\ r The Alternative. ARMED PEACE OR FEDERATION. BY JOSE WEISS. 1915. LondoHj CHANCERY LANE PRINTING WORKS, LTD., Plough Court, Fetter Lane, E.C. PRICE ONE PENNY. PUBLISHERS' NOTE. The Author, Mr. Jose Weiss, is the Landscape Painter and Pioneer of Aviation. Of Alsatian descent by his father and English descent by his mother, he was born in Paris' in 1859 and naturalized British in 1899. It may be recalled that one of the gliding Models which he first produced in public in 1 905, at a display organised in Paris by the French Aero Club, and from which an Austrian named Wells evolved the famous Taube, is preserved at the South Kensington Museum. INTRODUCTION. THE propositions which I intend to elaborate here amount in substance to this : Leaving aside all minor issues, we are at war for a definite end, which is to banish from Europe, and eventually from the entire civilised world, militarism and war. The primary and fundamental cause of the evil we wish to eradicate lies in the political organisation of Europe, which organisation still embodies a good proportion of mediaeval element entirely unsuited to the conditions and aspirations of modern Europe. The axiom that the possibility of war and the con- sequent necessity of militarism is inherent to political Sovereignty cannot be challenged ; meaning, of course, legal international war between civilised States as distinct from civil or rebellious war, such as might have been the Irish Home Rule rebellion, or police war against savage nations. 1 It follows from that axiom that the goal we have in view cannot be reached except by a drastic remodelling of the political organisation of Europe, involving complete elimination of Sovereignty. The only means to secure complete elimination of Sovereignty is a Federation of all the States of Europe, under which each State has absolute guarantee of independence and entire autonomy within, but is subject for all international disputes to the sanctioned jurisdiction of a Federal Parliament and Federal Executive, constituted jointly by all the Federated States. This Federal Parliament being an elected body, the devolution of i The word "Sovereignty" signifies absolute freedom from external control. Within constitutional governments, such as our own, the ultimate sovereignty of the country is vested in the electorate. When speaking, as we do here, of international politics, a State is said to be Sovereign when, in its relations with other Stateg, it recognises no superior authority. For instance, the Swiss Republic or even the Principality of Monaco are sovereign States just as much as Russia or the French Republic. ring to such wars as the clan wars, as the struggles between Scot and English, as the Wars of the Roses, to remain within our own history. The principle for the triumph of which we are struggling is nothing else than the definite factor which has made impossible a recurrence of these wars of the past. That factor is the gradual/sub- stitution in the minds of men of an old political philosophy by a new — of what we might call the dark age philosophy of the Divine Right of Kings by the new Era philosophy of democracy. In their essence the two philosophies differ in this, that according to the old, the people or ruled section of the nations are owned by and exist for the prestige and profit of the rulers. The new philosophy holds that it is the other way about. The mischief of the old philosophy is wrought, not so much by the rulers themselves as by factions using the arbitrary power inherent to that philo- sophy as their fulcrum. The new philosophy holds that arbitrary action by anybody is incompatible with the welfare of human society in political as well as in any other relations between men. It holds that all civilised peoples have a primordial right to choose for themselves the men and the methods by whom and under which they wish to be governed, and, above all, repudiates the notion that any man or faction may use the people over whom they rule as a stepping stone to further the ends of their personal ambitions. It will be re- membered that President Wilson embodied this very idea in his Accession speech. The process by which the new philosophy is gradually changing the political aspect of the world is the suppression of arbitrary action by the elimination or centralisation of sovereign authority. That process is in essence the process 5 of civilisation itself; it marks the defeat of Might by Right. The process will be complete, and international war made impossible, when, and only when, the ultimate Sovereignty of the world will be vested in the mass of t ho peoples them- selves. 1 The reader must not imagine that the name I give, for want of another, to the old philosophy, implies that this is to be a diatribe against Kings and Monarchy. Not in the least. Our beloved King is the official and foremost representative in this country of the new civilising philosophy. Hereditary Monarchy as a form of government may be more democratic than any Republic by shutting the door to the arbitrary ambitions of un- scrupulous politicians, and thus safeguarding democracy against its worst enemy anarchy. Our orderly Constitutional Monarchy is much more in conformity with the tenets of true demo cracy than some of the American Republics. In fighting for our King, we are lighting for the broad-minded principles of democracy for which he stands, and which have made the British the premier Empire builders in the world. * The average historian who by force of habit seems to deal only with the political aspect of war, is apt to overlook the rapid internationalisation of all the interests of the peoples, and to regard the , struggles for domination between the rulers or factions as struggles between the peoples them- selves. The interests and aims of the two sec- tions — that is, the riders and the ruled — are, of course, supposed to be, and are always represented as being identical. The test comes in where they clash. The people, misguided by the fetish of l The recent demands of Japan on China are a typical examine oi arbitrary political action. i 6 national pride and of il usury ^X^ritate in their lot with their rulers J j «^ f when it suits their ends, to . tak ^ u K^^ the generous but mistaken loyalty of their people, as do now the Berlin Government. The ruling section or officialdom would repre- sent for argument's sake, one per cent-one in many thousands is, of course, nearer the mark- and the ruled section the remaining ninety-nine per cent, of the whole. The interest of the one per cent, group is distinctly to en arge the fron- tiers of the State. It not only gratifies their greed for power and prestige, but opens up for them and their friends countless well-paid administrative posts and enlarges the scope of what our French friends very expressively call 1 assiette au beurre." the interests, however, of the ninety- nine per cent, group are quite different. To use Mr Norman Angell's comparison, they have no more to gain by the annexation of territory than would the people living in London if the London authorities were to annex Hertfordshire into their sphere of administration. They, the nmety-nme per cent., sacrifice the flower of their manhood, they endure the hardships, and they pay the bill of the war. They fight the war "for their very existence," and as patriots they do it like demons, although, whether they arc victorious or beaten, I hey continue to exist 'just as they existed before the war. Exit only, if they are beaten, the one per cent. The Scotch and the English have fought one another for centuries, always as they thought "for their very existence," but they still exist to-day as much as they ever did. For at least two centuries Austria has not a single vic- torious campaign to her credit, but is still reckoned as one of the Great Powers. The beaten 7 or annexed party are better or worse off than they were before, according to whether the methods of the new administration imposed on them are better or worse than the old. The Alsatians lost, the Boers gained. The latter had been governed by Kruger and his satellites under the methods of the old philosophy; when conquered by us they had the benefit of the new, which gave them freedom, order, and prosperity. These brave fellows were only fighting for the existence of Kruger and of Dr. Leyds, not for their own as they thought. The brave German soldiers imagine to-day that they are going to their death for the Fatherland. In reality they are sacrificed to the greed of a handful of either maniacs or scoundrels, who look upon them as so many tons of matter to be cremated at a minimum of cost, after the cannon have turned them into mince- meat. That ! is the old philosophy at work. We are fighting lest that old philosophy should ever return to our shores, and the surest way is to kill it outright. The German peoples will thank us in the end, as do now the Boers. That this war is the direct outcome of the old philosophy cannot be doubted for one moment. The most potent of all human motives is fear. The Zabern incidents and the indignation which they aroused throughout Germany give the key to the sudden phenomenon of fear which prompted the Berlin and Vienna Cabinets to action. Nothing but a war by evoking the phantom of the Fatherland invaded and humiliated could save the old dynas- ties from the surging tide of democracy. To the men who are the Berlin Government, the ruin and sufferings of their country, the wholesale slaughter of its finest manhood, are as nothing to the collapse of their power. The fear of the 8 foreigner ever subjugal ing the German nation— an obviously absurd proposition— is only the cloak for the real fear in the inner hearts. The exist- ence and independence of the German nations never w as and never can be at stake. The dynas- I ies <>nly, or rather their sinister prerogatives, were and are indeed very much at stake, and help us God, their end is near. The position in which we are placed is somewhat similar to our position in the South African W ar - We are fighting the Berlin Government, but if it is al all true that we arc fighting against a prin- ciple, we are debarred from entertaining peace negotiations with that Government. We cannot do so without committing ourselves to a fatal com- promise with the very principle we are bent on destroying. If we do, all our sacrifices shall have been in vain. '! here are, therefore, only two ways by which the war can be brought to an end. We must either occupy Berlin and thus make a physical end of the Berlin Government, after which we can apply the Boer treatment to the German people. I I is a large order even with the help of our Allies. Or we must by some means or other induce the German people to either convert or overthrow the Berlin Government, and we can then enter into negotiations with Germany, either as a whole or piecemeal, reconstituted on new lines. The first method — that of brute force — seems the most obvious. It is the one, I am afraid, in which the majority believe. I am writing all this because I advocate trying the second. It will pay us well, if we succeed, and will save the lives of hundreds of thousands of the manhood of Europe. To any observer of the march of humanity, the political revolution of Germany is a foregone con- 9 elusion. The opportunity alone is wanted and the drastic course of bleeding now being inflicted upon the people is ripening the fruit. If we pro- vide the right opportunity, I think the German people will take it, provided that our offer be frank enough, as I suggest it hereafter, to leave no room for suspicion regarding the honesty of our in I on tions, and to make the German people realise clearly that we are not threatening their inde- pendence and their national existence. There is abundant evidence of the German masses being strongly and honestly convinced that their cause is the triumph of justice and of peace. Intoxicated by prosperity, they have imagined themselves predestinated to achieve that triumph by the power of their armies. But common sense and experience teach plainly the futility of tnili tarism to accomplish that object. Shall we, then; accomplish it more than can the Germans by be- coming militarists ourselves and by succumbing to the same error as they ? Whatever happens, we cannot and do not wish to eliminate the hundred million German-speak- ing men and women who live in the centre of Europe, and whose existence and prosperity are a substantial factor even to our own and the world's welfare. When all is settled, we shall have to live at peace again with them as we used to, and it is, therefore, very important that everything should be done to minimise the survival of acute hatred. I have mixed feelings with regard to tin? invasion of Germany. Vengeance is sweet, no doubt, but it is a product of Hell, not of Heaven, and we are trying to fight the battles of Heaven. Two wrongs can never make a right. Shall we be able to control the enraged Belgian, French, and even British soldiery ? It is no retribution on the 10 guilty high-placed Teuton to burn the humble homes of defenceless peasantry whose only crime is to have been forced to fight by their odious tyrants, or, at the worst, to have believed their lies. ' When we speak of the German people, we speak not only of the human gold and dross which is met in Germany as much as anywhere else, but also of the ensemble of Germanic races which in their characteristics are far from homogeneous. The thoroughbred Prussian Teuton as a breed is dis- tinctly the human dross of Germany. His epi- curian materialism, his bullying manner, and, above all, his aggressive conceit, make him an ob- ject of world-wide antipathy. It is this breed of men, spiritually the most backward and brutish in Europe, who have succeeded in imposing their yoke upon the German nations. It would be idle to deny that their long years of domination have more or less Prussianised the whole of Germany. By stern official inculcation of false historical con- ceptions and of militarist vanity, the masses have been gradually lured into hollow dreams of Empire and world dominion. But still more are they cowed by the Prussian mailed fist, and the first crushing defeat of that mailed fist will bring them to their senses. We must not mistake the present patriotic clinging of the German masses to the Fatherland, which they imagine to be in danger, for attachment to their masters. The craving for peace and the disruptive tendency so deplored by Bernhardi are ever present, and there is an ever- growing majority in Germany who hate the Prus- sian Junker as cordially as any man in this country. They will become our willing allies to stamp militarism out of Europe, when it is made clear to them that the honour and independence of their Fatherland are safe. 11 I have lived three years among German peasantry in South and West Germany. I have also lived for many years among English peasantry. The two are strikingly alike, and as to antagonism between the two, they might as well hate or love the people in Mars for all they know about one another. Yet these poor fellows, by the subterranean workings of a hellish philosophy, are coolly shooting and bayoneting one another like so much vermin. Think of the contrast be- tween the truly human feeling which prompted the fraternisation on Christmas Day and the hideous selfishness which evoked the protest from the Berlin rogues, whose wicked lust for power forces the poor fellows in the trenches to become each other's murderers ! CIVILISATION AND DEMOCRACY. IN speaking here of civilisation, I do not mean the material civilisation of steam and elec- tricity, but am only speaking of that spiritual civilisation which tends to an ever higher standard in the relations of men and nations — of what we might call political civilisation. Its unconscious process, the direct outcome of the philosophy of democracy, is extremely plain, and is based on the two principles of independence and of suppression of arbitrary action. Inde- pendence meaning the right of all civilised peoples to choose their own rulers under civic equality, and suppression of arbitrary action being the equi- valent of elimination of Sovereignty. That the present political status of modern nations is in a transitory stage, and that this pro- 12 cess will continue to its end, cannot be doubted for one moment, unless the deep-rooted psycholo- gical factor which is its cause should cease to exist. If the reform does not come peacefully from above it, will come with violence from below. The two principles of the process are closely interdependent, because the ultimate end ot poli- tical civilisation being the complete guarantee oi freedom for all nations, that end cannot be reached unless the capacity of nations for interfer- ing with each other's freedom be removed. Sovereignty is that rapacity, and must therefore disappear. By "sovereignty" is understood the absence ot a higher authority. It is, therefore, the exact equivalent of " Anarchy," which by its etymology means simply "absence of authority," and which is synonymous to disorder, misery, and fear. this war originated in fear. Fear on our side lest the Berlin Government should eventually attack us. Fear on their side lest Ave should attack them. The existing state of international anarchy and the competition for supremacy in armaments could lead to nothing else. Within civilised States, the citizens nowadays have no longer anything to fear from one another. The European nations live in fear of one another, bebause Europe is still politically uncivilised. For two of our English counties to go to war with each other is inconceivable, because neither being sovereign can legally organise armies with- out which war is impossible. But imagine our counties governed each by a sovereign Baron with a small army to safeguard his sovereignty. Destiny combining with jingoism would soon re- vive the baronial wars. Human nature has not changed the same compound of pride, self, and 13 combativencss is present — and to-day as of old the sound of battle drowns the gentler instincts and revives the brnte. The only thing which has changed is the political organisation . Were our counties fully armed Sovereign entities, they would be living in constant fear of one another, whereas without a single soldier of their own, their liberties and rights are guaranteed to them by the strength of the whole British Empire. It is thus that centralisation of Sovereignty, by destroying the capacity for attack, banishes fear, armaments, and war, and is alone capable of producing perfect and lasting security} Whatever checks and retrocessions may have occurred from time to time, the general advance of civilisation and the peace and prosperity of the peoples synchronise exactly with the gradual ap- plication of that great principle of democracy. Even patriotism and racial feeling, which in popular imagination seem to militate against its ultimate international triumph, are in reality its most powerful allies. Our instinct tells us that patriotism is a most noble virtue, and of that there can be no doubt, since it is the generous impulse which prompts us to sacrifice the self for the common good. It is, in other words, the negation of egotism, and as such it is akin to Charity, which to Christians is the greatest of all virtues. I fence, we should beware of mistaking for patriotism the empty boasting and the jingo hatred and contempt of anything foreign, which is only a travesty of the noble virtue. Jingoism is to patriotism exactly what bigotry is to religion. Where the genuine article works wonders the sham only l As pointed out bvMr. Norman Angell, the militarist claim that strong armaments are the only means of preserving peace is just the same as saying that if the nations hail no armies they would be always at war with one another. 14 leads to disaster. The standard of RohticaLor national patriotism as a virtue depends entirely on the scope and loftiness of its object Thus with the advance of civilisation, a Campbell is not less a Campbell because he is a Scotsman, and a Scot is not less a Scot because he is a British sub- ject. In both cases the latter dominates the former. There is no conceivable reason why tie should be less a Britisher because he is a Euro- pean, or, further still, a citizen of a worlds Federation. As the object of our patriotism ex- pands, so expands the standard of the virtue, until it reaches its highest level, when, as now its object is no less than a principle vital to the whole of humanity. True patriotism, indeed, leads towards, not away from, political unity, because, as very well expressed by Mr. Vanderveldt that unity means not the substitution but the addition of a new patriotism. Very similar is the case of racial feeling, ine facts under our eyes go to prove that racial affi- nity and antagonism are completely obliterated by the political tie, provided that political tie includes the satisfying and pacifying influence of inde- pendence and civic equality. But not otherwise. What two races could be more naturally antago- nistic than the Walloon and the Flemish— one purely Latin, the other purely Germanic. Yet both races follow in perfect harmony Belgium's divergences on vital matters of general policy quite regardless of racial distinction. The same state of affairs prevails in Switzerland, where three conflicting races, speaking three different languages, arc politically and also otherwise per- fectly united. In the United States, with an en- tirely cosmopolitan population, racial feeling, at least between civilised races, is non-existent, and 15 in this country the political tie has completely deleted every vestige of the feuds of centuries. But mark the difference where the principles of democracy have not penetrated. The ramshackle Austrian Empire, with its everlasting racial struggles, is a striking instance of the utter ineffi- ciency of the mediaeval methods. Again, in Alsace the populations, although really of Ger- manic extraction, still attach their sympathies to democratic France. Even within our own Em- pire, if there is a question at all, is it not India, the only as yet non-autonomous of our larger Colonies, or Ireland for the same reason? To say nothing of that illustration of the converse posi- tion — the United States, where the application of the elder philosophy actually produced a racial division which had no basis in race. The political tie naturally encourages the fusion of races, and this is greatly to the advantage of the whole. To deny the benefits of fusion as a civilising factor would be to brand the Anglo- Saxon race a failure quite inconsistent with its success in the world, since its origin is a fusion of Latin and Germanic elements, as well proved by the English language. That the prolific races must in course of time acquire predominance is a fact which absolutely nothing can alter, but by which nobody can possibly suffer. The process is so inevitable and so slow, and it so entirely escapes statistics that it passes quite unobserved. Odd individuals migrate from one country into another, tempted by the prospect of financial betterment and quite regardless of political influence; they settle and marry and their offspring becomes iden- tified with the adoptive country. Hence the foreign names so common everywhere. Soon after 1870 I became acquainted, in a town 16 of Northern France, with a young thoronghbred German fresh from Saxony. He was a sterling fellow, and soon prospered as he deserved He naturalised French, married a French lad y and two of his sons, who do not even speak German are now fighting in the French Army against their own race German prolificacy has simply in- creased the population of France. Cases such as this are the order of the day throughout the civi- lised world, and who would say that anybody is the loser Nationality, again, has really little to do m drawing the line of intercourse between men Commercial interest, moral and intellectual standard, class distinction are factors far more en- ticing. Any business man would rather deal with an honest foreign trader than with a rogue of his own nationality, and buying or selling in the most profitable market is his sole consideration. Any English gentleman of birth and education would associate with a cultured German of his own standard, but not with a coarse, low-born compa- triot; and he might marry a refined German lady, but never the British example met in Whitechapel, however pure and honest. The definite ideals of individuals within the same nation, all of which ideals find their exact counterpart in individuals of other nations, are much wider apart than the ill-defined ideals of nations taken as a whole. Affinity between men resting on communion of ideals is infinitely more intense and permanent than national affinity. One rests on conviction and principle, the other on ' Those cases show that the whole civilised world is open to the prolific rates, and that the supposed necessity of the annexation of territory to provide elrow room for their expansion is quite imaginary. By the annexation of Alsace -Lorraine not a single inducement to settle there was offered to German subjects which had not existed before : in fact, the acute hatred born from annexation proved to be a detenent more than an inducement. 17 convention and expediency. Since we have had all the nations of the earth in turn as friends and as foes, according to the political interest of the hour, it is perfectly obvious that we, or any other nation, can live at peace with one another if the conflict of political interest is made impossible, as it would be under Federation. The only community of interest which at first sight would appear to bind together the indivi- duals of one State against the individuals of another State would be economic advantages which the political power of these States is sup- posed to confer on their members. In point of fact, these advantages amount to a paltry question of tariffs on the merits of which free-trader- and protectionist controvertists must for ever be at variance, for the simple reason that it is impossible to benefit one group in any State without injuring another group in the same State. All the indivi- duals of any nationality whose business is inter national trading are free-traders to a man. Everywhere the producer who draws nothing from abroad and suffers from foreign competition is protectionist. The manufacturer who draws his raw material from abroad is a rank free trader as far as his raw material is concerned, but a paying protectionist for the goods he produces, and so on. One thing alone seems very clear — namely, that whatever economic advantages a group of indivi duals of any particular State may derive from tariffs or from the compulsory abolition of tariffs elsewhere, these advantages can never compensate for anything like the financial burden imposed upon nations by the militarism alleged to be the necessary condition of the alleged advantages. And besides, Federation docs not at all imply the aboli- tion of frontiers or compulsory free trade, 18 although the Federal Parliament might have something to say on the question of tariffs for the common good/ Apart from the question of tariffs, knowing how closely all modern nations are interdependent, it is perfectly obvious that the opening to all of them of full and free means of communication by land and by sea and the re- moval of all political restrictions to financial ana commercial enterprise between them, can omy produce for Europe and for the whole world the same astounding prosperity which these benefits have in the past invariably produced m all tne great Empires. The close interdependence not only material, but also moral and intellectual, ot all 'European peoples, brought about by the extra- ordinary development of means of intercourse, nas made the political map of Europe a pertect anomaly from the point of view of every one ot our great aims in life— religion and philanthropic ideals, literature, art and science, finance and commerce— all cut straight across the boundaries of States, which are now in reality nothing more than a meaningless convention, surviving only by the force of sentiment and memories, and kept up solely for the profit of diplomacy and officialdom. The danger of abortion of a Federal scheme as a settlement of the present crisis does not lie in the least in its lack of practicability from the point of view of the peoples of Europe ; nor would there be any lack of desire of such a settlement among the people if they understood its real meaning. The real and only danger lies in the old selfish philo- sophy itself, which is still rampant among a large proportion of the very men— I mean Europe's pro- fessional politicians — with whom our Statesmen will have to deal. These will foresee, in the ad- vent of Federation, an end of their secret power, 19 and even of their raisori d'etre, and with their financier confederates they will struggle for the preservation of their power just like the Barons of old. The fundamental notion of real democracy, that officialdom exists for the people, and not the people for officialdom, is much less implanted in other countries than it is in our own. We, how- ever, can have faith in the men at present en- trusted with the guidance of our destinies, if T understand aright their reserved but significant utterances. If they feel themselves supported by public opinion, there will be no lack of effort on their part to stamp out from Europe the last re- mains of barbaric anarchy and to affirm the higher principles of orderly democracy on which rests the whole of modern civilisation. Europe is more and more a great Common- wealth, the people of which ever strive to increase their pacific and wealth-producing intercourse in all the fields of their activities. They want the co- operation of all that is most efficient in the world, regardless of nationality, to raise their moral, in- tellectual, and material well-being. There is no desire in the men and women who are the popula- tion of Europe, either individually or collec- tively, to obtain possession by violence of what does not rightly belong to them, but they will not tolerate that anybody should violate their rights and their liberties. All that the people require is sound and honest administration, and beyond what is necessary for the preservation of order and for the repression of crime and of illegality, there is no need whatever for the use of physical force. War, which is nothing else than international anarchy and an infamous legalisation, opposed alike to reason and to God's law, of banditism and of murder, is only the natural outcome of mili- 20 tarisiBi which itself is the natural outcome of a defective political system, leaving room for con- tinual fear of attack by sanctioning the existence of armed arbitrary power. Not that the blame for the mischief lies at the door of the modern rulers or statesmen, whose honesty of purpose has little to do with the case. They themselves are only the tools of destiny and of a system which is not of their making, and they are bound to apt according to the position and the conditions in which that system places them. It is for our- selves—the peoples of Europe— to realise that the system is at fault and to insist on its revision by the pressure of public opinion. The political power of the Governments under modern economic conditions of international inter dependence can add less than nothing to the prosperity of the peoples, which rests on the wealth and not on the ruin of their neighbours. Yet it is the striving for that vain and sterile power which is the sole cause of militarism and of its evil consequences. The rival ambitions of the old philosophy governments, fostered bv secret diplomacy, are the cause, not the effect, of international antagonism. In the turmoil of war, with the diabolical help of fright fulness and coolly planned atrocities, acute hatred is soon manufactured. Internationalism the loftiest hope of civilisation, but the dread enemy of despotism — is thus fooled and checked, and the peoples, who were living and trading peacefully together, are made the dupes of the old i not to " divide et impera." The claim of the militarists that war, however irrational, will never be abolished, because nations can never be relied upon to act according to logic, and will always be liable to be carried away by 21 an appeal to the passions of the crowds, is the strongest, reason why we should demand the com- plete disarmament of all the Governments so as to protect ourselves against the possibility of such appeals by ambitious rulers or factions. If the scions of the feudal Lords were still armed as were their ancestors, they would to this day sacrifice I he lives of the people to fight out their rival ambi tions, and would find some form of ethies to justify and even glorify the sacrifice, just as did their ancestors. The sovereign Governments of Europe will continue to drive millions of us to the shambles until democracy has disarmed them in the same way as it has disarmed the feudal Lords. FEDERATION. I CHANCE to have been one of the early pioneers of aviation, and as such T have often had occasion to observe how very few men, otherwise highly intelligent, are capable <>f materialising in their minds a thing which docs not exist, and, conversely, how the immense majority are apt to take the existing thing for granted, without in the least observing how ab- normal and unsuited to its purpose t hat thing may be. Trivial as it may seem, that aversion for un- familiar conceptions is a distinct- obstruction to the shaping of public opinion for progress. The two" propositions of mechanical flight and Federation are, of course, of a widely different nature, but they have this very much in common - that the average man disbelieves now in t he imme- diate practicability of Federation just as a lew years ago lie disbelieved in mechanical flight simply for lack of a mental effort of observation 22 and of deduction. And it is, after all, the opinion of the average man which is at the root of the pro- blem, because modern constitutional governments cannot resist the continuous pressure of public opinion, and have in the end to shape their policy and their acts according to the mandate of the electorate. If Federation does not follow the pre- sent crisis it will be because the people themselves, taking the existing thing for granted, still refuse to open their eyes to the fact that the present political machinery of Europe is an obsolete survival of old times, wliich may favour the personal interests of the wire-pullers and their friends, but at the ex- pense of the people at large, who are crushed under the burden of insane armaments and live in constant fear of disaster. It is known that the 1911 scare originated as the result of pressure brought to bear on the Berlin Government by a group of financiers who had ob- tained some secret concessions in West Africa from the Sultan of Morocco. The mass of indivi- dual Germans had nothing to gain in the scheme, only the wire-pullers had, but the people had a narrow escape from being involved in war. Under existing conditions of secret diplomacy such occult scheming is made to assume national proportions, involving national pride and national interests, and if hitches occur it leads to war. In itself financial scheming is conducive to general wealth, but the political machinerv should be such that the peace of nations should not be at its mercy. Conflicting interests about mining and other rights in new lands can be adjusted legally by a Federal Court without involving the peace of the nations, just as well as a dispute between a London and a Birmingham firm is settled without disturbing the population of the two towns. 23 Tension may arise any day between this country and Japan, because the Tokio Government insists on wrenching from China certain railway eon cessions supposed to be already pledged to our Government, presumably in favour of a financial syndicate. Under existing anarchical conditions of international diplomacy there is no recognised authority to define the rights of the case, and if the parties were unable to come to terms, our money and the lives of our sons might be sacrificed, in the name of national dignity, to uphold l he unproved rights of a small group of financiers possibly even cosmopolitan. Take the case of these arbitrary demands of Japan on China. I copy from The Times, February 12th: "Eastern Mongolia: Japan shall have exclusive mining rights; no Railways shall be constructed without the consent of Japan. The Japanese shall be granted the right to settle, to farm, trade, and purchase land." ' All this sounds very grand for the Japanese and very dreadful lor the Chinese. What does it amount to in reality? The more new mining is undertaken and the tnore Railways are constructed in China, by whomever this may be done, the greater the profit to the Chinese people who live in the districts concerned and for whom these enterprises mean additional labour and additional trade. The more Japanese settlers migrate to China to trade and purchase land there, the better for the people in China, on the elementary principle that an influx of extra population means profit to any community. The mining and Railway rights appear, of course, to be a profit to the Japanese at the expense of the Chinese, in so far as the profits that must accrue to the Japanese Government from the sale of these rights to financial Syndicates will relieve the taxes 24 of the people in Japan. That relief, however, can only be a tithe of what they have to pay for their armaments. It would pay both countries to federate themselves, to pool the profits accruing from these public rights for the benefit of all, and to dispense with armaments. The course taken by Japan is, in fact, arbitrary action, based on the "Might is Right" heresy. The result is antagonism and tension, fear of possible war, doubtful security for financial enterprise, and in the end no mining and no Railways, and the prosperity of both peoples adjourned sine die. By their secret diplomatic susceptibilities the Chancelleries of Europe are continually obstruct- ing international private enterprise which would mean profit for all. All wealth is the product of labour both physical and intellectual, and neither can be made to fructify without the laying out and the risking of previously acquired wealth called capital. The investor, large and small, looks for safety above all things. Capital is extremely timid, and political complications are the bug- bear. By engendering perfect political security federation therefore engenders wealth. The high general prosperity of Europe in the last century is greatly the result of the centralisation of Sovereignty in all principal countries, which, by eliminating the possibility of intestine wars, has ensured political stability at least within their borders . The present war is an intestine war of the Com- monwealth of Europe, against the recurrence of which centralisation of Sovereignty by means of Federation is the only possible preservative. To grasp fully the idea of Federation we cannot be too clear about the distinction between inde- pendence and sovereignty. I will put it yet in 25 another form. Independence means fox a nation the privilege of being governed by whom and as they like, without interference from outside. Sovereignty means the same privilege with the ad dition of the capacity for interfering with the rights and independence of others. Tims denned, the two propositions of security and of sovereignly are plainly contradictory. Therefore, as long as the States are sovereign, brnte force and the motto "Might is Right" must remain the last word in the relation of nations. In that case the only security for the peace of the world must he either that unstable factor called the goodwill of men or that other factor called fear, which subsists by competition in armaments, alliances, and balance of power. The hope that the Christian sense of charity and justice, and much less the rationalist morality of nations, can ever be a guarantee, in the absence of a sanctioned jurisdiction, against their differences reaching the arbitrament of war is a perfect Utopia. Even if men were so moral as never to desire anything but strict justice in their private and collective dealings, misunderstandings and conflicts of interest would still arise and law courts would still be indispensable to define what is justice and what is not and to give their verdicts under sanctioned authority, so as to protect the amenable against the obdurate and the weak against the strong. It is a common and profound mistake to imagine that war is inherent to our perversity. Quarrels may be inherent to our perversity — war is inherent only to the lack of a civilised method of settling them. To allow the quarrels of nations to be settled by war is infinitely more irrational than it would be to allow private litigants to settle theirs by the revolver. In an age when we proudly 26 boast of the triumphs of Reason, we allow the per- petuation of the most irrational and criminal of follies, simply because, like Chinese, we will not shako off the "existing thing." We deliberately remain barbarians. The alternative of Europe is between Armed Peace and Federation — between the perpetual fear and danger of the proud baron in his turreted castle and the serene security of the unarmed free citizen o f a civilised State. And by Federation we can only mean full, frank Federation and no half -measure. If the door be left open to the insane ambitions of would-be Napoleons and Wilhelms, who will ever be amongst us, destiny will supply their opportunity and history will only repeat itself. It is for us — the people, who have it in our power to do so — to shut that door once for all. And this is no Uto- pian proposition. The principle wh/ich demo- cracy has applied to the minor sovereignties of the past, it can equally apply to the larger sovereign- ties of the present. What has been achieved in America can be achieved in Europe, and only amounts to one further step in our gradual retro- cession from barbarism towards a higher civilisa- tion. The question whether Europe is ripe or not ripe resolves itself in what public opinion may de- cree — British opinion first, French opinion next, the others would follow. The daily Press have it really in their power to ripen the fruit if they elect to enlighten public opinion. The present position lends itself admirably to the first momentous step which would set in motion the huge but simple machinery of Federation. The three allied Powers have already pledged themselves towards one another not to conclude separate peace, and, what is more, they have 27 pooled their war chests. What prevents them from equally pooling their armies and from letting the result be the Federal Army ? The British Government and the Governments of France, Russia, Belgium, and why not Canada, Australia, South Afriea, and Egypt, are at liberty to agree and to form themselves into a Federation and to appoint straightaway a provisional Federal Government or Executive for a given term of office. Its natural seat should be at The Hague, but for the time being, and in honour of limn ilia led Belgium, it could, for instance, be located at Lc Havre. The duty of that provisional Federal Executive will be two-fold. Firstly, to conduct and to eon elude the war now being waged against tin- Federated States. Secondly, to set in motion, as soon as circumstances permit, the requisite machinery for the election and the meeting of t lu- first Federal Parliament, to which they pledge themselves to resign their powers at t he expiral ion of their term of office, when the Federal Parlia nient will appoint a new and definite Federal Exe- cutive. The double consequence of tin's step is immense and irrevocable. It is that, firstly, the Wat- and Navy departments of all the Governments signing the Federal Magna Charta are amalgamated. They cease to be the instruments of their respec tive Governments, and pass straight away under the direct orders, control, and financial manage- ment of the provisional Federal Executive. Secondly, these Governments individually can have no direct hand in the Peace negotiations for which the Federal Executive becomes the sole recognised authority. By this simple but momentous step of appointing 28 a provisional Federal (Government and investing that Government with full financial and military power is laid the foundation stone of the United Sidles of Europe. Anything short of all the Federated States frankly renouncing their Sovereignty and their capacity for attack can never meet the require- ments of the situation — it is a half measure, it is not Federation, it is anarchy as before. It can only result in a variation of the "Holy Alliance" of a hundred years ago, and vested interests ilouting once again the elaims of civilisation and humanity. 1 We may recoil from the notion of abdicating our Sovereignty, we may call our reluctance noble national pride. Our reluctance is no more than the empty and fata] vanity of the uncivilised clans- man or of 1 lie baron of yore. With regard to the transfer of our War and Navy departments to the Federal authority, there are three points which we must bear in mind. The first is that the Federa l aut hority is not an alien authority, but one of which we are an inte- gral and even a, leading part. The second is that the object of our War and Navy departments being the protection of our rights and liberties, that object will be doubly se- cured when to our own Departments arc added those of the joining States, and that moreover these Departments will be worthless to us when our rights and liberties finally cease to be threatened. The third is that the problem of armaments must he settled in any case, unless we wish to per- 1 At the CoiiRress of Vienna in 1815, the Czar Alexander I. was the onlv supporter of democratic reforms for Europe. His voice was entirely drowned by the sway of dynastic interests, but this fact should strengthen our faith in Russia. ay pctuate the competition for Supremacy Where competition spells ruin, the answer is amaleama tion . ^ Since the only object of armaments is to ensure victory in ease of Avar, hankering for moderate armaments is plainly against common sense. Wil h the hatred and the craving for revenge which must tpllow the war, and with the diabolical inventions which make our insular immunity more and more an illusion— what an outlook before us! What of the principle we arc fighting for? To form a correct idea of the merits of a, Euro pean Federation from the British point of view, we must divest ourselves of " Empire " abstractions and envisage British interests from the point of view of the. concrete British citizen. It is true that we give to Europe the whole of our Empire, but we give it and retain it at the same time, and we re ceive in addition the whole of what- Europe pos- sesses. From the point of view of the British Citizen, a European Federation on the lines sug- gested is the equivalent to the incorporation into the British Empire of entire Europe and all its possessions. The moral effect of such a stupendous move on. the whole of Europe can hardly he gauged. When the neutrals find themselves confronted with a concrete reality, and the doors of t he Euro- pean Federation are open to them all on terms of equality, the course they will adopt cannot be doubted. They will realise that humanity has moved, that their individual armaments could only be mockery against the overwhelming power of the Federation, that what is good enough for the British, French, and Russian Empires is good enough for them, that the Federal Army is for them the cheapest and most efficient protection 30 agai nst all possible enemies and the Federal lament the best safeguard f th « m^gts tSi^tonfan then solve itself automatically. . . j fn :i« w iii That a machinery complete m l^^Uils wm only be evolved in course of time is *elf-evrient. But there is a factor in human nature on which we can absolutely depend It is the fact that loyalty invariably goes to the high er object ^ The statesmen, whoever they are, who f be ^ alI d who will accept office m the Federa Govern rent will divest themselves automatically of all "nTeri(Tr and minor attachments as does any man fn m v to high when entrusted with a responsible SdKZ The S task of making a conij^ sncces of the new political departure of which they will be the first embodiment will be their sole aim and ambition, and national partiality will go to the W The Federal Government and Parliament will be in this respect like any Government or ■ Fo- ment in the world. The divergencies within will be from the start, healthy divergencies of opinion on questions of methods and of general policy for Europe, and not in the least on narrow lines of parish favouritism, for the simple reason that the disappearance of their political power will put a stop to every inducement of encroachment between the various Governments of Europe, just as it has between the authorities of our individual counties or towns. _ The question of indemnity to the various Governments for the transfer of their existing armaments can be settled later by the Federal Parliament with the question of financial contri- bution by each State to the Federal Exchequer. 31 For this the revenue of each State might, for in- stance, be taken as a basis. A combination of revenue and population might also furnish a basis for numerical representation in the Federal Par- liament. Compensations to the sufferers of war devastations, military pensions, and so forth would all be questions for the Federal Parliament . It would be difficult to forecast to what develop- ments this new political conception may lead in course of time. The basic principles of tne Federal code would include, of course, absolute civic equality and also the prima facie right to autonomy of any nation, group of nations, or part of nation who desire it, subject only to the sanc- tion of the Federal Parliament on grounds of financial practicability for the protection of the people themselves. It becomes a question of ad- ministration. Naturally enough, members of the individual Governments could not simultaneously hold office in the Federal Government, and, ob- viously also, the possession and manufacture of war material and ammunition must be the exclu- sive right of the Federal authority, to whom must belong all profits accruing from that industry. The existence of private armament Trusts, with whom the love of dividends drowns the love of justice and country, is as great a danger to the world as it is a repulsive scandal. The mission of the Federal Government is simply to protect all the Federal States against attack from without by non-Federal States or from within by anti-constitutional or revolu- tionary factions. All federated countries being entirely autonomous, the legislative mission of the Federal Parliament must obviously be confined to matters of international import. As opportuni- ties arise private initiative will tend to introduce 32 legislation on many questions of general interest*. It is evident, for* instance, that special inter- national laws might have excellent effect in the suppression of crime, or great facilities would accrue to trade from the unification throughout the world of commercial law and from the standardising of a variety of things. Facility will also be afforded to face internationally the greatest of all problems— that of capital _ and labour, the apparent antagonism between which is an obvious contradiction, since they are utterly interdependent, and only arises from inefficiency of system. After the conclusion of this war the Federal Army can be remodelled on permanent lines. It should be then an exclusively volunteer body, selected competitively regardless of nationality, and highly paid. When the Federation is world- wide a mere strongly-armed police force on land and sea is all that the world will require, and the vast amount of labour represented by three- quarters of the budgets of the world, which is now entirely wasted to humanity, can be applied to raise the material and moral well-being of the nations. Then our grandchildren will gaze on the crumbling remains of Gibraltar and the Dar- danelles with the same wondering curiosity as we do now ourselves on the ruined strongholds of the feudal Lords. 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