the beginning of 1870 it seemed 
 that the persistence of French Liberalism had at last 
 won its victory, and that the French people had at last 
 begun to regain the power of controlling, through their 
 representatives, the conduct and policy of government. 
 
 But at this unhappy moment came the disaster of the 
 Franco-Prussian War. Before the end of 1870 Paris was 
 besieged ; German armies occupied the whole of Northern 
 France ; the empire with all its institutions was swept 
 away by the unanimous will of the people whom it had 
 ruined ; and the unhappy nation, in the midst of its 
 agony, had to improvise a government to negotiate with 
 the victorious enemy. For this purpose a single-chamber 
 assembly was elected — elected while half of the country 
 
144 NATIONAL SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 was actually occupied by the enemy ; and upon this 
 body fell the task not only of deciding the terms of peace, 
 but of making a new system ] of government. Chosen 
 by universal suffrage at a time of deep depression and 
 disillusionment, the Assembly consisted inevitably, for the 
 most part, of men who had little political experience ; 
 and it was divided into a number of parties, among whom 
 were included adherents of all the various monarchical 
 regimes through which France had passed during the 
 century. The monarchists of various schools commanded 
 a majority, and at first it seemed almost certain that the 
 old historic Bourbon monarchy would be restored, though 
 under great constitutional restrictions. Only the austere 
 impracticability of the exiled head of the old ruling house, 
 indeed, prevented his restoration ; and the unwillingness 
 of his partisans to abandon all hope led to long delays : 
 for this reason the Assembly prolonged its existence for 
 more than five years. In the end, the settlement, when 
 it came, had to be in some degree a compromise. 
 
 The constitution of the Third Republic, as it was drawn 
 up in 1875, was not defined in a single logical document 
 such as each of the earlier revolutions had produced ; it 
 was embodied in a series of piecemeal measures. But this 
 element of compromise, this absence of finality and rigidity, 
 though it caused at the time much irritation to the logical 
 French mind, was, in the long run, a source of strength 
 rather than of weakness. It meant that the system was 
 shaped gradually, and retained a certain elasticity, so that 
 it could change and grow as the mind of the nation changed 
 and grew. And that, perhaps, is part of the reason why 
 it has lasted so much longer than any French system 
 since 1789, and has, on the whole, in spite of all the 
 ciiniculties it has had to face, in spite of the cruel circum- 
 
TH£ ERA OF NATIONAL UNIFICATION 145 
 
 stances in which it arose, in spite of the unceasing 
 criticisms which have been directed against it, become 
 an accepted part of the nation's life, as none of its pre- 
 decessors ever succeeded in becoming. 
 
 As if the troubles of France were not already great 
 enough, the labours of the Assembly were disturbed 
 almost at the outset by the aimless and reckless outburst 
 of mere revolutionary insanity which is known as the 
 Paris Commune. This rising was the product of the 
 revolutionary spirit which modern French history had 
 nurtured, and which the exaggerated repression of 
 Napoleon in. had intensified : it was born of the belief 
 that mob violence could somehow achieve vague, won- 
 derful results, and of the reckless misery due to the siege. 
 No definite principles inspired it. The nearest approach 
 to an idea displayed by its leaders was contained in the 
 demand that every commune (there are 40,000 com- 
 munes in France) should have ' absolute communal 
 autonomy,' x and the unity of France was, in some un- 
 defined way, to be assured by the co-operation of those 
 communes which ' adhered to the contract.' What 
 communal autonomy meant the Communists showed in 
 Paris itself, where they disarmed and terrorised the vast 
 majority who disapproved of their proceedings. The 
 Commune had to be overthrown by bloody street-fighting ; 
 and it is not surprising that the government dealt very 
 severely with these madmen who were tearing France 
 asunder, for no reason capable of definition or defence, 
 at a time when she was suffering from the agony of alien 
 conquest. More than 7000 were killed ; 13,000 were 
 
 1 This folly was reproduced at Cronstadt during the Russian revolu- 
 tion of 1917, which, indeed, presents many instructive parallels to the 
 French movements of 1848 and 1871. 
 
i46 NATIONAL SELF-GOVERNMENT? 
 
 sentenced to transportation or other severe penalties. 
 And it was with the record of this horrible episode that 
 the history of the free Republic began. No system of 
 government has ever started under less hopeful auspices, 
 or amid greater difficulties, than the new system of the 
 defeated and disheartened French nation. 
 
 Yet the Third Republic, born in such gloom, has in 
 fact given to France what had been given to her by none 
 of her earlier experiments — freedom, and a machinery of 
 self-government so complete that the nation was hence- 
 forth fully able to shape its own destinies. 
 
 The new sovereign body consisted of a Parliament of 
 two Houses. The Upper House, or Senate, was elected 
 by all persons chosen" by the people to serve in a repre- 
 sentative capacity, whether in central or in local govern- 
 ment ; and at first it included also a number of life 
 members, who were later allowed gradually to disappear. 
 The Lower House, or Chamber, was directly elected by 
 universal suffrage. The two Houses sitting together under 
 the name of the Assembly formed the sovereign ruling 
 body of France ; the Assembly alone could alter the 
 fundamental articles of the constitution ; the Assembly 
 also was to elect the President of the Republic. Thus 
 the American precedent of direct election of the President 
 by popular vote, which France had reproduced "with 
 disastrous results in 1848, was abandoned ; and the 
 President was made to feel that he was dependent upon 
 the elected Houses. Moreover, the President's powers 
 were carefully limited, so as to guard against any repeti- 
 tion of Napoleon's coup d'etat. His functions were closely 
 modelled upon those of the king in Britain, with this 
 difference, that they were defined by law, not regulated 
 by custom. He must always act through ministers ; and 
 
THE ERA OF NATIONAL UNIFICATION 147 
 
 the body of ministers must form a coherent Cabinet, 
 jointly responsible to the Chambers. This meant that 
 in the new French system Parliament was to have as 
 full a mastery over the whole conduct of government as 
 it possessed in the British system. Custom has prescribed 
 that, as in the British system, it is the Lower House alone 
 which makes and unmakes ministries. Broadly speaking, 
 the new French system was modelled on the British 
 system as closely as it was possible for a system deliber- 
 ately created to reproduce the features of a system which 
 had grown up gradually, and rested mainly upon custom. 
 But there was one broad difference between the two 
 systems in actual practice. , While the British Parliament 
 and the British people were divided by long habit into 
 two great parties, the French Parliament and people were 
 from the first broken up into many parties, partly owing 
 to the accidents of French history, partly perhaps because 
 of the more logical and less compromising nature of the 
 French mind. No one of these parties has ever by itself 
 possessed a clear majority, and this has had certain 
 effects, which must necessarily be produced in any system 
 wherein this feature occurs. In the first place, the power 
 of the President is increased, because it falls to him to 
 choose whom he shall call upon to form a ministry ; and 
 there may often be several men who might equally well 
 be called upon. In the British system there is rarely 
 any doubt : the leader of the party which has a majority 
 in the House of Commons must be called in, even though 
 he be personally distasteful to the king. If there were 
 many small parties, instead of two great ones, in the 
 British system, the king's personal preferences or sym- 
 pathies would often count for a good deal. In the second 
 place, any ministry, if it is to command a majority, must 
 
148 NATIONAL SELF-GOVERNMENT? 
 
 have the support of several groups ; and this necessitates 
 a bargaining for support, which may sometimes lead to 
 unhappy results : the small group which has itself no 
 hope of enjoying power may be tempted to obtain favours 
 in return for its votes, and the ministry may be tempted 
 to pay the price required. Such bargaining is often honest 
 enough ; but it is not always so, and some of the most 
 unsatisfactory features of the parliamentary regime in 
 France have been due to this cause. And, finally, the 
 ministries thus formed, being at the mercy of combina- 
 tions which may dissolve as rapidly as they are formed, 
 are apt to be short -lived. They succeed one another 
 with kaleidoscopic rapidity. The public mind is be- 
 wildered, and often fails to follow their actions, often 
 does not even know by whom it is governed. Govern- 
 ment loses prestige and strength and stability. And these 
 rapidly changing ministers, who flit in and out of the 
 great departments of State, are often unable to exercise 
 a controlling influence over their permanent officials : 
 they have no sooner got a grasp of the work of their 
 office than they are replaced. This brings the unhappy 
 result that the control of Parliament over the bureaucracy, 
 which is primarily exercised through the parliamentary 
 heads of the great departments, is apt to become ineffec- 
 tive. The bureaucracy of France, created by the great 
 Napoleon, has remained under the Third Republic, 
 almost as fully as under the systems which preceded it, 
 the most stable, active, efficient, and persistent element 
 in the government of the country. Although it has now 
 learned to regard itself as the servant of the nation, and 
 no longer (as always before) as the servant of a ruling 
 prince, it is still very independent. Indeed, it is perhaps 
 more independent than it used to be, since the rapidly 
 
THE ERA OF NATIONAL UNIFICATION 149 
 
 changing parliamentary chiefs cannot supervise its 
 activities as closely as the ministers of a despotic 
 regime. 
 
 But the political ingenuity of the French has found a 
 remedy (though only a partial remedy) for this last defect, 
 by setting up parliamentary committees for the chief 
 departments ; and these committees receive far fuller 
 information in detail about the proceedings of the depart- 
 ments than is usually given to the British House of 
 Commons. And this system actually draws advantage 
 from the weakness and from the rapid changes of French 
 ministries. Not only are the ministers unable to resist 
 inquiry, as British ministries, by the use of their standing 
 majorities, are often able to do ; but just because there 
 are so many men who have served their turn in office, 
 every French Parliament contains a larger number of 
 members with official experience than any British Parlia- 
 ment ; and, of course, the man with some official experi- 
 ence is, ceteris 'paribus, likely to be a more useful member 
 of such a committee than the man without it. Thus 
 the French system has brought about a far more methodi- 
 cal and direct control over the bureaucracy by the repre- 
 sentative body than the British system has hitherto made 
 possible. But this does not fully counterbalance the 
 relative weakness of the French cabinets. 
 
 In yet another way the bureaucratic character of French 
 government was qualified by the system of 1871. It 
 brought about the real beginning of self-government in 
 the local sphere, by establishing in the areas of local 
 administration — communes, arrondissements and de- 
 partments — elected councils, and in the lowest grade 
 also elected maires, to supervise and co-operate with the 
 bureaucratic officials who had hitherto controlled the 
 
150 NATIONAL SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 whole machinery of local government. The practice of 
 local self-government, which is a habit of centuries in 
 Britain, could not be established or made effective in a 
 moment against the widely different traditions of France, 
 and its advocates wisely avoided the wholesale experi- 
 ments which had plunged the country into confusion in 
 1791. The bureaucratic official, reporting to and con- 
 trolled by the authorities in Paris, remained, and still 
 remains, the predominant factor, as he has never been 
 in Britain. But at least the co-operation of the ordinary 
 citizen began to be enlisted to an extent never attempted 
 since 1791, and the French people began to acquire that 
 experience of the art of self-government in local affairs 
 which exercises so sanative an effect upon the working 
 of seli-government on the national scale. 
 
 The system of the Third Republic has been the object 
 of incessant criticism ; and in some respects its results 
 have been regarded with a reasonable dissatisfaction even 
 by sincere believers in democratic government. But a 
 too strongly bureaucratic tradition cannot be overcome 
 in a moment, and it takes time for a nation to acquire 
 at once the means and the habit of constant and watchful 
 criticism of its representatives. When all is said, the 
 faults of the system were such as the nation itself had 
 the power to amend. At the worst no French government 
 could now defy the national will, and the national mind 
 had obtained the means of forming a free judgment, and 
 the machinery for expressing it. The nation had become 
 the master of its own destinies, and this could not be said 
 either of the German nation, or of the confused and 
 conflicting peoples of Austria-Hungary. 
 
THE ERA OF NATIONAL UNIFICATION 151 
 
 Britain 
 
 While the great continental States were deliberately 
 creating brand-new systems of democratic representative 
 government, more or less genuine in character, Britain, 
 the mother of the parliamentary system, quietly went 
 through the great transition from middle-class rule to 
 democracy, by the Reform Act of 1867, which enfranchised 
 the artisan classes of the towns. But in the case of 
 Britain alone, there was no sudden breach with her 
 traditions, and no material alteration of her political 
 machinery ; only an increase in the size of her electorate. 
 Although the politicians took different views as to the 
 way in which the change should be carried out, and as 
 to the necessity of qualifications or safeguards, in fact the 
 leaders of both of the great political parties were agreed 
 on the main principle. The change was not brought 
 about by any revolutionary upheaval, for although the 
 railings of Hyde Park were broken by a big mass meeting 
 in favour of reform, it is absurd to suppose that the 
 classes in possession of power were moved by fear. They 
 were moved partly by a conviction of the desirability 
 of the change, partly by calculations of party advantage. 
 Nor was the Act of 1867, though it may truly be said to 
 have established democracy in Britain, a logical expres- 
 sion of democratic theory. It was very far from estab- 
 lishing universal suffrage. In truth, it simply admitted 
 to ' active citizenship ' those elements in the nation which 
 had shown, in their trade unions and co-operative ven- 
 tures, a real capacity for the management of common 
 affairs. These classes were admitted to a full share 
 of control over all the organs of government, if they 
 liked to use it ; just as other elements had been earlier 
 
152 NATIONAL SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 admitted. And at first the change seemed to make curi- 
 ously little difference. The parliamentary system worked 
 just as smoothly as before. John Stuart Mill, a convinced 
 Radical, writing some years before the change, had, while 
 advocating a democratic franchise, been haunted by the 
 fear lest the enfranchised democracy might organise a 
 mere class ascendancy. His fears were wholly falsified 
 by the event. The new electorate divided its allegiance 
 between the existing political parties. And Walter 
 Bagehot, writing some five years after the change, could 
 exult in the fact that the old machinery had adapted 
 itself perfectly to the new conditions. Never, even in 
 British history, has a political revolution been more 
 quietly effected. The orderliness, stability and practical 
 efficiency which were the boast of British self-government 
 appeared to be wholly unimpaired. And this contributed 
 to strengthen the prestige of the British system, which 
 was at its highest during this period. 
 
 In all spheres, indeed, Britain had now attained the 
 highest point of influence and prestige that she had ever 
 touched in her history. She was by common consent 
 the first of the great powers. Her wealth seemed inex- 
 haustible, and almost all classes of her population were 
 growingly prosperous. She was the world's supreme 
 market, workshop, and bank. Under the guardianship 
 of her fleet, the unchallenged mistress of the seas, her 
 myriad ships were to be seen in all waters, and she held 
 an unapproachable supremacy in world-commerce. Her 
 dominions girdled the earth. She was during these years 
 endowing them, without stint or back-thought, with the 
 institutions of liberty which were her heritage, on a scale 
 which the democrats of Europe might well envy ; while 
 with a profitable liberality she threw open every port 
 
THE ERA OF NATIONAL UNIFICATION 153 
 
 and market in her wide domains to the traders of all 
 nations as freely as to her own. Beyond all her other 
 glories was the glory of her freedom. She was the mother 
 of liberty, whose institutions the rest of the world was 
 humbly copying. Resting secure on the deep foundations 
 of her ordered freedom, she alone had no reason to fear 
 disturbance within her own borders, for all the unrest of 
 the early century had gone ; she alone needed to impose 
 no restrictions upon speech or writing, or to regard 
 jealously the formation of associations for the advocacy 
 of political or economic reconstruction ; she alone could 
 offer a safe refuge for the exiles and conspirators of all 
 lands — the Mazzinis and the Marses — knowing that they 
 could not undermine the loyalty of her sons. Freedom 
 was her note in everything, and what wealth it seemed 
 to have brought her ! To a materialist generation, avid 
 of wealth, her abounding prosperity seemed to demon- 
 strate that freedom paid. This was the age of the 
 apotheosis of British institutions. 
 
 Naturally the British peoples fell victims to a certain 
 self-complacency regarding the greatness of their country 
 and the perfection of its institutions. This was the time 
 when Palmerston, that typical mid- Victorian British 
 statesman, threw the mantle of British citizenship over 
 the Levantine Jew, Don Pacifico, with the superbly 
 insolent phrase civis Bomanus sum. And to this period 
 belong two political treatises, still accepted as standard 
 books, which in different ways combined to sing the 
 praises of the British system. There is probably no 
 better way of realising the sense of finality and of satis- 
 faction which during that period the British system in- 
 spired than a study of Mill's Representative Government 
 (1859) and ~B&gehot's English Constitution (1868). Different 
 
154 NATIONAL SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 as they were in their methods and in their attitudes 
 of mind, these two very able writers were alike in the 
 calm and almost unconscious assumption that the British 
 system represented the highest achievement of human 
 politics, and that no other system was seriously deserving 
 of study. Mill, indeed, felt some qualms : he showed a 
 sense, far ahead of his age, that the representative system 
 afforded only a very rough and partial reflection of the 
 national mind. But he ventured to declare — an amazing 
 declaration for a philosopher — not only that it was 
 possible to devise an ideal or perfect form of government, 
 but that the parliamentary system was such a form ; and 
 it is plain that in his judgment the British system — 
 especially if it were improved by the introduction of Mr. 
 Hare's fantastic scheme of proportional representation, 
 which Mill advocated — almost attained to the ideal. As 
 for Bagehot, his ineffable belief in the utter perfection of 
 the British system was such that he rhapsodised even 
 over its weakest points : his most ecstatic homage was 
 reserved for that omnipresent British snobbery (though 
 he called it by other and prettier names), which seemed 
 to him to be the cement of the whole fabric, and the 
 secret of its strength, majesty and beauty. Perhaps he 
 was not altogether wrong : this characteristic British 
 virtue doubtless helped materially to ease the transition 
 from landowning oligarchy to industrial democracy, kept 
 a fine tradition alive, and led each new partner-class in 
 turn to reproduce the habits of public spirit and public 
 service which centuries of responsibility had bred in the 
 best of the old ruling class. 
 
 One of the principal merits of these two books (as of 
 the system which they reflected) was that they definitely 
 discarded the fallacy of the doctrine of ' division of 
 
THE ERA OF NATIONAL UNIFICATION 155 
 
 powers ' between the executive and the legislature, and 
 showed that real success in parliamentary government 
 must depend upon the opposite principle of ' concentra- 
 tion of responsibility.' They made it plain that the real 
 function of a representative body is to control, regulate 
 and criticise the work of the active elements of govern- 
 ment ; that such a body must be not only incapable of 
 actually conducting administrative work, but ill-adapted 
 to initiate sound legislative or taxative proposals ; and 
 that legislation and taxation are in most cases best con- 
 sidered in the first instance by the men who are responsible 
 for the direction of affairs, so long as these men carry on 
 their work under unresting supervision. Bagehot especially 
 devoted his admirable gift of lucid analysis to working 
 out a clear account of the simple and delicate machinery — 
 mainly traditional and customary in character — whereby 
 these ends were attained in the British system : notably 
 the Cabinet and its relation to the House of Commons. 
 
 But it is remarkable that neither Mill nor Bagehot, 
 acute and practised observers as they were, had anything 
 of importance to say about two of the most significant 
 features of the British system during this period. 
 
 In the first place, neither of them in the least degree 
 realised the high importance of the part played in the 
 work of government, including legislation and taxation, 
 by the bureaucrats, or salaried professional adminis- 
 trators of the permanent civil service. 1 Mill has some 
 perfunctory observations on the mode of appointment of 
 civil servants ; Bagehot does not touch on the subject 
 at all. They did not realise that as the sphere of govern- 
 ment increased with the increasing complexity of modern 
 
 1 There is an attempt to analyse the development of bureaucracy in 
 Britain in Peers and Bureaucrats (Constable, 1910), 
 
156 NATIONAL SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 life, the importance, and therefore also the independence, 
 of the bureaucrats must increase, even in unbureaucratic 
 Britain. Both held the traditional British view that 
 bureaucracy was a vicious system, essentially hostile to 
 liberty ; they did not see that it had become an indis- 
 pensable engine of government, and that the days when 
 amateur politicians could adequately deal with all the 
 problems of government were gone for ever. They 
 shared the current view that the functions of government 
 ought to be reduced to the minimum. Yet even in their 
 own days the bureaucrats of the Poor Law Board and 
 the Home Office were in fact determining the character 
 and direction of British social policy ; the bureaucrats of 
 the Colonial Office, like Sir James Stephen, had a principal 
 part in the shaping of the new colonial policy which was 
 one of the greatest achievements of this generation ; and 
 these and other departments were very little considered 
 or discussed in Parliament. Moreover, it was in this 
 period (in 1858 and the following years) that the British 
 civil service was rescued from the discredit which had 
 previously attached to it, by being recruited by com- 
 petitive examination. And as the men who won their 
 way into the public offices by these means were among 
 the ablest products of the universities, often far more 
 brilliant than their contemporaries and class-mates who 
 entered upon the traditional political career as members 
 of the Houses of Lords and Commons, it was inevitable 
 that they should magnify their offices, and that their 
 restless energy, at a time when in any case the functions 
 of government were steadily increasing, should enlarge 
 the sphere of bureaucratic activity. We shall have occa- 
 sion to discuss this development later. In the mean- 
 time, the significant fact was that it was unperceived, 
 
THE ERA OF NATIONAL UNIFICATION 15? 
 
 even by the acutest of observers. What concealed it was 
 the fiction (itself an outcome of the doctrine of ' concen- 
 tration of responsibility ') which made the political head 
 of each department solely responsible for everything that 
 was done by his office, however impossible it might be for 
 him to be aware of all its multifarious activities. Under 
 the shelter of ministerial responsibility the power of 
 bureaucracy was growing apace. But its growth had not 
 yet become great enough to force itself upon the attention 
 of students of British government, and, blinded by the 
 theory of ministerial responsibility, not only Mill and 
 Bagehot, but all their generation, and all the next, dis- 
 regarded this process. For this reason they paid no 
 attention to what are obviously among the greatest 
 problems of any system of national self-government : the 
 problem of securing that the right men are appointed to 
 the vitally important positions which must be held by 
 trained administrators ; and the problem of establishing 
 a right relationship between them and the representative 
 government whose servants they are, or ought to be — a 
 relationship such as will ensure that their capacities are 
 fully employed, but employed for ends which the nation 
 wills, rather than for ends which they themselves determine. 
 The second omission from these treatises was still more 
 remarkable. It was the omission of any discussion of 
 what was, and is, perhaps the most important guiding- 
 wheel of the whole machine of government — the two- 
 party system, whereby not only the House of Commons, 
 but the whole nation, was in effect divided between two 
 political parties, each eternally engaged in the endeavour 
 either to maintain itself in office, or to drive its rival out 
 of office. No analysis of the British system, especially 
 during this period of its highest prestige and efficiency, 
 
158 NATIONAL SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 which leaves this vital factor in it out of sight can be 
 regarded as in any way adequate. 
 
 The division of a whole nation into only two political 
 parties must obviously be more or less unreal or arbitrary, 
 since it would be absurd to suggest that there could ever 
 be only two schools of thought in a nation. Yet, arbi- 
 trary as it appears, this division has been extraordinarily 
 persistent in Britain, and the continued dominance of 
 the two historic parties was one of the most marked 
 features of the period with which we are concerned. 
 Whenever smaller groups were formed by scission from 
 the two great parties, they always tended to be merged 
 again, in a very short time. The Peelites broke away 
 from the Tories, but they could not maintain their inde- 
 pendent existence ; they soon became Whigs, and modi- 
 fied the Whig creed by the infusion of their characteristic 
 ideas. The Radicals prided themselves upon their dis- 
 tinct programme, and were often troublesome to their 
 leaders ; but they could generally be counted upon to 
 vote straight in moments of crisis, in order to keep the 
 Tories out of power. When new political groups were 
 formed during this period, they were always groups 
 within a party, not separately organised bodies. The 
 main reasons for this remarkable feature of British 
 political life were two. In the first place, the electoral 
 system, which divided the country into single-member 
 constituencies, was hostile to the growth of numerous 
 parties : if the system of proportional representation 
 which Mill favoured had been introduced, this obstacle 
 to the multiplication of parties would have disappeared. 
 But the second reason was more fundamental. In the 
 British system the main business of the House of Commons 
 was to make and unmake governments, and to control 
 
1?HE ERA OF NATIONAL UNIFICATION 159 
 
 and check their activities. As politicians could only hope 
 to maintain a government with whose principles they 
 agreed, or to displace a government of whose principles 
 they disapproved, by helping to make a stable majority 
 for that purpose in the House of Commons, it was obviously 
 necessary that they should subordinate their differences 
 on minor matters in order to attain success in their prin- 
 cipal aim. It was the responsibility for creating and 
 destroying governments which more than anything else 
 kept the House of Commons, and therefore the country, 
 divided into two main parties. 
 
 One of the dangers of this system was that national 
 interests might be subordinated to party needs. This 
 danger also applies to a multiple-party system ; and 
 since men must always combine for common action in 
 politics, the choice is not between party and no-party, 
 but between two parties and many parties. It may in- 
 deed be said that the more highly organised a party is, 
 and the more ancient and deep-rooted the loyalty of its 
 members, the greater is the danger that party interests 
 may obscure national needs ; and that therefore the 
 system of multiple parties, easily formed and easily dis- 
 solved, may be a safeguard against this danger. Yet, on 
 the other hand, it is probably true that the leaders of 
 a great party, identified in the eyes of the nation with 
 a long and honourable tradition, are less likely to go 
 seriously astray than the leaders of an evanescent group, 
 formed for the occasion of the moment. The risk that 
 private or sectional interests may be given greater weight 
 than national interests is indeed not peculiar to party 
 government ; it exists in all forms of government, and 
 the only safeguard against it is a high standard of public 
 rectitude. That depends upon causes too deep to be 
 
160 NATIONAL SELF-GOVERNMEM 
 
 affected by any system of political machinery. Yet it 
 may fairly be said that the two-party system is a real 
 safeguard against a decline in the standard of public rec- 
 titude, just because each party knows that its opponents 
 are eternally on the outlook for means of discrediting it, 
 and are certain to pillory and exaggerate any departure 
 from accepted standards of which it may be guilty. 
 
 More serious is the danger that a two-party system 
 may have the effect of unduly narrowing and stereotyping 
 the political thought of the country, and that it may 
 exclude from political life men of independent views who 
 cannot bring themselves to pronounce all the shibboleths 
 of either side. That is a real danger. But in the period 
 with which we are concerned it did not seriously present 
 itself. The bonds of party discipline were not yet very 
 tightly drawn, and except on questions affecting the rise 
 and fall of ministries, members of Parliament habitually 
 exercised a far greater latitude of judgment than has 
 since become usual. It is not easy to think of any 
 leading Englishman of the period who might not have 
 found a place happily enough within the hospitable 
 limits of one or other of the great parties. Even O'Connell 
 could regard himself as a Whig, though his darling object, 
 the repeal of the Irish Act of Union, was anathema to 
 the Whigs. 
 
 If the system had dangers, therefore, they could not 
 yet be called very marked defects. And it certainly 
 possessed manifest virtues, which contributed in a striking 
 way to maintain the political health of the nation, and 
 to keep alive the political interests of its citizens. 
 
 It ensured, in the first place, stability and coherence 
 in the government — qualities which, as we have seen in 
 studying the French system, it is not easy to combine 
 
THE ERA OF NATIONAL UNIFICATION 161 
 
 with the control of a large and shifting public assembly. 
 The ministry in power knew that it could count upon a 
 steady majority so long as it did not alienate or outrage 
 its followers ; it could count also upon a large degree 
 of trust, such as is often necessary in great political 
 affairs. 
 
 It ensured, in the second place, the maintenance of an 
 incessant and watchful criticism of all the actions of 
 government by the party out of power — a criticism which 
 would be diffused by the Press throughout the country, 
 and taken seriously by the numerous supporters of the 
 Opposition. At the same time it secured that this criti- 
 cism should be responsible criticism, since the critics 
 were always conscious that they might at any moment 
 be called upon to assume the responsibilities of office, and 
 to make good their assertions. The criticisms of loosely 
 organised groups are apt to be irresponsible, and even if 
 they be never so sound, they are not assured of public 
 hearing. Thus the Opposition, under the two-party 
 system, was called upon to perform a very weighty and 
 important function ; it was ' Her Majesty's Opposition ' 
 — a phrase which could only have been invented in 
 Britain. It had to perform the duty which a barrister 
 performs in the courts of law, of ensuring that both sides 
 of a question are properly presented before the jury of 
 public opinion ; and in doing this it helped to educate 
 and guide the political thinking of the nation. 
 
 The value of the ' watch-dog ' function of the rival 
 parties in a two-party system may be illustrated by the 
 history of one of the most useful political reforms of the 
 period. Until the middle of the nineteenth century, posts 
 ' under government,' that is, positions in the civil service, 
 were given solely by favour, and almost invariably on 
 
162 NATIONAL SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 party grounds ; the distribution of patronage, even on 
 the humblest scale, was one of the recognised means of 
 strengthening party influence which each party expected 
 to be able to use when it came into power. The practice 
 never went so far, it is true, as it did in America ; though 
 men were appointed on the ground of their politics, they 
 were never dismissed wholesale when the rival party took 
 office. But the system was manifestly an evil one, and, 
 in particular, it involved that the public offices contained 
 many incompetents, and that their work was often in- 
 efficiently done. In 1858 appointments began to be 
 made by competitive examinations, with such good 
 results that the new method was rapidly extended, and 
 the efficiency of the public service was greatly increased. 
 But the point which concerns us is, that once the new 
 system was established, its existence was made secure 
 by the working of the two-party system. For the party 
 in power dared not risk the damaging attacks to which 
 it would certainly be exposed at the hands of the Opposi- 
 tion if it should depart from the new method, or show 
 unwillingness to extend it. The watch-dog function of 
 Her Majesty's Opposition thus ensured purity of ad- 
 ministration. Had there been many parties, the tempta- 
 tion to use patronage for the purchase of the support of 
 this party or that would have been very great ; and the 
 groups themselves, individually too weak to aim at 
 power, and therefore apt to be irresponsible, would have 
 been tempted to hope that they might strengthen them- 
 selves by being given the disposal of patronage, and 
 would therefore have been likely to be silent. Unques- 
 tionably the two-party system was a safeguard against 
 certain kinds of political corruption. 
 Nor does this end the catalogue of its merits. The 
 
THE ERA OF NATIONAL UNIFICATION 163 
 
 system simplified and clarified the issues of national 
 politics, no doubt in a rather arbitrary way, yet with 
 the result that they were closely and intelligently followed 
 by the public. It focussed attention upon what is after 
 all the main question — the character, conduct, and aims 
 of government ; and it made the public discussion of 
 these themes appear to be worth while, because the 
 popular will could and did ultimately determine the main 
 issues. It caused the Press to fill its columns with dis- 
 cussions of great questions of national concern, and with 
 reports of the proceedings of Parliament, which the 
 ordinary man followed with interest just because they 
 were simplified by the party conflict. It turned the full 
 glare of publicity upon the responsible directors of 
 national policy, made the life of public service seem to be 
 (what, on any lofty view, it ought to be) the noblest and 
 most fascinating of careers, tempted young men of ability 
 to aspire after it, and turned the great party leaders on 
 both sides into national heroes. Their leadership, under 
 the stable conditions of British politics, lasted long enough 
 to make them familiar figures, whose personalities and 
 ideas were known and canvassed from one end of the 
 country to the other. They became the embodiments of 
 the causes and ideas for which they strove, and this 
 association of ideas with great personalities made them 
 far more interesting and intelligible to ordinary men, 
 who do not anywhere move freely in the realm of ideas. 
 Palmerston and Derby in the early years of the period, 
 Gladstone and Disraeli in its later years, held the attention 
 of the nation as few of their successors in Britain, and 
 few of their contemporaries in Europe, were able to do. 
 Bismarck, indeed, exercised an even more commanding 
 ascendancy over the mind of Germany. But he stood 
 
164 NATIONAL SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 alone. He could not, like the British leaders, represent 
 an endless conflict of rival principles, vital enough to 
 command the loyalty of masses of men. 
 
 There is no doubt that the working of the two-party 
 system, and the fascination which its conflicts exercised 
 upon men's minds, contributed very powerfully to ease the 
 transition into democracy. For the newly enfranchised 
 classes followed the fascinating duel with an interest 
 equal to that of the middle class. They too could and 
 did joyfully enrol themselves under the banners of the 
 rival heroes, and fight for the triumph of their party. 
 They could feel the delight of sharing in the greatest of 
 all games, as humble members of a vast team under the 
 captaincy of demigods ; the prize of victory being no less 
 than the control of the fortunes of a great nation, and the 
 chance of realising their principles for its welfare. In- 
 stead of being tempted to concentrate all their attention 
 upon their class interests, and to use their power for these 
 ends alone, they were led to participate in the discussion 
 of questions affecting all classes equally, of questions 
 affecting the wide dominions of the British Empire, and 
 the fortunes of civilisation. And one of the rules of this 
 noble game was the fine rule that both sides must play 
 fair, must assume that their opponents are honest, and 
 must accept the result of the fight frankly, and not take 
 to smashing the windows of the pavilion in the dis- 
 appointment of defeat. Is there something unworthy in 
 this comparison of politics to a great game ? Not neces- 
 sarily : the spirit of sportsmanship, of comradeship in a 
 common cause, of loyalty to the rules, is a very healthy 
 and sane spirit to introduce into political life. There is 
 a real kinship between the sportsmanship which is one 
 of the outstanding qualities of the Briton, and the 
 
THE ERA OF NATIONAL UNIFICATION 165 
 
 political capacity which is another of his qualities. And 
 it cannot be denied that the two-party system appealed 
 very strongly indeed to the sporting instinct, and enlisted 
 it in the service of politics. 
 
 The political system of Britain, then, with the two- 
 party system as one of its vital elements, showed itself 
 capable of digesting a vast new addition to the body of 
 its ' active citizens ' without losing its character, or 
 making any sudden breach with its traditions. Yet the 
 great change of 1867 produced an immediate and per- 
 ceptible effect. The process of national reconstruction 
 which the industrial revolution had necessitated, had 
 flagged in a marked way between 1846 and 1867 ; the 
 mere presence in the electoral body of the new elements 
 stimulated a new advance. One of the early results of 
 1867 was the full legal recognition of trade unions, which 
 had done such invaluable work during the previous 
 generation, by an Act of 1871. Another result was the 
 introduction of universal compulsory education by the 
 Acts of 1870 and 1875. Before 1870 not much more 
 than half of the children of Britain received even an 
 elementary education, though the great majority of the 
 newly enfranchised classes were literate. But since 
 Britain was to be a democracy, her citizens must be 
 educated : otherwise one of the fundamental conditions 
 of self-government would be unfulfilled. This involved 
 the assumption of a vast new responsibility by the State, 
 which had hitherto been content to leave educational 
 work to private enterprise, only assisting and subsidising 
 it. But it is instructive to note — and it is very char- 
 acteristic of British methods — that even when the State 
 had assumed responsibility, it did not attempt to enforce 
 any rigid uniformity of method throughout the country, 
 
166 NATIONAL SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 such as the bureaucracies of France and Germany en- 
 forced. It has never been possible for a British educa- 
 tional officer to boast, as French administrators are said 
 to have boasted, ' at this hour every boy of ten in the 
 country is reading such and such a book.' The old 
 voluntary agencies which had created the existing schools 
 were left to work much as before ; and the business of 
 co-ordinating their work, and of establishing new public 
 schools to fill gaps, was entrusted to new elected local 
 bodies, the creation of which extended the sphere of local 
 self-government. They were all brought under central 
 supervision ; but the motive-power was in the self-govern- 
 ing bodies, only a supervisory or regulating authority 
 in the central bureaucracy. Hence not only was self- 
 government strengthened, but variety of method was in 
 some degree encouraged. 
 
 In truth, throughout this period, both before and after 
 1867, one of the features of British life was the increasing 
 multiplication of local bodies for all kinds of purposes — 
 Boards of Health, Burial Boards, Road Boards, Boards 
 of Guardians, School Boards. Their multiplicity formed 
 one of the most impressive contrasts between self- 
 governing Britain and the bureaucratic lands of Europe, 
 where all this administrative work was, for the most part, 
 highly centralised. At the same time, the older local 
 authorities, and especially the Municipal Councils of the 
 towns, were steadily enlarging their powers, and assuming 
 a multitude of new functions. There was no uniformity 
 or system in all this development. Each Town Council, 
 when it found the need for new powers, applied to Parlia- 
 ment for a private Act. And all this pullulating activity 
 was submitted to scarcely any supervision or control by 
 the national government. It was the spontaneous activity 
 
THE ERA OE NATIONAL UNIFICATION 167 
 
 of a self-governing people, other aspects of which were 
 to be found in the innumerable voluntary organisations 
 for religious, charitable, political, commercial, and indus- 
 trial purposes which daily sprang into being. The result 
 was a strange confusion and conflict of jurisdictions. 
 There came to be so many and various public authorities 
 that the ordinary citizen, their subject and their master, 
 lost track of them and interest in their proceedings . Even 
 the areas which they administered seldom coincided. 
 One publicist complained, towards the end of the period, 
 that he had to pay rates to no less than fourteen public 
 authorities, no two of which dealt with the same area. 
 Some co-ordination and concentration was obviously 
 necessary. The process was begun by the institution of 
 the Local Government Board in 1871. But it is pro- 
 foundly characteristic of Britain, and an evidence of the 
 strength of the self-governing spirit by which the whole 
 community was permeated, that the organisation of the 
 British society for common purposes proceeded thus, not 
 from the top downwards, but from the bottom upwards. 
 One last feature of British political life in this period 
 remains to be noted. It was the sign of a coming change ; 
 it was also a product of the growing national habit of 
 political discussion. During this period, but especially 
 after 1867, the importance of the platform and the public 
 meeting grew by leaps and bounds. Instead of confining 
 themselves almost wholly, as had been the custom of 
 the past, to the debates in Parliament, leading statesmen 
 began to make a regular practice of appealing to the 
 public directly — not merely to their constituents, but to 
 the whole mass of the electorate. The leaders of this 
 change were John Bright (who had served his apprentice- 
 ship during the Anti-Corn Law agitation) and Gladstone. 
 
168 NATIONAL SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 It was a valuable means of forwarding the political 
 education of the people, because the speeches composed 
 for these purposes necessarily dealt with broad issues and 
 leading principles, rather than with the practical details 
 and the party manoeuvres appropriate to the House of 
 Commons. At the same time, it foreshadowed a diminu- 
 tion in the importance of Parliament, which ceased to be 
 the sole arena of important political discussion. 
 
 Manifestly the Britain of 1878 was a genuinely self- 
 governing state. Manifestly, also, the practice of self- 
 government on these lines made for the intellectual and 
 moral development of the nation, as well as for its 
 material welfare. But the notion, implicit in Bagehot's 
 book, and in a less degree in Mill's, that finality had been 
 almost or altogether attained, was a false notion. Under 
 the appearance of fixity, great changes were preparing ; 
 and the spirit of self-government was working for its yet 
 more abundant fulfilment. 
 
VIII 
 
 RIVAL SYSTEMS IN OPERATION, 1878-1900 
 
 The age of nationalist victories, and of rapid constitu- 
 tional changes in the chief civilised states, was succeeded 
 by a generation during which (with one conspicuous 
 exception) no fundamental change was made in the 
 system of government of any of the leading states, so 
 that the world seemed to have attained a condition of 
 stability. Enlargements of the franchise, such as took 
 place in Britain in 1884 or in Holland in 1887, did not 
 involve any fundamental change. The one case in which 
 a large reconstruction was undertaken during this period 
 was the case of Japan. Having resolved, after the revolu- 
 tion of 1868, to adopt the methods of Western civilisa- 
 tion, Japan had been at first content to leave the control 
 of her affairs, during the rapid adoption of the material 
 devices of the West, to the absolute power of the Mikado. 
 But in 1878 the first step towards self-government was 
 taken by the institution of a measure of local autonomy, 
 through the institution of elected councils in each of the 
 forty-five ' departments ' of the country. In 1882 the 
 laws were codified, and Western judicial methods intro- 
 duced. And in 1889 the new system was crowned by the 
 establishment of a Parliament of two Houses after the 
 European model, a House of Lords and a Chamber of 
 Deputies, the latter elected on a moderate franchise. 
 But the ministry was not made dependent upon this 
 
 169 
 
170 NATIONAL SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 Parliament. The immense prestige of the Mikado, whose 
 dynasty was beyond comparison the most ancient ruling 
 house in the world, together with the novelty of the in- 
 stitutions of self-government, made it natural that the 
 Crown should retain the power of appointing ministers. 
 Thus Japan followed rather the German than the British 
 type. 
 
 But although the changes in the political systems of 
 this period were, in the European world, few and com- 
 paratively unimportant, the period was nevertheless of 
 the highest significance in the history of national self- 
 government, because it afforded opportunities for testing 
 the working and efficiency of the new methods, and for 
 comparing the results of their various types. And this 
 test was all the more instructive because of the novelty 
 and difficulty of the conditions under which they had to 
 work. For it was a period, in the first place, of extreme 
 precariousness and delicacy in the relations between the 
 principal states, and, in the second place, of extra- 
 ordinarily rapid development and change in the conditions 
 of industry. And both of these things tried the temper 
 of the new governmental systems, and searched out their 
 weak points. 
 
 Although no European wars of any importance were 
 fought during this generation, it was a period of intense and 
 growing nervousness of war. The peace which the world 
 enjoyed was an ' armed peace,' during which all the great 
 States were engaged in heaping up armaments against one 
 another, and training an ever-increasing number of their 
 citizens for war. The responsibility for this state of things 
 rests, beyond any shadow of doubt, upon Germany. Her 
 startling victories, gained in wars which she had de- 
 liberately provoked, had shown all other States that 
 
ttlVAL SYSTEMS IN OPERATION 171 
 
 their very existence might depend upon their immediate 
 readiness for war. Though Germany was beyond com- 
 parison the first military State in Europe, she had fortified 
 herself by the formation of a standing alliance (the Triple 
 Alliance, 1879 and 1882) which enabled her absolutely 
 to dominate Europe. Every other State was forced to 
 realise that Germany held in her hands the issues of peace 
 and war. They were all (especially France) for ever 
 conscious of their insecurity ; and it was inevitable that 
 a rival league should be formed as a protection against 
 this overwhelming dominance of a power which had proved 
 that it did not hesitate to provoke war when it seemed 
 likely to be profitable. Not content with the remark- 
 able ascendancy which she possessed, Germany con- 
 tinued, at intervals of a few years, to increase the numbers 
 of her soldiers, and the elaborate perfection of her 
 material of war ; and other States were driven to follow 
 the same path. The hideousness of this state of things 
 was widely felt, and led to the attempt, at the Hague 
 Conference of 1899, to put an end to the competition 
 of armaments by agreement. The attempt was ruined 
 by the flat refusal of Germany even to consider such a 
 proposal. 
 
 In several ways this appalling waste of wealth and 
 manhood profoundly affected the working of the new 
 systems of national government. In the first place, the 
 mere financial burden of it strained the resources of all 
 States, and to a large extent deprived them of the means 
 of adequately reorganising their social systems. For that 
 reason it also encouraged the dissatisfaction of the mass 
 of men with the existing social order. The Marxian 
 school, trained to regard ' capital ' as the root of all evil, 
 attributed this state of things to its malign influence ; 
 
172 NATIONAL SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 hence the movement of social democracy and the ' class 
 war,' inspired by Marx's doctrines, which had achieved 
 little during the period of nationalist victories because 
 the national cause had everywhere been able to appeal 
 to men's loyalty, was fostered and strengthened. On 
 the other hand, revolution of a violent kind began to 
 appear impossible, just because the military power which 
 governments could wield was so overwhelming. And as 
 the international co-operation of the working classes, 
 who seemed to suffer most from it, appeared to many to 
 be the only practicable way of shaking off this night- 
 mare, the Marxian-Socialist movement once again became 
 an international movement. From 1889 onwards there 
 were regular international conferences of Socialists. They 
 were far more numerously attended than their predeces- 
 sors of 1864-73. 
 
 Again, the high importance attached during these years 
 to military organisation, and to the complex details of 
 foreign policy upon which so much might hang, provided 
 an extremely hard test for parliamentary institutions. 
 They are at their weakest in dealing with these subjects, 
 because the citizens of a democracy cannot have an 
 adequate knowledge of the obscure intrigues in remote 
 places upon which, in such a state of international 
 relations, the issues of peace and war must often depend ; 
 while a democracy is also little capable of understanding 
 the complex problems of the military art. In such a 
 state of things autocracy has every advantage, if it is 
 well served. And it is no mere coincidence that the 
 country which was primarily responsible for this state 
 of things was Germany, a country wherein, as we have 
 seen, under the veil of parliamentary institutions, a 
 military and bureaucratic autocracy really controlled 
 
RIVAL SYSTEMS IN OPERATION 173 
 
 national policy. In dealing with the kind of problems 
 thus forced upon the world, parliamentary government 
 was apt to show itself at its worst. If it adopted the 
 methods of open discussion which its spirit seemed to 
 demand, it invited confusion and left itself disarmed and 
 helpless before its secretive, competent, unresting rival, 
 which needed to make no compromises and no confessions. 
 If it adopted the secrecy demanded by the ever-present 
 danger of war, and by the kind of diplomacy which this 
 state of things necessitated, it naturally aroused the 
 suspicion and distrust of its subjects. Parliamentary 
 government, so recently established in most of the 
 European countries, could not have been submitted to 
 a more difficult test than that afforded by the problems 
 of the armed peace and the German dominance. It is 
 not surprising that there should be perceptible, through- 
 out the period, a growing sense of dissatisfaction with 
 its working. 
 
 While all the great European States were thus watching 
 and suspecting one another, forming rival leagues, and 
 heaping up the materials of destruction, the development 
 of applied science was transforming the conditions of 
 industry with unheard-of rapidity, and the ingenious 
 methods of modern finance, whereby all the innumerable 
 rivulets of private thrift were canalised and brought 
 under the control of a handful of organisers in each 
 country, were rendering possible enterprises upon a scale 
 never before known, were unifying and centralising the 
 direction of the principal industries, and were increasing 
 the complexity of the relations among the leading States, 
 and also between these States and the rest of the world. 
 ' High Finance ' was becoming a greater power in States, 
 and in the relations of States, than ever before ; the gulf 
 
174 NATIONAL SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 between the masters of industry and the mass of men 
 who were its servants seemed to be growing greater. 
 This development presented very complex and difficult 
 problems to the rulers of all States. The suspicion began 
 to grow, in the self-governing countries, that representa- 
 tive bodies were unduly dominated by the influence of 
 these forces. Even the most sincere of democrats were 
 baffled by the difficulty of controlling their action without 
 undermining national prosperity. Here again the task 
 was easiest for an autocratic government which had a 
 clearly defined aim of national domination before it ; for 
 such a government could strike an alliance with the 
 controllers of finance and industry, and use them as 
 implements for its purposes, while democracy, aiming 
 not at Power so much as at Justice, could find no such 
 simple solution. But whether in the autocratic state or 
 in the democratic state, these developments tended to 
 increase the appeal of the Marxian doctrine of class-war 
 to the mass of men who vaguely felt themselves exploited. 
 Marx's theory that capital would be so concentrated in 
 course of time that it could be readily conquered and 
 subjugated seemed to be justified by facts, and became 
 more plausible than ever. Hence the astounding indus- 
 trial development of the period helped to undermine the 
 confidence of many men in government by discussion and 
 agreement, and led them rather to look to a pitiless war 
 of classes for improvement. Large sections of the work- 
 ing class became distrustful of the bona fides of their 
 representatives, and began to lose patience with the 
 slow proceedings of deliberative assemblies. On the other 
 hand, the organisers and directors of the new develop- 
 ments, inclined in any case to be distrustful of democracy, 
 were tempted to envy in some respects the position of 
 
RIVAL SYSTEMS IN OPERATION 175 
 
 their rivals in countries otherwise governed. This tend- 
 ency was not as yet, indeed, fully displayed during the 
 period under review ; but it was at work already, though 
 it was to become more manifest in the next period. 
 
 Finally, this portentous generation saw an extraordi- 
 narily rapid extension of the dominion of Europe over 
 the non-European world. It was par excellence the 
 period of Imperialism in all the European countries, and 
 even in America. The subjugation of the non-European 
 world by European civilisation which was finally achieved 
 during these years was in itself not an evil, but a good 
 thing x ; Europe had much to give to the outer world, and 
 in giving it was bringing about the world's unification. 
 But the great process took place in an unhappy way. It 
 seemed to be, and in many respects it was, too much 
 motived by the desire for mere exploitation, and too much 
 controlled by financial interests. And it was carried out 
 by means of a fierce rivalry among the European States, 
 under the influence of the mutual fears and suspicions 
 born of the state into which Europe had fallen. These 
 facts led many men to distrust and dislike the whole 
 movement, and to visit it, in all its aspects, with an 
 undiscriminating and unscientific condemnation, which 
 supplied fresh fuel for the movement of revolt against 
 the whole existing order. Already, before the period 
 closed, the unrest which was to grow to considerable 
 dimensions in the next period, was very clearly showing 
 itself. And this, too, added to the difficulties of the 
 representative system. There has seldom in the course 
 of history been a complex of problems more bewildering, 
 more likely to create deep antipathies, and less easy of 
 
 1 See The Expansion of Europe, chap, vii., for a survey and analysis 
 of these events. 
 
176 NATIONAL SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 solution by the processes of discussion, than those which 
 this period presented to the governments of civilised 
 States. The parliamentary system was indeed being put 
 to a severe test. In all the more highly developed 
 countries the main problems were of much the same kind. 
 In all countries definite Socialist organisations, more or 
 less clearly adopting the principles of Karl Marx, were 
 being brought into existence, to be bitterly suppressed 
 in some cases, but given free opportunities in others. 
 In all countries the supreme government found itself 
 compelled, in spite of the increasing burden of warlike 
 preparation and the distraction of foreign problems, to 
 undertake larger and larger functions. It will be our 
 task to consider with what degree of success the diffi- 
 culties of the period were met in various countries, and 
 whether the British and French form of government, in 
 which the executive was under popular control, achieved 
 as good results as the German form, in which the executive 
 was free from control. 
 
 The most outstanding feature of the period was the 
 great and growing prestige of the German system, which 
 seemed to be largely responsible for the amazing progress 
 of German industry and commerce, as well as for the 
 impressive political ascendancy which Germany enjoyed 
 in Europe. While other countries were torn asunder by 
 controversy, and pursued a wavering and uncertain 
 policy, Germany, however great her internal differences 
 might be, seemed to be able to follow clear, fixed, and 
 definite aims. Although her new imperial system, with 
 the dominance of Prussia upon which it rested, had 
 seemed by no means secure at the moment of its founda- 
 tion, and had been regarded with some resentment both 
 by some of the lesser German states, and by many of the 
 
HIVAL SYSTEMS IN OPERATION 111 
 
 most vigorous schools of political thought, before the end 
 of the period its ascendancy over the nation was unques- 
 tioned, and Germans had begun to boast that they 
 possessed the most perfect and efficient system of govern- 
 ment that had ever existed in the world. It cannot be 
 denied that the system unified and consolidated the 
 nation in a remarkable degree, contributed very greatly 
 to its amazing economic development, and assured to it 
 an unchallenged leadership in European politics, and the 
 respect (not unmingled with dread) of all other nations. 
 These were great achievements. The only question is, 
 was the price paid for them too high ? That question 
 can only be answered by some analysis of the methods 
 by which these remarkable results were attained. 
 
 In the first place, the Prussian-German State was 
 resolute to deny freedom to any forces which did not 
 accept full subordination to the State, or which pro- 
 claimed ideals inconsistent with its principles. First 
 among such forces ranked the Christian Churches; for 
 the ideals of Christianity are not naturally in harmony 
 with the ideals of Prussianism, and through many 
 centuries the Christian Churches have fought against the 
 impious doctrine that Might is Right. Just because of 
 this natural antipathy between Christianity and the 
 Prussian creed, many modern Germans have followed 
 Nietzsche in the repudiation of Christian morality, and 
 have even foretold the rise of a new German national 
 religion, 1 a revival of the old worship of Odin and Thor, 
 
 1 On a Sunday afternoon in July 1914 the writer was profoundly 
 impressed by a sort of religious service which he heard in the great 
 Volkerschlachtdenkmal at Leipzig. In a dim circular hall which is 
 carved out of the heart of that gigantic, ugly and lowering column of 
 masonry, he found a silent standing throng, all gazing upwards into 
 the high dome, past the cruel, impassive, colossal faces into which the 
 
 M 
 
178 NATIONAL SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 which should give its reverence to Might rather than to 
 the anaemic virtues of Justice and Love, which the ' pale 
 Galilean ' preached. But Germany remains, at any rate 
 conventionally, a Christian country ; and it was neces- 
 sary for the supremacy of the Prussian system that the 
 official exponents of Christianity should be reduced to 
 submission, and turned from critics into prophets of the 
 Doctrine of Power. 
 
 With the Lutheran Church there was no difficulty. 
 Since the time of Luther himself it has always been more 
 submissive to the secular power than any other Church. 
 It is a State Church in a higher degree than any other. 
 The Emperor is its supreme bishop, and he takes his 
 function seriously. Its pastors are largely paid by the 
 State, not, like the Anglican clergy, out of independent 
 endowments ; they are controlled by a department of 
 State, and are, in theory and practice alike, State officials. 
 But the Roman Church, which commands the allegiance 
 of almost half of the German nation, especially in the 
 south and west, was apt to be more independent. In 
 attempting to subjugate it Bismarck was drawn into a 
 fierce conflict, known as the Kulturkampf, which lasted 
 from 1873 to 1878. His aim, as defined by an eminent 
 German historian, was ' to increase the influence of the 
 State over the Catholic Church, and to put an end to all 
 encroachments by the Church in the political and social 
 sphere ' ; and for that purpose a severe persecuting code 
 was enacted during the years 1873-75. He did not win 
 a complete victory ; in 1878, in order to free his hands for 
 
 heavy stone buttresses are carved. Then there came floating down, 
 from an invisible choir far above, thrilling chorales, pseans in the praise 
 of Deutschland. It was strange, moving, and horrible; and the 
 listener felt that he was assisting at a festival of a new and grim 
 religion, from which pity was banished. 
 
ftlVAL SYSTEMS IN OPERATION 179 
 
 another struggle, he accepted a compromise, withdrew 
 his penal code, and made an informal political alliance 
 with the Papacy. But in effect, as events have shown, 
 he had won. The German Catholics accepted the imperial 
 system, with its doctrine of State omnipotence. The 
 clergy of the Roman Church, like the Lutheran, are in 
 great part paid by the State ; and the government has 
 a power of veto in the election of its bishops. There has 
 always been a powerful Catholic party in the Reichstag, 
 and it has often held the balance ; but it has never 
 challenged the State-system or the moral ideas upon 
 which it rests. We have seen during the Great War 
 how profound has been the real victory of Bismarck's 
 spirit. The Centre (Catholic) party, and the Catholic 
 ecclesiastics of Germany, have accepted and justified, as 
 readily as the Lutherans, all the abhorrent acts of the 
 German State, and all its repudiations of moral restraints ; 
 they have even defended the murder of priests and nuns 
 in Belgium, and found no word of support for the noble 
 courage of Cardinal Mercier. 
 
 The Kulturkampf was followed by an equally resolute 
 struggle against Socialism. The Socialists had closed 
 their ranks at the Gotha conference in 1875, and in 1877 
 they had twelve representatives in the Reichstag. Bis- 
 marck saw in the emergence of this consolidated party 
 a menace to that autocratic and class ascendancy 
 and that ideal of domination which formed the essence 
 of the Prussian system. He had no objection at all to 
 State Socialism in itself, as he was soon to show ; State 
 Socialism, administered by the existing ruling elements, 
 could only serve to increase their power and their hold 
 over the life of the nation, and was therefore entirely in 
 accord with the Prussian system. But the claim of the 
 
180 NATIONAL SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 Marxians that the socialised State should be controlled 
 by the proletariate challenged the power of the monarchy 
 and its servants, and against this claim Bismarck declared 
 war to the knife. It was the democratic side, not the 
 socialist side, of Social Democracy which he feared. In 
 1878 he got the Reichstag to pass a series of persecuting 
 laws against the Socialists, whereby their newspapers 
 were forbidden to appear, their meetings were prohibited, 
 and their organisations suppressed. Renewed from time to 
 time until 1890, these restrictions practically destroyed 
 the overt Socialist movement for the time being. But 
 it was only driven underground, and its resentment was 
 intensified. In 1890 the restrictions were withdrawn 
 by the new Emperor, William n., and this departure 
 from his accepted policy formed the chief cause of the 
 breach between Bismarck and the Emperor. Hence- 
 forth the Socialists were free to elect representatives to 
 the Reichstag ; their numbers grew rapidly, and in the 
 election of 1898 they obtained over two million votes 
 and fifty -six seats. But they were, of course, powerless 
 to affect the policy of government, since the Reichstag 
 possesses no control over ministers ; they could only 
 talk, not act, however large their numbers. They were 
 still regarded as the declared enemies of the State, as 
 the Emperor very frankly told his soldiers, when he 
 warned them that it might become their duty to fire 
 upon their brothers and fathers who were Socialists. 
 Socialist newspapers were allowed to appear, but were 
 proscribed in reading-rooms under public control, and 
 in army barracks ; while no government servant, how- 
 ever humble, could become a Socialist without risking 
 his livelihood. In effect, however, the admission of the 
 Socialists to political life largely tamed them ; they 
 
RIVAL SYSTEMS IN OPERATION 181 
 
 accepted in practice the existing system, though they 
 repudiated it in theory ; like the rest of the nation, they 
 had to submit to the subtle influences of the schools and 
 the barracks ; and we have seen, during the course of the 
 Great War, how effective this taming process has been. 
 In truth, without knowing it, the German Socialists 
 became useful agents of the German government. As 
 they were numerically stronger than the Socialists of 
 other countries, and had a certain prestige as the country- 
 men of Marx, they exercised a great influence in the 
 International Socialist Congresses. Excluded themselves 
 from all possibility of sharing in the government of 
 Germany, they erected this exclusion into a principle, 
 and preached to their fellows in other countries the 
 necessity of abstaining from any direct participation in 
 national government, and of maintaining an unresting 
 opposition, until the vague and distant day when the 
 social revolution should be consummated. They there- 
 fore discouraged many Socialists in other countries from 
 playing the part which they might have played in the 
 political life of their own nations, and helped to keep 
 alive that undiscriminating hostility to any and all 
 governments which, in genuinely democratic States, must 
 have none but evil effects. Powerless at home, and be- 
 coming progressively tamer, the German Social Democrats 
 actually served the cause of their autocratic and militarist 
 government by using all their influence to undermine 
 the national unity of all Germany's rivals and intended 
 victims. More openly and more consciously they have 
 played the same game during the war. 
 
 Another element hostile to the system of the German 
 State, an element which dared to have independent ideals 
 of its own, was to be found in the protesting fragments. 
 
182 NATIONAL SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 of non-German nationalities which had been forcibly in- 
 cluded in the German Empire : the Danes of Sleswig, 
 the Poles of Posen, and, above all, the French of Alsace 
 and Lorraine. Towards them the policy of the German 
 government has always been one of ruthless intolerance. 
 They must become German in thought and spirit, or 
 forfeit the rights of equal citizenship. Against them 
 Bismarck and all his successors have pursued a policy 
 which has sometimes varied in its methods, but never in 
 its spirit : a policy not of spasmodic terrorism like that 
 of Russia in Poland or of Turkey in Armenia, but of 
 unresting, hard, efficient, grinding persecution. The 
 German State is tolerant of differences of opinion and 
 ideals so long as they do not undermine the supremacy 
 of the State, or challenge the aims which the State has 
 set before itself ; beyond that point tolerance stops. 
 
 It was in the sphere of social organisation that the 
 hard efficiency of German government most fully dis- 
 played itself. Here the aim was what it had always 
 been in the Prussian State since the time of Frederick the 
 Great. Everything must be done to make the community 
 prosperous and strong, and to remove preventible ills 
 which told against national efficiency. But the ultimate 
 end of these labours must be strength for war — for the 
 war of commerce as well as for the war of arms — with a 
 view to the establishment of German supremacy over 
 other nations. The State must be organised as a vast 
 army, healthy, well found, united in sentiment, equipped 
 in all respects for conflict. But the spirit which was to 
 inspire this army must not be the product of a free 
 fermentation of thought among its soldiers ; that would 
 be subversive of discipline. It must be inspired from 
 above, The use to be made of this mighty organised fore© 
 
RIVAL SYSTEMS IN OPERATION 183 
 
 must not be determined by itself, but by its masters. 
 It is for the headquarters staff of an army first of 
 all to organise it, and, secondly, to determine how it 
 shall be employed. And the headquarters staff of 
 Germany consisted of the Hohenzollern monarchy with 
 those classes and interests upon whose loyalty it could 
 depend. 
 
 The most remarkable aspect of Bismarck's legislation 
 during the 'eighties was his scheme of State insurance 
 against invalidity, old age, and unemployment, which was 
 far in advance of anything yet attempted in any other 
 State. Its aim was not merely to spike the guns of the 
 Socialists by demonstrating to the working class that the 
 State was its best friend. It was also motived by the 
 belief that such provision made for national well-being and 
 efficiency. But perhaps its main purpose was to teach 
 the mass of Germans to trust to the State rather than to 
 their own action. All spontaneous efforts after ameliora- 
 tion among the workpeople, such as the co-operative 
 societies after the British pattern, which were now be- 
 ginning to thrive, or the trade union organisations, were 
 uniformly frowned upon and discouraged, just because they 
 tended to weaken dependence upon the State, and to en- 
 courage independence and initiative among the masses of 
 the people, among the privates of the national army. The 
 German system does not believe in self-help. 
 
 In the task of organising the national economy, of hus- 
 banding and developing the material resources of the com- 
 munity, Germany showed herself far ahead of all other 
 nations. Indeed we may fairly say that no State has ever 
 taken a more enlarged or a more enlightened view of its 
 functions in this respect. In pursuing this end Bismarck 
 and his successors carried State Socialism to a higher pitch 
 
184 NATIONAL SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 than any other State. They nationalised the railways, and 
 administered them with a view primarily to the needs of 
 war, secondarily to the needs of trade, and only in the 
 third place to the earning of profits. They systematically 
 developed the forests of the country under State con- 
 trol, and scientific administration. They gave the most 
 assiduous attention to the natural waterways in which their 
 country is so rich, and supplemented them with a great 
 system of admirably devised and admirably managed 
 canals. They encouraged to the utmost extent the de- 
 velopment of scientific agriculture, with a view to making 
 the nation self-supporting even when it became industrial- 
 ised ; and in doing so they held always in mind the needs 
 of war. At the same time they took in hand the organisa- 
 tion of the nation's commerce and industry ; gave sub- 
 sidies to shipping lines ; encouraged the organisation of 
 the country's banking system in such a way as to facilitate 
 in the highest degree the rapid expansion of trade by 
 making credit easily available ; fostered the centralisa- 
 tion of the chief industries by the creation of Kartels 
 or working agreements for the avoidance of waste by 
 competition ; and spared no pains to assist industrial 
 enterprise not only by the lavish endowment of 
 scientific research, but by helping to cover the world 
 with a network of German commercial agencies. All 
 this, indeed, was in the Prussian tradition : Prussian 
 governments have acted so since the days of Frederick 
 William in the early eighteenth century. They have re- 
 garded the whole country as in the last resort the estate of 
 the monarchy, and they have always been careful to make 
 it yield as much as possible, in order that it might be able 
 to stand the strain of mamtaining great armies, and form 
 a solid basis for the extension of power ; and no rights of 
 
RIVAL SYSTEMS IN OPERATION 185 
 
 private property have been allowed to stand in the way of 
 this policy. 
 
 Now one result of these brilliantly conducted activities 
 was that the capitalist and industrial classes, once the 
 staunchest supporters of liberal institutions after the 
 British pattern, were won over to an ardent support of 
 the policy of government. Bismarck, indeed, through- 
 out made a point of allying himself with the National 
 Liberal party, which drew its strength from these classes, 
 even running the risk of alienating the Conservative 
 Junkers ; and the National Liberals have ever since been 
 a government party ; they are among the staunchest 
 supporters of the present war. In adopting this policy, 
 Bismarck knew well what he was doing. He saw the 
 importance of industrial wealth to a State which aimed 
 at supremacy in the modern world. He perhaps foresaw 
 — certainly his successors foresaw — that future wars 
 would be waged in the factory even more than in the 
 field. And he perhaps perceived, as his successors have 
 certainly perceived, that the warfare of commerce, if 
 pursued with the methods and in the spirit of the General 
 Staff, by systematic and co-ordinated activity, could be 
 used as a means of undermining and weakening the 
 nation's rivals, and preparing the way for national 
 ascendancy. Therefore, he took pains to knit the in- 
 dustrial classes to the Hohenzollern State by placing at 
 their disposal all the strength of the State. And from 
 this alliance and this guidance German industry learned 
 to pursue the aim of not merely making wealth, but 
 making war, and preparing the way for the culminating 
 onset of armies and fleets. The characteristically German 
 arts of peaceful penetration had already attained a high 
 degree of efficiency before this period closed. Already 
 
186 NATIONAL SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 they had turned commerce from being (what it had 
 seemed in the rosy vision of Cobden and his school) a 
 maker of peace, into being one of the most formidable 
 weapons of war. 
 
 The ability and method with which the organisation of 
 the nation's resources, and the co-ordination of its trading 
 activities, were carried out under the direction of the 
 State had the effect of increasing the hold of government, 
 through the bureaucracy, upon all the material aspects 
 of national life, and of winning for it at once gratitude and 
 support. But more than this was necessary. The mind 
 of the nation, and not merely its material activities, must 
 be tamed and brought under the control of government : 
 the nation must be taught to 'think to order,' and to 
 accept unquestioningly whatever moral and political ideas 
 its masters might choose to impose upon it. Public opinion 
 must not be left to shape itself freely under the influence 
 of all the various currents of modern thought ; in the 
 political field, at least, it must be turned (as modern 
 Germans have boasted that it has been turned) into ' an 
 orchestra which answers only to the baton of government.' 
 The achievement of this end has been the greatest and 
 most terrible of the victories of Prussianism ; nor has 
 anything more directly contributed to the strength and 
 discipline of this conquering State. 
 
 The victory had been already half -won by the immense 
 and resounding triumphs which the Prussian spirit had 
 achieved in 1866 and 1870. Already, under the influ- 
 ence of these triumphs, the most distinguished historians 
 and philosophers of Germany had begun to glorify 
 the methods of Prussianism, to find in the historic prin- 
 ciples of the Hohenzollern house the essentials of sound 
 political thinking, and to become the advocates of a. 
 
RIVAL SYSTEMS IN OPERATION 187 
 
 doctrine of Bealpolitik more unblushingly materialist and 
 cynical than any propounded to the world since the days 
 of Machiavelli. In the vitally important realms of 
 history and political science the German universities, 
 which had once been the centres of liberal thought, 
 increasingly became the pulpits of the doctrine of Power, 
 the doctrine that force, rather than justice, is what holds 
 the State together, and that the increase of brute power, 
 rather than the enlargement of justice, should be its aim. 
 It was not necessary, therefore, to conquer the uni- 
 versities ; they became voluntary captives. But it was 
 easy to accentuate their submissiveness, because the uni- 
 versities were all State institutions, and all their teachers 
 were appointed and promoted by the State. The greatest 
 glory of the German universities in the past had been 
 their Lehrfreiheit, the absolute freedom of their teachers 
 to teach whatever seemed to them true. In form this 
 freedom was not impaired. In fact, every teacher in a 
 Prussian university (more especially the professor of 
 history, politics, or economics) knew that his chances 
 of advancement depended upon the coincidence of his 
 conception of truth with the official doctrine ; and the 
 man of independent opinions, the man who declined to 
 make himself a mouthpiece for the glorification of the 
 Hohenzollern dynasty and the ideas for which it stood, 
 usually found that he was left to pine in the obscure and 
 ill-remunerated ranks of the privat-dozenten. A single 
 instance may suffice to illustrate the extent to which 
 government control has sometimes been carried. In 
 1902 the Professor of Jurisprudence at Breslau was 
 lecturing on the law of succession to the throne. He did 
 not dare to discuss the absurd theory of Divine Right, 
 to which the Hohenzollerns still cling ; he merely said 
 
188 NATIONAL SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 that he would pass it over, as being a non-legal subject. 
 But before long he received a warning and a rebuke from 
 the Minister of Education, in which he was told that 
 while he was, of course, free to teach whatever he liked, 
 he must ' reckon with the possibility of his services being 
 no longer required.' That is, no doubt, an extreme case ; 
 the Prussian government is not so stupid as often to 
 repeat such manifest blunders. But with such a spirit 
 in power, controlling all the avenues of academic pro- 
 motion and distinction, it is manifest that university 
 teachers of subjects which have any bearing upon political 
 thought must feel themselves debarred from even thinking 
 freely. The whole influence of the universities is there- 
 fore harnessed to the chariot of government, and used 
 for impregnating the national mind with the conceptions 
 which the government approves. Now in all countries 
 the universities must exercise a profound influence upon 
 national thought, since they train the teachers of the 
 schools, the lawyers, the publicists and writers on political 
 subjects. In Germany the prestige and ascendancy of 
 universities has long been greater than in any other 
 country : the Germans are the most docile and the most 
 bookish of peoples, and there exists among them scarcely 
 anything of that healthy, half-humorous contempt for 
 professors which is to be found in other countries. In 
 controlling the universities, therefore, the German govern- 
 ment controlled the most powerful influence upon the 
 nation's mind. 
 
 Over the lower grades of education the influence of the 
 Prussian government was yet more marked. The whole 
 system was brought under a far more direct and centralised 
 State control than has ever been the case in Britain. Like 
 everything else under the direction of the Prussian bureau- 
 
RIVAL SYSTEMS IN OPERATION 189 
 
 cracy, the work was very efficiently done. The system was 
 scientifically planned, so as to give to every class just the 
 kind and degree of learning which it needed in order that it 
 might play its allotted part in the life of the nation. It 
 was thus far from being, in any real sense, a democratic 
 system ; because its aim was not so much to develop all 
 individual capacity so that it might be employed on what- 
 ever work suited it best, as to train classes as such, and so 
 to emphasise the distinctions between them. The results 
 were certainly remarkable, and contributed immensely to 
 the nation's progress. To the boys of the middle class, 
 especially, the system succeeded in imparting an astonishing 
 volume of organised knowledge ; and the German boy of 
 eighteen is a mere paragon in comparison with his British 
 compeer. It may fairly be said that his individuality 
 was apt to be lost beneath these masses of imposed 
 knowledge. But there is no denying that he was, and is, 
 far more adequately equipped with the kind of knowledge 
 which will enable him to play his part efficiently as 
 an obedient instrument in the great organised army of a 
 conquering nation. But the most striking aspect of the 
 German school-system was the use which was made of it 
 to impregnate the national mind with a set of political 
 ideas and preconceptions favourable to the Prussian 
 theory of government. The curriculum, more especially 
 in history (to which far more attention was devoted than 
 in British schools) has been systematically used to glorify 
 the Hohenzollern dynasty, to justify its methods, to preach 
 the inherent superiority of the Teutonic race overall others, 
 and the divine destiny of Germany to become the leader of 
 the world. In the schools, even more directly than in the 
 universities, the teachers were made to feel that their 
 prospects depended largely upon their success in creating 
 
190 NATIONAL SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 among their pupils the attitude of mind which the Prussian 
 government desired. None but the most resolutely inde- 
 pendent minds can resist the influence of such pressure, 
 steadily exercised during the moulding years of youth. 
 
 To these influences must be added that wielded by the 
 military system, under whose control the whole manhood 
 of the nation came, directly or indirectly, between the 
 ages of twenty and forty. The habit of discipline, of sub- 
 ordination and submission to the officer-caste, and of 
 acceptmg the idea of utter devotion to the monarch to 
 whom every soldier must swear personal allegiance, com- 
 pleted and enforced the docility of mind already trained in 
 the schools. The whole German military system is based 
 upon the ideas of autocracy and caste supremacy ; unlike 
 the French system, which is democratic in its character. 
 It is not easy to imagine any mode in which submission to 
 the existing order, and the universal acceptance of the 
 ideals by which it was guided, could be more potently 
 assured than the German system of military service. And 
 its political value formed one of the reasons why throughout 
 the period the German government persisted in periodi- 
 cally increasing the number of men under arms in pro- 
 portion to the increase of population, despite the fact 
 that Germany needed no accession of military strength to 
 secure her from attack. The rule was that not less than 
 one per cent, of the population must always be in military 
 training ; and the reason for this rule was quite as much 
 political as military. 
 
 Over literature and the newspaper press government 
 naturally could not exercise so direct a control as it could 
 wield over the schools and the army. But imaginative 
 literature always echoes and reflects the mind of the people 
 which creates it, and if that mind is materialised and en- 
 
rival systems in operation 191 
 
 slaved, literature will become sterile. The imaginative 
 literature of Germany since the middle of the nineteenth 
 century has been very abundant, but it has been singularly 
 lacking in originality and inspiration. None of the great 
 writers who have influenced the thought of Europe have 
 come from Germany during the last half -century. And 
 this is because their work has no universal appeal, since 
 it has reflected the vulgar materialism, the national self- 
 complacency, and the worship of mere brute power, which 
 have dominated the German mind since the great military 
 triumphs of Bismarck, and which have been fostered and 
 strengthened by the whole State-system, and by the philo- 
 sophy which it embodies. As for the newspaper press, the 
 German government was acute enough to recognise that 
 direct censorship of the rigid kind practised during the 
 early nineteenth century was no longer tolerable or prac- 
 ticable, except in time of war. Bismarck, indeed, did not 
 hesitate to suppress newspapers from time to time, and 
 prosecutions for lese-majesti have been abundant. But 
 on the whole a wide latitude in the expression of opinion 
 has been allowed ; the great safeguard being that the 
 nation had been trained not to listen seriously to opinions 
 which the government held to be dangerous. Besides, 
 variety of opinion could do no harm so long as it was kept 
 within strait limits. An orchestra which plays in strict 
 unison produces no very powerful effect. Better that the 
 various instruments should play different and character- 
 istic notes, so long as the main theme could be kept pre- 
 dominant, and the clashing notes kept in harmony by the 
 baton of the conductor. Bismarck invented, and his 
 successors have very efficiently developed, a far more 
 subtle and skilful method of influencing public opinion than 
 that of direct control. It has consisted in the lavish 
 
192 NATIONAL SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 expenditure of State funds upon the management of the 
 press at home and abroad ; and the supply, under govern- 
 ment supervision, of a cheap and full service of news, in 
 which the facts are dexterously handled, by emphasis or 
 suppression, so as to create the kind of impression desired. 
 It is not necessary to falsify the facts ; it is enough to edit 
 them, to select and arrange them. And without endeav- 
 ouring to dictate the ordinary policy of a newspaper, a 
 government which gives thought to such matters can 
 generally secure the insertion of articles or of persistent 
 little paragraphs expressing a particular point of view, or 
 can by an appeal to patriotism secure the suppression of 
 inconvenient facts, or the support of a particular policy ; 
 the obstinate newspaper can always be punished by the 
 withholding of government advertisements or other such 
 means. These were the methods by which the German 
 government learnt to mould the opinion of the nation, 
 already rendered docile by the instruction of the schools 
 and the discipline of the army. This is what Bismarck 
 called ' the mobilisation of public opinion,' and regarded 
 as a process almost as important for victory as the 
 mobilisation of armies. It constitutes an interference 
 with freedom of thought and the free movement of opinion 
 far more dangerous than the most rigid censorship. But 
 it was very efficient ; and it brought the result that, 
 according to an important German publicist, ' there is no 
 public opinion in Germany : public opinion is an orchestra 
 which answers only to the baton of government.' 
 
 Such was the working of the German system, a system 
 of military and bureaucratic autocracy, veiled by repre- 
 sentative institutions, using these institutions as a means 
 of feeling the pulse of national opinion, employing every 
 device to organise and bring under government direction 
 
RIVAL SYSTEMS IN OPERATION 193 
 
 all the material resources of the nation, and to guide and 
 direct the movement of public thought ; but wielding 
 all the power thus won for the purpose of realising aims 
 which the nation had no share in defining. It was the 
 most scientific and efficient system which the world had 
 ever seen. It made the nation prosperous, united, and 
 terribly strong, and turned it into a formidable engine of 
 war, the wielders of which might well feel that world- 
 supremacy was within their reach. But, as events have 
 terribly demonstrated, it poisoned the nation's very soul. 
 And what shall it profit a nation if it gain the whole 
 world, and lose its own soul ? 
 
 In startling contrast with the demonstration of the 
 German system which these years afforded was the 
 demonstration afforded in Russia of the working of a 
 different kind of autocratic government ; an autocracy 
 unveiled by even the semblance of a representative 
 system, served by a bureaucracy which was not even 
 efficient, and having as its aim not the subtle indoctrina- 
 tion of a whole people's mind with its own ideas, but the 
 mere prohibition of all independent criticism or discussion 
 of national policy. This was autocracy in its most sterile 
 and destructive form, which actually encourages in- 
 efficiency and backwardness because the efficient and the 
 progressive are tempted to think for themselves. The 
 one healthy feature in the political life of Russia during 
 this period was to be found in the work of the Zemstva 
 or County Councils, and the Municipal Councils of the 
 towns, which had been instituted in the 'sixties. They 
 were carrying on useful labours of education, sanitation, 
 and local government, in which their members were 
 acquiring a real political capacity. But the numbers of 
 those who had a share in such work, and in the political 
 
 N 
 
194 NATIONAL SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 training which it gave, were very limited ; they were 
 regarded with deep distrust by the governing bureaucracy, 
 which lost no opportunity of checking their work, or 
 whittling away their modest powers. When the bureau- 
 cratic system broke down and showed its shameful in- 
 competence and corruption in dealing with famines 
 during the 'nineties, the Zemstva alone saved the situa- 
 tion, and made it clear that Russia was by no means 
 lacking in men of public spirit and administrative capa- 
 city. But this demonstration only increased the jealousy 
 and hostility of the ruling bureaucracy. Instead of 
 developing and making the most of these promising 
 beginnings, the ruling elements in Russia continued to 
 discourage and repress them. The period was, in short, 
 one of mere stupid reactionism. It reaped its natural 
 fruit in the fostering of secret conspiracy and aimless 
 violence, which reached its height with the murder of 
 the Tsar Alexander n. in 1881 ; and the excesses of 
 Nihilism provided further excuses for violent repres- 
 sion, conducted with a disregard of every principle of 
 justice. Under such a system opposition is certain to 
 be driven to extremes, to adopt visionary ideas, and to 
 become destructive rather than constructive. The best 
 brains of the nation, excluded from participation in 
 useful public activities, deprived of all political experi- 
 ence, and driven back upon themselves, gave ready 
 harbourage to the most fantastic projects. No great 
 nation could remain for long content with a system so 
 perverse, so corrupt, so inefficient and so radically unjust 
 as that by which Russia was governed. She was drifting 
 towards revolution ; and it seemed to be the deliberate 
 plan of her governing class that the revolution, when it 
 came, should be robbed of sane and rational leadership. 
 
RIVAL SYSTEMS IN OPERATION 195 
 
 What added to the danger was that during this period 
 Russia began, for the first time, to be seriously affected 
 by the industrial revolution. The rapid growth, in some 
 of her large towns, of an industrial proletariate, brought 
 with it new problems, with which her corrupt and incom- 
 petent government was quite incapable of dealing. This 
 new element, drawn from among the illiterate peasantry, 
 and for the most part quite ignorant and totally unversed 
 in political problems, understood nothing but its own 
 wretchedness, and formed a ready prey for the crudest 
 doctrines of revolutionary Socialism. 
 
 Autocracy in Germany could claim that it made for 
 national strength and prosperity. Autocracy in Russia 
 could not even put forward that claim. Yet when we 
 compare the ultimate effects of the two forms of autocracy 
 upon the peoples who were subject to them, and upon 
 the fortunes of civilisation, it may be doubted whether the 
 deeper reprobation must fall to the Russian system. It 
 was shamelessly unjust. Yet its injustice was of a kind 
 which aroused indignation and sympathy with its victims, 
 and therefore stimulated rather than deadened the desire 
 for justice among its subjects. The German system 
 administered with meticulous exactitude a well-devised 
 system of law, which was just to those who accepted its 
 political ideas, but ruthless to those who repudiated 
 them ; its very efficiency helped to lull to sleep the 
 consciences of its subjects in all those matters which did 
 not affect their personal or national interests, stifled the 
 spirit of justice among them, and prepared them to 
 applaud the most hideous disregard of right that history 
 records. The Russian system endeavoured to forbid all 
 expression of opinion upon political subjects, and all free 
 political action ; and it consequently drove into extra va- 
 
196 NATIONAL SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 gance and unreality much of the political opposition 
 which it aroused. But it did not, and it could not, 
 repress the free movement of the Russian mind, which 
 expressed itself in a literature of imaginative insight, 
 idealism, and spiritual sincerity which gave a fresh in- 
 spiration to human thinking. The German system did 
 not suppress the surface manifestations of political 
 thought or political action ; it went to their roots, it im- 
 pregnated them with its own spirit, and it won for the 
 ugliest ideas of political and moral materialism an absolute 
 and desolating ascendancy over most of the guiding 
 minds of the nation, with the result that the influence 
 of German thought upon the civilised world has for a 
 generation been either null or poisonous in the moral and 
 political spheres. The very stupidity and inefficiency of 
 the Russian system, while it brought many woes, saved 
 the nation from the worst result of subjection, the en- 
 slaving of its mind to a false and destructive ideal. The 
 very efficiency and purposefulness of the German system 
 was undoing the German nation, by blinding it to the 
 fundamental distinction between right and wrong : the 
 ruin was none the less real because it came dressed out 
 in an alluring vesture of worldly success. ' All these 
 things and more also,' wealth, trade, military success, 
 perhaps world dominion, ' will I give unto thee if thou 
 fall down and worship me ' ; and the German nation 
 was so trained that it fell down and worshipped, instead 
 of crying, ' Get thee behind me, Satan.' 
 
 From the two great autocracies of Europe we may next 
 turn to examine the working during this period of the 
 two greatest European democracies, those of France and 
 Britain. Both were, as democracies, of recent establish- 
 ment. Both, but especially that of France, were very 
 
RIVAL SYSTEMS IN OPERATION 197 
 
 severely tested by the strain of the period, by its im- 
 perial adventures, its burden of armaments, its growing 
 social unrest. In neither country did the parliamentary 
 system arouse among its subjects such whole-hearted and 
 unqualified approbation as the German system evoked 
 in large elements of the German nation. In France the 
 system was indeed only slowly establishing itself. It 
 was the object of unceasing criticism even from its sup- 
 porters, and of bitter opposition from more than one 
 side. In Britain the self-complacency of the previous 
 age, which we have seen echoed by Mill and Bagehot, 
 was rapidly diminishing. In the judgment of many 
 well-qualified observers, the system was beginning to 
 break down, and the increasing dominance and rigidity 
 of party divisions aroused a growing discontent. Yet 
 there were but few citizens of either country who would 
 have consented to exchange their method of government, 
 with all its defects, for the German system, which was so 
 strikingly demonstrating its practical efficiency; while, 
 on the other hand, there was in Germany an increasing 
 proportion of the population, represented by the Radical 
 and Socialist parties, who were anxious to cut at the 
 roots of the German system by adopting the central 
 feature of the British and French system, and bringing 
 under the control of the representative body the un- 
 checked authority of the Crown and its administrative 
 bureaucracy. This contrast is highly instructive and 
 suggestive. It indicates in advance the conclusion to 
 which a more detailed analysis will bring us : the con- 
 clusion that while democracy could not compare with 
 autocracy in the definiteness and the simplicity of the 
 national aim which it set before itself, and therefore in 
 the efficiency with which it pursued its aim, there was 
 
198 NATIONAL SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 something in the spirit of the democratic system which 
 outweighed all the practical deficiencies of its early de- 
 velopment, and which caused it to appeal to the idealism 
 of its citizens in a way that could never be equalled by 
 the deadly efficiency of autocracy pursuing the purely 
 material end of mere ascendancy. 
 
 In France the period may be defined as one of constant 
 struggle for the system of parliamentary Republicanism. 
 The Monarchist parties, who had been in the majority 
 in the Assembly of 1871, had, as we have seen, only 
 consented to the establishment of the Republican system 
 because they could not agree among themselves. They 
 had postponed its formal enactment as long as they 
 could (1875). Even after it had come into being, though 
 henceforward outnumbered, they long remained numer- 
 ous, and restless in their opposition. They retained hope 
 of a victory so long as the Royalist Macmahon retained 
 the presidential chair ; even after his resignation, in 
 1879, they continued active. Perhaps the moment of 
 final Republican victory may be fixed in 1883, when it 
 was adopted as a principle of the constitution that ' The 
 Republican form of government cannot be made the 
 subject of a proposal for revision.' The effect of this 
 was that while the Chamber or the Senate might, under 
 the constitution, propose constitutional changes, they 
 were henceforth forbidden to propose the introduction of 
 monarchical institutions. That could not now be put 
 forward in a constitutional manner, but only by a violent 
 revolution. Yet even now the agitation against the 
 Republican and parliamentary system did not cease. It 
 formed the strength of the Boulangist movement (1887- 
 89). Boulanger was an empty and pretentious general, 
 who won some popularity by his good looks and by his 
 
RIVAL SYSTEMS IN OPERATION 199 
 
 insistence upon the need of concentrating all the strength 
 of France upon the obtaining of revenge from Germany. 
 He demanded a revision of the constitution, and a return 
 to something like the system of Napoleon m. for the 
 sake of military efficiency. But he was in reality only 
 the puppet of the forces of reaction, and his fall in 1889 
 was a great victory for Republicanism. Again, there is 
 some reason for supposing that the same forces were at 
 work in the miserable Dreyfus affair (1897-1900), wherein 
 the professional jealousies of army chiefs, resentful of 
 popular control, were strengthened by anti-Semitic feeling 
 in denying justice to a cruelly maltreated Jewish officer. 
 The combination of the best elements in the Republic, in 
 1899, to clear up this mess, and to stamp out the intrigues 
 and secret influences which were at work in the direction 
 of the army, was another and definitive victory for the 
 parliamentary and Republican cause. 
 
 In the Dreyfus affair, in the Boulangist struggle, and 
 in all the reactionary movements of the time, the strength 
 of the party of reaction was mainly drawn from the 
 Church. Hence the struggle for the security of the Re- 
 publican system largely resolved itself into a conflict with 
 the Church ; and this conflict filled the period with which 
 we are concerned, and lasted on into the next period. 
 Le clericalisme, voila Vennemi, said Gambetta, the most 
 vigorous of the Republican leaders during the early part 
 of the period ; and this became the accepted doctrine of 
 strict Republicans. It was mainly over the control of 
 education that the conflict raged, since it was the influence 
 which the Church could exercise through the schools upon 
 the mind of young France which formed its greatest 
 strength. And as educational work was mainly carried 
 on by religious * congregations ' or orders, such as that 
 
200 NATIONAL SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 of the Jesuits, it was against these orders that the attack 
 of the Republicans was primarily directed. The wise 
 Pope Leo xm. did his best to ease the strain : in 1885 
 he issued an Encyclical calling upon Catholics to recognise 
 French political institutions ; and in 1892 he followed 
 this up by a definite command to the French Catholics 
 to abandon all attempts at political domination, and to 
 rally to democracy, ' since the civil power, upon every 
 theory, comes from God.' But this wise guidance was 
 ill-obeyed, and had only a temporary effect. Before very 
 long French churchmen were lending themselves to an 
 ugly campaign against Jews, Protestants, and infidels ; 
 the movement, encouraged by a spurious patriotism 
 which called itself ' Nationalism,' was supported by the 
 army chiefs. The conviction of Dreyfus was one of the 
 outcomes of this movement ; and it was what lay behind 
 it which gave the Dreyfus case its profound political 
 significance, and turned it into a crisis in the history of 
 the Republic : a struggle between Republicanism and its 
 enemies, and also between liberty and intolerance. 
 
 The prolonged conflict with the Church was in many 
 ways a very unhappy thing for France. The hostility to 
 clericalism was easily represented as, and sometimes 
 developed into, a hostility to religion. It therefore en- 
 couraged some of the unhappiest tendencies of French 
 life. It alienated from the government and excluded 
 from effective participation in politics some of the most 
 valuable elements in the community. It contributed to 
 the disorganisation of the parliamentary system, helped to 
 make ministries weak and fluctuating, and distracted their 
 attention unduly from many urgent and difficult problems. 
 Yet the struggle was inevitable, though it sometimes 
 assumed unpleasant and needlessly acrimonious forms. 
 
RIVAL SYSTEMS IN OPERATION 201 
 
 Nor was it only from the side of the reactionaries and 
 their ecclesiastical supporters that the system of the 
 parliamentary Republic and the ideal of democratic co- 
 operation in government were threatened. These years 
 saw the birth and early development of the political 
 Socialist movement in France, which, as a serious factor in 
 politics, may be said to date from 1882. From the first 
 the French Socialists split into numerous sections. Some, 
 influenced by the revolutionary tradition, advocated mere 
 violence, unceasing war against the existing order, and 
 abstention from all dealings with the parliamentary 
 system : they would have nothing to do with democracy 
 until democracy had adopted their ideas, and until the 
 kingdom of heaven had been taken by violence and the 
 social revolution accomplished. Others, who came to be 
 known as the Possibilistes, adopted the more rational line 
 of trying to use Parliament for the gradual embodiment 
 of their ideas. They became, in effect, the extreme left 
 wing of Radicalism. But even these declined to pledge 
 their support to any government, or to allow their members 
 to accept any office of responsibility. Hence the Socialists 
 in Parliament, and still more the non-parliamentary 
 Socialists, formed an element of standing hostility to the 
 existing order ; and the violences of the anarchist groups, 
 who were generally regarded as the extreme wing of 
 Socialism, such as the murder of President Carnot in 1894, 
 widened the gulf. The Socialists, however, though (as in 
 other countries) they claimed to be the sole spokesmen of 
 the people, commanded but a small proportion of the 
 votes cast by universal suffrage. And as the period went 
 on, their impracticability diminished. They steadily sup- 
 ported the Republican cause against the Boulangists, the 
 Clericals, and the Militarists. And when, in 1899, the 
 
202 National self-government 
 
 Waldeck-Rousseau Cabinet was formed, by a coalition of 
 all the Republican groups, to guide the State through the 
 Dreyfus crisis, one leading Socialist, M. Millerand, accepted 
 office. He was the first Socialist member of the govern- 
 ment of any European State. His acceptance of office 
 split the French Socialist party. It aroused a storm of 
 controversy in the International, where the Germans, 
 themselves hopelessly excluded from any share of political 
 power, loudly proclaimed the poisonous sourness of all 
 governmental grapes. But it marked the beginning of a 
 great change, which was to make it possible for leading 
 Socialists, like Briand and Viviani, to play a great part in 
 the political life of the nation during the next era. Thus, 
 by 1900, not only had the reactionary enemies of parlia- 
 mentary government been definitely routed, but the 
 obstinate refusal of extreme democrats to take part in the 
 effective direction of national affairs had begun to break 
 down. 
 
 The greatest difficulty of a democratic system is the 
 difficulty of obtaining loyal co-operation in the working 
 of the system among groups of widely diverse points of 
 view, and to persuade these groups to abstain from the 
 methods of mere wrecking, while leaving them full freedom 
 of thought, speech, and action. France's long tradition of 
 revolutionary upheavals and coups d'etat, and the multi- 
 tude of divergent schools of thought which her history had 
 produced, made this difficulty greater in her case than in 
 the case of any other state. The success with which she 
 attained this end during the long and difficult contro- 
 versies of this period was a real triumph for democracy. 
 The constantly recurrent crises of these years make, on 
 the surface, a poor comparison with the firm order and 
 methodical progress of the German system. But when we 
 
RIVAL SYSTEMS IN OPERATION 203 
 
 are tempted to draw such a contrast, let us remember that 
 France was striving to attain, and was largely attaining, a 
 much more difficult and a much more valuable thing than 
 that at which the German system aimed. She was trying, 
 not, like Russia, to suppress the divergent movements 
 which naturally and healthily arise in a great nation, and 
 not, like Germany, to tame them or emasculate them, but 
 to bring them into the habit of discussion and co-operation 
 for the common good. Voluntary co-operation is a much 
 finer thing than enforced obedience ; but it is much more 
 difficult to ensure. In the incessant controversies of this 
 period France was slowly learning this lesson. And if she 
 sacrificed something of efficiency, something of her strength 
 and of her immediate and external unity, in the struggle, 
 the sacrifice was worth while. 
 
 Unhappily, the acrimonious controversies 6f this period, 
 and the numerous factions into which the political world 
 was divided, concealed in some degree the real progress 
 that was being made, and weakened men's confidence in 
 parliamentary institutions. Ministries were short-lived 
 and embarrassed. The constantly changing procession 
 of politicians who passed into and out of high office be- 
 wildered the onlooker : there were very few dominant 
 personalities who could appeal to the public imagination 
 as the representatives of great principles. The business 
 of bargaining and intrigue which necessarily accompanied 
 every change of ministry under a multiple-party system 
 seemed sordid and insincere. The notion grew that poli- 
 ticians as a class were corrupt self-seekers. It was en- 
 couraged and fomented by the acid criticisms of those 
 elements in the State which had declared hostility to the 
 existing order, the reactionaries on the one hand, the more 
 extreme Socialists on the other. And it was not without 
 
204 NATIONAL SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 some justification ; for in a system of shifting cliques and 
 groups corruption finds an easy access. There was a 
 succession of rather unsavoury political scandals. Thus, 
 in 1887, President Grevy was compelled to resign because 
 some of his entourage were guilty of dealing corruptly 
 with the Legion of Honour ; the Panama scandals, when a 
 number of deputies were found to have been bribed by the 
 Panama Company, aroused a still deeper distrust ; and 
 there were other unpleasant episodes of a similar character. 
 In the eyes of solid, industrious France, unhabituated to 
 the discussions and controversies of representative govern- 
 ment, politics as pursued in Paris were apt to seem a rather 
 shady mystery. That is not the spirit which creates full 
 confidence in government. 
 
 Yet, although it must be recognised that there was 
 some foundation for the uneasiness about the working of 
 the parliamentary system which marked the period, there 
 was no real ground for pessimism. This harassed and 
 troubled system of government succeeded in carrying out 
 a remarkable amount of good work. It revived and en- 
 couraged French agriculture, giving great attention to its 
 scientific problems, encouraging co-operation among the 
 peasantry, and providing them with working capital for 
 the development of their industry. Not even Germany 
 surpassed the activity of Republican France in the study 
 and development of agricultural science. Though handi- 
 capped by the lack of coal, it did much for the develop- 
 ment of industry. It made new railways, great roads, 
 and a magnificent system of canals, superior even to that 
 of Germany. Above all, it brought into being an admir- 
 able system of national education, modelled largely on 
 that of Germany, but in many essential respects superior 
 to it. The French democracy was to be an educated 
 
RIVAL SYSTEMS IN OPERATION 205 
 
 democracy. And once that was secured, as it was by a 
 long series of enactments during the 'eighties and 'nineties, 
 the ultimate health and vigour of French society was 
 ensured, provided that the very existence of the State 
 could be safeguarded against the dread peril which, as 
 every Frenchman knew, for ever threatened it on the 
 eastern border. Thus, although the system of the parlia- 
 mentary Republic inspired no such unqualified satisfac- 
 tion in any quarter as the German autocracy inspired in 
 large sections of the German people, it was making for 
 unity, peace, and orderly development, and rendering 
 possible the free co-operation of all the diverse elements 
 of a great people, under the influence of a free movement 
 of thought. Under its aegis France was regaining much 
 of that intellectual and spiritual leadership of Europe 
 which she had for a time lost under the deadening influence 
 of the Napoleonic regime ; while Germany had sacrificed 
 the ' kingdom of the air ' to seize the material dominion 
 of the earth, and her spirit, once the spirit of freedom 
 and truth, was being stifled and poisoned by the malaria 
 of materialist doctrine. When the grim twentieth cen- 
 tury opened, which was to put all beliefs and all nations 
 to a dreadful test, France had not indeed fully overcome 
 her internal difficulties, or solved her domestic problems. 
 But she was in the way to solve them ; they no longer 
 threatened her with mere anarchy. Only from without 
 was the growth of ordered freedom menaced by the ever- 
 looming spectre of a brutal war of destruction. 
 
 In Britain the period showed little external change, 
 but the beginnings of a profound change in spirit. On 
 the one hand there was an advance in the democratisa- 
 tion of the machinery of government. But this was not 
 followed, at once, by any very direct participation of 
 
206 NATIONAL SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 the mass of the people in the conduct of affairs. On the 
 contrary, there was a great revival of the power and 
 influence of the old ruling elements in the State, the 
 causes of which are deserving of analysis : the dominant 
 Liberalism of the preceding period gave place to the 
 equally dominant Conservatism and Imperialism of the 
 years 1878-1900. The period saw a great extension of 
 the sphere of government, and of its interferences in the 
 daily life of the people, and a consequence of this was a 
 rapid, but as yet almost unperceived, growth of the power 
 of bureaucracy. At the same time the ineffable com- 
 placency with the parliamentary system which had been 
 expressed by Mill and Bagehot began to give place to a 
 vague dissatisfaction, the source of which may be perhaps 
 mainly traced to the growing rigidity of party organisa- 
 tion, and to the growing sense, fostered by the endless 
 and time-devouring controversies over Ireland which 
 filled the period, that parliamentary discussion was largely 
 a futile waste of time. It was becoming apparent that a 
 good deal of recasting would be necessary in the British 
 system. And although the recently enfranchised de- 
 mocracy was as yet for the most part quiescent, there 
 were signs that it was waking up, that it was tempted 
 to use its supreme power, and that some elements in it 
 were beginning to be influenced by the ideas and methods 
 of Marxian Social Democracy as it was working on the 
 continent of Europe. 
 
 In two ways the democratisation of the machinery of 
 government was carried further in Britain during these 
 years. The Reform Act of 1884 enfranchised the agri- 
 cultural labourer, and went near to (though it did not 
 attain) the establishment of manhood suffrage. Incom- 
 plete as it was, and many as were the anomalies still left 
 
RIVAL SYSTEMS IN OPERATION 207 
 
 in the British franchise, this Act may be said to represent 
 the first step in the British advance towards complete 
 democracy which was dictated by pure theory, and not 
 by practical considerations. For there was no effective 
 demand for the agricultural franchise ; still more note- 
 worthy, the enfranchised of 1884, unlike their predecessors 
 of 1867, had not demonstrated their capacity for self- 
 government by spontaneous co-operative activities on 
 their own account. Lacking political experience, they 
 were apt to go like sheep to the poll, and to use the vote 
 without very clearly understanding what it meant. The 
 introduction of this new mass of voters was, beyond 
 doubt, part of the reason for the Conservative reaction 
 which began at the next election, and lasted till 1906. 
 
 More immediately important than the Parliamentary 
 Reform Act was the reconstruction of local government 
 which was achieved during the period. In 1888, the 
 establishment of County Councils for the first time pro- 
 vided the rural districts with elected representative 
 bodies, and the political authority of the Justices of the 
 Peace, drawn from among the landed gentry, practically 
 came to an end. The new bodies were, indeed, naturally 
 and healthily, dominated by the same class. But they 
 now held their power by election, not by prescription. At 
 the same time, the vast metropolitan area of London was, 
 for the first time, endowed with a single controlling body, 
 elected by popular vote. It showed in its first years so 
 much of the enthusiasm of the new broom, and so great 
 a readiness to embark upon the paths of municipal 
 socialism, as perturbed its Conservative creators. But it 
 is characteristic of British political development that an 
 era superficially characterised by political reaction should 
 have produced so valuable an enlargement of local self- 
 
208 NATIONAL SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 government. Finally, in 1894 the machinery of repre- 
 sentative local government was further expanded by the 
 establishment of District and Parish Councils. This was 
 an attempt to revivify the once vigorous co-operative 
 activities of the rural districts. It has produced, as yet, 
 very little result, because the social conditions of the rural 
 areas were not such as to encourage any great activity. 
 But the machinery is there, ready to work as soon as the 
 power is created which can drive it forward. 
 
 These may be described as the last acts of the purely 
 political reconstruction which had been carried out in 
 Britain during the nineteenth century. It had placed 
 the control of public affairs, central and local, in the 
 hands of democracy, if democracy chose to use it. But 
 as yet democracy seemed indifferent ; and throughout 
 these years it was content to leave power in the hands of 
 the landowning class, and of the bulk of the capitalist 
 controllers of industry and commerce, who had now 
 joined forces with them. It was rewarded in two ways : 
 first, by an unparalleled extension of the dominions of 
 the British Empire, especially in Africa, and by the rise 
 of a new spirit of pride in the imperial achievement of 
 the race ; secondly, by the beginning of a new policy of 
 social reconstruction with the Employers' Liability Act 
 and the unfulfilled promise of a scheme of Old Age 
 Pensions, modelled on that of Germany. On the whole 
 it was well pleased with these boons, until the South 
 African War, which came as the culmination of the 
 imperialist period, brought about a great revulsion of 
 feeling. But until then the dominance of the Conser- 
 vatives, and of the ideas for which they stood, seemed 
 unshakable. Nothing proved this more clearly than the 
 renewed strength and courage of the House of Lords, the 
 
&IVAL SYSTEMS IN OPERATION 209 
 
 one great undemocratic element in the British system, 
 and the stronghold of the old ruling interest of land, and 
 the new ruling interest of industrial capital. In the 
 previous period the House of Lords had been, as a rule, 
 shrinking and timid in its resistance to changes which its 
 members disliked. In 1884-85 the part they had played 
 in hampering the passage of the Reform Act had led to 
 an agitation for the abolition or reconstruction of this 
 aristocratic survival, and it had seemed as if the Liberals 
 were about to proceed to the final democratisation of the 
 parliamentary system. But the tepidness of the public 
 response to this agitation showed that the Conservative 
 reaction was already strong ; and in the following years 
 the Lords showed a boldness in action such as they had 
 never exhibited in the preceding period. During the 
 ' transient and embarrassed ' Liberal ministry of 1892-95 
 they actually rejected almost every important legislative 
 proposal sent forward by the majority in the Lower 
 House, and the calmness with which the country received 
 these Acts showed that it was willing to accept a system 
 whereunder, whenever the Liberals had a majority, they 
 should be made impotent, while whenever the Con- 
 servatives had a majority they could do what they liked. 
 There was no serious outcry against this system, until 
 in 1907 the House of Lords went so far as to invade the 
 Commons' supreme control over finance. Nothing could 
 more plainly demonstrate that the country had, at this 
 period, no objection to aristocratic leadership, so long as 
 it worked reasonably well. 
 
 The root cause of this remarkable reaction, which had 
 its parallels in other countries, was to be found in the 
 bankruptcy of nineteenth-century Liberalism. Its pro- 
 gramme of political liberty, the removal of legally estab- 
 
 o 
 
210 NATIONAL SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 lished privileges of class or sect, and the withdrawal of 
 all restrictions upon economic competition, which had 
 aroused so much enthusiasm in the early part of the 
 century, had now become vieux jeu, in part because it 
 had been almost completely carried into effect, and the 
 benefits which it had to give had been, in Britain at any 
 rate, largely reaped ; but in part also because it no longer 
 commanded the old belief . On the economic side especi- 
 ally, Liberalism, in Britain as in other countries, was handi- 
 capped by its alliance with the doctrine of laisser-faire, 
 the doctrine of self-help, of the ' free field and no favour 
 and devil take the hindmost.' As we have seen, this 
 doctrine had enjoyed a greater ascendancy in Britain 
 than anywhere else. It had secured the allegiance even 
 of the great trade unions, fighting though they were for 
 better economic conditions for their members. 
 
 But a change was coming. Just as in other countries 
 the movement of Marxian Socialism, and the theory of 
 the ' class war ' between the bourgeoisie (who were every- 
 where the most active Liberals) and the extruded prole- 
 tariate, were winning an increasing strength, so in Britain 
 also there began to arise during these years a demand 
 that the power of the State should be used to save the 
 ' hindmost ' from the ' devil.' The Social Democratic 
 Federation, which preached the pure milk of the word of 
 Marxianism, was founded in 1881 ; the rival but kindred 
 Independent Labour Party in 1893. These bodies pro- 
 fessed to appeal to the working class ; they never ob- 
 tained more than a handful of adherents, because the 
 British mind instinctively distrusts such abstract theories 
 as they preached ; but their very existence was the sign 
 of a new spirit. In 1883 the little group of intellectuals 
 who called themselves the Fabian Society began their 
 
RIVAL SYSTEMS IN OPERATION 211 
 
 Vast scheme of permeating existing British parties and 
 institutions with Socialist (though not with Marxian) 
 ideas. But they also had few adherents. More signifi- 
 cant was the rise of the New Unionism, which arose out 
 of the London Dock Strike of 1887. It was an attempt 
 to bring into the trade-union movement not only the 
 more prosperous trades of the upper artisan classes, who 
 had hitherto been chiefly affected by it, but the un- 
 organised mass of unskilled labour. And just because the 
 organisation and resources of this class were less able to 
 undertake, with much prospect of success, a long struggle 
 for better conditions such as the greater resources and 
 closer organisation of the engineers and the miners had 
 enabled them to carry on, the new unions were led to 
 look to political action for the securing of their ends, to 
 demand that the power of the State should be exercised 
 in their interest, and to think of using their votes to 
 secure direct representation in Parliament. Even the 
 older and more conservative unions began to be drawn 
 towards the new policy. The moment when they were 
 brought to contemplate direct political action as a class 
 may perhaps be dated from 1890, when the Trade Union 
 Congress demanded the legislative enforcement of an 
 eight hours' day. And in 1900, at the very close of our 
 period, the trade-union organisation joined with the 
 earlier Socialist organisations to form a Labour Repre- 
 sentation Committee, whose business was to be the 
 creation of a specific Labour Party in the House of 
 Commons. In all this (apart from the small coteries of 
 the SJD.F. and the I.L.P.) there was indeed little of the 
 doctrinaire Socialism of the Marxian pattern which was 
 represented by the continental Socialist parties. The 
 bulk of the trade unionists who joined in this movement 
 
2i2 NATIONAL SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 were not, indeed, Socialists in the continental sense at 
 all. But they had made up their minds that the power 
 of the State must be used, not merely to secure that the 
 old functions of government should be carried on in 
 accordance with the public will, but to obtain a far-reach- 
 ing social betterment. The great mass of the nation, 
 whether trade unionists or not, remained loyal members 
 of the old traditional parties, Liberals or Conservatives, 
 and hesitated to follow the lead of these more enter- 
 prising innovators. 
 
 But the significant thing is the emergence of a new 
 spirit ; and because this new spirit was inconsistent with 
 some of the traditional doctrines of Liberalism, Liberalism 
 passed for a time under a cloud. On the other hand, the 
 Conservatives, who had never fully shared the Liberal 
 distrust of any enlargement of State action, were not 
 unready to show some sympathy with the new spirit. 
 Their social reforms, like the Workmen's Compensation 
 Act, did as much to win for them the loyalty of a rapidly 
 changing nation as their apparently triumphant imperial 
 policy. The reaction of these years, therefore, was by no 
 means pure reaction ; it was in a great degree due to the 
 fact that an enlarged conception of the functions of the 
 State, and the ends of political action, was struggling 
 towards its birth. This was in itself a perfectly healthy 
 development ; and it is worth noting that in the British 
 community (apart from a few knots of theorists) it did 
 not assume the form of any declared hostility to the 
 existing system, or any proclamation of war to the knife. 
 
 At the same time it is possible to perceive, growing 
 during the period, a vague dissatisfaction with the working 
 of the parliamentary machine. Partly this was due to the 
 fact that a generation which had begun to desire that 
 
RIVAL SYSTEMS IN OPERATION 213 
 
 political power should be employed to effect social changes 
 no longer found the old satisfaction in the excitement of 
 the political game between the ' ins ' and the ' outs.' But 
 in a higher degree it is to be attributed to changes which 
 were taking place in Parliament itself, and in the political 
 life of the nation. 
 
 In the first place, the parliamentary machine showed 
 signs of breaking down. The Irish Home Rule movement 
 entered upon an acute stage at the beginning of the period, 
 and, without reaching any solution, dominated British 
 politics throughout its course. The method adopted by 
 the Irish under Parnell's guidance was that of forming 
 a distinct party, vowed to abstention from office, to 
 permanent opposition, and to the use or abuse of all the 
 forms of procedure as a means of making the Irish problem 
 a permanent nuisance until it should be solved. This 
 meant that the simplicity of the two-party system, on 
 which the smooth working of the parliamentary machine 
 had depended, was for the first time broken. The Irish 
 Nationalists had hitherto been a wing of the Liberal 
 party, loosely attached, indeed, but still falling into the 
 system. It was now wholly independent. More than 
 once it was able to hold the balance between the older 
 parties, and to decide the fate of ministries. If it gave 
 steady support to the Liberal ministry of 1892-95, this was 
 only on condition that Home Rule was steadily kept in the 
 forefront ; and the situation thus created made it appear 
 that the ministry lay at the mercy of a single group, and 
 weakened public confidence in its action. The possibility 
 that a single group might thus be able to impose its will 
 upon the government of the country pointed to a real 
 weakness in the British system. At the same time the 
 methods of parliamentary obstruction systematically 
 
214 NATIONAL SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 pursued by the Irish party, the disorderly scenes which 
 resulted from it, and the spectacle of members suspended 
 from service or locked up in gaol, immensely diminished 
 the prestige of the House of Commons. 
 
 It was also becoming apparent that the volume of work 
 thrust upon the House of Commons was too great to be 
 efficiently performed. Apart from a few great controver- 
 sial measures, legislation was hurriedly and inadequately 
 discussed ; the control over finance seemed to be in- 
 efficiently exercised ; the supervision of administration 
 appeared to be little more than a sham, because ministries, 
 secure of a standing majority, were nearly always able to 
 swamp criticism under the mass of brute votes. So far 
 as these criticisms were justified — and they were largely 
 justified — they rested upon three facts. In the first place, 
 the dislocation of the parliamentary machine, which we 
 have already described, wasted an infinity of time, and made 
 adequate discussion of many important questions almost 
 impossible. The mechanism of Parliament needed revision. 
 In the second place, the rapid extension of the sphere of 
 government, on which we shall presently have something 
 to say, and the steady increase in the power of the bureau- 
 cracy which it brought, rendered necessary a closer, in- 
 stead of a more spasmodic and distracted, attention to 
 the working of the administrative system. 
 
 But the third cause was the most important of all. 
 The rigidity of the party machine was increasing with 
 alarming rapidity. In part this was due to the influ- 
 ence of the Irish, who were organised under an all but 
 military discipline ; the other parties, in conflict with 
 them, had to tighten their bonds. But the change would 
 have come about even if the Irish party had never been 
 born. It was due to the establishment of democracy, 
 
RIVAL SYSTEMS IN OPERATION 215 
 
 and the need of high organisation to deal with the 
 vast masses of votes. Growing steadily since 1867, this 
 elaboration of party machinery reached its culmination 
 in the 'eighties, when first the Liberals and then the Con- 
 servatives set up central party organisations, supported 
 by large subscribed funds, and corresponding with local 
 organisations in all the constituencies. The results of this 
 were profound and far-reaching. As the central caucuses 
 often contributed, directly or indirectly, to the cost of 
 contesting local elections, they were able to impose candi- 
 dates upon the local organisations. And as a candidate 
 had little or no chance of being elected unless he was 
 supported by a party-machine, the caucus was able to 
 stipulate for his absolute loyalty to the party leaders, 
 on the threat of ousting him from his seat if he showed in- 
 subordination. Hence the independence of members of 
 Parliament was undermined ; and their responsibility was 
 in a large degree transferred from their constituents to the 
 party organisation. It would not be just to exaggerate 
 this process. Members still showed a good deal of inde- 
 pendence ; governments still found it necessary to drive 
 them with a loose rein ; the caucus did not dare too openly 
 to override the opinions of constituencies. But the reins 
 were there, and they were handled by the party leaders. 
 Another result was yet more perturbing. The party 
 funds, which in all parties were secretly administered, had 
 to be kept up. Electioneering on a national scale is a very 
 expensive business. Men who contributed big sums to the 
 party funds expected to be respectfully listened to. They 
 did not always contribute purely from enthusiasm for the 
 cause ; or, at all events this enthusiasm was reinforced by 
 other motives. One of these was the desire for titles and 
 honours, which are dispensed by the head of the party in 
 
216 NATIONAL SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 power on behalf of the Crown. Without going so far as to 
 say that there was an auction of titles, for this would be 
 untrue, we may reasonably say that the claim to a peerage 
 of the man who contributed £20,000 to the party funds was 
 likely to be favourably considered. Another motive was 
 the desire for a ' safe seat ' in Parliament : in constituencies 
 where a party possessed an assured majority, the influence 
 of the caucus could be used to secure the nomination 
 of men who contributed handsomely to the party funds. 
 Finally, there was ground for suspecting that large contri- 
 butors to the party funds could exercise more than their 
 legitimate influence in determining the policy of the party, 
 and in securing that one question should be pressed, 
 another burked. We need not exaggerate the evils which 
 resulted from this system. The traditions of British 
 public life were too clean and healthy to make it possible 
 that they should be carried to an extreme. But these 
 evils existed. The nation was beginning to be vaguely 
 conscious of them, and uncomfortable about them. And 
 in consequence there was beginning to arise a new current 
 of dissatisfaction with the party system, which was apt to 
 forget that this system alone rendered practical the smooth 
 working of parliamentary government. Yet when all is 
 said, the working of the British system was still in the 
 main healthy and successful. After all, party caucuses 
 exist to further an ideal cause ; and even in the midst of 
 the machinery of electioneering they cannot wholly forget 
 this. They exist, also, to win the support of the ordinary 
 electorate, and they cannot win this support if they try 
 by tricks to ensure the victory of a policy in which the 
 electorate disbelieves ; they must keep their ears open to 
 the movement of public opinion. Hence even through the 
 increasing rigidity of party organisation, the national 
 
RIVAL SYSTEMS IN OPERATION 217 
 
 mind, so far as its views were formulated, was able to 
 control in all essentials the direction of the national 
 government. 
 
 Yet another factor tending to weaken the influence of 
 parliament was the growing influence of the platform and 
 the Press. We have seen that during the preceding 
 period statesmen had begun by platform pronouncements 
 to go behind parliament and to appeal directly for 
 national support. This practice grew very rapidly during 
 the period with which we are concerned. It became the 
 custom that many of the most important pronouncements 
 of political leaders should be made, not in Parliament, 
 where they could be discussed, but before large meetings 
 of supporters, and, through the Press, to the whole 
 electorate. The leaders on the other side replied in the 
 same way ; and thus the great debate on national policy 
 was transferred in a large degree from Parliament to the 
 platform. This had its valuable side, in forwarding the 
 political education of the people. But it also had its 
 defects ; and one of these was a steady undermining of 
 the influence of Parliament. What made this great 
 change possible was the remarkable expansion of the 
 cheap newspaper press, which was brought about by the 
 diffusion of popular education. Now a newspaper is a 
 costly thing. It requires a very great capital. And the 
 wielders of this capital exercised very great power. Most 
 of the newspapers were identified with one or other of the 
 great political parties, and their proprietors could exercise 
 a considerable influence upon the policy of their party. 
 It inevitably became an object of party tactics to obtain 
 control over this great newspaper or that ; and in this 
 process the party which controlled most wealth was 
 naturally most successful. But the newspaper press, 
 
218 NATIONAL SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 dependent for its circulation upon the mass of readers, 
 must above all things avoid dulness. Detailed reports of 
 parliamentary proceedings are apt to form dull reading. 
 Hence, while the big public speeches of the leaders 
 obtained full publicity, not only the routine course of 
 public business, but the expressions of opinion of men 
 whose names were not widely known, and whose views 
 did not serve a party cause, were apt to be kept in the 
 background. Here, again, it is necessary to beware of 
 the temptation to exaggerate. The British Press was 
 governed, on the whole, by a fine tradition of fair play, 
 from which only the baser papers were tempted to 
 depart, and in this period the baser papers had not yet 
 achieved the largest circulations. Moreover, if financial 
 power exercised a dangerous influence over the newspaper 
 press, at least there was in Britain no sign as yet of the 
 use of the inexhaustible funds of the nation, or of the 
 power of government, to doctor the expression of public 
 opinion in the manner practised in Germany. And, 
 finally, the British electorate showed itself to be unex- 
 pectedly capable of forming an independent judgment, 
 whatever the newspapers might say : time and again it 
 gave its decision in the teeth of an almost unanimous 
 journalistic chorus. But when all is said, the power of 
 the Press formed one of the problems of democracy ; nor 
 have we yet discovered how to ensure that in the forma- 
 tion of that public opinion by which every democratic 
 society must ultimately be guided, every sane and healthy 
 element shall have free play, and the influence of secret 
 forces shall be kept in check. The problem has become 
 the greater now that the unceasing argument about 
 national policy is carried on by newspapers which no 
 longer pay that attention to parliamentary discussion 
 
RIVAL SYSTEMS IN OPERATION 219 
 
 which once distinguished the British press. Not the 
 least striking result of this development has been its 
 reaction upon the character of parliamentary discussion, 
 which has taken on a certain unreality. Too many 
 members, finding themselves debarred from independent 
 action by the rigidity of party control, and aware that 
 the serious discussion of political issues in the House will 
 not win for them the public attention it would formerly 
 have won, are tempted to speak and act in the way which 
 seems most likely to please the newspapers, and win 
 their notice. And this, in its turn, contributes in the 
 long run to the undermining of the prestige of Parliament. 
 While the influence of Parliament was, for all these 
 reasons, slowly dechning, the power of bureaucracy in 
 the British system was growing very rapidly, though as 
 yet it was almost unperceived. The increasing magnitude 
 and complexity of the functions of government in a 
 modern State made this inevitable. A Foreign Office 
 which had to deal not only with the affairs of high 
 diplomacy among the leading States, but with the acute 
 commercial rivalry of all the nations in all parts of the 
 world ; a Colonial Office which was responsible for the 
 administration of vast undeveloped territories newly 
 acquired in Africa and other backward regions ; an 
 Admiralty which was responsible for the enormous and 
 complicated mechanism of a modern fleet ; a War Office 
 which must concern itself with the defence of an empire 
 scattered over all parts of the world, as well as with the 
 possibilities of European complications : such vast enter- 
 prises could no longer be effectively directed by amateurs, 
 or adequately supervised by a Parliament already dis- 
 tracted by a vast mass of multifarious business, and 
 mainly engrossed by party controversies. And if this 
 
220 NATIONAL SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 was true of the old departments of State, it was still more 
 true of the new departments brought into existence by 
 the ever-growing needs of a highly developed society. 
 The supervision of industry, under the terms of a whole 
 code of Factory Acts ; the development of a system of 
 national education ; the administration of a vast and 
 growing concern like the Post Office ; the encouragement 
 and regulation of the multifarious activities of the local 
 authorities : all these were complex concerns which de- 
 manded expert knowledge and direction, such as could 
 only be supplied by an army of highly skilled salaried 
 officials. Quite inevitably these officials wielded an in- 
 creasing degree of independence. They formed, indeed, 
 the real working force of government. They controlled, 
 in detail, the carrying out of the laws. They mainly sug- 
 gested new laws ; nine out of ten of which (putting aside 
 the great controversial party measures) passed through 
 Parliament with little discussion, and were suggested by 
 the practical needs of administrative work, and drafted in 
 the big departments . They even fixed the national expendi- 
 ture, since their influence was decisive in determining 
 how much should be spent in this department or that. 
 
 The means cf controlling these powerful and valu- 
 able public servants which the British system provided 
 were three in number. The chief was the presence, 
 at the head of each department, of a parliamentary 
 politician. But the politician, distracted by the con- 
 tinual demands of public controversy, must be a child 
 in the hands of his permanent officials, unless he was a 
 man of exceptional force. In the nature of things, nine- 
 tenths of the business of his office could never come 
 before him for a personal decision. On the other iaand, 
 &is unqualified responsibility for every act of his depart- 
 
RIVAL SYSTEMS IN OPERATION 221 
 
 ment concealed the real responsibility oi the officials. 
 And, under the working of the party system, he was 
 nearly always able to check any serious attack. The 
 second means of controlling the bureaucracy was the 
 asking of questions in Parliament. This was, and is, a 
 useful device, which keeps the bureaucracy always on 
 the alert. But it has been used in a very unsystematic 
 and spasmodic way, and the typewritten answers sup- 
 plied by the bureaucrats to be read out by their parlia- 
 mentary chiefs are not always of a very frank or illumin- 
 ating kind. The third means ought to have been more 
 effective. It was afforded by the opportunity for dis- 
 cussing the work of each department which was given by 
 the annual vote for the department. But, in fact, this 
 opportunity has never been used for the purpose of 
 seriously investigating the working of the department. 
 When the Foreign Office vote comes up, a member will 
 move the reduction of the Foreign Secretary's salary by 
 £100 as an excuse for ventilating his opinions on the 
 Balkans or on Persia ; but there is seldom any discussion 
 on the actual working of the office-machine. In truth, 
 the British system, having been more free from bureau- 
 cracy than any other, and having grown up in a period 
 when bureaucracy could almost be dispensed with, be- 
 cause the functions of government were so simple that 
 they could be effectively directed by amateurs, has not 
 yet succeeded in bringing bureaucracy under effective 
 criticism or control. That was already perceptible during 
 the period with which we are concerned, though it was 
 largely concealed by the nominal responsibility of the 
 political chiefs of departments. It was one of the 
 problems of democracy for the future. Though we have 
 been slow to recognise it, bureaucracy is an indispensable 
 
222 NATIONAL SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 element in the government of the modern State. But 
 its inevitable growth must, in a greater or less degree, 
 defeat the ends of self-government unless it is brought 
 under effective control, and kept in its place as the 
 instrument, not the master, of the national will. And 
 although bureaucracy enjoyed, and enjoys, no such un- 
 qualified dominion in the British system as falls to it 
 in the German system, yet the methods of public control 
 must be made more efficient than they have hitherto 
 been if the ideal of self-government is to be fully main- 
 tained. It does not matter how many people cast votes 
 at parliamentary elections, or how often they cast them, 
 if in the end their representatives are not capable of 
 exercising, or do not exercise, a due control over the 
 machinery of government. 
 
 The self-complacency of the previous period regarding 
 the perfection of British institutions was thus disappear- 
 ing. They were the objects of a growing criticism. They 
 were displaying real, though not yet very serious, defects. 
 This was mainly due to the special strain which the 
 circumstances of the period were imposing upon them. 
 The old machinery had to adapt itself to the demands of 
 an awakening and as yet only half -instructed democracy. 
 That was the main cause of the rigid organisation which 
 political parties were forced to assume in order to deal 
 with a vast untrained electorate ; that was also a large 
 part of the cause of the dangerous powers wielded by the 
 newspaper press. Again, the system was now no longer 
 able to confine itself to the comparatively simple functions 
 of government which were enough for our fathers ; the 
 needs and claims of the age were forcing it, half-uncon- 
 sciously, to assume great functions of social organisa- 
 tion, of education, of economic direction. And this was 
 
RIVAL SYSTEMS IN OPERATION 223 
 
 the main cause of the rapid growth of bureaucratic power 
 under the shelter of the old forms. To all this were 
 added the assumption of immensely increased responsi- 
 bilities of empire in the outer world, and the anxious 
 task of dealing with infinitely more complex and menacing 
 problems of foreign relations. That the system should 
 have been able to adapt itself at all to these trying con- 
 ditions, and to maintain its health, was evidence of its 
 fundamental soundness, and of the sanity and good sense 
 of its citizens. For its defects were superficial, and 
 capable of remedy. The machinery of the system, 
 though manifestly open to improvement, was such as to 
 ensure that a freely formed public opinion could, once it 
 was definitely formulated, control the direction of national 
 policy. No government, no party, dare directly defy it. 
 No supreme power restricted or tampered with the right 
 of all honest bodies of opinion to exercise what influence 
 they could upon the national mind. No government 
 could survive if it lost the support of the representative 
 body ; and the representative body, though it did not 
 and could not reflect every shade of opinion in the nation, 
 could not resist any definite and strongly held conviction 
 of a majority of the nation. If highly organised parties 
 were able sometimes to cozen the electorate, that was 
 only because the electorate lacked clear views. If bureau- 
 cracy was winning great power, the main principles upon 
 which it acted were under the control of Parliament and 
 through it of the nation, and were checked and re- 
 strained by the criticism of Parliament, and still more 
 by the vigorous independence of self-governing local 
 bodies and trade organisations, in a degree to which there 
 was no parallel in Germany, or indeed in any other State 
 save America and the British Dominions. What the 
 
224 NATIONAL SELF-GOVERNMENT? 
 
 dissatisfactions of the period demonstrated was that the 
 British system needed further development and improve- 
 ment, and perhaps a clearer distribution of the functions 
 of government, in order to meet new conditions ; not that 
 the system itself was bad. 
 
 Already, before the opening of the twentieth century, 
 it had become a common fashion to compare the British 
 system unfavourably with the German^ at least in regard 
 to its efficiency in performing certain important public 
 functions. And in some respects the comparison indubit- 
 ably told in favour of the German system. The skill and 
 method with which the material resources of Germany 
 were husbanded and organised for the national advantage 
 presented some features which not Britain only but all 
 other communities might with advantage imitate. The 
 efficiency of the German educational system, on some of 
 its sides, deservedly attracted the encomia of educational 
 reformers in Britain, and its methods were directly 
 imitated, to a large extent, in France, America, and 
 other countries. The success of Germany in these two 
 spheres, indeed, did more than even her military power 
 to win for her the remarkable ascendancy over the mind 
 of the civilised world which she possessed at the close of 
 the nineteenth century. But there was a reverse side to 
 the shield : how black, later events alone have enabled us 
 to see. The efficient organisation of the nation's material 
 resources placed a very dangerous power in the hands of 
 a government that was free from all effective control as 
 to the way in which it should wield them. The influence 
 over the nation's mind which its efficient educational 
 system gave to the government was a yet more dangerous, 
 and ultimately a ruinous, power. 
 
 What the lauders of German efficiency, and the critics 
 
RIVAL SYSTEMS IN OPERATION 225 
 
 of other systems, failed to realise was that this efficiency 
 was itself in a great degree due to the very irresponsi- 
 bility of the German government. It is the bureaucrats, 
 or professional administrators, who in practice make the 
 working of a system efficient or inefficient ; and given 
 that two groups of bureaucrats are equally competent and 
 industrious, the group that is least distracted by criticism 
 will get the most work done. Compare, from this point of 
 view, the lot of the British bureaucrat — in spite of all we 
 have said about his growing power — with the lot of the 
 German bureaucrat. He has to deal with a self-governing 
 people, trained by centuries of habit to an obstinate in- 
 sistence on their individual rights . He must meet the some- 
 times captious criticisms of innumerable elective bodies 
 with large independent powers, and of powerful voluntary 
 organisations, which are apt to be very suspicious of him. 
 He is exposed to the unceasing fusillade of questions in 
 Parliament and letters to the newspapers. He must 
 accommodate himself to the point of view of the changing 
 political chiefs who preside over his department. They 
 are amateurs, but usually very intelligent amateurs. 
 They have theories and policies of their own. And they 
 have the last word. The German bureaucrat suffers from 
 no such vexatious restrictions. He has to deal with the 
 most docile of peoples, trained to the obedience of the 
 parade ground. The head of his department is always 
 a bureaucrat like himself. The Reichstag is a much 
 humbler and less inquisitive body than Parliament, and, 
 in any case, cannot interfere ; the organs of local govern- 
 ment, in so far as they exist, are very much at his mercy. 
 If the British official enjoyed the same independence as 
 the German official, he would, in some ways, do his work 
 better, and he would certainly do it more quickly and 
 
226 NATIONAL SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 easily. Government would be more efficient ; but it would 
 also be more masterful, and less considerate of public 
 opinion. A certain degree of inefficiency is the almost in- 
 evitable product of the practice of self-government, and 
 the control of the State service by elected representatives. 
 It is the price which self-governing nations have to pay to 
 secure that their officials shall be the servants and not the 
 masters of the public, and that the policy which they 
 pursue shall be a policy whose spirit and aims are dictated 
 by the nation. 
 
 And there is yet another thing which those who lauded 
 the German system for its efficiency were apt to forget. 
 Before we are justified in commending a man or an institu- 
 tion as efficient, we must ask, Efficient for what ? It is 
 easier to be an efficient burglar than an efficient philan- 
 thropist ; and if we were to draw a comparison between a 
 burglar and a philanthropist, we should certainly attach 
 far more weight to the ends they had in view than to the 
 skill and success they displayed in pursuing them. In 
 comparing two systems of government the same principle 
 applies ; we must continually ask ourselves what are the 
 ends pursued, consciously or unconsciously, by each ; and 
 we must recognise that efficiency in the pursuit of a 
 mean and low aim, and one that can be clearly denned, is 
 far easier to attain than efficiency in the pursuit of a lofty 
 aim, of an aim that changes and grows as men's hopes 
 and beliefs change and grow. 
 
 And here we come to the fundamental contrast between 
 the German and the British, the autocratic and the self- 
 governing, systems. The German system, in accordance 
 with the long-established traditions of Prussia, held before 
 itself a perfectly definite end : the extension of Power, the 
 creation of a Master-State, which should be able ultimately 
 to dominate the world. It conceived it to be its right and 
 
RIVAL SYSTEMS IN OPERATION 227 
 
 duty to organise all the material resources of the nation, 
 and to mould and control the nation's mind in order to 
 make it a pliant instrument for that supreme purpose, 
 towards which all the strength of the nation must be de- 
 voted, and before which all other dreams and aspirations 
 must give way. It denned national well-being ultimately 
 in terms of Power, and of Power alone. And it was ulti- 
 mately in view of that supreme end, and not primarily for 
 its own sake, that high intellectual development, equally 
 with material prosperity and the strength of armies, was 
 fostered and cherished. But intellect must not presume 
 to claim freedom ; it must not criticise or hamper the 
 masters of the State, or introduce elements of discontent 
 into the disciplined nation-army that was setting forth to 
 achieve the domination of the world. That was a gran- 
 diose aim, if a vulgar one ; but it was precise and definite, 
 and its clearness made for efficiency. 
 
 The self-governing system aims at something quite 
 different, something which is very elusive and hard to 
 define ; and just because of this lack of definition efficiency 
 in the pursuit of it is difficult to achieve. It aims at the 
 well-being of the whole community, and of every element 
 in it ; but wherein this well-being ultimately consists, and 
 how, amid the constant flux of human affairs, it can best 
 be realised, the self-governing principle cannot exactly say. 
 Certainly it does not find it in mere Power, which men 
 have always pursued, and often attained, but in which 
 they have never found satisfaction, but only fresh labour 
 and trouble. The conception of human well-being, and 
 of the modes of social organisation best suited to realise it, 
 undergoes continual change and continual enlargement 
 under the influence partly of changing conditions of life, 
 partly of growing knowledge, partly of the dreams and 
 ideals of great men which gradually wield their influence 
 
228 NATIONAL SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 upon the mind of the community. Not even the wisest 
 man can ever be trusted to say just how this vast and 
 vague aim can be secured ; for not even the wisest man is 
 capable of grasping the whole bewildering miracle of Man, 
 his animal desires and his limitless aspirations, his nobility 
 and his pettiness, his easily fired enthusiasms and his 
 obstinate prejudices, his indestructible desire for justice 
 and his insatiable appetite for power. But if we may not 
 trust the wisest, still less may we trust a monarch chosen 
 by the accident of birth, or any single class, whether 
 aristocratic, professional, or proletariat, with its prejudices, 
 its shallow theories, its narrowing traditions. How, then, 
 shall the enlarging sense of the true nature of human well- 
 being, and the true aims of social co-operation, be enabled 
 to work itself out without being petrified and sterilised by 
 the particular dogmas of any class or sect ? The self- 
 governing principle asserts that the most hopeful mode, 
 among any people whose habits of mind and training make 
 this possible, is to give free play to every movement of 
 thought, since all alike contain some element of truth, to 
 let this incessant stream of discussion, from all sides at 
 once, exercise what influence it can upon the popular 
 mind, and to take the resultant body of opinion, with all 
 its defects, as on the whole the safest available guide. Let 
 every kind of influence, every form of leadership, gain 
 what power it honourably can ; let the nation choose its 
 own leaders, and express its will, so far as it can be formu- 
 lated, through them ; and let this General Will, vague, 
 shifting, and variable as it may be, but guided by all the 
 most healthy forces of knowledge and wisdom to which 
 it is willing to submit, determine the general spirit and 
 direction of national policy, retaining and using the 
 knowledge of experts and the zeal of reformers, but never 
 allowing their professional interest or their one-sided 
 
RIVAL SYSTEMS IN OPERATION 229 
 
 enthusiasm to obtain an unqualified dominion. The 
 rashness of the theorist will be corrected by the stolid 
 resistance of custom ; the passionate zeal of the enthusiast 
 will be checked by the insistence of established interests 
 upon the respect due to their claims. Such, in very 
 general terms, is the theory of self-government. Its ideal 
 is to put the direction of human affairs, in all societies 
 which are linked by such unity of sentiment that mutual 
 understanding among them is possible, under the control 
 of the Spirit that is for ever moving upon the waters of the 
 human sea. For it believes that this Spirit works for 
 justice, and has wrought for justice unweariedly ever since 
 it guided the first steps of Man out of the mire from which 
 he sprang ; and in that sense the principle of self-govern- 
 ment asserts that the voice of the people is the voice of 
 God. But just because this conception is so indefinite, 
 and varies continually in its immediate aims, it is far 
 harder to express in a formula than the clear-cut doctrine 
 of Power. It has no such definite criterion to determine 
 its course of action ; and it cannot hope to achieve the 
 same measure of hard efficiency. 
 
 These two opposed theories of government stood in 
 sharp contrast at the opening of the twentieth century. 
 Never in human history, not even in the days when the 
 free States of Greece stood out against the despotism of 
 Persia, have the two principles of self-government and 
 domination appeared in clearer antithesis. For as the 
 spirit of autocracy has never in history obtained a fuller 
 command over the minds, bodies, and resources of a 
 great people, or been more terribly organised for con- 
 quest, than in the Germany of 1900 ; so the spirit of 
 self-government has never achieved so complete a mastery 
 as it had in the great States of the West, after the long 
 and toilsome experiments and struggles of centuries. 
 
IX 
 
 THE BREWING OF THE STORM, 1900-1914 
 
 The burdened and unrestful peace of 1878-1900 was suc- 
 ceeded by a period of wars and alarms of war, of diplo- 
 matic crises, of revolutionary upheavals, and, even in 
 some of the most orderly and settled States, of embittered 
 controversy and outbursts of violence. The pace of the 
 current was quickening as it neared the cataract ; the 
 dread of what was coming weighed upon all observant 
 minds ; the intensity of military preparation increased 
 as this dread grew ; and under all this intolerable strain, 
 the growth of orderly self-government, so recently estab- 
 lished in many States, and burdened with so many 
 problems of social reorganisation in all, was hampered by 
 greater difficulties than ever. 
 
 It is not our business here to deal with the diplomatic 
 and military events of these years. They will be looked 
 back upon by future historians as a period of unrelieved 
 nightmare, though their horror was unrealised by those 
 who lived through them. But without some realisation 
 of the nature of the strain we can scarcely form a just 
 impression of the ordeal to which the institutions of self- 
 government were being subjected, or arrive at a fair 
 judgment of its achievements. When the new period 
 opened, the South African War was raging ; it nearly led 
 to European complications, and it did not end till 1902. 
 In 1903 came the Serbian Revolution, with the murder 
 
THE BREWING OE THE STORM 231 
 
 of the King and Queen ; and at the same time intense 
 unrest in Macedonia, the meeting-place of the Balkan 
 peoples, showed that trouble was brewing in these vexed 
 lands. In 1904-5 the Russo-Japanese War led to the 
 confusion of the Russian Revolution, which died down, 
 but had by no means attained a solution, by 1907. In 
 1905 the first Morocco crisis, deliberately precipitated by 
 Germany, nearly brought war among the Western powers. 
 In the same year the union of Norway and Sweden was 
 broken by a peaceful revolution. In 1908 the Turkish 
 Revolution brought the Balkan question to a crisis. It 
 gave to Austria the pretext for annexing Bosnia, and this 
 brought the danger of a general European war very near 
 in 1909. In that year also a revolution in Greece brought 
 into power the great statesman Venizelos. In 1910 came 
 the war between Italy and Turkey. In 1911 the second 
 Morocco crisis, directly due to Germany, again brought 
 a general war very near. In 1912 and 1913 came the 
 two Balkan wars, which were only a sort of prologue to 
 the final catastrophe of 1914. It would be hard to find, 
 in any other period of equal duration, so continuous a 
 succession of crises and alarms. And meanwhile most of 
 the great States, and many of the small, were disturbed 
 by outbreaks of violence, general strikes, and attempts 
 by minorities to get their way by force. The readiness of 
 discontented elements to resort to force, even in the most 
 democratic countries, was one of the most perturbing 
 features of the period. All these troubles tested the 
 capacity of self-governing institutions, and seemed to 
 many to herald their approaching breakdown. 
 
 The main cause of these strains and distresses was to 
 be found in the state of international politics, in the 
 burden and waste of military preparation which deprived 
 
232 NATIONAL SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 governments of the means of dealing with domestic ills, 
 and in the atmosphere of discontent and suspicion which 
 this state of things engendered. The mass of citizens in 
 the self-governing countries were unable to grasp the 
 bearing of these events upon their own fortunes ; they 
 were inclined to blame their governments for whatever 
 was wrong. Their statesmen were too much engrossed 
 by their own immediate problems to give to the whole 
 situation the attention it deserved ; if they had tried to 
 deal with it firmly, they would not have been followed 
 by their fellow-citizens ; all they could do was to stave 
 off the evil day. But the masters of the great autocratic 
 State to whose deliberate action this ugly state of things 
 was largely due, had no such troubles. Their subjects 
 had been trained to docility. Their policy could be 
 pursued in secret. They saw in all this confusion the 
 means to forward their own clearly defined and steadfastly 
 pursued purpose ; and instead of doing anything to allay 
 it, they did their best, at many points and in many ways, 
 to stimulate and exacerbate it. 
 
 The minor causes of all this sequence of trouble were 
 too manifold and various to be capable of analysis in a 
 few sentences. In the Balkans, and among the unhappy 
 subject peoples of the Austrian Empire, the spirit of 
 nationality was working like yeast ; but what especially 
 stimulated it was the dread of the policy of domination 
 pursued by Germany and her Austro-Hungarian and 
 Turkish tools, and the disturbing influence of their in- 
 trigues. In Russia the trouble was the natural harvest 
 of a long period of corrupt and oppressive government. 
 But in Russia and elsewhere the demand for the sudden 
 establishment of complete democracy, among a people 
 quite untrained for political responsibility, raised hopes 
 
THE BREWING OF THE STORM 233 
 
 too visionary to be realisable, and thus produced con- 
 fusion and deepened unrest. In all countries the rapid 
 development of scientific industry, and the growing power 
 of massed capital, produced a swift growth of working- 
 class organisations, modelled on the trade unions of 
 Britain ; but lacking the long training of the British 
 trade-union leaders, their inspirers were often wildly un- 
 practical and unbalanced. Among these groups the 
 doctrines of Marxianism, often in its crudest and most 
 noxious forms, were spread abroad by the influence of the 
 International Socialist Congresses, and encouraged the 
 notion that a brute war of classes would enable the 
 Kingdom of Heaven to be suddenly taken by storm : 
 internecine war in every State was to take the place of 
 that national co-operation which is the ideal of self- 
 government. The mere spectacle of all the great States 
 armed to the teeth, and lavishing their money and their 
 intellectual resources upon the heaping up of ever more 
 formidable implements of destruction, persuaded unre- 
 flecting men that their affairs were in the hands of fools 
 or knaves, and undermined their confidence in their 
 governments ; it also strengthened the materialist view 
 (which is the core of Marxianism, as of Prussianism) that 
 in the last resort brute force, not justice, rules the world ; 
 and it led men (and women too) to lose patience with the 
 tedious discussions of the self-governing system, and 
 tempted them to resort to violence. And to all this must 
 be added the fever and friction which were the aftermath 
 of the fierce rush for extra-European possessions. 
 
 These factors would in any case have made this a very 
 troublous time. But behind and above them all, the 
 chief cause of unrest (though few perceived it) was the 
 growing menace of German ambition. Having brought 
 
234 NATIONAL SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 its organisation to the highest pitch of efficiency, the 
 formidable autocracy of Germany was in these years, as 
 we can now see, definitely contemplating and preparing 
 for the realisation of that supreme end for which its whole 
 system was devised, the extension of its Power by force. 
 The intolerable competition of armaments, which formed 
 the chief cause of all the strain, was, as we have seen, 
 directly due to Germany. It became far more intense 
 during these years, just because Germany was preparing 
 for the final stroke. To her other preparations she added 
 vast projects of naval construction ; and the culmination 
 of this unresting preparation was the series of Army Acts 
 in 1911, 1912 and 1913, which were the immediate prelude 
 to the Great War. At the same time her spies and secret 
 agents were spread abroad by the thousand in every 
 country of the world ; and while her General Staff was 
 maturing its plans for a sudden onslaught on peace- 
 desiring powers, her Secret Service was equally assiduous 
 in laying plans for influencing the minds of all nations, 
 and for turning to account every element of discontent 
 in other countries. We know now how her agents had 
 entered into underground relations with the most diverse 
 and inconsistent elements, with Sinn Feiners and Ulster- 
 men in Ireland, with Clericals and Socialist extremists in 
 Italy and France, with Ukrainians and Finns, with re- 
 actionaries and revolutionaries in Russia or among the 
 exiled Russians in Switzerland, with dissatisfied Boers 
 in South Africa, with seditious groups in India, with the 
 anti-British parties in Egypt. In every country every 
 source of discord was stirred and troubled, so that Ger- 
 many might gain. The great diplomatic crises of the 
 period were nearly all of her making ; the Morocco crises 
 of 1905 and 1911 were to be used as a means of alienating 
 
THE BREWING OF THE STORM 235 
 
 France and Britain ; Germany was the hand in the glove 
 of Austria in the Bosnian crisis of 1908-9 ; it was her 
 influence which destroyed any chance that the Young 
 Turk movement might be a source of progress, and 
 turned it into a source of mischief ; her influence ruined 
 the Balkan League, which might have made peace in 
 that unrestful region. Everywhere her busy agents were 
 at work, helping to intensify the confusion out of which 
 she hoped to profit. All these things may seem, on the 
 surface, to have little to do with the growth of self- 
 government. They have everything to do with it. Self- 
 government could not work under such a strain. Its 
 existence was not safe while this condition of things 
 lasted. If the world was to be ' safe for democracy,' it 
 must be made impossible for any power to act in this 
 way. That was the lesson of the period. With all its 
 horrors, the war came as a relief to the believers in self- 
 government. At last the issues were plain. Full national 
 co-operation (though under the artificial conditions which 
 war renders necessary) became possible again. The air 
 was cleared, and it became apparent that whatever the 
 immediate pretext of the war, its mightiest issue was this : 
 that the world must be made safe for self-government. 
 
 Nearly all the governments of the world realised the 
 evil of this state of things, though they did not always 
 clearly trace it to its source. They all wished to diminish 
 armaments ; the flat refusal of Germany made that im- 
 possible. They were all anxious to increase the safe- 
 guards for peace and to remove mutual suspicions. This 
 desire found expression in the conclusion of a multitude 
 of arbitration treaties, 1 and at the Congress of The Hague 
 
 1 This movement is more fully described in Nationalism and Inter' 
 nationalism, pp. 182-90. 
 
236 NATIONAL SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 (1907) the powers tried to make the system effective and 
 universal. Germany, while loudly claiming to be the 
 friend of peace, stood aloof from and scoffed at the move- 
 ment, and her opposition at The Hague prevented any- 
 thing effective from being achieved. The warrior-state 
 was not going to tie her own hands ; but she was glad to 
 see her rivals occupying themselves with the mirage of 
 organised peace. 
 
 With the pacifist movement of the period as a whole 
 we are not here concerned. But there is one aspect of it 
 which deserves our attention : the part played in it by 
 the Marxian-Socialist groups of all countries in their 
 international congresses ; because this had a direct bear- 
 ing upon the working of self-government in the individual 
 states. The desire of the Socialists for peace (which was 
 no stronger than that of other men) actually took forms 
 which weakened the power of all the democratic govern- 
 ments, to the advantage of Germany, while it did no sort 
 of harm to Germany herself. 
 
 The Marxian doctrine was that war between States was 
 to be brought to an end by the homoeopathic remedy of a 
 universal class war, in which the ' proletarians of all 
 lands,' repudiating the outworn shibboleths of patriotism, 
 were to unite against capitalism. A series of International 
 Socialist Congresses, at Stuttgart in 1907, at Copenhagen 
 in 1910, at Basle in 1912, declared that capitalism was 
 the sole cause of militarism, of imperialism, and therefore 
 of war ; and that it was the duty of the workers in all 
 lands, immediately war threatened, to attack their 
 ' capitalist ' governments, and to render them powerless 
 for offence or defence by means of a general strike or 
 otherwise, without asking whether they were the aggres- 
 sors or not, and without being deflected by patriotic 
 
THE BREWING OF THE STORM 237 
 
 sentiment, merely on the assumption that all govern- 
 ments, however democratic, were equally ' capitalist,' 
 and equally responsible for the outbreak of any war. 
 This pitiful nonsense was, of course, based upon a total 
 misreading of history : for while capitalism, as a powerful 
 factor in States, is of very modern growth, wars have been 
 waged by aggressive governments throughout the course 
 of history, and they have been less frequent in the 
 capitalist period than ever before. Again it simply dis- 
 regarded the facts of the existing situation, refusing to 
 inquire who was responsible for beginning the competi- 
 tion of armaments and the formation of threatening 
 alliances, and whether, once it was begun, the other 
 powers had any alternative but to follow, in self-defence. 
 Finally, it drew no distinction at all between govern- 
 ments which were subject to the control of democracy, 
 and governments which were not. The International's 
 recipe for stopping war might have worked, in theory, 
 if the Socialist groups of the International pattern had 
 commanded majorities in every country, and were able 
 and willing to use their power. They were everywhere 
 small minorities, except in Germany. And in Germany 
 they not only had not the power to act ; they had not 
 the will. 
 
 The part played by the German Socialists in these 
 Congresses was, indeed, very significant. As the most 
 numerous and highly organised of all the Socialist parties, 
 and as the countrymen of the Apostle Marx, their influence 
 was preponderant ; the International was almost a German 
 organisation. They supported the vague denunciations 
 of capital as the cause of war. They loudly proclaimed 
 beforehand that should war come, all governments would 
 be equally to blame. They encouraged their colleagues 
 
238 NATIONAL SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 from democratic countries in their project of hampering 
 their governments in every possible way if war should 
 come. But when it came to pledging themselves to 
 any definite action in their own State, the most mili- 
 tarist in Europe, they could never be pinned down to any 
 promise. And their action at home showed that, in fact, 
 their government need fear no opposition from them. 
 Though they regularly voted against the military budget, 
 that was mere ritual, and had no effect. In 1913 they 
 departed from this tradition when they voted for the levy 
 on capital necessary to meet the enormous charges of the 
 Army Act of that year, though no power threatened 
 Germany. And on 4th August 1914 the Socialist members 
 of the Reichstag voted unanimously in favour of the war- 
 credits demanded for the invasion of Belgium. Three 
 days earlier, Herr Miiller, one of their number (who was 
 later employed as an agent of the German Foreign Office) 
 had been sent by motor-car to Paris to urge the French 
 Socialists to refuse war-credits to the French government, 
 with the implicit promise that the German Socialists 
 would follow the same course. 
 
 We need not assume that in pursuing this policy the 
 German Socialists were consciously acting as the agents of 
 the German government, by endeavouring to stir up dis- 
 unity in the States which Germany intended to attack ; 
 but, unconsciously if not consciously, they were turning 
 the ' International ' into one of the most useful of German 
 agencies. It is significant that in Britain and France 
 Socialists of the International school (like the small I.L.P. 
 group in Britain) were always ready to uphold and justify 
 the actions of the German government, while adopting a 
 definitely anti-patriotic line of action. The Utopian 
 pacifism of such men as Jaures and Sembat was doubtless 
 
THE BREWING OF THE STORM 239 
 
 inspired by a generous idealism. But in presence of the 
 terrible menace which loomed over the world, it was hope- 
 lessly out of touch with facts. 
 
 There was none of this Utopianism among the German 
 Socialists. They had studied too well the teachings of 
 Marx, that hater of Utopias. They had imbibed from 
 him a materialism closely akin to that of their own govern- 
 ment. He taught them that war was the rule of life ; and 
 if their first interest was, in theory, in the class war, they 
 could accept also the idea of an equally endless conflict 
 between nations, ultimately soluble, perhaps, only by the 
 supremacy of the most ' cultured ' and the strongest. 
 ' Peoples who are stationary,' their early prophet Lassalle 
 had proclaimed, ' can rightfully be conquered by peoples 
 who enjoy a more advanced civilisation.' Whatever the 
 International might say, the German Socialists at home 
 proclaimed their patriotism. They demanded more 
 powerful artillery for the army. They disbelieved in dis- 
 armament : ' It is absolutely inconceivable,' said their 
 greatest leader, Bebel, ' that the rival military States 
 should come to an agreement regarding disarmament.' 
 In short, German Socialism had been so effectively tamed 
 that, while it was ready to encourage in other countries 
 the pacifist and anti-patriotic campaign of the Inter- 
 national, at home it was not anti-patriotic, or anti- 
 imperialist, or even, in the last resort, anti-militarist. The 
 anticipation that German Socialism would prevent the 
 outbreak of war was always an illusion as baseless as the 
 belief that the Kaiser was a bulwark of peace. The sole 
 effect of the pacifist campaign of International Socialism, 
 under German leadership, was to increase the difficulties 
 of the self-governing States, and to hamper them in pre- 
 paring to ward off the coming peril. It did not in any way 
 
240 NATIONAL SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 weaken, but rather helped, the designs of the German 
 autocracy, which was forcing catastrophe upon the world. 
 
 It would need volumes to describe and analyse all the 
 far-reaching political movements and changes which 
 filled the years preceding the Great War. All of them 
 tended to enlarge the range and power of democratic self- 
 government ; some of them displayed, in a perturbing 
 way, its dangers and defects, especially in countries whose 
 citizens lacked training in political responsibility ; most 
 of them illustrated the evil effects of the intense inter- 
 national strain of these years. We have only space to 
 touch upon a few aspects of this confused and stirring 
 period which help to throw light upon the problems of self- 
 government. Both in the selection of the topics which we 
 shall dwell upon, and in our treatment of them, we must 
 be hampered by the consciousness that the events are still 
 too near to us, and the passions which they aroused still 
 too intense, to allow us to pretend that we can take a 
 perfectly balanced and impartial view of them. Yet they 
 cannot be passed over without notice. They were too 
 important in themselves, and they gave too clear a demon- 
 stration of the dangers to self-government which result 
 from an unhealthy condition of international relations, to 
 be disregarded. 
 
 If our study of the growth of self-government in the 
 western world has shown us anything, it is that the 
 fortunes of self-government are bound up with the fortunes 
 of nationalism, since it is only in communities unified by 
 national feeling that genuine self-government is possible. 
 The experience of 1900-14 made this lesson clearer than 
 ever ; it emphasised also the fact which we have so often 
 noted, that some degree of education and political ex- 
 perience in the community is necessary for the successful 
 
The brewing of the storm 24i 
 
 working of national self-government. But it brought out 
 also, what had earlier never been so clear, that the healthy 
 development of national self-government is equally de- 
 pendent upon the existence of a stable international order, 
 and upon the possibility of conjuring the constant dread 
 of war. It showed, finally, that since European civilisa- 
 tion had now achieved the domination of the world, a 
 stable international order could no longer be attained by 
 an adjustment among the European nations alone, but 
 must embrace the whole globe. Only by the establish- 
 ment of a ' world-order ' could the world be made ' safe 
 for democracy ' ; only so could the ideals of national 
 freedom and self-government, which had become parts 
 of the system of western civilisation, be effectively 
 realised. Thus all the great problems which we have 
 attempted to survey in the present volume and in its 
 companions, 1 were knotted together in the tangle which 
 the Great War was to give the world an opportunity of 
 unravelling. This is the point of view which must guide 
 us in our selection of facts for analysis. 
 
 The Serbian Revolution of 1903 is instructive as dis- 
 playing the essential connection of the democratic and 
 the national ideas, and as illustrating in a peculiarly 
 poignant way the reaction of the European system upon 
 the internal development of individual States. Serbia, 
 had a very democratic constitution. But it was necessary 
 for the ambitions of Austria and of Germany that she 
 should be kept in a state of dependence. Under the 
 wastrel King Milan and his son Alexander this was 
 achieved by means of court influence ; these princes were 
 in effect Austrian agents in their own country. But the 
 Radical, which was also the Nationalist, party was in- 
 
 1 Nationalism and Internationalism and The Expansion of Europe, 
 
242 NATIONAL SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 evitably anti-Austrian ; because the bulk of the Serbian 
 race were subjects of the Austrian Empire, and cruelly 
 oppressed. The democratic system of Serbia would have 
 given the upper hand to the Radical and Nationalist party. 
 Therefore, in 1893-94, the young king Alexander carried 
 out a coup d'etat, abolishing by his own fiat the demo- 
 cratic constitution, and reconstituting it to suit his own 
 views ; and he followed this with a wholesale proscrip- 
 tion of the Radicals. This was the main cause of the 
 ugly palace-revolution of 1903, when the young king and 
 his wife were murdered by a band of officers, and the 
 exiled royal house of Karageorgevitch was restored. It 
 was a horrible episode ; the more civilised countries of 
 the West afford few parallels to it since the sixteenth 
 century. But Serbia, after five centuries of Turkish 
 tyranny, was no more advanced than the France of the 
 Guises, or the England of Henry viii. The real import- 
 ance of the episode was that the democratic system was 
 restored. And the democratic system brought the hos- 
 tility of Austria and, behind her, of Germany, whose 
 projects could not tolerate the existence of a free Serbia. 
 A tariff war was followed by the Austrian annexation (in 
 defiance of treaty agreements) of the province of Bosnia, 
 peopled by Serbs, and hemming in Serbia on the west. 
 From that moment Serbia was doomed, unless Europe 
 could succeed in protecting her. Democracy in Serbia 
 could not be ' safe ' while the Austrian Empire continued 
 to include a mass of discontented subjects of Serb race 
 who envied the freedom of their brothers over the border, 
 or while a free Serbia formed a barrier to the Austro- 
 German projects in the east. Democracy could be ' safe ' 
 only when national freedom was assured, and when the 
 ruthless ambitions of conquering autocracies had been 
 permanently and effectively restrained. 
 
THE BREWING OF THE STORM 243 
 
 In the Austrian Empire itself the events of the period 
 also illustrated the unreality and the unsatisfactoriness 
 of a system of self-government in a community where its 
 working is not aided by the existence of a strongly realised 
 sentiment of national unity. The system of 1867, which 
 we described in an earlier chapter, 1 had never worked 
 well in either half of the dual monarchy. In the Austrian 
 half the ineradicable antipathies of the component 
 peoples had, in fact, made parliamentary government 
 impossible. In theory the ministry was responsible to 
 Parliament ; in practice no ministry had ever been re- 
 sponsible to Parliament, because there had never been a 
 ministry which could command a majority in Parliament. 
 Ministries, therefore, were made by the Crown, and often 
 consisted largely of officials and mere imperial nominees ; 
 once and again the Crown was able to plead that govern- 
 ment in association with Parliament was in practice im- 
 possible, and had in effect dispensed with its aid. It 
 was only by bribing the Poles by the cession of autonomy 
 in Galicia, and a free hand to tyrannise over the Ruthenes 
 of that province, that a working majority was obtain- 
 able ; and even then, complete deadlocks were frequent. 
 Various schemes of electoral reform were carried, notably 
 in 1883 and in 1896, in the hope that they might produce 
 more workable Parliaments. Finally, in 1907, universal 
 suffrage was established for the Austrian half of the 
 monarchy — the constituencies being gerrymandered so as 
 to secure to the Germans a much larger proportion of 
 seats than their numbers deserved. The theory of this 
 reform was that the enfranchised democracy would dis- 
 regard national antipathies, and concentrate its attention 
 upon economic demands. But this expectation was not 
 
 1 Chap. vii. 
 
244 NATIONAL SELF-GOVERNMENT 1 
 
 justified by the event ; the parliamentary system in 
 Austria remained a failure ; the hostility of the under- 
 races, Czechs and Slovenes, towards the dominant Germans, 
 made the transaction of business almost impossible ; and 
 government continued to be carried on largely without 
 parliamentary concurrence or control. The malign and 
 dangerous policy which Austria has pursued since 1907, 
 under German influence, has been the policy of a govern- 
 ment which in theory was responsible to a democratically 
 elected Parliament ; but it has been a policy hateful to 
 the majority of the electors, and aimed at the destruction 
 of some of their dearest hopes. Democracy cannot be 
 ' safe,' it cannot in reality exist at all, except in associa- 
 tion with national freedom. In the Hungarian half of 
 the dual monarchy there was no substantial political 
 change during the period ; the hard tyranny of the 
 Magyar minority over their subjects of other races con- 
 tinued to be exercised under parliamentary forms. In- 
 deed, it became worse ; so that Western Europe, once full 
 of admiration for the Magyars, began to be awakened to 
 the iniquities from which Humans, Slovaks, Croats, and 
 Serbs had to suffer. There was no amending them, short 
 of the freeing of the subject peoples. And the fear of 
 this made the Magyars ready to risk everything to main- 
 tain their ascendancy, and turned them into the willing 
 allies of Germany. The parliamentary system as it was 
 worked in Hungary was a denial of the most fundamental 
 idea of self-government, the co-operation of the whole 
 community, through its freely chosen representatives, in 
 the control of its own destinies. And therefore it was 
 the foe, not the friend, of peace or of liberty. 
 
 The most dramatic and impressive event of this eventful 
 period was the outbreak of revolution in Russia as a 
 
THE BREWING OF THE STORM 245 
 
 result of the failures of the Russo-Japanese War. After 
 promising for a moment to endow Russia with a parlia- 
 mentary system almost as liberal as those of the Western 
 nations, it left her with a mere shadow and mockery of a 
 Parliament. Yet it brought her into line with the rest 
 of Europe ; it gave her at least the beginnings of repre- 
 sentative self-government. 
 
 Russia, as we have seen, had long been ripe for revolu- 
 tion ; no civilised people could permanently submit to 
 such a parody of justice as her corrupt and incompetent 
 autocracy presented. But its worst crime was that it 
 had denied to its subjects the means of preparing them- 
 selves for freedom. The mass of the Russian people, 
 peasants and town-dwellers alike, were illiterate, and 
 incapable of criticising or analysing the ideas offered to 
 them. With the exception of the mere handful who had 
 shared in the admirable labours of the Zemstva and 
 Municipal Councils, they were equally devoid of political 
 experience. Worst of all, they had been denied the 
 fundamental boon of a just and impartial system of law, 
 such as can train a people in self-restraint, in respect for 
 mutual rights, and in the habit of pursuing their aims by 
 law-abiding methods. Yet the political ideas of the West 
 were at work among this people. Her * intellectuals ' of 
 the professional classes discussed the political theories of 
 advanced democracy, and for the most part held it to be 
 possible to introduce them at once without preparation. 
 Among the ' proletariat ' of the towns, and in a less 
 degree among some of the peasantry, the ideas of Marxian 
 Socialism, in their crudest form, untempered by criticism, 
 had already got some hold ; in no country have the 
 sweeping catchwords of Marxianism been less qualified 
 by practical knowledge of affairs. There seemed every 
 
246 NATIONAL SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 reason to expect that when revolution came in Russia it 
 would assume the most extravagant and destructive 
 forms. What was worst of all was that the fierce re- 
 pression of government and its dependence upon brute 
 force had cultivated among its opponents a belief in the 
 value of violence. For a long time assassination had 
 appeared to the extremist schools a justifiable weapon ; 
 and so far as exiled Russians had taken part in the inter- 
 national movement of democracy, they had been associ- 
 ated rather with Anarchism than with any practical or 
 constructive creed. 
 
 When the outbreak of the Russo-Japanese War 
 (February 1904) displayed, even in its first events, the 
 shameful incompetence and corruption of the tyrannical 
 bureaucracy, the first overt expression of revolt was the 
 murder of Plehve, the minister most directly associated 
 with the hideous police tyranny which was the worst of 
 Russia's ills. This persuaded the government to attempt 
 a more moderate regime which gave some freedom to 
 discussion. The earliest demand for reforms came from 
 the Zemstva (October 1904). Their demands were extra- 
 ordinarily moderate. They asked for the rudimentary 
 civil liberties — freedom from punishment without legal 
 trial, freedom of speech and publication ; but on the 
 political side they demanded no more than an extension 
 of the functions and of the franchise of the Zemstva 
 themselves. All this had been promised forty years before ; 
 if it had been granted then, Russia would have been 
 ready to make an orderly advance towards self-govern- 
 ment. Now these palliatives would have been of no 
 effect ; and even as it was, the government at first refused 
 to grant them. 
 
 But presently (November) the professional classes began 
 
THE BREWING OF THE STORM 247 
 
 to demand more sweeping reforms ; meetings of doctors, 
 lawyers, teachers, university professors put forward 
 claims to representative institutions like those of the 
 West. Their demand was for a Parliament with full 
 control over the executive, and elected by universal 
 suffrage. This became the programme of the Russian 
 Liberals, who presently organised themselves into a party 
 under the name of Constitutional Democrats, or Cadets. 
 The demand for the sudden introduction of universal 
 suffrage among an illiterate and politically inexperienced 
 populace, spread over the vast spaces of the Russian 
 Empire, showed that its advocates had paid little atten- 
 tion to the history of self-government. The memory of 
 the 1848 revolution in France might have taught them 
 the danger of such a plunge. 
 
 But these were the moderates. Presently the work- 
 people of the towns joined in the agitation. Their first 
 demands were for higher wages and better conditions of 
 labour, but they added to these the full political pro- 
 gramme of the professional associations ; and before long 
 had improved even upon these by demanding the election 
 of a Constituent Assembly, with power to create an 
 entirely new system of government. 
 
 In January 1905 a vast orderly procession of work- 
 people to present both economic and political demands 
 to the Tsar was brutally fired upon by the police and the 
 troops, whose loyalty had not yet been shaken. The 
 news of the massacre spread like wildfire over Russia, and 
 set the heather on fire. Strikes broke out in the towns ; 
 railway traffic was dislocated ; in the rural districts 
 bands of peasants marched to burn the barns of their 
 landlords, and to seize their lands for themselves ; every- 
 where there were murders of police, who, to distract the 
 
248 NATIONAL SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 vengeance of the mobs, turned them against the Jews in 
 organised 'pogroms. Russia seemed to be lapsing into 
 utter anarchy ; and meanwhile, in the East, defeat 
 followed defeat, on sea and land. 
 
 The government had to give way. The Tsar issued 
 one manifesto after another, first vaguely promising to 
 invite ' worthy elected persons ' to co-operate in making 
 laws, then drafting a scheme for an ineffective legislative 
 body with very limited powers. But the revolution had 
 gone too far for such palliatives. In October 1905 a 
 general strike was declared. It was extraordinarily well 
 observed, not only by workpeople, but by doctors, 
 teachers, bankers, business firms. The life of Russia 
 stopped dead for the moment ; and there was nothing 
 for it but surrender. On October 30 a final manifesto 
 promised that the Duma should be elected on a demo- 
 cratic suffrage, that the ' civil liberties ' should be at 
 once established, and that the new assembly when it met 
 should have full legislative powers, and control over 
 governmental officials. The victory seemed to be won. 
 Russia had become a self-governing country. 
 
 But the turmoil was not to be so easily cured. When 
 the Duma met (May 1906) it consisted, of course, like 
 the French National Assembly of 1789, almost wholly of 
 men who had had no political experience, but were full 
 of sweeping theories. The doctrinaire Liberals, or Cadets, 
 controlled a clear majority ; and not content to secure 
 and to bring into working order the very considerable 
 powers they had already won, they devoted their strength 
 to extending these powers in accordance with their 
 theories. At the same time the public disorders which 
 had resulted from the revolution underwent little diminu- 
 tion, The disorganisation of all productive activity and 
 
THE BREWING OF THE STORM 249 
 
 the prevalence of turmoil alarmed moderate-minded men, 
 and gave to the older forces of government, which were 
 as yet by no means subjugated, some justification for 
 asserting that the weakening of executive power was 
 ruining the country. 
 
 The war had meanwhile ended ; and the return of the 
 troops increased the government's confidence. The first 
 Duma was suddenly dissolved. An appeal by a group 
 of its members to the nation to refuse taxes met with little 
 support. The government had the upper hand, and the 
 attempt of a wing of Socialists to set up a reign of terror 
 was firmly crushed. But happily the direction of Russian 
 policy was now in the hands of an able and honest Con- 
 servative, Stolypin, whose policy was, while repressing 
 revolution, to guarantee the ' civil rights,' and to work if 
 possible with a modified Duma which should be allowed 
 powers of criticism, but not of control. Such an arrange- 
 ment, if combined with a frank enlargement of the powers 
 of the Zemstva, would have afforded a useful transition, 
 allowed the revolutionary ferment to subside, and given to 
 the Russian people the opportunity of acquiring political 
 experience, and of testing in the light of this experience 
 the validity of the sweeping theories and catchwords 
 which had obtained dominion over their minds. Stolypin, 
 in short, was an advocate of something like the German 
 system, which represents a stage in political develop- 
 ment through which all the self-governing nations have 
 passed. 
 
 The Cadets and the peasants, sobered by experience, 
 were now willing to go more quietly. But the bureau- 
 cracy, thinking that victory was in its hands, placed many 
 obstacles in Stolypin's path. In March 1907 a second 
 Puma met. Every means was used to influence the 
 
250 NATIONAL SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 elections ; yet a large majority was returned for the 
 popular parties. But the assembly contained few men 
 of experience or ability. The Socialist parties made extra- 
 vagant proposals ; the little group of reactionaries seized 
 every opportunity of provocation, and every means of 
 discrediting the new body. At Court the reactionaries 
 were eager to crush the parliamentary system once for all 
 by an act of force. Thanks to Stolypin, this extreme 
 course was not adopted. But on the pretext that the 
 extremists of the Socialist groups were fundamentally 
 disloyal to the State, the second Duma also was dis- 
 solved, after a session of three months. A manifesto 
 from the Tsar announced that it had not been really 
 representative of the wishes of the nation, and that a 
 new electoral system would therefore be devised by the 
 Tsar himself who had granted the Duma, and who re- 
 mained responsible to God for the government of the State. 
 The new electoral law was devised for the purpose of 
 producing a moderate and submissive assembly. It aimed 
 at securing the preponderance of the rural elements, and 
 among them of the largest landowners. The system thus 
 established remained substantially the governing system of 
 Russia until the revolution of 1917. It gave to the Duma 
 no sort of control over the government, though its consent 
 was required for legislation. It left these limited powers, 
 in practice, in the hands of a small class. Yet it did at 
 least endow Russia with a representative assembly ; and 
 if its members were chiefly drawn from a single class, this 
 class included those who had most practical experience of 
 pohtics. If the Russian government could have persuaded 
 itself to work cordially with this body, and to be guided 
 by its judgment, a steady progress would have been 
 possible, and the need for the revolution of 1917 might 
 
THE BREWING OF THE STORM 251 
 
 have been averted. But the ruling bureaucracy retained 
 all its old jealousy of interference or criticism. 
 
 Had time been given by Fate for the development of 
 the modest institutions of freedom thus established, it 
 would have been a happy thing for Russia and the world. 
 But the strain and pressure of the European situation 
 denied this. And the heritage of bitterness which the 
 revolution had left gave opportunities for the influence 
 of German intrigues. The governing bureaucracy, itself 
 largely drawn from among the German nobility of the 
 Baltic provinces, and always by tradition German in 
 sympathy, looked upon Germany as the main bulwark of 
 autocracy in Europe. The projects of German ambition 
 were so directly hostile to Russian aims and even to the 
 security of the Russian Empire, that Russia was inevitably 
 driven to take the anti-German side in the crises that 
 succeeded one another during the following years ; inevi- 
 tably compelled to face the possibility of war, and to pre- 
 pare for it. But for all that, there remained powerful pro- 
 German elements in the ruling bureaucracy. And as this 
 bureaucracy was profoundly corrupt, Germany could 
 always count upon the assistance of her paid agents in 
 hampering the resistance to her armies ; she was always 
 accurately informed as to the actions and proposals of the 
 Russian government ; and when the time for her destined 
 stroke should come, she could count upon being served 
 by traitors high in the Russian service. 
 
 The bureaucracy's jealousy of control was one of the 
 obstacles in the way of the steady development of self- 
 government in Russia. The other was the extravagance 
 of the extremists in the Socialist groups, who, penetrated 
 with the doctrines of Marxianism, would be content with 
 nothing short of the utter overthrow of ' capitalism,' and 
 
252 NATIONAL SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 the destruction of the existing order of society. Upon 
 these fanatics also Germany was able to play : partly 
 indirectly, through the influence of the International; 
 partly by more direct means, by actual subsidies, by 
 relations with exiles such as Lenin, who had taken refuge 
 in Switzerland, and who was to play so useful a part, from 
 the German point of view, in the revolution of 1917. Thus 
 the two elements hostile to the orderly development of a 
 system of national self-government in Russia, the extreme 
 reactionaries and the extreme revolutionaries, could be, 
 and were, alike made use of in the interests of the great 
 German project. The European situation was disastrous 
 to the political development of Russia. Self-government 
 in Russia could not be made ' safe ' until the menace of a 
 conquering militarist autocracy should be conjured away. 
 
 On the Turkish revolution of 1908 it is not necessary 
 to say much. When the Young Turk Committee of 
 Order and Progress succeeded in overthrowing the blood- 
 stained tyrant Abdul Hamid, and proceeded to set up a 
 parliamentary system, imitated from Western models, in 
 which all the conflicting races of the Turkish Empire were 
 to be represented, and to be taught to co-operate for the 
 common good, observers in the Western lands were full 
 of enthusiasm : this seemed to be the greatest and the 
 noblest of all the victories of the self-governing principle. 
 It had also the incidental advantage that it seemed likely 
 to undermine or destroy the preponderant influence which 
 Germany had secured at the court of Abdul Hamid, and 
 whose possible results were beginning to be a serious 
 cause of perturbation among those who were not wholly 
 blind to the vast projects which Germany was pursuing. 
 
 But the illusion was short-lived. Under the most 
 favourable circumstances, parliamentary government 
 
THE BREWING OF THE STORM 253 
 
 Could not work among peoples so profoundly divided by 
 race and religion, so deeply dissevered by the memories 
 of centuries of oppression and bloodshed ; all the more 
 since nearly the whole of these populations were illiterate, 
 none of them had received any training in self-govern- 
 ment, and none of them had known for many centuries 
 even the rudiments of the Reign of Law, or acquired the 
 habit of trusting to anything save brute force or cunning 
 for their own protection. It soon became apparent that 
 the Turkish Parliament was merely the cover not even 
 for the ascendancy of a ruling race, as in Hungary, but 
 for the dominance of a small self-seeking clique of 
 westernised, demoralised and unscrupulous adventurers, 
 among whom Enver and Talaat were the cleverest and 
 the most active. They were perfectly corrupt, and ready 
 to be bought. Moreover, what they knew of soldiering 
 they had learnt from German teachers. It was easy for 
 Germany to establish over them an influence still greater 
 than that which she had wielded over Abdul Hamid. 
 For when all is said, that ruse old tyrant was a Turk, 
 deeply mistrustful of all the advances of the West, how- 
 ever ready he might be to make use of them ; and he 
 had the traditional loyalty of his Turkish subjects. But 
 his successors were neither good Turks nor good Mahom- 
 medans ; they understood the insecurity of their own 
 power ; while they talked of Order and Progress, their 
 aim was only Dominion and Plunder. They were glad 
 to have the support of a great power to keep their dis- 
 trustful subjects in subordination. And they were ready 
 to lend themselves to vast schemes of aggrandisement 
 which fell in with their own limitless dreams of conquest. 
 Self-government in the Turkish Empire as a whole, in- 
 volving the peaceful co-operation of many embittered 
 
254 NATIONAL SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 and oppressed peoples with the masters who had long 
 tyrannised over them, could never be anything but a 
 fantasy. Self-government even in the potential national 
 units of the empire — Armenia, Anatolia, Syria, Arabia, 
 Mesopotamia — could only become possible after a long 
 training in the habit of loyal obedience to law, after a 
 painful unlearning of the modes of life and action bred 
 by centuries of despotism. The Turkish revolution, 
 therefore, marked no advance in self-government. It 
 only intensified the difficulties of the international situa- 
 tion which were straining the system in those countries 
 where it was a reality. 
 
 Yet the Turkish revolution was a sign that the ideal 
 of political liberty, born in the West, was beginning to 
 appeal to the imagination of the East, and to be a 
 challenge and an inspiration to peoples among whom, in 
 all the centuries of their history, this conception had 
 never independently emerged. At the beginning of the 
 twentieth century, Europe having conquered the non- 
 European world, the ideals of Europe were conquering 
 the minds of the non-European peoples. And this was 
 in itself a very healthy feature ; none the less healthy 
 although, quite naturally, the difficulty of making self- 
 government real, and the conditions of its success, were 
 seldom realised among its new disciples. In India and 
 in Egypt especially the demand for self-governing institu- 
 tions grew louder, and the problem of dealing with this 
 demand was among the most difficult of the many 
 problems which faced the rulers of the British Empire. 
 The first instinct of every Briton was to recognise the 
 justice of any such demand. For nearly a century past 
 the most thoughtful among British administrators in 
 India had maintained that British rule in that vast land 
 
THE BREWING OF THE STORM 255 
 
 could only justify itself by its success in training the 
 Indian peoples to govern themselves ; and in Egypt the 
 aim honestly proclaimed when the British occupation 
 commenced was that of turning Egypt into a land 
 capable of managing its own affairs justly and with self- 
 respect. Yet in both countries the conditions were such 
 that the sudden introduction of self-government on a 
 large scale must have led to anarchy and injustice. In 
 both countries the only vocal elements which demanded 
 the change were the small group of Western-educated 
 men, who had swallowed the formulae of Western politics 
 without much considering how they could be adapted to 
 the deeply rooted customs and traditions of the East ; 
 and these elements broadly represented the old ascendant 
 classes. In both countries the mass of the population, 
 accustomed through untold centuries to submit to the 
 powers above them merely because they were irresistible, 
 were illiterate, and devoid of political knowledge and of 
 the capacity for sane political judgment ; and were 
 therefore likely, under a formal system of self-government, 
 simply to relapse into the old submissive acceptance. In 
 both countries the essential conditions of self-government 
 were only beginning to exist. The habit of regarding 
 Law not as the mere edict of power to be placated or 
 evaded, but as a common interest to be protected and 
 maintained, was being slowly and painfully nursed into 
 existence, but was not yet firmly rooted. The sense of 
 unity or nationhood was growing, but it was still gravely 
 hampered by deep differences of race and language, and 
 by antipathies of caste and creed ; these differences were 
 indeed minimised by common subjection to a firmly 
 administered system of equal law, wielded by a power 
 which stood aloof from them all, but they were not 
 
256 NATIONAL SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 subdued, and they would break out into the old acerbity 
 if this power abdicated its functions. Finally the peoples 
 of both India and Egypt were lacking in that essential 
 training for national self-government which is afforded 
 by the practice of self-government on a lesser scale. 
 
 The time had come for an advance ; but the advance 
 could only be gradual. Some advance was made during 
 these years. It is possible that it might safely have been 
 made more rapid. On the other hand, the dangers of a too 
 rapid advance, in the conditions existing in these lands, 
 were manifestly great. Naturally the advances that were 
 made seemed totally inadequate to theorists who had 
 swallowed whole the democratic doctrine of the West, and 
 who believed that the millennium could be brought about 
 by the sudden and universal diffusion of the right of mark- 
 ing crosses on ballot-papers. Unrest, taking too often the 
 form of conspiracies of violence, as in Russia, was a feature 
 of these years both in India and in Egypt. It had its 
 healthy side ; it showed that a divine discontent was 
 stirring even in the immobile East. But it added to the 
 difficulties and perplexities which surmounted the growth 
 of self-government during these critical years. 
 
 Even in the lands where the system of national self- 
 government was most solidly established, this period was 
 one of strain and difficulty. In all the self-governing 
 countries of Europe, but most notably in Britain, France, 
 and Italy, the acrid criticism of the parliamentary system, 
 and the widespread dissatisfaction with its working, which 
 we have seen arising in the preceding period, grew in 
 strength. In many circles it had become almost a 
 commonplace to say that ' parliamentarism ' and party 
 government had proved themselves failures. This pessi- 
 mism contrasted markedly with the ineffable complacency 
 
THE BREWING OF THE STORM 257 
 
 with which the Germans had learnt to regard their system ; 
 and it is necessary to examine its sources with honesty and 
 care. 
 
 One broad fact must impress us at the outset of any such 
 analysis. The countries in which this dissatisfaction was 
 most widely felt and expressed were the countries which 
 were most exposed to the dangers of war, and to the 
 exasperating and wasteful burden of preparing for it. The 
 one State in which there was a widespread satisfaction 
 with the existing system — Germany — was the one State 
 which was organised primarily with a view to war ; the 
 countries in which dissatisfaction was widespread were the 
 countries whose system contemplated a normal state of 
 peace, and for whom the cost and strain of endless pre- 
 paration for war formed a maddening distraction from the 
 primary aims they had set before themselves. Thus the 
 international situation, which was mainly due to German 
 policy, was placing the gravest difficulties in the way of 
 the satisfactory working of self-governing institutions. It 
 was making the world ' unsafe for democracy.' 
 
 The criticism of parliamentary government mainly 
 came, in all the liberal countries, from two opposite 
 sources. On the one hand, the classes which had formerly 
 enjoyed political supremacy, and which had been allowed 
 to retain it in effect during the early stages of the develop- 
 ment of democracy, were alarmed by the growing political 
 activity of the masses, by the power of their organisations, 
 and, especially, by the prevalence of the ugly doctrines of 
 class-war. They found it difficult to resign themselves to 
 a system of national co-operation in which they would be 
 hopelessly outnumbered, especially as democracy was 
 widely interpreted in the sense of mere class-ascendancy, 
 the ascendancy of the necessarily ignorant masses which 
 
 R 
 
258 NATIONAL SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 even the Radical Mill had regarded with dread. They 
 used their immense influence, naturally and in some 
 degree healthily, to resist this tendency ; they owned and 
 directed a large part of the Press ; they were still able to 
 bring great pressure to bear upon the directors of political 
 parties. In the eyes of eager reformers, they seemed still 
 to possess a complete mastery over the instruments of 
 government. But they felt their position insecure ; and 
 this insecurity brought forth from their side a great stream 
 of criticism of the working of parliamentary institutions. 
 By a thousand scribes the world was taught to distrust 
 the whole race of ' politicians,' who were represented as a 
 crowd of needy and self-seeking office-hunters. There 
 was enough truth in this view to make it appear plausible ; 
 men are always attracted by the rewards of public office, 
 as well as by its opportunities. But this applies in a less 
 rather than a greater degree to democratic than to other 
 societies ; salary may tempt a man to be false to his 
 beliefs yet more potently in a bureaucratic system like the 
 German than in a parliamentary system like the British ; 
 and the oxen that tread out the people's corn are far more 
 effectively muzzled in the Britain of to-day than they 
 were in the aristocratic Britain of the eighteenth century, 
 when pensions and sinecures were regarded as the natural 
 spoil of all the connections of men in power. A curious 
 feature of the period was the rising prejudice against 
 ' lawyer-politicians ' ; for in all the parliamentary countries, 
 in France, Italy and America yet more than in Britain, the 
 lawyers played a part in politics out of all proportion to 
 their numbers. This was natural enough : law has, of all 
 professions, the most direct relation with politics ; and 
 the legal profession was almost the only one wherein a man 
 of ability and public spirit could hope to earn an adequate 
 
THE BREWING OF THE STORM 259 
 
 livelihood while devoting a large part of his time to public 
 affairs. But the prejudice against lawyer-politicians was 
 worked for all it was worth ; the label was used as an 
 argument ; and nobody seemed to see that other labels 
 might be used in an equally damning way, and that 
 ' landowner - politicians/ ' stockbroker - politicians ' or 
 ' linen-draper-politicians ' might with equal plausibility 
 be represented as a public danger. But it was plain that 
 all this was merely a mode of expressing a growing distrust 
 of the parliamentary machine, which was due primarily to 
 the fact that the parliamentary machine was being turned 
 with increasing boldness to new ends, and, secondarily, to 
 the fact that the machine did, in truth, need repair. 
 
 From the other side distrust in the parliamentary 
 system was fomented by the growing prevalence of the 
 doctrine of class-war, and by the sedulously encouraged 
 belief that, despite the apparently democratic machinery 
 of the electoral system, the engine of power was, in fact, 
 controlled by the secret forces of ' capitalism.' This 
 theory, the exact opposite of the other, could be plausibly 
 maintained by a judicious exaggeration of the undoubted 
 influence which was wielded by large contributors to 
 party funds, and by the vague power of High Finance. 
 Distrust of the machinery of self-government, fomented 
 by the constant criticism of the Press, led to a growing 
 readiness to resort to violence, and to an undermining 
 of the habit of observing and maintaining the laws until 
 they could be altered by the conversion of the electorate, 
 which is the very foundation of self-government. 
 
 In France, where the revolutionary tradition was 
 always strong, a new philosophy of violence was preached 
 by Georges Sorel and his disciples of the Syndicalist 
 movement. Impatient of attaining the vague and vast 
 
260 NATIONAL SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 ends which Marx had foreshadowed, they borrowed from 
 him only his purely materialist view of history, his dis- 
 trust of ' Utopias,' or clearly realised ideals for the future, 
 and his belief in the value of war for its own sake ; more 
 logical than the Marxians, they altogether rejected the 
 idea of working through Parliament, and advocated cease- 
 less war for its own sake, in every industry, by means of 
 strikes and sabotage. These doctrines, utterly fatal to 
 the very notion of national co-operation, wielded a great 
 influence in France and in Italy, where they led to much 
 industrial disorder and afforded powerful arguments to 
 the advocates of reaction. They had some influence in 
 Britain also, though here they tended to assume the more 
 rational form of a theory that organised labour should 
 strive to obtain control of each industry, and thus to 
 establish ' industrial self-government.' Even where 
 Syndicalist doctrines obtained little or no influence, there 
 was a growing readiness to resort to What were called 
 ' direct methods ' ; and strikes on a vast scale, whose 
 aim seemed to be not merely to force the hand of the 
 employers, but to hold the whole community to ransom 
 by stopping the supply of universal necessities like coal, 
 or interrupting essential public services like the railways, 
 became common features in most of the great industrial 
 States, and began to be used (as in Russia in 1905) as a 
 means of securing political ends, by the use of force instead 
 of persuasion. 
 
 Nor was it only in the industrial sphere that this readi- 
 ness to resort to violence displayed itself. The Ulstermen 
 organised themselves under arms to resist an Act of 
 Parliament ; the opposite party responded in kind, and 
 among their followers the extremists of the Sinn Fein 
 group began to conceive the idea of using this weapon to 
 
THE BREWING OF THE STORM 261 
 
 establish a complete political independence for which the 
 great majority of Irishmen had no desire. The suffragettes 
 entered upon the policy of proving that they were likely 
 to make a good use of the franchise by breaking windows, 
 slashing knives through Old Masters, and burning down 
 churches. The Nonconformists who objected to the pro- 
 visions of an Education Act refused to pay a part of 
 their taxes, and heroically allowed their teapots to be 
 confiscated rather than loyally submit to the law until 
 they should be able to alter it. Everywhere minorities 
 seemed to show a new and alarming readiness to defy the 
 law and to dislocate the whole working of society, if they 
 could, in order to get their own way. The very founda- 
 tions of organised society seemed to be threatened. Was 
 this the result of self-government ? Was this the mode 
 in which democracy was to work ? It seemed to be so. 
 The one country which was practically undisturbed by 
 these disorders was Germany, the land of discipline. The 
 moral seemed obvious. Parliamentarism was a failure. 
 Upon this reactionaries and revolutionaries were agreed. 
 But none of them had any substitute to recommend. 
 
 Yet despite these ominous and perturbing features, 
 and despite the intensifying strain and pressure of the 
 international situation, there was a steady advance during 
 these years, in the countries where democracy was furthest 
 developed, both in the co-operation of various wings of 
 the progressive parties for common parliamentary action, 
 and in the boldness with which the powers of government 
 were employed for new purposes of social reconstruction. 
 
 In France, one of the most striking political features 
 of the period was the definite co-operation of a large group 
 of Parliamentary Socialists in the work of government ; 
 which implied that the attitude of mere negation and 
 
262 NATIONAL SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 blind hostility was being abandoned. Socialists took 
 their place as members of ministries, or as Prime Ministers. 
 They took their full part in the two most notable legisla- 
 tive activities of the period. One of these was the final 
 severance of Church and State. If this was carried out 
 with a perhaps needless severity, the cause was to be 
 found in the tradition which linked the Church with 
 political reaction. The result was the alienation from the 
 democratic State of some of its most valuable elements ; 
 in the strain and anxiety of this time, the self-governing 
 State could not afford to be generous to those whom it 
 regarded as its domestic foes. The second main activity 
 of the period was the beginning of a process of social 
 reorganisation, due to the combination of the moderate 
 Socialists with the hitherto purely political Radicals. 
 The hours of labour were restricted ; the conditions of 
 public health and the housing of the poor were brought 
 under supervision ; schemes for an adequate provision 
 for the aged and infirm were introduced ; and, perhaps 
 most important of all, great advances were made in 
 popular education. But one great obstacle stood in the 
 way of these fruitful advances. They were costly ; and 
 all the resources of the community were needed to prepare 
 against the ever-present menace of a destructive war. 
 Thus the progress of social reform, which would have 
 done more than anything to ease the working of self- 
 government, and to make the nation conscious of its 
 communal responsibilities, was hampered and retarded 
 by the root cause of all the unrest of these unhappy years. 
 In Britain, also, the same features are perceptible, in 
 a more acute form. During these years the old doctrine 
 of laisser-faire in economic and social matters, which had 
 never in actual fact enjoyed so great a dominion as it 
 
THE BREWING OF THE STORM 263 
 
 had in theory, was definitely abandoned by responsible 
 leaders of all schools. The new spirit was demonstrated, 
 before the Conservative Reaction came to its close in 
 1906, by the valuable Education Act of 1902, which 
 created the beginning of a logical and efficient system of 
 national education. It is noteworthy that this system, 
 instead of being carried out in a uniform manner under 
 the direction of a central bureaucracy, as in France and 
 Germany, was entrusted to the administration of local 
 authorities, whose power was thus magnified, and which 
 were not merely permitted but encouraged to make 
 experiments, and to develop along lines of their own. If 
 there was a loss of immediate efficiency under this system, 
 it was, in the British view, more than balanced by the 
 variety and freedom which it encouraged. Other 
 measures also showed that the Conservatives were ready 
 to use the power of the State for the reform of the social 
 order ; this was a part of the motive even for the Tariff 
 Reform movement which ultimately wrecked the Con- 
 servative ministry, because the bulk of the democracy 
 would have nothing to do with it. 
 
 But the new era was still more definitely proclaimed 
 by the appearance, in 1906, of a strong and distinctly 
 organised Labour Party in Parliament, whose members, 
 though few of them were Socialists in the continental 
 sense, were united in the resolve to use the power of the 
 State for social reorganisation, and to insist that the 
 special point of view of wage-earning labour should be 
 more directly considered than heretofore. Meanwhile, 
 British Liberalism had almost wholly shed its old laisser- 
 faire doctrines ; and hence it came about that the new 
 Labour Party, though separately organised under a far 
 more rigid discipline than the older parties, became in 
 
264 NATIONAL SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 practice simply an independent left wing of Liberalism, 
 giving its steady support to the Liberal ministry, and, on 
 the other hand, strengthening and enforcing its loyalty to 
 its new principles. This new situation, and especially 
 the emergence and the rigid organisation of the Labour 
 Party, filled many timid souls with fears. But the 
 Labour men soon made it plain that they were no head- 
 strong revolutionaries, vowed to a programme of mere 
 wrecking and destruction. Their solid sense, honesty, 
 courage, and public spirit won the respect of Parliament 
 and of the nation. Apart from a handful of doctrinaires 
 of the International and Marxian school, theirs was not 
 the programme of ruthless ' class-war ' for its own sake, 
 but of national co-operation in reconstruction. 
 
 The years following 1906 were, in regard to legislation, 
 the most active in the history of the British Parliament. 
 Old age pensions were provided at the cost of the State : 
 a huge scheme of insurance against invalidity and un- 
 employment, more generous that that of Germany, was 
 set up ; towns and rural districts were given powers to 
 reconstruct themselves on saner plans ; trade boards 
 were established to put an end to ' sweating ' ; free 
 Labour Exchanges were set up all over the country to 
 facilitate employment ; new facilities for the creation of 
 agricultural small holdings were devised ; elaborate pro- 
 visions were enacted for the protection of child life, and 
 the community undertook the responsibility for feeding 
 hungry children and for giving them medical attention ; 
 main roads were reconstructed ; there were schemes for 
 scientific afforestation. Here was a whole code of social 
 legislation, such as would have terrified the politicians of 
 an earlier generation. It terrified some of the politicians 
 of this. For it cost vast sums : and this at a time when 
 
THE BREWING OF THE STORM 265 
 
 the burden of national defence grew yearly more heavy. 
 This caused the advocates of social reorganisation to be 
 distrustful of expenditure on defence ; it caused those 
 who were conscious of the menace of war to grudge ex- 
 penditure upon social needs ; and this opposition seemed 
 to confirm the view that ' capitalism ' and ' militarism ' 
 were sworn allies, and to give further support to the 
 doctrine of the class-war. Even in wealthy Britain, safe, 
 as it appeared, behind the shield of the navy, the inter- 
 national strain thus increased the friction which must 
 in any case have been caused by this new use to which 
 the power of democracy was being put. 
 
 For so great a revolution of spirit and method could not 
 be effected without arousing bitter opposition. It aroused 
 all the more because these sweeping measures were in 
 many cases hastily constructed, and inadequately dis- 
 cussed in an overburdened legislative body ; because 
 they were sometimes advocated with an unhappy vehe- 
 mence which intensified instead of allaying the hostility 
 of classes ; and because the means for defraying their 
 immense cost could only be secured by a bold attack 
 upon accumulated wealth. Nor were these the only 
 causes of embitterment in the controversies of these 
 years. With the social programme was linked an equally 
 drastic series of political changes : the cession of complete 
 self-government to the recently conquered provinces of 
 South Africa ; the enlargement of public participation in 
 the government of India ; the disestablishment and partial 
 disendowment of the Church in Wales, which seemed to 
 many to threaten a similar attack upon the national 
 Church in England, and a severance between Church and 
 State like that which had come about in France ; above all, 
 the proposal, backed by an overwhelming majority in the 
 
266 NATIONAL SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 House of Commons, of a scheme of Home Rule for Ireland 
 which threatened, whether it passed or was rejected, to 
 produce civil war in that distressful land. These whole- 
 sale projects of social and political revolution, as they 
 seemed to the timid eyes of men who had not yet wit- 
 nessed the vaster changes and demands of war, inevitably 
 aroused all the forces of resistance ; and the centre of 
 these was the House of Lords, the last stronghold, as it 
 seemed to one school, of privilege and class ascendancy 
 in self-governing Britain ; the last bulwark, as it seemed 
 to others, against revolutionary madness. 
 
 The House of Lords had survived through the period 
 of constitutional reconstruction which had filled the 
 nineteenth century, because during that period it had been 
 very timid in the use of its powers. But during the last 
 generation it had become both weaker and stronger : 
 weaker because its composition showed no such balance of 
 opposed views as existed in the country ; stronger because 
 it now included not only the magnates of land, but also the 
 magnates of trade, and seemed to be able to speak for the 
 massed wealth of the country, as against the massed votes 
 of the disinherited. It had with impunity reduced the 
 Liberal ministry of 1892-95 to impotence. It had even 
 ventured to reject some of the proposals of the huge House 
 of Commons majority of 1906. But its culminating stroke 
 was the rejection of the Budget of 1909. By this act it 
 invaded the prerogative of control over finance which had 
 been held, by the custom of more than two centuries, to 
 belong exclusively to the Commons ; and with it the pre- 
 rogative of dismissing ministries, the possession of which 
 by the Commons had formed the keystone of the whole 
 British system. This was revolution. On the other hand, 
 it could reasonably be contended that as finance was being 
 
THE BREWING OF THE STORM 26? 
 
 made the chief engine of a revolution, a Second Chamber 
 which could not make its opinion felt on financial 
 questions must be deprived of the power of performing 
 one of its chief functions. 
 
 On the issue thus raised, which embodied and brought to 
 a head all the other issues at once, a violent storm of con- 
 troversy raged for two years x ; nor was it ended by the 
 passage of the Parliament Act of 1911, whereby the powers 
 of the House of Lords, not merely in finance but in the 
 rejection or revision of legislation, were seriously curtailed. 
 The controversy probed far deeper than the mere action or 
 powers of the House of Lords, or the projects for its recon- 
 struction, or the merits and demerits of the Budget, and 
 the scheme of change which rested upon it. For some of 
 the fundamental usages of the British system had been 
 challenged, and the challenge raised a debate upon the 
 whole working of the system. The House of Lords, no 
 doubt, ought to be altered. But how ? By a mere limita- 
 tion of its powers, or by a reconstruction of its membership? 
 That question involved the question of the need for, and 
 the functions of, a Second Chamber ; which in its turn in- 
 volved a discussion of the powers and working of the First 
 Chamber, and of the relations of both to Cabinets and 
 parties. Could the House of Commons itself, men asked, 
 be regarded as in any strict sense representative of the 
 nation % Were not its growingly apparent deficiencies 
 due in part to its unrepresentative character ? Its 
 members were elected by constituencies which normally 
 had no choice except between the candidates of two arti- 
 ficially organised parties ; if more candidates than two 
 presented themselves, the representative of a minority 
 
 1 An attempt to analyse these problems is made in Peers and 
 Bureaucrats (Constable, 1910). 
 
268 NATIONAL SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 might easily be returned, and even he might only have 
 received the votes of his supporters because there was 
 nobody available who more nearly represented their 
 opinions. When the elected members came up to West- 
 minster, all their most important votes seemed to be deter- 
 mined beforehand by the secret caucus of their party. 
 Could this be called a true representation of the nation ? 
 Were not the critics of parliamentarism, whether reac- 
 tionaries or revolutionaries, justified by the facts ? The 
 conclusion seemed plausible, and it helped to weaken still 
 further men's already declining belief in the representative 
 system. Again, was it not manifest that on such a system 
 it was impossible to determine what was the real will of the 
 nation upon even the greater issues. At the most the 
 electors gave the preference to one or another of two groups 
 of men, having no further choice. That was what parlia- 
 mentary government under the party system implied. 
 
 And, indeed, we must recognise that there is much truth 
 in these criticisms. No workable electoral system that 
 can be devised will make it possible to reflect exactly every 
 variation in the opinions of a whole nation ; or if such a 
 system existed, it must produce a chaotic body, incapable 
 of maintaining any coherent government in power, or of 
 criticising and controlling its actions. No electoral system 
 can enable the electorate to express its opinion on every 
 measure of public importance, nor is the electorate of any 
 modern State capable of forming a useful opinion upon 
 such a multitude of complex themes. It can only find 
 representatives with whose general standpoint it agrees, 
 and trust them to act in the spirit of their commission ; 
 and upon the whole the party system presents the best 
 means, even though it is a rather arbitrary means, of 
 defining clearly the attitude of various aspirants for this 
 
THE BREWING OF THE STORM 269 
 
 trust. And it is the greatest safeguard against the abuse 
 of the function thus devolved upon the leaders of parties, 
 that they dare not propose measures which will completely 
 alienate public support without paying for their blunders, 
 and that they dare not depart from the undertakings 
 they have given without suffering for it. With all its 
 defects, the representative system as it worked in Britain 
 did provide a means of ensuring that government should 
 not be conducted in a way disapproved by the nation. 
 
 The criticism of the representative system was ex- 
 aggerated. But there was enough substance in it to 
 justify the citizens of a living and growing society in 
 discussing with ardour the possibility of removing its 
 defects, and the means of making it answer more closely 
 to the movement of the nation's mind. 
 
 One such means seemed to be the provision of a 
 really efficient Second Chamber which should qualify the 
 unrepresentative character of the First Chamber, and be 
 able to revise its proposals, and if necessary refer them 
 to the electorate. Nine out of ten reasonable men were 
 ready to agree that such a body was desirable ; eight of 
 the nine (if they could divest their minds of party con- 
 siderations) would add that the House of Lords was not 
 capable of performing such functions adequately in a 
 democratic society ; but no two of the eight could agree as 
 to the means by which such a body could best be obtained, 
 or as to the powers it should enjoy. This vital problem 
 was still unsolved, having been swept aside by other and 
 more immediately urgent problems, when the whole argu- 
 ing crew of the ship of State were swept together over the 
 cataract of the Great War. 
 
 There were some who found a solution for these diffi- 
 culties in the proposal that disputed measures should be 
 
270 NATIONAL SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 submitted to the electorate by a referendum, after the 
 manner already applied in Switzerland and elsewhere. 
 But this must have the effect of accentuating the weak- 
 ness of the representative body, instead of amending it. 
 Moreover, a popular electorate cannot profitably discuss 
 the details of complex legislative proposals ; it is often 
 upon the details that controversy hinges ; and even if 
 the issues were to be put to the electors in an abbreviated 
 and simplified form, all must depend upon who has the 
 drafting of the questions. This question, also, had not 
 yet been seriously discussed when the great crisis arose. 
 Others, again, professed to find the root of all evil in the 
 party system, which it became a commonplace, in many 
 circles, to condemn. But nobody could put forward an 
 alternative to it which would maintain the advantage of 
 coherent government exposed to continuous and respon- 
 sible criticism — an advantage which the party system 
 undeniably secures — or which would avoid the dangers 
 of a system of shifting and corruptible groups. Nobody 
 could suggest a means whereby men who held the same 
 beliefs could be prevented from acting together, and 
 organising to secure the victory of their cause. What was 
 usually in the minds of the oppugners of the party system 
 was seldom more than the naive but unhelpful notion 
 that if everybody agreed with themselves, the well-being 
 of the nation would be assured. 
 
 Nor were these the only problems of government that 
 were becoming urgent. The enlargement of govern- 
 mental functions was necessarily bringing about a vast 
 enlargement both of the numbers and of the functions 
 of bureaucracy ; and the problems of the place which 
 bureaucracy should occupy in the British system, the 
 ways in which the bureaucrats should be selected and 
 
THE BREWING OF THE STORM 271 
 
 trained, the modes in which they should be controlled, 
 and the congenital dangers of bureaucratic government 
 guarded against, by the establishment of a satisfactory 
 relationship between the public offices and the supreme 
 Parliament, were rising into practical importance. 
 
 And alongside of all these problems of organisation was 
 the deeper problem, now perturbing all thinking men, 
 which was raised by the manifest increase in the willing- 
 ness of large sections of the community to resort to 
 violent means of getting their own way. At a time when 
 the nation was addressing itself to the task of reorganising 
 the economic basis of its life, and when it was realising 
 that the traditional machinery of self-government needed 
 a good deal of overhauling if it was to perform this work 
 with efficiency and justice, considerable elements in a 
 nation which had always prided itself upon its respect 
 for law seemed to be losing this respect — seemed to be 
 abandoning that willingness to trust to argument and 
 persuasion for the securing of their ends, and that loyalty 
 to the decision of the majority until the majority can be 
 persuaded to change its mind, which is the very founda- 
 tion of self-government. There was only one means by 
 which these dangerous tendencies could be subdued ; and 
 this was by the restoration of that confidence in the 
 system which had been undermined by recent events, and 
 by the defects which the strain of the times was displaying 
 in the system itself. 
 
 Here was, indeed, a crisis in the fortunes of self- 
 government. The oldest of the self-governing nations 
 was engaged in a debate upon fundamentals. It was a 
 profitable and useful debate. It arose naturally out of 
 the fact that government was assuming functions far 
 more complex, and far more deeply affecting the daily 
 
272 NATIONAL SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 life of its subjects, than ever before. Carried on by a 
 people in whom the experience of centuries had bred the 
 habits of reasonable compromise and good sense, it would 
 doubtless have led to useful results if it could have been 
 conducted in an atmosphere of security and good-will. 
 An efficient reorganisation of the procedure of the House 
 of Commons ; a frank use of devolution to reduce the 
 burden of its work, such as the strength of local institu- 
 tions in Britain rendered practicable ; a reconstruction 
 of the Second Chamber ; a reasonable modification of the 
 rigidity of party such as might be readily secured by 
 regulations as to the use and publicity of party funds : 
 all these things would without doubt soon have been 
 achieved. But the great debate had to be carried on 
 against the background of German preparations, and the 
 suspicions, not only among States, but among parties 
 and interests within the State, which the nightmare of 
 impending disaster fomented. The transition of self- 
 government through one of the crises in its development 
 could not be easily or safely achieved in the presence of 
 such a menace. Even for the rich island-state, with its 
 long traditions of ordered freedom, these years showed 
 that the world had yet to be made safe for democracy. 
 
 Germany looked on with interest, not unmixed with 
 contempt. She suffered scarcely at all from these sources 
 of disorganisation. The land of firmly rooted authority, 
 raised high above the storms of popular passion, the land 
 of disciplined obedience, was confirmed by this spectacle 
 of the apparent decrepitude of parliamentary govern- 
 ment in its ineffable belief in the superiority of its 
 own institutions. Parliamentarism was a manifest and 
 patent failure. The strong State which had kept itself 
 free of the pestilence might hope to profit by its ravages 
 
THE BREWING OF THE STORM 213 
 
 among her rivals. She supplied arms and secret encour- 
 agement to the embattled parties in Ireland. She watched 
 with gleeful contempt the antics of the suffragettes. 
 She was persuaded that when her day came she would 
 have to deal with decadent, disorganised, and disunited 
 peoples, who would be easily overthrown. She would 
 show that the world was not safe for democracy. 
 
 But even in Germany there were misgivings ; even in 
 Germany the demand for an enlargement of self-govern- 
 ment was growing in an alarming way. The number of the 
 Social Democrats was increasing ; on the eve of the war 
 they had one hundred and ten members in the Reichstag ; 
 they were already the most numerous of the parties, and 
 it seemed possible that they would before long command 
 a majority. Tamed as they were by all the influences 
 that surrounded them, and ready to be the instruments of 
 government in the expansion of German greatness, they 
 nevertheless stood for an idea which would cut at the 
 roots of the German system : they demanded that govern- 
 ment should be responsible to the Reichstag. If they 
 should ever attain a definite majority, and still persist in 
 this demand, they might make the conduct of government 
 on the old lines very difficult ; for it would then be im- 
 possible for autocracy to maintain a working majority 
 by playing off the parties against one another, as it 
 had long done. In that event, the autocracy would 
 be faced by the unpleasant alternative of either sub- 
 mitting, or boldly disregarding the Reichstag, as Bis- 
 marck had disregarded the Prussian Landtag in the years 
 1862-66. Submission would mean the overthrow of 
 the most distinctive features of the German system : 
 the unchecked power which was wielded by government 
 over the minds and bodies of its subjects, and the steady 
 
 s 
 
274 NATIONAL SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 consistency with which it pursued the supreme end of 
 extending German power in the world, undeflected by 
 popular clamours, and unhampered by the necessity of 
 exposing its plans to criticism. It would mean that 
 Germany would be reduced to the level of the parliamen- 
 tary States, whose policy was liable to be varied in accord- 
 ance with changes in public opinion. On the other hand, 
 direct resistance to a standing majority in the Reichstag 
 opened a vista of conflict and disturbance, and might 
 imperil the ascendancy of government over the minds of 
 its subjects. Even Bismarck could not permanently have 
 resisted the majority in the Landtag ; he was, in the 
 end, only able to still opposition by giving it intoxicating 
 draughts of military success. The analogy was sugges- 
 tive. Victories still more dazzling than Bismarck's would 
 remove all danger of a new challenge to autocracy. It is 
 probable that the anxiety aroused among the governing 
 circles of Germany by the growing strength of the 
 Socialists formed one of the motives for undertaking the 
 great adventure of the war. Thus, in Germany as else- 
 where, the aggressive and conquering programme of the 
 German government was hostile to the development of 
 democracy. 
 
 If, during these years, the rulers of Germany felt some 
 qualms of anxiety regarding the growth of democratic 
 sentiment in their own country, there were also to be 
 heard whispers of discontent with the wonderful Prussian 
 system, not only among the Socialists, but in other and 
 more unlikely quarters. The system brought wealth, 
 prosperity, national strength and prestige, and the in- 
 toxicating dreams of coming triumphs. But might it not 
 be that these material boons were purchased at too great 
 8. cost ? Was it in the end good for the mind and soul of 
 
THE BREWING OF THE STORM 2?5 
 
 a nation that it should be so regulated and controlled, so 
 cosseted, so held in leading-strings ? ' In my opinion/ 
 a National Liberal deputy said in the Reichstag in 1910, 
 ■ the reform which we need is that we should be governed 
 less than now. . . . We are in danger of being suffocated 
 by all the love and care bestowed upon us. Who can be 
 sure as he lays himself down to sleep at night that he is 
 not transgressing some police regulation or other. . . . 
 And yet we boast that we are a mature people ! ' Here 
 spoke the misgiving of a man who, without penetrating 
 very deeply, felt that individuality and character were 
 being starved by the very efficiency of autocracy. The 
 misgiving obtained a more penetrating expression, a few 
 years before the war, from a distinguished German 
 educationalist, Dr. Friedrich Paulsen. Discussing the 
 popularity in Germany of brutal, immoral and violent 
 types of literature, and the influence of the philosophy of 
 violence of which Nietzsche was the greatest exponent, he 
 attributed it to the dangerous moral condition produced 
 by over-discipline. An over-regulated nation, like an 
 over-regulated boy, is tempted to throw off all restraints 
 and give the rein to its worst passions when the oppor- 
 tunity for indulging them occurs. ' The picture offered 
 by our people,' Paulsen wrote, ' is certainly not edifying. 
 A healthy, free people, conscious of its power, is not on 
 the one hand so tame and cowed, nor on the other so 
 wild in its literary pleasures. It is the dulled, ansemic, 
 starved body which yearns for stupefaction by indulgence 
 in strong drinks.' Rightly regarded, this is a report upon 
 the condition of a nation more ominous than any of the 
 superficial indications of restlessness and disorganisation 
 which we have noted among the self-governing peoples. 
 And Dr. Paulsen might have found, in the official criminal 
 
276 NATIONAL SELF-GOVERKMSNT 
 
 statistics of his country, still more perturbing evidence 
 than that afforded by its literature of the demoralising 
 influences of the Prussian system, and the worship of 
 mere brute force which it inspired. In the year 1911 
 over 172,000 persons were convicted in Germany of 
 aggravated assaults and similar offences ; the corre- 
 sponding figure for England and Wales for the same year 
 was 1720. Again, in that one year more murders were 
 committed in Germany by boys between the ages of 
 twelve and eighteen than were committed in England and 
 Wales by persons of all ages and both sexes. Yet again, 
 in 1911 there were in Germany 14,872 cases of violence 
 against women : the corresponding number in England 
 and Wales was 562. Such facts as these were, in the years 
 before the war, arousing grave anxiety among German 
 social students. It may be said that they cannot fairly 
 be attributed to the influence of a system of government. 
 But behind the system of government is the spirit which 
 inspires it. In Germany this was the spirit of belief in 
 violence, worship of brute force, disregard of right ; and 
 we have seen with what persistent subtlety this spirit 
 was transfused through the whole nation by way of the 
 schools and the barracks. We have seen its results in 
 the orgy of bestiality and cruelty into which the manhood 
 of Germany has willingly plunged during the war. For a 
 long time men found it impossible to believe that a civilised 
 nation could so conduct itself. Is not the horror in some 
 degree illumined and explained by the indications which 
 were already emerging before the war of the moral effects 
 of the German social and political system ? 
 
 At the opening of the new century the contrast between 
 the effects of self-government and autocracy was being 
 very clearly displayed. Externally, and in material 
 
THE BREWING OF THE STORM 277 
 
 things, the advantage seemed to lie on the side of auto- 
 cracy, which was able to organise with supreme efficiency 
 the whole resources of the nation for the pursuit of material 
 advantage, and to indoctrinate it with the fundamentally 
 immoral belief that wrong may be justified by success, and 
 that power is the only thing that matters in the world. 
 Over against this definitely conceived and strenuously 
 pursued aim, the ideal of the self-governing States seemed 
 to be hopelessly vague and unattainable ; since it bade 
 the peoples who had taken it as their guide to organise 
 their own well-being in co-operation, and to pursue as 
 their supreme aim not Power, but Justice, a goddess who 
 continually evades her pursuers, though she exalts and 
 ennobles them in the pursuit. In the complex and closely 
 interrelated life of the unified modern world, these two 
 conceptions could not exist side by side. The world could 
 not be ' safe for democracy ' so long as the other ideal 
 dominated a powerful and aggressive nation ; what was 
 more, the disciples of the opposite faith were realising 
 that the world could not be safe for autocracy, so long 
 as the alluring ideals of freedom, justice and brotherhood 
 were allowed to play upon the minds of their submissive 
 subjects. It was from the side of autocracy that the 
 challenge came ; a challenge to a life and death struggle, 
 the last ordeal of self-government, which could not be 
 evaded or refused. 
 
THE SUPEEME ISSUE 
 
 The world was slow to appreciate the full significance of 
 the Great War. At first it appeared to many as a mere 
 conflict of power between two rival groups of States, the 
 most colossal that had ever taken place, but not essentially 
 different in kind from many earlier conflicts ; and the 
 States which were so fortunate as not to be involved 
 believed that it was their duty, to themselves and to the 
 world, to hold aloof, with what patience they could 
 muster, until the madness should wear itself out, and the 
 world should return to its old jog-trot. Even now, in the 
 fourth year of the struggle, this shallow view is not dead ; 
 it is implicit in the attitude of the little groups of self 
 satisfied pacifists which are to be found in all the belligerent 
 countries, and the few surviving neutrals still pathetically 
 cling to it. But the world as a whole has realised that the 
 issues are far more fundamental than any mere rivalry of 
 power ; and that the whole character and future develop- 
 ment of our civilisation hang in the balance. That is why 
 almost the whole world is ranged on the same side in the 
 conflict : a League of Nations, of almost all races and 
 tongues, is already in existence, and what has formed this 
 League — what could alone have formed it — is the belief 
 that the common interests of the whole world, now unified 
 politically and economically as never before, are at stake. 
 For the war has brought to a crisis, simultaneously, all 
 
THE SUPREME ISSUE 279 
 
 the great political ideals of western civilisation which have 
 gradually emerged during the last four centuries. Their 
 emergence and development have given significance to the 
 history of these centuries. They seemed to have won 
 their victory during the nineteenth century, to have 
 attained at last a clear definition, and to have been 
 accepted as the guiding principles of politics by the con- 
 science of civilisation, not in Europe only, but in a great 
 degree throughout the world. The first of these ideals is 
 the principle of nationality, which asserts that the unity of 
 sentiment which we call the national spirit constitutes the 
 only sound basis for the organisation of the State. The 
 second is the international principle, which asserts that 
 the interests of the whole civilised world are essentially 
 one, and endeavours to protect the rights of all by inter- 
 national co-operation and by the maintenance of an inter- 
 national system of law. The third is the principle of self- 
 government, which asserts that all peoples whose traditions 
 and training make it possible ought to have a full and 
 effective share in the control of their own destinies. The 
 fourth we may call the principle of the tutelage of the 
 European peoples over the non-European world, and it 
 asserts that the mastery of the whole world which western 
 civilisation has won by virtue of its inherent superiority 
 ought to be wielded not with a view solely to the material 
 advantage of the ruling races, but with a view to tra inin g 
 the subject peoples to play their parts as free members of 
 a world-society ; that, in short, it should be wielded in the 
 spirit of the trustee, not of the slave-owner. 
 
 Because these ideals, which have been struggling for 
 expression during four centuries, had at last attained to 
 clear definition, the defiance and repudiation of them 
 which is involved in the aggressive aims of Germany is at 
 
280 NATIONAL SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 once far more open, far more deliberate, and far more 
 dangerous than that which was involved in any earlier 
 attempt of a superficially similar kind. A German victory 
 would not merely destroy all hope of the satisfaction of 
 national aspirations in the troubled region of eastern and 
 south-eastern Europe ; it would imperil and impair the 
 freedom of the oldest and most solidly established nations 
 of Europe. The German Conduct of the war has from the 
 very outset been marked by the most brutal disregard of 
 every principle of international law : ' International law 
 no longer exists,' said the Kaiser himself to Mr. Gerard ; 
 it is Germany who has destroyed it, and, without much 
 disguise, Germany aims at substituting her own dictation 
 for the co-operative agreement of the civilised world. 
 Germany is the supreme type of an efficiently organised 
 autocracy ; her system denies to the people all control 
 over the direction of national policy ; and if she succeed 
 in holding her own against the banded democracies of the 
 world, not only will the chains of autocracy be firmly 
 welded upon the German people and their vassals, but self- 
 government will appear to be proved a failure, or at all 
 events a premature experiment, in other lands also, and it 
 will have to be abandoned or gravely qualified in order 
 that the now free peoples may organise themselves for a 
 further struggle. Finally, as Germany has shown herself 
 in the past utterly ruthless in the exploitation of her 
 subject peoples, her victory would initiate an era of ruth- 
 less exploitation of the non-European world with a view 
 to future war, in which, in self-defence, all peoples would 
 have to share, and the supremacy of Europe over the non- 
 European world would become an intolerable burden and 
 curse, which would not be long endured. 
 
 Of all these momentous issues, the greatest is that of 
 
THE SUPREME ISSUE 281 
 
 self-government. It is the greatest because, as events 
 have very clearly shown, the rival principle, that of 
 autocracy, is in truth the source of all our woes. A 
 despotism, or a caste-ascendancy, may be, and often has 
 been, a necessary stage in the education of a people ; 
 necessary for the welding of national unity, and for the 
 creation of the habit of obedience to law. But it is only 
 among undeveloped or ill-organised peoples that it use- 
 fully serves these purposes ; and even then, the auto- 
 cracy or the caste, by its very nature, tends to think 
 primarily of the extension of its power, and to cultivate 
 the well-being of the community only as a means to that 
 end. In a highly developed and well-organised society 
 the ascendancy of an autocrat or of a caste is no longer 
 necessary for the purposes which justify its existence at 
 an earlier stage. But its inherent love of power still 
 exists ; and if it can communicate this passion to the 
 people whom it rules, if it can achieve an effective control 
 over their minds and their resources, it will become a 
 tenfold greater menace to all its neighbours, just because 
 the power for mischief of a highly developed society is 
 tenfold greater than that of a backward people. Such a 
 menace the German autocracy had long been to all the 
 self-governing States ; we have seen how, even in times 
 of peace, it had made the world ' unsafe for democracy,' 
 and in war it threatened the very existence of all the free 
 States. No self-governing community could ever become 
 such a menace. Self-governing societies may be, and 
 often are, carried away by momentary gusts of emotion ; 
 they may be inspired by jealousy or prejudice or greed, 
 they may be intoxicated for a time by the sense of power. 
 But by their very nature it is impossible for them to 
 pursue a single dominating end with the unrelenting per- 
 
282 NATIONAL SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 sistence, secrecy and inflexibility which is possible for an 
 autocratic government ; for the essence of the self- 
 governing system is that it is controlled by ever-varying 
 currents of opinion, which set, on the whole, and despite 
 frequent deflections, in the direction of justice. And in 
 particular it is impossible for a self-governing community 
 to be in permanent antipathy to the causes of national 
 freedom or international co-operation, which are inspired 
 ultimately by the same ideals as self-government itself. 
 The survival of autocracy, therefore, in a highly developed 
 community is the root cause of all these dangers. The 
 world was slow to see this ; nor was it plainly and boldly 
 enunciated until the entry of America into the war. It 
 is to President Wilson that we owe the pregnant state- 
 ment that the world must be made ' safe for democracy,' 
 and that this is the root of the whole matter. And the 
 world can only be ' safe for democracy ' when autocracy, 
 with its fundamentally vicious ideals, has been banished 
 from among the highly developed States. Democratic 
 self-government is not, in any of the guises which it has 
 assumed, a perfect form of government. It is as yet in 
 its infancy, even in the lands where it has existed longest, 
 and whose peoples have been most fully trained to partici- 
 pate in it. It has many troubles and difficulties yet 
 before it. It will never, perhaps, attain to the mechanical 
 efficiency which, in favouring circumstances, autocracy 
 can attain. But it pursues the ideals of freedom and 
 justice ; and this of itself more than balances its defects. 
 Only by its victory can the world be freed from the 
 poisonous influence of the Doctrine of Power, which has 
 hung like a miasma over almost all its history. 
 
 The war, then, is in the last resort a duel to the death 
 between the principles of autocracy and self-government, 
 
THE SUPREME ISSUE 283 
 
 neither of which can feel itself safe while the other re- 
 mains unfettered. It was but slowly that the free peoples 
 realised this ; but the autocrats, or those whose ideal was 
 autocracy, saw it very quickly, and wherever there were 
 forces that dreaded the triumph of self-government, there 
 Germany found helpers and allies. In Greece the 
 camarilla which surrounded the worthless king and his 
 German wife, were willing to betray their allies, to play 
 the traitor to the powers to whom Greece owed her 
 existence, and to sell the obvious interests of their 
 country, in order that royal power might win a victory 
 over the hated leader of democracy. In Spain, while 
 popular feeling in the more advanced centres was all on 
 the side of the Allies, the knot of politicians who rig the 
 nominal machinery of self-government to suit their own 
 purposes were partisans of Germany, ready even to 
 wink at her being supplied from their coasts with the 
 means of sinking Spanish ships, if by that means the 
 defeat of self-government might be attained. In Italy 
 it was among the clericals and the reactionaries that 
 Germany found her main strength, though she was aided 
 also by the fanatics of International Socialism. 
 
 But it was in Russia that the position of Germany as 
 the champion of autocracy exercised the most remarkable 
 influence. The vital interests of Russia were threatened 
 by the German challenge, and it was against Russia that 
 this challenge was in the first instance directed. Yet 
 because Russia was ruled by an autocracy which felt its 
 own position insecure, dreaded the victory of the principle 
 of self-government even more than military defeat and 
 humiliation, and feared that the downfall of Germany 
 might be followed by the downfall of despotism in Russia 
 itself, its agents were half-hearted in the pursuit of victory, 
 
284 NATIONAL SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 and some of them were even ready to become the secret 
 agents of the enemy. Because of this distraction of 
 interest, Russia failed, after the first few months, to play 
 her proper part in the struggle ; while at the same time 
 her membership of the Grand Alliance discredited its free 
 members in the eyes of the neutral world, and seemed to 
 stultify their claim to be fighting for liberty. Half- 
 heartedness, corruption and frank treason combined to 
 produce the Russian disasters of 1915. When the existing 
 organs of self-government in Russia, the emasculated 
 Duma, and the rigidly limited Zemstva, tried to remedy 
 the deficiencies which were due to the bureaucracy, they 
 were checked and hampered in every possible way. 
 Finally the very fact of defeat was used by strong elements 
 in the Russian ruling class as an excuse for negotiating 
 for a separate peace, in the hope of saving Tsarism by 
 making friends with the formidable champion of auto- 
 cracy. This would have been the greatest betrayal in 
 history, and it might have brought about the ruin of all 
 the great causes for which the Allies were fighting. It 
 Was avoided only by the sudden revolutionary upheaval 
 of March 1917, which swept Tsarism aside, and by ranging 
 Russia among the democratic States, isolated Germany 
 and her vassals as the only surviving States of Europe 
 which still repudiated the ideal of self-government, and 
 made the great issue clearer to the world than it had 
 hitherto been. 
 
 The Russian Revolution is an event too complex, too 
 confused, and as yet too undetermined in its issues, to 
 be profitably discussed in this place. Its first results 
 were political chaos, and a dislocation of the country's 
 military system even worse than that which had been due 
 to the corruption of the old regime. The Russian people 
 
THE SUPREME ISSUE 285 
 
 Lad been denied every opportunity of political education ; 
 and there was no organised power capable of taking the 
 place of the old organs of government which had been 
 destroyed. The city mobs and the illiterate peasant 
 soldiery, who now controlled the course of events, identified 
 liberty with the mere abolition of all discipline, and of all 
 restraints upon their action ; and they fell an easy prey 
 to the catchwords of International Socialism, whose fluent 
 exponents were the conscious or unconscious catspaws of 
 the German government. If in its first movements the 
 Russian Revolution seemed to be a supreme triumph for 
 the cause of self-government, the chaos which followed 
 largely undid this conviction, because it showed the 
 dangers to which an undisciplined democracy is liable, 
 and reminded men that the first necessity for the main- 
 tenance of organised society is that there should be a 
 strongly organised government capable of making its 
 will respected. We were forced to realise, what the 
 sweeping democratic theory of the nineteenth century 
 had never admitted, that the sudden introduction of 
 democracy in a community which is not ready for it 
 may lead to anarchy. Thus the misgivings of the old 
 regime in Russia, and the treachery which it contemplated, 
 followed by the whirling chaos and dislocation of the 
 revolution, inflicted grave detriment upon the Grand 
 Alliance, and seriously imperilled the great twin causes 
 of Law and Liberty for which they were fighting. 
 
 The champion of autocracy proved to be a very terrible 
 and formidable foe, able to resist with success a world in 
 arms. His superb efficiency in the arts of war, the pro- 
 duct of long and tireless preparation, his absolute and 
 centralised control of all the resources of his own State 
 and of his vassals, his central geographical position, his 
 
286 NATIONAL SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 complete and subtly organised domination of the minds 
 of his subjects, his readiness to stoop to all the arts of 
 deceit and intrigue, his utter unscrupulousness in the 
 employment of every weapon of terror — murder, slavery, 
 torture, outrage — his skill in playing upon the diverse 
 currents of opinion which exist in every free State, all 
 combined to make him terribly strong. But he could 
 also rely upon the assistance of every force hostile to 
 that free co-operation of classes which is the essence of 
 democracy. He could count not only upon ambitious 
 kinglets, court camarillas, corrupt politicians, and all the 
 forces of obscurantism, but also upon those elements in 
 the popular movements of all countries which, inspired 
 by Marx and by his doctrines of violence and class-war, 
 scorn the dream of co-operation for the common weal. 
 He was helped even by the accidents of Fortune : even 
 the Clerk of the Weather seemed to have enlisted on his 
 side. When these lines were written, it could not be said 
 that his utter defeat was assured, even though four-fifths 
 of the world were ranged against him, and all men of 
 good-will prayed for his overthrow. Apollyon is a very 
 dreadful foe, a fierce fighter and a master of gins and 
 snares ; and he who contends with him must have inex- 
 haustible courage and resolution. Under the prolonged 
 stress and anguish of such a conflict, every element of 
 weakness is searched out ; and even men of good-will, 
 if there be in them any strain of irresolution or senti- 
 mentalism, are tempted to talk of peace where there can 
 be no peace, and to dally with the idea of a friendly com- 
 promise between Right and Wrong. The grim and un- 
 relenting powers that direct the action of the foe show 
 no such weakness ; whatever the price in suffering and 
 destruction, they will not abandon their unchanging aim. 
 
THE SUPREME ISSUE 287 
 
 It would be better that we should all go down into ruin 
 together than that there should be any paltering with 
 the Devil : fiat justitia ruat ccelum ; and despite all the 
 clamour of the half-hearted that is the temper of the 
 free nations. 
 
 The war has terribly tested the fibre of all the nations 
 engaged ; and it has tried in the ordeal of fire the rival 
 systems of government, bringing out mercilessly their 
 defects as well as their virtues. It has shown that self- 
 government is ill adapted for the dreadful business of 
 war, not, indeed, in comparison with autocracy as such, 
 for the self-governing countries have shown far greater 
 efficiency than autocratic Russia, but in comparison with 
 scientific autocracy of the German pattern. And if it 
 be true, as the political philosophers of Germany main- 
 tain, that war is the supreme function of the State, a 
 ' biological necessity ' for which human societies should 
 make it their first duty to prepare themselves, it must be 
 acknowledged that political freedom is an illusion, an 
 ignis fatuus, which wise men will no longer pursue. 
 
 On the other hand, the war has shown that among 
 those peoples in whom the habits of self-government are 
 rooted, it produces a wonderful capacity for self -discipline, 
 for endurance, and for the willing subordination of every- 
 thing to a great idea. That is perhaps the noblest moral 
 of the war. Though they have foregone all the elaborate 
 training in subordination and obedience which Germany 
 has assiduously cultivated, and have paid no attention to 
 the German arts of regimenting and controlling opinion, 
 the self-governing peoples have endured, undismayed, 
 terrors and brutalities such as the Germans have never 
 been called upon to endure, and never will be called upon 
 to endure even should their country be overrun and 
 
288 NATIONAL SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 conquered by invading armies. Their armies have gone 
 through the agonies of retreat and apparent disaster with- 
 out losing courage or hope ; and have then turned at bay 
 and beaten back the triumphant enemy. They have had 
 to endure the shock of finding unanticipated engines of 
 war, against which they had no defence prepared, brought 
 into the field against them, and have undergone, month 
 after month, the terrible ordeal of defending frozen or 
 water-logged trenches against heavy odds. They have 
 faced without flinching horrors worse than had ever been 
 experienced or imagined since the world began ; and they 
 have gone to meet these horrors with a fuller and clearer 
 comprehension of their meaning than was ever possible 
 to their predecessors, for this is the first war which has 
 been fought by armies of educated men. Only in one 
 case have these terrors succeeded in awakening the panic 
 they were designed to create ; and this was among the 
 illiterate soldiery of Russia, untrained to the responsi- 
 bilities of freedom, and suddenly emancipated from the 
 rigid discipline which is autocracy's substitute for these 
 responsibilities. The German soldiery has, it is true, 
 undergone without flinching an equally terrible ordeal in 
 the field. But at least it is plain that self-government 
 does not undermine the capacity for discipline, endurance 
 and sacrifice of the peoples who have enjoyed it. And 
 in this war not only the moral of the soldier, but the moral 
 of the civilian has been terribly tested in the self-govern- 
 ing lands. Old men and women and children in great 
 cities or quiet country places have watched the dropping 
 of midnight murder from the skies, helpless to defend 
 themselves, yet never allowing their fears to weaken the 
 resolution of their country. Sailors and non-combatant 
 passengers have braved the terrors of the lurking sub- 
 
THE SUPREME ISSUfi 289 
 
 marine, with its sudden shattering torpedoes, and still 
 continue with quiet valour to go about their business. 
 These are tests of the moral of peoples, the like of which 
 no earlier generation has ever had to undergo, and they 
 have been endured practically only by the self-governing 
 peoples, since the methods of random murder and calcu- 
 lated atrocity are happily, as yet, a German monopoly. 
 Perhaps the Germans would show the same courage in 
 endurance ; we shall never know, because they will never 
 be called upon to submit to the brutalities which they 
 have inflicted upon other peoples. But at least we may 
 claim that the rigid discipline of a system of autocracy 
 cannot produce a more sublime valour in endurance than 
 has been shown by the peoples who are free. 
 
 And in yet deeper ways the war has demonstrated the 
 moral power that self-governing institutions help to culti- 
 vate in the peoples who enjoy them. It was not surprising 
 that the German hosts should be brave and confident when 
 they advanced to seize what they had every reason for 
 believing to be an assured triumph, or when they battled 
 to maintain their hold upon the lands which they had 
 conquered ; this was the culmination towards which all 
 their long discipline had looked. But the proud and 
 modest staunchness of the Belgians, government and 
 people alike offering themselves as a sacrifice to their 
 honour, and enduring with quiet dignity all the sickening 
 brutalities which the conquerors could inflict upon them — 
 what is there in history to surpass this devotion of a free 
 and prosperous people ? Or where shall you match the 
 spectacle of France, as she has shown herself during this 
 war ? A great nation at her ease, taken by surprise in 
 full peace and at a holiday season by the sudden but long- 
 prepared onslaught of a terrible enemy, she saw her armies, 
 
 T 
 
290 NATIONAL SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 unready and outnumbered, hurled back with terrible 
 losses ; she saw her richest provinces torn from her and 
 left at the mercy of scientific savagery ; she saw the daily 
 trainloads of her wounded sons, whom all her hospitals 
 were insufficient to accommodate ; she heard the awful 
 stories of the gratuitous rapine and desolation wrought by 
 her bestial foe in beautiful old cities and trim country- 
 sides ; yet she set quietly to work, without panic or recrim- 
 ination, men and women, priests and atheists, nobles and 
 peasants, forgetting all private quarrels, and united in an 
 unwavering resolution to save their homeland and their 
 cherished freedom. Time and again her hopes of victory 
 were broken ; month after month the drain on her life- 
 blood continued, and the enemy jeered that she was being 
 bled white ; still, without faltering, she kept her face 
 towards the foe, and her proud spirit refused even to think 
 of peace till justice should be done. That is the moral of a 
 self-governing people. And what shall be said of Italy, 
 safe out of the tornado, whose people, overriding the 
 natural hesitation of their statesmen, clamoured to be 
 enrolled in the defence of freedom, at a moment when the 
 Grand Alliance was staggering from the effects of the 
 smashing German blows on the Russian front ? And 
 where will be found a parallel in all history for the rising 
 of the British volunteers, five millions of them presenting 
 themselves within a year, men of all classes and types, 
 pouring in from the forge, the field, the club, the office, the 
 class-room, the dosshouse, faster than they could be 
 trained or equipped, and only the more eagerly when they 
 heard the news of defeats and disasters, or of horrors and 
 carnage unimaginable ? Behind the strong shield of the 
 navy their homes and children long seemed safe enough 
 from the outrages which Belgium and France were endur- 
 
the supreme issue 291 
 
 ing ; but freedom was imperilled, and there were hideous 
 wrongs to be righted. This also is the moral of a self- 
 governing people ; it stirs the blood like a trumpet. And to 
 their side came crowding also the self-governing colonists, 
 separated by thousands of miles from the area of conflict, 
 and under no sort of compulsion to take part ; yet they 
 came to share the ghastly perils of their brothers in the 
 defence of freedom, in such numbers that the men from 
 these remote and thinly peopled lands who have volun- 
 tarily offered their lives and their careers outnumber the 
 greatest army ever put into the field in the history of 
 warfare, before the dark year of 1914. Assuredly courage, 
 and readiness to sacrifice all for a great cause, willingly and 
 without reward, are qualities gloriously prevalent in the 
 lands that have enjoyed self-government. The warlike 
 virtues are not a monopoly of the State that trains its sons 
 to rejoice in war, and orders its life with a view to war. 
 Nor is it only courage that has been exhibited by the men 
 of the free nations ; they have shown a chivalry towards 
 the weak, and even towards enemy prisoners stained with 
 unnameable iniquities, which equals their courage ; and 
 in this the Germans, brave as they are, have no share. It 
 would, of course, be absurd to attribute these shining 
 qualities wholly to the influence of a system of govern- 
 ment or even to the moral conceptions of which it is the 
 expression. But at least it is reassuring to find these 
 qualities so nobly displayed among peace-loving peoples 
 who are masters of their own fate : they show that self 
 government does not mean self-indulgence, and they rob 
 the advocates of disciplined autocracy of the sole argument 
 they have ever been able to adduce in defence of the moral 
 influence of this system upon its subjects. Self -discipline 
 is manifestly a nobler thing than discipline enforced. 
 
292 NATIONAL SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 Before the war we might have feared that self-government, 
 while it had all but destroyed the discipline of authority, 
 was failing to replace it with self-discipline. The ordeal 
 of the war has proved the falsity of these fears. 
 
 On the other hand, it has displayed in grim relief the 
 hideous moral results of a regime of over-discipline, and of 
 the doctrines of brute power. One of the most impressive 
 aspects of the war has been the evidence it has yielded that 
 all those forces in national life to which we trust to keep 
 the mind of the nation sane, true and upright have been, in 
 Germany, debased and enslaved by the influence of the 
 government. Very early in the war ninety-three of the 
 most distinguished German scholars, philosophers and 
 theologians, men whose lives had been devoted to the 
 pursuit of truth, issued a manifesto in which they en- 
 deavoured to refute the plainly established charges made 
 against the German government and army. They 
 produced no evidence ; they confined themselves to mere 
 flat denials of every charge, in defiance of the facts, 
 trusting to the prestige of their reputation. Es ist nicht 
 wahr ! was the sum and substance of their pronouncement. 
 The manifesto of the ninety-three intellectuals will never 
 be forgotten ; for there is in all history no other such 
 instance of a body of men whose business is the pursuit 
 of truth throwing all canons of evidence to the winds, and 
 slavishly assuming that that is truth which is convenient 
 for their national interests. Nor is it only learning that 
 has been enslaved and blinded. The astounding collection 
 of blasphemies collected by an eminent Danish theologian 
 from German war sermons by Lutheran divines shows that 
 religion and the clergy have equally been bound to the 
 chariot-wheels of Power. 
 
 Again, whatever view we may have taken of the 
 
THE SUPREME ISSUE 293 
 
 doctrines of German Social Democracy, we have always 
 supposed that it was, at least, independent of government 
 control, and that it was vowed to hostility against the 
 whole system of autocracy and of militarism. The events 
 of the war have shown that the Social Democrats also 
 have been indoctrinated with the conceptions which in- 
 spire the German government and with which it has 
 poisoned the nation's mind. We have seen them, in 
 many ways and in many countries, acting as informal 
 agents on behalf of their government ; intriguing in 
 neutral countries ; playing upon the shallow sentimen- 
 talism of International Socialists in belligerent countries ; 
 labouring to reduce Russia to chaos ; buying up news- 
 papers in Rumania to turn them into German organs ; 
 trying to cast the veil of liberal sentiments over the 
 nakedness of military autocracy. A single episode may 
 suffice to show how fully the Socialists are, in essential 
 things, the minions of autocracy. In September 1914, 
 after the occupation of Brussels by the German army, 
 four German Socialists, three of whom were members of 
 the Reichstag while the fourth was editor of a Socialist 
 newspaper, visited the Socialists of Brussels to persuade 
 them to accept the situation submissively. The Belgians 
 complained of the violation of Belgian neutrality. Here 
 is the reply of Dr. Koster, editor of the Hamburger Echo, 
 on behalf of his colleagues. ' It is all your fault. You 
 ought to have let us pass ; you would have been hand- 
 somely compensated by our government. . . . Moreover, 
 everybody has known for years past that in the event of 
 a war between France and Germany, our troops would 
 advance through Belgium.' The Belgians asked whether 
 no weight should be given to national honour, inter- 
 national treaties, and the rights of free peoples. ' National 
 
294 NATIONAL SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 honour ! ' replied Dr. Koster. ' That is mere middle- 
 class idealism, with which Socialists have nothing to do. 
 As for international treaties, they don't hold in case of 
 war. Does not historical materialism (the doctrine of 
 Marx) teach us that the development of the proletariat is 
 intimately bound up with the economic prosperity of the 
 nation ? It follows that the German Socialists ought to 
 support the government.' The Belgians answered that, 
 for them, honour ranked above material interests, and 
 that they adopted the motto of the old free towns of 
 Flanders, ' Better to die of one's own free will than to 
 lose one's country's freedom.' Dr. Koster, we are told, 
 found this assertion so extraordinary that he called his 
 colleagues to hear it repeated ; whereupon one of the 
 Belgians said bitterly that the only thing they seemed 
 to possess in common was a stomach ; but on the Belgian 
 side there was a heart as well, which seemed to be re- 
 placed on the German side by a point of interrogation. 
 This dialogue, 1 between free men and materialised serfs, 
 deserves to be placed beside Thucydides' immortal 
 Melian dialogue. What especially ought to be noted 
 is that one of the German delegates was Karl 
 Liebknecht. 
 
 These facts go to show that autocracy, in its German 
 form, has succeeded in destroying the sense of truth and 
 honour of the greater part of its subjects, even of those 
 among them who profess to be opposed to its principles. 
 But that is not the worst of the moral debacle which this 
 system, and the immoral ideals that inspire it, have 
 brought about in a great nation. The atrocities which 
 have been deliberately ordered by the German high 
 
 1 Reported by the Belgians who took part in the interview, and 
 printed in UKwrnaniti, 20th January 1916. 
 
THE SUPREME ISSUE 295 
 
 command are without parallel in the history of civilised 
 warfare. But they are in accord with the principles 
 which govern the German State. What makes them 
 doubly horrible is that they have been willingly carried 
 out by the mass of German manhood in the army and the 
 navy, and even deliberately accentuated by ingenious 
 refinements of cruelty, such as those which accompanied 
 the murder of the crew of the Belgian Prince. It may 
 very confidently be asserted that there is no other civilised 
 nation whose government can be imagined ordaining such 
 atrocities, or whose soldiers could be compelled to practise 
 them ; and assuredly there is no self-governing land in 
 which, if such things were done, the voice of protest and 
 of shame would not be heard. For all time it will be 
 recorded against Germany, not merely that she violated 
 her honour by invading Belgium, that her authorities 
 decreed wholesale slaughters of harmless non-combatants 
 on land and sea, that she shamelessly discarded all the 
 rules and usages of civilised warfare : these things, 
 indeed, will never be forgotten ; but perhaps the most 
 indelible stigma, never to be wiped out by all the lapse of 
 time, will be the simple fact that public rejoicings were 
 organised, and holidays granted to school-children, to 
 celebrate the sinking of the Lusitania and the cold- 
 blooded murder of eleven hundred unarmed civilians, 
 including many women and children. This was a revela- 
 tion of national moral which for sheer hideousness can 
 never possibly be exceeded ; it seems to open a window 
 into hell, and show us a carnival of fiends. This appalling 
 revival of ape-like delight in mere destruction, this savage 
 exultation in the power to inflict pain, among a people 
 long known for their kindliness, can be attributed to no 
 other cause than the influence of a system of government 
 
296 NATIONAL SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 and social organisation, and to the deliberate cultivation 
 and inculcation of the worship of brute force, the deliber- 
 ate assertion that all moral obligations may be disregarded 
 if they seem to stand in the way of power. 
 
 Because the Prussian creed defied and repudiated the 
 enlarging conceptions of justice to which modern civilisa- 
 tion has given birth, it has been forced to go further yet, 
 and to repudiate the simplest principles of honour, 
 decency and humanity upon which civilisation rests ; and 
 it is not only in defence of the most enlightened political 
 ideas of the modern world, but in defence of the most 
 rudimentary principles of morality, that the free peoples 
 find themselves called upon to fight. The subjects of 
 this incomparably efficient and scientific government, 
 having been blinded by materialism to the things that 
 make humanity worthy of respect, find themselves at 
 issue with the moral judgment of the whole world, and 
 cannot understand why ; they find themselves regarded, 
 not by their enemies only, with a mixture of wonder, fear, 
 and loathing for which even the most unqualified victory 
 would be but a poor compensation. For they have 
 proved, with a fullness hitherto unexemplified in history, 
 that it is possible for a nation, as for a man, to lose its 
 soul in the hope of gaining the whole world. It would be 
 a bad bargain even if the price were paid in full. But 
 what if it is not paid ! 
 
 Self-government has not yet won its victory. Even if 
 it emerges successfully from the ordeal of war, there lies 
 before it a still more terrible ordeal in the coming labours 
 of reconstruction, which will assuredly lead to grave 
 troubles and much bitterness of feeling. The systems of 
 self-government, as we have hitherto known them, may 
 not stand the strain of the immensely increased response 
 
THE SUPREME ISSUE 297 
 
 bilities which will necessarily fall upon the State ; and if 
 the anticipation of future war is added to the strain, we 
 may well witness a temporary collapse of the system in 
 some, perhaps in all, of the States wherein it has been 
 painfully established. But whatever troubles we may 
 see, the ideal of self-government can never again fail to 
 command the assent of all good men. For the rival ideal, 
 in spite of its material efficiency, has revealed itself as 
 morally bankrupt, the foe of all that is noblest in man. 
 This service, at least, the German crime has rendered : 
 it has identified the idea of self-government with the 
 ideas of justice and of humanity. A century ago, or 
 even fifty years ago, when self-government was as yet 
 untried in any but a few States, it was still possible to 
 assert, as the eighteenth-century philosophers had as- 
 serted, that enlightened despotism might best assure the 
 moral advancement of men. That view has been for 
 ever destroyed by the action and the effects of the most 
 intelligent and enlightened autocracy which the world 
 has ever seen. And though we have learnt to be humble 
 about democracy, though we have realised that it needs 
 long training before it can work well, and though we know 
 well the mistakes, stupidities and crudities of which it 
 may be guilty, we have learnt also that it is safer and 
 wiser, in the complex affairs of our modern world, to trust 
 to the guidance of the Spirit that broods over the shifting 
 and conflicting thoughts of free men, than to leave our 
 fortunes to the guidance of any single dominating tradi- 
 tion or of any knot of irresponsible rulers. Even should 
 victory attend the army of Germany in this war, the 
 cause of autocracy is a lost cause, because it can never 
 survive the blows which Germany itself has struck at it. 
 
INDEX 
 
 Abdul Hamid, overthrow of, 252 ; 
 character, 253. 
 
 Act of Settlement (1700), 25, 26, 27. 
 
 Agrarian revolution period, 63. 
 
 Agriculture, political importance 
 of, destroyed, 64. 
 
 Alexander i. (Russia), 53. 
 
 Alexander n. (Russia), 194. 
 
 Alexander, King (Serbia), 241 ; 
 policy of, 242 ; murder of, 230, 
 242. 
 
 Alsace-Lorraine, Germany's atti- 
 tude towards, 182. 
 
 America, North, revolution in, 
 effect of, on self-government, 
 34 ; French aid in, 48. See also 
 United States of America and 
 South America. 
 
 Anarchism, German, 112; Russian, 
 246; Bakunin Association (1868), 
 112. 
 
 Anarchy, in Russia (1905), 248. 
 
 Anti-Combination Acts (1799), 
 (1800), 64; repeal of (1825), 67. 
 
 Anti-Corn Law agitation, 167. 
 
 Arabia, 254. 
 
 Aragon, Cortes of, 12. 
 
 Aristocracy, reason for supre- 
 macy of, 24 ; in mid- Victorian 
 period, 71. See also Gentry, 
 landed, and Land. 
 
 Aristotle, on small governments, 
 7 ; on civic disunity, fatal to 
 self-government, 8 ; on the 
 middle class, 75. 
 
 Armenia, 254. 
 
 Army, control of, important factor 
 in the State, Delbriick cit., 26 ; 
 power of, deliberately fostered 
 in pre - war Europe, 231 ; 
 Europe v. Germany on question 
 Of (1914-1918), 235; English, 
 
 early system, 17, first state 
 control of, 25 ; German power 
 of, in politics, 91, 92 ; Landtag's 
 resistance to increase in, 123-4. 
 See also Militarism. 
 
 Army Acts, German, socialist sup- 
 port of, 238 ; prelude to war 
 234. 
 
 Athens, democracy in, 8. 
 
 ' August Union ' of European 
 Powers, 66, 69. 
 
 Ausgleich, Austrian (1867), 116, 
 139. 
 
 Austria-Hungary, annexation of 
 Bosnia, 231, 242, German 
 cause of, 235 ; constitution of, 
 modern history and develop- 
 ment, 122, 132-42, (1860) 
 futile reform, 132, (1867) 
 Ausgleich, 116, 134, 139, 
 243, (1883), (1896) 243, (1906) 
 137, (1907) 243; German in- 
 fluence in, 138, 139, 141, 
 232 ; war with Germany, 113 ; 
 Bismarck's instigation, 125, 
 Italian relations with, 83, 84, 
 war with (1859), 113 ; national 
 spirit poor in, 9, crushing of, 
 109 ; provincial estates in, 13 ; 
 revolutionary movements, 78, 
 94 ; socialism in, 78, effect of 
 French revolution, transitory, 
 80-3 ; Serbia, pre-war control of, 
 by, 241-2 ; and Great War, 
 pre-war decade of unrest, 243. 
 
 Autocracy, theory of, favourable 
 to militarist governments, 172 ; 
 dependence of, on armaments, 
 234 ; twentieth-century estima- 
 tion of, 276 ; effect of, on 
 national moral, 294 ; in Great 
 War, moral defeat and moment- 
 
300 
 
 NATIONAL SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 ous issue of, 281-3, 297 ; German 
 aim, 225, apparent success, 228, 
 ultimate result, 193, challenge 
 to world, 284, 285-7 ; Russian, 
 work of Zemstva, crippled by, 
 193, 284. 
 Autonomy, municipal, in mediaeval 
 England, 20. 
 
 Baoehot, William, on British 
 government (1868), 35; on in- 
 creased franchise, 152 ; criti- 
 cism of English Constitution, 
 153-7 ; mistaken view of future 
 of self-government, 168. 
 
 Bakunin, Michael, 112. 
 
 Balkans, constitutional changes 
 in the (1843 1878), 117, 119, 
 122; wars (1912) and (1913), 
 231 ; League, German luin of, 
 234. 
 
 Bank of England, growth of com- 
 mercial power shown by, 24. 
 
 Bavaria, under the Empire (1871), 
 130, 132. 
 
 Beaconsfield. See Disraeli. 
 
 Bebel, Ferdinand, social democrat 
 party led by, 112 ; on militar- 
 ism, cit., 239. 
 
 Beesley, Professor, 104. 
 
 Belgian Prince, murdered crew 
 of, political significance of, 294. 
 
 Belgium, French revolutionary 
 influence on, liberal move- 
 ments, 48, 69, failure of, 70 ; 
 German war atrocities in, 178 ; 
 self-government in, modern, 
 122 ; socialism in, German in- 
 trigues (1914), 293; war, the, 
 moral effect of, in, 289-90. 
 
 Bentham, Jeremy, 71. 
 
 Bern, early socialism in, 78. 
 
 v. Bismarck, Graf Otto, career, 
 125-32 ; character and hold of, 
 on German public, 163; despotic 
 rule of, imperial executive, 
 supreme, over party majorities, 
 132, 273-4 ; estimation of, in 
 future, 82 ; aliens, policy to- 
 ward, 182 ; Austrian policy of, 
 125 ; industrial encouragement, 
 185 ; insurance, State, scheme 
 for, 183; nationalism of, 110; 
 
 press censorship, 191, 192 ; 
 Roman Church, conflict with, 
 178 ; socialism, 179, fear of, 
 180, in State, aim of, 183. 
 
 Blanc, Louis, socialist doctrine 
 of, 99 ; on capitalism, 103. 
 
 Bohemia, political status of, 137. 
 
 Bolingbroke, Lord (1678-1751), 
 party government system at- 
 tacked, 28. 
 
 Boroughs, mediaeval, trade in, 14. 
 
 Bosnia, annexation of (1908), 140, 
 230, 235, 242. 
 
 Boulanger, General, 198. 
 
 Breslau university, tyranny in, 187. 
 
 Briand, 202. 
 
 Bright, John, electorate appeal, 167. 
 
 Britain, Chartist movement, 78, 
 constitution of, 62, after (1848) 
 revolution, 83, 93, modern 
 Parliamentary procedure, 122, 
 147-9, after Reform Act (1867), 
 151-68, 205-26 ; colonisation 
 from, 36-7 ; educational reform 
 (1902), 263 ; franchise, extension 
 of (1867), 1, 116, 169; French 
 Revolution, effect of, in, 48 ; 
 House of Lords, twentieth -cen- 
 tury powers of, 266 ; labour, 
 interests of, safeguarded, 64 ; for- 
 mation of Labour Party, 263 ; 
 liberal revolution (1830) and 
 middle class control, result of, 
 57, 71-7, 80 ; party system of 
 government, 157-66, discon- 
 tent with, 61, 63-5, twentieth- 
 century criticism, 222, 256; pros- 
 perity of, in mid-nineteenth 
 century, 72, 73, 159; Reform 
 Act (1867), 116, (1884), 207; self- 
 government of, 9, 18-33, 51, 53, 
 involuntary growth, 11-12, 34, 
 original aims, 226, period of 
 struggle from (1830), 69-77, 
 capitalists in favour of, 94, 
 nineteenth - century develop- 
 ment, 59, 60, twentieth century, 
 263, foreign estimation of, 
 after Conference of Verona, 
 67, American misconception 
 of, 40, 41, 42 ; socialism in, 
 176, 206, anti-nationalistic atti- 
 tude, 238 ; war methods, voluu- 
 
ItfDEX 
 
 301 
 
 teer system, 290. See also 
 England. 
 
 Brussels, early socialism in, 78. 
 
 Bulgaria, reformed constitution 
 of (1878), 118. 
 
 v. Bulow, Prinz, on idealism in 
 politics, 45. 
 
 Bundesrat (1871 onwards), status 
 of, in German constitution, 
 128-9. 
 
 Bureaucracy, modern methods 
 and development of, 18, 121 ; 
 Austrian, 133, 138, 139 ; British, 
 growth of, mid - Victorian, 
 155-7, twentieth century, 219, 
 270 ; French, pre-revolution, 50, 
 under Louis Philippe, 74, after 
 Napoleon i., 65, under Napoleon 
 ill., 85, modern efficiency and 
 control of, 148-9 ; German, 62, 
 87, 88, 122, power of (1850), 
 89, power of, under Bismarck, 
 123-32, education controlled 
 by, 188, final system of, 172- 
 92 ; Russian, exposure of, by 
 Japanese war, 246, revival 
 after first Duma, 249, German 
 nature and influence of, 251, 
 power of, in autocratic govern- 
 ment, 193. 
 
 Burke, Edmund, on self-govern- 
 ment as British heritage, 34. 
 
 Cabet, Etienne, 99. 
 
 Cabinet, control, institution of, 
 27 ; position of, in British 
 politics (Bagehot), 155. 
 
 Canada, self-government insti- 
 tuted in, 72. 
 
 Canning, George, on powers' tyran- 
 nical settlement after Napoleon, 
 cit., 67 ; on self government, 
 69 ; on political value of 
 American republics, cit., 69. 
 
 Capital, Marx's war against, 101 ; 
 future of, 104 ; socialist's con- 
 ception of, 172, 174. 
 
 Capital (Das Kapital), 100. 
 
 Capitalism, Marx's conception of 
 evil of, 103, 104 ; socialist 
 theory of, 236 ; history of, 237 ; 
 industrial, growing importance 
 of, 64 ; power of, politically 
 
 exaggerated, 259 : v. social 
 welfare, 265. 
 
 Carinthia, political status of, 137. 
 
 Carlyle, Thomas, 97. 
 
 Carnot, Pres., 201. 
 
 Castile, Cortes of, 12. 
 
 Cavour, Count C. di, 84. 
 
 Charles v. (Spain), 12. 
 
 Charles x. (France), absolutism 
 upheld by, 73. 
 
 Chartist movement, liberty of, 
 78 ; against individualism, 98. 
 
 Chauvinism, 55. 
 
 China, self-government, in first 
 steps, 1, 61. 
 
 Christian socialism, growth of, 97. 
 
 Church, the Roman, mediaeval 
 political power of, 11 ; loss of 
 political power, 15 ; under 
 Napoleon in., 86 ; as political 
 factor, French rejection of, 
 262 ; Protestant, as political 
 factor, overthrow of, threatened 
 in England, 265. See also Re- 
 ligion. 
 
 Civilisation, western, and self- 
 government, 2 ; European, 
 modern world dominationof, 241. 
 
 Civil service, competitive examina- 
 tion for, institution of, 156, 161. 
 
 Class distinctions, mediaeval, 13-16; 
 privileges abolished by National 
 Assembly, 50 ; abolished by 
 Napoleon, 52 ; after English 
 Agrarian Revolution, 64. 
 
 Class, middle, after 1830, rule of, 
 confirmed in England, France, 
 and Belgium, 69-77 ; loss of 
 power (1832-1867), 76; Dutch 
 franchise, 84 ; growth of, result 
 of political changes, 59, 96 ; 
 industrial control of, 111. 
 
 Class-war, Marx's creed, incite- 
 ment to, 101, 112, 105, 236 ; 
 encouraged by Germany, 112; 
 and by war-party (1914-1917), 
 286; inevitable in social progress, 
 102-3 ; effect of great financial 
 combines on, 174 ; distrust of 
 government, fostered by, 259 ; 
 social welfare v. military ex- 
 penditure, 265. 
 
 Class, working. See Labour. 
 
302 
 
 NATIONAL SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 Cobden, Richard, on industrial 
 wealth and peace, 186. 
 
 Colonial Office, mid- Victorian, 
 power of officials of, 156. 
 
 Colonies, British, self-government 
 in, 23, 72. 
 
 Colonisation, factor in incitements 
 of Great War, 232. 
 
 Commerce. See Trade. 
 
 ' Communist Manifesto,' 100 ; 
 mob's demands, 145 ; Union 
 (1847), 100. 
 
 Confederation, German (1815), 
 form of government of (1848), 
 overthrown and restored, 81 ; 
 Diet, on self-government, 67, 68. 
 
 Co-operation, growth of, as poli- 
 tical factor, 56 ; theory of, 
 Owen's scheme, 98 ; Marx's 
 doctrine fundamentally opposed 
 to, 101, 104. 
 
 Co-operative societies, step toward 
 self-government, 80. 
 
 Corruption, political, 28. 
 
 Cortes, the Estates, in Spain, 12. 
 
 Coup d'titat (1851), 142, 146. 
 
 Crime, in Germany, pre-war vio- 
 lence, 275-6 ; Great War besti- 
 ality, 276 ; juvenile, pre-war 
 increase, 276. 
 
 Croats, the, racial difficulties in 
 Austria, 135, 140, 244 ; Magyar 
 tyranny over, 136, 244. 
 
 Cronstadt, street fighting (1917), 
 footnote 145. 
 
 Czechs, the, representation of, in 
 Reichsrat, 137 ; hostilities of, to 
 Austrian government and Ger- 
 man influence, 244. 
 
 Das Kapital, 100. 
 
 v. Delbriick, M. F. R., on army 
 control, cit., 24 ; on military 
 government, cii., 92 ff. 
 
 Democracy as political ideal, nine- 
 teenth-century growth of, 54-62, 
 67-8, 70 ; civic, in small states, 
 8 ; financial combines, deterrent 
 to, 174 ; Marx inconsistent to, 
 101 ; party system help to, 164 ; 
 revolutionary effects of, 57 ; 
 socialist attitude towards, 237 ; 
 war difficulties of, 172, 257 ; 
 
 world order of, as momentous 
 issue of Great War, 240, 280 ; 
 American, 48 ; French, 46, 50, 
 51, 80 ; German followers false 
 to. 293 ; Russian, 246 ; Serbian, 
 242 ; Swiss, 7, 18. 
 
 Denmark, reformed constitu- 
 tion (1849), 84 ; parliamentary 
 system established (1864), 113 ; 
 parliament of (1866), 115; re- 
 turn to Prussian system (1863), 
 93 ; German relations with, 182 ; 
 Norway withdrawn from govern- 
 ment of, 66. 
 
 Derby, Earl of (fourteenth), hold 
 of, on British mid-Victorian 
 public, 163. 
 
 Despotism, modern growth of, 
 18, 29 ; socialist aims, possible 
 form of, 105-6 ; Austrian, 133 ; 
 English, Tudor times, 19 ; 
 German, 86-93, 123-32, 229, 
 pre-war discontent with, 273-4 ; 
 Russian, 247 ; Turkish, 253, 254. 
 
 Diet of German Confederation, 
 power of, representation re- 
 fused by, 67, 68. 
 
 Disraeli, Benjamin, hold of, on 
 British public, 163. 
 
 Dissolution, power of, importance 
 of, to government, 41. 
 
 Divine right of kings, Prussian 
 adherence to, 187. 
 
 Division of power, executive and 
 Parliament, fallacy of, 26, 28, 
 85, 155. 
 
 Don Pacifico, and Palmerston, 153. 
 
 Dreyfus affair, 198, 199, 200. 
 
 Duma, institution of, 1, 248; 
 futility of (1917), 283-4. 
 
 East India Company, and growth 
 of merchants' power, 24. 
 
 Edward I. (England), 13. 
 
 Education, as political factop*. 37 ; 
 in political methods, necessary, 
 7 ; compulsory, 165 ; American, 
 37 ; British system, 37, 165 ; 
 French system, 166 ; German 
 system, 166 ; Acts (1870), 165 ; 
 (1875), 165. 
 
 Egypt, government of, twentieth- 
 century discontent, 61 ; self- 
 
INDEX 
 
 303 
 
 government in, desired, 2, 254- 
 6 : German influence in, pre- 
 war, 234. 
 
 Elector, the Great, Friedrich 
 Wilhelm of Brandenburg, 13. 
 
 Election (1784), self-government, 
 25. 
 
 Elizabeth, Queen, self-government, 
 19. 
 
 Employers' Liability Act, 208. 
 
 England, army system, early, 17 ; 
 colonisation from, seventeenth- 
 century self-government, 22 ; 
 despotism in, Tudor, 19 ; in- 
 sular position, advantageous, in 
 early times, 16 ; Justices of 
 the Peace, power of, in early 
 times, 16 ; Parliament, develop- 
 ment of, self-government, 13-15, 
 18-33. See also Britain. 
 
 English Constitution (Bagehot), 
 153-7. 
 
 Engineers, Amalgamated Societv 
 of (1851), 106. 
 
 Enver, Bey, power of, in Young 
 Turk movement, 253. 
 
 Estates, the, constitution of , 11-15. 
 
 Europe, governments on British 
 model in, 59, 111-12 ; revolu- 
 tionary periods in, 58-61 ; self- 
 government in, Powers' agree- 
 ment to (1815), 66, Powers' 
 repudiation of, 67, 68, 69 ; 
 world domination of political 
 ideas and civilisation of, 175, 
 254, 279. 
 
 Factory Act (1834), 96. 
 
 Ferdinand vn. (Spain), self-govern- 
 ment abolished by, 66. 
 
 Feudalism, main factors in, 11. 
 
 4 Finance, High,' modern develop- 
 ment of, 173, 174 ; dangers of, 
 174. 
 
 Finland, German influence in, 
 pre-war, 234. 
 
 Flanders, mediaeval, self-govern- 
 ment in, 6. 
 
 Fourier, Francois M. C, socialist 
 scheme of, 99. 
 
 France, constitution of, 45, 61, 63, 
 65, 73, 81, 256, (1791) 52, (1S22) 
 
 67, (1830) 73, (1848) 85-6, 93, 
 146, (1860) Napoleon m.'s 
 changes, 143, (1870) rule during 
 war, 143, (1871) Third Republic, 
 113, 117,144-50,198-205; bureau- 
 cracy, 65 ; colonisation system 
 of, early, 22 ; Communist revolu- 
 tion, 100, 145 ; Empire, second, 
 reactionary rule, 81, 113; democ- 
 racy, spirit of, in, 73 ; Franco- 
 Prussian War, 113, 143; Ger- 
 many's attitude towards pre- 
 war, 234, 236, military menace, 
 171, Alsace-Lorraine, 182, in- 
 citing friction with England, 
 235 ; industrial unrest in twen- 
 tieth century, 259-61 ; middle- 
 class power, 81 ; modern dis- 
 content with government, 61, 
 63, 65, 256 ; revolution in, 
 spirit of, 69, 73, 100, 145; 
 Revolution, The (1789), self- 
 government after, 34, 35, influ- 
 ence of, on foreign countries, 52 ; 
 (1848), 80, 100, footnote 145, 
 Blanc's contribution to, 99, 
 (1871), footnote 145; self- 
 government in, development of, 
 45-150, 176 ; Third Republic 
 onwards, 117, 120, 122, 141-50, 
 198,205; socialism, 176,201,261, 
 pre-war German intrigue, 236 ; 
 States-general, 12 ; universal 
 suffrage (1848), 85-6, 93. 
 
 Franchise, extension of, 1, 11-17, 
 26-19, (1881) 169; Prussian 
 (1906), 245. See also Suffrage. 
 
 Franco-Austrian War (1859), 113, 
 123, 125-7. 
 
 Prussian War (1871), 113; 
 
 effect of, on France, 117, 141; 
 143. 
 
 Frankfort (1848), National As- 
 sembly at, demand for self- 
 government, 81 ; (1866), incor- 
 poration of, with Prussia, 127. 
 
 Freemen, Assemblies of, 21. 
 
 Free Trade, adoption of, 71. 
 
 Friedrich n., the Great (Prussia), 
 absolute government of, cit., 30, 
 31 ; State welfare policy of, 182. 
 
 Wilhelm i. (Prussia), policy 
 
 of, 87. 
 
304 
 
 NATIONAL SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 Friedrich Wilhelm in. (Prussia), 
 
 promise of self-government, 52 ; 
 
 not fulfilled by, 66, 89. 
 Wilhelm iv. (Prussia), history 
 
 of representative government 
 
 under, 89. 
 Friendly societies, step towards 
 
 self-government, 79. 
 
 Galicia, autonomy in, 137, 242. 
 
 Gambetta. cit., on religion, 199. 
 
 Geneva, democracy, early, 7. 
 
 Gentry, landed, power of, early 
 nineteenth century, 21 ; seven- 
 teenth century, 23, 29. 
 
 George in. (England), party 
 government attacked by, 28. 
 
 Gerard, James W., Kaiser's view 
 of international law, 279. 
 
 Germany, anarchism in, 112; in 
 Austria, influence of, 116, 137, 
 138, 141, 235, war with, 113, 123, 
 125 ; autocracy, complete, twen- 
 tieth-century intrigues, 177-93, 
 195, 224, 272; Bismarck's rule, 
 period of, 125-32 ; brutality of 
 character, and in war, 287-9, 
 294, intellectuals' disclaimer of 
 (1915), 292; Bundesrat (1871), 
 128; bureaucracy, 59, 60, 62, 
 122-32, temporarily overthrown 
 (1848), 81-3 ; constitution of, 
 modern, 59, 60, 120, 122, 123- 
 32, 176 ; crime in, pre-war 
 statistics, 275 ; education in, 
 189, state tyranny over, 186- 
 90; empire formed (1871), 59, 
 110, 116, 125-32, political effect 
 of, 109 ; Franco-Prussian War, 
 143 ; French Revolution, tem- 
 porary effect of, 52, 80, 81 ; 
 Hanover and Hesse annexed, 
 127 ; industrial development, 
 176, Bismarck's policy, 185 ; 
 Landtag (1850), 123 ; liberal 
 movements, failure of (1830), 
 69, (1848) 82, (1866) 123, 124, 
 pre-war discontent at despotic 
 rule, 274 ; literature of, influ- 
 ence of state control on intel- 
 lectual development, 190-2, 292 ; 
 Marx's influence in, 112 ; medi- 
 aeval government in, 6, 18 ; 
 
 militarism in, 170-2, 190, re- 
 sistance of, 124 ; nationalism 
 in, 110 ; in Poland, policy of 
 Q863), 126; press control in, 
 by State, 190 ; Reichstag (1871), 
 128 ; religion in, Lutheran, 
 state-controlled, 178, Roman- 
 ism, power of, 178, Bismarck's 
 conflict with, 178-9 ; in Russia, 
 pre-war preparations, 251 ; 
 Sehleswig and Holstein, an- 
 nexation of, 126 ; secret service 
 of, pre-war, 233 ; self-govern- 
 ment in, futility of, 29, 66, 
 111 ; in Serbia, influence of, 
 241, 242 ; socialism in, 176, 
 236 ; useless majority, 237-40 ; 
 twentieth-century demands, 273- 
 6 ; social democrats of, 113 ; 
 false to ideals, in war (1914), 
 293 ; social organisation in, 
 182-3 ; in Turkey, 251 ; war 
 preparations, 234, 257 ; in- 
 citements to Great War, deli- 
 berate, 234 ; Great War pre- 
 monitions, repudiation of world's 
 civilisation and ideals, 279-84, 
 moral defeat of, in, 297. See 
 also Prussia and Prussianism. 
 
 Gild system, self-government, pro- 
 moted by, 21. 
 
 Gladstone, William Ewart, elec- 
 torate recognised as political 
 factor by, 167-8 ; hold of, on 
 British public, 163. 
 
 Government. See Local Govern- 
 ment and Self-Government. 
 
 Gotha conference (1875), 179. 
 
 Great War. See under War. 
 
 Greece, ancient, self-government 
 in, 6 ; absolute monarchy in 
 (1843), 93; self-government in 
 (1863), 117; Constantino's fear of 
 self-government,283 ; revolution, 
 against Persia, 229, (1909), 231 ; 
 Great War, treachery of, 283. 
 
 Grotius, Hugo, equality of man, 
 46. 
 
 Guizot, F. P. G., government 
 under, perfection of, 76. 
 
 Hague Conference (1899), Ger- 
 man attitudeat, 171, (1907), 235 
 
INDEX 
 
 305 
 
 Hanover, Prussian annexation of, 
 127. 
 
 Hapsburg dynasty, absolutism 
 of, in Austrian constitution, 135, 
 140, 141. 
 
 Hare, Thomas, proportional repre- 
 sentation, 154. 
 
 Henry vni. (England), form of 
 self-government under, 19. 
 
 Hesse, Prussian annexation of, 
 127. 
 
 History, Marx's conception of, 
 102. 
 
 Hohenzollern monarchy, early 
 greatness of, 13 ; despotism of, 
 88-92 ; consolidation of des- 
 potic empire under, 123-32. 
 
 Holland, self-government, early 
 times, 23, modern, 122 ; colon- 
 isation system, early, 22 ; con- 
 stitution, 63, 169, reform of 
 (1848), 83, 93 ; Belgium, control 
 of, lost to, 70 ; franchise, exten- 
 sion of, 169. 
 
 Home Office, mid-Victorian power 
 of officials in, 156. 
 
 Rule Bill, political unrest 
 
 fostered by, 213, 265. 
 
 House of Commons, constitution 
 of, seventeenth century, 23, 
 democracy in, spread of doc- 
 trines of, 57 ; financial control 
 in, 265 ; majority, necessity 
 for cabinet, 27 ; national re- 
 presentation in, limited, 267-70 ; 
 party svstem, control of, 157- 
 66, loss of, 214, 
 
 of Lords, seventeenth-cen- 
 tury constitution of, 23 ; posi- 
 tion of clergy in, 15 ; dissatis- 
 faction with, 209, 266 ; reform, 
 difficulties of, 267-70. 
 
 Hungary, lack of political liberty 
 in, 6 ; constitution of, 17, re- 
 form in (1867), 116; national 
 spirit wanting, 9 ; Magyar 
 tyranny over, pre-war, 244 ; 
 race difficulties in (1867), 136. 
 See also Austria-Hungary. 
 
 Hyde Park railings incident, 151. 
 
 Imperialism, European, rapid 
 growth and rivalry of, 175. 
 
 Income tax, U.S.A. struggles for, 
 39. 
 
 Independent Labour Party, Eng- 
 lish, aims of, 238. 
 
 India, German influence in, pre- 
 war, 234 ; self-government in, 
 demand for, 2, 254-6 ; modern 
 desire for, 61, aim of, in future, 
 72 ; slight concession towards, 
 265. 
 
 Individualism, theory of, 95-6 ; 
 Marx's substitution for, failure, 
 105-6 ; v. socialism, 97. 
 
 Industrialism, growth of, 56-7, 60, 
 continental, 111 ; liberty politi- 
 cally co-incident with, 94 ; 
 modern methods of , 173 ; middle 
 class power caused by, 70 ; 
 public welfare movements in, 
 262 ; self-government in, 174 ; 
 as State policy in Germany, 
 183-5 ; trade unions, contin- 
 ental, inexperienced, 233 ; pre- 
 war unrest, 231. 
 
 Insurance, sickness, 264 ; Bis- 
 marck's policy, 183 ; unem- 
 ployment, 264. 
 
 International law, 2 ; violation of, 
 German, 280, 295. 
 
 Workmen's Association 
 
 (1864), 112. 
 
 Ireland, Home Pule Bill, 213, 
 266 ; German influence in, 233, 
 272 ; revolution in, 272. 
 
 Italy, constitution of, mediaeval, 
 6, 18 ; modern criticism, 256 ; 
 Franco-Austrian war (1859), 
 123 ; French Revolution, effect 
 of, in, 48, 80, 81-3 ; liberal 
 movements (1830), 69 ; revolu- 
 tion in, 94 ; self-government in, 
 111, 122 ; mediarval, 6, fear 
 of, by Anti-Ally party in Great 
 War, 283 ; Turkish War (1910), 
 231 ; union in, political effect of, 
 59, 109, 110 ; War, Great, issue 
 of, stand for liberty, 283, 290. 
 
 Japan, self-government in, 1, 
 European type of, 169-70. 
 
 Jaures, Jean, pacifism of, 238. 
 
 Jew, the, as political factor, 100 ; 
 Russian, 248. 
 
306 
 
 NATIONAL SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 Joseph II. (Germany), government 
 by, 30-1. 
 
 'Junkers,' the, position of, in 
 Prussia, 87, 125-32. 
 
 Justices of the Peace, mediaeval, 
 English voluntary self-govern- 
 ment, 16, 20, 21 ; modern, 207. 
 
 Kaiser, the, power of, in Ger- 
 many, 128-9. See also under 
 individual names. 
 
 Karageorgevitch family, in Serbia, 
 242. 
 
 Kartel, Germany's commercial 
 encouragement, 184. 
 
 Kingsley, Charles, on labour's 
 interests, 97. 
 
 Koster, Herr Dr., denunciation of 
 Belgian socialists, cit., 293, 294. 
 
 Kulturkampf, the, 178. 
 
 Labour Exchanges, institution 
 of, 264. 
 
 Party, growth of, 56, 59, 64 ; 
 
 after repeal of Anti-Combination 
 Acts, 67 ; artisan movement, 
 79 ; Blanc's theory of social 
 reform, 99 ; danger in, 257 ; 
 future of, 104 ; Independent, 
 238 ; Marx's doctrine, 102-3, 
 108 ; parliamentary recognition 
 of (1906), 263 ; suffrage ex- 
 tension (1867), 116; trade 
 unions, 106. 
 
 Lamartine, Alphonse, policy of, 85. 
 
 Land, decrease of small pro- 
 prietors, 24 ; yeoman holders, 
 decline of, 63. 
 
 Landowners, former supremacy of, 
 21, 23, 24, 29 ; local govern- 
 ment control of, 64. 
 
 ' Landowning oligarchy ' period, 
 24. 
 
 Landtag (1850) in German con- 
 stitution, futility of, 123-8. 
 
 Lassalle, Ferdinand, 112 ; on 
 civilisation, cit., 239. 
 
 Law, rule by, in civilisation, 255 ; 
 political relationship to, 258 ; 
 Roman perfection of, 20 ; in 
 Russia (1917), danger of, 285; 
 in Tudor times, 20. See also 
 Rational law. 
 
 League of Nations, 278. 
 
 Lecky, W. E. H., on post- 
 Napoleonic government per- 
 fection, 75, 76. 
 
 Lenin, Vladimir Yulianov, German 
 influence on, 252. 
 
 Leo xni., Pope, 200. 
 
 Leopold ii. (Tuscany), political 
 ideal of, 30 1. 
 
 Liberalism, British, 209 ; and na- 
 tionalism, 55 ; French, persistent 
 demand (1860-70), 143 ; Ger- 
 man, defeat of, by Bismarck, 
 127. See also Self-Government, 
 Parliament, and Liberty. 
 
 Liberty, dogmas of, 34-53 ; in- 
 dustrial development and, 56 ; 
 mob law mistaken for, 285 ; 
 revolutionary spirit incited by, 
 33 ; self-government ideal, 5, 
 282 ; war, effect of, 5 ; Ameri- 
 can aims, 44, 36 ; British, mid- 
 Victorian, 48, 153 ; French, 
 effect of Revolution on, 46, 52, 
 54 ; lost under Napoleon in., 
 142 ; German want of, 186-7, 
 190-2 ; Grecian, overthrow of 
 Persia, 229 ; in India, high 
 degree of, 6 ; Russian demand 
 for (1904), 246. 
 
 Liebknecht, Karl, apostasy of 
 (1914), 294. 
 
 Lincoln, Abraham, on demo- 
 cratic government, cit., 47. 
 
 Local Government svstem, devel- 
 opment of, 166-7,207, 208; ex- 
 tension, eighteenth century, 25. 
 Board Act (1871), 167. 
 
 London, earlv socialism in, exiles 
 
 foster, 68, 78. 
 Louis xiv. (France), method of 
 
 rule of, 29-30. 
 Louis xv. (France), government 
 
 under, 29. 
 Philippe (King of the French), 
 
 freedom of thought under, 73, 
 
 74. 
 Lutheran Church, German State 
 
 control of, 178. 
 
 Macchiavelli, Niccolo, policy 
 of, and modern Prussianism, 
 187. 
 
INDEX 
 
 307 
 
 Macedonia, 231. 
 
 Macmahon, Pres., 198. 
 
 Magna Carta, basis of American 
 liberty, 39. 
 
 Magyars, the, tyrannical majority 
 o£ in Hungary, 116, 135, 244. 
 
 Majority, parliamentary system 
 of, 27. 
 
 Malthus, Thomas R., 71. 
 
 ' Manchesterism,' age of, 94. 
 
 Marx, Karl, career, 100, 180, 181 ; 
 character and reputation of, 
 101. 
 
 Marx, theories of, British non- 
 acceptance of, 107, 153 ; Euro- 
 pean countries influenced by, 
 60, 112 ; International Work- 
 men's Association, inaugural 
 address, 112 ; labour's concep- 
 tion of middle-class control, 
 112 ; revival of followers of, from 
 1889, 172 ; revolutionary in- 
 citement of, 233 ; in Russia, 
 245 ; self-government hindered 
 by teaching of, 105 ; universal 
 extension of teaching of, 99-107, 
 176 ; contortion of, to support 
 war, 294, peace aims annulled 
 by, 236. 
 
 Maurice, Frederick, on labour's 
 interests, 97. 
 
 Mazzini, Giuseppe, democratic 
 nationalism of, 55 ; in Britain, 
 153. 
 
 Merchants, autonomous, in feudal 
 times, 1 ; foreign, growth of 
 power of, seventeenth century, 
 23, 29. 
 
 Mercier, Cardinal, 179. 
 
 Meetings, public, value of, as 
 factor in politics, 167-8. 
 
 Mesopotamia, 254. 
 
 Metternich, Prinz, reactionary 
 government overthrown, 81. " 
 
 Mikado, The, impaired absolutism 
 of, 169, 170. 
 
 Milan, King (Serbia), 241. 
 
 Militarism, effect of, on national 
 moral, 193, 295 ; insidious 
 growth of, in European peace 
 periods, 170-3 ; Austrian (after 
 1860), 133, 139 ; French Napol- 
 eonic, 49, 51 ; German slavery 
 
 to, 190, Gnal ascendancy of 
 (1871), 130-1, preparations for 
 war, 257- 
 
 Mill, John Stuart, 71 ; on demo- 
 cratic franchise, 152 ; criticism 
 of Representative Government, 
 153-7 ; on self-government, 168 ; 
 uneducated power feared by, 
 258. 
 
 Millerand, M., 202. 
 
 Mob, law, 100 ; French Commune 
 (1871), 145; action of, Hyde 
 Park railing incident (1867), 
 151 ; Russian spirit of (1905), 
 247, (1917), footnote 145. 
 
 Moldavia, representative council 
 (1856), 117. 
 
 Monarchy, absolute, mediaeval, 
 18 ; as philosopher's ideal gov- 
 ernment, 29-30 ; modern, with 
 local self-government, 21. 
 
 Monroe Doctrine (1823), institu- 
 tion of, 69. 
 
 Montesquieu, C, Baron De, on 
 English government, 26 ; divi- 
 sion of power, doctrine, 85 ; in- 
 fluence of political views of, in 
 America, 40, 42. 
 
 Morocco, rising in, 231, 234. 
 
 Muller, Herr, socialist and Ger- 
 man war-agent (1914), 238. 
 
 Municipal Reform Act (1855), 71. 
 
 Mutiny Act (1689), scope of, 25. 
 
 Naples, Liberal revolution in, 
 68. 
 
 Napoleon i., autocracy of, 6, 7. 
 
 Napoleon ni., autocracy of, 7, 
 141-3 ; despotism of, 83-5, 93, 99. 
 
 National Assembly, Paris, 17 ; 
 class privileges abolished by, 50. 
 
 Nationalism as political aim, era 
 of, European, 54, 77, 108-68; 
 constitutional stability result 
 of, 109 ; factor in Great War, 
 2, 279. 
 
 Nationality, loyal spirit of, social- 
 ist repudiation of, 232 ; sdPlf- 
 government, desire for, result, 
 9, 113 ; in Austria, Balkans, 
 Hungary, 2, 31, 232; Egypt, 
 255 ; India, 255. 
 
 Navy, German, growth of, 234. 
 
308 
 
 NATIONAL SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 Netherlands, the, States-general 
 in, 21. 
 
 Nicholas n. (Russia), revolutionary 
 demands, treatment of, 247-8. 
 
 Nietzsche, Friedrich W., anti- 
 Christian German followers, 177; 
 predisposition to war in philo- 
 sophy of, 177, 275. 
 
 Nihilism, movement of, formation, 
 78. 
 
 North German Confederation 
 (1871), 116. 
 
 Norway, constitution of, 63 ; con- 
 trolled resemblance of demo- 
 cracy in, 93 ; democratic de- 
 mands, in, 57, 63, 65, 66 ; 
 Danish power in, 122 ; parlia- 
 ment in, relations with Sweden, 
 115, 231. 
 
 O'Connell, Daniel, 160. 
 Old Age Pensions Act, 208, 264. 
 " Organisation de Travail,' 99. 
 Orleans monarchy, in France, 73. 
 Otho, King, Greece, 93. 
 Owen, Robert, practical socialism 
 of, 98, 99. 
 
 Pacifism, pre-war movement, 236; 
 war aims, mistaken by adher- 
 ents of, 278. 
 
 Palmerston, Lord, and Don 
 Pacifico, 153 ; complete hold 
 over British public, 163. 
 
 Paris, socialism in, exiles foster, 
 68, 78 ; revolutionary fighting 
 in, 70, 80, 145. 
 
 Commune (1871), 145. 
 
 Council of (1856), 117. 
 
 Parliament, government by, de- 
 velopment of, 13-15, 23 ; execu- 
 tive under control of, 26, 122, 
 141-68 ; minority, in some 
 countries, in control of, 122, 
 132-41 ; political training 
 necessary, 245, 247, 248 ; 
 twentieth-century criticism, 61, 
 212, 256-72, 277 ; socialism, 
 cause of difficulties in, 176 ; 
 variation in Upper and Lower 
 Chambers, 119 ; war, cause of 
 difficulties in, 172. See also 
 Self-Government. 
 
 Parliament Act (1911), 266. 
 
 Parnell, Charles, 213. 
 
 Party politics, 26-8 ; British 
 system, 157-66 ; American, 
 43 ; French, 74. 
 
 Patriot King (Bolingbroke), 28. 
 
 Paulsen, Friedrich, on evils of Ger- 
 man pre-war despotism, cit., 275. 
 
 Pays d'etat, French provincial 
 government, 13. 
 
 Peace, self-government a factor in, 
 4 ; ' armed,' in nineteenth cen- 
 tury, 170, 173 ; Cobden's ideal, 
 failure, 186; Kaiser as expo- 
 nent of, 239 ; socialist aim, 236-9. 
 
 Congress (1899), 171, (1907), 
 
 235. 
 
 Peel, Sir Robert, government by, 
 perfection of, 76 ; party break 
 from Tories, 158. 
 
 Pension, Old Age, Act, 268, 264. 
 
 Persia, despotism in, 229 ; self- 
 government attempted in, 1, 61. 
 
 Philip n. (Spain), 12. 
 
 Philosophy, in French politics, 49. 
 
 Piedmont, liberal revolution in, 68. 
 
 Pitt, William, 28. 
 
 Plehve, murder of, 246. 
 
 Poland, partition (1772),30 ; liberal 
 movements (1830), 69 ; parlia- 
 mentary system of Alexander i., 
 66, modern, 63 ; Austrian in- 
 trigues in, 243 ; Galicia, Austrian, 
 Poles in, 137 ; Germany's atti- 
 tude towards, 182 ; Bismarck's 
 policy (1863), 126 ; Russia's 
 treatment of, 182. 
 
 Politics, education necessity for 
 career of, 7, 118, 119, 122, 247, 
 249, 254-6 ; transformation of, 
 in nineteenth century, 54-62 ; 
 America's isolation, 38, 45 ; 
 industrial rivalry, 60 ; platform 
 important, 217 ; pre-war in- 
 trigues and difficulties, 231. 
 
 Poor Law Amendment Act (1834), 
 71. 
 
 Board, mid-Victorian 
 
 power of, 156. 
 
 Rate, in early times, 21. 
 
 Portugal, colonisation, early, 22 ; 
 parliament of, executive con- 
 trolled by, 93. 
 
INDEX 
 
 309 
 
 Posen, Germany's attitude, 182. 
 
 Poasibilistes, Les, 201. 
 
 Power, doctrine of, 282 ; triumph 
 in Germany (1914-1917), 286; 
 disaster, effect of, on, 5. 
 
 Press, the, ownership of, as 
 power, 258 ; distrust of govern- 
 ment fostered by, 259. 
 
 Press, Freedom of the, political 
 reform, 119, 217 ; Austrian, 
 refusal of, 68 ; British, 65, 67, 
 96, 153 ; French, 65, partial, 
 under Louis Philippe, 73 ; con- 
 trolled by Napoleon ni., 142 ; 
 German, refusal of, 68, 125, 
 190-2. 
 
 ' Proletarian,' Marx's definition 
 of, 101. 
 
 Proudhon, Joseph, 99. 
 
 Prussia, constitution of, 86, (1850) 
 futility of, 89-93, 125, 130, 
 (1867), 128; Austria defeated 
 by (1866), 113 ; Denmark de- 
 feated by, 115 ; monarchy of, 
 aims and confirmed power of, 
 123, 130, 184, 225 ; national- 
 ism of, 110 ; provincial Estates 
 system in, 13 ; self-government, 
 1848 demands, 81-3; (1866), 
 115-16. See also Germany. 
 
 Prussianism, development of, as 
 policy, 86-93, 233 ; conflict with 
 Christianity, 177 ; German phil- 
 osophers' tribute to, 186 ; fos- 
 tered by German education, 
 189. 
 
 Public meetings, growth of, as 
 factor in politics, 167. 
 
 Race, difficulties of, in politics, 
 9; in Austria, 83, 133, 135, 244. 
 
 Rational law, self-government, 
 protection of, 5 ; under auto- 
 cracies, 6. 
 
 ' Realism ' of Marx, 101. 
 
 Bealpolitik, Prussian theory, 101 ; 
 German materialism, 187. 
 
 Reform Act (1832), 72; (1867), 151, 
 165; (1884), 206. 
 
 Reichsrat, the, in Austria, 137. 
 
 Reichstag, the, in Germany, bur- 
 eaucractic and imperial con- 
 trol (1871 onwards), 128-30. 
 
 Religion, loss of political power, 
 262; and political reform, 119; 
 reactionary in France, 199 ; op- 
 posed politically to Prussian 
 form of government, 177 ; as 
 war instrument in Germany, 
 292 ; in Italy, 283. 
 
 Renascence, provincial (1780- 
 1830), 70, footnote 71. 
 
 Representative Government (Mill), 
 153-7. 
 
 Representation, government by. 
 See Franchise and Self-govern- 
 ment. 
 
 Resolution, Russian (1917), 284. 
 
 Revolution, anarchist form of, 
 246; ideals of, after 1830, 
 78; periods of, 34-53, 58-61, 
 63-107 ; pre-war, 230 ; spirit 
 of, without violence, 79 ; in 
 financial control, House of 
 Lords' rejection of Budget, 266 ; 
 State fear of self-government 
 leading to, 67 ; American, 48 ; 
 English (1689), 25, 260, 261 ; 
 Chartist movement, 79 ; French, 
 45, (1871), 108, footnote 145, 
 Paris Commune (1871), 145 ; 
 Greek (1863), 108 ; Polish (1863), 
 108, 109 ; Russian, 244, street 
 fighting in Cronstadt (1917), 
 footnote 145 ; Sinn Fein (1916), 
 260 ; Suffragettes, pre-war, 261 ; 
 Turkish (1908), 252; Ulster, 
 pre-war spirit of, 260. 
 
 Ricardo, David, 71. 
 
 Rome, Church of, power in Ger- 
 many, Empire of, rational law 
 in, 6. 
 
 v. Roon, Graf. A. T. E., army 
 reform, 123-4,126. 
 
 Rousseau, Jean Jacques, on de- 
 mocracy, 7, 88 ; influence of, 
 on causes of French Revolution, 
 46-7. 
 
 Rumania, self-government in 
 (1866), 117 ; German intrigues 
 in (1914), 293. 
 
 Rumans, the, position of, in Hun- 
 garian Parliament, 135, 140, 
 244. 
 
 Ruskin, John, on labour's in- 
 terests, 97. 
 
310 
 
 NATIONAL SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 Russo-Japanese War, 231 ; effect 
 of, in Russia, 245 ; bureaucracy 
 exposed by, 246. 
 
 Ruthenes, the, Austro-Hungarian 
 tyranny over, 243. 
 
 Russia, autocracy in, 192-6, pos- 
 sible defeat of, in Great War, 
 283-5 ; constitution of, reforms 
 in, attempted (1815), 66, (1858) 
 and (1863), 114, (1906), 231, 248; 
 democracy immature, 232 ; des- 
 potism of, 94 ; Duma, institu- 
 tion of, 1, 248, limitations of 
 (1907-1917), 249, 250 ; franchise, 
 demands for, 246, 247 ; German 
 influence in, 126, pre-war, 234, 
 293, intrigues during Great 
 War, 251 ; Hungarian attitude 
 towards, 140 ; on Polish ques- 
 tion, 126, 182 ; revolutions in 
 (1904-1905), 231, 244-252 ; first, 
 of (1917), 1 45, footnote 252, 284; 
 self-government in, demand for, 
 52, inception of, 1, 61, 248 ; 
 socialism, anarchist type of, 78 ; 
 strike, the universal (1905), 248, 
 260; Tsar's liberalism (1815), 
 66 ; War, the Great, moment- 
 ous issue of, for, 283-5. 
 
 St. Simon, L., Due de, socialist 
 scheme of, 99. 
 
 Salonika, pre-war importance of, 
 140. 
 
 Sardinia, in Austrian war, 110; 
 kingdom of, beginning of Italian 
 unity, 114; self-government 
 pledge upheld in, 84, 93. 
 
 Saxony, under the Empire (1871), 
 130, 132. 
 
 Scandinavia, See under Norway 
 and Sweden. 
 
 Schleswig and Holstein, Prussian 
 conquest of, 126. 
 
 Scotland, education in, 37. 
 
 Secret service, efficiency of, as 
 military factor, 234. 
 
 Self-government, ideal of, as poli- 
 tical theory, 226-8, 227-9, 
 240-41, 276, 281-2; on education 
 boards, 166 ; officialdom pro- 
 blem in, 157 ; parliamentary 
 
 systems, criticism of, 256-72, 
 276, variations in two Cham- 
 bers, 119, 121 ; reforms needed 
 in twentieth-century type of, 
 231-3, 271-77 ; universal desire 
 for, twentieth century, 275 ; 
 Great War in relation to, 235, 
 momentous issue of, 280 3, 
 effect of, remarkable, 287-92, 
 in reconstruction troubles, 296- 
 7 ; Bagehot on, 153-7 ; Mill on, 
 153-7. See also under names of 
 countries. 
 
 Sembat, , pacifism of, 238. 
 
 Serbia, constitution of, reformed 
 (1869), 118 ; Austrian domina- 
 tion of, history, 241, 242 ; 
 menace to, pre-war, 140 ; race 
 jealousy of, 244 ; revolution 
 in (1903), 230. 
 
 Shire Court, 14. 
 
 Sicily, self-go vernmentin ( 1 8 1 2 ), 66. 
 
 Sinn Fein, movement, German in- 
 fluence on, 234 ; reply to arm- 
 ing in Ulster, 260. 
 
 Skuptshina, the institution of , 118. 
 
 Slavs, the, in Hungary, 136. 
 
 Sleswig, 182. 
 
 Slovaks, the, 135, 244. 
 
 Slovenes, the, hostility of, to 
 Austrian government and 
 German influence, 137, 244. 
 
 Sobranje, the, institution of, 118. 
 
 Social Democrat Party, German, 
 foundation of, 112 ; in Great 
 War, 181. 
 
 reform, twentieth century, 
 
 British, 264 ; French, 262 ; Ger- 
 man use of, in politics, 182. 
 
 Socialism, beginnings of, European 
 evidence of, 77 ; v. individual- 
 ism, 97 ; international confer- 
 ences, 172, 232, 236; Marx's 
 aims and influence, 99-107 ; 
 pre-war political mis-reading 
 of, 236-40 ; syndicalist aims in, 
 260 ; Belgian, German intrigues 
 (1914), 293 ; British tyranny 
 of, averted, 107 ; French, ideal- 
 istic politics, 45, active in 
 government, 201, 261 ; German, 
 history and development of, 
 179-81, party majority of, 
 
INDEX 
 
 311 
 
 273, State, 183, war party's 
 use of, 285 ; Russian (1904), 
 245, pre-war policy, unwise, 251, 
 German influence on, 252, 285 ; 
 See also Christian Socialism. 
 
 Socialist Congresses, International, 
 limited ideals of, 181, 233, 236. 
 
 Sorel, Georges, revolutionary 
 doctrines of, 259. 
 
 South Africa, German influence 
 in, 234, 265. 
 
 African War, pre-disposi- 
 
 tion to Great War, 230. 
 
 America, self-governing re- 
 publics, 69. 
 
 Spain, constitution of, mediaeval, 
 12; monarchv(1869), 118,(1874), 
 122, 118, republic (1873), 118, 
 modern methods in, 93 ; Bour- 
 bon despotism in, overthrow 
 of (1834), 118 ; colonisation, 
 early* 22 ; liberal revolution 
 in, 68 ; self-government in 
 (1812), 52, 66, fear of, in 
 modern state, 283. 
 
 State, the, conception of, under 
 self-government and under des- 
 potism, 30, 31, 32 ; socialist 
 conception of duty of, 97 ; 
 Robert Owen's scheme, 98 ; 
 French ideal, 49 ; German 
 ideal, Power of Master-State, 
 177-90, 226. 
 
 States-general, French (1789), 12, 
 48 ; in the Netherlands, 12. 
 
 Stephen, Sir James, bureaucratic 
 power of, 156. 
 
 Stolypin, P. A., policy of, 249, 250. 
 
 Strike, as method of reform, 
 260 ; universal, Russian (1905), 
 248, 260. 
 
 Stuart monarchy, and self-govern- 
 ment, 22. 
 
 Suffrage, universal, progress to- 
 towards, 11-17, 111 ; Austrian, 
 242 ; British, Chartists' de- 
 mands, 78 (1848), demand, 80; 
 extension but not universal 
 (1867), 151 ; French, 85, 93, 
 116,117,144; German, 89, 116, 
 117, 128 ; Spanish, 118 ; Rus- 
 sian demand, 247. 
 
 Suffragette movement, 261. 
 
 Sweden, constitution of, parlia- 
 ment established (1866), 115 ; 
 executive uncontrolled by parlia- 
 ment, 93 ; modern discon- 
 tent with, 63, 65 ; democratic 
 principles, spread of, without 
 violence, 57 ; Danish power 
 in, 122 ; Norway under, 66 ; 
 independence of, 231. 
 
 Switzerland, early democracy, 18 ; 
 constitution, 66, discontent with, 
 63 ; German intrigues, 234 ; self- 
 government in, with referendum, 
 268. 
 
 Syndicalism, in France, 259. 
 
 Syria, 254. 
 
 Talaat, Pasha, power of, in 
 ' Young Turk ' movement, 253. 
 
 Three Estates. See Estates and 
 Cortes. 
 
 Tory party, in mid- Victorian 
 times, 158. 
 
 Trade, increase of, in Europe, 60 ; 
 democracy feared by capitalists, 
 175 ; financial methods, modern 
 174 ; German, war promoted 
 by, 185 ; imperial, motive of 
 expansion, 175; mediaeval, power 
 of, 11 ; middle-class control 
 through, from (1833), 96; politi- 
 cal importance of, 23, 24, 56. 
 
 Union, first, 67, 106 ; aims 
 
 of, 107 ; development after 
 (1825), 79; engineers, 106; in 
 State, no recognition of, 64. 
 
 Unions Act (1871), 165. 
 
 Triple Alliance (1879 and 1882), 
 171. 
 
 Tudor monarchy, system of 
 government, 19 ; despotism of, 
 24. 
 
 Turin, parliament in (1848), 84. 
 
 Turkey, constitution of, parlia- 
 ment instituted, 1 ; despotism 
 in, 94 ; revolution in (1908), 
 231, 252-4 ; self-government, 
 attempted by, 61 ; Young 
 Turk, movement, 253; Armenia, 
 attitude towards, 182 ; German 
 domination of, 232 ; Italy, war 
 with (1910), 231 ; Serbia, influ- 
 ence in, 242. 
 
312 
 
 NATIONAL SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 Ukbantans, German influence,233. 
 
 Ulster, German intrigues in, 234 ; 
 rebellion unmolested, 260. 
 
 United States of America, consti- 
 tution of, early, 26, 28, after 
 revolution, 35-45, modern, 120, 
 258 ; education, 37 ; geographi- 
 cal isolation of, in international 
 politics, 38, 45 ; income tax 
 struggle, 39 ; Monroe Doctrine 
 instituted, 69 ; President of, 
 status of, 146 ; self-govern- 
 ment in, 35-45, 51, 53; socialist 
 experiments in, 99. 
 
 Universities, democratic teaching 
 in, 68 ; German, State control 
 of, 187. 
 
 Venezelos, Eleftherios, first 
 power of, 231. 
 
 Verona, Congress of (1822), 67. 
 
 Vestry, early self-government, 21. 
 
 Victor Emmanuel (Italy), self- 
 government pledge kept by, 84. 
 
 Viviani, 202. 
 
 Walla chia, representative council 
 (1856), 117. 
 
 War, moral and psychological 
 effects of, 286-91 ; forms of 
 government affected by, 4 ; 
 mediaeval form of, 17 ; modern 
 methods, 185 ; militarism, in- 
 crease of, in peace, 170, 171, 172; 
 nationalism, cause of, 108-9 ; 
 Supreme Lord of, 130 ; Ameri- 
 can presidential power over, 41 ; 
 British Volunteer system, 290 ; 
 French impoverished by, 171 ; 
 German policy of, 87, 91, 92, 
 257, 286 ; preparations of, 235, 
 285-6 ; Socialist majority, in- 
 centive to, 273-4. 
 
 War, the Great, premonitions and 
 predispositions to, long warn- 
 ing, 230-77 ; supreme issue of, 
 278-97 ; self-government parlia- 
 ments affected by, 2, 3, 4, 61, 
 62 ; effect of, on German 
 socialists, 181, on German Rom- 
 anists, 179. 
 
 Wars of the Roses, 19. 
 
 Whig party, foundation of, 26 ; 
 in mid-Victorian times, 158 ; 
 Irish policy of, 160. 
 
 William i. (Germany), result of 
 militarism of, 126 ; army re- 
 forms of, 123-4. 
 
 William n. (Germany), on inter- 
 national law, cit., 279 ; political 
 power of, 128, 129 ; on militar- 
 ism, cit., 131 ; Lutheran Church, 
 controlled by, 178 ; socialism, 
 attitude towards, 180. 
 
 William m. (England), king by in- 
 vitation of nation's represen- 
 tatives, 73. 
 
 Wool trade, mediaeval, nobles' 
 rights in, 14. 
 
 Workmen's Compensation Act, 
 212. 
 
 Wurtemburg, under the Empire 
 (1871), 130. 
 
 Yeomen, status of, in early times, 
 21 ; decline of, as landowners, 
 24, 63. 
 
 ' Young Turk ' movement, 231, 
 235, 252. 
 
 Zemstva, the, 193, 245, 250 ; early 
 demands of, 246 ; limitations of 
 (1917), 284. 
 
 ' Zollverein,' German foundation 
 of, 88. 
 
 Printed in Great Britain by 
 
 T. and A. Constable, Printers to His Majesty 
 
 at the University Press, Edinburgh